Bitmob_vb_ Bitmob is now a part of VentureBeat
Separator

Gaming nostalgia has its side effects

Avatarheader
Thursday, August 11, 2011
EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Eduardo Moutinho

Nostalgia is a powerful weapon. When properly harnessed, it can transport us back to a simpler, happier time. It can also serve as the ultimate Trojan horse, suckering us into buying underwhelming experiences.

Recently, Zero Punctuation reviewer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw covered The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. He argued that OOT doesn't deserve the prestige that it receives because its value has diminished over the years due to advances in game design. Without nostalgia, he explained, Link's first polygonal foray wouldn't be a viable title to repackage and sell.

So how heavily does nostalgia affect gaming, and is it a bad thing?

 

Obviously, it plays a huge role. Ocarina of Time 3D was the second-best-selling game in June, and it probably convinced many to purchase a 3DS handheld. The Sonic the Hedgehog series continues to enjoy a perplexing amount of exposure, despite many recent titles' mediocrity. New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold extremely well, even though it was basically a re-imagined Super Mario Bros. 3.

The vivid memories of defeating Bowser, plunging the Master Sword down Ganon's throat, and dashing heedlessly through checkered loops captivated our young and impressionable minds. Revisiting these worlds lets us tap into that nostalgia.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Delving into the past can be a worthwhile experience. But how much does looking into gaming's yesteryear with rose-colored glasses impact what we see on the shelves today? Judging by the constant rehashing of games like Call of Duty, people like to play what they've played before -- just with better graphics and a fresh story.

This isn't a big problem, unless the trend becomes the dominating business model in the interactive-entertainment industry. Rendering enemy units and programming AI takes time and money. It's not financially sound for a developer to walk the tightrope with an experimental title that might not sell when Gritty Realism War Shooter 14: The Re-Nazi-ing will generate a small fortune. Unfortunately, this attitude can negatively affect progress and creativity.

Having said that, we shouldn't discount nostalgia. I admit that Ocarina of Time hasn't aged as gracefully as other games, but when I'm galloping across Hyrule Field with the sun trekking across the sky and orchestral music filling my ears, I don't care. OOT is still as fun for me now as it was a decade ago.

We need to strike a balance. Developers should take risks and create original games worth playing, and consumers need to show more support instead of just backing the latest grizzled-space-marine sequel.

What do you think?

Originally posted at 8bitopinion.wordpress.com.

 
Tags: super mario bros. 3, Call of Duty, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, sonic the hedgehog, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Sonic Generations
Problem? Report this post
BITMOB'S SPONSOR
Adsense-placeholder
Related Stories
 
Comments (5)
Add a new comment
Default_picture
Daniel Neil
August 11, 2011

I think the main difference here is that OOT actually does stand up well.  I actually played the Gamecube port about a year ago.  I never owned an N64 so I never played it when it came out.  I found that I was still having a lot of fun with it.  Would I rate it a perfect 10?  Probably not nowadays.  But as a stand-alone game it's a solid 8.5 or 9.

Default_picture
Corey Himrod
August 11, 2011

I think whether a game stands up well is a subjective opinion, and nostalgia totally plays into that. It's not fair to judge a game made 15-20 years ago on today's graphics and story standards...would OOT compare well with today's 3-part Mass Effect epic or the new Elder Scrolls games? Probably not, but then it doesn't deserve to be in that comparison in the first place. You have to judge it based on the period it came from, and how much fun you had playing it compared to other games of the time.

 

Twenty years from now when we're all playing video games in holographic chambers surrounded by 3-D environments, someone will look back at games like Bioshock or Mass Effect and lament about how such a two dimensional experience could ever have made players feel immersed in and connected to the undersea city of Rapture or the starship Normandy...and that someone will make me just a little sad. Hey, my wife and I bought an old refurbished NES just so we could play Super Mario - on a Friday night when plans fall through, a little Mario nostalgia can make for a very pleasant evening. Even if jumping on mushrooms was so 20 years ago.

Default_picture
Daniel Neil
August 11, 2011

I think that if you take into account that OOT is on a handheld, it stands up to any game out right now.  Having just played it for the first time recently on the Gamecube, I can say that even then the muddy textures and the (awful) world map were really the only two things that dated it.  It stil controls well and the dungeons are still great. 

I think that OOT has lost some of its shine over the years, but it's still a really solid game.

Jon_ore
Jonathan Ore
August 11, 2011

I think the older Sonic games, and NSMBWii in particular, have a little more than nostalgia going for them. At their core they are well-designed platformers. Good games don't have an expiration date: just look at people still playing board games like Risk and Scrabble. The cute and frankly brilliant setting and characters of the Mario world present a huge dose of nostalgia, it's true, but since the narrative and personalities are so non-specific it's not like anyone's ever had a major issue with it being a rehash.

Default_picture
Chris Kimsey
August 17, 2011
Some games are certainly seen through rose-tinted glasses, but OOT, along with Mario 64 (and maybe even the first Tomb Raider) dont fall among them. These games have an elegant simplicity that is lacking in a lot of the modern titles. The lack of horsepower led to a kind of... distillation of the gameplay. There are a few games I'm a bit hesitant to play for fear they might not be all I remember - Bushido Blade, etc... but all in all I think a lot of these oldies have merit beyond the nostalgia factor.

You must log in to post a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.