Retro Gaming isn’t Mario and Sonic anymore – It’s Your PS3
As a 40-year-old player of video games, I have seen a lot of consoles arrive, and very few go. Perhaps a collector? My wife would call me a hoarder. I have a lot of old gaming systems, from the 1980s to the ’90s, and the ’00s, in my home. I also have modern, 4K-ready games, many of which I play regularly – not just for nostalgia. Retro gaming is more than just a history lesson about getting here. The past classics can be as engaging and enjoyable as today’s open worlds and multiplayer socializing. They are experiences that don’t require remakes or remasters. You already know this. Every gamer knows this. Retro, 2022 is a tricky question. Where do we draw the line?
The Xbox 360 will turn 17 years old this year, and the PlayStation 3 (and Nintendo Wii) will be celebrating its 16th anniversary. The Wii’s successor, the unfairly denigrated Wii U (it is a great console, and I will fight with you over this), will turn 10 years old. Double digits for consoles that don’t feel old, at least to those who have had a few decades (this being relative since I think the 360 would look ancient if it were 18). The 360 and PS3 both have HD-ready, online-enabled consoles closer to today than they were in the past. They also hosted several successful game series, including Assassin Creed and Gears of War.
There are also the massive games released during this period, such as Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, and Mario Kart 8. (which was first available on Wii U but became a massive success on Switch); the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption. These aren’t retro games. These are not retro games.
“In Retro Gamerwe view retro as anything older than 15 years, which is what I believe to be a good yardstick,” states Darran James, editor for Future Publishing’s Retro Gamer magazine. This magazine is one of few that actively emphasizes the past over the present. This reasoning is common because it usually means that two generations of consoles have gone, which is another yardstick gamers use to define retro. It all comes down to each person – I have found that retro is “What I played as a child.”
This may explain why some younger readers see the 360 retro consoles while I struggle to accept them. It turns out that I am not the only one feeling this way. “I know that retro is a moving target,” Trista (aka TristaBytes, Youtube, and many more) tells me. Retro is a mix of nostalgia and denial about the end of the ’90s. There are also a variety of visual styles. The difference between generations in gaming is now so minimal. It was amazing to see the difference between a Spectrum game and a Mega Drive one. This is even more true when considering the differences between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 5. The games feel more like continuous smooth iterations than giant leaps.
When I label the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 retro systems, the thing that makes me stop is that the games look, feel, and play much the same way today as they did a decade ago. There are improvements, but more tech allows for more bells and whistles to be incorporated into the experience. Play a Call of Duty, a GTA on 360, and then the most recent entry on a Series X and you will get the same impression. While the Grand Theft Auto V 2013 may look very different from the Grand Auto V 20,22, the core gameplay loops that make up these popular series have remained unchanged for many years. In some cases, even since the advent of the PlayStation 2.
The latest trailer for Thor, Love, and Thunder has arrived. It continues to look like the most exciting MCU Phase Four movie.
We see Natalie Portman’s new superhero persona, The Mighty Thor. But we also get to see the horrifying MCUdebut by Gorr, The God Butcher.
A person with a name such as God Butcher is not the type you would want to have tea and cake with. Gorr, a comic book character, is a particularly evil bastard who loses his faith and sets off on a journey across the universe to destroy all gods. Talk about ambition.
Love And Thunder’sGorr role is played by Christian Bale (ex-Batman), and he looks as terrifyingly scary as ever. Gorr is not Bale. We all still remember the leaked set video.
The new Thor movie seems to have set up a romantic road trip that centers on Thor’s quest to find inner peace. However, Gorr’s presence indicates that there may be some dark moments. You can’t put God Butcher as a character in a movie with many gods and expect everyone to get out alive at the end.
