Great bands that go their start (or had their most influential years) in the eighties: The Pixies, Sonic Youth, New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, U2, REM, Depeche Mode, The Police, The Replacements, Big Star, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Chameleons UK, Cocteau Twins, Black Flag, and on, and on. The eighties were a great decade for rock music, as long as you weren't just listening to commercial radio.
Couple of points: 1. Monochrome was the 70's. (Think "Pong".) All the game systems of the 80's (minus the Vectrex) were in color. How much color was a major competitive feature at the time. 2. Everyone in this thread seems to forget how advanced 80's arcade machines where. Plenty of the games for the iDevices could be legitimately described as "80's". 3. 80's synth-pop and rock absolutely rocked. Anyone who claims to not like it is lying to themselves. I'm willing to bet we could catch any such person humming 80's tunes to themselves on a regular basis. After all, where would we all be without this? 4. Big hair and sparkly dresses were hot. 'Nuff said.
Those are (mostly) ones that started then, and many of the bands you listed weren't terribly original or great. The fact is that not many great musicians of the 60's and 70's did very well in the 80's, even if they returned to success in the 90's.
Their "influences" are easily traced. They hardly (with the exception of a several of course) have held up over the years.
This thread now belongs in the Lounge. But anyway, every rock band has "influences" that are easily traced. The question is whether they brought something different to the mix, and I would argue that most of the bands I listed above did. I'll grant you that a few are sentimental favorites (The Police, for instance), but most of those I listed brought something new to the genre. As far as holding up over years, just listen to indie rock today and you'll hear the influence of many of those bands.
May i remind you that cutting edge graphics are not everything that counts in a game? The thought behind a game is way more important. I couldn´t care less about 3D GFX really, but that´s just me.
Apparently, you haven't played: Zen Bound Backbreaker Football Call of Duty: World at War Driver Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Modern Combat: Sandstorm Jet Car Stunts Samurai: Way of the Warrior
No, all real gamers prefer gameplay than fancy graphics. Cool graphics can only wow you for so long, after that all that matters is gameplay.
That's why Starcraft is still in my top 3 favorite rts games, even though it's about 12 years old. Eventually even the best graphics will become mediocre. The question is whether the game is still considered good.
