Retro doesn’t mean bad – why you should play old games.

   A common mindset about old games is that they are “outdated” or antiquated. This is rarely true. Many old games shaped the gaming industry into what we know it as today and invented technology even used outside of video games. Any time you see a 3-Dimensional graphic on a screen, that only exists because of the invention of 3D graphics. BSP is a method of 3D rendering made by Id Software and is used to render almost any 3D environment digitally. This technology was first seen in DOOM, a very, VERY famous game by Id Software. Old games are unique, in the 1990’s video games were still new and game developers were figuring out what they wanted to do. Game developers would improvise and experiment. This resulted in very interesting gameplay and themes, and amazing stories. Today, game developers want to make something unique, the problem is that almost everything has already been done. Today, even if we don’t mean to, we are biased to what we think a game should be like. Old games had nothing before them, they had no idea what they should make, they made whatever they wanted to. This is why games like DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Pacman, etc. exist. Old games give a feeling of a new experience that current games can rarely provide. They feel different, the priority at the time was providing fun. Nowadays we focus on complex stories and good graphics. Games were less organized back then, instead of providing a little bit of everything like today, they provided a rush of adrenaline or an emotion provoking story.

By Konrad Smith ’23

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