3 Old Consoles That Are Still Very Much Alive
‘90s video game consoles hold a special place in our hearts because a lot of the magical things they did have been either abandoned by modern game design or are physically impossible to recreate on the supposedly all-superior hardware of modern times. That's a damn shame but we managed to scavenge a good takeaway out of it: many discontinued and supposedly dead systems are still getting fresh games in one capacity or another. Yeah, these won't make us feel what we felt when we were kids, but they'll make us feel new things because they're making games that look old but are actually completely fresh new takes on stuff we love. Now, our readers might be asking whether these devs are merely interested in allowing us to have a new type of fun, or whether they're actually trying to mess with the godly video-game timekeepers. We don't know. What we do know, however, is that we don't care to find out, because this is awesome.
The PS1 has become the prime outlet for indie horror
The only people who can perhaps say they don't miss the original Playstation are people who don't like horror games because boy did the PS1 invent and nearly perfect the genre. The PS1 stopped getting new games almost 20 years ago, but did it really? Well, yeah, there are no more official releases. What we have, however, is a glorious revival and evolution of what the PS1 brought to the PC via something called Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. That's the name of a game jam that every year gets a lot of talented developers together just to make awesome new titles in the vein of the good old PS1 games. These are great for nostalgia as they look as good as a PS1 game could ever hope to:
Haunted PS1
But, more importantly, some use the PS1 looks to hide stuff we just didn't have in the original Playstation:
Haunted PS1
The screenshot above is from Walk, one of the most uniquely disturbing games we've ever seen on any platform. It plays like classic Resident Evil but features a color palette so unnerving that makes sure it would never see the light of day via a big publisher.
It is but one of many horror experiences anyone can download and play on PC right now for free. All horror fans are sure to find at least something that suits their needs here
One of the toughest things about being a PS1 fan is dealing with the absence of Silent Hill. One thing we should accept is that the Silent Hill series just isn’t coming back – even though it definitely is coming back at some point or another. The problem is that its return won’t be more than a shameless attempt at making money off of the beloved IP. What we really want isn’t Silent Hill: In Name Only Chronicles, but rather a game that shifts the entire paradigm of horror games just like the original (and then its sequel) did. Don’t believe us? Remember that nobody, not even the company behind Silent Hill, really wanted the game in the first place. The PS1 Haunted Demo Disc initiative helps all PS1 fans find closure for that, and perhaps even some sort of continuation. Get it here.
It's understandable that the PS1 would never lose support – we're talking about a console so successful it beat two competing consoles from more battle-weary console makers and still held its own against the Dreamcast for a while. Interestingly, the PS1 has only lived on via haunting the PC via indie games, whereas the comparatively fewer Dreamcasts out there are still getting actual new games. Yeah, the Dreamcast has a list of dozens of homebrew games made by devs who just won't let the system die.
Bitmap Bureau
It's a small operation, but they do good work. Just in 2020, the Dreamcast had 5 reported new releases. Now, 5 games might not look like much, but let's remember that we're talking about a) a console that never had that big of a game library, and b) a console that has been dead for over 20 years. That's 5 more games than the Ouya, the Android-based from 2015 has gotten this year.
The passion fans have for these games cannot be understated, as we just recently saw the release of Arcade Racing Legends, a homebrew dream that came true after a Kickstarter campaign successfully raised over $80,000.
We can't underestimate the Dreamcast any longer, as the supposedly discontinued console may just be waiting for the right time to come back and take its revenge at any moment. Think we're joking? Well:
What the Dreamcast has in quantity, the Genesis has in quality
Even though they're pretty old by today's standards, we still remember that both aforementioned consoles were CD-based. We don't see many games coming out for the PS1 and Dreamcast nowadays because making games is hard, yes, but mainly because making a game for a supposedly dead system will drastically reduce the number of players who'll get to play it, not because putting them on a CD is hard. Devs such as Sasha Darko, however, seemingly thought making games for CD-based systems was too easy, so he just started making games to put on actual goddamn Sega Genesis cartridges. The result is Sacred Line Genesis, a game that masterfully turns the usually very family-friendly Genesis look into some of the most brutal imagery we've ever seen.
Sacred Line is great not just for horror fans who want something new (and old), but also to just leave on the console for younger cousins who'll turn on our system without the proper authorization. Anyone who thinks this looks cool should be happy to learn that Sacred Line 2 is in development, that it looks great, and that they can totally help make it happen faster. Let's take a look, shall we?
Sasha Darko
Sasha Darko
Top Image: Haunted PS1
