On Video Games: Quality vs. Quantity
On Friday, I was at lab till about midnight, but all I had to do for the last few hours was to wait on a bunch of solvent to evaporate. M. came in looking bored, so I showed him my SNES emulator, and we proceeded to play Mario World. He made the usual comment about being sooo good at that game, so I showed him the extra challenging levels at the end of the star world with all the names like "groovy", "far out", "way cool", tubular", etc. The 2nd of these has always been very hard for me to complete. I could get right to the end, but no further. So I challenged him to complete it. It took him at least an hour and we had a lot of fun playing that silly level.
That game had quality. It was challenging, long, and fun. And the joy pad only had 4 buttons and the directional pad. Games nowadays are so complicated, but I think that they have lost a lot of the fun factor. I still think that all of my favorite games have simpler controls.
You cannot get much simpler than Tetris, yet, whenever my friend K. came over, we decided on ping-pong or 2-player Tetris. When I go to BQs, of all the games on my laptop, the young teens enjoy Scorched Earth the most, because up to 10 can play at once. The graphics are hilariously simple, but the game is still fun. When I went to Dave & Buster's with M. last month, we had the most fun playing Centipede, Pac Man, Galaga, and Electronic Bowling over things such as racing games, flight simulators, and Virtual Cop. I think I would rather play FF6 (or 3, depending on how you count them) over 7 any day. I would play the original Zelda over whatever 3D ones they have out now any day.
Is it just a sign of my getting old that I prefer the games with less buttons? Or were they really, as a whole, better games than the graphics-charged, complicated games of today?
Edit: *gasp!* I forgot to post my music and mood! I have corrected that.
That game had quality. It was challenging, long, and fun. And the joy pad only had 4 buttons and the directional pad. Games nowadays are so complicated, but I think that they have lost a lot of the fun factor. I still think that all of my favorite games have simpler controls.
You cannot get much simpler than Tetris, yet, whenever my friend K. came over, we decided on ping-pong or 2-player Tetris. When I go to BQs, of all the games on my laptop, the young teens enjoy Scorched Earth the most, because up to 10 can play at once. The graphics are hilariously simple, but the game is still fun. When I went to Dave & Buster's with M. last month, we had the most fun playing Centipede, Pac Man, Galaga, and Electronic Bowling over things such as racing games, flight simulators, and Virtual Cop. I think I would rather play FF6 (or 3, depending on how you count them) over 7 any day. I would play the original Zelda over whatever 3D ones they have out now any day.
Is it just a sign of my getting old that I prefer the games with less buttons? Or were they really, as a whole, better games than the graphics-charged, complicated games of today?
Edit: *gasp!* I forgot to post my music and mood! I have corrected that.