I'll get around to them. Eventually. Maybe.
But to be honest this post is not so much an explanation or review as much as it is a personal account of why retro gaming/collecting in my opinion is so enjoyable.
Why retro?
This part is simple enough: they're fun. I play and purchase any games I deem to be fun. Halo 3 is fun. So is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is over 20 years old (and getting a sequel this year!!!). Also nowadays Triple-A gaming is going downhill as Call of Duty, Halo, and Assassin's Creed dominate the market, leaving other fantastic titles like Deus Ex and Dishonored buried. Other modern gaming titles prove that the market is running out of ideas and is starting to hit a point at which quality levels out and things start getting generic. Retro gaming has loads of quality titles (Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Double Dragon, etc.) that give us tons of variety both in genre and theme. They are also the most iconic. In my opinion the greatest of all the consoles are the grizzled elders like the PS2 and Super Nintendo.
What constitutes as retro?
Retro, as far as I'm concerned, consists of any gaming console that is no longer in production. This includes the PS2, which died this year, and the original Xbox, which was discontinued in 2005 upon the 360's release (games for the original Xbox continued to come out until 2009). The PS2 may seem pretty modern, and you're right, but remember that the PS2 was introduced in 2001. That's twelve years ago. Final Fantasy X in my opinion is old enough in the gaming industry to be considered retro, as is Battlefront II, which is eight years old. Others may disagree with my definition of retro gaming, but in my opinion that's a solid line between the old and new.
Why collect?
Collecting is a hobby. Some people collect stamps, some collect coins. Coins are pretty, and stamps are damn expensive if you find the right ones, but game collecting is interesting in that the thing being collected has both monetary and entertainment value. And it's cheap. You can pick up most PlayStation games at The Save Point (local retro store/arcade) for an average of $1-4. NES and SNES games, as well as games for Mega Drive, Saturn, and Dreamcast, fall around that general value. Same goes for GameBoy games, which can be even cheaper in some instances. That being said, things can get expensive. Very.Expensive. Don't believe old games can run expensive? Try snagging a copy of Final Fantasy VII for PS1. Or a copy of EarthBound for SNES, a game that runs $200 minimum. Popularity equals value in the gaming market. A Link to the Past, a game I was blessed with finding in a SNES lot at a flea market, runs around $40 used, more expensive than Modern Warfare 3 and around the same price as Black Ops.
Tips for anyone who wants to either start a collection or build on one:
- Don't worry if you're not in a financial position to collect en masse. Be patient and wait for the big
ticket items, or just grab a game here and there every once in a while. You don't have to have a
large collection, just a good one. The only reason my collection is so large is holding on to my
games from childhood combined with really good luck and a few years of small purchases when I
had the chance.
- Flea Markets and Yard Sales are great places to look. The only reason I have
a Super Nintendo at all is because I stumbled on a family selling stuff for cheap. I got a free 1980s
GameBoy, 35 SNES games, and all the controllers and power/video cords for around $25. The
console was garbage so I grabbed one offline for $30.
Fun pic: I'm in the middle of a Legend of Zelda paintjob for that battered SNES in the top picture. Here's what I have so far!
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