Classic Gameplay in Our Current Generation

In art and literary criticism, there seems to be an unbridgeable chasm between two schools of thought. One perspective attempts to reward anything that happens to be original, oftentimes ignoring its quality altogether. Another side recognizes the power of using an established genre or format and doing it very well. Video games, like any artistic outlet, have certain elements that have become interwoven in the fabric of the medium.

Classic gameplay, meaning the type of gameplay that was established in the pre-Bronze age of gaming, is not only a part of the technologies’ past, but also a standard expectation for most gamers. Not only does the average gamer know how to play a game that is based off of a classic gameplay model, but also they are able to differentiate it from the rest by its merits or failures. Video games are a rapidly developing technology, but will all our recent innovation really replace gaming principles that have been established years ago?

The question really arose when handheld gaming finally began to make a step forward in response to advances in cell phone design and the “next gen” trends in consoles like the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast. With this they started re-releasing games that had previously been on older consoles, such as early Final Fantasy and Contra games, as well as classic arcade games. This began a resurgence of historic games like Centipede and Pac-Man. Now with cell phone gaming being taken to the next level by devices like the iPhone 3G and N-Gage, you do not see new games being developed, but merely the same kind of game recycling that was going on previously.

Game companies use tried-and-true gameplay models as a way to get the most out of their previous developments. As the technology developed, there were games that capitalized on new features, but this would only occur for the first year of a console’s release and then most subsequent games would not develop past those first models. A great example of this is with the games that defined their console’s release, like Tomb Raider for the Playstation and Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64. Both games were incredibly innovative in their gameplay, and they became staples for anyone that owned that console; all other comparable games held the same type of game play.

As we look back at gaming genres that remain popular, we see that certain types of gameplay have been around since the earliest periods in gaming history. Two-dimensional side-scrollers are still a mark of niche gaming, and first-person shooters have not drastically changed their format since Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. This is not so much that they have a perfect formula, as it is that most gamers do not want a change. They have learned how to interface with these games and a new model would require a completely new adaptation to video games, a change that few would be comfortable with.

In our current gaming market, anyone who plays video games on a fairly consistent basis has a general idea of how to approach a certain game, and how they feel about it in comparison to other games in the genre. When a dramatically new type of game, like Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil, comes along, it often stays in limbo unless it can some how tap in to a classic form of gameplay.

Does this mean that we are doomed to remain in a suspended space of stale gameplay? Not likely. The only way that game developers can introduce a new concept is by packaging it in classic style, but this still has allowed new possibilities. Without more traditional pattern-based puzzle games, no one would have wanted to go near Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but eventually they did and now the possibilities for integrating peripherals and music have expanded greatly.

So as computer and console technologies head to new levels of online multiplayer interaction, people will still be out there trying to beat Contra III. The best way to then innovate new games is to correlate it in some way to a type of game that has been part of the past of your average gamer. Then they will be able to make the leap and still be involved in a cutting edge experience. Just don’t forget to toss us a Frogger update now and again.