As someone who's starting to go back through old video games and working forward playing notable games from each era, are there really any games from before the third generation worth playing? I started this impromptu by putting my PS1 copy of Namco arcade collection and tried out games like Digdug and Ms. Pacman, and understood them all to be "Learn to get good and compete for high scores against other players" type games where I'm not gonna get much out of them after spending maybe 10 minutes to learn how they work. About the only game in that collection I might have an interest in really playing is Tower of Druaga (as obtuse as it is) it's the only one with an actual goal and completion state.Also, any easy resources for finding said notable games of each console/year?
>>12682702Xevious is a legitimate gamevs recommended wiki has that list of good games for each console
Yes there are games worth playing, but you have an obvious objective in mind with a game that has a start and end state that isn't just running out of lives. Williams arcade games are great games. From Spyhunter, to Robotron 2084, to others like Satan's Hollow. Also no telling if you're interested in text adventures which came before.
>>12682702>are there really any games from before the third generation worth playing?Yes. If one of those games happens to grab you then you might indeed want to spend a few hours with it rather than ten minutes. Although I was born in 1980 I personally never cared much about Dig Dug or Pac-Man, but I can get into Robotron: 2084 or any of several Donkey Kong-style games that give you several very different "screens" to loop through in cycles of four or so rather than one basic concept that seems to repeat in a cycle of one. The cycle of four may feel much more like a "real game" to you, even though the player is still meant to loop through it over and over, fighting for the highest possible score. You can also sometimes find true, early examples of the kind of "real game" that seems to be built to follow a single story from beginning to end and then stop rather than making you loop for score - for example, Adventure for the Atari 2600.You don't have to play or learn to appreciate any particular classic if you don't want to, but there are a LOT of very old games, and they vary in design more than you realize. I would suggest not ONLY playing the ones that seem to be historically important though. Pick some random stuff too and just see what it's like. I've had way more fun playing certain randomly chosen weirdo obscure 198X games in MAME than I ever had with, say, Breakout, which I think has always kinda sucked even though the concept spawned clones for decades.
why not organize a party where your friends come over and you all get pizza and compete for high scores on those games. that might be one way to try to experience the missing aspect of enjoyment of those old school cabinet titles.
>>12682745This, or fire up the Atari 2600 emulator and mess around with Warlords/other competitive games from that era. Mess around with the switches, see how the game changes. Can you beat your friend in Combat when you've got the giant ship with a huge hitbox and he's got the little ship?
Although arcade games from the 70s and early 80s may not always have an ending, they do almost always have a point where the game has essentially shown you everything it has to offer. For example Ms. Pac-Man repeats after board 21. So if you can clear that board you can consider you've "beaten" the game and move on without needing to play to a kill screen.Keep in mind that a lot of games from this era are not "only the game, just the game" experiences. Half the "fun" is the out-of-game research of methods to get good enough to reach that end-game state.
