In with the old
Blizzard Entertainment has released the 1.12 patch for Starcraft. It's still officially supported, still being improved, seven years after it came out in 1998. And people still play it. Professionally. In official competitions.
The Megaman Collection came out half a year ago. The Megaman X Collection is on its way. Meanwhile, the Sonic Mega Collection just came out and it's been getting good reviews. All of these are releases for current consoles (PS2, Gamecube, XBox).
We live in a time where re-released NES games, ported to the Game Boy Advance but otherwise identical to the originals, are priced as high as new releases.
And with Mario Cart coming to Japanese arcades, Shigeru Miyamoto says "he is honored to have Namco's Pac-Man as a guest in the game."
Why do these old games captivate us even after time has moved on? Are they simply the games we played back when we were really into games? Perhaps, but the the rereleases I mentioned aren't collector's editions with expensive packaging and memorabilia; they have similar packaging and seem to be aimed at the same market as every other game on the same shelf. No, I think what these games have in common is depth. They were so packed with content that you could find new things even after playing them for years. See the Tool-assisted console game movies for some examples of this.
The Megaman Collection came out half a year ago. The Megaman X Collection is on its way. Meanwhile, the Sonic Mega Collection just came out and it's been getting good reviews. All of these are releases for current consoles (PS2, Gamecube, XBox).
We live in a time where re-released NES games, ported to the Game Boy Advance but otherwise identical to the originals, are priced as high as new releases.
And with Mario Cart coming to Japanese arcades, Shigeru Miyamoto says "he is honored to have Namco's Pac-Man as a guest in the game."
Why do these old games captivate us even after time has moved on? Are they simply the games we played back when we were really into games? Perhaps, but the the rereleases I mentioned aren't collector's editions with expensive packaging and memorabilia; they have similar packaging and seem to be aimed at the same market as every other game on the same shelf. No, I think what these games have in common is depth. They were so packed with content that you could find new things even after playing them for years. See the Tool-assisted console game movies for some examples of this.
posted by Dugan Chen at 8:39 AM
