What is the “right” approach to reviewing a retro game?

[T-Pac | 7,542]

2 hours ago, Tulpa said:

But can you express it in a cartoon?

Of course - this should clear things up...

-CasualCart

[Tulpa | 3,493]

Awesome!

[cartman | 195]

Well on one hand it's what the game did for it's time but then there's also that something hasn't aged well. The first type of reasoning has to be the main one otherwise you can just dismiss consoles like Atari 2600 outright.

[Sumez | 2,950]

7 hours ago, Tulpa said:

We can call it "changing bias" which is fine. But let's not pretend that we have anywhere near a handle on what is "good", other than what we know in this moment.

Let's not pretend that there is any reason that we shouldn't. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Sumez

[hardstyletoaster | 50]

Not sure how retro people here would consider my games (gamecube,ps1,ps2 stuff), but the way I review the games to friends is I'll sit and play the game until I feel like I have a good handle on it.

Once I have that, I'll discuss things that I like and dislike about the game. Primarily I'll focus on mechanics, story, and presentation. Now since I'm playing older stuff, I'll give a bit of a pass for things like bare geometry cause that's what you're working with for the time period.

I tend to evaluate my focuses on how well things flow together, were the maps put together well? Do the mechanics work well and work well together? Does it present well?

Case in point, Spyro games, you can tell it's an older game based on the "assets" in the maps like hills and walls and such, but they were still laid out well in a way that makes sense and can let you play without feeling like you're fighting the game and that's important. Compare that to the Scooby Mystery Mayhem game. Half the time in the first 2 chapters, I felt like I was fighting against bad map layouts and I'd take the same wrong door 3 times in a row because I had no map and the doors looked the exact same.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

I understand the context isn't the same in 1985 that it is in 2021, but this is the year 2021, so what exactly do we gain from thinking about the games in their original context? I guess I just dont see the point. I wanna know if the game is fun now 

[hardstyletoaster | 50]

4 minutes ago, BortLicensePlate said:

I understand the context isn't the same in 1985 that it is in 2021, but this is the year 2021, so what exactly do we gain from thinking about the games in their original context? I guess I just dont see the point. I wanna know if the game is fun now 

Was this in response to my post or someone else?

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

17 minutes ago, hardstyletoaster said:

Was this in response to my post or someone else?

Nah just kinda in general. The conversation has mostly been about whether a game aging well should impact a review on it

[hardstyletoaster | 50]

2 minutes ago, BortLicensePlate said:

Nah just kinda in general. The conversation has mostly been about whether a game aging well should impact a review on it

Ahh gotcha, hopefully I didn't derail then. Personally having read your comment, I tend to agree with you. I think a game "aging well" simply means that years later I can pick it up and still enjoy playing it.

I mean pong is a classic example, you're not gonna like 24 hour marathon pong, but if you and a friend run across a pong machine I'm sure you two could go for a round or three.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

59 minutes ago, BortLicensePlate said:

I understand the context isn't the same in 1985 that it is in 2021, but this is the year 2021, so what exactly do we gain from thinking about the games in their original context? I guess I just dont see the point. I wanna know if the game is fun now 

I think things like level design, story line, tight controls are timeless. My issue is that games typically aren't rated on categories like this and instead are just given some number out of 5 or 10 cuz that's how they felt about it? There's not much objectivity in the review space these days. 

[hardstyletoaster | 50]

1 hour ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I think things like level design, story line, tight controls are timeless. My issue is that games typically aren't rated on categories like this and instead are just given some number out of 5 or 10 cuz that's how they felt about it? There's not much objectivity in the review space these days. 

I have to agree with you on that. I still remember and joke about that IGN review for the re-release of ruby and saphhire version of pokemon "7/10 TOO MUCH WATER". To this day, I still wish I knew what the actual fuck that reviewer was thinking when they wrote that.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I haven't seen this idea represented anywhere, so I'll make a post in this thread (perhaps to be lost in the sea of animated discussion) about it.

6-7 years back, when I was actively participating in and contributing to a friend's website/streaming media brand/project/whatever, I wrote several reviews about old toys, things that I either still or newly had, but which were current at the time that I was a little kid and at the "correct" age to be playing with them.  I did a reasonably verbose review, complete with photos (both containing my personal stream-of-consciousness style and humor), and at the end I gave them a score from 1 to 10, along with a short description of things that they did right and things that they did wrong.

What's important here, is that I did two of those at the end of the verbal review:  One related to the toy within the context of its own time, and a second specifically about the toy in the context of the current time.  I think this is important, as societal preferences change over time, especially when new, never before thought of ideas come into play (sometimes due to advances in technology, manufacturing, etc., making them literally impossible previously).

Some people are arguing (incorrectly, in my opinion) that games which were touted as good or great in the past but are now considered lackluster or even garbage were always that way, with implications that those folks would have always seen that, why couldn't everyone else, etc.  I believe this sort of thinking and viewpoint is incredibly shortsighted, as it seems to want to impose absolute ideas of what is "good" or "bad" upon everything, when in reality, it really just sets everything up for being "bad," as from far enough in the future, every masterpiece that has ever been created will end up being garbage in comparison to whatever hot new thing the people of that far flung time become enamored with.

When looking back at things from the past, if you really want to provide a balanced, thoughtful, though provoking review, you really do need to consider it, at least a little, in the context of its time.  Feel free to let the world know about why you believe it didn't hold up over time, but actually look into and figure out why that happened.  The idea that games "didn't age well" is mired in this--whatever mechanic or charm that a game had fell out of favor over time, whereas those who have "aged well" have clearly had whatever made them fun or special to begin with has remained a part of public opinion, consciousness, etc.

Objectively, Pong, in its own time, was a fantastic game, and if you introduce it to kids who haven't been exposed to other electronic entertainments yet (a true feat in these times), they can have as much fun with it as the folks who played it when it was brand new.  Introduce the newer kids to a Switch and a bunch of flashy Mario games, and for most, I'd be willing to bet that the "fun" level falls off quite a bit pretty quickly.  Pong isn't suddenly less fun than what it was, but there's definitely more to engage with in modern games, normally making them more attractive and attention consuming.  Does that make Pong bad?  No, not at all, and it should be considered in such terms versus being disregarded as somehow always having been inherently "bad."

As with virtually everything in life, context is key, and disregarding that is a terrible practice in general, let alone if you're wanting to compose a review that other people are expected to become engaged by and, hopefully, enjoy.  Reviewers who ignore context seem to fall into the categories of naive, fanboys, or elitists, none of which typically put together great reviews or last long in that arena.

[elprincipe | 142]

15 hours ago, CasualCart said:

@Sumez and @Tulpa - I think the disconnect here is that you are both looking at the same phenomenon in two different (but parallel) ways.

When people play a game, their opinion of it is directly influenced by the context they play it in. This context includes current gaming trends, other available games, the evolution of genres up to that point, etc. All of these elements form the expectations and popular sentiments of gamers at the time. And as media evolves, so do these expectations and popular sentiments.

One argument (Sumez) says that the games don’t change, only the sentiments and bias toward them.
The other argument (Tulpa) says that, because the games are a product of their time, they age.

You are both right, but only if you see these two facets together.
Games are experienced as a product of their environment, and public perception of those games evolves with time. Games age because our perceptions age, and neither happens independently.

To say that the overall perception of gaming does not evolve over time to result in a sense of games “aging” would be missing half the argument. Likewise, while games may not be functionally different no matter when you play them, the same game still “changes” over time because it is always experienced in the context that it’s played - nothing exists in a vacuum.

-CasualCart

You bring up some interesting points that apply even more to modern games. There are a ton of games these days where the social experience of playing them when everyone else is playing them is an important part of how you see the game. For example, someone who plays Fortnite or Among Us in 2045 probably will not have the same experience as someone playing them in 2020, because a huge part of the game is the interaction with other players on a real time basis. There are lots of other games like this (MMORPGs for example), and in this case the game actually does age - not in the sense that its code changes, but that its associated player base is vital to making the game what it is/was/will be.

So, anyone want to take a stab at how to review such a game when the audience has moved on? Is it worthless? Should you judge it on nostalgia, understanding that what you experienced back in the game's heyday can't be experienced by current players?

[elprincipe | 142]

15 hours ago, CasualCart said:

 

(duplicate post)

Edited January 28, 2021 by elprincipe
duplicate post - sucks you can't see something post from the previous page

[T-Pac | 7,542]

22 hours ago, BortLicensePlate said:

I understand the context isn't the same in 1985 that it is in 2021, but this is the year 2021, so what exactly do we gain from thinking about the games in their original context? I guess I just dont see the point. I wanna know if the game is fun now 

As much as I love the idea of a completely objective review on whether or not a game is fun, I think the issue with ignoring a game's era of development/release in a review is that, in many cases, it would leave out an integral part of experiencing that game. 

It wouldn't be very helpful to review a 1985 game as if it were 1985 right now - but it's extremely helpful to be mindful of that context when determining the "fun factor" of that same game today. When we play a game, we go in with a subconscious set of expectations and assessments. And that mindset plays a big role in whether or not that game ends up being fun. In the same way you wouldn't enjoy a "fun / good" RPG when you want to play a platformer, you wouldn't enjoy a "fun / good" 8-bit era game when you want to play some modern online multiplayer thing. 

Basically, reviews need context, even to objectively determine if a game is fun or not, because we can only experience things in context.

-CasualCart

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

4 hours ago, CasualCart said:

Basically, reviews need context, even to objectively determine if a game is fun or not, because we can only experience things in context.

I totally disagree.  If I want to play Kaboom! on the Atari 2600, I don't start thinking, "oh yeah, this is an Atari game so the graphics will be shit and the controls will be primitive, etc," I just feel like playing Kaboom! because it's a fun kick-ass game, so I play it.  Balloon Fight isn't fun only in the context of thinking about how it came out in 1986 and was an early black-box title, it's fun right NOW, even if you're six years old and don't know or care when or where it came from.

I understand that it's usually a good idea to portray to a reader that you've put some sort of research or time into thinking about the game you're reviewing, but to constantly harp on how every aspect of a game has to be related back to the context of whatever year it came out does the game you're reviewing a major disservice.  It does not have to be this way.  Is it really that impossible to just talk about how fun a game is, it's strengths and weaknesses, what you enjoyed, what frustrated you, etc, without having to append something like "but hey, it did come out in 1986" to the end of every observation???  I mean, come on....

Edited January 29, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Video games may not live in a vacuum but the majority of the games that get graded on a point scale do and have for a long time.   Somehow things long ago got confused, whereas a 5 would be considered average on an evenly weighted 10 point scale, that's not how games somehow ended up going.  Somehow they got bastardized into a combination of like grade school point scoring coupled with just corporate ass kissing pressuring the scale too.

While a 5 should be average, 5 on a game scale is basically garbage, and somehow anything less than that is just how much the reviewer wants to that take that open wound and then grind (4/10) salt, (3/10) lemon, (2/10) pepper spray, or on top of that (1/10) run sandpaper over it just to make a point.  Because of that stupidity a 7 now can be seen as average, and the stigma of just being a game that just isn't good or bad is there, and more than enough to piss off a developer to threaten less goodies or copies of future review.

 

I know it's of no help, but when I did get strung into using numbers I kind of aped the old 5pt/5star rating sized bit Nintendo used, but not as a flat score but based on each category I used and then weighed them on the whole.  If I remember it was like game play, design, audio/visual, how fun it was, stuff like that...and then summary it together at the end to tack on a score since people love numbers.

[GPX | 1,369]

I’ve had some further thoughts on this “retro reviews” issue. I think if a gamer is wanting to go down the “retro” route, it might be a fair assumption they are purely wanting to try out specific era or platform(s), either as a curiosity or to fulfill some nostalgic urge. Let’s be honest here, if you’d want to simply play the best a genre can offer, you can pretty much rule out  anything early 90s and prior years. Plenty of great choices with infinitely better graphics, sounds, playability and addictiveness in the current era of gaming. 

So with this “retro curiosity” or “nostalgic urge”, I think most of us are wishing to know which is the best of the best for those specific platforms or specific era. This would be my bet for the common mindset of a current retro gamer. So in the context of the retro gaming audience, it is valuable to  point out the pros and cons of a retro game and what features make it a highlight, a worthwhile, or simply just a piece of trash. 

Regarding “fun factor”, I think a game needs to be more than just that, no matter how old it is. “Addictiveness” and “replayability” should be key features also. A good game is “fun” when you pick up a controller. A great game is “fun” and you just can’t put down that damn controller!

 

[T-Pac | 7,542]

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I totally disagree.  If I want to play Kaboom! on the Atari 2600, I don't start thinking, "oh yeah, this is an Atari game so the graphics will be shit and the controls will be primitive, etc," I just feel like playing Kaboom! because it's a fun kick-ass game, so I play it.  Balloon Fight isn't fun only in the context of thinking about how it came out in 1986 and was an early black-box title, it's fun right NOW, even if you're six years old and don't know or care when or where it came from.

I understand that it's usually a good idea to portray to a reader that you've put some sort of research or time into thinking about the game you're reviewing, but to constantly harp on how every aspect of a game has to be related back to the context of whatever year it came out does the game you're reviewing a major disservice.  It does not have to be this way.  Is it really that impossible to just talk about how fun a game is, it's strengths and weaknesses, what you enjoyed, what frustrated you, etc, without having to append something like "but hey, it did come out in 1986" to the end of every observation???  I mean, come on....

These are all excellent points - I guess I wasn’t very clear about how era-specific “context” affects how we play and review games.

A major reason Kaboom is fun is because it’s an Atari 2600 game from 1981. No, you don’t go into it with negative judgements about blocky pixels and primitive controls, but once you turn that game on and see the early 8-bit graphics and feel the Atari-style paddle controls, your brain subconsciously associates the experience with “80s gaming”. It’s just a frame of reference that engineers how you interact with the game, not a deterrent (unless you’ve only had bad experiences with Atari-style games in the past).

You’re totally right that a new gamer playing Balloon Fight for the first time wouldn’t have any benefit from knowing the release year, but once they’ve played it they’ve already begun developing a frame of reference for how mid-80s console games look and feel (regardless of whether or not they know the game was from that era). At that point, if they happened to find out when the game came out, a review about a different game from the mid-80s would draw an association with their experience playing Balloon Fight.

I think a game’s era is like its genre or platform - it’s just a factor that affects the way a game feels. It affects the experience regardless of whether you consciously note it or are even aware of it at all.

Reviewing a game in an era-specific context doesn’t mean making concessions based on age - it means being familiar with how games of that time period looked and felt. This provides a review with a concrete base to inform the reader on how a game functions. A quick reference to the era and platform does a lot to prime me for what kind of game I’m reading about. “An iOS game from the 2010s” vs. “a Genesis game from the 1990s” draws on my past experience and tailors my mindset for assessing what I might like or dislike about a game.

-CasualCart

[hardstyletoaster | 50]

3 hours ago, CasualCart said:

These are all excellent points - I guess I wasn’t very clear about how era-specific “context” affects how we play and review games.

A major reason Kaboom is fun is because it’s an Atari 2600 game from 1981. No, you don’t go into it with negative judgements about blocky pixels and primitive controls, but once you turn that game on and see the early 8-bit graphics and feel the Atari-style paddle controls, your brain subconsciously associates the experience with “80s gaming”. It’s just a frame of reference that engineers how you interact with the game, not a deterrent (unless you’ve only had bad experiences with Atari-style games in the past).

You’re totally right that a new gamer playing Balloon Fight for the first time wouldn’t have any benefit from knowing the release year, but once they’ve played it they’ve already begun developing a frame of reference for how mid-80s console games look and feel (regardless of whether or not they know the game was from that era). At that point, if they happened to find out when the game came out, a review about a different game from the mid-80s would draw an association with their experience playing Balloon Fight.

I think a game’s era is like its genre or platform - it’s just a factor that affects the way a game feels. It affects the experience regardless of whether you consciously note it or are even aware of it at all.

Reviewing a game in an era-specific context doesn’t mean making concessions based on age - it means being familiar with how games of that time period looked and felt. This provides a review with a concrete base to inform the reader on how a game functions. A quick reference to the era and platform does a lot to prime me for what kind of game I’m reading about. “An iOS game from the 2010s” vs. “a Genesis game from the 1990s” draws on my past experience and tailors my mindset for assessing what I might like or dislike about a game.

-CasualCart

I would have to say you've made an excellent point with this. So long as you aren't making concessions based on the age of the game, then I'd fully agree having a mindset of the game and similar types of games is important. After all I'm not going to try to compare candy crush against DWM2 Tara's Adventure on the game color. The two are vastly different in all aspects, and arguably fun for vastly different reasons. (I'd argue candy crush isn't fun, but some people like it and I ain't gonna knock it for them)

[phart010 | 1,707]

On 1/26/2021 at 1:24 PM, Bearcat-Doug said:

I mainly focus on if a game is fun or not. I would rate the graphics/sound based on other games from the same time period, but it still all comes down to if a game is fun for me.

Do all visual novels get a 1/10 ?

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

37 minutes ago, phart010 said:

Do all visual novels get a 1/10 ?

Never played one.

[phart010 | 1,707]

Who says games don’t change? Here’s a list of 7 games that have been constantly changing for decades

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-80s-and-90s-pc-games-still-unbelievably-being-updated-today/

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

19 hours ago, GPX said:

Let’s be honest here, if you’d want to simply play the best a genre can offer, you can pretty much rule out  anything early 90s and prior years. Plenty of great choices with infinitely better graphics, sounds, playability and addictiveness in the current era of gaming. 

Man, I could not disagree more.  If I felt this way, I wouldn't even own a NES.  I play NES and 8/16 bit almost exclusively exactly because I feel they are the best games that certain genres have to offer in ALL of the categories you mentioned above, and yes that's even including the graphics; the NES has a certain aesthetic that really jives with me, and apparently a lot of others since so many games are coming out on Steam and Switch nowadays with exactly the same style...

[Sumez | 2,950]

On 1/29/2021 at 12:09 PM, GPX said:

Let’s be honest here, if you’d want to simply play the best a genre can offer, you can pretty much rule out  anything early 90s and prior years.

That's quite a statement, and I'm not even sure what to say. But I guess maybe there are a few genres you just don't care about as much as the people who do play those games.