Super Metroid's graphics will never stand against Metroid Prime's. But it is way more fun. In my humble opinion, anyway... but I think it might work as some example.

hedral002

Ya know, that's a good point. I played Super Metroid beginning to end. I've not revisited it in quite a while, I should try that out again but I never finished Metroid Prime. A few hours in and I just lost interest. That right there is a nice example of an old game that has stood the test of time, at least for me anyway.

... he was raised on higher standards.cos_vanquish

That's pretty much my thought as well. I would bet a lot of younger gamers these days are in a very similar boat. You are also quite right about beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

I gotta wonder if you could ever really convay the significance of the Model T to the guy in the flying car. That's probably an exaggerated analogy but it gives some real meaning to that saying 'kids don't know how good they have it' for me. Perhaps thats just a product of my many many years of life, all 24 of em :P

I know this is definitely on the long side but bear with me, I'm going somewhere.

Rummaging through my old stored away junk, stuff like old year books, child-hood toys, and specifically in this case my old consoles. For whatever reason when I came across the box that contained my Nintendo and all my games I felt compelled to play something. Driven by the warm fuzzy feelings generally associated with nostalgia I went with Super Mario Brothers 3. Simply hooking up the coax splitter to the back of my TV was some how enjoyable. After nearing the point of hyperventilation I was finally off and rolling. As a child I recall spending hours, week after week hopping from platform, to Turtle, to platform without relent. On this day I find myself only interested long enough to hit the first platform and the initial Turtle bounce. Upon landing on that second platform I went no further. Returning back to EVE Online and I thought nothing more of it.

This morning my 9 year old cousin is hanging out here with me while his mother is at school. I'd like to think I've done my best to influence him toward the gaming ways and I'm happy to report he's taken like a fish to water. My wish is to see how he performs with Gears of War but I've been told that is strictly off limits so the game of choice for now has been Super Smash Brothers Melee. The kid really gives me a run for my money. Apparently his eye catches the old Nintendo sitting on the floor and he asks me if we can play that. It occurs to me he has never touched a Nintendo. Anyone who grew up in the same generation would agree to not know Nintendo is sacrilege. My assumption was naturally that he would at least enjoy it enough to play thorough for a bit and it we quickly switched. To summarize my assumptions left me disappointed. It took about 5 minutes before he was done and has now moved on to Twilight Princess as I type this. Watching him fish with the Wiimote is quite amusing though.

The whole reason for this "adventures with Mathew" story is to make a point. SMB3 was the greatest thing ever to me when I was his age. Seeing him pass over it so quickly got me thinking as to why. No one would argue the point that SMB3 was a simple game but that didn't stop it from being all kinds of fun. I figured I had simply outgrown the game, both in game play and in pure and simple repetition when I put it down a week ago. Mathew however had not. This was the first time he has ever ventured into an old school Mario and he was thoroughly unimpressed.

The subject of my whole never ending story here is ask if our old school favorites were in fact not so great, but rather praised simply because they were the first. Did we just not know any better? Will there be a day when my grandchildren pass on lets say Crysis and say "It's too plain, it's too basic"?