How Do you define classic gaming??

[jakshep3]

How would you define 'classic gaming'? Some people might say commodore or ZX Spectrum are classic, while others think getting cramp in their fingers while trying to complete Metal Slug Half-Drunk is 'classic'. Personally, I think that Mega drive/Nes/PSX games are classic to my generation. I'd like to see your definitions.
thanks, jakshep3

[Ryudo Lee]

The original Pong arcade machines.  Nothing's more classic than that.

[Azraelle]

Anything that says "Insert Coin" or "Press Start" on the main screen.  I'd say nothing more recent than Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis platforms.

[Tapewolf]

I think 'Colossal Cave' was the first, but yeah, I'm torn.  I'm tempted to say the ZX Spectrum era myself - in those days you could make a decent game singlehandedly so there was a lot of experimentation as people strove to find out what 'worked' in a game.  There were some games which IMHO are good enough that I still play them fairly regularly, e.g. Monty on the run, Alchemist, Phantomas, Imogen on the BBC (a very striking game where the player has to do all kinds of incredibly evil things in order to escape) and so forth.  And this thread alone is making me want to play Citadel again

But I think my fondest memories are of PC games from 1990-1996, the DOS era.  Which brought us wonderful things like Ultima 6,Ultima 7, System Shock, LOOM and so forth.

[superluser]

Footguy.

In one line of code!

Code Select Expand

main(l){main(8^putchar(l++["xx77Rd$fR\a$wP\aP"]^88)?l:26+fflush(sleep(1))-l);}

[Kitsune Ascendant]

For consoles, I say anything 2 or more established "generations" back (with the gamecube era being the current established generation, since I feel the next gen consoles are still gaining their legs). So right now, super nintendo and anything before and up to super nintendo. For the gameboys, I'd say up to the color (which, oddly enough, actually follows my rule for the consoles if you count the gba and the gba sp as one "generation" like I do)

DOS and before is it for pc gaming.

[lucas marcone]

age of epires 1 no expansions. loved it.

[Arcalane]

Hard to say. Depends a lot on what you mean by "classic". Do you mean a specific style of games, or just any - or those which have acquired certain levels of fame?

Classic in my books would be things like Unreal, Unreal Tournament '99, Deus Ex, X-COM, Command & Conquer, just to name a few.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Pong.

[Sid]

Pong.

That is retro in my eyes
Console-wise, I see the era beginning with the NES and ending with the SNES as "classic". Playstation and N64 are borderline cases.
On the PC... hard to tell whether I'd count UT and Deus Ex as classic, but stuff like Battle Isle and System Shock 1 are definitely in that category.

[bill]

Anything with vector graphics.

[Ryudo Lee]

Anything with vector graphics.

Asteroids!

[Tapewolf]

The TV Games unit published in Elektor magazine in 1979.  You had to build it yourself and the games were printed as hex listings.  They later extended it into a full computer system and published programs for it on flexi-disks (yes, 45RPM singles) which were attached to the cover.

[superluser]

You had to build it yourself and the games were printed as hex listings.

I remember those!  It was PC Magazine (back when it didn't suck), but still.

[Tapewolf]

You had to build it yourself and the games were printed as hex listings.

I remember those!  It was PC Magazine (back when it didn't suck), but still.

Yeah... type-in games were kind of cool, but I don't think many other magazines did a type-in computer 

I still have some for the spectrum that I'd like to see if I can type in via OCR...

[Vidar]

Classis == Old + Good, like the 1922 silent black-and-white movie "Nosferatu".
Also, see the Wii's Virtual Console. Much classicy goodness there.

[Darkmoon]

How Do you define classic gaming??

Your mom.

[jakshep3]

haha, very funny darkmoon, I get the joke, but YOUR 'mom' is too old and dry for me.
P.S ask her when i can get my underwear back
thanks, jakshep3

[Darkmoon]

Ask her girlfriend. She's the one that collects that stuff.

[Turnsky]

back on topic:

Wolfenstein 3D

[Fresnor]

For me, it's anything that helped define the genre in it's time.

Basically Zelda(gold cartridge), FF1, Contra, and Mario Bros 1&3 for me.

(Still waiting for Mario Bros 3 for the Virtual Console)

[Dannysaysnoo]

My idea of a classic game is a game that never gets old, like Deus Ex, the Metroids, Zelda 2, and Mario 64.

[gh0st]

basically i define something as classic when you can find it for free on the internet and you need an emulator for it to work

[King Of Hearts]

To me its classic if you can still play it after 20 years and enjoy it.

[Nimrods Son]

To me, classic is if it's either called Castlevania Bloodlines or runs on a NES or in DOS modus.
Two things about more recent consoles - the most things with 32 bit are still widely in use, and game designers stopped caring about the inner qualitites of their games about 10 years ago.
Like, you could still buy used PSones at EBgames 2 years ago, and LOTS of PSX games are just so totally shit! So where's the point in defining anything playstation as "classic"?

[Dannysaysnoo]

To me, classic is if it's either called Castlevania Bloodlines or runs on a NES or in DOS modus.
Two things about more recent consoles - the most things with 32 bit are still widely in use, and game designers stopped caring about the inner qualitites of their games about 10 years ago.
Like, you could still buy used PSones at EBgames 2 years ago, and LOTS of PSX games are just so totally shit! So where's the point in defining anything playstation as "classic"?

If you define a system with a mess of bad titles, you wouldn't think the Game boy is classic. There were hundreds of rubbish games on that.

Off-Topic, i just beat Metroid on the NES without dying once.

[Nimrods Son]

congrats on the Metroid performance, that's really huge!
I don't see the GameBoy as classic, but the key games surely are. The Gb just doesn't have the... feel to me. But that's only my personla point. at least, there's enough patina on the GB by now!

I'm pretty sad, btw, that the GBA dies off so fast now - it was a sure candidate to be considered classic in ten year's time if Nintendo had taken the time to give software developers more chance to master the hardware. Instead, they went on the race DS <=> PSP, while I still cannot see a quality in DS games that top their GBA counterparts (like, Cv: Portrait of Ruin - Aria of Sorrow? Where's the quantum leap?) (or: Megaman ZX - Megaman Z 4   -- I can't see anything superior, or any use of the DS' gimmicks in gameplay. That's so weak, Nintendo...)

[Fuyudenki]

basically i define something as classic when you can find it for free on the internet and you need an emulator for it to work

so Halo 2 and DOAX are classic?

'cause you can download them free(illegally, don't do it!) off the 'net, and play 'em on Xbox emulators, if you know where to look.

[DoctaMario]

I agree with classic gaming being anything up to the SNES and Genesis. Though PSX and N64 are headed there. Inevitably it'll be anything that uses a cartridge for games. I'm amazed that Nintendo decided to go carts on the DS.

[Darkmoon]

It allows for much faster loading times, which has been a big comparison o the PSP and it's long load times. It was a wise move, even if it made the games marginally more expensive.