#oneaday Day 782: Slow the rate

At lunchtime today, I thought I would actually go out for a bit and have a quick look in my local CEX. It's only about a five minute drive away, so I had plenty of time to grab a sandwich and then have a bit of a browse. And on past visits to CEX, I have usually come away with an armful of goodies, which I have acquired for pretty good prices — even if some are missing the manuals. Today, however, I found myself browsing the selection and not really feeling drawn to anything in particular.

I've been feeling this a bit recently, particularly with regard to recent releases. There are exceptions, of course — I've picked up Star Fox, Rhythm Paradise Groove and Splatoon Raiders for Switch 2 over the course of the last month, and when I got home from CEX, I found myself ordering copies of the first four Saints Row games (original versions, not remasters, as I've heard mixed reports about the latter) as well as the newly announced EDITIONS from LostInCult for Sektori, Dread Delusion and Easy Delivery Co. So in actual fact I probably spent a lot more than I would have spent if I'd come out with an armful of 360, PS3 and PS4 games from that CEX.

But I don't know. I just wasn't feeling it in the store today. I had a couple of things in mind that I thought I might like to look out for (notably, the aforementioned Saints Row games, following a discussion with a pal earlier) and those did not appear to be in attendance, and there wasn't much else jumping out at me. I thought about trying to expand and/or complete my collection of Need for Speed games on Xbox 360, but the vaguely responsible part of my brain pointed out that I haven't played the parts of that collection I already own as yet, so it would probably be a little silly to get more. (Actually, it wouldn't have made much difference; they were like £1.50 each; I just couldn't be arsed.)

I don't want to say that I'm falling out of love with gaming, because that very obviously isn't true. But with all the recent, unwelcome moves in the current industry — Microsoft continually stepping on rakes, Sony putting an expiration date on physical media, Nintendo continuing to push Game Key Cards — it's hard not to feel a bit cynical about current things, and that my relationship with the hobby is changing. On top of that, stuff that is a few years old now is still good! Since I'm not someone who has ever got particularly sniffy about resolution and frame rate, I'm pretty sure I'll have just as good a time with those Xbox 360 versions of the Saints Row games as I would have done if I'd picked up the (pricier) PS4 or Switch versions.

I mean, hell, outside of Splatoon Raiders, the other "big game" I'm currently playing is on the SNES. And I'm glad that I have the ability to enjoy this broad range of stuff — ranging from late '70s/early '80s computer and console stuff right up to brand new releases. I know not everyone feels able to do that for one reason or another, and honestly I feel a bit sorry for those people who can't. Perhaps you just had to "be there" for it all to have those positive associations, and if I was 20-30 years younger I might feel differently about games that ran at sub-1080p resolutions and less than 60 frames per second.

But, as it happens, that is not the case, and thus I will continue to enjoy my Old Shit alongside very carefully selected and curated New Shit, and try not to spend too much time mourning an industry that, in its current state, seems determined to self-destruct.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 778: That feeling you should be doing something

I'm having one of those days where my brain feels restless, where it feels like I "should" be doing something, but as far as I am aware, I have no commitments this weekend whatsoever, so I should just be taking the time to relax, enjoy myself and mentally prepare for the week ahead. (There's nothing particularly special about the week ahead, either, just the weekend is generally a good time to mentally prepare yourself for actually having to do things for, like, your job and stuff.)

I'm unsure where this particular anxiety stems from, but it's not an altogether uncommon phenomenon. It seems it is most frequently associated with ADHD, which I have not been formally diagnosed with, but which from talking to people who do have it, I recognise a lot of the things they mention — much like I did with autism before I went and got myself diagnosed. I'm not in any great hurry to get myself diagnosed in that regard, though I suspect, as with the autism diagnosis, that having it confirmed (or otherwise) might help me to think about my own brain in a more helpful way.

But regardless! That doesn't fix the immediate issue, which is my brain is currently doing somersaults wondering what I should actually do today. And it's not as if I have a shortage of options. I could play some Final Fantasy XI, now I am into the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion. I could play some Terranigma, which I started the other day and enjoyed a lot. I could play some Splatoon Raiders, which I am also having fun with. I could record a voiceover for my Illusion of Time video and then edit said video now that I have learned the basics of DaVinci Resolve. I could even record some voiceovers for some work videos and get those out of the way if I really wanted to.

Or I could do something completely different. I could actually leave the house for some reason, perhaps pay a visit to CEX in town and see if they have anything interesting. I could go for a walk on the common (although I feel like the exact time I'm typing this is probably not the best time to do that, given how hot and humid it appears to be outside, so I will probably save that for later). I could pull down a random game from the shelf and give that a go. I could do some creative writing. I could write about a game I've been playing recently. I could record some Let's Play-style videos (again, I think it might be a bit too hot to do that right now). I could learn what "colour grading" is. I could practice some Japanese.

This is the problem, y'see. The problem is not that I have nothing to do, it's that I have a lot of options for what I could do, and pretty much all of them would be enjoyable and/or fulfilling in some way. One might say that this means it doesn't really matter which one of them I pick, as I will be having an enjoyable and fulfilling experience regardless. But for some reason, when this sort of mental block strikes, it doesn't quite work like that; my brain starts to feel genuine anxiety over whether or not I am picking the "correct" or "best" option, whatever that means — and there really is no "correct" or "best" option here. There is nothing I have to do; there is nothing that will make my life significantly better or worse if I do or don't do it. So all I need to do is just… pick something.

My intent was to follow that paragraph with something along the lines of "So I'm off to go and… [x]". But as I went to type that, my brain started a tug-of-war process with itself, still worrying over whether or not I was making the right choice. So I'm going to set myself a firm but friendly ultimatum — without being aggressive or sergeant-majorish about it — and say that by the time I finish writing this paragraph, I will have made a decision of what to do for the immediate now, not necessarily the whole day, but for the period immediately following completing this paragraph. Whenever I finish this paragraph. I am absolutely, positively, definitely not stalling for time while I attempt to get my mind in order. Definitely not. Perish the thought! Who would do something like that, even? That's ridiculous. I can absolutely, definitely make a decision on what Nice Thing I would like to do today.

I'm going to go and play Terranigma for a bit. Then we'll see what happens from there.

There, see, that wasn't so hard, was it?

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#oneaday Day 776: Splatting Salmonids

Splatoon Raiders arrived yesterday, a day earlier than I was expecting it, and I've been playing it. It's a good time! It's the latest in an increasingly long line of titles from Nintendo that feel like video games used to feel like. It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be an overly elaborate piece of art, it's not trying to tell an in-depth story — it's just trying to be a fun, enjoyable game. And it's succeeding at that. (This is not to say that there is no artistry within the game itself, mind. Rather, attempting to "be a work of art" is not its primary focus.)

For the unfamiliar, Splatoon Raiders is a Nintendo Switch 2 game that, in contrast to the prior three Splatoon games, places the single-player experience at the forefront. Those of you who have never played a Splatoon game before may be surprised to note that there is, in fact, a single-player game in every Splatoon game, and even more surprised to hear that it has been consistently very good in the past — it's just very few people ever really talk about it, as the focus of the series has always been on its competitive multiplayer modes. And that's a pity, because although each game's single-player campaign is perhaps a little on the short side, they (and the DLC for the more recent ones) have been consistently excellent, featuring top-notch level design and some quality gameplay that blends action, platforming, puzzle solving and simple observation skills.

Splatoon Raiders is a little bit different. Although it unfolds in a series of self-contained levels, these are, for the most part, a tad more open than the rather linear, abstract levels of prior Splatoon campaigns. There are some stages that very much have the feel of classic single-player Splatoon — mostly the "Sample Dungeon" stages which challenge you to overcome a series of obstacles and encounters with a specific loadout — but on the whole, the focus is a bit different.

That's no bad thing, though, and one thing Splatoon Raiders does pretty well is keep things varied. On some levels you'll be fighting your way through a relatively linear path to an end point, where you receive a treasure. On others, you'll be in an arena, battling to defeat enough enemies to build up an energy bar before time expires. Some levels present you with a series of these arenas. Others still are more open, tasking you with building up energy by defeating enemies on a relatively large map until you are able to mine a large crystal and obtain its resources.

The very nature of the game means that there's not quite as much of the clever platforming and observation challenges of classic single-player Splatoon, but that's not to say it's completely absent. In fact, most of the non-arena stages have a series of hidden items on them, and tracking these down very much has the feel of the older Splatoon campaigns, because they will require you to go a bit off the beaten track, investigate interesting-looking areas and sometimes take a few risks. And the rewards are worthwhile; besides scrolls that contain lore, most of these stages also contain a compass, which unlocks access to a semi-secret level — one of the aforementioned "Sample Dungeons".

I'll doubtless have more to say about the game when I've played it a bit more, but so far I'm impressed. The "looter shooter" element provides plenty of interesting opportunities for progression — and incentive to try various different types of weapon — without being overly obnoxious or overloading you with pointless variants on the same equipment. A variety of simple and straightforward crafting systems allow you to unlock new abilities and features. And the ability to revisit past levels in "Spicy" mode provides alternatives for gathering materials and loot than simply grinding the same level over and over again.

The only thing I'm not entirely sure about is the music. I get why it is the way it is — it's an attempt to reflect the chaos of the battles in which you find yourself — but dear Lord, there are certain tracks that sound like a school orchestra tuning up and then immediately launching into a failed attempt to play the complete soundtrack to Darius. I would have much rather had music somewhat akin to what there was in the multiplayer matches of regular Splatoon, but you can't have everything I guess. It certainly creates an atmosphere of sorts, I'll give it that!

There will, of course, be a full write-up of Splatoon Raiders on MoeGamer when I'm satisfied that I've played enough of it to be able to speak with complete confidence about it. But for now, I'm happy to say that I'm having a good time, and I'm looking forward to playing some more!

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#oneaday Day 771: Anachronistic wonderment

A trait I have somehow been able to hold onto over the years — and which I have no intent of letting go of — is the ability to be impressed by things which, today, are not actually "impressive" as such, but which would have been impressive back when they were current. To give just one example, my mind is still blown by the parallax scrolling in the backdrop of Sonic the Hedgehog's Green Hill Zone.

To give another example — and the one that prompted me to write this today — I am currently playing Quintet's Illusion of Time (aka Illusion of Gaia to North Americans) and I have been thoroughly impressed by its visual design overall, but one of my favourite things is the fact that its parallax backdrops, when it uses them (it's a top-down game) accurately reflect the things that you're supposed to be "above". To put it another way, when you're high above something, the things you can see down below are accurate to what you would see if you were actually down there.

Looking back over my Soul Blazer video, I'm pretty sure Soul Blazer did this in a few places as well, but Illusion of Time seems to do it fairly consistently. And I'm impressed! They didn't have to go to that much effort, but they did!

The reason this impresses me is that a lot of games like this would have used a fairly generic parallax backdrop, and no-one would have minded too much. The illusion of depth would be there — which is what parallax is used for — and the fact that it wasn't "accurate" wouldn't have mattered, because it has no real impact on the actual gameplay.

For example, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past uses a very simple tiled parallax backdrop to show that there is something beneath you rather than it being a bottomless pit. You can use this information to recognise which pits it is safe to jump down — to get to otherwise inaccessible areas, for example — and which it is not. While an accurate reflection of the floor beneath's map might be helpful in this situation, Zelda has enough other features to allow you to calculate the place where you will end up without having to be able to see down the hole. And, indeed, with the limited area you can see through Zelda's holes (pardon me), it's probably more practical to just look at the map and recognise "this is a hole I can jump down" rather than try to figure out exactly where you'll land from the tiny bit of parallax background you can see through said hole.

In Illusion of Time, however, these parallax backgrounds are purely there to look cool. In one sequence where you're exploring a mine, for example, you initially see ropeways with hanging platforms "in front of" the screen, suggesting they're above where you currently are. Later in the stage, you get up to the level of the ropeways and ride one across a large gap. Since, so far as the game is concerned, you are in a different "room" while you're doing this, there probably didn't "need" to be a parallax background at all, but not only did Quintet include one, it was a full, accurate map of the floor beneath.

That, to me, is impressive! It is not impressive by today's standards, because today you would just build your entire level in 3D and be able to see through holes and chasms to the floor beneath naturally. I am impressed with this in Illusion of Gaia, however, because I know that it wouldn't have been that simple to do. Well, it might have been relatively simple — all it really needs to be is an image of the floor below's map used as the parallax background — but it's a level of effort I recognise as being outside of the norm for the time, and thus I appreciate it.

This is where having an understanding and an appreciation of a wide range of things within your hobby is helpful. Someone who had only ever played modern games would think nothing of this little feature. But having grown up with all these different "generations" of gaming hardware, developing a vague (if non-technical) understanding of their capabilities (and lack thereof) along the way, I can recognise when something is an impressive achievement for its original time of release.

I hope I never let go of this trait. It adds so much depth of enjoyment to my appreciation of older games — and I encourage you to try and develop it, too.

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#oneaday Day 764: Just games

There was yet another round of Tedious Discourse™ today over what the word "retro" really means, if anything, when it comes to video games. As always, there were lots of varying definitions, no agreement, and a bunch of people getting in a bit of a flap about it when their definitions of "retro" didn't line up with other people's definition of "retro".

Several people, as part of this process, pointed out that the term "retro" is not really all that helpful any more, and I'm inclined to agree. And yes, I'm aware I say this as part of a company that specifically markets itself as "retro gaming"-focused — and someone who has a "Retro Video Games" category on his blog — but what I'm about to talk about applies to all that, also.

My feelings are pretty simple: drop the "retro". They're just games. Zork? Game. Adventure for 2600? Game. The Last of Us? Game. The Witcher 3? Game. Gone Home? Game. (There, that should have covered everything that might piss at least one person off.)

The reason I say this is that as soon as you introduce the word "retro" into the mix, you also introduce a perceived barrier to entry. "Retro gaming" is perceived as a markedly different hobby to "gaming", whereas this doesn't really happen with any other medium. You might have people who are into different genres of books, movies, music, TV shows and suchlike, but you don't get people going "yeah, I'm a retro reader". Even people who make the majority of their reading time involve pre-20th century literature just "enjoy reading" — because most of them don't confine themselves to that one, single niche all of the time. Why? Because that's daft. Just because you like Jane Eyre doesn't mean you can't enjoy The Da Vinci Code or whatever. And you're not any less of a "reader" if you do.

The net effect of this when it comes to gaming is that you get people who will only ever play the latest and greatest games, and if it came out more than three weeks ago it might as well not exist, and you get people who will happily play a triple-A cinematic blockbuster one evening, an 8-bit home computer game another and a PlayStation RPG the next. You also get people who fall somewhere between those two extremes, which is a perfectly reasonable and healthy way to approach things. No-one is saying you have to enjoy everything from throughout the entirety of gaming history, but to draw a completely imaginary "hard cutoff" line between what is "modern" and what is "retro" based on, let's face it, nothing other than vibes is kind of ridiculous.

Case in point: currently, I am playing through Soul Blazer. This is a game originally released for Super NES in 1992 (1994 if you're PAL like me). There is absolutely nothing about this game that someone who has only ever played games released in the last three weeks would not be able to grasp. There's a common misconception that "retro games are complicated, you need to read the manual", but Soul Blazer is literally "move in four directions, hit things with your sword", and everything else is introduced either organically through gameplay, or explicitly told to you. You could release Soul Blazer today, completely unchanged — gorgeous pixel art has never gone out of fashion, thankfully — and it would be regarded as a good game, because it is a good game. It's not a good retro game, it's just a good game.

I think some of this likely originally stems from the crossover between the Mega Drive and SNES era to the age of PlayStation, Saturn and N64. Rumours abounded at the time that developers were specifically being discouraged from making 2D pixel art games on PlayStation, because polygonal 3D — even the relatively janky polygonal 3D of the PlayStation — was regarded as the One True Future. But I'm not sure quite how true that ever was, because one of the absolute most beloved games of that particular period — Castlevania: Symphony of the Night — was resolutely 2D, with only very occasional polygons used for special effects or parallax backgrounds. And there are countless other beautiful, wonderful and well-loved 2D games from that era — particularly on Saturn. Marginally less so on N64, but that was operating in a bit of a world of its own anyway. (Also, play Mischief Makers.)

That doesn't really explain how this sort of thinking appears to have persisted for this long, though. Yes, over the last 20 years or so there very much has been a rise in the sort of gamer who only ever buys that year's Call of Duty, FIFA/Madden or equivalent and leaves it at that, who doesn't really consider the history of the medium. But there seems to be the perception that there are plenty of people who have been gaming since the '80s — even earlier in some cases — who, for whatever reason, will not play anything released before a certain date — or, at the very least, will corral those experiences into a distinct "retro gaming" category, distinct from the implied "proper" modern gaming sector where they spend the majority of their time. I don't doubt people like that exist, but I wonder how widespread they really are.

Some of this is down to access; we're all familiar with that Video Game History Foundation report, or at least I hope we are at this point. But "not commercially available" is by no means the same as "inaccessible" these days. You don't even need original hardware; emulation of pretty much everything up to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era is in a good place, and after that (some would argue during that period) the newer games consoles were basically just PCs anyway, so outside of a dwindling number of genuine exclusives, you can play all that stuff pretty easily, too. At this point, everyone, everywhere, so long as you have some combination of an Internet connection, a computer and a monitor or TV, can enjoy pretty much any game released within the last 50 years without very much in the way of effort.

And modern rereleases of stuff that first came out many years ago are happening, too, if you don't want to delve into the proverbial high seas! There's Hamster's Arcade and Console Archives series on the current consoles. There are numerous bespoke releases of classic console, computer and arcade games on various platforms. Evercade, the platform I work on, has a huge number of cartridges at this point, covering more that 700 games between them, all of them officially licensed rereleases!

Any perceived barrier to entry that "retro gaming" might have had in the past — be that the technical knowhow required to get old finicky hardware up and running; the possession of vintage CRT TV hardware; an understanding of what "RGB" is; the ability to recap an Xbox or replace the battery in a Dreamcast — has not been there for a good long while, unless you want to enjoy a specific type of experience. (Snobbery over whether you're "doing retro gaming right" is a whole other discussion, mind, and it's hopefully already clear where my opinions fall on that side of things.)

If you enjoy games, you (hopefully) just enjoy games. There is absolutely no rule written down anywhere that places down a hard boundary of what you are allowed to enjoy, based on whatever combination of "year of release" and "age of player" people are using to calculate their completely arbitrary definition of "retro". Sure, some older stuff might take a little adjusting to if you're unfamiliar with it — much as reading Jane Eyre takes a bit of adjustment after reading The Da Vinci Code — but it's still the same basic form of entertainment at heart: push buttons, fun (or at least interesting) stuff happens.

Go on. Spoil yourself. Play something from a system you've never explored before. Revisit a game you haven't played since childhood. Fire up a copy of that one game you always saw in magazines and lusted over, but which you never got for Christmas or birthdays. And, with an appropriately receptive and open mind, I pretty much guarantee that you'll have an experience just as interesting, compelling and worthwhile as if you played something that released last week.

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#oneaday Day 762: Some nice things

I started typing out a post about how shit everything was. I got to about 600 words, and I even found a really good stock image of some horseshit.

Then I looked at what I had written and thought, "no, I should not give in to despair, even if it does seem like it has been a very long time since anything has happened which I can honestly say is to the betterment of humanity as a whole". So I deleted all of it, replaced the image of horseshit with a picture of Patti (above) and decided that a helpful thought exercise would be to ponder some Nice Things. Doesn't matter what they are, how big they are, how important they are — just that they are Nice Things that I thought were worth celebrating. So let's pick out… ooh, let's say, five, as that's a nice number to work with. And I'm going to focus on gaming because a lot of stuff in gaming sucks right now.

Mike Bithell's new game looks cool

Mike Bithell, of Thomas Was Alone fame, has been teasing his new game for a while, and yesterday he finally revealed it. It's called Vampirium: 1997 and is set in an alternate near-history where Dracula is the king of England, and you are one of his retainers, with dark powers all your own.

Bithell describes the game as an "immersive sim", but if you're thinking of a first-person adventure-style affair — which is what the term "immersive sim" usually gets applied to — you might be surprised to discover that this is a rather more abstract affair that, from what we've seen so far, looks to take a lot of cues from tabletop gaming. The "immersive sim" aspect comes from how you have a lot of freedom to tackle situations as you see fit — supposedly you can "click and combine game tiles to access verbs and craft your own diabolical resolutions". Sounds pretty interesting to me!

The game doesn't have a release date as yet, but will be launching into Early Access in the near future, and having a bunch of stuff added to it as the community gets to grips with it. It will then have a "1.0" release when all that is done, and we should have another great vampire game on our hands.

Wadjet Eye Games is 20 years old

If you (yes, you!) have ever uttered the fateful words "adventure games are dead" at any point in recent history, you have not been paying attention, because one of the absolute best developer-publishers to ever Do That Thing turned 20 years old today. Yes! Wadjet Eye Games has been releasing excellent adventure games since 2006, and their work has been going from strength to strength year after year — both in terms of the stuff they've made themselves, and the titles they've published from other developers.

I honestly, genuinely believe that the point-and-click adventure game is in a better place today than it ever was back in the LucasArts and Sierra heyday; don't get me wrong, I adore the "golden age" games and always will, since they were formative experiences for me. But you cannot look at incredible recent(ish) releases like The Excavation of Hob's Barrow (developed by Cloak & Dagger and published by Wadjet Eye) and Old Skies (developed in-house at Wadjet Eye) and think "nah, it was way better back then".

It fills my heart with gladness to know that amid all the chaos in the games industry right now, a company dedicated to releasing games of the kind it believes in — not what shareholders want, not what passing trends say you "should" be making, not what is supposedly the most profitable — is able to not only survive, but thrive. I sincerely hope Wadjet Eye Games continues to stick around for many years to come.

Scott Pilgrim EX is fun

My limited edition copy of Scott Pilgrim EX, which comes in a lovely oversized NeoGeo-esque clamshell case, arrived yesterday, and I spent most of the evening playing it through. It's a lot of fun! It successfully manages to feel true to the prior game — which is an all-time favourite — while shaking things up a bit and keeping things interesting.

I'll have more to say about this over on MoeGamer at some point in the near future, but suffice it to say for now that I had a lot of fun with my first playthrough — and with a full run through the game only being about 2.5 hours in total, I can see plenty more in my future, particularly with the possibility of online multiplayer in the mix.

Soul Blazer is great

I already knew this, but my recent starting-a-new-playthrough-and-I'll-probably-definitely-finish-it-this-time go at Quintet's awesome SNES action RPG Soul Blazer has reminded me how much I like that game. Again, I will write more about this on MoeGamer when I've actually beaten the damn thing — I'm a little shy of halfway through so far, I believe — but I am happy to say, right now, that if you have never played this delightful little game (and it is pretty little — I reckon it'll take less than 10 hours to beat, which begs the question why I've never gotten around to doing so) then you are very much missing out on one of the most charming 16-bit games there ever was.

I have finished "The Best Bit" of Final Fantasy XI

A lot of people seem to agree that Chains of Promathia is the best bit of Final Fantasy XI and now, outside of the epilogue quests and the optional Bahamut fight (which I might wait to do until I'm level 99 for the sake of simplicity) I have finally beaten it! This has been a kind of "gaming ambition" for me pretty much ever since I played Final Fantasy XI for the first time, and I have finally made it a reality.

This is another thing I would like to write about on MoeGamer in the very near future, so I will simply say that I enjoyed myself, and I'm glad I finally took this journey. I think I need at least a short break before heading off to seek the Treasures of Aht Urhgan though…!

Anyway, those are Five Good Things of Varying Relevance in gaming right now. I post these not to diminish the impact or importance of the Bad Stuff happening at the moment, but instead to hopefully provide a little reprieve. I sincerely wish that everyone who is going through tough times right now — and there are a lot of people going through tough times in the industry right now — is able to at least find some joy in the day-to-day, and doesn't give in to despair; I also hope that many of these people will tell their stories, frankly and honestly, because they need to be told. And they need to be told by the people who have been affected, not by some random idiot on the Internet.

One day, I hope these terrible times will be behind us, and we will be able to look back on them and go "fucking hell, never do that again". Until then, take care of yourselves. Don't give up. And play Soul Blazer.

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#oneaday Day 761: The depths of the id

I think one of the hardest things to watch during the latest of myriad sessions of layoffs over at XBOX, The Everything Console has been seeing id Software be gutted. Everyone has That One Company who always made stuff that they liked, which has been there since their childhood, and for me I think that company is id Software.

Some of my fondest memories of playing games in the early (relatively speaking) days of PC gaming were of id Software titles. Commander Keen. Wolfenstein 3-D. Doom. Quake. All absolute legends of gaming history, each for their own reasons.

I didn't just love id's games for the games themselves — though that was a big part of it. I loved them for the way they brought my friends and I together over shared enjoyment of them. I loved them for helping me come out of my shell a bit and do some part-time work for a local shareware library. I loved them for how they allowed me to relate to the people I worked alongside during my Year 10 work experience in the PC Zone offices.

And, of course, I loved them for introducing me to shareware, providing me with hours of entertainment for absolutely no cost whatsoever. I played the shareware episodes of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom to absolute death, only coming to the full versions some time later — many years later in some cases. At the time I was playing these games, I was still a teenager, and not financially independent enough to do something as serious as mail-ordering the full version of a game from the States. I kind of wish I had at least ordered a copy of Doom; those original mail-order boxed versions are worth a fair bit now!

And there's all the surrounding culture, too. Wolfenstein 3-D introduced me to modding games. I'm not generally a huge fan of modding games these days, but back in the Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom days I found it fascinating, and highly enjoyable to make Wolfenstein 3-D maps in particular. (At the time, I found Doom editing to be a bit confusing and never really got on with it. Maybe I should try it again now I am old and, in theory, less stupid.) Hell, as I've told the story numerous times before, modding Wolfenstein 3-D once earned me $200 and a place in the official "Super Upgrades" expansion pack by Apogee — an oft-forgotten but nonetheless official addon to the original game.

Of course I'm aware that the id Software of today is very different from the id Software I grew up with — but I'm sure there were at least some people who have built a whole career and a life there. While the company isn't going away entirely, I am saddened to see it take such a devastating blow; the current state of the games industry is, frankly, really quite worrying, and I'm concerned a lot of well-established names aren't going to survive what is increasingly looking like a full-on crash.

I'm not going to be angry and yell about what has happened, for a variety of reasons. Most of all I just want to raise a glass to id Software, makers of some of the greatest games of all time, and celebrate the amazing times they have given me over the years — and continue to give me, as I so often return to their most famous works.

Who knows what the future holds? I certainly don't. I sincerely hope that, in the long term, it looks a lot brighter, especially for everyone who has been affected by Recent Happenings.

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#oneaday Day 760: My own feelings on old games

First up, here's a good piece that I read earlier today, and which my resharing a clip of on Bluesky did Numbers to such a degree that I had to mute the thread. I stand by my comment of "fucking preach" about it, however, particularly the paragraph about today's games having their roots in older titles — and how it pays to not be snobbish about stuff released some time ago.

vibrant retro arcade machine with joysticks and buttons — Photo by Dan Butler on Pexels.com

If you're reading this, you probably don't need me to tell you my feelings about old games, but I'm going to talk about them anyway — if only for the benefit of anyone who might be stumbling across this blog for the first time, or for anyone who, somehow, did not know the following about me.

I love old games! I always have done. For as long as I can remember, I have loved going back to earlier gaming systems and either rediscovering old favourites, or discovering brand new ones. I quite regularly boot up the MiSTer's Atari 8-bit, ST and Amiga cores to play the games of my childhood — and the games that I lusted after in my childhood. I also explore the libraries of consoles that I never had the opportunity to own, or which were prohibitively expensive, or which just passed me by for one reason or another. It's a constant delight, and I think, as the article linked states, it has done me a lot of good, too.

Probably the best thing that Being Into Old Games has taught me is not to give a rat's ass about performance, unless said performance is actively detrimental to the overall experience. I grew up gaming on systems that could barely manage simple flat-shaded 3D polygonal scenes at about 10 frames per second, and had a ton of fun on platforms like the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64, both of which have graphical capabilities it would be very easy to find laughable today if you're a snobbish dickhead.

There really are people out there who will declare games from this era (and earlier) "unplayable" because they run at an inconsistent frame rate, or a low resolution, or have blurry textures, or use a "weird" controller. (Fun fact: the Nintendo 64 controller is absolutely fine when playing games that were designed for it! That said, if you really don't get along with it, I recommend either this for modern USB devices, or this for original hardware.)

There are people out there who completely fail to grasp the absolute phenomenon that was GoldenEye and Perfect Dark split-screen multiplayer. None of us cared that the frame rate was, by today's standards, bobbins! The games were fun! That was literally all that mattered! And you can still live your life that way! I bet if I hooked up a MiSTer with four controllers and ran Perfect Dark on it at a party, people would be fighting over it by the end of the evening. (This makes the mistaken assumption that I would 1) throw a party and 2) have anyone to invite to a party, mind, but I am speaking purely hypothetically here.)

Don't get me wrong, it is undoubtedly nice to play a modern, high-resolution game that runs super smoothly and slickly. Certain genres particularly benefit from absolutely rock-solid performance — but that doesn't magically make games from years gone by that didn't run at a constant 60+ fps suddenly completely unplayable or not worth bothering with. Ridge Racer Type 4, one of the greatest video games ever created, only just about cracks 30 and runs at a resolution of 320×240 pixels (on NTSC displays, anyway) during races! And yet I go back to Ridge Racer Type 4 more than pretty much any other racing game released since then… except maybe the Project Gotham games.

One of the nicest things about older games that I'm coming to appreciate a whole lot more as I get older is that they just respect your time more. Even in RPGs, there's a lot less endless grinding, a lot less "content" designed for "player retention" — and I know some people like them, but the complete absence of Achievements and/or Trophies is absolute bliss, because it means you can play and enjoy each and every game exactly how you want to, without feeling obliged to tick things off a checklist — including boring, tedious things you don't actually want to do — lest you feel you haven't "Platinumed" it properly.

I am a strong, strong advocate for expanding your gaming horizons and exploring the incredibly vast, diverse and vibrant history of the medium. And I mean all of the history! There are Atari 2600 (River Raid! H.E.R.O.! Seaquest! Keystone Kapers!) and Intellivision (Night Stalker! Tower of Doom! Cloudy Mountain!) games that still play great today — and which I, personally, frequently return to, by choice, for a gaming session of an evening. There are myriad Super NES, PlayStation and Saturn RPGs just waiting for me to play them — and I'm looking forward to doing so. And even though I played a lot of N64 back in the day, there's still a lot of games from that relatively slim library that I've never tried — and really want to!

If you're concerned for the future of gaming — and given all the recent happenings, I absolutely do not blame you for that — then don't just give up and assume it's all over. Even if there were to be no more games released ever after tomorrow — and we all know that's not going to happen, regardless of whether or not we're actually in the process of seeing a new Crash happen — there are enough games that have already been released, across all platforms, to keep all of us busy for the rest of our lives.

Something doesn't stop being relevant, worthwhile or interesting because it's 20, 30, 40 years old or more. In many cases, these games are all the more remarkable for remaining relevant, worthwhile and interesting after so long — and it's not just nostalgia. There's something there; something of great value. And I implore you to spend some time exploring it, particularly if you've never done so.

Now I'm off to play Soul Blazer for the rest of the evening.

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#oneaday Day 759: Accidental multiplayer

Last night in Final Fantasy XI, I had an excellent experience that reminded me of one of the particularly fun things about games with persistent online worlds: the scope for accidental, unstructured yet nonetheless meaningful instances of playing with other people.

I was working my way through the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi, one of the last dungeons in the Chains of Promathia expansion. This dungeon initially looks like something of a labyrinth, but there's actually a linear path through it; a lot of exits are blocked off, forcing you to go one particular direction, and certain doors can only be triggered by activating a "Quasilumin" entity at a special alcove, which will then proceed on patrol — while you have to protect them, naturally — and open various portals along the way.

This task is soloable, particularly with the computer-controlled "Trust" characters you can bring nearly everywhere with you in the game at this point, but it can be a slow process, what with you having to stop and start the Quasilumin in order to keep them out of trouble, clear a path through the enemies ahead and follow along to make sure they don't leave you behind. There's also a time limit on each patrol, so you can't hang around too long.

Partway through my explorations, I ran into another player who was seemingly doing the same thing as me. We didn't really say a lot to one another, but it was pretty clear we were working on the same objective. Since Final Fantasy XI's dungeons are not instanced — that means you can just randomly run into other players doing the same thing as you, rather than getting your own "private" version of a dungeon to clear at your leisure — it tends to pay off if you team up with people you randomly run into.

And sure enough, it did. We settled into a good rhythm where my companion would keep an eye on the Quasilumin, starting and stopping it as required, while I would go on ahead and clear out the enemies in the path it was about to take. Together, it still took a while, but we eventually successfully made it through the whole dungeon, and it was a really nice, warm moment that we shared together.

I'm generally not a big fan of playing with random other people, whether the game in question is competitive or cooperative. In competitive games, I don't like dealing with sweaties who take things far too seriously, and in cooperative games… well, I also don't like dealing with sweaties who take things far too seriously. You would think cooperative games would be a place where "nice" people hang out, but in my experience, no, that is absolutely not the case. In fact, some cooperative games feel way more toxic than anything competitive I have ever played.

All of the above is the case if you are playing structured activities, whether they are cooperative or competitive. When people jump into something like this, of course they want to win, and if they feel like someone is holding them back in some way — whether or not that is a fair assessment — they will, if they're a Certain Type of Person, kick off.

But if you're in an activity where the two (or more) of you have run into one another by complete chance, I tend to find that it's much more likely you will have a pleasant shared experience with one another. Last night's example in Final Fantasy XI is just the most recent example, but I also still have very fond memories of a time I was playing Test Drive Unlimited on Xbox 360, back when its servers were still active, and encountered someone on the high-speed freeway that runs across a lot of the map. This person was obviously just hooning it up and down the freeway in their Ferrari looking for trouble, and so I provided some trouble for them. We didn't even get into the game's organised one-on-one races by flashing our lights at one another; we just careened across most of the map, causing chaos along the way and having a thoroughly lovely time in the process.

Other people can be all right, sometimes. If you catch them when they're very much "at play" rather than taking their entertainment extremely super-seriously, it can even be super-fun to hang out with them and just dick around — no worrying about stats, progress or efficiency. Just pure, unbridled fun and joy; something we're all too short of these days, and thus I encourage you to cling onto it whenever you encounter it.

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#oneaday Day 758: Hexagons and light

I'm definitely coming up on the end of the Chains of Promathia expansion for Final Fantasy XI. Know how I can tell? Because I'm into an area where everything is made out of hexagons and light, and the world doesn't quite behave as it "should".

I'm not entirely sure why this became such a common trope in role-playing games, particularly those of Asian origin. I assume there's some sort of inherent significance to hexagons — or perhaps someone once just thought they looked cool and futuristic, and everyone else copied that first person. Both explanations are entirely plausible.

A lot of people mock role-playing games that pull the "final boss is in space!" trope, but I love it. One of my favourite things in video games is getting the opportunity to explore and play in abstract environments. There's a definite appeal to realistic environments under the right circumstances, but for me, there's always something special about making that switch from "recognisable" to "completely alien". Doesn't matter what game it is; if you go from hanging out in "the real world" to running along platforms suspended in a starfield — or, indeed, as I have been doing in Chains of Promathia this evening, running across a seemingly solid "sea" that floats above the land far below me, leaving a trail of hexagons and the sound of musical notes with every step I take.

I think the reason I like it is the fact it drives home how video games give you the opportunity to "do" things that are outright impossible in real life. There is not actually anywhere that exists that consists of floating platforms in space or transparent hexagons suspended over a petrified natural environment, and thus having the opportunity to spend time in those places as a virtual world is appealing. It's fascinating. In some respects, it provides a window into the creators' imagination, allowing us a sense that we are sharing in something quite special.

Of course, there's an argument to be made that when you explore a realistic but nonetheless fictional world in a game, you're also stepping into the creators' imagination, but it never feels quite as exciting as getting the opportunity to go somewhere completely alien. It's a silly trope, probably one that is overused at this point — and definitely one that has been used inappropriately (Half-Life's finale says hello) — but it's one that I will always like and appreciate.

I am tempted to see if I can finish off Chains of Promathia this evening, but it is already midnight, so I feel like I should probably go to bed like a responsible adult. Probably.

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