Retrospective Comparison

Earlier today I was playing Oblivion on my beloved 360. Nothing much was happening and I was at a complete loss for something to do (in game and otherwise). I cast an eye over to my anicent SNES (well over a decade old) in a plastic bag in the corner. A burst of inspiration came to me and within minutes, after struggling to get the bloody thing tuned, I was hooked up and right into Super Mario World. I'm now almost halfway through and it is still great fun to play. It got me thinking; I enjoy the old Mario just as much as the shiny new Oblivion, but why? Have games really become more enjoyable for all the technical advancements?

The answer is yes, and no. Games are now pretty much only limited to what the developer can dream up, and while this is certainly getting more varied and ambitious games onto the market it is possibly not beneficial to the industry. However astounding Oblivion is in terms of imagination and scope, Mario will always be just as good despite the restraints of the hardware and software at the time. Mario had to be made in a specific way and instead of a sprawling mess of ideas the makers had to concentrate on making the best game they could within these restraints, so they had a much more specific and focussed goal. This is possibly one of the main reasons for the game's continued success and playability. It is much simpler and accessible. Give your granny the 360 controller and sit here down to Oblivion and she won't even be able to walk around in the game without great difficulty, but plonk her infront of SMW and she could at the very least grasp the basic concept of run, jump and avoid falling.

Another point is that machines now have to be all-singing-all-dancing "Media Hubs". Now this is all good and well but the SNES was a dedicated games machine. Not Blu-Ray drive or HDMI socket. It plugs into your TV and off you go. There's no menu, no "Home" button, no Gamerscore and not even a memory card. Just undiluted, straight up games. Nintendo could concenrate on the games because there were no tacked on, hyped up multimedia features to bum up. The games were all that mattered and that shows. The controllers also were much easier to grasp. It was just a NES controller with a few more buttons and less hand blisterage. Nowadays we cry if we don't get two analogue sticks for the latest Call Of Duty.

Though the Wii promises to take gaming back to basics, it is really far from it. However fun the Wii is, there is no denying the complex technology required for that motion sensor. The games certainly could not be enjoyed by all members of my family. Once again picking on the older generation for their technological ineptitude, my grandad couldn't play WiiTennis but would probably kick my ass at Pong. Technology has moved so fast that games themselves are lagging behind. Don't get me wrong, I love to play Gears Of War as much as the next man, but for all its complexity, it really isn't much more fun than the games of old, which were almost better off for their simplicity. Even then Gears is still a comparitively basic shooter to some others.

With new technology comes new expectations and companies seem determined to rush out their newest machines. Though it is nice to have the latest graphics and power, I would almost have preferred the N64 or PS1 to stay for ten years, rather than the now compulsory 5-7. The industry really needs to let the games catch up or consumers will be disappointed. It is very well having the ability to get 9000 enemies on screen at once but when all the games that come out are just ports of sports titles there is no point in having Gameplaybox 720. You would do just as well with a Dreamcast or PS2 if that was the case. The point is that now developers can't really make 2 dimensional games. There is a consumer craving for 3d games but this isn't neccessarily a good thing. There must be many splendid ideas for 2d games that will never see the light of day, purely because of the speed of technology and the consumer's need to buy it.

So what was the point of all this? Well I'm basically saying that games were just as (if not more) enjoyable back over a decade ago, perhaps two decades ago. I think that the best idea would be for the industry to reshift its focus to games and let consoles live out their lifespan for as long as there is still one person willing to make a game for it, rather than continuing down the path of cash guzzling juggernaut. I want to see the best from every system. Anyway, back to Mario.

gdf

I do agree and I think that one of the reasons that Mario is funner than Oblivion is that nowadays people try and cram too much into games. Think about Super Mario Bros., there is one path to follow and if you lose then you try again. You know you can win so you keep trying and get an incredible sense of achievement when you win. In Oblivion, if you fail a quest you think to yourself, 'I'll just go and join the thieves guild' or 'Maybe I'll do that other quest' and you cast the old one aside until later. I notice that I used to just play and play Crash Bandicoot or Tekken on my PS1 until I won the whole thing. They did not have millions of different modes and side-quests. They were focused on one thing. If I wanted a bowling game then I would buy one. I would not try to cram as many potential games as possible into one.

Different times. I personally like how consoles are becoming like computers. I think that's why the PSP imo is better than the DS. With two button pushes, you can switch from game to music or movie.

yea, seriously. the reason games are getting so tech is because people want that. if they wanted fun 2d forever they would have got it. but, 2d does have limits. imagine a 2d oblivion? it would be boring as hell. imagine running through the side scroller for an hour so you could deliver xxxx to xxxxx ?

weird elf you are bang on. mario et al had a more focussed structure, so it was more rewarding to complete. also i forgot to mention that load times were pretty much nil and the console made no noise whatsoever. don't get me wrong i don't want technology to stop advancing and oblivion is one of my favourite games ever, but i think the big companies need to look back a bit and take notice of what the consoles were like 15 years ago. also the whole point of having a console is so that you don't have to play games on a pc, so i don't want my 360 to become a vista that can play games well.