90s Gamers vs. 21st Century Gamers

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Basically, memorization wasn't a mechanic back then but rather a result of players trying to avoid the strong penalties for dying. A great example is the Binding of Isaac. I have constantly seen many people talking about the high difficulty and using methodical ways to defeat stuff that I don't care to read about because I beat it on my first playthrough with Isaac, my second playthrough with Magdolene, and almost beat it on my 3rd playthrough with Cain where I only ever had 1 heart after level 2 trying to unlock someone with "deals with the devil". (I died on level 6 with Cain only having 1 heart) A friend of mine hasn't beat it once with Isaac yet despite a handful of attempts.

Memorization could be seen/used as one back then, because most games never changed. If it suited your play style (or you weren't good enough to beat games any other way), memorizing enemy spawns or level layouts was an extremely effective way to make it through many games. Binding of Isaac, and roguelikes in general, deliberately avoid/prevent that by randomizing everything. They force you to take the "be good at the game" approach to a greater degree, because even after you know what all the enemies and items do, you still can't know which ones will be where when.

Speaking of people talking about how ridiculously hard it's supposed to be and growing up with "Nintendo Hard" games, it took me a few more tries than that, but as someone who's been playing roguelikes since Rogue and Nintendo Hard games since the NES came out, I was still sort of surprised it wasn't a lot harder after everything I'd heard. I'm never going to get the "take no damage" in the later sections of the game achievements or anything, though. I'm just not quick enough for that these days.

 

[zuro64]

Unreal, Quake and Counter Strike all rely on exactly the same thing as Call of Duty: reflexes.

Just because they are older games and are therefore "old-school" doesn't make them any different than Halo or COD. Yeah yeah, I know its always cool to hate the most popular thing, but really, this is getting fucking ridiculous.

So yeah, I wish more people would stop fucking jumping on the nostalgia band-wagon and get some perspective. Older doesn't mean better.

Last I checked CS and Quake don't let you call in gunships that kill swathes of enemies for you or have broken spawn systems that let you achieve 144 kills in 1 game.

I never criticised Halo.

Well let me ask you this: how do you think that one manages to get the kill streak rewards?
Its not by sitting around and waiting for them!

You aren't serious, every single time a new COD comes out all I hear is issues with campers and people using exploits.

well the you have only heard the whiners, wich I will admit there are far to many of. A side effect of the 21 century gaming!

 

[Nomanslander]

Did playing Nintendo Hard games in the 90s make 90s gamers better overall at games than 21st century gamers?

No, it was just a different experience, the fact is the difficulty of games back then was enough to frustrate a person to the point of rage quitting. It wasn't just that they were hard, the limited continue system most games had made you lose all your progress and have to start over from the beginning, which for many of us was a deal breaker. I can't tell you how many games I stopped playing after having to continue from the start for the 30th time.

But like I said, what really made gaming in the 90s different, and more of an extent in the 80s since those were my childhood years were arcades. Gaming in the 80s and 90s were all about the arcades. All the best games could found there, in 85 you'd see graphics consoles couldn't match until 95, and the social atmosphere was something I haven't seen and felt since then.

 

[Auron225]

The only contribution I have to say (take it as you will) is I remember beating absolutely everything on Super Mario Bros Deluxe edition when I was a lot younger. I tried a level of it last year and just couldnt do it - some older games are damn harder than current ones! But I dont think that means you're a better gamer than those of today if you're playing games of today rather than games of yesterday... if you see what I mean.

 

[asacatman]

Congratulations, you missed the entire point of my post.

I didn't miss the point of your post, however I should of been more clear in saying my examples were not of 'great' games (for example, the first assasins creed was not very polished and didn't get a particually high metascore) but rather of innovative and creative games. But the rest of my post I spent arguing specifically about games being 'unique' and so on, so I kind of resent you telling me I missed the point. Whatever.

Now about the indie scene thing.

Back in the 90s it cost publishers a lot less money to make games. Less money=less risk, so perhaps in the publishing buisness there were more creative games out there.

But!

Now there *is* an indie scene, so therefore, todays games are more creative. That 'not as much money to make' market has been taken by indie developers, and I think their efforts are much more exciting and different than anything the 90s produced.

(some of your post makes good points by the way, I can't really argue about the FPS/3rdPS stuff, especially since I don't really play much of those games. But I think this 'set template' thing really is limited to shooters, I can't really think about examples from other genres.)

So baring that stuff in the brackets in mind...'games with a depth and creativity that we simply don't see any more.'



Frankly, you are blided by nostalgia. It's hard to argue about overall 'deepness' and 'creativeness' without using specific examples, which aren't much use when assesing the merits of an entire period. So without any evidence to back it up...we DO see games with EASILY as much creativity and depth in this decade as in any preceding one. Seriously, go play some portal or something. (please don't shoot my entire arguming down on that example, remember what I said about examples being useless.)

But anyway it sounds like you are set in your ways, and I can't think of any compelling arguments to make you come to my side... oh well.

The best I can come up with is this: 1. You can't just discredit the indie scene, as it has the same sort of budget as published games in the 90s and 2. the indie scene is and will in the future be producing more games which are innovative and creative than what publishers managed in the 90s.

Have a good day! (I hope it isn't rude to say you're blinded by nostalgia...)

 

[ElPatron]

Well, there's more to being a gamer than just how quickly you respond to scripted events was my point, actually. To put it differently, "being a good gamer" and "being good at games" aren't nearly the same thing. Just like "being good at math" and "being a good student" aren't. Or for that matter, "being good at picking up heavy things" and "being a hard worker".

Okay, old games requires you to respond quicker and have better accuracy than modern ones.


But modern games also feature harder puzzles, right? Oh, wait...

 

[Vegosiux]

Okay, old games requires you to respond quicker and have better accuracy than modern ones.


But modern games also feature harder puzzles, right? Oh, wait...

Your words, not mine.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

......What? So if I say beat Ninja Gaiden 1-3 or whatever I'll pwn everyone on CoD?

Or you could stop obfuscating the point and realize that the games that have you develop skills related to modern FPSs are FPSs. Quake, Unreal, Counter strike.

snip

>I can't beat these games without spending a million hours memorizing everything
>Nobody can beat these games without spending a million hours memorizing everything

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

First of all, games weren't just harder, they were less balanced and generally not as good. (Yeah I went there.) The fact that people have gotten used to solid controls and fair gameplay is not a bad thing.

What? Today's games have no fairness and no balance whatsoever.

In terms of Multiplayer, that may be true with some games, but in terms of Single Player, difficulty curves and things like that have never been better in my opinion.

 

[Warforger]

......What? So if I say beat Ninja Gaiden 1-3 or whatever I'll pwn everyone on CoD?

Or you could stop obfuscating the point and realize that the games that have you develop skills related to modern FPSs are FPSs. Quake, Unreal, Counter strike.

Oh ahuh totally man. Hmm let's try playing Battlefield with these "skills".

 

[Waaghpowa]

Older doesn't mean better.

And newer doesn't mean better either. Problem with a lot of the new games is that they're shamelessly unbalanced and focus too much on instant gratification. If you ever played CS, the reward system rewards people for focusing on objectives. You earn money for every round won, and a small amount per kill. The more rounds you win, the more money you get, better guns you get.

This method increases your chances of success, but still relies on the player actually having the ability to keep momentum rather than give freebie kills with an unmanned helicopter death machine. Players who focus on kills, but lose every round barely have enough money to re buy their weapons per round.

 

[SilentCom]

Wait, why does how "good" a gamer you are "overall" depend on how "hard" games you play? That's ridiculous, and I'm one of the old school gamers.

Playing "HARD games for MEN!" doesn't make you a good gamer by default.

Playing difficult games doesn't make a player better by default however it does force the player to get better. The real difference here is that older games have different gameplay than most of the modern games.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Unreal, Quake and Counter Strike all rely on exactly the same thing as Call of Duty: reflexes.

Just because they are older games and are therefore "old-school" doesn't make them any different than Halo or COD. Yeah yeah, I know its always cool to hate the most popular thing, but really, this is getting fucking ridiculous.

So yeah, I wish more people would stop fucking jumping on the nostalgia band-wagon and get some perspective. Older doesn't mean better.

In Quake, the first shot doesn't mean victory. In CoD, it does. He who sees the other first almost always gets the kill. When you don't die in 3 bullets, it means the first shot advantage becomes less important and skill becomes the deciding factor. No matter how good you are in CoD, you can easily get taken down by a semi-competent buffoon. I may be quite good at Quake, but I'll never be able to even score a single kill on some of the pros even if I get the drop on them.

 

[hazabaza1]

I've got no real opinion on earlier multiplayers, only got into that whole scene a while back and not even that into it anyway.
However, in terms of singleplayer, I think things have generally gotten easier, if only due to games being better controlled, or games being more focused on fun rather than massive challenge. Higher difficulty modes can often make games as hard as they used to be, but I far prefer modern games over old ones.

Also

spared Great Grey Wolf Sif.

That ain't even possible, dude.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Seriously this whole thread is kind of silly I've been gaming since the mid 80's and I'm no super gamer or anything. The best thing I have done is beat Ninja Gaiden on the hardest mode on the xbox. I still kind of suck at Demon Souls. There are as hard games now as there was back then.

I'm quite astonished that someone thinks Yoshi's Island is hard though...that's kind of weird.

(This thread makes me feel ancient :<)

 

[AnotherAvatar]

I think the real thing to look at here is the game designers and as such the games they designed.

How long has it been since you've seen an arcade?

Notice how the only new games in there MAY be fighting and music games... that's because no one makes games for arcades any more. With that in mind designers are making games with a different goal. Back in the day, a goal was to make your game absurdly hard so that beating it not only felt like quite the accomplishment but also left your pocket clean of quarters, and possibly small bills. Now games are designed to make the gamer love them so much they need to own a copy so they can play it whenever they need to, and nothing makes people hate something more than when they suck at it.

Now, some people, the people I theorize to be 'hardcore gamers' by definition, love that challenge. If a game punches them in the face they get back up, get punched down like 17 more times, and then on the 18th time they beat the game to death with a pipe, and feel throughly satisfied and bad ass about it, as they should.

However, the masses don't do this, the masses want something they can beat without feeling like they totally suck. You see, most people have totally shitty lives they already totally suck at, so when they pay money for a fantasy, unless they're the aforementioned hardcore crowd, they want that fantasy to make them feel like bad asses without much effort.

So, what I'm saying here is that it's not that 90's gamers are better, it's that the market has expanded and now everyone is gaming, not just nerds who like to get pissed at electronics (which, by the way, I totally claim myself as). Does that make the nonhardcore gamers lesser players? Uhh, maybe at some games, but my nonhardcore friends can wreck my shit at farmville... wait... is there a way to wreck shit at farmville?....

 

[Vault101]

Yoshis island...hard?...Im a yoshi island Pro!

mabye thats because I played it alot at the time

anyway I think games to day are pretty easy..hence why I think I suck at games

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

This is not even close to being a black or white issue. Games aren't the same now as they were back in the day. Hell, the types of games weren't even the same. Today we have more shooters, back then there were a lot more platformers and such. Which means a lot of skills don't even transfer properly.

Are 90s gamers better? Not necessarily.
Are 21st century gamers better? Still not necessarily.
Is gaming still fun? Yes. That's good enough for me.