Fosfor Gadgets has an interesting side-by-side comparison of graphics from games of the 80s and those of today’s games. They do a good job of pitting games of similar genres against each other, for example: 1985’s Bard’s Tale for Nintendo versus 2005’s PC hit World Of Warcraft and 1985’s 10 Yard Fight for Nintendo against 2005’s Madden NFL 06 for the XBox 360. Good stuff.

Yes, the advance in graphics is impressive, and of course we already knew that. But more intriguing is the hundreds of comments that have been posted.

Some readers slammed the article for comparing today’s pre-rendered cutscenes against yesterday’s in-game graphics. Aside from the fact that the screenshots are actual in-game screenshots, are they claiming that the graphics of the 80s were on par with last year’s? Or they whine that the gameplay in modern games pales compared to those old games. Even though one is hard-pressed to argue that the gameplay of Battlefield 2 or Ghost Recon 3 are inferior to that of Konami’s Contra, that isn’t the point of the article. It is a comparison of graphics.

How about this comparison? Gamers in the 80s are superior to some modern gamers because they were too busy enjoying the games to cry and whine that Pong was graphically superior to Stargate because the latter had inferior gameplay and a loud attract mode.

It was an interesting little comparison article that should help us appreciate at least one aspect of modern gaming: the graphics. And yes, it’s still fun to play Oregon Trail and Donkey Kong.

Tags: Arcade Games · Industry News · Old Consoles · PC · Platforms · XBox