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10 Years Ago · Jun 13, 07:32 PM
Last weekend, I was in a retro mood.
I watched a movie, claimed by many to be the best movie never to have won an Oscar, Shawshank Redemption (Morgan Freeman went heads on with Tom Hanks of Forrest Gump, you know who won). It was powerful, moving, with a focus on friendship, a topic not popular with movie makers. After watching it, it easily became one of my favourite movies. Shawshank Redemption was made 11 years ago.
I also picked up an old time adventure game, Day of the Tentacle (I couldn’t even find the link to it on LucasArt!). I played it 10 years ago during the hey-day of LucasArt adventure games, and i still retain fond memories of the superbly crafted puzzles and colorful characters(mad scientist! hamster reading a newspaper!), despite not finishing it that time around. This time, I intend to finish it together with my girlfriend, taking full advantage of the nature of adventure games that require brain work above everything else. No dual controls is required, as we take turns to navigate the 3 main characters. Unlike the last bunch of popular adventure games(Siberia, The Longest Journey), the puzzles here were immensely satisfying to solve. The Day of the Tentacle was made 12 years ago, and the genre of adventure games is nailed firmly to the deathbed since.
Shawshank Redemption felt like it was made yesterday. I am confident I could pick the movie up 20 years later and still enjoy it the same way I did. On the other hand, I almost couldn’t recognize Day of the Tentacle anymore. I needed to adjust my mindset to cope with the dated graphics, but after 5 minutes or so, I’m good to go.
Unsustainable growth of the game industry? My own fault for succumbing to the lust for great graphics of today’s standards? Thats another topic for another day.
The thing to note is, it was easy for me to purchase a copy of Shawshank Redemption. On the year it came out(1994), the DVD format was almost non-existent, 11 years later, I got it on DVD at my neighbourhood video store. (I live in China, so you know where I got it)
For me to play Day of the Tentacle, I had to scour the internet for a downloaded copy, as the game is no longer for sale except on e-bay. Next, I had to find a solution to actually play the game on Windows XP, as the game is DOS based. I located VDMSound, a software to emulate the DOS-based sound environment. After installing the software and editing some configuration files, the game is finally playable, despite some technical glitches. Now try getting a non PC literate person that wishes to experience one of the greatest game of all time!
Perhaps its about time the game industry stopped comparing itself to its envied cousin, the movie industry, boasting at every chance that it is BIGGER. Big or not, something is clearly not right, as the best stuff that we churn out gets buried in the bottom.
It is speculated that the upcomming Nintendo Revolution will offer 221 of Nintendo’s past games for download. If it is true, there is still hope! Lead the way Nintendo!
What a difference 10 years make… in the game industry.
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