Dead Pixels has 41 chronicles

1. Roots
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Feb 24 2009

   Dead Pixels
   By Ryan M. Eft
   2-24-09
   
   Roots
   
   It’s been about 23 years since I first played a video game, and in that time games have evolved greatly, by which I mean gotten a hell of a lot easier. I’ve been learning this lately in quite a vivid manner, thanks to Xbox Live and certain evil retro collections. I’ve discovered that yes, you can go home again, but that doesn’t mean you won’t still suck at it.
   
   It started when I heard Capcom was hitting us with a new Mega Man game done deliberately in the old NES style. Hot DAMN, I thought. This is my chance to recall a simpler time. A more creative time. A time where a little blue robot saving the world was all the plot you needed.
   
   A time when you could get your ass kicked up and down the street.
   I didn’t pass a single level. Oh, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I lost more lives than a room full of cats with only one mouse. At one point I believe I lost a life in the opening credits. If it had been possible to shoot Mega Man in the breadbasket with his own arm cannon, trust me, I would have found out how and done it. Hey, Capcom, I have an idea for a new boss weapon: hari-kari.
   Back when I played Mega Man 2 nonstop, I swear, I was better than that. So I thought, hey, maybe it’s just this one game. Maybe they made it harder than it used to be. At this early stage, I at no point considered that I was simply over the gaming hill. Clearly, I was in some serious denial. An intervention might be needed.
   
   To prove I still had it, I went and set my sights on dominating Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Confession time: I had never played the original. This was going to be different. There was no way the game could have gotten harder, since I wouldn’t know the difference.
   I was confident. I was assured.
   I was toast.
   
   Well. At this point my ego was in need of a serious boost. So, of course, I did the one thing absolutely assured to provide an instant lesson in anger management. I played Street Fighter II. For the first time in probably ten years. I breezed past Guile. Whoever thought Guile was tough? I squared off against T. Hawk.
   
   I got whipped by T. Hawk. I got whipped by T. Hawk on Easy. I got whipped by T. Hawk on Super Ridiculous Mega Easy. If controllers didn’t cost the GNP of a developing nation these days, I would have broken mine. I do have to say, the wonderful redone art by Udon Studios did take some of the sting out of being abjectly destroyed by a video game.
   
   The thing of it is, I have a decent memory for video games. And I know I wasn’t always this bad. Granted, I was never an ace. But I also never lost that many lives on Mega Man before. Seriously, I was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of more men than both World Wars. It was sad.
   So I added up the facts, and I realized the problem was Capcom. Looking back, even their Disney games could be embarrassing in the wrong hands. I had to try someone else’s old games, and quick. My ego was dying.
   Enter Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection.
   
   Looking back now with my memories, it turns out there’s a very good reason why modern Sonic games suck that special brand of suck that only modern Sonic games can suck. And that reason is, you have to do more than press and hold forward. I mean, these games couldn’t have possibly been simpler. Your attack was your jump, and ducking was useless, so you really only needed to use the d-pad and one button to win. And it, of course, was awesome. And I was good at it. Sega, take notes: Sonic run fast. Is fun. Speed good.
   There were these achievements on there, too. One was to get a Chaos Emerald in the original Sonic game. I don’t know if you remember, but this involved successfully pinballing Sonic around a psychedelic landscape that would give Salvador Dali a migraine, until you got to the middle, which was made harder by the fact that there were only eight million, nine hundred and twenty-one thousand, six hundred and seventy-six ways to lose. I could never do this as a kid, ever. Every other Chaos Emerald game in every other Sonic, yes. This one, no.
   
   But then, there was no achievement on the line in 1991 (Holy crap! 1991? Really? I can still remember the Sears ads!).
   
   So now I had 35 Achievement points, a chaos emerald, and a little piece of my fragile gamer ego had been restored. Things were going well. And I was still pretty good at other games on the Collection, as well. Vectorman. Ristar. Clearly, I was not as bad at this as Capcom would have me believe. I decided to step it up, if you will.
   I decided to try some early eighties arcade games.
   
   Well.
   Well, well, well.
   
   At first, I wanted to pretend that I hadn’t been dumb enough to do that. But there was no denying it. I had foolishly stared into the maw, and had my face singed off by it.
   
   Anyway, as I type this, my adventures into classic gaming continue. Retro Game Challenge on the DS is like one big piece of fan service, though it’s very good fan service, and I’m busily getting my ass handed to me in online rounds of Street Fighter IV (will the man never learn?). And to the folks who light up the modern leader boards these days, who dominate at all their Halos and their Call of Duty’s with the wussy save points and the continues and all the other trappings meant to make games more accessible, I say: come to the eighties and early nineties for a while. Come to a cold, hard time when games did not really want you to succeed. This is where you shall see what you are made of. This separates the men from the boys, unless of course you’re a girl. I don’t know how that works, because I’m reasonably sure I can’t recall girls playing games back then. But anyway. Come on back to the old school.
   
   You can take my place. I’m going back to Viva Pinata.

   
   

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Dead Pixels has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. Dynafire
   Posted On Feb 24 2009

   If you want to experience true hell, try playing BC:R on Super Hard.
   
   Anyway, yeah. Everything is tons easier these days. Shooters are really nothing more than "go here, shoot that, don't worry about your health, you have shields or gradually recover fully from getting a rocket shot into your face" anymore, and the higher difficulty levels are more "cheap" than truly challenging. Perfect example of this: jackal snipers in Halo 2 and 3 on legendary. They have a 90% chance to hit you, and if they connect, it's instant death. That's not a challenge. That's bulls**t. Grenade spamming in veteran on Call of Duty is equally frustrating, but at least you have a chance to avoid them.
   
   Great article, keep 'em coming.

2. JackDaniels624
   Posted On Feb 24 2009

   Excellent work! The same thing happened to me when I downloaded Megaman. Although with some persistence I managed to beat all the bosses. Can't get through Wiley's castle though...But then I looked around and many people say that they made that it's harder then the old one.
   
   Then I got Street Fighter. I used to be able to beat it on easy easily. But this wasn't the version I played so I sucked more then when I didn't even know how to do a shoryuken!