Are Old Games Bettter

[Beeeyeee]

Are Old Games Better?

[GBELILREESE]

49 minutes ago, Beeeyeee said:

Are Old Games Better?

 

Games before felt more well spent. Felt like I was getting back everything I spent on games. Now it just gets boring after a couple of hours and costs 5x more... 

[gcubed]

Which old games?

 

Fallout (the original) is fun.

Fallout BoS is, well it is a PoS.

Zork is fun.

Pong is a snoozefest.

 

[AshleyAshes]

There are great and terrible games from any era.

[Velvet Revolver]

I like old b/c they are fucking cheap.

[PlayStation 2]

It'd really depend on what you're talking about. 

[killcomic]

What? Time Pilot? Pac Man? Thunderforce IV?

What's the definition of "old games"? And better in which way?

Regardless, I've been playing games since Space Invaders came out and I have to say there is no time I'd rather be in than today.

[QueenDemetria]

Depends how you define "better" since its a subjective term that can apply to many aspects of the game(s). Graphics are definitely better now, but I prefer the retro and "yesterday's" look, so that's 1 point for old games. The stories and mechanics are mostly the same, so its a tie for those aspects. DRM despite not perfect is still better than older games which required you to manually type keys(vs Steam,Uplay,Origin, etc) and or required you to have the install disk inserted for game play(and lets not forget SecuROM). Modern games have cloud syncing, but older games generally didn't care if you created copies of game saves, so its also a tie in this area. The last aspect I can think of is resource usage and requirements(CPU power, GPU power, RAM needed, HDD utilization), which older games win hands down.

 

So, going by points I would say that I like older games better, which I do, but I still really like modern games.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, Beeeyeee said:

Are Old Games Better?

Can't say whether it's them or it's me, but games do feel much worse today, I must say. A bit like Hollywood: a copy of a copy of a copy...

I mean, there are better graphics, and overall greater power at the fingertips of developers. Possibilities are much greater, and some things have been learned from previous mistakes. But I find it harder to find a game that is fun. There are some recent games I still have to try, with reasonable expectations (if Fallout 4 is as fun as Fallout 3, then it would score many points for today's games). But it seems like complete genres have somehow disappeared.

Take adventures, for example. Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Simon... you can say it evolved into Grim Fandango, still great... Then? The Monkey saga fell into almost a parody of itself, and what else do we have?

RTS: Dune II, Warcraft I and II were very limited, but each one was going further than ever, and the excitement of that made them fun until you played so much that the flaws start to show up. Starcraft was great, Warcraft III... to some extent. And that's it. Starcraft II was a big disappointment, essentially an accelerated Starcraft with horri-wood script, trying to be Starcraft I with better graphics + a few mechanics added in WC3. Maybe it's still fun against other humans, but the campaign... I can't get bothered to finish it.

Similar story for FPS: we loved the terrible originals, when no one has done it before, but we reached a point in which we can see the space invaders hidden behind the 3D graphs. Half the genre went into endless cinematics with 10 seconds of action, in which you have to execute a particular number of steps without deviating from script, and back to cinematics. The other half is just deathmatch plus an excuse of a campaign subject to the "you no longer fool us" problem, plus increased texture detail. I guess Metro is the most recent pure FPS I still enjoyed. I mean, now than everyone can do amazing 3D graphics, it takes something more than shoot the ducks to get me interested. There were very interesting projects, Like "Call of Cthulhu" and Darkness Within, but that never became mainstream in the industry. So it's mostly Fallout and other RPGs when it comes to FPS.

 

I guess the best explanation is I'm getting old, because not even the new Civilization satisfy me (to be fair, they do break a thing or two in each release, on top of the things they fix ). And simulators must be better, but it's been a while since I tried to drive an F1 without an actual wheel... My perception is that there is less variety, though. At least int eh headlines. I look back at the games I've played, and I find so many different types of games, while today everything seems kind of standardize. It's as if the limitation in resources and what was technologically feasible put a lot of pressure into developers to compensate through gameplay and creativity. And maybe they weren't risking as much money. Maybe now you have this expensive 3D engine, a costly development process, and feel inclined to use a succesful formula, continue a franchise, or re-theme the same game structure with a different set of expensive textures and polygons and that's it.

 

I do hope this rant triggers a flood of information proving me wrong - soon to become my wishlist of games  

[eLucid]

Subjective but generally, yes. The original MGS is still the best single player game I've ever played.

[Zodiark1593]

I like Skyrim from this Era. I like Chrono Trigger from several eras ago. I don't like Cod from this Era, or the last. I don't like ET from many eras ago. 

 

If the game is something I'm interested in, I'll play it. Age plays little role. 

 

My first ever game was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, btw.

[AresKrieger]

To vague to answer what I can say no game from the last 5 years has made my top 10 games list in my head so take that as you will

[Albatross]

In my opinion, yes. They felt worth the money and were just simply more enjoyable.

[Fungal]

Oblivion 2006>Skyrim 2011

[Mooshi]

Crazy hard difficulty, long convoluted pass systems, ability to save is a luxury, glitchy

 

Vs

 

Baby difficulty, online cheaters are the norm, saves can be manipulated, Ubisoft

 

 

Hard to say lol

[christianled59]

Yes and no. I voted no, because this is too general. MOST old games were better, IMO. I just finished The Last Guardian, and fuck, that game was DAMN good. It felt classic, was unique, challenging, and there wasn't all the bullshit of most modern titles. 

 

I can say similar things about legend of zelda, mario, pokemon red, the list goes on. Some great nes, n64, gamecube, wii, ps1, ps2, ps3, xbox, xbone, ps4 and pc games too though. All eras have some great games.

[Space Reptile]

Spiderman 2 (ps2) > any other Piderman game

homeworld = best space RTS to date

Driver 2 is just good

IL2 1946 is still the standard for how to do a ww2 plane sim

eve online is pretty good

 

uhhh...

[techswede]

Been replaying Knights of the old republic so my nostalgia addled mind says yes. 

[Thunderpup]

if we removed nostalgia from the mix by introducing people to an older game that they never played before you would likely get a mixed bag of yeses and nos.

 

For one older games, especially around the N64 & PS1 era, may have graphics that are just plain ugly which can be a real turn off.  Golden Eye for instance was "cool" in its "realism" but it hasn't aged well at all.  So older Polygon based games are likely to get a "no" from a lot of people.

 

Also older RTS games usually had very clunky UIs which can be a real downer when playing.  Simple features like control groups and using the shift key to order a series of different commands weren't always parts of the game mechanics.

 

Those are some of the examples of why people may say "no" to your answer.

 

Personally i think modern games that developers put a lot of thought into are just as good today as older games given the same amount of thought and effort.  But today's games usually have better voice acting; which is a real perk.

 

 

[Misanthrope]

Depends entirely on how old. To me when it comes to RPGs peak was probably Morrowind and Baldur's Gate II (surprisingly not that far apart from each other)

 

However I have probably more hours on Skyrim (over 1800 normal and close to 100 on SE already) since it's more visually appealing and mods are plentiful. However ideally we should get a game that looks as good but has the detail of Morrowind (Seriously we need levitation as a constant effect, getting a flying mod in Skyrim doesn't feels the same as going through the trouble of conjuring and soul trapping a golden saint, drinking hundreds of potions and then enchanting your own constant levitation helmet, along with boots of blinding speed and a magic resistance item to still be able to see)

 

[Guest]

ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS FOLLOW THE DAMN TRAIN, CJ!

 

yes. better.

[Sauron]

That's way too generic... there are terrible old games too.

[Yamoto42]

14 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

So it's mostly Fallout and other RPGs when it comes to FPS

New DOOM was fun as frick, and I'm not even an FPS person...on the other hand it flat out admitted what it was and didn't try to be anything else.

 

18 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Morrowind

TES games...I love em, but it is an odd scenario.  Game mechanics have definitely improved...but world building has done the opposite.  The leader of the mages guild should have most magic skills almost maxxed out...and why can someone with almost no stealth ability be the master of the thieves guild or Listener of the Dark Brotherhood?

[Misanthrope]

20 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

TES games...I love em, but it is an odd scenario.  Game mechanics have definitely improved...but world building has done the opposite.  The leader of the mages guild should have most magic skills almost maxxed out...and why can someone with almost no stealth ability be the master of the thieves guild or Listener of the Dark Brotherhood?

Exactly: I feel that Morrowind was a good balance between more modern engine and not as big of a nerf to abilities and such.

 

If we could make a dream game come true I'd take Daggerfall and put it on the Skyrim SE engine. It's just not feasible to translate a procedurally generated game to modern looks however.

[Monkey Dust]

Graphically many old games haven't held up well, but other than that they were on the whole better. They were more willing to take risks and innovate, now they just grind out the same old franchises again and again, like the movie industry.When consoles didn't have internet connections and hard drives they could just release any old rubbish and fix with patches, so they had to finish the game for launch, a rare move these days. And then there is the general dumbing down, the striping out of complexity with each new iteration, and so many games that just aren't challenging in the slightest.

 

Of course time is a great quality filter, all the rubbish games from years gone by have largely been forgotten, which helps retro games reputation.