Video games have come a long way. They're prettier than ever before, with more realism and depth than the makers of "Pong" ever would have thought possible. But that depth comes at a price - now that video games have more in common with books, I find I just don't have time to play them. While I like to get sucked into a good adventure game when I can, most of the time I just can't stick with one game long enough to play through it. Sometimes I just want to sit back and blow things up, without worrying about where to find the Star Crest to open the courtyard door. That's why I like arcade classics. Well, nostalgia's a big factor too, but mostly I like the fact that I can just turn them on and play.
But I hate, hate, hate the way they're sold! What is the deal with putting ten classic arcade games (only three of which are still fun) on one disc (or cart), labelling it "Volume 1", then selling it for $40? Guys, these games have been paid for. You made your money back on these games decades ago. The people who programmed them have retired. Those of you currently working at the company aren't even actually working when you release these classic compilations. There's simply no reason to have six volumes of Namco's Greatest Hits, when each disk contains 5% games and 95% "History of Namco" videos nobody's going to watch.
No wonder emulation is so popular. You can fit hundreds of ROMs on a CD, and the same ROMs work on different emulators/systems. Meanwhile, I've bought "Joust" like, 14 times for various video game systems. That's a lot of money for a game that takes about 30 kb of hard drive space. But it's not even the money that really gets to me, it's the presentation. These are "twitch" games, and as such, I like to play one for a few minutes then switch to another. It's less fun if I keep having to change out CDs/DVDs/cartridges, so having more games on one disk really does make it better. Plus, the "turn on and play" advantage is becoming less and less of a feature, since you have to sit through 10 minutes of developer logos and loading screens when you first put in the CD.
Luckily I tend to do my retro-gaming on cartridge-based handheld systems, so loading isn't a factor, but there's still a few minutes between the time I first put in the cartridge, and when I actually get to play the game. I understand that everyone wants to get credit, and everyone wants you to see their pretty little company logo. But again, these games were programmed 20 years ago. What the game company is doing now is basically burning them onto a CD for us. Why does it take 8 development teams to do this, and does each one have to show me their logo?
The worst part is, the game companies don't get accurate feedback on these complaints. If a compilation doesn't sell well, then the company says, "Well, I guess retrogaming isn't really 'in' right now." Never mind that they were trying to sell six ancient games for $30. But a compilation doesn't really have to sell that well for them to make a profit, since production costs are so low. If a compilation makes the slightest profit, then they rush to find six more old games for the next volume - making extra-sure that only two are popular classics, and the other four are obscure rubbish.
I think the game companies are starting to take the hint, as I have started to see a few classics disks with larger libraries. The PS2 collections have more games on them than the PS1 collections; the DS collections have more games on them than the GBA collections. I'm sure the game companies would like us to believe that this is due to the higher capacities of the newer formats, but we're not that stupid. I've seen the bootleg GBA carts with nearly 200 8-bit NES games on them. And yet Capcom releases a "Capcom Mini Mix" collection for the GBA with 3 (Wow, 3!) 8-bit NES games on it. It was a fair selection - Bionic Commando, Strider, and Mighty Final Fight - but they really could have tried harder.
To me, the worst offender is Nintendo itself. A few years ago they released a series of "Nintendo Classics" for the GBA, all re-releases of 8-bit NES games, at around $20 each. They could have easily fit the entire set on one cart and still made a profit, but that's just not how they think. And let's not forget how they kept re-releasing the classic Mario games for the GBA, one at a time. Why not "Super Mario All-Stars", like they had on the SNES? I'm sure you know the answer to that one, and it has nothing to do with cartridge capacity.
I recently purchased "Konami Classics Arcade Hits" for the DS, and it's not bad. It has 15 games on it, about half of which are still fun to play. My biggest beef with it is that I was hoping it would make their previous GBA collection, "Konami Arcade Advanced", obsolete. But no, the new one includes some of the games on the previous cart, but not all of them; and the GBA cart has a neat "updated graphics" option for a couple of the games on it.
I also have "Retro Atari Classics", which takes an interesting concept and does nothing good with it. They took ten classic arcade games (of which only about 3 are still fun), and let three famous grafitti artists give them a visual makeover. The problem is, only one of the grafitti artists is any good. But at least it gives you the option of playing with the original graphics instead, in case you don't like the Remix version. Another problem (on the DS version, anyway) is that they overuse the stylus. The stylus actually makes sense as a trackball alternative, but they didn't even give the option of using the joypad instead. And that's just mean. While I think the touch screen is one of the coolest features of the DS, I do wish the game companies wouldn't force us to use it as a primary means of control.
One of the better classics compilations, at least in presentation, is "Activision Anthology" for the GBA. Now we're talking about a serious collection, with over 50 games on it. Unfortunately, they're Atari 2600 games, which means they're extremely dated. But Activision always did make the best games for the Atari (Pitfall, Chopper Command, etc), so you're still getting the cream of the crop. And again, twitch games - you really don't need good graphics to have fun.
One of the most confusing is Namco's GBA releases. First they released "Namco Museum" with the following games: Galaxian, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position, and Dig Dug. Then they released "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary" which included Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, and Bosconian. For the same system. I just don't get it. Hopefully when they get around to making a DS collection, they'll use their heads.
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