"Why I am a retro gamer" (Racketboy Link)

[storino03]

Interesting article. I only take their articles at face value though.

http://www.racketboy.com/journal/why-i-am-a-retro-gamer

The question to you all is, "Why are you a retro gamer?"

[broken]

I am a retro gamer because it's what I grew up on.

I fully believe that our teenage years our are most "impressionable" part of our life. For me most of the late 8 bit and all of the 16 bit years was right in that period of time.

That's why I prefer that era of gaming. Sit me down in front of a NES, PCE or Megadrive and a handful of good games and I will play for hours on end.


Stick me in front of a PS3 or 360 and I would be lucky to make it past most games training/intro level.

[MotherGunner]

I like being a retro gamer because I can't stand these stupid ass little kids who are recist as hell and do nothing but smoke weed and talk shit on COD.  f*ck online multiplayer.  Give me back my singleplayer any day.  What I consider LAN is getting a bunch of guys with PCE/TG hardware in the same room and each of us play different games!

[PunkicCyborg]

I dislike the phrase retro gamer because I never stopped playing these games and I have a lot I bought new and still haven't had a chance to play so I'm not like having flashbacks or trying to relive something I guess I just never bought anything new

[DarkKobold]

Stick me in front of a PS3 or 360 and I would be lucky to make it past most games training/intro level.

Because that piece alone takes hours on end!

Seriously, the amount of forced tutorial bullshit we have to put up with in new games is absurd.

Grand Theft Auto 4 was steaming pile of crap. There were "tutorial sections" 5 hours into the game.

[Arkhan]

Yeah I am not a retro gamer.   I am a gamer.  I play all this shit.  I just happen to like the games from back when because they sucked less penis than alot of stuff today.

alot of people are prolly like

YEAH BRO. IM TOTES RETRO GAMER CAUSE MARIO IS MY DUUUUUDE.  I USED TO LOVE PLAYIN HIM WHEN I WAS -4 CAUSE BRO MARIO WAS ANCIENT BEFORE I WAS EVEN ALIVE. BUT ITS COOL BRO GUY CAUSE I GOT MARIO ON MY PHONE

[PunkicCyborg]

yeah i cant sit through even a long opening segment on most games lol

[nodtveidt]

I'm a 'retro gamer' because I prefer games that are simplistic in nature rather than having oodles of button-presses or menus twenty layers deep to do simple shit... let alone complex shit. Driving games, for example... I don't want to have to micromanage, I just wanna drive something. Gimme Outrun anyday. RPGs that have oodles of options and tweaks down to the number of hairs on your characters' heads is just overkill... a small amount of management is expected but things get too bogged down in the details and play too slowly. It's more work than anything else, and that's simply not fun. My interest in modern RPGs waned at Xenosaga and never came back. I lost interest in FPS games after Quake II, since they started getting overly complex, and still consider DOOM to be my favorite in the genre. I have hundreds of other such examples... but my preference for more simplistic gameplay also seeps into the games I code... MSR, Monolith, and JB were all coded to be pick-up-and-play simplistic games that don't bog you down with details.

[broken]

... but my preference for more simplistic gameplay also seeps into the games I code... MSR, Monolith, and JB were all coded to be pick-up-and-play simplistic games that don't bog you down with details.

That's another thing. I like to be able to jump in and out of games for short play times. Most of my gaming time is in small durations. Maybe 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there.

That's hard to do on modern games with long load times, overly complex control schemes and frustrating intro sequences that you pretty much have to sit through otherwise you are even more confused as to WTF is going on.


Course, that is if the 360 or PS3 don't die before the game even starts.

[Ji-L87]

I'm a retro gamer because it's a lot of fun. Really.
* The hardware's interesting, there's always some system or game you haven't heard about.
   I like cardridges, because they're cool and I like how you can play some CD games in your stereo. I enjoy how simple it is to get some game on, not a whole lot of splash or warning screens.
   Just pop in that game and flick that switch.

* You can, but doesn't have to, spend a fortune. Of course, there are many money sucking pitfalls you can get stuck in (I admit to having my feet buried in a few of those) like image
   perfection (scalers setups, PVM/BVM monitors), controller obsession (fighting/arcade sticks) or for example condition pickyness (complete with spinecard).

* I really like sprites. Not all of them, but when I see a well made or technically impressive sprite animation, I just feel something inside that polygon graphics rarely achieve.
   Love to pop my head into the Pixelation forums and see pixel stuff take shape and all that. It's art, really. Art that is easy to get, easy to study and easy to love.
   Not so keen on all the super low-res sprites I keep seeing everywhere tho'

* I like the music. This is a huge generalisation but I think music in modern gaming has gotten pretty boring. I want my soundtracks to be melodic, awesome and made for the game. EA and
   their licensed music makes me sad. Also, I enjoy 80s/90s music so that works out really well with retro gaming, especially those CD games.

* I like the artwork and general atmosphere. This is a bit hard to explain. It's about feels, man!
   I tend to pick up a lot of anime/manga-styled games and it's no coincidence since I like 80s/90s anime/manga as well. It's a way of drawing you don't really see. Also, the atmosphere is
   totally different than modern games. It's not good/bad thing, it's just different and I like it.

I like modern gaming too, but this is different and totally charming. 

[storino03]

Yeah, I'm finding that I play more retro consoles than the modern ones, at least in the last 6-8 months. I'm currently on a SNES binge and I still find 2D games visually appealing. It's easier to spot a horrible looking 3D Polygonal game than it is a sprite-based one.

[Nando]

There is a huge list of games that I have never played and always wanted to.

[vestcoat]

I hate this crap. We used to get TurboGrafx gamers around here; either old timers rediscovering the system or recent converts. Now many of the the initiates refer to themselves as "retro gamers". At best, they're well-meaning generalists who don't know what the hell they like. At worst, they're serial collectors making the obligatory TurboGrafx stop in between Neo-Geo-is-too-Expensive Blues and buying a 120-game set at OGM-Sega-Made-a-System-Before-the-Genesis Station.

The main thing I hate about retro gaming is that it lumps my favorite consoles in with a bunch of bullshit ranging from Atari 2600 to Playstation. Yes, I feel more at home playing a Genesis than an Xbox, but I'm not a Genesis fan. My SNES library has barely grown since 1995 because I'm not a SNES nut either. The SNES games I have purchased are either Hudson titles or sequels to TG games. Maybe the 2600 is good; I don't know. Unlike some people, I'm not interested in plundering the previous generation's childhood. There are big differences between all of these old consoles. Retro gamers either don't notice or don't care because they'll buy anything that's old and popular.

[psychobear]

I don't know. Unlike some people, I'm not interested in plundering the previous generation's childhood. There are big differences between all of these old consoles. Retro gamers either don't notice or don't care because they'll buy anything that's old and popular.

I like this quote... This is true for me as we'll... 3 systems that sum up my childhood in gaming Turbo Grafx, SNES and NES. The rest I don't care much cause I didn't grow up with them and I have no memories of them I usually leave the other consoles alone... I hate that whole its old and popular and worth something crap mentality and it makes it hard for the real fans of the console to collect.. I see all these videos on YouTube of these f*cks who only collect cause its rare and its worth money.. But never in the videos do they mention any gameplay or nothing else...

[MotherGunner]

I don't see anything wrong with the term retro at all.  Most of us old bastards in here are retro ourselves!