An aside on arcade gaming style

[lavahot]

Since I was really little, gaming has been a large part of my life. My Dad bought me an original GameBoy when I was three. It was newly released at that time and I had never even heard of Nintendo. Of course, the killer app was Tetris, a game that was easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. To this day, I still cannot defeat my dad's high score in marathon. Before then I had had a Coleco Vision, which, aside from some of the arcade games which none of us could figure out, was a blast to play, especially the Carnival game, which was a collection of smaller games that were really easy to play.

Today, I have a Wii, with our favorite games being Wii sports and Rayman Raving Rabbids, both simple and easy to play, but with challenge and requiring some skill. I also am building my first MAME cabinet, which I hope to have finished later this month.

My point to this rambling is that I have recently discovered that Arcade style gameplay is far superior to the complex every-one-of-these-20-buttons-does-three-things controller scheme and intense multi-level seven-trains-of-thought hardcore games. Not only do you not have to know ANYTHING to play an arcade game, but it's much more fun much more quickly.

My question to you folks is: how do YOU feel about arcade-style gameplay?

[harkon]

I'm not much of a console gamer, but my favourites are the co-op ones. The reason for this preference is that I don't really get all that much out of playing simple games by myself. As an extension of this preference, I don't really like arcade games. It's been at least 3 years since I've really played one (in that I can't remember the last time for sure).

Back in the day, I played a lot of arcade games at the arcade as a social thing with friends. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons in the early days became Alien vs Predator later on. I never really played the "classic" video games other than as something to give my hands something to do while I hung out with friends; the exception being I remember putting some coins into a Space Invaders machine at the end of an holiday where I kind of ran out of things to do.

My preferred gaming experience is strategy, turn-based or real time. Next would be the third person RPGs such as those made by Bioware. The only real "pick up and play" type games that I've enjoyed are the scroll around beat em ups like the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance or the Dynasty Warrior games and that is mainly because I'm doing mindless stuff with friends. If some more active type gaming is the order of the day, I'd go for puzzlers such as Puzzle Quest, which I like because I can both watch someone play or play alone and not feel bored.