1. I'm old now. Even if I have the original hardware, with the original games in the original boxes, I will never be able to recreate the same feeling I had seeing these games for the first time in the original time period. I remember being impressed with many a game, from the original arcades to the Playstation 1. Those games look primitive now, even if it's games I've never played until now. It's hard to get "wowed" by the retro games after you've experienced the modern ones. You can appreciate the games, yes, but "whoa" isn't generally going to come. Not for me, at least. I'm not looking at these games through teenage eyes anymore.
2. Emulation is often close enough. If you can't be "wowed" anymore, you can at least enjoy the games themselves. Retro game anthologies available on many platforms can provide you with a close enough, if not superior, game play experience.
I still occasionally get the "wow" factor with the old stuff, honestly. I'm not saying I can place myself back in my youth or pretend that the "future" (the now) never happened, a la Michael's excellent Chronogaming series, but I still get impressed and get great joy when 15, 20 or 30 year old hardware still works and shows me its stuff. A lot of my collecting is related to my seeing all this wonderful, amazing stuff in magazines as a kid, and "only" having one or two computers and consoles at the time, I "missed out" on a lot of these first hand experiences I craved (my friends having say an Apple IIe or an Atari 800XL or TI-99/4a, just didn't count the same), so now I get to experience them for myself, even if it is all these years later. I think emulation is wonderful and it definitely has its place, but there's also something clinical about it, something still "pretend" about it. Of course there are LOTS of issues with collecting, be it cost, space, and getting the stuff working that you really have to want to deal with to make it worthwhile, but speaking as a collector, when it does all work, it's extremely worthwhile.
I don't know, when I hear my TRS-80 speak, when I see an old game on my C-64 do something I forgot it did, etc., it still brings me great joy and gives me that "wow" moment, though perhaps in a different way (wow, I can't believe it did THAT in 1979, rather than hey, this is 1979, this thing speaking is cool). I think because very little with modern technology wows me (it's tough in a world of virtually unlimited storage, HD graphics, surround sound, etc.) there's something really nice about seeing what brought us here, at least for me.
*************************** Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
*************************** Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
1. I'm old now. Even if I have the original hardware, with the original games in the original boxes, I will never be able to recreate the same feeling I had seeing these games for the first time in the original time period. I remember being impressed with many a game, from the original arcades to the Playstation 1. Those games look primitive now, even if it's games I've never played until now. It's hard to get "wowed" by the retro games after you've experienced the modern ones. You can appreciate the games, yes, but "whoa" isn't generally going to come. Not for me, at least. I'm not looking at these games through teenage eyes anymore.
2. Emulation is often close enough. If you can't be "wowed" anymore, you can at least enjoy the games themselves. Retro game anthologies available on many platforms can provide you with a close enough, if not superior, game play experience.
I still occasionally get the "wow" factor with the old stuff, honestly. I'm not saying I can place myself back in my youth or pretend that the "future" (the now) never happened, a la Michael's excellent Chronogaming series, but I still get impressed and get great joy when 15, 20 or 30 year old hardware still works and shows me its stuff. A lot of my collecting is related to my seeing all this wonderful, amazing stuff in magazines as a kid, and "only" having one or two computers and consoles at the time, I "missed out" on a lot of these first hand experiences I craved (my friends having say an Apple IIe or an Atari 800XL or TI-99/4a, just didn't count the same), so now I get to experience them for myself, even if it is all these years later. I think emulation is wonderful and it definitely has its place, but there's also something clinical about it, something still "pretend" about it. Of course there are LOTS of issues with collecting, be it cost, space, and getting the stuff working that you really have to want to deal with to make it worthwhile, but speaking as a collector, when it does all work, it's extremely worthwhile.
I don't know, when I hear my TRS-80 speak, when I see an old game on my C-64 do something I forgot it did, etc., it still brings me great joy and gives me that "wow" moment, though perhaps in a different way (wow, I can't believe it did THAT in 1979, rather than hey, this is 1979, this thing speaking is cool). I think because very little with modern technology wows me (it's tough in a world of virtually unlimited storage, HD graphics, surround sound, etc.) there's something really nice about seeing what brought us here, at least for me.
***************************
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
***************************
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.