Nostalgia

I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing that beats old school videogames. I don't mean Atari or CalicoVision or other grainy systems that I won't pretend to be old enough to have played as a kid. I'm talking the golden years, at least for my generation- somewhere between 1998 and 2002. Specifically coming to mind are those games that I have modern incarnations to compare to, like NFL Blitz (2000), Kobe Bryant's NBA Courtside '99, and Madden/NHL 2002. There's not really a fighting or driving game out there now that interests me, so I won't detail my love affairs with Super Smash Bros and MarioKart64- we all know those are stand-alone, once in a generation kind of games.

What got me thinking about all of this was the time I spent at home over Christmas break. I brought my 360 home with me, thinking that its novelty in my household would trump the appeal of the N64 that we always wear out when I'm home. This hypothesis failed for two reasons: One, I forgot that I only own one 360 controller and one game (Madden '11), so there went any multi-player activities. Two, I forgot that my brothers and I have made an unspoken pact over the years to never grow up, at least not in the presence of one another. With the limited amount of time we see each other in a given year, daring to not act like a kid at home would border on blasphemous.

That being said, I spent countless hours on that N64 in the 3 weeks I was in the Cuse. Blitz 2000 with my older brother, Super Smash with my younger, and Kart if we were all in the house at once. The 360 went completely neglected, except for afternoons I was home by myself. Faced with this realization, I was set on figuring out why it was that a piece of technology from 1997 captivated us more than one that was less than a year old.

What I think it boils down to, in the end, is the reality factor. With the N64 (or the PC versions of Madden/NHL), you know going into it that things are going to go wrong. The games are riddled with glitches, as well as nonsensical features that are inevitably going to screw someone over. But that's ok, because it always seems to even out and everyone squares with the house. For instance, in consecutive games of Blitz 2000 with my brother Dan, the following occurred:
-I lost 5 fumbles and was intercepted 3 times (game 1, I got smoked)
-I got scored on with 14 seconds left, and somehow managed to win the game on a 65 yard bomb to Jerry Rice (another plus- playing with certified HOFers when they are ridiculously unfairly good in the game), during the course of which he evaded two tacklers in the last 5 yards, a near impossibility with the way Blitz is set up.

As much swearing and throwing of controllers both of these circumstances elicited, it didn't really matter, because you have to expect things like that coming in. Technology sucked, things went wrong, and it always allows the loser to maintain a shred of dignity, because they always know that things out of their control drastically could have changed the outcome. Same as when I gave up a crucial first down in my Madden 2002 franchise last summer when, playing against the Packers, BrettFavre was lined up by the CPU a full 15 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage (major glitch). The ball was snapped directly into his hands, and 3rd and 12 became 1st and goal. Things balance out though, like I said- concurrently, I had been playing a season on NHL 2002, and Joe Sakic scored 125 goals for me in that one (playoffs included). By my count, that would put him 25 ahead of the real record, held by Wayne Gretzky (that's 100 goals, for those of you shaky with math). 25% better than one of the greatest to ever play the game...seems plausible.

Let's compare these traits to Madden 2011, the game I so unconsciously avoided in favor of Blitz. It has incredible graphics, players with faces and play styles that are incredibly accurate, and incredibly easy controls. Madden gets more and more realistic every year, so it should come as no surprise that this is (hypothetically) realistic to the nth degree. There's just one problem- guys put up the same monster numbers as the games that we expect to be unrealistic. A good player playing on the All-Madden setting can still put up 45 points and throw for 5 touchdowns. Put that same good player on All-Pro and those numbers become 70 points and 7 passing TDs. A 95+ running back like Chris Johnson or MJD can trash a defense for 300 yards, if you run the ball enough. That's not the NFL, that's NFL Blitz!

I don't mean to bitch; I love Madden '11 as much as the next guy and then some. It also has the nostalgia factor working against it- it's new, which means I don't have fond memories of 9-year old me playing it with my elementary school friends or long hours with my brothers in our cold basement wearing our thumbs out on hard blue and gray plastic controllers trying to top each other at it. Sorry, Shaq, but putting you in in NBA Live '11 will never trump taking Zan Tabac off the same Celtics bench in Courtside '99 and throwing down an uncontested slam, no matter how realistically sweaty you are. Strange as it sounds, I'd almost prefer in these cases to say...even if it is broke, don't fix it.

PS- At least 2 guys in Blitz 2000 (Fred Lane and Steve McNair) are already dead.