Debunking the Nostalgia Myth

Because I read a lot of video game articles on websites like IGN, Gamespot, Joystiq, and Kotaku, I end up scrolling down to the comments section. I'm not sure why I do this. Because I know what I read there will infuriate me. The comments section is where free speech goes to live, and intelligent debate goes to die. And of course this is true for almost every site, not solely video games sites. Not The Daily Puppy, though. Go figure.

On sites like IGN and GameSpot, sometimes there is a truly enlightening, well-informed, or otherwise lucid comment, but 95% of the time the comments section will make you want to purchase the next ticket on Virgin Galactic and say goodbye to planet Earth forever. It really is incredible the amount and variety of idiocy that one finds in these comments sections and message boards.  Normally the most offensive comments come from Xbox or Playstation fanatics who argue for the supremacy of their system versus all others. But lately I've noticed a new chain of disturbing comments: those referring to nostalgia in a pejorative way. Let me explain more clearly. Commenters have increasingly been leaving text that implies or explicitly states that players who value older, "classic" video games over modern games are simply looking at the past through nostalgic lenses, and that a game released in 1996, for example, will never be as good as a game released 15 years later.

This is just nonsense, but it's a particularly vicious and effective canard because it totally delegitimizes the opposition. It's difficult to hold a debate between two sides when one is characterized as completely irrational.

Here are some examples:

brook44528 • 2 days ago •
except great games are only ever good for their time, they are always going to fall short in comparison to games released a decade later, whether it's down to technological improvement or changes in taste. 

xdevx518 • a day ago
I really hate the elitist attitude that people have towards Deus Ex. Yes it was an amazing game when it came out twelve years ago, but people are looking at it through nostalgia clouded rose colored glasses. The graphics have that gritty "realistic" look that doesn't hold up, the ai is pretty bad, and combat isn't ever exciting. I like and play many games that are 15+ years old still, but that's because I have nostalgia for them, not because they are as good or better than modern games, even if some are still good games. 

Let's break this argument down into its two parts. The first states that gamers who hold aloft classic games do so only by succumbing to nostalgia, to a sentimental attachment to a bygone era. Sentimentality is often difficult to disassemble from memories of the past -- especially one's childhood -- but most gamers know objectively what is good, and what is bad, and judge games accordingly. In the 2008 IGN Readers' Poll, users voted on their top ten games of all time. The result: seven games from the 1990s, three from the 2000s. The yearly average of all ten games: 1998. There is a good reason that games in the mid to late 1990s are consistently named to top ten lists by critics and fans, and it has little to do with nostalgia. Video games reached a creative and artistic peak in the 1990s.

I would also add that the novelty or "newness" of modern games can be just as seductive as nostalgia for older games.

Now, the second part of the argument: modern video games are inherently better than older games because of technological advances. Only in video games, a medium intimately connected with technology, could one even submit such a misguided argument. Well, maybe plumbing too. Although you don't need me to sell you on the benefits of indoor toilets. Now, you don't hear many people arguing that movies are better in 2012 because of 3D technology, or that popular music has finally hit its stride because of auto-tune. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Advanced technology can be used for good or evil; it does not imbue a medium with excellence. There is no doubt that video games have become more advanced technologically, but has that made this generation of games better than those that came before? No. One could argue that developers have brought new ideas and new models of interactivity to modern games, and thus made them better. But the argument that a modern game is better because 15 years of technological advancement separate it from an older game is preposterous. Video games are not firearms or operating systems. Video games are art. Players experience them not only with their eyes.

The World Ends With You

When worlds collide.

In an industry dominated by sequels, reboots, and other unoriginal material, its refreshing to see a game like The World Ends with You. Designed by Square Enix, the company responsible for Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, The World Ends with You (TWEWY) is an entirely new IP with a unique setting. It's certainly one of the more original role-playing games to come out in the past ten years. For a handheld game, TWEWY is packed with substance, including a mini-game that can be played with friends via Wi-Fi, and lots of post-game content. Its animation is great, its music even better, and its combat system, while potentially troublesome for younger players, is inspired.

Shiki and Neku.

Unlike the fantasy settings of many Square Enix games, TWEWY is set in modern day Tokyo, in the Shibuya shopping district to be precise. The bustling metropolitan essence of Shibuya is well presented in the game, and also incorporated into its gameplay. Elements of Japanese youth culture -- food, phones, graffiti, fashion -- frequently play important roles in missions. The game's heroes are cultural warriors, so to speak. They include Neku, an antisocial 15-year-old who loves his own freedom and nothing else; Shiki, a fashion-conscious teenager; Joshua, a mysterious and somewhat snobby young adult; and Beat and Rhyme, a duo that's equal parts brains and brawn. All have been thrust into a mysterious "game" run by a cabal of "reapers." They have seven days to pass the reapers' challenges, or "face erasure."

Shiki fights above, Neku fights below.

TWEWY is an action RPG. Players control Neku and his parter du jour as they search the various neighborhoods of Shibuya trying to complete missions handed down from the "game master." Some neighborhoods may be inaccessible depending on the day and mission, so Neku and partner must satisfy certain requirements to open gates guarded by reapers. Most often this involves defeating "noise," the main enemy in TWEWY. Attacking (or being attacked by) noise opens up the combat screen; this is where the game really shines. The developers at Square Enix and Jupiter made a bold move by deciding to incorporate the dual screen and touch screen functionality of the Nintendo DS into their combat system, instead of taking a more traditional and safer route. The result is an inspired combat system that plays out in the top and bottom screen, and sometime requires simultaneously button presses and stylus movement.

But Square Enix and Jupiter didn't stop there. They introduced a few more innovations, making use of the DS' internal clock to allow pins (Neku's weapons) to evolve while the system is shut off, and allowing players to change their level before every battle. Now, all role-playing games are about "leveling up," but in TWEWY, players can level down. Using a slider in the status menu, one can lower levels, exchanging health for higher enemy drop rates. This is a brilliant risk vs. reward system that permits players to live dangerously to obtain more money and rarer pins.

After the game is over, TWEWY allows players to experience each chapter of the game again, in order to beat hidden challenges and get answers to some unanswered questions. There's also Tin Pin Slammer, a multiplayer mini-game that can be played with other DS users. Yet even without all the post-game content, TWEWY would still be an amazing and impossibly ambitious portable RPG. Square Enix could easily have chosen to produce another handheld Final Fantasy. Instead it developed a new IP; created a beautiful and challenging story about friendship, memory, identity, life, and death; and broke several RPG conventions in the process.

Score: 8.5

Atari: 40 Years of Fun

The grandfather of modern video games turns 40.

Nintendo deserves credit for saving the video game industry, but Atari deserves credit for inventing it. From 1972 until 1983, when the video game market crashed, Atari defined computer entertainment. Its two greatest successes were PONG, one of the first and most commercially successfully arcade video games, and the groundbreaking home console Atari Video Computer System (later renamed Atari 2600), which laid the groundwork for all modern consoles. Yet despite all its ingenuity, commercial success, and influence on the market, Atari experienced a fall almost as precipitous as its ascent. By 1985 the video game giant was in dire straits: the market crash was a financial disaster; the rise of Japanese consoles created new competition; and Warner Communications, which owned the company, decided to sell. Atari survived for some time after that, actually turning a profit with its third-generation console Atari 7800 (1984-1992). The company released its last system, the Jaguar, in 1993. Despite its advanced technology, the console was a commercial failure. Its discontinuation in 1996 prompted Atari to leave the home video game console for good.

Since 1996, Atari has been structured and restructured, sold and resold. Atari, Inc. is now owned by Infogrames Entertainment, SA, which formally changed its name to Atari, SA in 2009. Most recently, Atari released two apps for the iPhone and iPad: Circus Atari and Centipede: Origins. To honor its fortieth anniversary, the company released an infographic highlighting its major milestones and a promotional video, shown below.

Jim Wilson, CEO of Atari, had this to say:

“Over its 40 years of operation, Atari has become one of the most iconic and recognized brands around the world, responsible for mainstreaming video games with blockbuster franchises including Asteroids®, Breakout® and Centipede®. Today, we aim to keep the tradition alive through new and creative development efforts based on what made us great in our early days – offering our devoted and growing fan base fun but challenging games on mobile and online platforms.”

It's strange to think of Atari, the company that reigned over the so-called "golden age" of video games, making mostly mobile apps.

Interesting Atari trivia:

*Steve Jobs worked as a technician for Atari in 1974.
*Call of Duty publisher Activision was formed by four disgruntled Atari employees in 1979.
*Atari co-creator Nolan Bushnell founded Chuck E. Cheese's.

Banjo-Kazooie Retrospective

A look back at Rare's masterwork and the franchise it inspired...

Fourteen years ago today, Banjo-Kazooie debuted in North America for the Nintendo 64. It was one of a handful of all-time great games that appeared in 1998, along with StarCraft, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, another N64 game. For some reason or another, Banjo-Kazooie hasn't appreciated in value like those other titles. Critics' top 100 lists regularly contain games like Half-Life and Ocarina of Time, but rarely do they feature Banjo-Kazooie. In 1998, however, the game was a hit. Banjo-Kazooie launched to great critical and commercial acclaim: it maintains a score of 92 and 93 on Metacritic and GameRankings, respectively; and it sold nearly two million copies in the United States alone. This success led to a sequel two years later, and a handful of games after that. There are five Banjo-Kazooie games in total: four from the main series, one spin-off. The original is still the best, however, and it wouldn't have happened without one of the most productive partnerships in the history of gaming.


A Rare Gem

The British game company Rare (then known as Rareware) developed Banjo-Kazooie and all its sequels. Rare was hugely important to Nintendo in the years between 1994 and 2001, when it functioned as a second-party developer for the gaming giant. Among the games Rare produced in this period are Donkey Kong Country, Blast Corps, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Diddy Kong Racing, and Conker's Bad Fur Day, along with Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel Banjo-Tooie. Since being purchased by Microsoft in 2002, Rare has fallen on hard times. The once great video game company is now relegated to making games for the Xbox 360 peripheral Kinect. Ironically, one of Rare's best games during the Microsoft era was a Banjo-Kazooie game -- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which was released in 2008, ten years after the original game arrived in North America.


Original Recipe

Believe it or not, Banjo-Kazooie started off as a SNES game. Codenamed "Dream," it was an adventure game staring a young boy with a wooden sword who fan afoul of pirates. Three year after development on "Dream" began, Rare ported its code from the SNES to the N64, revised the concept, replaced the boy with a bear, and produced Banjo-Kazooie. The game's heroes are Banjo, a big, dopey bear, and Kazooie, a wise-cracking "breegull" who serves as Banjo's best friend, partner, and sometimes weapon. When the vain and powerful witch Gruntilda kidnaps Banjo's kid sister, it's up to the dynamic duo to save the day.

Kazooie lives in Banjo's backpack. It's not weird. You're weird!

Many critics compared Banjo-Kazooie to Super Mario 64, which had been released two years earlier. The games certainly shared many gameplay elements, but Banjo-Kazooie was technically superior and much more focused on exploration than on platforming. Jeff Gerstmann, who wrote a review for GameSpot, summed it up nicely:

"A lot of people are writing off Banjo-Kazooie as a Super Mario 64 clone. Now let's think about this for a bit. Mario 64 was a revolutionary game. It redefined what people expected from a platform game. Banjo-Kazooie follows in the footsteps of Mario 64. It doesn't stray too far from the formula, but it makes the logical progressions you would expect Nintendo to make. "

Banjo-Kazooie also surpassed Super Mario 64 in terms of collectables: the bear and bird duo could collect "jiggies," golden jigsaw pieces that opened new worlds, along with musical notes, feathers, eggs, honeycombs, and Mumbo tokens, which allowed Banjo to transform into a special animal that could travel to normally inaccessible areas.


Two is (Almost) Better than One

After the huge success of Banjo-Kazooie, Rare started work on a sequel. In 2000, Banjo-Tooie arrived in stores. In many ways, Banjo-Tooie is a better game than its predecessor. The sound effects, music, and graphics are phenomenal. How Rare crammed so many animations, particle effects, and huge, expansive environments into a single cartridge without the help of the expansion pak is a mystery; although the improved, high-power graphics come with a price -- random dips in frame rate.

Banjo faces two Split-Up pads, which allow the duo to separate.

Banjo-Tooie is much bigger in size and scope than its predecessor. Whereas in Banjo-Kazooie, players could access (and conquer) each world via a magical portal, all of the worlds in Banjo-Tooie are connected. This allows missions to span several different environments instead of being limited to a discrete world. In a sense there are no "levels" in Banjo-Tooie, only a sprawling open-world hub with interconnected areas. Other additions include Split-Up pads, which allow players to control Banjo and Kazooie separately, dozens of new unlockable moves, and lots of genre-mashing episodes, including one where Kazooie functions as a gun in a first-person shooter. Banjo-Kazooie currently holds an aggregate score of 90 and 91 on Metacritic and GameRankings, respectively.


Well in Hand

Like most of the popular Nintendo franchises, Banjo-Kazooie was shrunk down from the home console to a handheld system, in this case the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Rare developed two titles for the GBA that were published by THQ: Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, an interquel that takes place between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie; and Banjo Pilot, a racing game similar to Mario Kart. Taking full advantage of the GBA hardware (and using some graphical tricks of their own) Rare managed to convincingly transfer the 3D feel and look of the console B-K games onto a much small screen. Despite its top-down point-of-view, Grunty's Revenge retains all the hallmarks that make the franchise so rewarding and addictive. It's an unknown and underrated gem.

Banjo Pilot (left) and Grunty's Revenge (right).

Banjo Pilot, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the Banjo-Kazooie storyline. Originally developed as a follow-up to Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Pilot was retooled after the Microsoft buy-out to feature Rare characters. Despite all the delays and revisions, Banjo Pilot is a competent racing game with a strong multiplayer mode and good replay value. Overall, however, it's easily the weakest entry in the series.


Are you Nuts?

The fifth and (possibly) final Banjo-Kazooie game arrived on the Xbox 360 in 2008. Titled Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the game represented a significant departure from the series. Instead of exploring, collecting, and jumping through monster-infested worlds, Banjo and Kazooie must buy, build, and compete. Musical notes are still an important part of the game, but in Nuts & Bolts, they are currency used to buy over 1,500 unique vehicle parts that can be combined to create cars, boats, planes, and helicopters. The purpose of Nuts & Bolts, which is cleverly self-referential and self-deprecatory, is to use these improvised creations to complete vehicular challenges.

One of dozens of challenges in Nuts & Bolts.

By releasing a Banjo-Kazooie game based on a vehicle construction engine, Rare betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of its fans. Still, Nuts & Bolts is the best B-K game since Tooie. It may not be the traditional platform game people wanted, but it's still one of the better and most unique games available on the Xbox 360.


Coming up Next

A proper sequel to Banjo-Tooie is probably a pipe dream. As of now, Rare is mostly a shell of its former self, restricted to working on Kinect projects for Microsoft. Moreover, the British company has shown no interest in returning to its classic franchises. It's a shame. Banjo-Kazooie is worthy of a larger franchise. Its characters are wacky, its writing hilarious, its mechanics masterful, its gameplay nothing short of brilliant. Yet somehow the bear and bird duo got lost among all the other video game mascots of the 1990s and 2000s.

The good news is that the older games are still around and ready to be played. If you can't find the N64 cartridges of Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel on eBay, both games are available for download on Xbox Live Arcade. Nuts & Bolts, which attained Platinum Hits status, can be purchased rather cheaply from Amazon.com or GameStop. Happy playing!

The Most Important Moment in My (Gaming) Life

An 8-year-old kid makes a fateful decision.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs. My mother stood at the top, visibly weary from having to deal with three mischievous children, one of whom (me) was prone to falling down those very stairs. I twisted uncomfortably in what must have been one of my ill-conceived youthful outfits: sweat pants and a tie-dye shirt. My mother stood resolute, statuesque. "What a handful," she must have thought, "but one day he'll be a successful doctor or maybe a famous author! Really, I'll settle for any respectable profession. Just as long as he doesn't end up embedded in Baghdad. But what are the odds of that happening? He's wearing sweat pants and a tie-dye shirt for God's sake." I twisted some more -- staying put was not one of my specialties. Finally, exhausted, she asked: "Which do you want, Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo?"

Before I go on, a little background: I was eight years old when this conversation took place. The smooth, narcotic grip of video games had yet to fully wrap itself around me. But it was a noticeable part of my life. I remember watching my older brother play Kung Fu on the NES, playing R.C. Pro-Am with my friend Ed at his house, and pumping quarters into Rampage at the movie theater. I was far from an expert on video games, however. I knew, though, that I wanted a next generation system of my own (the NES really belonged to my brother). And Christmastime 1991 was the ideal time to score one. The only question was which console to get: the ultra-cool Sega Genesis (which had been out in North America for two years) or the untested yet strangely familiar Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) which had launched that August.

At the time, I was undecided. Both of those shiny new systems called out to me, but neither had me completely sold. The Super Nintendo was the successor to a system I knew inside and out, and loved. But the Genesis was more of a novelty, and it was definitely the "cooler" console. I had contemplated this decision for days, for weeks, and I couldn't make up my mind. Little did I know that my decision would forever flavor my perception of video games, and define the library of games I played for the next 17 years.

So these were the thoughts swirling around in my undeveloped brain when my mother asked me definitively, "which do you want, Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo?" I contemplated the choice one last time, and blurted out what seemed like the more sensible option: "Super Nintendo." I walked away from that encounter with no confidence at all in my decision. It had been as if I had flipped a coin.

In the months and years that followed that Christmas, the decision seemed to make more and more sense. I fell in love with Super Mario World, which was bundled with the console. Other games won my attention too: F-Zero, Street Fighter II, Super Play Action Football, and later Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct. My tastes in video game slowly began to change. There were certain games, exclusive to Genesis and its successor Saturn, that I never learned about. I preferred the Nintendo brand, its mascots, its controllers. I began spending more time with friends who also played SNES -- it was something we had in common after all. I started a subscription to Nintendo Power in 1996 (I still receive monthly issues) and for Christmas 1996, five years after Santa delivered a SNES, I found a Nintendo 64 under the tree.

My first issue of Nintendo Power.

By 1997 I was a die-hard Nintendo loyalist. When people spoke about Final Fantasy or Tomb Raider, I rolled my eyes. Super Mario 64, Turok, and Shadows of the Empire were enough for me. For the next decade, I played games only on Nintendo consoles, and spent my free time mostly with people who did the same. It was only in 2008, when I bought an Xbox 360, that I finally opened myself up to all the experiences I had been ignoring. Yet even now that I own almost every major console released since 1991, I still hold Nintendo above all other companies. Nintendo for me is all that's right about video games. It's given me thousands of hours of joy; it's brought me together with friends; it's made life easier and more fun. There are hundreds of great, awesome, mind-blowing non-Nintendo games out there, but none match the emotional tug of Nintendo games. They belong to my childhood, they conjure memories of my sister, my brother, my parents, my friends, myself. I grew up with Nintendo, and Nintendo grew up with me. And it all goes back to that choice I made at the bottom of the stairs.

Quake

id's groundbreaking shooter still shines.

Before last week, I had never played the full PC ersion of Quake. I had played through the Quake demo via shareware, and also the Quake port on the Nintendo 64, but never the complete PC experience in all its glory. Despite the fact that it debuted in 1996 and has since been buried under a deluge of first-person shooters, Quake has aged well. It's fast, furious, and atmospheric. Although not as good as some of the greats that followed, Quake remains a fun and frantic shooting experience that, at the time of its release, broke new ground for the genre.

Like many computer first-person shooters from the early and mid 1990s, Quake is more influential than it is great. Quake accomplished a lot for the genre, more in fact than Wolfenstein 3D or Doom, both of which predate it. For one, Quake existed in a fully three-dimensional world with polygonal models instead of pre-rendered sprites. This introduced new depth and distance into the first-person shooter: players could negotiate levels by leaping over obstacles or swimming beneath them; they could bounce grenades off walls to destroy out-of-sight enemies. Also, Quake was built on an engine that was highly modifiable, allowing users to alter its script to create fan modifications, or "mods." And lastly, Quake popularized online multi-player modes like Deathmatch and Capture the Flag.

Give the ogre a taste of his own medicine: the grenade launcher.

Beyond its influence, Quake is an excellent game, especially in terms of graphics and sound. Animations in Quake are smooth, seamless, and completely natural. Enemy models, however grotesque, are artfully crafted; they have texture, weight, fullness. All of the 28 levels in Quake are similarly dazzling, albeit in a menacing kind of way. Illuminated by revolutionary lighting effects, each level is well-balanced and ingeniously packed with hidden compartments, traps, and other surprises. Adding to the ominous atmosphere is Nine Inch Nails, which was brought on to the Quake project to provide music and ambient noise. The result is a scary, moody game that keeps it players constantly on edge.

Quake is far from perfect, however. It represents the best and the worst of PC shooters of its era. It's fast, furious, packed with hideous enemies and awesome weapons, dripping with atmosphere; but it's also repetitive, unchanging, mostly plotless. Nearly all of the truly great FPSs came after Quake, once developers started infusing shooters with new ideas borrowed from other genres, e.g. objective-based missions, puzzle-solving, storytelling.

Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee.

So Quake isn't the best first-person shooter ever; but it's arguably the most influential. Many of the generic, taken-for-granted elements in modern games -- modifications, online multi-player, fully-realized three-dimensional worlds -- were made popular by Quake. It's earned its place in the pantheon of great games, and in the hearts and minds of thousands of fans.

Score: 8.5

New 3DS Revealed

Nintendo unveiled a new version of their handheld console last night with a bigger body, larger screens, and longer battery life.

The new version of the 3DS, called 3DS XL, features screens that are 90% larger than the original. The system's top screen measures 4.88 inches; its bottom screen 4.18 inches. Nintendo stated that the 3DS XL will feature a battery life of 3.5 to 6.5 hours while playing 3DS games, and 6 and 10 hours while playing original DS games. The 3DS averaged only 3-5 hours for 3DS games and 5-8 hours for DS games.

The XL will launch on August 19 in North America, the same day as New Super Mario Bros. 2.

In other Nintendo news, it was revealed that Namco Bandai will be developing the new Smash Bros. game for Wii U and 3DS. Masahiro Sakurai, the creative force behind Super Smash Bros. and Kirby, will still helm the project, but he will be joined by Namco Bandai's Yoshito Higuchi (Tales series) and Kenya Kobayashi (Ridge Racer), who will function as director and producer, respectively.

Others involved include Tetsuya Akatsuka, art and sound director for the Soul Calibur series, and the main development team from the Tekken series.