Poll Time: Are You a Retro Game-a-Holic?

PaulH — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:58:26 GMT

If there is one feature of blogs that I absolutely adore it's the ability to interact with your audience. I find this ability to truly engage your audience much more appealing than your standard static news website. So I'm trying out a new poll feature today and I hope it works *crosses fingers*. For my very first poll I'm curious to find out if anyone out there considers themselves a fan of retro gaming. Or more specifically, gamers who enjoy classic arcade games, PCs such as the C-64, Colecovision, or Amiga and early generation gaming consoles such as the Atari, NES or Genesis.

Re: Poll Time: Are You a Retro Game-a-Holic?

lilwingman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:43:51 GMT

Definitely! Excellent post.

My top three games of all-time are actually on the SNES, which I've still got hooked up in my room to an old tube - for those wondering, those games are Secret of Mana, Earthbound, and Final Fantasy IV.

To be honest, I''d comfortably say that my game-time with my PS2/PS3 is about equal to my SNES time on a yearly basis. Obviously when a big game is launched I'm pretty wrapped up in it (so basically from September until New Year's these days, way too many big games hit during the holidays!) but for the slow months of the year nothing beats a trip down memory lane.

Re: Poll Time: Are You a Retro Game-a-Holic?

PaulH — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:29:59 GMT

@ lilwingman

Great to see another retro gamer in the house! All three of those games you mentioned are classic to say the least. It's really cool to hear that you're into old-school Japanese RPGs -- they literally consumed 1/4 of my childhood. To your list I would also add Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Orge Battle, Drakkhen, Lagoon, 7th Saga and Breath of Fire. All of those where great games I played for many hours on my SNES, it would be interesting to revisit them to see how they have held up over time.

Quite frankly, I wish I had more time to retro game. I'm so busy these days trying to keep up with all the exciting games in the pipeline for this fall and beyond that I hardly have to to reinvest into classics. At the end of the day though, I feel so fortunate to have grown up with these games -- such great experiences I've had!

Re: Poll Time: Are You a Retro Game-a-Holic?

Tanarus — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:19:20 GMT

Dude, take Select out of the poll. You only use that if you're playing two-player Contra -- it's not a part of the actual Konami Code. >_>

But, yeah, I find myself going back to the classic games every now and then. I play Phantasy Star 4 once a year, just because. My roommate and I are working our way through Secret of Mana (multiplayer, woo!) when we haven't kicked out the Super Mario All-Stars. (Lost Levels is brutal.)

With the advent of the Internet, it's even easier to enjoy many classic games that never even made it to North America. Secret of Mana 2, for example, as well as the first Tales game, Tales of Phantasia.

And, uhh, yeah, not to mention Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. When I was young, I always thought Ryu was on a quest to find Ken, so everyone he'd dragon punch, he'd invariably ask, "AAAARE YOU KEN!?" ...That didn't explain why Ken did it, though.