An Ode to Retro Gaming

I love Elite.

Elite is an outer space trading simulator for the powerhouse of graphics and sound, the Atari ST, in which you travel the galaxy buying low and selling high by assessing the needs and wants of each individual planet’s system of government and level of technological advancement. Occasionally enemies with bounties on their head will appear around violent planets and hunt you down rather than vice versa, you can mine asteroids for ore, or fly into the sun, but for the most part it is a lot of flying through uninhabited space killing time by trying to remember the keypad controls for your ship’s numerous gadgets. That is it. That is all there is to it. No revenge schemes, kidnapped princesses, quests for atonement, recovery from amnesia, or plot. Just you, space, a galaxy unified by an exceptional loathing of sitcoms, and a cargo hold full of slaves, illegal firearms, and Arcturian mega weed.

There are “sandbox games,” such as the famed Grand theft Auto series, in which the player is given a large area of play and the freedom to ignore the game’s missions in favor of frolicking to your hearts content, but they give you the luxury of missions, side missions, and occasional mini games to fall back on when your imagination fails. Elite is all about “dirt gameplay.” There is nothing there except for what you make of it, leaving your imagination to fill in the blanks about your character and motivations as you sit drifting through space to the local port in an almost zen-like trance, interrupted now and then by the threatening presence of blinking lights on your radar and lasers being fired from a distance that erode your shields at a terrifying rate. I for instance decided that I would be an honest vendor of medical supplies and would bring them to poor colonies in need. Then I chanced upon a drifting cargo canister containing two tons of narcotics and proceeded to run from local authorities until I could find a place to fence them. Not long after that I stumbled across an unmarked canister of human slaves and gave up on the idea of being an angel of mercy.

The low-polygon ship models are stark, but thankfully there few instances in the heat of combat where you get a good long look at your enemy from your first-person cockpit view. When I was eight years old the graphics didn’t matter, and in my giddy nostalgic bliss I find that they matter even less. As I sit in the aforementioned zen-like space trance I’m given a moment’s pause to consider how easily such a low-tech game manages to remain so appealing in this the seventh generation of gaming consoles.

Modern titles have enormous polygon counts per object, enhanced lighting effects, and even the occasional orchestral soundtrack, but as good as a game is these days, unless it has an online multiplayer feature it gets shelved minutes after the credits roll and either collects dust or is traded in for another game that will undergo the same cycle. Whether it was God of War for PS2, or Bioshock for Xbox 360, games get one play through on average and could potentially spend the rest of their days without ever setting foot in another disk tray, but Super Mario never dies. Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System has been around for over 25 years, and people still play it, whether on an emulator, as a Wii Virtual Console Title, or if they’re fortunate, an old NES or new generic console. Mario never dies. Even with controls simplified to two buttons and a d-pad, the game continues to be compelling and addicting to everyone from die-hard gaming veterans to kids teething on the Wii. It is simple, eternal, and iconic.

In “Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art” by Scott McCloud, the author goes into great detail explaining the nature of the icon. Simple lines and shape that take on meaning in our minds, and the way images are interpreted in our minds mean the same thing as the object the image represents. He also discusses something very subtle in the artform of comics that is very difficult to explain in words. The more “realistic” an image is, the harder it is for the audience to relate to it. Highly detailed artwork occasionally appears static on a page. The images do not link in the audiences mind easily from one to the other, which is key to the artform of comics. Will Conrad's artwork in “Serenity: Better Days” based on the television series “Firefly” is made to look close to the actors as it represents, giving it a quality difficult to quantify in the minds of readers. It’s as if the audience’s mind confuses itself while trying to register on a subconscious level images that closely resemble but are clearly not the physical objects they represent that it cannot easily translate the comic book into a series of images in a sequence, and views each image as a separate entity. Meanwhile, more “iconic” art styles such as Rob Guillory's work on “Chew”, Charles Shultz's "Peanuts," or the extremely iconic work of most Japanese manga artists are easy on the eyes and easy on the brain, making it easier to interpret the sequence of images and words as the artfrom known as comics, and easier to hold onto the reader's attention.

I believe video games work much the same way.

Not on the same subconscious psychological level where the games are easier to comprehend if the graphics are of lower quality, but in terms of simplicity being somehow more acceptable, eternal, and addicting as hell. For some older games affect people’s nostalgia, and is the reason Nintendo released Ocarina of Time for the 3Ds, and why every good Star Fox game is an enhanced version of the original Star Fox for Super Nintendo. Humans are programmed to expect newer shiner objects to be dangled in from of them. It makes for competitive entertainment and software industries that have to push the limits of technology because that is what time has dictated sells. More and more when it comes to gaming, retro has been taking over the market. At E3 2010, Nintendo’s press conference was dominated by nostalgia. Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, NBA Jam, and even Goldeneye were catered directly to older audiences who would respond with, “Holy crap! I remember that! That’s awesome!” and making the impressionable gaming youth go, “Yeah, well, I want that too then.” Iconic eight and sixteen bit two-dimensional graphics have also made an alarming return in the form of Retro Game Challenge, Super Meat Boy, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This?, Geometry Wars, Mega Man 9 and 10, and hundreds of independently developed games. Games are returning to an era where everything was simple, iconic, and eternal. I am in full support of this necessary revolution.

With the economy crashing down, more and more industries are focusing on what sells, and what’s cheap to make. This is the reason Capcom continues to make updates for Street Fighter IV and Marvel Vs Capcom 3, rather than risk making a sequel to a franchise that hasn’t been around since the days of the original PlayStation despite enormous fan outcry. It is also the reason developers need to focus more on form and less on substance. I’ve discussed before the decline of the Final Fantasy franchise. As hardware allows for more advanced software development, developers focus more and more on creating high definition graphics. Time and funds are spent on high polygon models and detailed texture mapping. The advanced graphics soak up valuable storage space on the disks the games are published on. Quality of objects and environments rendered overshadows the number of objects and environments, leaving very pretty but very short games. What once was a series containing deep character development and hours of exploration has become a series of films about characters walking through a hallway. Other sequels have suffered from technological advances, such as God of War 3 and Ratchet and Clank Future. They’re still great games by any definition, but they’re noticeably shorter than their previous installments and come with a larger price tag. Other developers manage to find balance between graphics and open worlds filled with activities for the gamer such as Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II and Rocksteady’s upcoming Batman: Arkham City. Graphics have their place as long as they compliment the gameplay, such as Okami’s watercolor style, Bayonetta's over-the-top madness, and El Shaddai's… EVERYTHING… but at the end of the day, video games are games, and games must be fun to be enjoyable, and “iconic” to remain relevant.

I have been hard at work editing a short video project, and every so often in order to take a break without straying far from my computer and potentially discovering some other distraction, I load a window running Minesweeper. There is a reason it has come standard with Windows operating systems for 21 years.

Pathos and good will,

Lord Veltha

PS: Make Mega Man Legends 3, Crapcom. Do it. I don't need to tell you what will happen to your families if you don't.

PPS: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time” is a game I am really upset I didn’t mention in the blog because it suits my “icon” point perfectly. The game is a classic side-scrolling beat ‘em up, and the best of its kind. All you do is walk to the right and fight waves of enemies by button mashing. It is simple and compelling and pure elegance therein. What they did is try to capitalize on the nostalgia years later by remaking it with 3D graphics. It is by all means the exact same game. It is reproduced perfectly. Yet for some mysterious reason it is not fun. It’s as if the style of the game with its 16-bit sprites (or 32 in the arcade) was what made the game entertaining. By all means there is no reason for the 3D remake to not be as fun, but it isn’t. It even comes packaged with the original version of the game, so you can experience the difference. It’s the most bewildering thing, and the basis of my argument for more “iconic” games.