Retro Gamers, Unite!

Kris Weberg | September 23, 2004
I'm seriosuly feeling the 8-bit love tonight, emulator-playing old MegaMan -- curse you, Dr. Wily!, Mario Bros. 2 -- I hate Wart!, and Castlevania -- damn, you, teleporting Dracula!

There's something strangely pure about classic NES and SMS, about sweet old Atari. The one-on-one, the Kabuki-ritualized repetition of elements, the knowing exactiy how high Mega Man can jump before blowing to blue and white disco balls on contact with spikes. About the secret to KOing King Hippo, dropping Bowser Koopa in the magma moat, hammers or no. How to ricochet the perfect shot in Breakout or escape Evil Ernie in Berserker.

There was lore,a whole body of recess-legends that sprang up around these games, secrets false and real, conjecture about characters who lacked the RPG-fleshign of backgrounds, lacked the fully-rendered cinema scene. Why did the Lee Brothers end up on opposite sides of a martial arts war? Could you really get Samus Aran into a swimsuit? Cpuld Simon Belmont be a player character in Teenage Mutant NInja Turtles II if you only knew the rigth code?

Whole imaginations were formed around these games, whole cathexes managed by floating Princess Toadstool across strange wavy-green meseas over bullet-spitting Snifits.

Who here is seriously mad for the old-old school games? Which ones?

(And before you try, I said River City Ransom already.)

Anna Gregoline | September 23, 2004
We recently bought the original Nintendo, and Jesse hasn't stopped playing Dragon Warrior since.

But I'll always love Atari 2600 best.

Anthony Lewis | September 23, 2004
I was partial to the Vectrex system. I had two, but I sold them on Ebay cause I needed to raise some cash for a friend. Soon, I will buy it again. I had some great times with that thing.

Lori Lancaster | September 23, 2004
[hidden by request]

Dave Stoppenhagen | September 23, 2004
Yeah I'm one of them. I tend to collect the systems and the rare games for the systems. Now that Game Stop has stopped carrying them though now I have to start using ebay to shop.

Kris Weberg | September 23, 2004
Heh.

It's ironic, Lori, that you fondly recalled the ET game for the Atari, as that game is often credited (discredited?) with bringing about Atari's downfall.

Scott Horowitz | September 23, 2004
I thought Pac-Man was credited with killing Atari. It just sux0rzed.

Anna Gregoline | September 23, 2004
No, Atari had financial problems - they bascially flooded the market with their products, including new add-ons and games no one would buy.

Kris Weberg | September 23, 2004
Well, they didn't just flood the market, they radically cut development time to save cash. And ET is the game that "killed" Atari.

Pac-Man was the beginning of the end, but not the Ataripocalypse.

Read the sad story of Atari's downfall and ET.

Lori Lancaster | September 23, 2004
[hidden by request]

Scott Horowitz | September 23, 2004
Ataripocalypse? Lol.... you should send that to Oxford.

Kris Weberg | September 23, 2004
Hey, I'm not maligning anyone's taste in games here. I'm one of the people who enjoyed Earthbound, an RPG most gamers found tedious, graphically dull, and childish. And as a kid, I spent many hours on such ostensible mediocrities as Power Blade and the almost universally hated Skate or Die 2.

I just thought it was interesting that the Atari game Lori enjoyed has a strange place in videogame history.

Scott Hardie | September 23, 2004
Kris, you wrote a great opening comment, but it was four little words later on that flooded me with so much warm nostalgia: "Skate or Die 2." One of the greatest games nobody loved.

Kris Weberg | September 23, 2004
The mall was my favorite level -- all those people with massive piles of holdiay gifts shuffling around while "we" the skate punks weaved in and out between them.

Dave Stoppenhagen | September 24, 2004
A couple of my favorite games was Skitchin, Road Rash, and Micro Machines for the Genesis.

Scott Hardie | September 24, 2004
And let's not forgot Healthy Nutritious Food next door to Pizza by the Ton.

Kris Weberg | September 25, 2004
LOL

Scott, if you've never played it, you migth want to try emulating/ebaying Earthbound. Same sense of humor, enough to make you ignore the practially 8-bit game mechanics. (In what other RPG would you battle an enemy called the New Age Retro Hippie?)