Making Classic Games Last Longer

I have to admit that I did not live through the beginning of games. To do that, one would need to have been born in the 60's I would imagine. But I have experienced a lot of the older games and I appreciate them on various levels. The text adventure games (now more generally referred to as 'Interactive Fiction') had an amazing ability to create complex and detailed worlds with wonderful game play. In certain areas of play, I'd say that medium has not been bettered.

I am from the Nintendo generation, so I have experienced the early graphical games too and I can still enjoy replaying them on emulators and appreciate the quality of game play, even if the graphics are not so hot.

The first graphical games to be truly immersing, in my opinion, were some of the early 'first person shooters'. In particular, I have very fond memories of Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. I don't think I ever played any games in quite the same way as those ones. I think they were the first games I played in which I actually lost myself in the worlds that were created. It was the first time that I was genuinely scared when I played a game.

Sadly, the new medium of computer games seems to be rather ignored as an art form. Perhaps because it is such a popular medium, artisans might ignore it as a trivial past time. However, as games become more advanced and graphics start to equalise with reality and become less important, games are returning to the less technical side of creation. Games are beginning to become art forms again, much like the old text adventures were.

I worry that some of the games with the largest influence in that history are ignored because they are already dated in their graphics. But underneath, their playability is still there, just waiting for an art student of the future to appreciate them for what they are.

In the links below, I am going to try and introduce some of these games to the current generation and cover up some of the issues of graphics by showing them in a new light. In some cases it might be updating the graphics, or simply trying to put across my view that games really will be considered an art form in years to come.

Please follow these tutorials and you should be able to experience these games in a new light and, perhaps, get beyond some preconceptions about their dated graphics, allowing you to see their game play and art for what it is.

• Making Doom Last Longer
• Making Quake Last Longer
• Making Duke Nukem 3D Last Longer
• Making Text Adventures Last Longer