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Posted on Aug 9th 2008 at 03:36:15 PM by (Skellionz)
Posted under Retrogaming, Classic Gaming, Retrospective

I'm 8 years old and im sat down in front of an amazing machine called the zx spectrum +2. As my family goes through the frustration of trying to actually get out of the goblin dungeon in The Hobbit i dont realise that in 21 years time ill feel an urge to recreate this moment and drive myself insane by playing it again and yet again want to tear my hair out at the infuriating command system.

Collecting all the consoles and computers from my childhood is turning out to be a rather expensive excersize but thank god for Ebay, while sometimes not the most reliable of sources the volume of items that can be gained here cannot be overlooked. Playing my way through Street Fighter 2 and Pilotwings on the Snes brought back so many good memorys likewise Streets of Rage 1 and 2 never seem to diminish the joy they give over the course of time. Of course recreating your childhood comes at a price ignoring the financial type the confused and resignated looks of my wife, as she trys to imagine why i want to buy all these relics of gaming past when i can just use my 1000 pound pc to play all i have bought and more on any number of emulators.

But there is something that i feel when i sit down in front of my Amiga or play Tetris on that big old brick of a Gameboy that is more than i get from recreating the games on my computer. "You are mad!" some of you are thinking, no madder than anyone who collects things to excess i suppose. Luckily my wife has accepted my need for these things now but only at the cost of beanbags in the room earmarked for my retro gaming heaven.

To end a rather sharp change of subject, after having many long discussions with a friend on this ill put it down here. Im totally against FPS/RTS on any console system, i've never found controllers to be friendly towards these genres and im sure many people will disagree with this point of view. They should be reserved for PC gaming, the whole affair of porting games to one platform or another rarely works, I recently played Lost Planet on my PC and it was such a badly done port from the Xbox360 version it destroyed the game and any chance i had of enjoyment i may get out of it. Playing C&C with a controller and slowly scrolling around the screen with no chance of shortcut keys or macros makes me cry. This being said im sure console owners without PC's would rather have an FPS with sluggish aiming and movement than no game at all, I on the other hand refuse to play such games on my consoles call me a purist or call for my head its up to you.


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Comments
 
good post - liked it a lot. Not sure I agree with you on the FPS thing - all the best FPS have been on the consoles for me - including Doom on the PS1, Goldeneye on the N64, and loads on the 360, like Halo, Bioshock, COD4 etc. I was never much of a PC gamer though so I'm not really that impartial. Agree re RTS games though.


 
Enjoyed your first post & welcome to RF Generation!

Collecting the real deal is in all of our blood, here at RFG Smiley
I think I'd speak for 95% of the people here when I say that playing a old(er) game on an emulator doesn't do the game justice and the experience won't be the same.

Also, if it would be the same, you'd still miss the thrill of looking for that one special game (and eventually, finding it somewhere in the wild); a feeling no emulator can ever .....emulate.

On your RTS/FPS arguement, I agree with you for 50%:

An RTS can't be played on a a console but an FPS can. Just play Goldeneye on the N64 or Timesplitters (any part) on PS2. Those games have perfect controls Wink
 
Thanks for the replys, nice to see my post was read Smiley I do have Goldeneye on the n64 and while i will agree that it was a well done example of FPS on a console its more of a one off than the norm in my view.  Maybe Im spoilt by the fact i can play something on my PC first and am far more used to playing these types of games for years with a mouse and keyboard, i still feel the precision of movement and speed of reaction can never be the same with a console controller!

Im already gearing up for my next post of Film game titles being presistantly awful! after reliving Stargate and Toy Story on the snes the other day i feel vindicated by these views.


 
I think I agree with you on the FPS thing.  Sure, there have been some good FPS games on consoles but for me personally I never feel as 'in control' as I do with keyboard and mouse.  It seems more precise and easier (for me anyway).  Maybe it's because I was playing FPS games on PC many years before I ever tried one on a console, so it's just what I'm used to.  If there's no alternative or the PC port is crap I'll play on a console and usually I will enjoy it, but if I have a choice I'll play them on PC.

Most console --> PC ports are pretty shoddy affairs.  The main reason I bought a 360 is so I didn't have to endure crappy ports quite so much.
 
I definitely know how you feel in regards to the emulators.  I recently purchased a custom arcade machine from a gaming store that was going out business.  While it's great having tons of games at my finger tips, it doesn't match the feeling of sticking a cartridge into a console, the joy you feel when it works (maybe after a try or two), and sitting on the edge of the couch once again trying to save the princess (not always but it's a common theme).

As for FPS/RTS on consoles, I'm definitely biased towards consoles.  But, and please educate me if I'm wrong, haven't this current and former generation of consoles included USB ports.  I use a keyboard with my PS3, 360, and formerly my PS2 (FFXI).  How much work would it be for software producers to include a keyboard & mouse option for console FPS/RTS?

 
I wholly agree about RTS's on consoles. They should not be there, period, exclamation point, the end. The precision of a mouse can not be replaced by a controller or analog stick. That said, I don't think simulations (like SimCity) should be on consoles as well. FPSes, on the other hand, can work on consoles, in my opinion. GoldenEye is proof positive of that.

I am not really a collector (blasphemous, I know), so I tend to be just as happy playing the game on an emulator as playing it on it's original system. There are some games I just would never had played if I didn't play it on an emulator, and that would have made me a sad panda. Emulators give me the opportunity to play games I previously did not have the opportunity to do so.

Great article, wonderfully decadent for a first post, and also welcome to RF Generation!
 
Goldeneye single handedly redefined the FPS genre. And there are tons of awesome console FPS' that kick serious ass such as Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters 2, Halo, Bioshock, Metroid Prime (to a much lesser extent). Nothing wrong with a FPS on a console.

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