• Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

North East Connected

Hopping Across The North East From Hub To Hub

Retro Games Hold Strong Despite a Rapidly Evolving Medium

After the North East Retro Gaming Expo and multiple retro video game releases on current consoles, old school fans can rejoice as it seems gaming seems to still have a place for the oldies. But where exactly are these games cropping up and who’s still playing them? Well, if upcoming and recent releases are anything to go off of, it turns out just about everyone is having a good time with the classics. 

Let’s start first with Nintendo’s newest addition to the family, the Switch, which has outsold one of the best selling consoles of all time, the Wii, in its first quarter estimates, according to Gamestop and a report by nintendoeverything.com. While the Switch is very much a step into the future for Nintendo with a paid online service and cross-platform play, the portable/console hybrid has shown it still very much embraces the past. The release of the title Namco Museum (an assortment of early Namco arcade games), the Seiken Densetsu Collection (an assortment of retro games from the Mana series) and an excess of Neo Geo titles finding a home on the Switch shop only help to prove that even gaming’s newest system makes sure to include titles from earlier generation.

Kotaku even went so far as to say Puyo Puyo Tetris and Shovel Knight were two of the best 12 games the hardware has to offer. Big praise considering Puyo Puyo Tetris is a mashing of two titles that have been around for since before the turn of the century and Shovel Knight is a game heavily inspired by the platforming games of yesteryear. 

Speaking of Nintendo and gaming’s beginning, the utter popularity of the NES Classic and the newly announced Super NES Classic goes to show that while the older generation of gamers might be the ones interested in the miniature consoles, younger generations will surely be influenced by their inclusion in the household. Let’s just hope that Nintendo honours their decision to produce more consoles than their production run with the NES Classic, a mistake that had systems selling out nearly instantly around the world. 

Straying away from Nintendo, we can even see retro games are even a hit in the casinos. The slot game Flame Busters and the Roasty McFry shows that the 8-bit aesthetic is appreciated despite the strides we’ve made to update visuals. But moving beyond that, it’s the games themselves that follow retro gameplay conventions. For example, classic titles like online roulette are also retro yet modern, often capitalising on the retro aesthetic trend through their visuals and sounds too. Even when the technology is at its best and immersion has come to a whole new level, retro games have still remained part of the picture. Yeah, that’s right, we’re talking about virtual reality retro games – the ultimate combination of new age and smoky arcades. For a list of upcoming VR retro games be sure to check out uploadvr’s article on the interesting fusion.

But what about old school games themselves? Where are they? If these classics are still so popular, why are the arcades of the 80’s, the places that gave video games a place outside of the living room, practically extinct? Guess what? They might not be as extinct as you think. 

“Barcades,” a combination of a bar and arcade, have helped bring arcades out of the ashes with the promise of alcohol alongside everyone’s favourite electronic pastime. And even though this is a fairly recent trend (within the last four years) that barcades have made a stand, it seems some owners have had their barcades for more than 10 years according to an article by polygon.com. 

So it seems that despite video game fans wanting the highest detailed graphics, best framerate or most compelling storyline, the titles that built the framework for gaming are still very much a part of the scene. Let’s just be sure to check back in a few decades when everyone’s in full VR bodysuits to see if we can make the same claim. 

By Emily