Oh, what times we live in. There difference between in graphical splendour between the current console generation and the 8– and 16–bit era is simply enormous. Just compare the pixelated Nintedo 8-bit games of days of yore to the near cinematic detail of the games on the Playstation 3.
For me there is very little correlation between the number of pixels, transparent shadows and dynamic lightning and the experience. In fact, it seems that the more advanced the graphics are the higher the risk that the game will become boring and and quickly forgotten. Story and gameplay is sacrificed for cinematic effects. I grew up with a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis in the US) and before that I played games on the familiy's Macintosh Plus.
The problem with most of the games for the Macintosh Plus were that they where too simplistic (there were a few exceptions like Dark Castle). Most games were just about repeating the same stage over and over and beating your highscore (like the cult classic Stuntcopter). The games on the Mega Drive on the other hand were immense and even though the console quickly was graphically outperformed by the Super Nintendo the games were amazing. Sonic the Hedgehog came bundled with the system and it became in many ways my mental image of what a great game was.
Sonic the Hedgehog - Truly awesome
I have heard many theories about why the 3rd and 4th generation console games were superior. Though I agree that to some extent it is certainly a big part nostalgia I believe that the most important reason were consoles that had grown powerful enough to have engaging stories while the graphics where not powerful enough to take the initial attention away from poor gameplay. No generation of consoles has been free from awful games, there certainly were awful games on both Sega's and Nintodo's 8- and 16-bit systems but to me no generation was marked by so many truly craptastic games as the first generation of CD-based systems such as the Mega-CD, 3DO, Amiga CD and Philips CD-I.
The Sega Mega-CD, the first of many add-ons intended to extend the longevity of the Mega Drive, was released in Europe in 1993 and I got one for Christmas that year. The joy was short-lived because despite the Mega-CD was one of the most advanced systems at the time the games were some of the suckiest known to mankind. Sega had sacrificed gameplay for jerky full motion video sequences. Most games were simply a matter of watching a cut-scene and pressing a button at the right moment. If you succeeded you went on to see the next cut-scene. It still baffles me to this day that the designers behind the games would think that the games would be fun to play. After the initial wow effect had settled all you were left with was some truly awful gameplay. After a few evenings trying to persuade myself that Cobra Command actually was fun to play I quickly went back to playing my, by then considerable, collection of Sega Mega Drive games.
Cobra Command in action - Press the button in time or the scene will repeat (oh, no!)
In fact, the disillusionment with the Sega-CD soon made me quit playing games on consoles altogether. My dad had brought a Power Macintosh and I started playing games on it instead. Despite the popular rumour that no games were available for the Mac there were actually quite a number of quality titles being released such as Marathon, Fallout, Doom, Civilization, Sim City, Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, the Warcraft series and most of the Lucas Arts titles.
Then in 1997 things changed, me and my friends discovered emulation, the running of old games on new hardware through software called emulators. All of a sudden we were playing the classics from the Mega Drive/Super Nintendo-era on our, at that time, modern computers. And so I'd thought that I would never own a console again but everything changed with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii in 2006 and the possibility to download old classics and play on the console, much the same way that you can buy music from the Apple Music Store.
It was a game changer, all of a sudden there where a storm of sequels en remakes from the 8-/16-bit era: Mega Man 9 & 10, New Mario Bros, Castlevania Rebirth, Contra and soon Sonic 4.
My stance on gaming changed as well: the Wii made me realise that not everything post Super Nintendo was crap and that I actually missed out on some great games. I even bought myself a Playstation 3 and I have not been disappointed.
It's a great time to be a retrogamer!
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