I had the strangest gaming epiphany last Monday night and I would like to share it with you all. I was sitting in front of the TV watching Arsenal play Leeds United in the FA Cup Fourth Round at the Emirates Stadium. For a Monday night game it was a relatively drab affair until the 68th minute when Arsenal favourite, Thierry Henry, was introduced for his second Arsenal debut having signed for the Gunners on loan from the New York Red Bulls.

“Sometimes you need to look back at the past to enjoy the present”It only took Henry, a legend in both North London and the English game, ten minutes to justify manager Arsene Wenger’s risk in signing the 34-year-old for two months. Henry broke free in the penalty area, controlled a neat pass from Alexandre Song and placed the ball past Andy Lonergan in a typically Henry-like fashion. Back of the net.

Wenger brought Henry back to North London to cover his side’s shortage in the striker department. With Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh away competing in the African Cup of Nations, Wenger needed to call upon someone he could rely on and who he had experience with. To overcome a problem, Wenger looked to the past for inspiration.

Since moving back home from halls of residence I sadly have been separated from my PlayStation 3. The family Wii has broken down and my laptop, whilst capable of running Football Manager 2012, may as well run on vegetable oil given how good it is at processing modern-day graphics.

As a result, I’ve found myself unable to play a decent videogame without risking breaking into my brother’s room for a quick spot of FIFA 08 on the PlayStation 2. I was beginning to suffer some major videogame withdrawals as I sat watching the TV and rotating a can of Pepsi in my hand, muttering to myself that “it didn’t pertain to the case”. But watching Henry defy the odds for Arsenal on my TV inspired me to do something similar to Arsene Wenger: turn to the past for inspiration.

“Other times, you just need to move on and look to the future”Quick as a flash I climbed up into the loft in my Mums’ house and grabbed a grey box, two grey DualShock controllers and all the leads and games I could find. I plugged the grey box into the mains and then into my TV (on which Thierry Henry was giving an emotional post-match interview) before listening to the famous noises and sights that accompany the introductory screens of the original Sony PlayStation.

Yes, I decided to dust off the circular disc cover and embrace the console that changed the landscape of the videogame industry. Amongst the pile of games I found were Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysey, LMA Manager 2001 and FIFA: Road to World Cup 98; three games from my childhood which I enjoyed immensely and felt almost obliged to immediately relive.

I started with the adventures of my old friend Abe and felt chills of melancholy as I heard my Mudokon friend discuss his woes and downright poor working conditions at Rupture Farms in the opening cinematic. Before long I was sending Abe along his way from left-of-screen to right-of-screen whilst rescuing workmates, solving puzzles and riddles and morphing into the bodies of unsuspecting “sligs” over and over again.

Initially, this was a fun trip through Nostalgia Lane for me as I hadn’t given Abe’s Oddysey a serious playthrough in close to ten years. But after half-an-hour of trudging through increasingly uninspired set pieces and increasingly repetitive traps and puzzles I began to tire of the experience. This overwhelming frustration threw me a little as I’d never experienced boredom during Abe’s Oddysey before. I’d always found myself determined to reach the next checkpoint regardless of what lay ahead in Abe’s world and I would make sure I got my Mudokon friend to his next save point. This time around however I had to convince myself to continue and relive the experience of Oddworld. I was unimpressed by the graphics as they were basic even by PlayStation standard. The gameplay was repetitive and far too linear; the game only really tested your navigational skills when you had to walk toward the left of the screen as opposed to the right.

I soon decided I wasn’t having enough fun to justify continuing with Abe’s Oddysey and so I switched out for a new game: LMA Manager 2001. Now this was a game that I tended to play as a kid with a couple of friends and it represented the dying days of the more arcade-orientated football management game. The key aspect to being prosperous in LMA Manager was building a successful team, building a successful tactic and winning on a matchday to build a successful career. In contrast to the modern-day Football Manager series, the game’s emphasis was on the football as opposed to the background banalities that come with being a professional football coach. I started a game with my beloved Derby County who I was delighted to see still had their “star” players from the 2000-01 season (you can’t beat a strike partnership of Malcolm Christie and Branko Strupar).

Much like Abe’s Oddysey however I soon found myself wishing for something… more. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it to begin with; the game felt as surprisingly fluid and user-friendly as ever. The actual in-match graphics were impressive for the year 2000 and it was still satisfying to see Derby beat Manchester United 4-1 on the opening day courtesy of a Darryl Powell hat-trick. It just wasn’t enough.

Was I actually beginning to miss those background banalities that so bugged me about the Football Manager series? The whole LMA Manager experience just felt distinctly unchallenging and somewhat shallow which again left me surprised. Everything I disliked about the modern day Football Manager games (youth development, the complicated training schedules, managing wage budgets and building tactics from scratch) I now found myself pining for in LMA Manager 2001.

“No matter” I thought. Onwards and upwards to the greatest FIFA game ever made: FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This was a game I had played for fourteen years and the last occasion being only six months ago. I loved it.

The smooth animation, the unimaginably addictive “World Cup” mode, the excellent “pick-up-and-play” approach to the football and of course the unforgettable intro set to the sound of Song 2 by Blur. Everything about this game screamed “football” and I couldn’t get enough of it as I grew up, even refusing to buy any other ,FIFA instalment until 2003. I sat down to play a quick friendly and for that true blast of nostalgia I played as England against Argentina.

But…surely not…I couldn’t get my head around FIFA 98, either. It felt sluggish, unresponsive and laborious but above all else it just didn’t feel fun. Everything that once screamed “football” about FIFA 98 now screamed “help me”.

“Videogames have moved on… but I haven’t”Over the last few months I’ve slowly but surely warmed to EA Sports’ latest instalment: FIFA 12 after some major initial doubts. The new defending system coupled with the much-heralded but overrated “Impact Engine” took me a long while to get used to and as unconvinced as I remain about the game’s ridiculously buggy career mode it still stands head and shoulders above FIFA 98, as well it should do.

For the first time in fourteen years, I failed to enjoy a friendly game of FIFA 98. It tore me apart because I’ve spent fourteen years comparing every single instalment of FIFA to it. It was my gaming nirvana as a child and as a teenager and although I hadn’t played it for a few years up until last Monday, I always held it in the highest esteem. It was fun, it was fluid and it was pretty to look at. But EA Sports have just refined the formula to making a good football game to such an extent that it is downright impossible to view FIFA 98 in the same light. And the subsequent advance in technology and videogame production means I find it difficult to view Abe’s Oddysey or LMA Manager 2001 in the same light as modern-day videogames either.

These games have felt dated for a long while but never have they felt so…obsolete. Today’s videogames are so beautiful and so immersive that I found it difficult to enjoy my old games in the same way. I even went as far as to play some old Nintendo 64 games but the same feelings occurred. WCW/NWO Revenge, one of the best wrestling games of its generation, felt practically unplayable compared to some later THQ efforts. Pokemon Stadium no longer held the same magic and wonder as it did when I was a kid. Hell, even Goldeneye felt slow and archaic. GOLDENEYE! I was delighted to find that Super Mario 64 played as well and looked as downright beautiful as it did in my childhood years but not even a trip to the Bob-omb Battlefield could neutralise the lingering sadness I felt at seeing my once-beloved videogames age in such a manner.

After two hours of trying to enjoy these games I came to an ultimately depressing and sobering conclusion: videogames have moved on… but I haven’t.

I began to realise that as my favourite games, genres and franchises matured and adapted through the years… I simply didn’t. As much as I enjoy the modern-day videogame and the immersive experiences they have to offer us through storytelling and interaction, I still held my childhood favourites in such high esteem that I perhaps overrated just how good they remained a decade or so later. In their own time the likes of FIFA 98 and Goldeneye were revolutionary but in a day and age where videogames are as sophisticated as film and television productions, such games are outdated and, as much as it pains me to say it, primitive. I thought I could still enjoy these games but I know now that I just can’t play them or look at them in the same way knowing how videogames have evolved.

Returning to the past worked for Arsene Wenger on Monday night when he introduced Thierry Henry for his second coming at Arsenal. Sometimes you need to look back at the past to enjoy the present. Other times, you just need to move on and look to the future.

Looking toward the past to end my videogame lull just made me yearn for a current generation game more than ever. FIFA 98 wouldn’t be my Thierry Henry so much as my Francis Jeffers (if you’ll forgive the obscure football reference). From now on I’ll keep my happy memories of videogames as just those: happy memories and forget about trying to compare videogame present to videogame past.

That old Noel Gallagher saying rings true.

“Don’t look back in anger”.