it's totally true though, there are distinctly different generations of gamers.
technology has progressed quite far in a relatively short period of time, allowing this..
for example, I was completely floored by how beautiful NES graphics looked after growing up with the likes of pacman and digdug on my atari 400 (and playing computer games that had 6 colors, if that). hell we didn't have battery backups or passwords or anything back then either, you just played the game until you absolutely couldn't stand it anymore. nowadays you hear magazine reviewers whining "there's no save feature in this game, what the hell!!" or even if there is a password save (rare as that may be) it is considered incomprehensible.
And you see it a lot on forums like this too, some people don't even want to touch an emulator if it won't support save states (GPengine anyone?) because they don't want to bother with playing the early levels over and over everytime..
we didn't have cheat books that released with the games, or gamesharks.. sure the game genie did finally come out after some years, which was kind of neat/novel, but more of a nuisance to use than anything. I for one say games are too damned easy these days, they walk you through everything and "respawn" you infinitely until you get to the netx checkpoint. Okay maybe we had that too, but only after you spent some hours clearing that asshole castlevania stage did you get to continue from the next level.
I'd love to hear someone say they've actually (recently) put in the time and effort to go beginning-to-end through a game like battletoads, blaster master, ninja gaiden -- hell even metroid or Legend of Zelda - LEGITIMATELY without using savestates. Instead using either the included passwords/battery backup or infinite continues.. the point being, playing the game as it was originally intended to be played.
ok, I am no better, I will use save states too because, well, you get spoiled I guess - it's hard to go back. Why bother, why leave your machine on overnight so you can sleep in between sessions? Besides, a system like GP32, you're probably not intending to play it for an extended period anyway (like if you were planted in front of the TV) - I imagine most of use use it for a quick fix during downtime (riding on bus, restroom, waiting for someone, etc) so yeah, savestates are ideal. There's I've just completely contradicted my own previous paragraph. But I still maintain that you'll never get the same thrill out of the game as if you didn't "cheat" your way through it - I kind of wasted Castlevania PCE this way, and it didn't feel as satisfying.
ok, so I kind of derailed your topic a little into a bitchy rant, but hell, that's what these forums are for I suppose, all in good fun.
anyway, it kind of brings up an interesting topic - is emulation ruining video games? playing them in ways they werent meant to be played? or otherwise, is there not a place for the classics in today's scene..
