We?ve all heard it at least one time in our gaming career ? ?Modern gaming is so inferior to retro-gaming?. It seems that these people have never taken into consideration just how far gaming has come since then. There are a lot of positive things that some people are forgetting.
Online Capabilities
We all know that this is definitely one of the greatest things that have come about in terms of modern gaming. You are able to meet people from around the world and are able to play with them. There are also different ways to go about playing online games as well. You have Halo with the match maker and allow you to play Slayer, Team Slayer, King of the Hill, and Capture the Flag. Another way to play online is with Assassin?s Creed where you go around and assassinate other players online. In regards to Dark Souls, if you allow it, other players can come into your own game and kill you if they so choose. This is a great aspect to modern gaming that the retro-gaming could never give players.
You can also buy games online now. Yes, going into the store and actually taking the game off of the shelf and when you get home and have that nostalgic smell of the new box as you open it or the shrink wrap over the video game case, you can never forget that, but buying games online has its advantages as well. If your hard-drive crashes on your computer, you are able to download the game again. Online also is able to make the distribution of games easier for the indie games that would have never gotten the light of day before. Obviously this isn?t perfect, but it is certainly an upgrade.
Video Game Graphics
This is a huge aspect to modern gaming. Instead of having that four-way or eight-way directionality, you have a full 360 degree motion. The physics of the games are amazing as well. For example, with Assassin?s Creed, you are able to climb buildings without interruption or lag from the game. Not only that, but the graphics have improved so substantially, people are crazy not to think that this isn?t a great aspect of modern gaming and are foolish for not being able to appreciate how far it has come since the retro-gaming age.
Yes, those 8-bit graphics are what gets us in terms of the retro-gaming and is a huge aspect of what people argue about to stay that retro-gaming is superior to modern gaming, but there are different angles and perspectives to go on in terms of what is considered to be ?superior?.
The open world concept is a excellent feature of modern gaming as well. You don?t have to follow just one straight path to the end of the game. These open worlds allow you to do what you?d like to do and either gain other achievements, do other quests on the side or just diddle around riding Epona in Zelda? (shh, I never did that).
Game Saving
Another huge aspect to modern gaming is that players are allowed to be able to save in the middle of the game. Yes, in regards to retro-gaming this is one of the signature things that it has for itself in terms of making it what it is, but being able to save games is definitely one could not live without in today?s modern gaming world. Some retro-games had saving capabilities, it was obviously a choice made by the developers, but the majority of the games back then never had that capability.
Most people nowadays don?t have the time to be able to beat an entire game in one sitting. Also, the frustration that it brings isn?t healthy either. People would appreciate knowing that when they save their game and go off to do something that they can sit back down, relax and return to where they had left off.
Achievements
Nowadays, people who play games are able to unlock achievements in the games. For Xbox Live, you are able to get Gamer Points and for the Playstation 3, you are able to unlock trophies. In the games themselves, they have achievements as well specific to each game. In Batman: Arkham Aslyum, you are able to unlock ?Riddler Trophies?. In Battlefield 3, you are able to unlock medals. It just gives something for the player to continue playing the game and keep them interested, whereas the retro-gaming, you are done once the storyline is over.
These are just some of the things that modern gaming has brought to the table and there are a lot more characteristics that could have been mentioned, but I?d be here all day. Modern gaming isn?t a bad thing at all. It has come so far from where it started and it is just going to continue to improve as time goes on and technology innovates. The understanding of why retro-gaming is better than modern gaming can be understood to a degree, but again, ultimately, there is a difference between nostalgia and superiority when it comes to retro-gaming and people should recognize that when trying to argue between retro-gaming and modern gaming.