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slimequestThere are some technological advances that, once you've experienced them, you can never do without again. In the video gaming world this is also true.
Saving function - so I don't have to write down that 24-character password to pick up where I left off? Is that a zero or the letter "O"? Crap, I accidentally pushed Start before I wrote it all down! NEVER AGAIN
And, as an extension of that, Memory Cards. Because I have nightmares of my copy of Chrono Trigger erasing my save. And it will happen one day, and that will be the same day I die. Battery saves will erase: an inconvenient truth.
Sure, the PS1 memory cards didn't hold a whole lot (I have like.. 5 now, or something) but they've never erased on me, plus you can copy the saves to other cards and back them up. And now with SD cards and hard drive storage you can have 999999999999 different saves for each game, which is my secret fetish.
It was also surreal the first time I rented a Playstation game and realized I could keep the save data from it and pick up where I left off when I bought the game myself. Although, it was always fun renting SNES games and seeing the data of "JEFF" who couldn't get past the first dungeon during the rental period on some random RPG.
Portables: we've come a long way, baby. Like Rechargable Battery Packs. You mean I don't have to spend my allowance on Duracells so I can play my Gameboy? HALLELUJAH.
And as an extension of that, Backlit Screens. I can play past dusk! And no longer will I have to seek refuge next to lamps at family get-togethers to escape into gameland. No, now I hide in the shadows, where it is safe.
Perhaps less important but still pretty cool is Portable Wireless Communication, aka "I don't need to buy a 7-dollar cord to trade Pokemon anymore". Plus being able to play online against other people is good too, I suppose.
Then there's the innovation which prompted all this: Wireless Controllers. Yes, my newfound Wiimote is inspirational. I can turn on the console from the couch! Assuming I don't need to change game discs, I could go days without touching the console itself, which is strangely satisfying.
Yes, there have been wireless controllers around since the NES days, but they sucked and didn't work well at all. Even recently with things like the Gamecube's Wavebird (which I've never used), you have to spend extra cash for them because they weren't included normally with the console.
Now, we are in the enlightened age where one does not need to worry about having their mom trip over their controller cord and mess up their game right before they got to a save point. It's not like that ever happened to me or anything. (It was my dad)
Who can say what the future of gaming holds? Actually we already know, since we've had things like Virtual Reality goggles and the like years ago. Now, if we can just develop a non-sucktastic version~
Saving function - so I don't have to write down that 24-character password to pick up where I left off? Is that a zero or the letter "O"? Crap, I accidentally pushed Start before I wrote it all down! NEVER AGAIN
And, as an extension of that, Memory Cards. Because I have nightmares of my copy of Chrono Trigger erasing my save. And it will happen one day, and that will be the same day I die. Battery saves will erase: an inconvenient truth.
Sure, the PS1 memory cards didn't hold a whole lot (I have like.. 5 now, or something) but they've never erased on me, plus you can copy the saves to other cards and back them up. And now with SD cards and hard drive storage you can have 999999999999 different saves for each game, which is my secret fetish.
It was also surreal the first time I rented a Playstation game and realized I could keep the save data from it and pick up where I left off when I bought the game myself. Although, it was always fun renting SNES games and seeing the data of "JEFF" who couldn't get past the first dungeon during the rental period on some random RPG.
Portables: we've come a long way, baby. Like Rechargable Battery Packs. You mean I don't have to spend my allowance on Duracells so I can play my Gameboy? HALLELUJAH.
And as an extension of that, Backlit Screens. I can play past dusk! And no longer will I have to seek refuge next to lamps at family get-togethers to escape into gameland. No, now I hide in the shadows, where it is safe.
Perhaps less important but still pretty cool is Portable Wireless Communication, aka "I don't need to buy a 7-dollar cord to trade Pokemon anymore". Plus being able to play online against other people is good too, I suppose.
Then there's the innovation which prompted all this: Wireless Controllers. Yes, my newfound Wiimote is inspirational. I can turn on the console from the couch! Assuming I don't need to change game discs, I could go days without touching the console itself, which is strangely satisfying.
Yes, there have been wireless controllers around since the NES days, but they sucked and didn't work well at all. Even recently with things like the Gamecube's Wavebird (which I've never used), you have to spend extra cash for them because they weren't included normally with the console.
Now, we are in the enlightened age where one does not need to worry about having their mom trip over their controller cord and mess up their game right before they got to a save point. It's not like that ever happened to me or anything. (It was my dad)
Who can say what the future of gaming holds? Actually we already know, since we've had things like Virtual Reality goggles and the like years ago. Now, if we can just develop a non-sucktastic version~
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Date: 2007-02-24 03:24 pm (UTC)Dude, I can tell you /all kinds of fun stories/ about small-world rentals. I used to go to school with this other kid who I'd ocassionally see every once and a great while years ago, and one time I actually saw him at church right after my Confirmation where he told me, "Dude, Gilliam, I rented Shining Force 2 last week and saw your game save on there!? Assuming you entered your name as 'Gilliam' on there, right?! I played on your quest for a little while before starting my own! I think I may have died a few times though..." And I'm like, "Oh.. heh.. thank you?"
Yeah, he was kind of a dork. Never saw him much after that. =P
As for memory devices, do you remember that particular innovation that was not heavily advertised or licensed but would let you save PS1 games through the use of 3.5" floppies? I forget what it was called. They used to advertise them in the Japan Games Now ads in Gamefan back in the PSX/N64 days, though...?
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Date: 2007-02-24 08:04 pm (UTC)Also, Shining Force II was awesome. It's the game that got me into strategy RPGs, after all. I never owned it but I played it thanks to the Sega Channel. That's where I experienced the Phantasy Star series as well, among others. Our family didn't have a Sega Genesis until later on in its lifespan, and we only got one because I would never share my SNES with my brothers so they asked for one to play (heh).
I'm not aware of the existence of PS1 saves on floppies, although that's certainly interesting. I do know that Japan was very lucky with the Famicom Disk System enabling them to save in games like Metroid instead of using passwords, plus I bet they didn't erase themselves like cart batteries did.