it form being a new emulator. If I wanted another 2600 emulator I could
take my pick of the 20 or so floating around the internet and download them
for free ROMS included, but a real walk down memory lane that is priceless.
I think that's the problem.
The game industry has a hard time operating like National Geographic. They
aren't digital archaeologists and they don't think of game releases in that
context. They think only in terms of the GAME experience. Not the entire
presentation. That any of these retro packs have had reasonable history
segments is more a testament to the developers who were contracted to do it
mostly in spite of the stuff being low on the priority list or nonexistent
in the spec from the publishers.
I think a product like Activision Classics for PSX is the perfect example of
what a company will do when left to its own devices.
Activision used to be a brand that was synonymous with no-compromises
quality. The way the titles were handled in Activision Classics is an
embarassment to that legacy. But you will only find apologists within the
rank-and-file at Activision regarding that disc because the original ideals
that made up the original Activision died decades ago. That's the irony...
What classic game packs should be like is a reverential remaster/box-set
experience, not a quick exploitive "greatest hits" knockoff.
There just is no tradition in the game business to produce anything like a
box-set and they aren't used to contracting out documentarians.
The PS2, for instance, is a fully-fledged DVD player. So then it could very
well house a full-length documentary like Stella at 20, but random-access
the way interactive CD-ROMs are, linked up with the emulator. There aren't
enough people in the industry who think beyond the games themselves enough
to consider the extra multimedia materials.
To me, in this day and age, it's the presentation, not the games, that sell
a product like that.
You could even bury the games in a whole new "modern" game, so that the
emulator was always a game within a game (ala the simulator in Wing
Commander). Build an early 80's virtual reality type game in which
collecting cartridges is the a goal and playing them is the game within a
game. Virtualize the entire era. Have virtual tournaments where the AI
somehow "knows" the game objectives through visual pattern recognition and
toggles the virtual joystick so you can play 1-player Combat.
There are all sorts of cool things you can do...
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