What do you miss from classic gaming?

[onthinice]

Three lives! Unless you are playing the Odyssey 2. The ability to re-spawn in games is so over the top and leaves little challenge to truly improve your gameplay.

[TL]

Great point that actually, I hate the way nearly all games have tutorials these days too - especially ones you cannot skip 

[Gorf]

Mindless shooters rule!

[DreamcastRIP]

As if right on cue here's a video trailer for the upcoming latest PES game to illustrate the aforementioned example of football games in the modern age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDCXlyCo8L0#at=56

Firstly, the fact footy games even need a 'Tutorial' video speaks volumes about what it is to play them nowadays.

Secondly, that this is only Tutorial video # 01!

Just look at it! As I commented earlier in the thread to play these modern footy games well the player needs to memorise a quite frankly absurd number of joypad input combinations and a Masters degree in manual dexterity to execute them all! Farcical, imo.

If one or two button controllers are no longer the way to go, motion controllers seemingly becoming a fading obsession and the likes of Kinect not at all well suited to the genre I really don't know what the ideal solution is these days for playing footy games with... but it sure as hell isn't using eleventy billion different input command combinations on a normal joypad. All in my opinion, of course!

[Alberto 2K]

I also miss instant fun, now is like DC says, you need to even see tutorials to get the hang of the games and learn several button combinations.

That means some days just learning how to play... In the 90s most of the games were pick and play, indie games are more similar to those games though.

[TL]

Another thing I miss from the old days is this:



When games like Xenophobe, Carrier Command and OutRun came with audio cassettes containing the soundtrack. Very cool indeed.

[Rogue Trooper]

Another thing I miss from the old days is this:



When games like Xenophobe, Carrier Command and OutRun came with audio cassettes containing the soundtrack. Very cool indeed.

Starglider 2, 720 and Platoon were a few others that had tapes in with them that i can recal.

[TL]

Good call! I was trying to remember more of them, I had both 720 and Platoon I remember.

[Rogue Trooper]

Guess the 'Ultimate' in accompaning tapes has to go to:

Deus Ex Machina (ZX Spectrum/Mel Croucher).Tape contained a fully synchronised soundtrack, with music from Mel, along with narration by likes of Ian Dury, Jon Pertwee, Frankie Howerd etc....

[guest4816]

Yay my first post. Hello world

I used to make a cuppa, put in my Speccy tape and while it was loading, read the instruction inlay and back story. Glancing up now and again to see if it had a cool loading screen.

[Bobinator]

You know what I miss? Manuals. Seriously, I miss the days when you could open up a game box on your way home, and read the manual so you'd have something to do. Nowadays, you get a little pamphlet that tells you how not to have a seizure, copyright junk, and a little thing that basically tells you to just play the game if you want to know how to play. Even something like Redneck Rampage, an FPS released not long after Duke Nukem 3D, basically made the manual into a fake tabloid. Sure, it wasn't much good as a manual, given how little it talked about the actual game, but the effort they put into it... what happened, man?

[DreamcastRIP]

You know what I miss? Manuals. Seriously, I miss the days when you could open up a game box on your way home, and read the manual so you'd have something to do. Nowadays, you get a little pamphlet that tells you how not to have a seizure, copyright junk, and a little thing that basically tells you to just play the game if you want to know how to play. Even something like Redneck Rampage, an FPS released not long after Duke Nukem 3D, basically made the manual into a fake tabloid. Sure, it wasn't much good as a manual, given how little it talked about the actual game, but the effort they put into it... what happened, man?

Damn right!

The last EA disc-based game I purchased, FIFA 13, didn't even come supplied with a pamphlet, ffs! Just the disc inside an empty DVD case. Shocking. Gotta love how these companies hide behind the pretence of being 'environmentally friendly' when we all know they're being a bunch of penny pinching scrooges!

On a positive note, some current-gen games still come supplied with generous manuals. The standout example in my collection would The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings Collectors Edition. That game comes supplied with,

* a card sleeve encasing the DVD case
* an 88 page Quest Handbook
* the OST audio CD
* a 38 page Game Manual
* a fold-out large size double sided full colour map

Plus it's a cracking game too (PC version) that cost me less than £10. 

[Rogue Trooper]

Yay my first post. Hello world

I used to make a cuppa, put in my Speccy tape and while it was loading, read the instruction inlay and back story. Glancing up now and again to see if it had a cool loading screen.

:-) Standards slipping on here...seem's they'll let anyone in, i dunno (shakes head), anywho bloody good to (finally) see you on here...

You Speccy types think you had it tough? we A8 tape based gamers had time to drive to shops, buy tea, kettle, milk+sugar etc, put kettle on, then see BOOT ERROR just before game ran out of tape.....

[Rogue Trooper]

You know what I miss? Manuals. Seriously, I miss the days when you could open up a game box on your way home, and read the manual so you'd have something to do. Nowadays, you get a little pamphlet that tells you how not to have a seizure, copyright junk, and a little thing that basically tells you to just play the game if you want to know how to play. Even something like Redneck Rampage, an FPS released not long after Duke Nukem 3D, basically made the manual into a fake tabloid. Sure, it wasn't much good as a manual, given how little it talked about the actual game, but the effort they put into it... what happened, man?

And...what about Novella's in games like Starglider, Elite (Dark Wheel or something?), all gone.Microprose games..now they knew how to do manuals.....

I'd guess various factors 'happened': Cost reduction on printing costs, enviromental factors (look how green we are as a company, we've reduced our useage of paper by.....) etc, plus games seem to start with a training mission as std these days , along with a reward for following instructions...

[TrekMD]

I think this image sums things up fairly well (even it is a NES controller  )...

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