Racketboy

What are your thoughts?

Here are mine:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2007/05/ ... gamer.html

There is a reason I call myself a retro-gamer. It is not that I play older video games, I actually play my Xbox 360 the most right now. Instead it means that I enjoy a game for its particular styles that are reminiscent of older games. That sounds a bit vague I bet.

I cant call myself anything. I just play anything thats fun.

I wanna say that I did the exact same thing with the FuncoLand price lists. That place was also my replacement as an Arcade, since they always had a dozen kiosks. I was in there so often that after a few years, they wouldn't let me in unless I showed them I had money.

Pretty much the reason why I am a retro gamer is because most of the games these just don't really grasp me all that much, sure the games are fun and it looks pretty, but personally games now in the days are depend on beauty than the actual game itself. I do collect video game console, and I also emulate, emulation is fine all and all, but I do prefer getting the real thing because it just feels like that you owned it, it yours, you earned it, that kind of thing. But I mostly emulate Arcade games, because I know that I will never own a Arcade machine, plus if I do own a arcade machine, you have to deal with its hardware problems and its hard to replace it.

Plus when I was a kid, I've been suffering with Autism (although I am not as bad as I used to be), pretty much the only thing I wanted to do is just stay at home and play video games, or beg my parents to take me to the arcades or buy me a new game. I never wanted to go to school, I never wanted to go to church, I just want to play video games 24/7, its the only way to keep me sedated. I do feel bad for my parents that have to go through all the trouble trying to get me away from video games. So I kinda regret and kinda glad that I am a retro gamer.

Right now, I don't play video games that much now in the days, because all the games are all the same, and have a complex movie-like stories, although I do own a Xbox 360. I pretty much only play retro/simple games just to kill time. Plus I found other hobbies, like Collecting music, Photography, and writing movie ideas and a Tenchi Muyo fan fiction (working on it for 5 years and counting), thanks to this as you can clearly see, writing scrips and other things approved my writing skills overtime. Although it did not approve my spelling skills (thank goodness for Spell Check).

RB,
My experiences and attitudes are almost identical to yours, regarding fond gaming memories, being frugal with spending, needing easy pick-up-and-play titles, and the like. I think the only detail where our paths diverge was that I bought an NES at the tender age of 12, and avoided the Genesis until many years after its last game was published.
But I really enjoyed your writeup, especially articulating the idea that retrogaming is a choice and preference, rather than a curmudgeon lifestyle.

BTW, the games I'm playing the most these days perfectly embody the Retrogaming lifestyle:
1) Nintendo Puzzle Collection (Mostly Panel de Pon, Imprted from Play-asia with a Freeloader)
2) Clubhouse Games (most fun with a few friends)
3) Super Paper Mario
4) Capcom Classics Collection (1 and 2)
5) Alien Hominid
6) Gradius V

Racketboy, I share a similar history with you. I've just turned 30, so much of my indulgence with gaming took place in the 80s and 90s. I've also had a fascination with taking things apart and learning as much as I could. I could not afford much of anything as a kid. My mom bought my brother and I a Sega Master System one year because the stores had no NES consoles in stock. This began an awesome era for gaming. Ironically (and somewhat sadly), I got my first batch of SMS games from $20 from a crackhead. He came up to my brother at random, and he sold them to us. From there, I did a lot of bartering/begging to try out as many games as possible. Most of my hobbies were geek-related (weather, shortwave radios, gaming, reading, old photos, music, tinkering with things), so I ended up in a similar social network. It was a job in and of itself trying to get in to your friend's place to play games on his NES, Genesis, etc. .

In the midst of all of this, I was fascinated with the arcade. There was a 7-11 across the street from me that always turned over with the latest games. In addition, we had a boardwalk along the beach that always had fresh titles in the front and older games tucked in the back. I played SMB3 on a Play Choice 10 over two years before it was released stateside. I beat Ninja Gaiden on one credit. We found that someone had cracked the console to Championship Sprint, so we could reach our hands inside to obtain free credits. I helped the store manager fix glitches with the Shinobi cabinet by cleaning and reseating cabling on the JAMMA board. One of the best finds was when we lived rather far out in a rural area. A truck stop up the road had a pirated SF2 arcade outfit in the back. This was almost a year before I saw it in the hotspot arcades in the area. It was only $0.25 per credit, and we probably spent over $1000 total over a couple of years' time.

With the release of the Gameboy, that started the reality of an obsession I had with handheld devices. I used to draw sketches of portable computers, gaming systems and the like. The brick-sized white GB handheld was like I was stuck in a great dream. That obsession still exists today.

I got into collecting older systems through a Usenet group called rec.games.video.classic . We also had a channel on IRC EFNet called #rgvc. I learned the ins and outs of pawn shop hopping, flea markets and thrift stores. The fun was always in the chase - finding that one rare title that was worth something.

I had the same obsession as you with the Funcoland lists and the many ads in the back of EGM and Gamestop advertising thousands of games from here and abroad. Around the mid 90s, I started reading about these amazing devices called console copiers. You just throw in a floppy disk, and you can copy any SNES/Genesis/NeoGeo/etc. cart to the disk! These devices were like the Holy Grail. Though not legal, you were driven by the ability to play any game you wanted! This was before the rise of emulation as systems weren't powerful enough to do the job.

With retro gaming, I've gotten to revisit so many games that I enjoyed when my attention span was larger, my worldly concerns far fewer and my free time seemingly endless. I also got to get my hands on the titles I only salivated at upon seeing them in game ads. With emulation, I can get back at some of the more frustrating games by putting in cheat codes and blasting through . As most of you, I remember gazing at the sprites and overall graphics. I remember squeezing every ounce of gameplay out of a title. It's different from a lot of the current-gen stuff I see today, but I also attribute that to my getting older and having interests elsewhere. I game maybe 2-3 hours a week at the max.

I've done a halfassed job of keeping up with what's current. I usually only get into new stuff after it's become hackable. I don't have the cash to pay $40-$60 for each new title, but I do buy the ones that I feel are worth it.

A bonus to this hobby has been exposing my younger cousins and other family to some great titles. My 13-year old cousin wants to play Shinobi, Dodonpachi and Strider through the XBox-based emulators every time he comes over. My 5- and 8-year old nephews enjoy the Sonic games on the Genesis.

So, this is a stream-of-consciousness pour of my appreciation for retro gaming. Racketboy, I also would like to throw out appreciation for your creation of this site and the growth that it's seen. You provide fresh, relevant content almost daily, and your passion shows.

racketboy, your article just about brought a tear to my eye.

i agree that being a retro gamer is more about your taste in gaming "styles" or experiences rather than being stuck in a particular era.

this place is great. so much nostalgia.

I too love retro (or retro-ish) games, though i was born only in 1990. I have no nostalgia for older games.

Growing up in my family, my mom put a limit on internet use and we were never allowed to play any video games. in 2004 or so, when my parents got divorced, my dad did everything in his power to make my mom as angry as possible, wich included buying my brother a gamecube for his birthday.

Years later I started buying cheap, broken consoles after realizing i had a talent for fixing them. my step-brother broke 3 playstation 2s somehow, so i got the broken consoles and put them together into two fully functioning machines, one of wich i sold and the other i kept for myself and added an 80 gig hard drive. Now i have more than 22 consoles and hundreds of games, and have a part time job this summer to save up for an xbox 360 and hopefully a Neo Geo AVS. Since i didn't grow up playing video games, I like to think that my judgement on whether or not a game is "good" will not be clouded by nostalgia. I love 2d games, and the snes is my favorite console, but i also regularly play 3d games. probably my favorite games is GTA 3, and i am currently playing through Jet Set Radio Fututre. My top ten favorites include:

(in no particular order)
GTA 3 (PS2)
D2 (Dreamcast)
Shenmue (Dreamcast)
JGR/JSRF (Dreamcast/XBOX)
Street Fighter 2 (SNES)
Earthbound (SNES)
Yoshi's Island (SNES)
Sega Rally (Saturn)
Metal Gear Solid (Gamecube)
Capcom vs. SNK 2 (Gamecube)

I'm trying to get a hold of a SEGA CD (they are amazingly hard to find in London, Ontario) so that i can play snatcher, and there are many Saturn titles i havent played yet (It took me 2 years and 90$ to finally find a working sega saturn in this city. games are next to impossible to find. I guess canadians werent really fans of failed sega systems) so this list will probably change soon. anyways, i love this site. I own many amazing games thjat i would have missed if not for articles here. i owe you guys a thanks.

Sounds like we are all alike in alot of ways. The similar ages and restrictions to technology fostered a life long addiction.

My specific interest became electronic music. Early game sounds and Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage) blew my little mind. Nirvana were dominating the charts but gaming bleeps and bilps were my soundtrack. Various Sega, Capcom,and lots of other sountracks were favorites.

I now produce electronic music and play live shows. My electronic music habit lead me to learn computers and electronics and my current job as a video/sound tech. Traveling to Japan is the best thing ever. I live for the trips. I plan to climb Fuji this August, but of course I'll be spending far more time in Akiba. Too bad I'm really not into manga, I could spend weeks there

I have a good job so I get to try all the new stuff (except PS3.. I agree with the comment alot of the games have a movie style that I don't like. "Twitch" games are sweet, shooters, fighters, sports. Stuff you can play over and over and eternally get better at. I often play around 2/3 of a game and then the difficulty ramps up to a point I don't want. I'm a damn casual gamer! With a Japanese game problem.

Gaming Moments that lead to my habit:

Playing SF2 arcade at 7-11/Nickel arcade..SF2/Mortal Kombat was amazing when the cabinets were stacked
Renting Neo-Geo and SF2 on SNES on release...pizza caffeine and pile of nerds
Witnessing Virtua Fighter at the arcade for the first time
Phantasy Star 2...yeah
Den Den Town/Akihabara Japan. I bacame one with my inner self. God I can't pick one. $1500 in one day in Osaka, joy.
Sega Saturn.....the crappiest system I just love.

Yeah this is a great place, I'm really not one for forums either. Great Job racketboy. So much BS on many other places, at least here I feel I can get along with the crowd without trying to argue the PS3-360-Wii argument. But now that I mention it I do own a 360 and Wii.

Gaming started very young, born in 81 and as far as I know I was born in a house that had an Atari 2600. I had an older sister it was hers and she played it somewhat... and I honestly can't remember being too young and not playing it. Later at around 5 or 6 I think I caught wind of the NES, so I didn't get it until a year or two after it launched, but forgive me I didn't read much news back then, didn't get out much either. But after I did find out about it I got it after lots and lots of begging that Christmas.

I'm not so much just a Retrogamer I play my fair share of new ones too, but I'm a gamer that knows the difference between good graphics and good games. At these levels of console generations none of us are playing a game to be stunned by graphics though as cool as that feeling is it never lasts. With each new generation of systems people are caught in the same pissing contest and forcing them selfs to mentally justify which system is worth their money. Ironically as soon as systems are replaced by their newer counterparts the systems them selfs aren't the discussion anymore conversations go straight back to what really matters and that the games the systems are nearly irrelevant, ie.. "oh you haven't played ____ yet!"

I was a very solid game console video game player up though the SNES / Genesis / Sega CD era. After holding out for a year for the Ultra64 after the Ps1 and Saturn game out cause I knew I could only get one at first and it was gonna be the big bad Ultra64. Shortly after the initial hit a few key titles Mario64, Turok and a few others I was already starting to get disappointed with where the N64 was going and by the time Zelda came out that was basically my last console game and then became an exclusive PC game player. It wasn't until Capcom Vs Snk 2 came out I really got sucked (in a real big way too) back into console games, the tournys at the local arcade was too much for me to pass up.

Some of my fav games:
8bit: bionic comando, metroid, dr mario, 1941(coin-op)
16/32bit: super metroid, mk1, sf2, snatcher, dark wizard, metalslug-x
64bit: mario64, zelda oot
pc: doom2, Gta1-2, the quake's, warcraft2-3,
ps2-era: cvs2, soul reaver, ikaruga, devil may cry, god of war , metroid zero mission
todays: gears of war, guitar hero, osu tatakae ouendan.

gradualmeltdown, I also had my first real music identification was with the music of a Sega CD game, growing up as a pre-teen you listen to whatever your friends listen to but I didn't particularly identify with anything. I was in 7th grade and I got Robo Aleste, the electro-classical-pop that game had for music really left an impression, listened to it a ton, my friends didn't like it at all. After that I somehow stumbled my way to some really old kraftwerk tapes and then some cd's of Future Sound of London and Juno Reactor, I've been a musically challenged outcast since.