"I miss the games on the old computer. They should make all games old and pixelated. Modern games just aren't as good."
- A.M
Uwaah, I am in despair. It seems that I can only blog when it's so late at night that I have lost what remains of my sane mind and inhibitions, so, as always, you can expect this post to be a mixed bag of lollies. So far, I've passed the stage of drowsiness, laughed my way through the period of excessive hilarity and I'm just coming to the end of a session of pondering the meaning of the universe and how this may or may not be related to the pattern of stripes on my cat. This, known to myself as the "Beijing Siri Ni~" phase can only occur between the hours of 12 and 6a.m. And let's face it, once you're there you're past the point of no return. On my journeys through the canals of my mind and the vast solar systems above I was taken back to my childhood. Pretty much all my pre-teen childhood was spent bordering on the poverty line, and without any government handouts during this time I might add, and I am positively proud of this fact. It could have made for a really horrible childhood, but it was really great because my parents, being the total badasses that they are, found lots of inexpensive ways to entertain my sister and I and let us know that we were loved. Aw.
One of my absolute favourite things to do as a young kid was to play retro games on a clunky old Windows 95 computer with my father. He was working full time and studying at uni, but he'd still dedicate one night a week to just relax with my sister and I, which I consider to be much more manly than a lot of the douchbaggery that gets labelled as such these days. I dare you to find something more manly than being a good father. Really, I'm in a confrontational mood, so doooo it tsun tsun tsun. On second thought, please don't, the dere side of me couldn't handle it, but that is irrelevant so back to the story. My sister and I were both tiny little kiddlings at the time, rendering us both fairly useless at gaming in the early years, so we'd often just crowd around our father and watch him with eyes wide and sparkling.
Despite the wonder that these games, which wouldn't have been considered modern, even in our earliest childhood, instilled in us at the time, I didn't expect this to really endure. But the other day my sister surprised me. Proclaiming that she once again wanted to play Commander Keen, she hauled that beast of an old computer out of the shed and into the study, setting it and a screen as old as Confucious up just so she could once again play as our pogo-stick-jumping protagonist. She then proceeded to make her way through a bunch of old arcade games, ranging from Donkey Kong to Space Invaders to Elevator Action. Following this, she dabbled in (and gave up on) Catacomb Abyss and Prince of Persia. She then finished off the session with her personal favourite, Kings Quest V, before running away to change her MacBook background to a picture of Frogger.
Stranger still was that I had downloaded (and completely failed at installing) a bunch of these games only the day before, and hadn't spoken to her of it. Admittedly, this was only because I'd been unable to use a DOS emulator properly, despite my best efforts and I didn't want to openly admit this. But now I have, can I ask if anyone's ever successfully used one to play games before? Because I managed to get into the files, but I couldn't find any form of installer or .exe file. Le sigh. Nevertheless, we'd had the same thought.
I'd also been playing lots of indie games made with RPG Maker 2000 etc. in recent times and I love how their style is so reminiscent of older games. I marathoned parts of Ib, Ao Oni and Yume Nikki after I got home from my Japanese tutorial and really liked the aesthetics of all of them. Ib has an advantage, because I have a bit of a thing for creepy, colourful, almost childish aesthetics, mixed with some dark horror elements. Yume Nikki was so trippy, I thought I must have inhaled permanent marker or something, but I liked how distinctive it was, despite following the old RPG graphic style. Yume Nikki was simple, but effective. Apart from that purple monster thing that I remembered, having seen it in the whole 10 mins of HetaOni that I watched. What the actual hell is that thing?
After my ridiculously long and coffee-filled study session that I have planned for tomorrow, I'm thinking I'll play through the two English language visual novels that I downloaded yesterday, to bring myself back to the present. I really hadn't realised how many great legal, free games there were on the internet, so I'm having a bit of a frenzy at the moment. I'm almost finding it hard to comprehend going back to games with smooth, modern graphics, though. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but there's just something so otherworldly about pixelated graphics. It's not that I don't think modern games look incredible and have just as much potential, if not more, to have you completely immersed. But for escapism, I think I shall always return games with the look of yesteryear. Why? Because they imitate reality, but still look so far removed from it. That to me is just really enjoyable.
So, I guess we've got it pretty good these days in terms of games. There's amazing commercial releases for the HD hipsters and anyone interested, but there are still independent creators, making and re-making (re: Kings Quest I remake in the style of V. Amazing.) smaller releases that are sure to break the nostalgia-o-meter, which, for me, was broken before I even started.
What are your thoughts on the freeware market of the moment? Got any old games that were standouts in your childhood? Know anything useful about DOS emulators? Or maybe you think this all makes me sound like an old geezer? If you've got something to say, let me know!
[demisemiquavergirl]'s afterward note: Thanks for reading! I'm considering bringing back Excalibur, because he's 500x more sassy and sarcastic than I am. Any thought? Yes? No? Keep your dumb ninja who speaks like a lolcat to yourself? Also, some blog updates. I'm back to the old-style blogger, because the dynamic views really weren't impressing me that much. The ladies (well, technically one of them is a guy) in the background are from the fantastic manga Kuragehime. They were just meant to be a temporary fill to make my minimalist background seem less bland for the time, but I'm really liking them there. Of course, if my bby Excalibur comes back, I'll have to find somewhere to put him on the blog. Maybe my profile picture? XP
I've got various posts lined up with fangirling over things I've watched/ read/ played recently, Japanese tutorial anecdotes (they're so crazy, it never gets boring to tell them), gender/sexuality rants, chivalry talk, some fairytale stuff but if someone would like to suggest something really out-there that I wouldn't usually talk about, I'd love to cover it. But right now, it is past 2 in the morning and my eyeballs feel like fireballs, so oyasuminasai, tiny warriors.
**Will edit and add dl links for the freeware games tomorrow
Despite the wonder that these games, which wouldn't have been considered modern, even in our earliest childhood, instilled in us at the time, I didn't expect this to really endure. But the other day my sister surprised me. Proclaiming that she once again wanted to play Commander Keen, she hauled that beast of an old computer out of the shed and into the study, setting it and a screen as old as Confucious up just so she could once again play as our pogo-stick-jumping protagonist. She then proceeded to make her way through a bunch of old arcade games, ranging from Donkey Kong to Space Invaders to Elevator Action. Following this, she dabbled in (and gave up on) Catacomb Abyss and Prince of Persia. She then finished off the session with her personal favourite, Kings Quest V, before running away to change her MacBook background to a picture of Frogger.
Stranger still was that I had downloaded (and completely failed at installing) a bunch of these games only the day before, and hadn't spoken to her of it. Admittedly, this was only because I'd been unable to use a DOS emulator properly, despite my best efforts and I didn't want to openly admit this. But now I have, can I ask if anyone's ever successfully used one to play games before? Because I managed to get into the files, but I couldn't find any form of installer or .exe file. Le sigh. Nevertheless, we'd had the same thought.
I'd also been playing lots of indie games made with RPG Maker 2000 etc. in recent times and I love how their style is so reminiscent of older games. I marathoned parts of Ib, Ao Oni and Yume Nikki after I got home from my Japanese tutorial and really liked the aesthetics of all of them. Ib has an advantage, because I have a bit of a thing for creepy, colourful, almost childish aesthetics, mixed with some dark horror elements. Yume Nikki was so trippy, I thought I must have inhaled permanent marker or something, but I liked how distinctive it was, despite following the old RPG graphic style. Yume Nikki was simple, but effective. Apart from that purple monster thing that I remembered, having seen it in the whole 10 mins of HetaOni that I watched. What the actual hell is that thing?
After my ridiculously long and coffee-filled study session that I have planned for tomorrow, I'm thinking I'll play through the two English language visual novels that I downloaded yesterday, to bring myself back to the present. I really hadn't realised how many great legal, free games there were on the internet, so I'm having a bit of a frenzy at the moment. I'm almost finding it hard to comprehend going back to games with smooth, modern graphics, though. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but there's just something so otherworldly about pixelated graphics. It's not that I don't think modern games look incredible and have just as much potential, if not more, to have you completely immersed. But for escapism, I think I shall always return games with the look of yesteryear. Why? Because they imitate reality, but still look so far removed from it. That to me is just really enjoyable.
So, I guess we've got it pretty good these days in terms of games. There's amazing commercial releases for the HD hipsters and anyone interested, but there are still independent creators, making and re-making (re: Kings Quest I remake in the style of V. Amazing.) smaller releases that are sure to break the nostalgia-o-meter, which, for me, was broken before I even started.
What are your thoughts on the freeware market of the moment? Got any old games that were standouts in your childhood? Know anything useful about DOS emulators? Or maybe you think this all makes me sound like an old geezer? If you've got something to say, let me know!
[demisemiquavergirl]'s afterward note: Thanks for reading! I'm considering bringing back Excalibur, because he's 500x more sassy and sarcastic than I am. Any thought? Yes? No? Keep your dumb ninja who speaks like a lolcat to yourself? Also, some blog updates. I'm back to the old-style blogger, because the dynamic views really weren't impressing me that much. The ladies (well, technically one of them is a guy) in the background are from the fantastic manga Kuragehime. They were just meant to be a temporary fill to make my minimalist background seem less bland for the time, but I'm really liking them there. Of course, if my bby Excalibur comes back, I'll have to find somewhere to put him on the blog. Maybe my profile picture? XP
I've got various posts lined up with fangirling over things I've watched/ read/ played recently, Japanese tutorial anecdotes (they're so crazy, it never gets boring to tell them), gender/sexuality rants, chivalry talk, some fairytale stuff but if someone would like to suggest something really out-there that I wouldn't usually talk about, I'd love to cover it. But right now, it is past 2 in the morning and my eyeballs feel like fireballs, so oyasuminasai, tiny warriors.
**Will edit and add dl links for the freeware games tomorrow
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