miguelfcp
Premier League
- 27 June 2009
Hello community.
Some of you might know me from The Retro-PES Corner, a place here on Evo-Web where we've been sharing our experiences with the many PES titles available. Though I always had faith on the concept itself, never would I thought it would be as accepted by the community as it’s turning out to be, looking at the daily activity, posts and views of a thread which has mainly been supported by discussions about 10/15-year old games. It has been tremendous.
For the last 6 months, the time I have reserved for gaming has been dedicated solely to retro-gaming, mostly PES, and each day I spend on it I get a clearer vision that this path is worth following; not just because of each version’s enjoyable gameplay but also because every PES game of the past is a living, interactive bible of football which is powerful nostalgia for the older crowd, and for the younger players retro-PES games are a learning experience, as they’re too young to have seen live both the players and the teams featured on the games.
But I’m beginning to believe the lure of retro goes beyond PES or gaming itself, it extends to football as a sport. In this age of information flowing by us at a frenetic pace, an ever-increasing number of people tend to look at football as entertainment to be consumed and then quickly forgotten after the new season rolls in - a by-product of this culture of exaggerated consumerism -; but the true football fan knows that this sport is much more than a quick fix: football’s an art. And just as we celebrate Hitchcock, Picasso or Mozart, our duty as football fans is to honor the greatest teams, players and managers for their contribution to “the beautiful game”. So in a world where the consumption of current-day football is so overwhelmingly dominant, there must be at least one temple, one museum for football fans to gather and discuss the many eras of the sport, right?
After a few online searches, I was shocked to realize that that place simply...does not exist. According to Google, “retro football”/”classic football” is about buying old shirts/kits only - plays well to the theme of consumerism, doesn't it? Once in a while you see a discussion about a particular classic match, team or player, but it’s also buried in a gigantic pool of discussions about modern-day football so it becomes irrelevant.
If we want to preserve the memory of the greatest teams and players alive, that place must be built from scratch. This is why I’m starting The Retro-Football Corner, a place for everyone to discuss and share the knowledge we have about the history of football. Do share videos, full matches, stories, opinions, articles...anything that fits the retro-discussion.
Why setting this place up in a (mostly) PES-oriented forum?
Though the quality of the gameplay is the benchmark for every football game, a tremendously important part of the experience itself is to be able to reproduce in a virtual platform what we see the players and teams do in the real-life sport.
Well, I was watching United States vs. Portugal for the 2002 World Cup and all I could think was that after the final whistle, I had to fire up PES2 for a virtual rematch between the two teams. Then I understood the dynamics here: real-life football hypes you for the virtual experience, then you play the virtual experience and it hypes you for the real-life thing, and the cycle goes on and on. What if we reproduced that cycle for a retro-focused football gaming experience, how much would it benefit both the retro-football gaming and the retro-football culture? We're about to find out.
What is considered Retro-Football?
If on the Retro-PES Corner I limited the discussion to all PES games except the current one, in our Retro-Football Corner we can adapt it so that only the current season of football can’t be discussed. As of June 2018, the 17/18 season is the only one that’s off-limits but discussion of the 16/17 season is accepted (as well as any season before that); as soon as the 18/19 season begins, discussion of the 17/18 season is accepted, and so on. The current World Cup is off-limits but the 2014 WC discussion, for example, is allowed. You get the picture.
Welcome to The Retro-Football Corner, the interactive museum of football built by you, and for every football fan.
Some of you might know me from The Retro-PES Corner, a place here on Evo-Web where we've been sharing our experiences with the many PES titles available. Though I always had faith on the concept itself, never would I thought it would be as accepted by the community as it’s turning out to be, looking at the daily activity, posts and views of a thread which has mainly been supported by discussions about 10/15-year old games. It has been tremendous.
For the last 6 months, the time I have reserved for gaming has been dedicated solely to retro-gaming, mostly PES, and each day I spend on it I get a clearer vision that this path is worth following; not just because of each version’s enjoyable gameplay but also because every PES game of the past is a living, interactive bible of football which is powerful nostalgia for the older crowd, and for the younger players retro-PES games are a learning experience, as they’re too young to have seen live both the players and the teams featured on the games.
But I’m beginning to believe the lure of retro goes beyond PES or gaming itself, it extends to football as a sport. In this age of information flowing by us at a frenetic pace, an ever-increasing number of people tend to look at football as entertainment to be consumed and then quickly forgotten after the new season rolls in - a by-product of this culture of exaggerated consumerism -; but the true football fan knows that this sport is much more than a quick fix: football’s an art. And just as we celebrate Hitchcock, Picasso or Mozart, our duty as football fans is to honor the greatest teams, players and managers for their contribution to “the beautiful game”. So in a world where the consumption of current-day football is so overwhelmingly dominant, there must be at least one temple, one museum for football fans to gather and discuss the many eras of the sport, right?
After a few online searches, I was shocked to realize that that place simply...does not exist. According to Google, “retro football”/”classic football” is about buying old shirts/kits only - plays well to the theme of consumerism, doesn't it? Once in a while you see a discussion about a particular classic match, team or player, but it’s also buried in a gigantic pool of discussions about modern-day football so it becomes irrelevant.
If we want to preserve the memory of the greatest teams and players alive, that place must be built from scratch. This is why I’m starting The Retro-Football Corner, a place for everyone to discuss and share the knowledge we have about the history of football. Do share videos, full matches, stories, opinions, articles...anything that fits the retro-discussion.
Why setting this place up in a (mostly) PES-oriented forum?
Though the quality of the gameplay is the benchmark for every football game, a tremendously important part of the experience itself is to be able to reproduce in a virtual platform what we see the players and teams do in the real-life sport.
Well, I was watching United States vs. Portugal for the 2002 World Cup and all I could think was that after the final whistle, I had to fire up PES2 for a virtual rematch between the two teams. Then I understood the dynamics here: real-life football hypes you for the virtual experience, then you play the virtual experience and it hypes you for the real-life thing, and the cycle goes on and on. What if we reproduced that cycle for a retro-focused football gaming experience, how much would it benefit both the retro-football gaming and the retro-football culture? We're about to find out.
What is considered Retro-Football?
If on the Retro-PES Corner I limited the discussion to all PES games except the current one, in our Retro-Football Corner we can adapt it so that only the current season of football can’t be discussed. As of June 2018, the 17/18 season is the only one that’s off-limits but discussion of the 16/17 season is accepted (as well as any season before that); as soon as the 18/19 season begins, discussion of the 17/18 season is accepted, and so on. The current World Cup is off-limits but the 2014 WC discussion, for example, is allowed. You get the picture.
Welcome to The Retro-Football Corner, the interactive museum of football built by you, and for every football fan.
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