I suppose this is what getting older feels like.
Here’s Mario at nearly 30 years ago (29 years):
Mario 64
I remember everyone gathering around the TV to see this because it was so unbelievable.
A buddy of mine bought an N64 with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 on launch day. We didn’t know that it would sell out so quickly. He worked at a retail store and got into talking to a customer about him having the N64. Apparently the guy was a father that was desperate to get an N64 for his kid. He offered to pay 4x what my buddy paid at retail. It was a lot of money for a young guy in his late teens. He sold it to the guy out of his trunk the next day for the cash. It would be 6 months before inventory returned in stores and he was able to rebuy an N64.
I remember playing the Mario 64 demo in a kiosk at toys r us. I was blown away by it. I struggled to get Mario to walk in a straight line.
I was pretty young, but played tons of snes.
It still bugs me that your life count reset to 4 if you turned off the console.
Mario games have done that for a few episodes after this too. And also for 2D games that baffling thing where you can only save after finishing a castle or fortress.
Then Super Mario Odyssey just gets rid of lives completely, and nothing of value was lost.
I think what’s more interesting is Mario today doesn’t even look much different than Mario 20 years ago. The Switch just never bothered, plus graphics in general are flattening out.
On a still picture taken in the right place, maybe. Bright, cartoony graphics also help. The Mario style is probably not the kind that’s best to showcase graphic power.
Anyway, animation, lighting and physics is where you can see the gap between Odyssey and Sunshine. Also richer, bigger environments, even though Sunshine used a lot of tricks and already looked rather impressive for the time on that front. Well, until framerate dropped into single-digit halfway through Noki Bay.
There’s certainly some improvement. I’ve played Sunshine recently on an emulator and it’s not as refined as Odyssey and yes, the physics jump a bit from 64 to Sunshine to Galaxy to Odyssey. They’re all quite enjoyable, just the Switch admits to only being a slight step up from a Wii U, lol. They all use tricks to look better, same with Zelda BotW artistic blur, etc.
In any case, Mario doesn’t exactly need picture perfect ray traced lit graphics where you can see every fiber of his mustache or how his overalls reflect light just right so you can see the denim texture. Then again … Lol
We went from the Wii to two Wiis duct taped together to two Wiis in a tablet and soon to three Wiis in a tablet
In any case, Mario doesn’t exactly need picture perfect ray traced lit graphics where you can see every fiber of his mustache or how his overalls reflect light just right so you can see the denim texture.
Nah, the only thing he needed was nose jiggle physics actually.
I still can’t understand how that even crossed someone’s mind. It’s funny though.
Yes, the original is lines and crude unlike some of the other examples of “old 3D games”, but this is (maybe) the first actual 3D space game, so it has to start somewhere.
Guess I should have been more specific on first home system 3D space game. Yes, there were arcade and mainframe things before. But their game world wasn’t as big. :P
Atari Star Wars arcade game came out in 1983. One year prior to Elite in 1984:
Vectrex Starhawk was 1979
“NOSEWAT”
Spasim is a 3d space simulator from 1974, first person and multiplayer.
One of my University students asked me the other day if I was doing anything special for the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith.
I told him he needs to remember I control his grade.
Should’ve told him you have the high ground.
It’s not an anniversary the Jedi would celebrate…
Hey… Shut up.
yeah… PS3 is “retro” now!
I honestly don’t agree with that at all. 360 and PS3 are old but their games aren’t very different compare to the big budget games of today. A few fads ended and others took their place, but that’s it. To me retro systems end with the Wii, mainly because Wii was just an overclocked Gamecube.
I am with you on this one, but ask people who are in the business or “retro” and/or ask people who are 15-20yo today! it’s a sad truth: 2 generations ago and you’re already “retro” :)
Actually I’m in my 20s myself. I just can’t see games like Call of Duty 4, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, GTA 4 and The Last of Us as retro when they are largely identical to what we would expect from a modern AAA title.
2007 was a long time ago, but not much has changed since then in mainstream big budget game development.
The first time I played Super Mario on the N64 I can still recall how it made me slightly dizzy, which delighted me. That effect only lasted a short while, but it was a lot of fun to feel that disoriented by a video game, if but briefly.
you can relive that experience with a cheap VR headset!
It was the first time I remember people struggling to mentally map the controls.
Your grandma or little sibling could understand how to move NES Mario around (not necessarily being good at it, of course), but 3D was too intimidating for a lot of people to even try.
to be fair the sort of primitive camera controls took some getting used to
Yeah the controls on the early N64 games weren’t as intuitive as controls now. It wasn’t really until Halo that 3d games felt good to control.
turok was good on the n64.
quake was good in the 90s
This was Mario 40 years ago:
That’s what’s mind blowing to me. The difference between games used to be staggering. The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge. And jumping up to Mario 64 in less than a decade was even bigger still.
Obviously games have continued to improve since then, but we’ll never have such rapid massive leaps again.
The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge.
And that was on the same system.
Honestly, I believe technical progress has grinded to a halt. Moore’s law was broken with regards to hardware. I cannot think of novel tech after smartphones. Now, it feels like everything new is a wealth hoarding scheme by corporate greed.
the industry is also dogshit these days, only place you reliably see new interesting ideas is from indie devs
We’ll know there’s been a new tech revolution when HL3 comes out
Fun fact: New Super Mario Bros turns 19 this year.
Yes, that means we’re close to the turning point where New Super Mario Bros gets older than what Super Mario Bros was when it was released.
Can’t wait for New Super Mario Bros (New)
new³ super mario bros
I remember in the early 3D days, 2 sequels with a 7 year gap would have looked vastly different. I just started KCD1 after finishing KCD2 and even though it is 7 years older, it looks identical.
To put into perspective: the gap between MGS1 and MGS2 was just 3 years.
tbf, MGS1 and MGS2 were different console generations…
although the same is true for KCD1/2.
it is insane how were reaching the end of the Moore law.
Moore’s Law has been dead for a long time.
Moore’s Law hypothesises that transistors in an integrated circuit will double every two years, primarily down to transistor density improvements.
Intel in particular really like to say it’s still alive, because it’s what investors want to hear, but in reality transistor density improvements have slowed quite a bit, and we’ve had to rely on other things for better performance.
there’s also the issue that Moore law was used as a development target, making it a self fulfilling profecy, there’s also the issue that if were less strict (rather than doubling transistor density we just consider computer power in general) computers are still improving ish, although it’s clearly slower than it used to be
It got worse after a closer look - realizing this is Sunshine, and not something earlier…
I love SM64 but Sunshine is actually a great game as well.
Agreed but did some reason I keep going back to SM64. Sunshine is a lot harder to get into in my 30s compared to when I first played it as a teenager. Probably cause the mechanics are more complex. Meanwhile I can jump into SM64 at any time and still remember all the controls.
I wouldnt call it significantly more complex, the gameplay is basically the same except with an added jetpack mechanic. I recently played through sunshine for the first time since the gamecube came out on my steamdeck and it was fantastic.
I nearly assumed I was looking at sm64, but that one is turning 30 next year…
Still remember being blown away by the flight in banjo tooei, that I saw in a store, now everyone just starts at such mechanical depth.
Crysis is roughly as old now as Super Mario Bros 3 was when Crysis first released.
What you think 3D games looked like 20 years ago:
God of War 2018 isn’t the same as God of War 2005, I’m not that old.
The thing is, 5 years before that games did look like triangle-boobed-Lara-Croft. There was just an enormous wave of tech progress in the 3D accelerator world from the late 90s to mid aughts
Nvidia, when the doom music kicked in.
I feel like I’m the only one here who actually likes it when games I loved when I was younger become old/retro. I see it as a badge of honour, like them getting to enter the hall of fame.
Super Mario World isn’t a bad game just because it’s old, it’s just as great now as it was in the 90s. Same with Sunshine. And it makes me happy knowing I grew up with these games - no amount of aging or growing old could take that away from me.
I agree. Xbox 360 now being considered a retro console now is amazing to me too.
I like it.
I just don’t like it when people much younger than me do it because I played their “childhood favourites” when I was already working for a living.
