Rolling the clock back to 1998

Erik Kubik says, 1998 was a great year to be a gamer. Gamers were trapped in a bubble of awesomeness: there was the N64, the Playstation 1, the dying Sega Saturn and the PC. I was a 14-year old back then and I finally had a decent PC. The N64 gave gamers true 3D with 4-player multiplayer. The Playstation continued to expand its library with the release of great games and greater sequels. The PC showed the world what people already knew; it was capable of gaming greatness.

The 1998 game list is dominated with classic titles like Banjo-Kazooie, Tekken 2, Rainbow Six, Fallout 2, Xenogears, Starsiege Tribes Unreal, Metal Gear Solid and Grim Fandango.

With so many great titles, it’s tough to list the winners and losers. The PC world alone had at least eight games that were major releases. The console market swelled with greatness in all genres, including action, adventure and RPGs.

Being a PC gamer back then I truly remember Starcraft and Half-life. Those two games are considered the most influential for the period. Starcraft is still played today, whether it’s in Korea or in college dorm rooms around the country. Half-life 1 was the first FPS to have a solid story. This game spawned tons of mods. But will Half-Life be remembered for the creation of Gordon Freeman and a story-driven FPS, which pushed an aging Quake 2 industry to its fullest, or the creation of Counterstrike?

There was one other PC game that kept me locked in my room even more than World of Warcraft, it was the PC game known as Baldur’s Gate. It was such a marvel of Western RPG elements. I hated AD&D at the time; I’m still not a big fan. But Baldur’s Gate was a 5-disc masterpiece, hours of hours of exploring and character customization. The original is by far the best when compared to the sequels and spin offs.

Console gamers were also treated right in 1998. How about Legend of Zelda OoT? This was the first 3D Zelda game. Some say it’s one of the greatest games ever made and it’s held up pretty well. I remember the game was a lot of fun, but I was captivated by the musical score.

I was a huge fan of Resident Evil 2 for the Playstation, so a sequel only meant good things: better and bigger monsters getting blasted by bigger guns. The plot twisted and turned more than the first one and introduced characters whose legacy would shine as the series evolved to the next level. Although Resident Evil 2 has held up poorly, despite numerous ports, the original is still the most fun to play.

1998 was truly a year for games, and it’s hard to say if there has been a year since then with so many good releases, maybe 2006? Who knows what 2010 will bring?

Flashback to 1995

Erik Kubik says Let’s roll back the clock and look at 1995 in the PC gaming world. I was a measly, pale 11-year old kid sporting a i486 PC with Windows 3.1, around 50 mhz with 4mbs of Ram. This was the year Windows 95 was released, which would spell the end for DOS-based games. PC gamers saw the release of so many amazing games that year. I distinctly remember Command and Conquer, System Shock, Dark Forces, MechWarrior 2 and Warcraft.

At the time, I was blown away by Dark Forces. It was an fps Star Wars game. MechWarrior 2 was also incredible; gamers were forced to use everything on the keyboard just to move the heavy mechs through jagged battlefields. Warcraft, well that led to many sleepless Saturdays, my memory is tainted with the noises and grunts of the orcs and the clash of metal on metal through my SoundBlaster Speakers.

System Shock was my first taste of fear in a game. I remember my parents being gone for the night and I tried to play this eccentric-cyberpunk game with the lights on. I had to leave the room, granted I was only 11 and I had seen plenty of “R” rated horror movies but this was the first time I was truly terrified by a video game.

I never did play much of Command and Conquer. I preferred to play Warcraft.

All of the games have aged terribly, but the focus here is on the four that left the biggest impression on young gamers like myself and have legacies of some sort. Command and Conquer has spawned an infinite amount of sequels and clones, and along with Warcraft, both games contributed to the creation of the modern RTS genre. I would even say these two titles were also the partial evolution of tabletop gaming. Warcraft itself lead to Starcraft and World of Warcraft, two of the biggest games in PC gaming.

System Shock gave rise to the idea of horror/suspenseful action based video games. System Shock made it cool to kill things and try to survive in a truly terrifying environment. Today’s games like Dead Space and Resident Evil 5 have System Shock to thank.

Last but not least, is Dark Forces. This game gave rise to such titles as Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. It gave us what all of us wanted: a Star Wars game that wasn’t about dog fighting or strategy. It was a run-and-gun fps where gamers could blast Storm Troopers and droids. The game brought in the fans of games like DOOM or Duke Nukem. The sequels let us pick good or evil and enjoy the rewards of the “force” based on our decisions. Although there has not been a sequel since 2003’s Jedi Academy, games like Battlefront 2 and the new KOTR game may draw inspiration from the legacy of Dark Forces.

Looking back, 1995 was an excellent year for PC Gamers. The hardware was evolving and we were blessed with quite a few memorable games.

Games for the Under 10 Set

Erik Kubik has this to say about modern gaming consoles and younger gamers...

I thought of this when I overheard a conversation between a customer and the sales staff at a local game store. Her complaint was about the violent games on the Xbox 360. Her son who looked about 10 wasn’t interested in the Wii, which she mentioned to the store employee. She asked if there were any learning games. I tried hard not to laugh as I watched her kids make facial expressions at the idea of “learning”—facial expressions that would have made Mario choke. The store associate fumbled and mentioned Rock Band was a learning game. She continued to ask about non-violent games and the employee pointed her to Forza for the 360.

Good learning games are few and far between on most consoles but there are some titles out there for those of you who aren’t about the killing and mayhem. I can easily name 20 titles on the Wii but let’s look at the 360/ps3 instead. I’ll try to focus on “good” games because too many games geared toward younger audiences tend to be poorly developed and cheaply made, and end up playing terribly.

There is the Lego Series with the long and creative list of Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, and Lego Batman. The series will soon be joined by Lego Harry Potter. All of these games are fun; they are easy so younger gamers can pick them up quickly. Most of the games are 8 to 10 hours long and have co-op game play with a variety of extras that keep the game fresh. Parents love Legos! Kids love Legos! Most of the titles can be found on Goozex for 100-300 pts with plenty of copies available.

Another non-violent game genre is racing and there are plenty of titles for both systems. Two of my favorite exclusives are Forza Morotsport on the 360 and Motorstorm on the ps3. Both are decent games and are only 100 points. But there is also Dirt, PURE and Sega Revo Rally. Most racing games drop in value quickly so they can be picked up on the cheap.

Despite the suggestive lyrics and questionable clothing, there is always Rock Band or Guitar Hero. As most of us know, Rock Band and Guitar Hero are fun music games the whole family can get into, although parents of younger gamers may want to lean toward Lego Rock Band.

If racing or rocking out doesn’t suite your tastes, try an adventurous platformer or two. On the Wii and the Nintendo DS it’s all about Mario. The ps3 has the Ratchet and Clank series. The first game, Tools of Destruction, is only 450 points on Goozex; making it affordable. Although the games are rated Teen, most of the stuff in the game is mildly crude humor.

Sometimes you have to look beyond the popular titles. There are some movie tie-in games like Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda. They’re okay--just don’t expect the cream of the crop. Stay away from Spiderwick Chronicles! Its’ not even worth the paper the manual was printed on. There are also some puzzle games and some trivia games. There are family-friendly arcade games available on the PSN and Xbox Live that can be downloaded; such as classic Playstation titles like Crash Bandicoot, etc. All-in-all, there may not be a lot of learning games, but there are plenty of other fun games where the focus is not wading through pools of blood while getting hammered with F-bombs.

Christmas and Gaming

Erik Kubik asks, what is your best/most memorable Christmas gaming memory?

Was it the year as a kid you received both a Sega Genesis and a SNES for Xmas? Was it the year you got your first mature game for PSX?

What about your most awkward Xmas gaming moment?

Was it the year Grandma got you Mario’s Time Machine when you were 12? Was it the year your Dad didn’t listen to you when you begged for a Neo-Geo or a SNES and instead you got the overpriced Phillips CD-I?

Gaming in the last 10 years has been a big part of my life. But before 1999 I was just a lowly PC gamer whose parents thought gifts such as a new bike, clothes, fishing poles, and board games were better uses of my time than software for the aging family PC. Although, looking back, at least my relatives never gave me the awkward learning game or the game that was meant for the opposite sex. No, it was my brother who had to settle for that.

2001 was the Xmas I would remember and it still sticks in my mind as one of the best “gaming” Christmas’ I’ve had. This was the year I picked up the Sega Dreamcast. I was about to finish High School and at the time the console war between Sega, Sony, and Nintendo had heated up. I was still a PC gamer at heart and in passing I had mentioned it to my younger brother in the fall that I was interested in a few PC games that were coming out.

Christmas Day came and I opened gifts for my upcoming trip to college. I opened up gift cards and cash. By the end of the gifts there were two smallish rectangular packages under the tree in the back that were addressed to me.

Low and behold after tearing open the tightly wrapped gifts, my jaw dropped. The soft golden and blue hued box of Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn beckoned to me. While in the other box the fiery red and back of Diablo II Lord of Destruction promised me many late nights. Both games were outstanding and led to many sleepless nights. To this day I still have both games, granted I haven’t played either of them in a few years, maybe it’s time to fire one of them back up.

Here at the Goozex Report we’re wishing all of you Happy Holidays!

Holiday Memories of Yesteryear

Troy Benedict Says December and Christmas always has a special place in my heart, not just because it was a time for my family to come together, but because I had a lot of fond memories of gaming during the holidays.

These games will certainly date me as an "old gamer." I promise to try and avoid using the phrases "when times were simpler," "back in the day" and any semblance of walking anywhere regardless of the distance walked, whether or not it there was any uphill walking, and/or if there was any treacherous snow-like conditions involved.

My most memorable day was when I picked up Phantasy Star II for the Sega Genesis from the local Toys R Us, the day after Christmas using the extra money I received from my parents and grandparents. The grand total, I believe, was $89! I remember my mother telling me not to mention the cost to my grandmother, who had come along on the trip, because it was so outrageously high. Granted, this was nearly 20 years ago, in December of 1990. Even today, $89 for a video game is insanely high. In contrast, one can purchase Phantasy Star II in a bundle of classic Sega Genesis games today, and it can also be downloaded via Xbox Live for as little as $5. Between that and Golden Axe (also for the Genesis), those were the two most expensive stand-alone games I remember purchasing.

That same Christmas, I received Strider, also for the Sega Genesis, as a Christmas gift. As much as I loved the game, I remember being slightly disappointed as the game was easy to finish and over way too quickly.

One Christmas Eve of 1998, my brother and I played through one of the levels in the Myth II: Soulblighter PC demo, which we referred to as "the Baron level" over and over and over! We had our computers networked together (probably via an ancient serial cable) and played a co-op multiplayer game, dividing an army between the two of us. Myth II was an amazing real-time strategy game made by Bungie, many years before they became well known for their First-Person Shooter genre goodness! It had an awesome physics engine -- and gore galore! When you tossed grenade-like explosives at the enemies (or accidentally at your own men!), their body parts would riddle the ground with trails of blood and gore! My brother and I took turns trying to paste the castle library's floors and walls with the Baron's blood!

I remember playing through Space Quest III for the PC during the month of December, and somehow working my way through the entire game in a span of a couple of days -- without a hint guide! An accomplishment that I was particularly proud of, considering the degree of difficultly with some of Sierra's prior graphic/text adventure games.

I received the game Auto Duel for the Apple //c for Christmas, probably in 1985, the year it came out. I remember playing it on my Grandmother's computer, thinking that the graphics were amazing and enjoying vehicular violence! Gaming back then was kind of like reading a book - you really had to use your imagination to make the extremely low-resolution objects (sometimes they were nothing more than simple dots) to fill in the details!

While the gaming memories during the month of December aren't quite as memorable during the recent years -- being a husband and father to three makes me a very busy person during the entire month of December, especially on Christmas Eve -- I still try to find time to sit down and relax with a good game and work on some modern gaming memories! Perhaps, in 15 years when my (now) 2-year old son asks for "Borderlands 10" for Christmas I'll sit down with him and reminisce about my days -- back in 2009 -- when I played through the original and back when "the graphics sucked" and we had to use a "controller" to play games.

Who knows! Maybe I'll be right!

Let's Party Like It's 1999!

How the Gaming Industry Has Changed in the Last Ten Years

Troy Benedict Says 2010 is almost upon us! The gaming industry and the technology behind the latest consoles has come such a long way over the past decade. It's not always easy to see how far games have progressed without some perspective.

Let's all jump into the Way Back Machine and go back 10 years to 1999 and see just how different the gaming industry was back then!

Ah, 1999. It was the year of Napster's birth, and John F. Kennedy, Jr’s unfortunate death off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France, and Keanu Reeves was making theater goers go "Woah!" with The Matrix and its, still-to-this-day, impressive special effects. Many people watched the year 2000 with nervous anticipation thanks to the rumors of how the world would end thanks to the Y2K Bug.

The Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation were the popular consoles of the year. Sega introduced it's final piece of gaming hardware with the Dreamcast in September of 1999. Gamers on the go were enjoying their GameBoy Colors - more hardcore gamers may have been enjoying the Neo Geo Pocket.

Here are some highlights for video games in 1999:

Team Fortress 2 is announced -- but is delayed until 2007. It goes through a drastic change in visual style ending up with a cartoonish look reminiscent of Pixar's animated movie "The Incredibles.”

Popular Half-Life 3rd-party mod Counter-Strike is born and immediately becomes an astounding success. It would later become a commercial modification, as well as a standalone game.

Halo: Combat Evolved is publically announced during 1999's Macworld. Steve Jobs unveils that it will be released simultaneously on Mac OS and Windows. Halo was also originally going to be a real-time strategy game. It is later released in 2001 on the Microsoft Xbox, as a first-person shooter. Today, the Halo franchise is one of Microsoft's biggest cash cows for the Xbox, featuring 2 direct sequels (Halo 2 and 3), a spin-off sequel (Halo 3: ODST), and a real-time strategy title (Halo Wars). 2010 will see the release of the next game in the series, Halo: Reach.

PlayStation gamers get their first glimpse of the creepy, sleepy town of Silent Hill. Since 1999 there have been numerous console releases, including a feature length film.

Online gaming becomes an addiction in 1999 thanks to EverQuest. It was even lovingly nicknamed EverSmack and EverCrack to demonstrate its addictive properties. Today, EverQuest is still around but is hardly the mainstream success it was 10 years ago. World of WarCraft is now the reigning champ in the MMORPG genre, and has been for the last 5 years.

Ever wanted to punch Mario in his stupid, plumber/princess-saving face? N64 owners were earning that privilege with Super Smash Bros on the N64, Nintendo's last cartridge-based console. Sequels were released for the GameCube in 2001 and again in 2008 for the Wii.

PC gamers will forever remember the name SHODAN thanks to the creepy techno-thriller System Shock 2. While System Shock 3 never saw the light of day, gamers today are anticipating the sequel to System Shock's spiritual successor, BioShock, in early 2010.

The final Ultima, Ultima IX: Ascension is released to generally negative reception thanks to a ton of bugs. 1997's Ultima Online still continues to exist today, but the Ultima name will never hold the weight and greatness that it once did. Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, and other Ultima Online developers created a new online game, Tabula Rasa, but in February 2009, its severs were closed.

The world of 2009 might not be ready for a game controlled by a skateboard peripheral, but without 1999's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, we wouldn't have anything to complain about today.

How many final fantasies can a game have? Well, at the time, eight was the magic number. Final Fantasy VIII had a lot of shoes to fill after the much-beloved 1997's Final Fantasy VII.

Ten years later, we're expected to be graced by both parts XIII and XIV in 2010, with Final Fantasy XIII being the first official Final Fantasy console game to receive an Xbox 360 version, as well.

If you told a Sega fan back in 1999 that in 10 years his beloved Sega mascot, Sonic, would be on a Nintendo console you would have been accused of blasphemy. Sega released Sonic Adventure in September of 1999 for the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was for all intents and purposes, a failure and limped along for about two years before Sega pulled the plug on it and focused on software development. In 2002, the first Sonic Team game was released on the Nintendo GameCube, a port of the 2001 Dreamcast sequel: Sonic Adventure 2. Critically, the Sonic games have been poorly received since 1999's Sonic Adventure, with many people calling for a complete reboot of the series.

Medal of Honor is released for the PlayStation by Electronic Arts. It will later spawn an entire line of World War II themed First-Person Shooters, which also helped pave the way for Activision's Call of Duty/Modern Warfare series that is so insanely popular.

A lot has happened in the last 10 years, and these were just some of highlights from 1999. Microsoft has built quite an impressive reputation with it's Xbox and Xbox 360 systems. Sega is now focused solely on software, which can be prominently found on Nintendo's consoles--something that would have made Sega fanboys cry for your blood in 1999.

What kind of changes will take place in the gaming industry over the next 10 years? Could we see Nintendo games on the Xbox or PlayStation? Or Xbox games on the PlayStation, or vice versa?

I'd call you crazy today for making such claims, but as history has shown: nothing is impossible.

Classic Games: They’re Better Remembered than Replayed

Troy Benedict Says I have been playing computer and video games for most of my 32 years. Some of my earliest gaming memories are of getting dropkicked by Princess Mariko at the end of Karateka, and playing boatloads of Infocom and Eamon text-based adventure games. I recall flying my pixilated snowspeeder at the seemly infinite hordes of AT-AT walkers in the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600, looking for their weakness - a single flashing pixel. I remember the first time I saw a friend’s Nintendo Entertainment System, and immediately fell in love with The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Super Mario Bros, and Contra.

There have been so many great games that I’ve played during my lifelong “career” as a gaming enthusiast. I could probably write endless, sappy articles about all of my favorite games and moments throughout my life, but I will spare you those details.

While I look back upon hundreds of cherished games with fond memories, absolutely none of the games are as enjoyable as they were during their prime.

I’ve read a lot of blogs and posts on message boards from gaming enthusiasts claiming that replaying a classic game was “just as good as I remember it!”

I immediately think to myself, either that person is so caught up in the excitement of nostalgia that they’re delusional, OR they’re outright lying. There is NO way that any classic game lives up to its original glory, and I’ll tell you why.

Let me clarify what I mean by “classic games” before I get to far ahead of myself, as this term can be very subjective depending on when you started playing video games. When I talk about classic games, I’m referring to the games of the 80s and early-to-mid 90s, when the PC and video game industry was still in its infancy.

I remember how absolutely amazed I was when I took my first steps as B.J. Blazkowicz in Wolfenstein 3-D or the thrill of being genuinely frightened while playing Doom, when a maze-like corridor in the Mars facility went dark and the sound of an approaching Pinky Demon could be heard in the distance. I play these games today, and am bored after a couple of levels.

I find it difficult to sit down and play a classic game like Dragon Warrior or Phantasy Star II, as I can immediately see how even the smallest changes over the decades have made for some of the genre’s biggest improvements. You weren’t always able to “try” out a new weapon or piece of equipment to see how it affected your stats. Sometimes you weren’t even notified if the item you were purchasing could be equipped by the character for which you were buying it. Even random battle encounters are becoming a thing of the past. I find these random encounters to insanely frustrating today, maybe even more so now I did in the past, especially when all you want to do is get to a checkpoint, and you run into that one enemy group that kills you. Game over! The controller is thrown – nerd rage achievement unlocked! It reminds me of that scene from Office Space when all that Peter wants to do is get out of the office and avoid Lumberg, and just as he’s finally logging off the network and making his escape – BAM – Lumberg pops up and asks him to come in on Saturday… oh, and Sunday, as well. I digress…

I have downloaded a lot of classic Genesis, NES, and SNES games through the Wii’s Virtual Console, and I’ll admit, I’ve probably played each game once or twice, at the most. It’s good for a brief trip down memory lane, but I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed paying even $5 for a game that I absolutely loved during its prime, and only honestly enjoy it for a very short amount of time.

It might be a bit pessimistic to think this way, but when I go back and revisit a classic game that I grew up playing, part of me expects the game not to deliver like it did back during its prime. In fact, I expect it to be less than impressive. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment.
I’m not knocking what many consider to be the forefathers of the gaming industry. If games like Super Mario Bros, Doom, The Legend of Zelda, Kings Quest, Final Fantasy, never existed, the current gaming industry might be a whole lot different! These greatest games of their time should also be the inspiration for newer better games.

If the pinnacle of gaming stops with a single classic game, then the gaming industry has failed! If there has never been a better side-scrolling action-platformer since Contra’s release over 20 years ago, then we all might as well hang up our controllers and find a new hobby.

Like all industries, what makes the computer and video game industries so great and exciting is that they’re constantly evolving and innovating. Evolution and innovation in the industry is a necessity! Evolution and innovation is the difference between something average and predictable, and something fresh, exciting, and great!

Take the evolution of the First-Person Shooter genre, for example. Wolfenstein 3-D was one of the first games to gather popular and mainstream attention to the FPS genre. It was Doom that incorporated that idea and functionality of Wolf 3D, built upon it, and added multiplayer. Duke Nukem 3-D and Quake added completely new technology – better, more complex level design, smarter A.I., the ability to jump and look around, as well as stronger, more efficient network code for larger multiplayer games. Half-Life built upon those and other popular FPS games before its time, by getting the player to really feel like they were in the game. Valve used techniques in Half-Life, like scripted events and one of the best game openings to an FPS game, to really immerse the player. While Half-Life was still ultimately about shooting things, it also introduced the idea of a more complex story to help carry the game along. Half-Life wasn’t broken into levels either, the progression from area to area in the game was smooth and rarely did the player see a loading screen.

Today, the FPS genre is so completely different than it was in the early 90s. Players now expect a certain level of gradual innovation between game releases, or they’ll complain. And rightfully so! Nobody wants to play the same game over and over, especially with so much technology in our consoles and computers. More modern FPS, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Killzone 2, almost play like role playing games, where players are rewarded for playing more and being more effective on the battlefield. The in-game character is no longer created equally. There are more sophisticated level progression – the more experienced a gamer becomes, the more deadly and effective his character becomes in the game. There are new weapons made available, better weapons upgrades, perks and skills, as well as different classes of characters. Multiplayer games are more team-based today, instead of the massive royal rumbles of yesteryear. Gamers are working together to win, rather than simply being the lone wolf with the highest kill count.

Halo 3 introduced one of the most impressive stat tracking systems to ever grace a first person genre. Not only could players see how effective they are over the course of the game, but they could save, share, and replay online battles – watching the multiplayer session from practically any angle, analyzing where they went wrong, as if they were a football team studying the strategies of other teams by watching replays of the game.

Frankly, the leaps and bounds in technology is amazing, especially in the FPS genre, and it’s still getting better. Sony’s MAG (Massive Action Game), which comes out in early 2010, is pushing for multiplayer games of up to 256 players. Modern Warfare 2 promises to deliver an even better experience than the already fantastic COD4.

Hopefully, you can see that when somebody says to me, “Wow! Doom is still as good as the day I remember playing it!” I can’t help but feel sorry for them. Either they’re just caught up in the comforting glow of nostalgia (which will wear off, I promise) or they really haven’t played and enjoyed any of the more current games.

You might be thinking, you’re an idiot, Troy! There are so many classic games that are still fun to play. Yes, this is true, I am an idiot, and there are still some classics that hold up over the many years. These games have the feeling of being “future-proofed”, to borrow a tech term. They hold up because they have elements and features that are still popular in today’s games. They were innovative for their time, and their innovation is still recognized and respected even today. A game like Super Mario World is one that I can go back and play over and over again, and still get a lot of enjoyment. Perhaps, we can thank the Game Boy and Nintendo DS for helping to keep a more simplified, 16-bit style of gaming popular, even today. Super Mario World offered a lot of depth, especially for completionists who could go back and try to collect all of the hidden coins.

If a classic game is to survive and get the attention of today’s gamers I feel that they have to meet two necessary requirements: 1) the game has to be updated or re-tweeked with today’s industry standards in mind and, 2) it has to somehow contain the spirit of the original game without horribly mutating it into a completely unrecognizable mess. This is very hard to do, and few have succeeded.

Pac-Man Championship Edition is an example of a classic arcade game that was able to update its look and feel, and still feel genuinely like Pac-Man.

I also really enjoyed the new Space Invader’s Extreme -- although it’s backwards E’s were a little to “XTREME!” for me – because it felt and played like a mix of the original Space Invaders, with some of the more modern arcade-style games Geometry Wars and Lumines. The audio and visual flair, along with a very familiar gameplay style, made for a very faithful modern update to a classic game.

More recently, I really enjoyed revisiting my all-time favorite PC game, The Secret of Monkey Island. A lot of time and effort went into completely overhauling the original for the Special Edition release. High-definition graphics, an improved musical score, a slightly different interface, and full voiceovers for all of the game’s dialog. There is even an option to immediately transition from the new Special Edition version of the game to the classic 256-color version to see just how things looked back in the very early 90s.

I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts as to why I believe that classic games aren’t as good as we remember them being. It’s still safe to admire those classics for being the forefathers of the great games we have today, as well as thinking back fondly of playing them. But I personally, can’t enjoy a classic game the same way I did during its prime. Like I said before, innovation and evolution are necessary in order for an industry to grow, and if people are still enjoying a classic game like Doom over a modern game like Call of Duty 4, then something is very wrong.
Great games should exist as inspirational stepping stones for the brilliant minds behind new games: future games designers, programmers, and video game visionaries. Great games, classic or otherwise, should not be expected to stand the test of time.

I encourage everybody to give me their thoughts on this article, as well as your thoughts on classic games vs. modern titles. Do they hold up for you? In your mind, are they better left remember, than replayed?