Adventure Gamers - Forums

maybe in his bedroom luxury, it would, Doom

Advie - 25 April 2022 03:33 PM

maybe in his bedroom luxury, it would, Doom

This certainly was a big advantage, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the forums regulars moved from arcade machines to adventure gaming because they could enjoy playing them in peace. I’m just not sure this sort of graphics was considered all that good even back then.

Doom - 25 April 2022 04:43 PM

I’m just not sure this sort of graphics was considered all that good even back then.

of course not, but only the intelligent kids like us gotten drawn into the content of adventure gaming on IBMs or PCs, rather the regular MSXs then

I imagine there was always the awe of computers can do that?? before the huge leaps in computer technology made crazy advanced systems available at home.

I think you can create something good, or even great, within most limitations. The trick is to accept and understand the limits and figure out ways to use suggestion to create atmosphere and push certain buttons in the brain. The tendency to look for and even create patterns, for example, is very powerful and can provide mental stimulation, which gives a player a subconscious engagement with the game. Nowadays it’s all about immersion, which to me seems to be used as a euphemism for a constant stream of audiovisual information that demands a lot of attention.

You can do a lot with a little. You can’t do everything with pretty much nothing, that much is true, but more ≠  better. It’s not worse, either, just requires a different approach.

Vegetable Party - 25 April 2022 05:55 PM

I imagine there was always the awe of computers can do that?? before the huge leaps in computer technology made crazy advanced systems available at home.

I joined the Heath company as a copywriter in 1973 or thereabouts. (Heath was the parent company of Heathkit, the build it yourself electronics company.) I think it was 1974 when we introduced a line of kit computers. Storage was a cassette tape. A monitor was whatever you could plug into that would work. There was a Star Trek game that was played entirely using a numeric keypad. There was a “Wack-A-Mole” style game that was based on hitting the correct key to “beat” the flashing-light display on the computer’s front panel. And people were amazed at what fun could be had.

And it took a good ten years or so to arrive at Roberta’s stick-figure game. So, forget about how bad it was. Think how great it must have seemed to early adopters. Wow! Graphics!

Very cool.

I googled the Heathkit, quite a machine.

Seeing the potential in personal computers, Zenith Radio Company bought Heath Company from Schlumberger in 1979 for $63 million, renaming the computer division Zenith Data Systems (ZDS). Zenith purchased Heath for the flexible assembly line infrastructure at the nearby St. Joseph facility as well as the R&D assets.
Heath/Zenith was in the vanguard of companies to start selling personal computers to small businesses.

63 million dollars in ‘79. Now that’s a dazzling number.

I’m old enough to remember how amazed I was by the graphics of many Amstrad CPC 464 games. I also remember how amazed I was when I saw 16 colours EGA graphics on a PC the first time and was a bit bummed afterwards when I saw that computers like Amiga could show better colours on games that were either CGA or EGA on a PC. I also remember the first time we got an AdLib sound card. It was amazing to hear the computer produce other kinds of sounds than just high pitched beeps.

Actually, when I come to think of it, in order to be as fair as possible for these very old games, it could be good to go through all the different platforms they were made for. Or at least the ones that have the most difference. Some might have better graphics, some better sounds. And I still wouldn’t give them a score, I would just let people make their own minds about it and note if I personally think it has aged well or not, which is already something I point out for the older games I write of.

Vegetable Party - 26 April 2022 05:07 AM

63 million dollars in ‘79. Now that’s a dazzling number.

I was gone by 1979. But still kept track of the company. $63M was a bargain. In addition to small businesses, ZDS also had contracts to supply computers to the Navy and Air Force. Zenith should have split it off as a separate company. It might have turned into what Dell is today. But Zenith didn’t do that. So when Zenith collapsed because they couldn’t, or some say wouldn’t, adapt their consumer electronics business to the globalized marketplace, they took the computer business down with it.

tomimt - 26 April 2022 09:13 AM

I still wouldn’t give them a score, I would just let people make their own minds about it

Agreed! More or less what I tried to say, no final note
There’s already the Verdict and the Good and Bad, it’s enough for a retro review imho.

Another thing that should be taken into account too, is that many retro/pixel games were created on and for CRT monitors, and the render of the graphics was very different than on a LCD screen. On LCD we see every pixel perfectly and it’s not always beautiful. On CRT it was blurred, scanlined and almost like smoothed, and I remember for example that Super Nes games like Donkey Kong Country were awesome in the past, and they look disgusting on LCD (not just because it’s old today).

For a concrete example, a prerendered view from Final Fantasy VII PS1:

(sorry I had to put the link that way or the picture was included in the post but way too large)

The CRT on the left is emulated so it’s not a real comparison, but it helps to remember how it was making old games look better than they actually are (we see less the pixels, it smoothes the aliasing, hides the bad gradients due to a low color palette, there is more contrast, etc).

If for most of you it seems important to write about the graphics in a retro review, then can I suggest to AG to make their own screenshots on a CRT monitor as much as possible, and judge the result in these conditions? I know that almost everyone today will play the retro games on a LCD but, well, it’s not normal

Update:
I think this example would talk better to everyone here

Update 2:
Ah how I miss that CRT era

Another of Sierra’s early games, The Dark Crystal, a game based on the movie of the same name written by Jim Henson was reviewed unfavorably.

I’m not sure Jack was still actively involved when these reviews were cleared for publication. But it doesn’t seem like something, i.e. basing a review on an inaccurate comparison that won’t hold up to scrutiny, that he would be OK with.

I think the general consensus was that AG has every right to review a game. But the game should be reviewed on its own merits, And if comparisons are made, they should be made against games produced in the same general time frame. Not against games or remakes of games that were made with technology that was unavailable to the original developer.

I also think the general consensus was that these games should not be rated. Or, if rated, they should be rated on a different standard than the one reviewers us to rate current games.

It’s a cheap shot to downgrade a game because of lousy sound, (As was done in this review,) when that sound was the only sound the developer had. And then use today’s rating scheme where developers can create orchestral-quality scores as a reason for a one-star rating. 

you got me worried, man, i don’t know who is chief of staff now, maybe Dale?, i don’t have an idea! but however we just gotta take it easy, no one can fill in for Jack, no one!, but they can at least follow (or really TRY) his standards

CaliMonk is now Editor in Chief, in addition to Site Owner. I don’t have, and never have had, any involvement in the site’s articles (well, beyond Aggie input).

i can do the Aggies if it is bothering you, Sorry, really! couldn’t help it