Old school games make a competitive comeback

When video games first skyrocketed in popularity in the late 1970s, or the “golden age of gaming,” games like Space Invaders and Galaxian were played alone, and the enjoyment was supposed to be from playing the game. 

Now, the most popular games involve competition, either with friends nearby or on the Internet. Because competitive gaming has become so popular, a lot of older games are being brought back to life as competitive retro games.

A group on campus that calls itself the “FIFA group,” after the popular FIFA game series, is currently nine members strong. It has been playing the most recent games competitively since the summer of 2011.

When [FIFA 2011] came out, the group bought it and just started making it a habit to play together, sophomore Anant Rajeev said. They play about every two weeks, and play online a lot. 

Other games that have either become popular competitively or have had competitive remakes are Galaxian, Pac Man and Contra. Gamers like sophomore Bobby Whitmyre have made 30-plus-year-old games a core part of their gaming habits. 

Whitmyre said he plays games until they are done, but then continues to play them, turning the meta-game into a competition. He tries to get onto the leaderboards and get better scores than his friends rather than just playing by himself.

Pokémon, a powerhouse series in the handheld gaming world, has an online community called Smogon. The designers of Smogon have managed to turn the formerly friendly game into a competitive game. 

The game is usually based on catching and training Pokémon to fight other in-game trainers, but Smogon offers cheats to users that allow them to bypass the catching and training and turn the game into a fast-paced battle simulator.

Sophomore Michael Fukuda said he doesn’t play in real-life tournaments, but he does like to battle on Smogon. The appeal for him comes from how intense the battles can become, since it pairs the player with someone from across the world.

Even card games like Magic: The Gathering have taken a turn to the competitive side, moving away from playing in small groups with close friends to huge international conventions and tournaments.

  Freshman Devin Fleharty and his friends, who play the game every day during lunch, go to Legends Comics and Games in Valco for their Magic tournaments. 

“The game is a serious investment when you have to play competitively instead of as a hobby. If you want the rarer cards, they can cost quite a bit,” said Fleharty.

A lot of people are making the switch to playing older games again, leaving newer games in the dust. 
 “The games being released now are just bad, unoriginal remakes of the games I now know they came from,” sophomore Chris Rodoni said.