<story><title>The Powerful Emotional Pull of Old Video Games (2014)</title><url>http://nautil.us/blog/the-powerful-emotional-pull-of-old-video-games</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>carsongross</author><text>Two non-nostalgia aspects of old games stand out to me:&lt;p&gt;1) The gameplay is often much easier to pick up quickly without a crutch mode because there were fewer degrees of freedom.&lt;p&gt;2) The artistry was at times amazing.  Orson Wells said that &amp;quot;the enemy of art is the absence of limitations&amp;quot; and I think the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, in particular, demonstrated the truth of that maxim.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vlunkr</author><text>I also wanted to say that old video games can be appealing for reasons other than nostalgia. Only recently I played through chrono trigger and symphony of the night, both for the first time, and they are amazing even by today&amp;#x27;s standards. People enjoy old books, movies, etc because they are still great, why can&amp;#x27;t video games be the same way?</text></comment>
<story><title>The Powerful Emotional Pull of Old Video Games (2014)</title><url>http://nautil.us/blog/the-powerful-emotional-pull-of-old-video-games</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>carsongross</author><text>Two non-nostalgia aspects of old games stand out to me:&lt;p&gt;1) The gameplay is often much easier to pick up quickly without a crutch mode because there were fewer degrees of freedom.&lt;p&gt;2) The artistry was at times amazing.  Orson Wells said that &amp;quot;the enemy of art is the absence of limitations&amp;quot; and I think the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, in particular, demonstrated the truth of that maxim.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mangeletti</author><text>Wow, I could not agree more.&lt;p&gt;One more-recent case that really stands out is Command &amp;amp; Conquer - Red Alert 2. This game had much simpler graphics than later RTS games, so the focus was mostly on gameplay. IMHO, this was the best RTS ever created[1], and the reason for this was that it was sort of at the peak of perfection for its level of graphical and spatial limitations.&lt;p&gt;1. I know Star Craft was epic as well, and Generals from the remaining remnants of Westwood combined with EA was great also. And... Dune. Red Alert, for me, was the sort of Vivaldi[1.1] culmination that built on all these past successes, just before the age of &amp;quot;Moar Triangles!&amp;quot; reached RTS.&lt;p&gt;1.1 (I heard you liked footnotes) Vivaldi, the Baroque composer, built upon the style of Corelli and others before him, even copied some aspects of their musical styles, but this is what made his music so great.</text></comment>