Change is good, they tell us. Without progress, we stagnate.

But is that true of videogames? Think about it. Beyond the high-res textures, fancy physics and surround sound, is the stuff you're playing today really any better than what you experienced as a kid? We don't think so. Maybe we're old or maybe we're just stubborn, but we can't help longing for the types of games that got us into this hobby in the first place.

What follows are the genres we miss the most, the ones that deserve to return, the ones that never should have disappeared. Given the chance, we'd trade a hundred new games for the chance to see any of these classics make a comeback.

Side scrollers

The bread and butter of old-school gaming - moving across a screen from left to right. Run! Jump! Climb! Occasionally duck! If you grew up playing in the '80s or early '90s, these weren't even a genre. They were everything.

And now they're nothing - the simple domain of nostalgic throwbacks like New Super Mario Bros. and bargain-priced downloads like Alien Hominid. As the industry shifted almost exclusively to 3D, the 2D side scroller became an artifact - an archaic thing of the past.

But why? We didn't buy side scrollers back then because they were the only games the technology could produce. We loved them for how they played, for how the simplicity and immediacy of two dimensions eliminated control and camera issues, for how that addictive sweet spot was unlocked every time. We adored them for how they looked, for how a flat canvas freed the designers to create vibrant and detailed works of art rather than worry about a polygon count.

Forget technology. Fun is what matters and 2D side scrollers are about as fun as gaming gets. More, please!