When nostalgia is not nostalgia

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Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 27-10-2020
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Times change and we change with them - simple ancient sentence that has a lot to do with game development. I know, you expect to find here the rambling of old man about how old games were better, right? You won’t be disappointed then.

Back in the old days, and I mean pretty old, like 1980s, computer games were rather simple due to hardware limitations and luck of technology we have today. Yet a lot of people still think that games that were developed back then were better than what you can play today. Of course they are old (including myself) and they simply have no idea what they talk about. Today the graphical side of the games if far superior, the gameplay is longer, the audio and music in games are better than ever, you can play via Internet with players located on the other side of the world... And yet, for some people Blue Max, River Raid or The Great American Cross Country Road Race are icons that will never be surpassed by modern games. And they are not actually crazy.

Recently I watched gameplay of first Silent Hill from 1999, a game that is among the icons of its genre. And to be honest first impression was not great - it looked just awful with simple 3D models, the atmosphere was nice, but I just could not get pass the graphic side of the game. So where the people, who said Silent Hill is an icon were wrong? No. Have they forgot how it looks? I do not think so. Have they not seen modern games that are far better? Not likely And they are not actually crazy either.

And there is third group, people, who write negative game reviews with sentences like "it is awful, the graphics are like from 2005". Clearly for them the graphic side of the project is far important than content and when they do not like graphics they simply do not bother to even take a better look at the gameplay. Even though graphics often did not progressed that much since 2005, they are not crazy either.

So how all of those groups could be right? It is easy to explain, it has nothing to do with nostalgia, but is has a lot to do with age. Each of those groups grew up playing completely different games. For older players games from 1980s are those, who they remember best, because as kids they spent hours and days playing them. Those, who were teenagers in 1990s scoff at games from 1980s, because they did not played them, they grew up playing early 3D games, like Silent Hill, and those titles made the biggest impression on them. Those, who are teenagers now play games with amazing graphics (comparing to older games) and they need to see everything very clearly, otherwise they lose the interest.

The games you grew up playing will most likely stay with you for the rest of your life, no matter if in future the technology will progress even more, the virtual reality will find a sensible use in games, or the games will be transferred straight into the mind, you will fondly remember the good old game that you played when you were 10 or 12-years-old. Yes, it is a bit crappy now, it does not look as great as you recalled it, but still it is the game that partly made you, who you are.

27-10-2020