Maybe it's the charm (and sometimes super annoying-ness) of the Nintendo cast or the easy pick up and play, but why the hell can I not get over how much fun my N64 still is?
Allow me to explain. Recently my sister-in-law got married to a very cool guy that some of you on this blog have played with named Silent 1988. Luckily, they literally moved across the parking lot from my wife and I and he comes over regularly and we play Super Smash Bros and NFL Blitz like it's our jobs on 64. When we want to crank up the difficulty of said games we'll play SSB Melee and Mario Kart Double Dash on Cube. These games are every bit as fun years after they've been out and with hundreds of hours already dumped in to them. Why is this?
Is it the local play? Is it Nintendo nostalgia? I think it's because of the super fine tuning and incredible game design on Nintendo's part. Unfortunately, SSB and Mario Kart have been what Amateria wisely put "HALO'ed" on the Wii. They have taken rather simple games to play (but truly challenging to master at times) and neutered them even more for "waggle" play and for the greater masses.
All Star Baseball 2000 for 64 has been getting regular weekly rotation on my 64 with Silent and another buddy on a weekly get together. At the time the game was the top of the line baseball sim, but now they extol the game's difficulty and love the fact that it's not needlessly complex like all newer sports games.
The same can be said of Blitz's bare bones footbrawler. It's probably the most fun I've ever had in a sports game and now that Silent and I are truly awesome at it the tension is through the roof! We've even started a tally sheet much like Lead Salad and I use to use for win record keeping.
I don't feel that my thoughts were well written in this post, but I can't stop marveling at the fact that I have the world's best, newest and brightest games at my disposal and I keep playing all these old games and it's not just on whim. It's because I have someone to play with locally again.
I guess that you just can't beat the classics and that sometimes great gameplay doesn't need any refinements to still be compelling by today's standards.
Sidenote: 64 and Cube have been in boxes for years, but as of these last few weeks space was cleared in my entertainment system and now they are both permanent tenants again. Right next to my 360 and PS3 are two dinosaurs battling it out for my time. Video games are awesome.
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I still got an N64 sitting around here somewhere that I traded, along with a PSONE, to a friend cuz he wanted my old phone. :P
ReplyDeleteThere are some really old games that I will still go back and play...
I miss the days of local play. College was really the last time I did a whole lot of that. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Smash Bros, Mario Kart Double Dash, and 16 player Halo matches were all great times in the dorm. Good times.
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