About

Every ten years since 1952, the British Film Institute has held a large poll among critics and since a couple of decades another poll among directors to vote for the best films of all time. The latest top ten, at the time of writing, dating from December 2022:

  1. Jeanne Dielman
  2. Vertigo
  3. Citizen Kane
  4. Tokyo Story
  5. In the Mood for Love
  6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  7. Beau Travail
  8. Mulholland Drive
  9. Man with a Movie Camera
  10. Singin' in the Rain

The most recent has therefore been 21, the oldest one 93 years old, with an average age of 54 years among the top ten. Before you scream, the volatile IMDB list of best movies , a pure public vote, not restricted to elitist critics, has a minimum age of 15 years, maximum age of 66 years and an average age of 37 years in its top ten. So, yes, there is a difference, but not nearly as pronounced as you may think.

In 2000, prolific critic Larry McCaffery published his list of top 100 English-language books in fiction, the top 10 being:

  1. Pale Fire
  2. Ulysses
  3. Gravity’s Rainbow
  4. The Public Burning
  5. The Sound and the Fury
  6. The Trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable)
  7. The Making of Americans
  8. The Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, Nova Express)
  9. Lolita
  10. Finnegans Wake

Minimum age within the top ten was 23 years, maximum age 78 years, with an average of 50 years.

The Good Old Days was launched back in the year 2000. Those were dark times with respect to awareness, appreciation and even preservation of computer and video gaming history. Everything older than three or four years, at the time, was considered somewhat embarassing and better to be swept under the carpet.

In those days, we were struggling for basic preservation. Keeping games from being forgotten completely. Keeping the bits from being lost forever.

Over the years, the world has changed a bit in this respect. “Retro” is now fashionable. Some “older” games have gone back on sale. Yet, there are still significant differences with the worlds of written and moving picture fiction.

Until it’s universally understood that there is more than just nostalgia for chunky pixels and simplistic gameplay concepts to be found in looking back, until it is accepted that the computer and game video world is not in a constant upward quality movement, there is still major need to grow and grow up.

After about 50 years, computer and video gaming now has a rich history. Some items are probably best left to look at from behind glass, their quaint ways hard to grasp from today’s mentality. Yet maybe, they are nevertheless seminal in their very nature? Other works have become timeless classics. Trends have come, some have prevailed, others have fizzled away. What are the reasons? What are the broad development cycles, the big threads and influences? There is still a lot to investigate and, of course, to celebrate. Enjoy!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are some write-ups “archived”? What does it mean?

We’ve been here for a long time. The purpose of what we’ve been doing has evolved. Standards of what we consider informative, sufficient, interesting have evolved. Items which do not fulfil what we currently consider baseline anymore are marked as “archived”. Meaning we do not actively promote them anymore, but everything previously published remains available.

Where is the editorial rating?

Short answer: there is none.

Longer answer: it isn’t possible for various reasons. How do you compare a multi million dollar production of today with a small indie game or a bedroom programmer work from 40 years ago? On what grounds? Technical mastery? On absolute terms or relative to the means available at the time? How groundbreaking the game was? How influential it was? How much fun it was when it was new? How much fun it is now? There are many games which hold up in their entertainment factor even though they are old. Yet, others do not, and they are nevertheless important to talk about, fascinating to discuss. Instead of coming up with ultra-complex schemes and doing a lot of hand-wringing, we let the words speak for themselves.

Can you please let me download this game / send me this game?

No, sorry.

How do I log in on the website?

Use your forum account.

Which data do you collect about visitors and registered users?

We collect only what is strictly necessary to attribute whatever you submit to the site to you. We save your quiz scores. We do not collect anything about your passive interaction with the site, i.e. what you’re viewing etc. The personal information collected during your registration in the forum (e.g. mail address) will not be shared with third parties unless obligated by law.

How can I help to improve the site?

Everything you see, you can do yourself. For a example you could enter new games, write up some thoughts about the games already here or write an article about something you always wanted to share with the gaming community. Or maybe you would prefer to assemble a list?

What do I get for my contributions?

The gratitude of the rest of the world.

Why should I work for free for the profit of others?

You shouldn’t. This is a privately owned, operated and financed website with no commercial interests.

When will my contribution go online?

Usually, as soon as possible. It could be that there is a waiting queue due to larger contributions from other people. In any case, you should monitor your private message inbox for reactions. If there is a problem with what you sent in, we will contact you this way. You can configure an e-mail notification about the arrival of such messages in the forum (enabled by default). If you don’t receive one within 48 hours, feel free to contact one of the administrators.

How do I make a new list?

Use the thumbtack icon on the game pages you wish to include. Once you’re happy with your selections, select the appropriate item from your user menu where you should now find all those games you marked.

How about all those other icons?

How do I rate a game?

Simply click on the number of stars you would like to give.

Why won’t you accept my write-ups? They are at least as good as some of the stuff you have!

Please see the answer concerning archived contents. Also please understand that there is a certain level of subjectivity to quality. Last, but not least, this is a privately operated website with no commercial interests. As such, we have no obligation to provide services. Please understand that we reserve the right to reject if we feel publication would not be appropriate for any reason stated.

What are the standards to write about a game?

It’s quite simple: It has to be written by yourself (yes, we check that!), it should at least around 300 words long (that’s usually about three or four paragraphs).

Here are some ideas what to do:

  1. Make the readers understand what kind of game it is, i.e. how the game plays
  2. Say what is good and what is bad about the game
  3. Say in what way these things are good or bad
  4. Say why these things are good or bad
  5. Say how things work/go together in the big picture
  6. Say how this sort of thing was evaluated/received back when it was new
  7. Give some historical context (did this game come out of nowhere or is it part of a long line of development?)
  8. Say how it feels playing today
  9. Give a concise conclusion and summary

Here is a list of things which usually should be avoided:

  1. Write a manual
  2. Restate bibliographic information
  3. Write about how to get the game to run
  4. Come up with no conclusion
  5. Make factually wrong statements
  6. Uneven paragraph length
  7. Add a list
  8. State the obvious
  9. Speculate too much

As always with such things, they can become very subjective. So the most important thing is: if you know what you’re doing, anything goes. Any of the items on the “don’t” list could be used to achieve specific effects. If you’re unsure now, don’t worry – people are helpful around here and if you need feedback on your writing, you will get it.

How do I make screenshots?

That depends on your host system (i.e. what you’re using to work every day) and your target system (i.e. the system your game runs under). Often, you will run your game in some emulator. Many emulators have an integrated screenshot function. In Dosbox, for example, pressing Ctrl-F5 will save an appropriate image directly to your hard disk. Please refer to your emulator’s documentation (usually found on its website) to find out whether there is such a function and how to use it. Otherwise, you can always use a general purpose image processing application to take a screenshot of any game. A very powerful, but freely available application with this function is The Gimp , for example.

Please always save your screenshots in a lossless file format. Ideally, use the PNG format. GIF is only usable for games which use 256 colours or fewer. Avoid the lossy JPEG format! If in doubt, you can even use uncompressed Bitmaps. We will be happy to convert the files for you.

What is important here is that the screenshots have to be made in the original format of the game. Many of today’s emulators offer graphical filter features. Sometimes, they actually do make the games look better, but still, it’s not the original look anymore. That is why it is essential to switch off all such options before making screenshots! This also includes ‘aspect correction’ functions which will unrepairably distort the images.

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