作者：Luke McKinne

最近我一直在想着复古游戏。我至少有10%的大脑总是在想着《Smash TV》，因为我参与了全新游戏杂志《RETRO》的创办，其参与者包括Seanbaby，Jeremy Parish，Bob Mackey以及其他你可能会在乎的电子游戏作家。

我记得当我们输入一个保密码非信用卡信息而获得额外的服装的时候。但那些是玫瑰色的眼镜，在复古游戏中唯一存在玫瑰色眼镜的只有《虚拟男孩》：一款昂贵但却并不如人们预想的那般出色的游戏。大多数早前的游戏都很糟糕，它们就像实验室众多小白鼠，帮助我们进行测试。

那些比大多数现代游戏简单得多的计算机游戏伴随着我度过了童年，而现在我正面对着极端压抑的痛苦回忆。

7.有限的生命

拥有多个“生命“仍然是电子游戏中最受欢迎的设置，尽管现在对于一个英国男人在电话亭绑架了一个情感脆弱的女性会有更多的表现。这在街机中是有意义的，因为他们尝试着通过最少的工作赚取最多的利益，但之后他们基于同样的原因将其用于家庭游戏中。强迫玩家每次都从游戏最初开始游戏将把2个小时的游戏延长至无数个月。实际上，当我记起更多款早前的游戏时，我便会更加意识到，它们之所以存在只是因为家长不愿意用手铐将自己的孩子捆绑在桌子前。

pose and facial expression（from cracked）

我记得《Konami Code》，但这是因为我们最喜欢的一款游戏只是在公然地浪费时间。基于3个生命而游戏是导致你浪费了生命中1个小时的罪魁祸首。输入编码成为一种肌肉记忆。如果我心脏病发作，忘记编码，那么只要将一个NES放在手上的话我便能够自动输出编码，复苏29次以上，并在眼睛再次睁开前穿越前面的关卡。比起学习乐器，更多孩子更热衷于学习游戏前面的关卡，玩这些游戏就像面对着机关枪谱写的乐谱一样。

因为缺少拯救，这对于童年的睡眠模式更加不利。这只是技术为现代的孩子们解决的另外一个技术问题。

6.水位

年龄影响视角。现在的我终于理解许多游戏是被一些糟糕的决策毁掉的，因为这些项目是由那些之前从未玩过游戏的老人所控制的。他们最糟糕的决定是在游戏中添加水位，这比往你的任天堂泼水能够更快速地终结乐趣。水位将放慢你的速度，让所有的一切暗下来，让你不能控制自己的身体，而周边的一切却仍然能够快速移动并杀了你，在你死之前时间也快速流逝着。这不只是老人所添加的内容，这也是针对老人的模拟。

《忍者神龟》就带有最不讲理的水位设置，难道乌龟就必定要与水相挂钩吗。

Ninja Turtles（from cracked）

甚至连《刺猬索尼克》也设置了水位，而游戏的唯一卖点便是”快速移动“。

强制性水位比中断你的乐趣体验更糟糕：它们公然地揭露了我们可能并不在乎的游戏背后的内容。它们只是逐渐清除一份检查表而让游戏变得足够长。当意识到那些拥有你童年梦想的工作的人讨厌它时，你该会多震惊。

5.阶梯

你正在控制一个唯一任务就是往未知方向奔跑的角色，你不知道自己会怎样死去。英雄会在外星人堡垒中跃过浓烟滚滚的洞口，在直升飞机安全飞过所建议的高度时对其发动攻击，并跑过外星人的中心区域以确保能够直击他们的心脏。而游戏中唯一让英雄感到害怕的竟然是阶梯。

lader（from cracked）

设置阶梯意味着厄运的降临，但是最糟糕的游戏把你变成了世界上最糟糕的列车，将角色固定在阶梯上，从而它不能只是将屁股对着玩家，而是对准那些想要杀死它的暴躁敌人。你必须慢慢地向上或向下滚动才能避开一些小球。

在《Castlevania》中，甚至连阶梯都有可能将你杀死，即放慢你的速度，将你粘在地面上，或者让你因为不能完成一百八十度转变而落空等等。

当一个全副武装的突击队员向成龙发动攻击时，一个阶梯甚至也会对他造成威胁。

4.反向控制

当游戏逆转你的控制（游戏邦注：即左边变成右边，上边变成下边）时，这是因为设计师只能够通过转变你的手指去告诉你他们对于“玩家”的看法。游戏不应该带给你数字失语症。

reverse control（from cracked）

“不要干扰玩家与游戏间的练习”是他们在大学的电子游戏设计课程中教你们的第二件事，即在“哈哈，我们已经收了你们的钱，那么就应该呈现给你真正的设计或计算机科学程度的内容”之后。但回到8位体的时代，我们会发现整款游戏是由一间房间里的一些人所编写的，任何一个宿醉的程序员都有可能彻底改变游戏的机制（这是对于这样糟糕的输入的唯一可行的解释了）。

除了破坏沉浸感，改变控制也传达了设计师真正的态度：他们的工作是尽可能创造出更多的障碍。当你破坏了玩家控制角色的能力而不是给予他们这么做的理由，你就糟了。

3.秒杀

复古电子游戏其实就是偏执性精神病模拟游戏：世界上的一切事物都在尝试着杀死你，你的唯一希望就是先把它们干掉。小鸟，蘑菇，树，甚至是无生物——他们都具有察觉并在世界中四处移动的能力，并找到你而杀死你。当你不是作为一个人，而是以人型的肥皂泡存在时，你甚至会因为敌人轻轻的一碰就死掉。而你也仍会派遣自己去与外星入侵者相抗衡。

能量条会给予玩家更多机会，但也会提升秒杀的几率。甚至带有完整能量棒的角色也有可能在撞到一些物体或掉入一个山洞时立即死掉，因为脸被激光火箭筒射中只是一个小伤，但绊倒或针扎却是致命的。或者你也可以在看得到的视线中一直往下掉落，但直到掉出了视线外，你便算死掉了。

2.受困

我们总是很难想起英特网出现前的日子。我记得小时候，当我想要看一对塘鹅时却做不到，但是我却再也体验不到满满的挫败感快要从毛穴中溢出的感觉。

ornithological（from cracked）

只有稍微不那么让人沮丧的才是冒险游戏。基于文本的冒险游戏会让你阐述有关受折磨的海明威的故事—-“到北边。打开门。撞击某人。”而指向点击游戏会让你与遇到的任何人交谈，并尝试着将任何东西挤压到任何东西中去呈现它自己。

如果你不能复制某些人的想法过程，即那些连续七周专注于自己的想象力（以代码形式表现出来）的人，你就遭了。现在电子游戏的走查是英特网唯一能够依靠并提供明智的解决方法的对象，但那时候，如果你受困了，那么这款40美元的游戏便会变成一堵仿造的实体墙。

你将从一个位置移动到另一个位置并扫除每一个像素去寻找新的道具。你访问了一个奇幻的虚拟世界，然后自称将其拂去了。现在，任何挫折的第一个暗示都是关于是否能够快速且轻松地获得满足感。

1.橡皮筋般的AI

它们所做的最糟糕的事是通过作弊打败我们。我们并未期待一个8位体处理器能够渲染一个人类水平的智能，因为我们知道自己并不是身处科幻电影中，但是处理器创造了一个邪恶的程序谋杀了我们。“橡皮筋般的AI”通过推动计算机的速度/强度/理解能力而达到超人般的水平。

Tecmo Bowl（from cracked）

这一效果是赛车游戏中最显著的，如果你太超前了，那么其它汽车将被Agent Smith所支配，你并不是唯一的玩家，只是玩家一号。《马里奥赛车》通过最残忍的骗人AI在你失事赛车上创造了一个完整的濒危记录。《R.C. Pro-AM》的黄色车子以不是很快的速度穿越一个弯道。

没有什么比被计算机内部的计算机杀掉更让人沮丧了。我们什么都还没做，只是在一些圆圈中环绕着，然后计算机却让一切变得无意义，即揭示只有它让你赢你才能赢。

在现代游戏中，愚蠢的计算机对手的问题还未得到解决，而只是被转移到愚蠢的人类对手身上罢了。这也是为什么许多游戏突出了高级的多人游戏模式，将单人游戏变成“打地鼠”教程的延伸。当所有的灯光效果被做成是一个布谷鸟钟的机枪等价物时，那么它们会有多逼真也就不再重要了。

比起通过制定出如何打败智能机器的方法，我们更倾向于杀死愚蠢的人类的想法并不能长期帮助我们这一物种。这也是我们为何需要聪明，有趣，性感且有才气的电子游戏玩家去创造出差别，我是否提到过这些人中有许多都致力于为全新的《RETRO》杂志在Kickstarter募集资金？

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

7 Needlessly Difficult Features of Every Retro Video Game

By Luke McKinne

I’ve been thinking about retro games a lot recently. Because modern games are screwing us harder than minigun-cocked spiderdemon bosses ever did, because I’m always at least 10 percent thinking about Smash TV, and because I’m taking part in the RETRO gaming magazine Kickstarter with Seanbaby, Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and almost every other video game writer you could possibly care about.

I remember a simpler time when we got extra costumes by entering secret codes instead of credit card details. But those are rose-tinted glasses, and in retro gaming the only rose-tinted glasses are the Virtual Boy: an expensive headache that wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been. Most old games were so shit, they’d make lab rats ask to get back to work at the shampoo testing plant.

I spent much of my childhood hypnotized by computers simpler than most modern watches, and these are the repressed memories of pain I’m confronting …

#7. Limited Lives

Having multiple “lives” is still the most famous trope of video gaming, even though it now has far more to do with British men who abduct emotionally vulnerable women in phone boxes. It made sense in the arcade, because they were trying to get the maximum amount of money for the least amount of work, but then they used it in home games for exactly the same reason. Forcing you to start from the absolute beginning every time extended a two-hour game into months of Sisyphean struggle. In fact, the more I remember old games, the more I realize that they only existed because parents can’t leash a kid to the table with wrist manacles and a ball gag without getting a visit from the FBI.

We fondly remember the Konami Code, but the reason we remember it is because one of our favorite games was such a blatant timesink. Playing Contra with only three lives was how you threw away an hour of your life. Entering the code became muscle memory. If I have a heart attack, forget the defibrillator — put an NES pad in my hands and I’ll automatically enter it, come back to life 29 more times, and be able to run through the first level before my eyes reopen. Thousands of children learned the first levels of games instead of musical instruments, playing them like sheet music made of machine guns.

Combined with the lack of saves, this did more damage to childhood sleep patterns than the way they used to hide tits on TV at 1 a.m. It’s just another problem technology has solved for modern kids.

#6. Water Levels

Age brings perspective. I now understand that many games were ruined by obviously terrible decisions because the projects were managed by old people who’d never played one before. Their worst revenge was adding a water level to the game, which ended fun faster than adding water to your Nintendo. Water levels slowed you down, made everything dark, made it so you couldn’t properly control your body, and surrounded you with little fast things that could still move quickly and kill you, and time was noticeably ticking away before you died. That wasn’t just added by an old person; it was a simulation of being an old person.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the most brutal water level of all time, and turtles are meant to be OK with water.

Even Sonic the Hedgehog had a water level, and that game’s only selling point was “moving fast.” He couldn’t have been less designed for immersion in water if he’d been Sparky the Talking Toaster.

The mandatory water levels did worse than interrupt your fun: They blatantly revealed that the staff behind the games we loved couldn’t care less. They were just working off a checklist to make the game long enough so they could finish and go home. It’s heartbreaking to realize that people who had your childhood dream job hated it.

#5. Ladders

You’re playing a character whose only job is running face-first into the unknown, where the only unknown thing is how it’ll kill you. The hero leaps through smoking holes in alien fortresses, directly at attack helicopters flying considerably lower than safety regulations recommend, and becomes a cardiac catheter by running through alien guts just to be sure of shooting them in the heart. And the only thing that terrifies him is ladders.

Leaving a ladder could mean limply dropping to your doom, but the worst games turned you into the world’s worst train, fixing the character to the ladder so that it wasn’t just turning its ass to the player, but to any rampaging enemy who might like to ream it. You had to slowly scroll up and down to avoid incoming pellets like a crappy anti-Pong.

In Castlevania, even the stairs could kill you, slowing you down, gluing you to the ground, and letting you fall through like you’d failed the leap of faith if you walked on them without thinking “up” with enough trust in your heart.

A ladder should only threaten an armed commando when he’s attacking Jackie Chan.

#4. Reverse Controls

When a game reversed your controls (so that left was right and up was down), it was because the designers could only get “Fuck you” into the game via contortionist ventriloquist sign language, twisting your thumbs to show you what they think of “players.” A game shouldn’t give you digital aphasia.

“Don’t interfere with the link between gamer and game” is the second thing they teach you at video game design college, just after “Haha, we’ve got your money, and you really should have taken a real design or computer science degree.” But back in the 8-bit days, entire games could be coded up by a couple of people in a room, and one solid hangover could radically change the game mechanics (and is the only possible explanation for screwing up the input this badly).

More than ruining immersion, reversing the controls revealed the designers’ real attitude: It was their job to create as many obstacles as possible. When you destroy the players’ ability to control the character instead of giving them a reason to do that, you suck.

#3. Instant Death

Vintage video games are paranoid psychosis simulators: Everything in the world is trying to kill you, and your only hope is to murder them first. Birds, mushrooms, trees, inanimate objects — they’ll all develop the ability to perceive and move through the world just to remove you from it. All this when you weren’t really a man, you were a bizarrely man-shaped soap bubble ended by even the lightest brush against an enemy. And still you launched yourself against entire alien invasions.

Energy bars gave players more of a chance, but raised the specter of instadeath. Even a character with a full energy bar would be instantly obliterated if he hit certain items or fell down a hole, because being shot in the face by a robo-death-bot with a laser bazooka is only slightly damaging, but tripping and needles are always fatal. Or you could fall infinitely far as long as you remained in view, but the instant you couldn’t be observed, you died, as if God was failing at quantum mechanics.

#2. Being Stuck

It’s hard to truly remember the days before the Internet. I’m technically aware of a time when my younger self would want to see a pair of boobies and simply not be able to, but I can’t recapture the bursting frustration building up to the point where it nearly seeped through my pores.

Only slightly less frustrating were the adventure games. Text-based adventure games made you tell the story of a harried Hemingway — “Go north. Open door. Hit someone.” — while point-and-click games had you talking to everyone you met and trying to jam anything you could into anything that presented itself. Wait, this is sounding like the teenage sex desperation again.

And if you couldn’t replicate the thought processes of someone who’d been staring at their own imagination in code form for seven weeks, you were hosed. Nowadays video game walkthroughs are the one and only subject for which the Internet can be trusted to give sensible solutions, but back then, if you got stuck, that was $40 of game turned into a simulated but solid wall.

You were left moving from location to location and sweeping every pixel to look for new items. You were visiting a fantastical virtual world and then pretending to dust it. Nowadays, the first hint of any kind of frustration sends me to the Internet for quick and easy satisfaction.

#1. Rubber Band AI

The worst thing they did to us was cheat to beat us themselves. We didn’t expect an 8-bit processor to be able to render a human-level intelligence because we knew we weren’t in a science-fiction movie, but the processor didn’t and created an evil program to murder us anyway. “Rubber band AI” did this by simply boosting the computer’s speed/strength/interception ability to superhuman levels if you won too much.

This effect was most pronounced in racing games, and it was pronounced “THOSE FUCKING CHEATING BASTARDS.” If you got too far ahead, the other cars were possessed by Agent Smith, and you weren’t the One, just Player 1. And you got played hard. Mario Kart would (and still does) build entire endangered turtle memorials on your crashed kart with the most murderously cheating AI outside of the Terminator franchise. The R.C. Pro-AM yellow car would soar past at what wasn’t so much high speed as low warp.

There was nothing more frustrating than being killed by the computer inside the computer. We were already doing nothing with our lives but pretending to move around in little circles, then the computer makes it even more pointless by revealing that you only ever win because it lets you, and now it won’t. That’s GLaDOS levels of psychological bullshit.

In modern games, the problem of idiotic computer opponents hasn’t been solved, it’s just been offloaded onto idiotic human opponents. That’s why so many games feature advanced multiplayer modes, reducing the single player to an extended tutorial of whack-a-mole. It doesn’t matter how realistic your lighting effects are when all it’s animating is the machine gun equivalent of a cuckoo clock.

The way we prefer killing stupid humans over working out how to defeat intelligent machines is not going to help our species in the long term. That’s why we need intelligent, fun, sexy, brilliant video gamers to make up the difference, and did I mention that loads of those are working for the new RETRO magazine Kickstarter?(source:cracked)