Some games age well... and some do not.

[vsp]

While going through some piles of goodies at my old house last night, I put together the components of my old Atari Jaguar and brought them back to my new apartment.

(Those of you who know me well shouldn't be surprised; between the late 70's and the PlayStation, I have all but a handful of oddball systems. About the only ones I'm missing of any note are the Atari Lynx handheld and the Neo-Geo, and I have Neo games in spades via MAME. I do not own a Nintendo 64, however, as I am over the age of twelve.)

I plugged the Jag into the bedroom TV (since the living room TV was otherwise occupied, having a VCR, DVD, PSX, Dreamcast and cheapo video camera hooked to it) and cranked it up, and wonder of wonders, my carts that I hadn't used in years held their savegame memories. (That's the virtue of carts with flash ROMs instead of battery packs.)

Tempest 2000 is as great as ever, and I'm still sorta kicking myself that I didn't buy the $200 Samsung DVD with Nuon capabilities instead of the $200 Sony when I had the chance (or I'd be playing Tempest 3000 right now).

Rayman is still, well, Rayman -- a great platformer with a better soundtrack than the PSX version, IMHO.

Checkered Flag is still THE crappiest driving game I've ever played in my life -- but it always was, so it hasn't degraded over time.

But then I got a vivid reminder that sometimes games are romanticized in our memories as being better than they were. I popped in Alien vs. Predator... and recoiled at how TERRIBLE it looked and felt.

Seven years of advances in FPS and console technology will do that, I suppose, but it went from "great game" to "Jeez, I paid MONEY for that?" in about thirty seconds. Still a great concept piece, though.

Next up: my 3DO, if I can remember where the few games I had for it that weren't terrible (the original Need For Speed, SSF2T, Gex, Battlesport) went.

jeff. Or the Virtual Boy, though I wear glasses now...