Retro Gaming will one day be an industry, I am sure. Everyone in my generation has wonderful memories of their favourite C64 or Amiga games. Or Apple ][ and PC/CGA if you are a lamer like me who had one of those.
But face it, we can’t play these games any longer. Years of brainwashing by the games industry has conditioned us to get dizzy looking at anything less than 24 bit color or listening to less-than-surround sound. We may get out the old emulator to play a game or two for old times sake, only to note that our memories are so much better than the actual games, but surely we would not buy those games today? You can’t play anything from the 80s for more than a day. But how can we love something so much and still hate it?
But then there are games like Space Tripper or Mutant Storm. Follow those links and buy them now. You can read the rest of this when you’re done. These games capture the essence of what was good in the old games, but they do not force 8 bit sound and 4-color graphics down our throat. This is what I’m talking about. Good game concepts in a nice audio-visual package, at a price anyone can afford (in this case, $14.95) I want more of these games. Please, go and make them! And I don’t mean none of that shareware shit you slap together in a week.
I believe that there will one day be a larger market than today for these kinds of games. Game concepts from 20 years ago, with today’s production quality. Someone has to make them and, more importantly, sell them.
And to play these games (and the C64 games on VICE), I will need a Competition Pro for USB. It has been made, it is being sold. All I have to do now is to find me a norwegian importer.
PS: Wizball still rocks!
Wizball was my favourite game at a friend’s C64. Myself was an Apple ][+ "lamer" too, playing Loadrunner and Wizardry at home 🙂
I tend to disagree when you say there’s no more place in this world for 2D, 256 Colors and Stereo Sound but in retro Gaming. I just bought a Tapwave Zodiac, and with its 2D-GPU it is predestined to revive the 2D genre – if only somebody would bother writing games for it. I am just now planning a 2D-Adventure in the vein of Zelda and a strategy game, both in half VGA-res with 256 colors and MIDI sound that is gonna blow minds! Good gaming doesen’t need 3D!
It may not *need* 3D, but it certainly makes it an easier sell. There’s a reason why we have handheld consoles coming with 3D graphics in this generation: People really like 3D.
As an example, I played Jets’n’Guns (from http://www.rakeingrass.com/) yesterday, a very nice Indie 2D scroller. I really liked the music, and I like the type of game. But I was getting bored with the 2D sprite graphics after a while, thinking "This would be so much cooler if the graphics were more like Space Tripper’s".
And that’s what I want. Indie games that take old game concepts and remake them with today’s technology. We have all become technology whores, I admit it, and now I want the Indie games to achnowledge it, too.
wizball, paradroid, and IK+ three of the finest games of thier time. Now we can play them in their full glory on a PC.
I wished they had improved the comp pro by adding six full sized buttons with invertable axis for left and right handed use…… you can guess what for what game i’m thinking of can’t you.