Recently I had an insatiable urge to do some retro gaming, so I dug out the PS One from the cupboard under the stairs and brought it to the front room, along with the small stack of original PS One games that have survived the years. I dug through my troves of dusty games and even found Zombies Ate My Neighbors under the couch. Can you believe that?
Plugging in the ancient beast and pressing the power button brought back some fond memories of childhood, but there was a problem – my HDTV doesn’t support the PS One’s retro AV cable.
Luckily I’ve still got a pretty old portable TV (it even has an in-built VHS player!) so I clumsily carried another relic from the past and plonked it on the living room floor. It certainly looked like a strange set up, a sort of mirror between the past and present with the PS4 resting underneath the 40″ HDTV on one side, the dusty old PS One with the 24″ portable telly on the other.
To my surprise they still worked! The first thing I noticed when I powered up the PS One was how awful the resolution was, we really are spoiled in this day and age. Seriously, I can see every last pixel as clear as day and it’s not a pretty sight. If you throw your mind back to the mid 90’s and try to remember ever thinking it looked awful I’m sure you’ll struggle. Back in the day this was the pinnacle of gaming. The PS One was the first home console to utilise the massive capacity of disc-based media storage, allowing bigger games whilst remaining cheaper to manufacture than the competing N64’s chunky cartridges. We had 3D worlds which we could explore, something we’d only dreamed of when we we’re running from left to right on the SNES and SEGA Megadrive.
Anyway, the game I really wanted to have a play with was Spyro 3: Year of The Dragon, the first PS One game I ever fully completed. Like literally everything collected, no loose ends, total closure. A small feat in the grand scheme of things, but back when I was eleven years old this was the greatest achievement ever. It made me king of the playground, I had kids asking me how to do this, where to get the final egg, how to beat the boss, it was like being a celebrity, though not nearly as cool. It was a great game back when it released and I’m of the firm belief it’s still one of the best games available on the PSN. You can download the title for around £4, or get all three original Spyro games for £8. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth to my younger self really, I remember saving up weeks of pocket money to get my copy of Spyro and now I can buy it without even thinking of the financial consequences. However, I decided to play my original copy, which is remarkably still scratch free (or near enough…) and what’s more is I even had my old save on the memory card!
I regret nothing. I spent a good two hours playing through the first few levels of Spyro 3: Year of The Dragon before taking a break, mainly because my poor old eyes just aren’t used to the lower quality TV. It really does put a strain on the peepers once you’ve been taken in by the delights of high-definition television. It’s strange to think how far the technology has come in such a short amount of time. It’s nearly twenty years since the PS One was released and since then we’ve gone from blocky, cartoon characters to fully fledged human analogues, all on technology that we never even imagined would exist back in 1995! Where will the future take us? Will in another couple of decades look back on the PS4 and Xbox One as primitive? Will they still hold any nostalgic value amongst those who grow up alongside them? Or will they be deemed obsolete, destined to become collectors items?
Still, looking back on my little trip to the past reminded me of a simpler time. A time when games weren’t riddled with cash-grabbing download content, there wasn’t any online multiplayer and visuals took a backseat over engaging, quality gameplay. Maybe it’s time to take video games back to the basics that formed the industry, or maybe it’s just me being overly nostalgic, either way, I think I’ll be making a little bit of space in the living room for the PS One and its rustic companion TV, at least until they eventually kick the bucket.
Have you tried playing one of your old consoles recently? Which one? Let us know down in the comments below!
Like The Games Cabin on Facebook for the latest gaming news, reviews, rumours, trailers and much more!