When is a game retro?

[Tim Janssen]

... I ask this question because lately I sense an inflation of the term 'retrogaming'. In the last few issues of Games TM in the retro-section they looked at the history of cellshaded games which all started 'a long time ago' (1999 to be precise) with Jet Set Radio on the Sega Dreamcast. The magazine also had a feature of a 2001 racing coin-op that sadly didn't make it to the the PS2.
Well 'scuse me, but since when are games released a couple of years ago for a viable machine regarded as 'retro'?

In my vocabulary, a game is retro when it is published for a dead machine, is at least a couple of years old and Joe Public isn't willing to pay the full price for it.

What are your opinions about it? When is a game retro and when not?

[killergorilla]

It's a very fine line indeed.

I personally wouldn't put anything post Playstation/Saturn in it.

I don't consider these games retro yet, although games can still be referred to as 'classic' I suppose.

I certainly wouldn't consider a Dreamcast game to be retro in any way. Half of the games look the same as the PS2 and that's still abooot!!!

Just my 2 chocolate bars...

(Twix and Curly Wurly)

[Lagerfeldt]

I'd consider anything before Playstation "retro".

[Dizzy]

Originally posted by killergorilla
Just my 2 chocolate bars...

(Twix and Curly Wurly)

OH you like Twix too, my fav...

I think you can put retro into a machine, I would say everything before 32 bit is retro, this way you could say that win95 is retro, but...
I think you should divide retro into retro-game and retro-shit..

Alot of stuff is still today released as retro without being it. It's like when they try to sell a new movie as a Cult movie.

This was just my 2 sqeezed pimples

[Unknown_K]

For consoles the current crop is NEW, the last generation is OLD, and anything before that is RETRO.

For computers games anything from a long defunct manufacturer is Retro, any games that are 10 years or older are retro. I dont consider old games remade for handhelds to be retro.

[7-Zark-7]

Agree that 8bit/16bit computers/consoles & pre Win 9x DOS stuff,alongside maybe coin-ops up 'til early 90's seem more comfortable with the "retro" tag.

[woody57]

Once any format is superceded it is no longer current therefore by definition its

" retro -dated " before the current model that doesn,t make it " classic " unless it led the field in its day for either being the best at that time or a thing of inovation or design beauty .
From this ugly , slow loading piles of electronic garbage with no decent software { mentioning no names but I,ll bet someone else does ! } could not be called classic !

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by killergorilla It's a very fine line indeed.

I personally wouldn't put anything post Playstation/Saturn in it.

I don't consider these games retro yet, although games can still be referred to as 'classic' I suppose.

I certainly wouldn't consider a Dreamcast game to be retro in any way. Half of the games look the same as the PS2 and that's still abooot!!!

Just my 2 chocolate bars...

(Twix and Curly Wurly)

So, I too have a fondness for Twix, also the Nestle Crunch with Caramel

As for retro, it does seem to be getting over-used for something that's really too new and is still being sold in the market place.

And I'll see your two chocolate bars and raise you a box of peeps

[Peanutuk]

I would say anything 16 bit or before as a rule of thumb.

Depends on your thumb though......

[Fred the Fop]

Any game that has an awful home version that goes:
"bonk bonk bonk..."

[spiff]

Retro..
What ever I enjoyed back in those rosy sweet innocent days.
3d or bits makes no difference.. only if its "old" enough to be ascociated with that feeling. I draw the line along whipe out and soulblade on PSX..

[7-Zark-7]

Originally posted by Frederic
Any game that has an awful home version that goes:
"bonk bonk bonk..."

Something like this Fred?

Any particular favourites inspired this behaviour? Delphine's "Operation Stealth" god-awful arcade sequences inspired many smashed joysticks/keyboard on that count, NEVER AGAIN!!

[Drake1009]

Retro in my world would be something that most people would disregard because of it's age no matter how good it was. Something that is outdated compared to what is now. In that way a deal of PS1 games would be considered retro. Take for example the 2D titles of the PS. You don't find many people who want to even give 2D titles a 2nd look seeing as how 3D is far superior to it so why bother with 2D.