Retro Gaming Rant (According to an Oldfag)

Maybe it’s just a sign that I am too old for this shit but a while back the retro gaming board on 4chan known as /vr/ had allowed 6th gen console era games to be posted and just from allowing so many underage cunts into the board did the quality of this board drop to such an extent, I rarely even go on there anymore. What is my gripe in regards to retro gaming and why do I have a problem with what should be defined as a retro game.

Granted, I am not that old by gamer standards. I grew up in the early and late 90s so I didn’t get to experience things like 8 bit gaming and earlier. I did however have a grasp of 16 and 32 bit gaming from the start and I got to witness the transition from 2D graphics to 3D polygons in my lifetime. That’s not to say 3D-esque graphics were never attempted beforehand but right around the 5th generation of consoles was right when the waters were being tested for 3D gaming as a standard. The last console that was still in this phase was none other than the Dreamcast which was somewhere between the 5th and 6th gen in terms of capabilities and game library. It pioneered a lot of things including online multiplayer and connectivity but was shortlived in part due to SEGA of America’s poor financial handling and the upcoming DVD player (that so happened to play some vidya too) known as the PS2 was right around the corner. So why do I consider the Dreamcast the cutoff point for retro gaming?

Everything after the Sega Dreamcast is what I consider to be modern gaming as we know it today. Controller layouts had finally standardized with the DualShock 2 controller as well as the OG Xbox “Duke” Controller which was eventually shrunk down into a more sensible size later on. Even the Gamecube controller is still sworn by today thanks to Smash Tourney Fags. Franchises that you see today had their roots in the 6th generation. Games like GTA(The 3D ones specifically), Super Smash Bros, Halo, Call of Duty, and so on continue to release sequels and spin offs that at the core, are not that different from their original games. Online Multiplayer wasn’t standard but it was established on the Xbox and PS2 to some extent. Console gaming was still mostly involved with CRT televisions but new flat screen TVs were beginning to become the norm as time went by. In terms as to how 3D games were handled, there were already set standards for how 3D games would be controlled. In other words, the whole experimental aspect from the 5th generation had ended and developers could finally make the games they always wanted without dealing with the uncharted territory that was 3D game development in the early to late 90s. I’d even go as far as to argue that graphically, the games looked more realistic at this point of time than they did prior and everything going forward would be more or less the same as the 6th generation with just more graphical enhancements (and less frame rates lmao).

To call the 6th generation retro is just objectively wrong. Just because it’s more than a decade old doesn’t necessarily make it retro. Just look at old kino for instance. You have the silent era, the black and white sound era, and finally the use of color in film making and these movie techniques are tried and perfected all the way into the 1960s. By that point, you have modern filming techniques and standards that are consistent throughout all mainstream films (with the except of a few art house experiments). In the same sense, everything prior to the 6th gen was experimental. Game developers as far back as the early days of pong clones were trying out new configurations, new genres, new control methods. You don’t see anything like that these days and you certainly didn’t see that in the 6th generation either.

Just wait 10 years from now when 7th gen is now considered retro. Like what the fuck is up with that logic? Most of the games after the 7th gen barely play any different let alone look any better. There’s a cutoff point to what people consider classical film, classical literature, classical civilizations, and classical music (not including genres like the romantic period or older genres prior to the classical era to be specific). The same should be applied to vidya in my opinion. And that cutoff point should have been at the tail end of the Dreamcast lifespan. After all, the Dreamcast was the last console that advertised itself as an authentic arcade experience for your home. The PS2 was a multi media entertainment system that also played video games. Same for the OG Xbox which was mostly PC hardware for console gamers, and the Gamecube was gaming but for children and manchildren (I still love the Gamecube though don’t get me wrong). But like I said, maybe I am just too old for this shit. I have no plans to buy any new consoles (or even PC gaming hardware going forward). Gaming is so low quality these days, people are starting to reminiscence about the douchebag era of gaming (2007-2010). Talk about scrapping the bottom of the toilet bowl.