One of my best gamer friends bought a gamepad recently (xbox usb controller, like mine) and well, I've been playing a lot of stuff in local co-op (or versus) since then.

All that isn't exactly mind-blowing, especially not when we're just playing a game of NBA2k10 against each other on the PC. I mean, that is basically one of the most fundamental uses of a console. But for a PC, it's really weird to sit at the same desk and play. Also totally beats online gaming or co-op, simply because you can actually talk without lag etc etc.

But what is really interesting is the retro games we played. There are, for example, a whole lot of classic Sega games on Steam, and they all come in a simple emulator that allows you to quicksave and so forth (most games of that era were incredibly unforgiving with no saves, and limited lives - quicksave is a miracle). It also allows you to configure the gamepads or keyboard input.

So we're basically playing arcade/megadrive classics that we used to play as a kid, full-screen on my widescreen monitor, in local co-op, ON A PC. I mean, seriously. It's like we're in the arcade again, but this time there are no coins and lousy pocket money, but there ARE 1 up's, continue's, and what have you.

And while most of those games are pretty simple, they're actually not neary as bad as you might think after 20 years. Remember the lizard things you could ride? And the magic spells? Imagine this game but with two players - me as the dwarf of course



We also played some Streets of Rage, or at least the unofficial but amazing remake that was featured on RPS a few days ago. It looks amazing at full-screen and in High Quality.



Again, so much fun with two peeps. Gotta love the 90's music, btw.

I'm gonna uncover more of this old awesomeness to play.

P.S. The Streets of Rage remake is freeware http://www.bombergames.net/sorr_project/ totally worth the dl, even just for fun for a few minutes.

These were my glory days of gaming, the games that my school days would be in the way off. The days where I'd want to be home by my parents rediculously early for my age curfue (due to having a younger brother) just so I could get back to these games.

The days where I would leave my MegaDrive switched on for days so I didn't have to start themepark over again!

I also need someone to Co-Op through double dragon with me without losing a continue for my Xbox live achievement....

Such good games, with such simple, well executed controls which unleashed satisfying moves. Where have these days gone?

You either grew up or got a life, take a pick.

That still doesn't explain where the brilliance of these games has gone.

And I definitely haven't grown up or got a life, I still spend most of my life gaming

I think we're looking through blinders of sorts. I remember some of the absolutely horrible games I played, too. Ever play the ET game on the Atari 2600? Or raiders of the lost Ark?



How about Bad Boys on PC. *shiver*


There was a TON of crap. And I'm sorry to say I'd play the hell out of all of it, because I was poor and the only games I got were the ones I was able to beg my parents into buying for me.

Not to say there weren't great ones. I very fondly remember A1 tank platoon:

and f19 stealth fighter:


and oh, so many more.

Haha just the other day I was speaking to some dude about megadrive classics He's got a megadrive in the loft which I should really try to buy from him, but Amazon do some kind of modern megadrive with 10 games in built. The controllers aren't EXACTLY the same, but near enough.

Streets of Rage is just gold. Although I played the sequel much more, I always played as Max (the huge wrestler) and would go through the entire game doing the pick-up-and-slam move on all the enemies. Even the crappy "Galsia" henchmen with 10 pixels of life bar.


Golden Axe was probably just as epic. Running around trying to frantically kill those little fuckers with the bag so you could get the blue magic shit. Although I think it was harder that SoR.


Altered Beast was cool but not so re-playable.


Sonic & Sonic 2 was cool but kinda gay and lame compared to the darker games where you actually hit people.


Ecco was neat because it was well presented and kinda eery but I don't think I completed it. Probably because it was too hard or again, because you couldn't shoot anything, except maybe blast your radar screech at stuff pretending its a ray gun of some sort.


Fifa 95 epic. B and C would make your player commit a shove or elbow foul which never failed to reduce me to tears of hilarity. When you scored, you could mash the buttons to sound off various celebration sounds, like horns from the crowd, a commentator screaming "GOOOOOOOOL" or firecrackers that nowadays would simulate a terrorist attack.


EA Ice Hockey. Got pretty OCD with this game. Going through seasons, taking down player numbers and tallying their goals.


There are more obviously

Haha, I'm feeling the love in this thread!

Hey Derf, did you try the Streets of Rage remake that was on RPS? It's freeware, and even on wide-screen at mega resolution it looks tiiigghht.

(I used to play Max too btw)

haha... altered beast. I think that would've made my crappy game list.

What tells me old games were generally better is that I'd play them over and over and over again. Most modern games I can't even be bothered to finish, but the old ones are so much fun I'd still load them up and play them no matter how many times I've finished them. If my speccy and amiga would tune into any of our modern tv's that is

I don't know if they are necessarily better - design-wise many of them are a horror. One hit-deaths, only 3 lives or so (with a continue) and no way to save between levels. You're basically expected to finish many of those games in one faultless run (which is a lot of trial and error). You'll notice that many of those old games aren't even that long. I recently played Goldenaxe 2 again and it was over in an hour or so, after 4 levels.

Of course, there are many games who're not like that and I still had fun in Goldenaxe. But I wouldn't exactly buy the game if it came out now. I do think that some of these genres have been lost/ignored when there is still a market for it (also see Trine, a game I enjoyed a lot). A fun 2D-like platformer or a Double Dragon / Streets of Rage like game with cooler graphics and options and more levels would still own very hard on co-op.

Bonus: Trine trailer. can't wait for Trine 2.

I think the one-hit deaths and limited lives but shorter gameplay were what helped though.

In todays games, you can play for an hour and lose a level and have to start again. In old games, you could get right to the end of the game in an hour so even if you died and were annoyed, you felt more accomplished and more willing to try again. And again. And again. And then before you know it, the first four levels would be a breeze, giving you extra lives for the last two levels etc.

I maintain that Sonic 2 is one of the hardest games to complete if you get all the emeralds before the flying fortress level, because you automatically turn in to supersonic if you have fifty rings and jump (where in later itterations you had to jump and then press the jump button again) which made the precise-jumping sections damn near impossible due to SuperSonics insane speeds.

I also recall some versions of the game where there were NO rings on the last level and you had to kill both Metal Sonic (Or Silver Sonic) AND Dr. Robotnik without taking a SINGLE hit.

This was later parodied in Sonic 4, by having an achievement for defeating the last boss without getting hit, as he is a re-hash of the sonic 2 final boss. Sonic 4 sucked, but damn, I got all those achievements.

lol @ Sonic 4 parody.

There is one massive design flaw about the system the old games use though: you're encouraged to play through the same 80% of the game again, and again, and again just to get to the (often bastardly hard) final level(s). So beating those levels is way harder than the first part of the game but every time you fail you have to do over a part you've already proved you mastered a while ago. Every time. Super Meat Boy was full of this fail BS. Fail design. People tried to hype it up as 'old school awesomeness' when SMB came out, but it's just bad design. The power of nostalgia eh? I for one am absolutely overjoyed by the 5 save-anywhere-slots that come with the Steam sega emulator...not very canon, but I'm not 12 anymore, don't have the time to waste on replaying the same stuff again and again.

A simple but clever checkpoint save once in a while would shave off a lot of this frustration in all of these games, though, I don't necessarily need a quicksave system.