Retro Evolved Introduction

When I first talked to Andrew about doing an article for the site, I wanted to find a little niche that I could work in, away from mainstream videogame new-release reviews. Partly because there are thousands of people out there more qualified than me who can do that, but mainly because - as much as it pains me to say it - I'm not a gamer anymore. Not the kind that Sony and Microsoft market to, at least. First, some background.

I've been gaming for a long time: I started off back on the trusty ZX-81. It was alright, but very basic for gaming, and while my brother would spend hours inputting lines of code which every now and then would yield the result of a clock, or a square on the screen, I would get bored and invariably fall back to my beloved Nintendo Game & Watch. I only had Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., but they would prove to be formative experiences for my gaming id; embedding in me a love of repetitive skilled gameplay that survives to this day. Next up we had the Atari 2600, and as much as I loved Stargate, Defender, and Pong, it wasn't until our household got a Commodore Amiga 500, circa 1989, that my real love-affair with gaming began. Within six months of buying the computer, I remember having the existential crisis that only a ten-year old can have, asking my parents: "What did I used to do with my evenings and weekends before we got this console?".

From there - and probably so my brother could actually get a few hours in on the Amiga he bought with his own money - I got a Master System, then a Mega Drive, SNES, PlayStation and so on. I owned every mainstream console release at some point throughout my adulthood - and a CD32.
I made the leap from Game and Watch to proper home-gaming, 8-bit to 16-bit, 16 bit to 32bit, cartridges to CD, 2D to 3D, every leap videogames made, I gladly grew with them.

Until recently.

MMORPGs, games with 100+ hour main quests, mobile phone games which require microtransactions, game developers licensing actual firearms from gun companies, the same game every year with a new number... something has gone wrong with gaming and it took me a little while to figure out what it was.

It was me.

I got old.

I might have loved videogames my entire life, I might have wanted to become a videogame journalist when I left school, I might have felt that the games industry owed me something, but the truth is: the videogame industry didn't need me, or want me. It doesn't owe me anything, nor should it - and I shouldn't presume ownership of said thing (something that happens to a lot of hardcore fans in all hobbies).

For me, I struggle with the brand new high-definition games, it was one evolution too far (for me at least) and any game which puts you in control of the camera means I invariably struggle to see what the hell I'm supposed to be looking at. I think videogame developers are aware of this, hence "Detective mode" in the Batman games and "shoot the badly designed new villain" filter of Halo 4.

Videogames constantly change and evolve with the times to find an increasingly broader audience, and that's a beautiful thing, because as much as it looks like the industry is dominating due to EA's repetitive annual releases, and 100s of generic FPS clones, the truth is the videogame industry is as healthy and diverse as it has ever been. You just might have to look a bit further.

Any articles from me over the next few weeks are going to focus on the games I love. New games, with a retro twist or flavour to them (sometimes old games, with a modern tweak). So I felt it fitting to name this article series after my absolute favourite game of this year (okay, it came out in 2014, but I have played it more than any other game in 2015. Geometry Wars 3.

Welcome to Retro Evolved