The NES Classic is supposed to retail for 90 bucks and is one of this year’s hottest items — good luck to everyone trying to get one, they are going like hot cakes on EBay right now for $250 a pop.
As of November 22, battle.net is surging with thousands of gamers returning to Diablo 2 with a new season.
Retro gaming is back baby.
This sets the perfect stage for an epic old-guy rant.
Video games were better back in the golden age, before the internet. Developers couldn’t ship out a half-baked game back then since there was no way to download a content update or fix mistakes with updatable patches.
That’s why the 30 games that come built-in to the NES Classic are all fire, all bonkers game that we all know and love:
Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3; The Legend of Zelda; Donkey Kong; Mega Man 2; Pac-Man; Final Fantasy; Kirby’s Adventure; Castlevania; Punch-Out; Balloon Fight; Excitebike; Super Contra; and the list goes on and on.
They all shipped in perfect working order back in their day.
The thing about these games is they were challenging. These old retro-games didn’t hold your hand, if you died that was it you had to start over. Back in my day you couldn’t always save your game because these old cartridges didn’t have much memory. You just had to get “gud”.
Nowadays, in our entitled millennial generation, gamers can buy their way to the top with real world cash and get a medal for any effort no matter how casual. Games ship in pre-beta conditions, which Steam calls Early Access. What happened to good old fashioned elbow grease?
When younger gamers hear me griping like this they usually ask me if I’ve played Dark Souls as if one game out of thousands is the answer to my troubled soul. It’s not enough.
Diablo 2 has such appeal because it was the last of the Golden age greats. Shipped in 2001 back before the internet was a common thing, it didn’t require an internet connection to play just like the NES titles. It was also the last of RPG games to have 100 per cent free trade. Not a single item is bind on equip, which leads to rampant gold and item sellers like d2anya.com.
Just like decolonization, we can’t go backwards, but we can learn from the past. Let’s make video games great again.
