Why I Can’t Make Best of Retro Gaming Lists

Not everyone who loves retro gaming can make a list…

Making lists. A lot gets made of them. In fact, if it is a list of to-dos, it has been my observation that the making of the list itself will be the most to-do thing of all. After that, the actual doing can trail off a little. Not picking on anyone in particular, but we all know who we are.

Me? I am not a list person, and I mean that to a fault. I don’t want to write one myself and I am certainly not interested when my wife writes me one out for the local shop. Especially when it is written out with that effort of scrawl. Back in ye olde days scribes would not just copy out a text, they would often go so far as to fill the margins with beautiful symbolism and doodlings. So when my wife hands me a corner-torn triangle of paper with a list, she knows well enough now to scribble some pretty flowers or such in each corner as a means of getting me to take it seriously.

E-mail take note.

But just as haters are gonna hate and a plot is gonna plot, lists are gonna list, list, list, list, list. And in the culture of retro games, you can add a few more to that list, because retro gaming is a list spectacular!

My wife knows well enough now to scribble some pretty flowers or such in each corner as a means of getting me to take it seriously.

I am fearful of where to tread first along the retro list road, as each list contains frequent and immediate branches off and what might start as a list of Ken Master’s best hair styling can quickly hop to the side and become a favourite pre-fight special intro list instead.

These things get out of hand, so I will do my best to be careful and fill in the margins.

List of, best of, I vs we

For every list there is a typology; to-dos, most wanted and best-ofs, the forgotten things and the not-to-be. And so on. Unfortunately, gaming has yet to have been gathered together into an uber list such as the Romans gave us with their vast and unyielding Latin taxonomy of the natural kingdom.

As such, Atari means whatever it might mean to you, me, or anyone else. Nothing is inherently classed through the name Atari, but probably you and I would both smile at the name and then almost certainly wince a little in remembrance, so there is a common understanding. A common name.

If only Atari could have remained common. Instead, they went the way of the British car industry, and at about the same time, and for the same reason; the common purchasing of Japanese equivalents. I wanted to want the Jaguar. Heck, I would even have had a stab at understanding the control device. If I were to make a list of most sad losses to modern industry Atari would be higher up the list than Rover, but I am not doing that, because as I say, the branches come in and take you away and I still haven’t exactly nailed down what listing I am dealing with here myself.

Atari went the way of the British car industry, and at about the same time, and for the same reason; the common purchasing of Japanese equivalents.

But yes, Atari was a big loss. It never stopped me from buying a Saturn for a moment, but it would have been nice to see if I could have understood that controller after all. I wonder what would they be dreaming up if they were still making controllers today? There’s certainly a list there, or at least some childish concept art. What animal would they be up to by now? The platypus? Their front aqua-paws would have made a great controller design.

I am branching again.

Best 2D fighting games (according to me)

Let me instead throw out another common name and see what manner of list forms. I’ll say 2D Fighting game because I may or may not still have Ken on the brain. It is almost certain that we are all thinking of a best-of list, because if 2D Fighting means anything, it means strong opinions. I have them and you might want to hear them, as long as we agree that when I say best it means me not we. I love how clear lists make things.

Best 2D Fighting according to John and under no authority or taxonomy. One to five, in reverse order:

1. Mortal Kombat 2 for the Sega Mega Drive
2. King of Fighters ‘95 for the Sega Saturn
3. Samurai Showdown 2 for the Neo Geo Pocket Colour.
4. X-Men vs Street Fighter for the Sega Saturn.
5. Capcom vs SNK 2 Millionaire Fighting Nuclear Fallout Edition 8 Upper. For Dreamcast.

Perhaps that wasn’t so difficult to do after all. It could perhaps do with a little tinkering, as no one is ever happy with their list.

Top 5 Atari failures

I think it is the numbering which gets in the way and the list is a system which is trying to make it simple. I am going to have another go. We’ll say Top Five Atari Failures and go last to first again. That is going to mean that first place is the best failure and I do run into an internal difficulty that first is last, at least in the immediate sense.

Whatever, they are all losers.

Best Atari Failures:

1. The Lynx
2. The Vole
3. The Jaguar
4. The Owl
5. The Badger

A disappointing display for Atari there, and proof enough that having the coolest corporate logo outside of Yamaha is not enough to feed your shareholders. A lesson to us all there, but I still feel this listing thing is less useful than might first appear.

I am currently two lists deep and I don’t yet feel that I have gotten my mind around exactly what a list is. First is last and I is we, except when the personal is definitive and then all prier’s are removed. I am confused and if you are following me then so should you be. We may have common communication, but it is delivered through myriad accents and inflections.

Perhaps what we need isn’t a list but its free form cousin, the spider graph.

Does whatever a Spider-Graph does

I have always rated the spider graph. It gives you room to move in both the horizontal and vertical, like the old T.V. show, The Outer Limits. And because of that, you can have your branches. And how you can have them because that is the winning form of the spider graph.

I shall demonstrate this by using our 2D Fighter list again, only now through the form of a fully operational Death Star… I mean spider graph.

What is a list?

It is said, and reasonably so, that light and space are the true luxuries of life, and the same applies to listing. Give yourself some space and let the light in.

A list is just one thing after another without a properly defined relationship. See above, but the spider graph gives space and light which allows the details, the connective tissue between fighting games, to connect. To put it another way, lists are like standing punches and spider graphs are like Dragon Punches.

One is Ryu and the other is Ken.