I don't think it was meant to bring the entire industry back, or even beckon change.

Mega Man's glory days were at the pinnacle of the 8-bit era, and to truly understand if a developer still has that "it" factor, you gotta go back to the roots of where it all began.

We all know why the Battle Network games falter, there's just no change. ZX is a different story, where the only flaw is probably level design.

Though I disagree with some major points, that was a really well written article Jacob.

To say that video games are alone in being defined by technological constraints is to say that there was never a time before perspective entered the realm of art, or After Effects entered the vocabulary of film.

I believe it is a measured artistic choice to return Mega Man to its original mechanics and look. One exemplary benefit being pixel-perfect precision to the gameplay; a defining essence of the MM series, which was lost along the way in countless upgrades and 'evolutions.' to correspond with technology's influence.

As technology advances and boundaries crumble, it is up to the auteur to decide how to best communicate their design to the player. There is no de facto rule stating that bigger = better. Instead I believe that technology enables choice. Along the same lines, a specific style was chosen for a game such as Gears, because it fit the essence of the gameplay. The sense of being apart of an team, duck-and-cover operations, certain complex tactical situations - these are all defining essences of its gameplay, therefore its choice of medium indeed *needed* to be 3-D action-shooter.

Also, as an aside -- I don't believe 8-bit aesthetics are any less holistic of a category than our current generation of graphics. Put any set of "space marines" or assassins (from a variety of contemporary titles) in front of unfamiliar eyes and I believe they would have a hard time telling their origins as well.

Again, well written piece all around - you asserted your point with well-thought-out clarity and ease. I'm just hoping to convince a few people that maybe there's more to this whole MM9 thing than it's simplistic looks would lead them to believe.

Thanks for responding. I really appreciate it. My point in saying that games are different from other mediums in their technological crutch is that videogames only go as far as the hardware will take them. The baseline in making a film is still relatively low. I mean real life is as real as it gets. You can go down the street and film any movie you want, and technically it can be just as legitimate as anything else. A movie like Glengarry Glenn Ross has one of the greatest ensemble casts of all time, and that movie relied almost exclusively on performances that could be captured in any era.

But there is an entirely different outlook with videogames. We as hardcore consumers value technology. In a way we see technology as validation. That film you could make down on the street corner for nothing suddenly takes a vaunted crew of videogame developers to design. It takes a lot of time to create the details we as consumers want, and that time costs money. So the medium is intrinsically tied to technology.There are just so many things that can't be done until the right hardware becomes available. New technologies in film have opened up new avenues that weren't possible, but movies sixty years ago aren't worlds different since if you get a great cast and a great script, you're almost all the way home already. But a game even twenty years ago is so different in every respect that they are almost different life forms. Like I said in the article, technology does not make for better products, but I do value new technologies of any kind because they do enable choices.

There were a lot of things that defined the style of Gears of War, but one thing that made it a bleak sci fi world instead of a WWII tactical game was that the cruel methods inflicted by the player had to be reflected in a cruel world. This is inherent in the gameplay itself, but it is not limited to the gameplay. The setting and style both effect the entire package. When we are talking 8-bit, I just don't think that there's anything reflected in that. Does a game's underlying mission statement make it 8-bit? Just like how the style of Gears of War shows a cruel world at its core, does 8-bit necessarily show anything specific? Are there any values inherent in that look? I don't necessarily think so. Anything can be 8-bit, and so I don't think that the look really tells you anything about the game. Gameplay might have something to do with the style, but a style is about the presentation. There has to be something on the surface that is communicated to you. And I don't think that 8-bit tells you what kind of game it's going to be at its core.

Some people might bring up Schindler's List because of its black and white, but while black and white do signal a less technologically advanced time, I don't think that they are inherently less technically advanced. They're just colors, and colors are style. But I think that 8-bit is all about being less technically advanced. I was trying to communicate that while my mind isn't so deposed by the aura of the 8-bit era, I can see how it's trying to capture that time, and I think that's kind of what you're getting at, JHay. I just don't think that you can say a return to its original mechanics is an artistic choice because the mechanics of a game aren't necessarily artistic in and of themselves. The mechanics are more like well structured, technical blueprints.

It's also ironic that as much as people talk about sophisticated games as hardcore, Mega Man 9 will probably take the definitive hardcore mentality to play.