Was Gaming Better Before the Internet? - Retro Bird
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2022
- With the internet becoming more widespread, gaming was bound to change. But was this change for better or for worse? I weigh the pros and cons of how the internet has affected our wonderful hobby.
Was Gaming Better Before the Internet? - Retro Bird / Was Gaming Better Before Online Connectivity? / Did Gaming Used to Be Better?
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Games played: Contra III (0:00), Castle of Illusion (0:11), Sonic the Hedgehog (0:23), Super Mario 64 (0:43), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2:04)
I like the mail carrier lines you did in this. Are you one?
The internet existed at the same time as all of these games.
@@t.adamcollins2162 it's quite obvious the uploader was referring to internet as we know it today, an era before it was deeply integrated as well as an era where the vast majority of people did not have an internet connection.
Watching retro bird is like checking in on your childhood friend who never grew up!
I like that description!
I’m there with retro bird. I will never grow up.
My favorite part of gaming post internet is that you can easily look up and get assistance if you are having trouble with a particular section of a game. My favorite part of pre internet is plentiful. NO DLC, MICROTRANSACTIONS, and UPDATES. We got physical expansion packs that had their own packaging and were worth it. Also, Rental stores. I miss going and renting games for a weekend. With the internet, everyone streams that stuff and rentals are dead. I miss gaming magazines. Before the internet, couch Coop was so much more prevalent and it got friends together more often.
I am going to disagree with looking up assistance. A lot easier now just looking things on the internet & espcially youtube. I agree with everything else you said.
agreeed 1000%!!!
@@tonyp9313 I can see where you are coming from. I just remember being a kid and being stuck on a game and it driving me crazy because I never could get past it and didn’t have permission to call any help line. Strategy guides could help though.
@@gametourny4ever627 Yeah I used to get stuck in a lot of games when I was a kid. I would use magazine guides or figure it out after a long time.
@@tonyp9313 some games were designed to sell strategy guides though. Square got BAD about this in the 90s. I'll take being able to look up stuff for free when I get stuck over having to fork out money for the guide!
I came across this guy 2 weeks ago. I have gone through all of his videos already and I’m ready for the next. This guy is incredible and I can’t believe I had never heard of him before
Hey, glad you found the channel! Happy to have you here. There will be a new video tomorrow night (Friday) :)
8 months after you, I'm having the same exact experience. I don't go around saying this everywhere, trust me: this is perhaps the single most underrated gaming-related channel I've ever come across!
Gaming life before the internet: Local multiplayer, Arcade Experience, Fridays and Saturdays Gaming Night and awesome gaming magazines.
Gaming life after the internet: Emulators, Checking out imported games, trying and checking out unappreciated consoles and listening to my favourite retro gaming music.
Well said! 👏🏻
Also TH-cam gaming
The biggest change to me is the idea of driving to a friends house, using their console, either having your own or their broken controller to use, and playing together. Thats the difference in my eyes. The internet has really taken away the world of the "video game party".
Less social aspect now. Gaming is a lot better now just because you have a ton more options for games.
The internet has not taken away anything at all. It's the people who decided to play togheter via the internet rather than "going to a friends house". Guess why, because it's easier faster and pretty much better.
@@Jomike_Joestar I don't know about better. If your friend has piss poor internet The games lag. For the most part I have other friends who have internet that is excellent & yeah I would say it's better just playing via internet.
If you like driving to your friends houses to play video games then continue to do that.
@@Jomike_Joestar a lot of games have online co-op but not couch co-op so you cant even play many of them if a friend comes round anyways
I miss detailed game manuals, and strategy guides. Even with the internet, was great to have to look at and flip through offline.
One great thing about pre-internet was discovering secrets on your own. I feel like many modern game trailers spoil a lot of content in the game. There was just something really special about finding new things in a game with no prior knowledge. Discovering things on your own in a game just feels so rewarding!
However, one great thing about gaming post-internet is game accessibility. There are so many ways to buy or find games both retro and modern, so there is a wide variety of things to play. I remember pre-internet as a kid and I had asked for Ristar on the Genesis one Christmas. I found out from my parents after that they had gone to several local game stores and not one of them had a single copy in stock! 😭 Now there are tons of resources to play whatever you want whenever you want!
I never really watch trailers or even much previews for games or movies unless it's a big purchase. A lot of indie games it's fun to get cheap on sale just seeing Overwhelmingly Positive on steam and some favored category tags. Fun to find out by playing
Same with movies. Trailers are ridiculous
Truthfully, I am very nostalgic for the pre-internet existence in general. The world was so very different. As far as video games go, I'm really not sure. I think game design has taken a downturn in some ways due to excess DLC and DRM, as well as incomplete products. At the same time, we all found each other online and realized we had a lot to talk about, even though folks in our regular lives didn't have the same intensity about hobbies.
The internet's biggest boon to me was easy access to imports and oddities that are hard to find out in the wild. I managed to find about 20 of my Neo Geo AES games locally, but the other 14 came from online sources. After the only good import game store around me closed, the internet became very important in a hobby sense.
Really, though, there was a sweet spot when the internet was just taking hold in the late '90s and early 2000s where the old way of life hadn't been overtaken, and was just supplemented by its existence. Really, it was life before smart phones. The internet was there, but you had to go out of your way to use it. People still had social niceties and didn't treat it like you were on a leash with your phone and that they should have access to you at any time, but you could still order games online or get on a forum. Smart phones completely changed life as we know it, and I wish they hadn't... and I say that typing on a smartphone because it's so damned convenient.
Thanks for sharing, I feel you! I remember life around that sweet spot that you mentioned. Late 90’s into the early 2000’s was awesome! Most weren’t walking around with a cell phone in their pocket (imagine that!). After school my friends and I would skateboard to someone’s house to watch the newest episode of Dragon Ball Z on cable tv which started at a certain time. Most of the time was spent outside and getting dirty! We had to use our imaginations. And when we would use the internet, it was for websites like newgrounds or other weird sites that maybe your parents wouldn’t approve of lol A kid wouldn’t spend more than 2 hrs on the internet before getting bored and wanting to go back outside. NOW, it’s the complete opposite. Most people have a cell phone in their pockets. Kids rarely meet up after school and people spend way more than 2 hrs a day on the internet (myself included). It makes me happy when I see my son play with his action figures because it shows me that his little imagination can still keep him entertained during these algorithmic, internet addicted and super fast paced times.
I miss the pre-smartphone days.
Yeah definitely. I feel bad for children now. We need cultural changes towards less use of phones and go back to more in person interactions.
Humans weren't evolved for smartphones just like we weren't evolved for processed sugary foods or hard drugs. So we need cultural norms to develop to save us from ourselves
the 6th generation of console gaming probably represents the last best era of console gaming with high speed internet. games were released finished for the most part, and even when they weren't we all just learned how to play around the eccentricities. i remember the original socom having a bit of janky-ness to the game engine but it never the less became a massive hit. the rpgs/open world games of this era also seemed to have just the right amount of content.
I agree, but as a 7th gen enthusiast/collector I find most of the games are complete on disk. Although DLC mostly not included.
I play my 7th gen consoles offline without a problem.
@@ride4funnomg103 truthfully i never considered most of the 7th gen games complete. i refer to that era as the sub-30fps generation of console gaming because so many games could not hold a stable 30fps. it was an era where the hardware was sorely outpaced by the game engines.
@@davidtran9444 Hi, an N64 player here.
...I was so used to N64 games that I was not fully aware of this fact, until somebody commented this same comment, last year.
I found out I am the one in my friend group that plays 30 fps games, because I am used to it.
It's not "great", but considering almost every Switch game are 30 fps, ...I adapted well.
Anyways, while I understand your point, since 30 fps gaming has been consistently there, since the N64 era... it is not a significant point. \(>_>)/
@@badreality2 well i would say the 7th gen console era(xbox 360, ps3) suffered so significantly from below 30 framerate that there was an entire youtube genre dedicated to examining which console was more playable. Digital foundry is the massive youtube presence it is today because they were the first to scientifically compare how far the framerate dips were of the 360 compared to the ps3. The n64 like its 5th gen competition the ps1 and saturn may not have always performed at a locked 60fps in 3d but most if not all games were able to maintain a minimum of 30fps. We saw all the time 7th gen games falling into the 20s and 10s.
I think the 7th generation is the last best era
Didn’t watch the video yet but dam right it was better before the Internet! There is no surprise anymore. Waiting every month for a new gaming mag was so exciting.
How does this guy only 20k subscribers his videos are so good 👍
Before the internet, I had to call the special 900 phone number to solve some brutal puzzle in Lufia 2 for the Super Nintendo. It was like $3 a minute, old people know what I’m talking about.
I know what you're talkin' about!
Yeah I did that once only with X-Men. I didn't know it was a 4th wall thing when they tell you reset the computer.
My dad would have had a meltdown when the phone bill came!
It felt like I spent half my childhood reading Nintendo Power, EGM, Game Pro, and other great video game magazines. Including my favorite, the underrated and hilarious Game Players Magazine. I probably read about video games in magazines as much as I played them. I also miss how the quality of the games had to be very good, because there were no patches back then. It was a one shot one hit kind of thing, they had to get the game right the first time so it had to be the best game they could make. You don't see as much of that today.
Well-stated!!!
Games in the 80’s/90’s we’re still (lightly) buggy and in rare circumstances, you’ve had to mail-in your cartridge in order to get a corrected copy, but the games were complete and did not have many, of any, game breaking bugs.
It is honestly a mixed bag when you think of it, but personally, I prefer the pre-patch days where games had to work well day one. Also, all the content was already on the cart or disc and had to be unlocked by actually playing the game. Internet certainly does have its perks, but when it comes to how games are actually made, the old days can't be beat.
Actually The New Day just beat the old Days. Here's how. Back in the day you were limited to video games. Buying options were little to none. 80's you were buying games at a mom & pop shop very small stores. 90's Bigger stores like Toys R Us, Zellers or whatever U.S store you have there. It was still stores though that you had to go & buy. With the limited amount of games. You probably bought maybe 5-10 games total for that Generation. Lack of research meant that you didn't know if a game was good or not. So you had to hope the game was good that you bought for $80-100 back in the day.
Now there is emulation & way more options to buy games. Just for the fact you have emulation on all 8 bit to 16 bit games makes it that much better. You now have access to 100's of games for free. Not only that, Now you can play these games with save states. Which makes a huge difference. So lets say you couldn't beat Sonic 1 back in the day because it was hard & you had to restart it a lot of times. Now with save states you can beat the game on 1 try in 1 sitting. That makes a huge difference. Back in the day I was only beating 5% of games because of the limited lives.
@@tonyp9313 I don't disagree with most of your points. But today, there are more negatives that unfortunately outnumber the positives.
Buying options are, I would argue, even more limited today. Walmart, Amazon, and GameStop are pretty much the only places you can buy physical games at retail prices (Target too, but I went there recently and the selection is terrible), and all the toy stores and mall shops that sold video games are gone. When buying digital, you really can only buy from one or two places depending on the platform you game on, and when games disappear from online stores, their pretty much gone for good.
Not sure how you came to the 5-10 games a generation. I only got 3-5 games a year and could always gather around 20 games per system, sometimes more. I knew people who got a ton more than that.
When it comes to research, I can't help but assume you mean gaming journalism. To them, pretty much everything is the best or worst game ever. Or they'll spend an entire review lambasting all the flaws of a game, then hand it an 8.5... I'd say word of mouth is always going to be the best bet, whether it's through the internet or people you know IRL.
Yes, game prices were expensive back then (not all of them, but several big games did have large price tags). Compare that to today, and games are costing more and more. DLC (which often was supposed to be included in the base game (Assassin's Creed did this on more than one occasion)), microtransactions, battle passes... Need I go on? If you want the full experience, better get ready to shell out.
Games are easier today. That is true, and there are many who would argue that's not necessarily a good thing. Emulation is good, don't get me wrong, but there's a downside when some people exclusively pirate games (like certain game jernos were recommending people play Metroid Dread on an emulator over buying it on Switch, which could canablize the sales and kill the Metroid franchise) it can raise the price of games for all of us if they don't turn a good enough profit.
Not sure how old you are, but speaking as someone who's been around gaming as long as Nintendo has, I've seen the good and the bad from both eras. I just prefer the old one.
@@Level1Sword I grew up in the 80's. Ok so you played 20 games in your generation I only played 10. 20 is not that much more compared to like what 100's of games through emulation or ever drives now. I have the option to play a game with a save state or without. Back in the day you can't do that. You had to play the game the way the developer intended it.
Buying options you can order online through those stores you mentioned or even buy places like ebay, facebook market etc. Digitally. Or they come in the mail.
Research I mean you go look up walkthroughs on youtube & see if you like the game by what's being played. This helps me a lot because a lot of modern games I don't like (Last of US 2) so I don't buy it because I saw oh ok the game is like this.
DLC & micro transactions are really bad. I agree with you 100% on that.
Example today: I needed an N 64 expansion Pak. So I looked on 5 sites to see what was the cheapest. Then found my local store online & they were selling it the cheapest. So I called them & asked them how many they had. They reserved it for me & I went to pick it up. Back in the 90's I couldn't just research that & I believe at the time you had to get that with DK64 if you wanted the expansion Pak. The fact that now you have google maps & a GPS so if you don't know where places are that helps you out a lot where as in the 90's if you didn't know where stores were it be so much of a hassle to find that address.
Old days is just good or great for socializing video games with your friends. The social aspect of it. If you are actually talking about what's better in terms of video games, it's now because you have so many options to choose from when you game now.
I'm with you @level 1 sword. I had access to much less games but my fondest memories are playing those games, bad or good because thats all I had. I played the latest RE game there recently and it was great, but there is no real replayability, it loses that appeal after a few play throughs. Back in the day those games had so much replayability, even if the game was finally completed we would still play it again. For games themselves, you had to try absolutely everything to get past a part you were stuck on. These days, at the first instance of resistance......"quick look up a guide!". Magazines were so much fun for information on what was coming out, cheat codes etc. I do like that they are more accepted these days. I am also not a fan of games being interactive movies now instead of just being for fun. I even miss the kiosks they used to have in some stores to try out consoles. I do appreciate that being a kid back then probably has an effect on my view but things seemed better back then.
It's all about the graphics nowadays, back then companies were trying to win you over with the actual gameplay.
I miss reading the game magazines instead of the internet, i had a dream one time i was at a grocery store trying to look for game magazines
Sounds like a good dream!
I miss physical gaming magazines, especially Club Nintendo. I was jumping up and down with excitement every time I got one in the mail. I would read them over and over again, and stare at the pictures for hours, imagining what the games were like. I also have fond memories of the demo discs that came with the Playstation magazine. I never owned a Playstation but used to buy the magazine anyway to bring them to my friends house just so we could play the demos. One game in particular eluded me for over 20 years and I started to think that maybe I had just imagined it, but turns out it was never released outside of that particular demo disc and was part of some obscure indie developer kit created by Sony.
I remember when GameFaqs just popped into existence out of nowhere. Before that, I remember as a kid browsing fan-pages on geocities looking up where the "G" was located in the last level in DKC3, Rocket Rush. After going crazy looking for it, I was relieved to find out it was missing due to a glitch and could finally stop searching. Thank you 56k internet from 1997!!
It’s a double edge sword for me pre-Internet I miss looking at all the games in magazines I didn’t have access too (part of that was no money of my own as a kid), post-Internet I like having access to all of those games now.
I really enjoyed the feeling that I could just pop in a cartridge or a disc and the whole game was right there. No patches, updates, or downloads to worry about!
On the other hand, it’s nice that the developers can fix something in a game that’s frustrating or unfair without needing to buy a whole new version of a game.
100% gaming was better before the internet. Not only did if feel more special without it; but because people are so dependent on it; gaming companies are trying to take away our ability to own games and doing so without the internet dependent masses noticing. The fact that many people don't know the actual difference between digital downloads, cloud gaming and game streaming subscriptions; are proof of this. Games should have online multiplayer after the base game prioritizes single player and local multiplayer as an absolute standard.
I respectfully disagree.
Having the wonders of internet and digital gaming are two different things. Bad business practices is not the internet's fault, but consumers themselves.
So companies will keep feeding on that. It's nice being able to try a demo and see if you actually want to buy the game, demos were exclusive to gaming events leaving out gamers you know.
People will always be to blame for companies keeping these trashy behaviours, not the internet. It was the same back then, take off your nostalgia glasses and see the real picture. The only reason it "felt more special" was because eveything was local, that's the only reason.
@@octo6829 i can get with that. Let your wallets speak for you people
It wasn't better. Lack of a selection & you were very limited to video games. Now you can have emulation for free and play 1000's of games. Just the fact you can choose them is a lot better. Also save states with emulation. You can now play 90% of games & beat them. 8 bit to 16 bit.
@@tonyp9313 Too many choices creates an illusion of choice; which in today's case seems more true than ever. Especially when companies think that that solution to the issue of having too many games to chose from; is to remove the choice of buying them; since the internet allows everything to stream everything.
@@enriquepinero707 I still buy my physical games at said stores like Walmart, Best buy, Amazon, Gamestop etc...This is a choice as I do not stream or buy digitally. Which I can have the option to do that.
Fun fact, a buddy of mine actually had a relative that worked at Nintendo and not a single person believed it. The relative was in marketing so he mostly got to play the occasional game a little early, but they were extended family so it sounded incredibly fake when he'd talk about it. Think "My step-cousin once removed let us play Mario Sunshine early!" I had my doubts too until I met them. They had huge stacks of "Not For Resale" marked GBA carts to put in demo units at stores and they just gave me a handful. I actually still have my copy of WarioWare from that day.
OR DO I.
I remember getting to play Super Mario 3 in 88 or early 89 on a kid's Famicom who moved in down the street from China. This was before the Wizard trailer and before anyone in the US knew about Mario 3. And I told all the kids at school about this new Mario game where he could fly, but no one believed me. I felt like I had some secret inside knowledge. This is the reason why I view Mario 3 as an 80's game where as it was actually released in 90 in the US.
That must have seemed like the coolest thing ever!
I imagine you had some fun saying "I told you so", when SMB3 turned out to be just as you described.
That one harder the Famicom version. You get small when you get hit even if you have a racoon suite, Fire balls etc...Also you can swim in that boat level under the boat either World 8.
@@tonyp9313 I was able to swim under the boat and climb up at the back in the SNES version, which is a mix of Japanese and US releases. But it was difficult to pull off! It probably works on NES/Famicom as well, with a bit of luck.
Another difference is that the US NES version fills your inventory with P wings after you finish the game, which was unfortunately never carried into the SNES version.
@@3dmarth oh ok I never knew that. I thought it carried over in the Snes Version. Yeah original Mario 3 u.s they chopped off a block for Mario to easily jump on that lower step.
By far my favorite thing about games pre internet was local multiplayer. I loved staying up all night playing goldeneye on n64 or even system linking to play halo, return fire or command and conquer. Now it's like, hey go home n get online so we can play each other.
Best part of gaming before the internet was being a kid and talking about games at school. Spending time with friends talking about game secrets and giving tips for the most popular games will likely never happen again. Once the internet came around and online gaming started, the fun was still finding secrets, but this time with others online. How much time was spent playing Halo 2 and trying to get out of the map? Too much time, that's what. Also, being able to compete against other players from around the world is both a blessing and a curse, depending on how good, or bad you find out you really are at a game.
Currently writing a Uni paper on the impact of Information Communication Technologies on gaming. This video came at the perfect time. Great humor too. You've made schoolwork enjoyable, congratulations sir!
Glad to hear and much luck to you with your paper!
That sounds like a cool paper! Hope it went well 👍🏻
I upgraded my PS4 recently. Took me HOURS to move all my data over to the new console and restore the old one to factory. Plus I forgot my PSN password, so had to reset that as well. Oh, and had to download the latest software update. I also Had a couple hiccups with the data transfer, did some research and troubleshooting and by the end of the day could finally play my games on the new console.
I also bought a new GBA sp recently. Literally playing my games from the last save within seconds 🤷🏻♂️
Forgetting passwords is a huge problem. That's 1 major thing I don't like about online...So I wrote mine all down today.
Remember Metroid passwords..... Lol
@@Dilemina fair point lol
Congrats on 20k subscribers! The thing I always liked before the internet being a big thing way discovering games organically, renting something to try it out or even just having a friend come over & bring their favorite new game. There always seemed to be a sense of mystery to new titles even if you read about it in magazines. I personally still prefer strategy guides to online guides (maybe my phones too small & I need a tablet for my old eyes). As for with the internet it's that I can play games with friends online, as we all live in different areas now & getting together has become hard. Also finding new friends to talk with about games has been awesome, same with getting to watch channels like this one here!
Man I miss Videogame magazines. As a kid, I would get so excited when the latest issue of SegaPro or Mean Machines Sega came out. I would read it cover to cover over and over and over and get so excited for those games. I have been considering starting to collect old videogame magazines but the shipping prices to South Africa unfortunately puts it out of my budget at the moment.
I miss all the gaming magazines I'm probably in a minority on this but sometimes I like to read things and take a break from reading on a bright screen all the time.
Born in the 2000s, I can't recall these times; I've been using the Internet since age 4. Wondered about zero microtransactions how Millennials & Gen X got game news.
Nothing beats a room full of friends Passing controlers around great days.
It's a very difficult set of pros and cons. I would say, so long as you don't feel compelled to like and play the 'popular' multi-player dominant games, you can find games that really have all the pros of both.
2024 and things aren’t looking any better for gaming. Keep up the great content!
Congrats on 20k subs.
Thank you!
Pre-internet days were amazing. I remember being a kid and watching my big brother and his friend play Resident Evil on PS1, and they'd just be going around the map, trying to figure stuff out, and when they'd eventually workout how to solve a certain puzzle, we'd be so excited; whereas now, you can easily go on TH-cam to find a solution. There was just so much to love about games back then. You always got the full game; you really had to use your brain and work hard to progress through the game, and your options for getting help were limited to the game manual, magazines, strategy guides, or asking friends/family. Another great thing, is that you weren't distracted by social media and you could truly immerse yourself in the game.
A big plus to playing a lot of classic games today comes in the form of fan hacks/mods and translations, all transmitted compliments of the internet :)
Grats on 20K! Keep it coming 😆
Thank you!
3:45 my actual reaction to any commercial coming on
Evert 2 weeks a keep a retro gaming evening with friends. Nothing beats co-op gaming with friends !
Retro gaming has truly blossomed for me due to the internet, as I am not specifically a collector (I only want what I will truly enjoy playing) and don't have a lot of money or time, yet I'm able to pinpoint games that I think the gameplay looks fun of after watching on youtube. I avoided wasting hundreds and thousands of dollars because of it. Just the fear of that possibility would have deterred me from even starting my own little collection which has now grown into a full blown absolute obsession with retro gaming. Edit: Plus, we do not have a single store or shop in our town that carries retro games. I have to travel and by that time, It's nice to have an idea of what I'm looking for.
I remember being able to rent games from movie rental stores so I could try before I buy.
I absolutely love your channel. Not going to list specific things I like because it's everything.
Glad to hear it. Thank you so much!
You my man are the coolest and funniest nerd I've come across yet!! Just subscribed! Never quit making videos bro!
Thank you and welcome to the channel!
I remember renting a few games and getting stuck, and playing the same part for 3 hours with no clue where to go.
You have me laughing so hard. Thank you for your amazing videos. I’m a retro gamer and loved hanging out with my friends playing games in person. Even if they were single player games we got to hang out and have a blast. I even do that to this day by planning monthly game/hang out days with my twin brother and my best friend. I could play them via the internet but that wouldn’t be the same.
Congratulations on 20k.
Thank you!
The games now a days don't want us to visit anyone as you've got a lot of friends, but they never seen you or your house. However, the internet brought me back into Retro Gaming as after SNES I got burned on buying too much games that sucked because of the cover art. After SNES I mainly relied on Roommates & or friends consoles & let them suck there wallets dry. SUCKERS!
The posting of games on the internet was a game changer for me & I was back into buying Retro Games baby! Thanks to videos like Retro Bird! Keep up the good work citizen!
I'm so glad I lived through that time of gaming. It was so exciting trying to discover which games were good. I got Shining Force based on a screen shot and it blew me away!
I think for me, the best part of gaming before the internet was how important it made video game magazines. I regularly read Nintendo Power, EGM, and GamePro growing up and not only was each new issue a thrill to receive so I can see what's new and good, but it made it feel like there was a smaller, more intimate community of gamers out there. Like our own little secret club.
I suppose what I like best about post-internet gaming is the ability to read up about obscure games, finding out more about them through retrospectives and behind the scenes videos (much like this channel), and most importantly, guides for games that I don't have the patience to try and figure out when I get stuck. Of course, most of the time they are retro games, but my point stands.
Internet takes some of the magic out of discovering a new game but the internet gave us access to emulation to experience new older games we never had the chance to try out. The ol' double edged sword.
No it doesn’t I personally find out games I never heard of thanks to the internet
Well said!
Yeah, being able to not only know about but also try out games is huge.
My comment is not related to this specific video, but I'd like to say I really enjoy your videos and think you're very creative when creating YT content. Greetings from a Brazilian living in the UK.
Hey, thank you for that! Means a lot. Glad you're enjoying the channel.
What, no banana slices with your Nintendo Switch cereal? The sacrilege!
Ah, that's a great idea!
Well, I think you have to take the perspective of age into account as well. The thing about no Internet, especially in the 8 and 16-bit eras was the anticipation behind seeing the games in magazines months before release. With cool looking screen shots, games sometimes sold themselves. Of course, the rental market gave people a chance to actually play the games before buying the, so after a while, it kept last game developers in check.
Put that in perspective today as a kid, and online video game play previews takes all that away, because there’s no way to hide a stinker if you show enough game play of a bad game.
As an adult, I was able to experience the dawn of the PlayStation generation, just a few years before the Internet exploded as a powerhouse (I’ve been in the Internet since 1992 - content was very boring back then), so magazines still were kind of the Sega to source - but releases were much more immediate, and you had stores like Incredible Universe to see everything you wanted. Even kids could be in awe and wonder if this great time to be a video game fanatic.
So after the explosion of the Internet, I think it was definitely the dawn of online play, and most definitely voice chat that I think are the best contributions… but BEFORE party chat became a thing. Sorry to say, but party chat killed online games for me, especially first person shooters like Call of Duty. Still my fondest memories of all time - playing SOCOM 2 and 3 and hearing your teammates mics cut off when they got killed.
Thanks for the steady stream of great content!
Thank you for watching!
Playing through Solstice on the NES last year, old school pre-internet style…i.e… hand crafting a map with paper and pencil and legit problem solving on my own…That is a whole different experience. The sense of satisfaction is real.
You forgot to mention hiring games at the video store mate! love your videos.
i want to see a channel like this more aimed towards younger collectors like me. i grew up with online gaming and the internet, and i love to collect retro stuff, but i also appreciate modern stuff. plus, my favorite genre is jrpgs and im a huge weeb and tokusatsu guy, so most of the stuff i play/collect transcends modern and retro.
I'm very much in favor of younger collectors like yourself! I do try to make my advice on collecting take into consideration collectors of all kinds :) Hopefully you might find some of it useful.
Favorite pre broadband Inet would be having friends physically showing up to jam. Favorite post broadband Inet would be the capability to game with friends no matter where I live. Some of my favorite memories are jamming the many 360 co-op games from Germany with My friend in Texas. Now I am in Virginia and we play ESO with a friend of mine in Maryland and one in Italy.
So here's something I've had to work out of my system. The internet makes it easier to be really good at a video game. On day one (a lot of times even sooner) when a video game is released. There are hundreds if not thousands of guides made for it. Telling / showing you how to play, how to be good at the game. I've had to stop looking at them. As I've found that simply figuring out all that stuff out yourself is much more fun. The internet has everyone doing the exact same things in video games. They don't 100% know why they're doing it, they just know it's good. I've had to weed myself out from that.
The feeling of discovering a game that turns out to be good is still there, if you look a bit deeper for games that nobody talks about. There's still a lot of Game Boy and GBA games out there, and games for less popular systems, although not all of them might turn out to be good. Also, the feeling of finding out that a game actually is good, even though you've heard of it being bad but you thought you might give it a chance and try it anyway, can be great.
Mind you it's not a feeling I remember that much from my childhood anyway. I think my childhood was just boring, so I don't remember much.
I also like how the kid who said Sonic 4 would be on the Super Nintendo is actually somewhat correct, if you count unlicensed cartridges.
The nets class for retro gaming ( mostly) getting consoles / games online , vids like this are just cool.
I can't imagine games would necessarily be better without the internet. It serves as a great tool for all sorts of things: Learning what games are good or bad, getting help with a game when you need it, and the extremely convenient feature of playing with people online, be it random strangers or with people you know, hopping in a call and having a good time.
For me however, I think it's fun to limit my use of the internet. When I want to play multiplayer games with friends, I always try to see if we can see each other physically. I try to avoid getting help in games as much as I can, and if I do, I will only use a guide that was made when the respective system was current. I want to potentially go further with this and buy physical guides for the games I know I want to dive into. And although I don't have a habit of it now, I think I want to really embrace that sense of mystery when in a game store and buy things that look interesting that I haven't heard of before. I know I did this with the trashy Paperboy 64, but seeing retro games as something with a box-of-chocolates nature seems novel and I want to explore it some more.
Internet is a huge part of gaming. Without internet, The gaming industry would not exist. It wouldn't be the no 1 thing for entertainment.
Nice video Bird! I remember when I was a kid (with a kid body also) I had the Nintendo magazine with all the skulltulas location in Ocarina of Time. What a piece of gold.. but not now because you have all in internet.
Thanks for sharing all this retro stuff.. I really apreciate it.
Greeting from south of Chile!
Megaman Legends for the PS1 is that game for me. I knew of megaman due to seeing it on the NES & loving the X series on the SNES & PS1. Megman Legends was sitting on the shelf at EB Games or Babbages in the mall. I loved Megman & I was just getting into RPGs. This was a match made in heaven, and lone behold its in my top 10 games of all times for the rest of my life.
i grew up in the early 2000s but snes and gameboy were still all i knew doesn't matter if they weren't current then but since i discovered the internet a decade or so later i opened my eyes to all sorts of games for the snes and beyond
I think the biggest thing from back in the day that helped me learn about games was video game rentals. It was a lot easier to convince my parents to rent me a game instead of buy one. So many memories of going to the rental store, grabbing something, and then it becoming obsession. Thank you Star Trax video for introducing me to Rocket Knight.
I miss renting video games a lot. It's not because it was better with the selection of games. It's because of the social aspect or you went outside your house looking at things in a video game/ movie rental store.
At first, online gaming felt fun. It was this new experience that allowed you to play with another person across the country. If you didn't have anyway to play online you still had a great co-op split screen experience. Most importantly, you had the full game on the disc. Now it seems companies rely too much on multiplayer and give you a very short single player campaign and about 50% of the game. With the other 50% being DLC, microtransactions, etc.
I guess a part of me misses the days when you weren't constantly connected to the internet whether it be your phone or computer. Back when you had to turn on your computer to dial up to the internet and having the internet itself felt more like a luxury.
I liked that before the internet video game rumors and video game myths were so powerful
Yeah, someone tricked me into believing there were orange, purple, etc Yoshis in Super Mario World.
Literally had this chat with my son today after we spent what seemed like 20 mins looking in a shrine for a chest in breath of the wild...we just youtubed it and found it within 30 secs....thats the one bit i love post-internet... the "time-saving" factor. Pre-internet i loved games weren't rushed to market and it was important that it was good and complete as there was no way to patch it...yes i am aware there should have been better QA on a hell of a lot of games over the pre-internet years...but it wasnt a cop out where devs and publishers could just 'patch it on the run'.
Really liked the jokes in this one toothbrush roulette had me dead 😂
Seriously though: great video as always. The original X-Box changed gaming forever after in ways that I don't think that anybody could've predicted accurately.
I'd say the Dreamcast did that. XBox just took the formula and perfected it.
Cool vid, I can't say I've ever found any snacks in my games though. As for gaming before the internet, my favorite part was the gaming magazines. I loved reading EGM as a kid and as I got older Next Generation. Seeing all the games coming out, rumors, reviews, ads, and especially the mail order game stores was just really fun imo. Gaming after the internet became a thing there were two highlights. The first is being able to order and import games more easily. The second is all the game information that was available, being deep into fighting games at the time having access to moves and combo information and lots of other stuff that helped me improve my game.
Glad someone mentioned Dark Rift lol
The music is pretty good though. Skarlet, Zumeroen, and Morphix themes are really good.
It's a game that I would say qualifies as one that I forced myself to like.
The router bit was too real lmao
Pre-internet, my favourite thing about games was getting my friends together to play multiplayer games. I had a Hudson multistep for the SNES, so it worked great with Bomberman, NHL 94, etc. When I got an N64, even though I found the list of games a bit lacking, they had so many multiplayer games like MarioKart 64 and Goldeneye. It was wonderful. (now that I'm a boring grown up and my friends aren't gamers anymore, I don't think it would be the same, and for this reason, I don't think an N64 Classic would be well-received.
Post internet? I like being able to download games nearly instantly.
Strange fact: Tetris 99 may be the only online console game I have ever played.
I’m very grateful and fortunate to have grown up during the 90’s. I couldn’t imagine what it’s like these days. The imaginational magic of video games before was something to behold.
I grew up in the 80's. Just the socializing with friends was a lot better. Everything else was trash.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt? That's my name, too!
Best thing prior to internet: No releasing games before they were ready with the excuse of "Oh we'll just fix it with a patch."
Best thing with Internet: being able to download retro games for a much cheaper price than a lot of the old cartridges that have grown in value over the years.
bad games also didn't get attention
I was playing an RPG game on SNES the other day and I was allowed with no restrictions or banning to choose a rude name for my character! Another perk of pre-internet!
Online vs mode has made old games fresh again. 👍
One thing I miss about gaming before the internet was the mystique surrounding rumored secrets. Sometimes a secret would sound too good to be true but the only way to know would be to try it yourself. I didn't have the internet in 1998 when Pokemon Blue and Red were out but rumors about Mew, Pikablu, and Missingno always sent my imagination running wild. To actually see Missingno with my own eyes by finding it myself instead of looking up a TH-cam video was pretty magical.
Pikablu! That's a name I've not heard in a long time.
Both it (Marill) and "Buru" (Snubbull) stopped being mysterious as soon as the movie came out, of course.
I saw Mew in my friend's copy of Pokémon Power (a special booklet included with Nintendo Power magazine) well before I even played the games, so that wasn't a surprise.
But "Missingo" [sic] completely sounded like a tall tale, and it was incredible to see that this was a real thing in the game.
Oh, and I remember someone claiming that Ho-Oh (as seen in S1E1 of the anime) was called "Zinc", for some reason.
Yeah, those Pokemon rumors had me hooked back then too.
I myself am very thankful for the internet, it makes things much easier, I don't believe in "the internet takes the magic away of discovering a new game", it still happens to me whenever I discover a new game by accident ON THE INTERNET that I didn't know of.
There are too many games out there, one thing is for triple A games to get strong marketing, but there are tons of games that nobody seem to know, giving how massive the internet is. I love that I can easily get access to footage of games that I would like to try, games that I missed, games coming out soon.
It's not hurting retro games, thank god for emulation and mods.
I can totally understand your viewpoint.
Yeah I agree with you.
I remember finding the dragon punch in mega man x 2 the first day I got my hands on it. I even called Tips &Tricks and told them about it. They featured the secret in their next issue. That was awesome for me.
A fantastic little Easter Egg!
my favorite part was not knowing where to go or what to do and just figuring it out by myself because i spent all my money on the game and had no type of guide
Tbh I can Not think of a gaming World without the Internet anymore... Which is strange cause I am a Kid of the 80's and 90's and I remember how it was... Magazines and Guides were my Main source of information regarding Games. But the Internet Made all so much easier and highly accessable, that I truly think those old days will sadly never come Back.
Definitely yes! And i didn’t need to see the video to know.
But I like your videos 👍🏼
I love solo play, or a couch partner, but the real fun for me started in 1998 when I could play PC games (Total Annihilation, to start off with) online on Mplayer with others.
These days though, I play on my NES and DOS computer from the 90s.
Man I miss the good old days of playing games couch co-op or fighting each other. I totally agree, the online gaming kinda took that fun away. At the same time it opened up lots of new possibilities and ways to make friends. That being said, it'll never be the same as having a house full of your friends playing street fighter 2 on snes together. It was awesome to be the only kid on the block that had all the cool games. Man those were the days!
Very interesting video man!
I was excited when I was able to play halo online but after a few years it got old. I found myself avoiding online gaming. Because like you said it gets too competitive and can take the fun out of it. Plus online purchasing irritates me so much. Just going through the game enjoying it and then an advertisement to buy something that would make the game easier is just a tease, and giving in and buying is like cheating and also takes the fun out of the game IMO. Definitely can’t argue that the internet has allowed me to learn about a lot of games I missed back then. So grateful for that!
Great video
I have mixed feeling about pre and post internet. The best part of pre internet was that almost every game was released finished; no patches were forced on the player... although some games could've used an update or two. The best part of post internet is that we don't have to leave our house to get our games. Having games digital is very convenient in the short term, but I worry about what will happen to our digital games in the long run with stuff like DRM. Like in 50 years, are my grandkids going to have access to the modern stuff of today? Not all games can be preserved with the way things are right now. Retro gaming will survive, no doubt, and if there's any era that deserves to last forever, it's the retro era. Kids a century from now will be playing the arcades on their VR headsets.
I really enjoyed pre internet borrowing and trading of games, so that way you got to try other games and see what other people's options and opportunities were, because that's all you could do.
Post internet, I really like that tips, tricks, cheats and endings can be found for all old games now! With very few exceptions
My favorite thing about pre-internet gaming was that I would pick up a game from Blockbuster or wherever and play it and love it, even if it was terrible. I didn't know it was terrible! I just had fun! Nowadays, I hate to admit it, but sometimes my perception of a game can be warped by reading or watching reviews and streams of a game. I miss the innocent, naive enjoyment I could get out of a sub-par game, like it was the best thing ever.
Watching a TH-cam walkthrough is a lot better than not watching any games. This saves you a lot of time & money. Lets say everyone loves Last of US 2. Then you buy that because everyone said that...However now you can research that game & see for yourself if you like it or not.
I think that innocent, naive joy at playing a game you know nothing about, no matter how bad it is, is just part of being a kid, with or without internet.
Kids haven’t developed their critical thinking yet and get easily distracted so it’s easy for game developers to make games for them. They know this and make a bunch of bad games that they know at least kids will like enough for them to make a profit. Companies have always been doing this and still are.
The games that we like as a kid AND like as an adult too tend to be the actual good games. I think even kids today would love the hell out of a shitty game, even if the internet told them it was garbage. They just don’t care lol
Dang, this guy’s Will Forte impression is really good!!
Hey now, Sonic 3 is plenty long enough to be considered a full game in my eyes. In fact, the Knuckles stages felt like mostly cutting room floor material to me. If it were all in one cart, it would've been overkill and criticized for being too long.
I agree that Sonic 3 feels like it's own game. It was just for the sake of the joke.
I think the 2000s were the best. We had the internet for something but still got manuals and strategy guides.
Demos and trailers built into games was another way we discovered games back in the day. Sometimes they were like bonus games. We played the crap out of the Fusion Frenzy demo included with Halo CE.
Star Wars: Republic Commando had an epic trailer on Battlefront 2. Need for Speed Underground 2 had a demo for Burnout 3 and I was sold.
As a ten year old in 1990 in the middle of that The Wizard and SMB3 hype (and getting my very own copy for my 11th birthday the next year!) there is NO way that sort of magic could ever be replicated in today's world.