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Gateway to Asphai: action-based battles back in 1983.Ultima III imposed time limits on your decisions.The awesomely over-the-top Wizard’s Crown.Yeah, I’ll give it a little bit of extra slosh, but Ihave a tough time thinking of a game like Oblivion asold-school. Friggin’ kids. Plus, as I’m a retro-gamerwho is still playing older games for the first time (Ijust recently finished Knights of the Old Republic II:The Sith Lords), I have a tough time thinking of someof these games as being all that old.When I talk old-school, I tend to talk about theclassic games that I personally played, which includedsome classics as well as some stinkers. Back then,I didn’t worry about whether Al-Qadim: The Genie’sCurse was a “real” RPG or not. Hardly anybody worriedabout that until the “boom” of RPGs hit its peakin the early 90s and then started contracting. Sure,you occasionally had an article explaining the differencebetween the two popular genres, RPGs vs. AdventureGames. How quaint that seems now. Really– it was all good. Except when it was bad. When didwe start worrying so hard about what box we fit thesegames into, anyway? And how did that happen?So you wanna know what “old-school” means?Maybe it means all the amazing variety of game stylesthat used to be sold but are no longer “in vogue”Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse, RPG or not? No one cared.amongst mainstream publishers. Instead, they’venarrowed their scope down to just a tiny handful ofcrowd-pleasing styles that they keep trying to perfect.But as the whole “mainstream publishing” thing isalso losing relevance (at least for PC development),I don’t even understand how important that really isanymore.I’m still going to refer to some of the things Ido as “old-school,” but like the word “indie,” it’s reallyjust a poor shorthand to potential players to resetexpectations. But old is the new new. Or somethinglike that.But really, I still don’t know what the hell I’mtalking about.March 18, 2013 1Jay Barnson been playing video games since Pac-Man and Wizardry were hot stuff, and has been creatingboth indie games and top-shelf “AAA” retail gamesfor over a decade.1 Originally posted at: http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=11809