8 Coolest Things Gaming Doesn’t Do Anymore
Crash Bandicoot bundled with a free demo of Spyro was next-level.
The history of gaming, in the grand scheme of things, is quite short. Whilst electronic games technically existed before Pong, it's often regarded as the first game, and if that's the case, gaming history is really half a century - a lot less than, say, motion pictures or indeed novels.
And whilst tastes and audiences' interests change over time with all medium, video games being as transmutable as they are have been through some pretty broad and rapid transformations.
In just the last thirty years we've seen previously unthinkable advancements, taking 16-bit sprites and swapping for full 3D hyper-realistic character models.
Of course, whilst it's the most immediately obvious difference it's not just graphics that changed. Certain expected elements that were part of gaming before have evolved, been replaced or just cast aside completely. And whilst it's important to celebrate the now and look to the future, there is a lot of weird gaming history packed into the last three+ decades.
The following are the sorts of things that perhaps we took for granted at one point, because now gaming has moved on without them we realise how special they truly were.
8. Movie Tie-Ins
Whilst some quite rightfully turn their nose up when considering cheap cash-grabs movie tie-in games like Charlies Angels or the weird Fight Club brawler, there have been real boom periods for turning films into electronic entertainment. Aladdin, for example, is the third best-selling game on the Mega Drive, 007 GoldenEye changed the industry forever and X-Men Origins: Wolverine delivered where the movie completely failed.
In today's day and age of squeezing established IP dry, there's actually no shortage of games being adapted from previous franchises. Crafting a game based on, say, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre nearly 40 years after its release is very different to a timed movie tie-in however.
For a while, most major blockbusters would get a game adaptation, even if it didn't always make sense. They wouldn't always be masterpieces either, but consumers knew that and it was part of the experience. Mostly it was a way to enjoy the world of the movie a little bit more and, as marketing schlock-y as it sounds, "play the film". You could go to the cinema, swing past your local retailer and experience it all over again.
This practice is now a thing of the past because games just aren't as easy or as cheap to make as they used to be. Lining up release schedules is much harder these days, especially if you can't prove if an IP is worth the investment.
Shame, we missed out on comparing the video games for Oppenheimer and Barbie as well as the films.