Games that have aged horribly

[Liquidcool]

Back in '07 I had bought Oblivion for the 360 when I saw it in a store because it looked like a nice rpg. One of the best games I've ever played, so when I kept hearing about how awesome Morrwind was I had to try it.

Ugh...
Awful combat, too much text, stiff animations like someone mentioned, and it was hard to figure out where you're supposed to go. I mean, I can read a map and follow instructions but partially I was spoiled by the quest compass in Oblivion, and the map wasn't easy on the eyes. I thought the graphics were pretty nice actually, especially for its time, but I couldn't get over the other stuff.

 

[JET1971]

sidescrollers.. any of them. Sorry played a ton of them in the 70's-80's and today i cant play any of them. Sorry yahtzee but your game may be great but I just cant play side scrollers anymore.

 

[SeriousSquirrel]

As some people have already stated, most 1-Joystick based FPS suck when played nowadays.

About two years ago when I went through a nostalgia rush and whipped the N64 out again, I got really hyped over the original Turok (and it's '64 sequels). I watched gameplay vids, talked to friends about it, and my uncle reminiced fondly about how good the game was. So I bought it, throught it in the console and...promptly turned the N64 off about twenty minutes later. Just way too akward to control with 1 joystick.

Also, kind of thinking about tracking down a copy of The Simpsons: Hit and Run. However I'm a little hesitant as I don't want my fond memories of the game affected by poor aging

 

[Lagslayer]

JRPGs in general.

I like most of the games mentioned thus far are ALL for aesthetics.

It works the same way with movies.

really? nobody thinks Red Dawn or Top Gun feels incredibly outdated in terms of both ideology and message?

You misunderstand. I'm saying movies that are all about having the better visuals will become unpopular very quickly. Like "Independence Day" or "Avatar" in a couple of years.

 

[Atticus89]

I'm gonna get flak for this, but Legends of Dragoon.

If you never played this game, it's a massive four disk game for the PlayStation that has really not aged well in graphics or game play. I'm sure it was cutting edge at the time, but even with that in mind it looks like a Final Fantasy VII rip-off (I'm unsure which came out first, so that's probably inaccurate).

The people who like this game are probably looking at it with nostalgia glasses like most hard-core FFVII fans. Then again, Final Fantasy IX is my favorite of the PlayStation era so I'm in no position to be too harsh.

 

[PlasmaFrog]

I'll take up Sonic Adventures, primarily the first one.

Good lord, that game was awful to begin with and was the possible reason for spawning a bastard franchise that ended up ruining the name of Sonic forever. The only real reason behind anyone playing it was is that it featured "advanced" graphics for its time, and that was just about it.

Now that I look at it, crazy-brows and terrible plotting still give me horrendous nightmares. WHY WON'T THEY STOP WIGGLING LIKE THAT!
I DON'T LIKE JIM CARRY!

 

[Raiha]

father time really took a bat to goldeneye and perfect dark.

 

[PlasmaFrog]

father time really took a bat to goldeneye and perfect dark.

Perfect Dark is still pretty solid if anything. They actually came out with a version that featured enhanced textures and models for XBL, yet everyone still communicates telepathically for some reason. Oh well, gives me more incentive to pretend as if I were a wizard that can shoot fireballs from his Super Dragon.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Pong.

 

[gamer_parent]

JRPGs in general.

I like most of the games mentioned thus far are ALL for aesthetics.

It works the same way with movies.

really? nobody thinks Red Dawn or Top Gun feels incredibly outdated in terms of both ideology and message?

You misunderstand. I'm saying movies that are all about having the better visuals will become unpopular very quickly. Like "Independence Day" or "Avatar" in a couple of years.

ahh, gotcha.

 

[Chased]

I find Starcraft I to be not so easy on the eyes.

 

[Kilgengoor]

Golden Eye for the N64. What a terrible looking game.
Oh, and good god, the music. The music is just TERRIBLE.

Goldeneye is the live example of a game that I thought was pretty cool and now is completely, absolutely unplayable to me. Weird controls, weird physics, eye-meltingly bad graphics, Rock-stupid AI and-- WOULD YOU STOP RUNNING INTO BULLETS FOR A MINUTE, NATASHA? I'M TRYING TO DECONSTRUCT SOMETHING OVER HERE! JESUS!

[About Deus Ex's graphics]
Are you really that superficial? The graphics are sufficient enough to not get in the way of anything.

I'm going to say that yes, the graphics are pretty awful by anyone's standards today, even if you don't really care about them. It's not just the graphics for me though: It's the sloppy hit detection, the awkward animation, the mentally impaired NPCs and the desolate streets that kill it for me. I will repeat, however, that the graphics do have something in all this dislike.

Morrowind comes to mind. The combat was annoying back then and time has not sweetened it, and the hilariously bad animations and stiff controls are pretty hard to overlook.

I got Morrowind with my first salary, way back in 2002. Tried it and just didn't get it. Flash forward to 2008 and after playing a while with Oblivion + Oscuro's Overhaul I tried to go back and give the old chap a try. It isn't the graphics, it's the fact that it's impossible to shoot a straight arrow, that, even if that arrow goes straight the actual possibility of hitting something is pretty much random, it's the fucking assassin attacking me after my first sleep if I forget to not install the Tribunal expansion before reaching some respectable level. And what killed it for me? Laugh all you want, but not being able to pick up the arrow you just shot to the ground is insulting by today's standards. Tried it again this year with Morrowind 2011 but I just can't. It's too much for me.

Now, about games I liked and that I can't believe look that shitty to me right now:

Spoiler: Images

(Yes, I do find Starlancer nigh-unplayable. Repetitive pilot one-liners, awfully pre-rendered 3D, awful ship models. It still has one of the best gameplays out there mind you, but I just find it so utterly cold and depressive, I can't seem to enjoy it anymore)

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Any PS1-era Tomb Raider. I got the original for just a few bucks, but good god I want my few bucks back. It doesn't hold up one bit. The controls are horrible, the levels are extremely big yet practically empty, and even if you do explore every inch of a level and find every necessary key or trinket, figuring out where to put them is another matter entirely. Unless you have an extreme amount of patience, an FAQ is almost required. Otherwise, it ends up feeling like an extremely boring and clunky adventure game once you clear out the enemies.

Also, just about any licensed kid games from the 90's. I would buy and love just about anything so long as it was based on a show or movie I liked, but whenever I pop one in for nostalgia's sake I feel like barfing.

I'll take up Sonic Adventures, primarily the first one.

Good lord, that game was awful to begin with and was the possible reason for spawning a bastard franchise that ended up ruining the name of Sonic forever. The only real reason behind anyone playing it was is that it featured "advanced" graphics for its time, and that was just about it.

Now that I look at it, crazy-brows and terrible plotting still give me horrendous nightmares. WHY WON'T THEY STOP WIGGLING LIKE THAT!
I DON'T LIKE JIM CARRY!

I'm going to have to stop you right there. I still keep my Dreamcast hooked up almost exclusively for that game alone, and I don't really play for the sake of nostalgia anymore. I'll admit not all of the characters have aged well, Gamma and Big in particular. But I think Sonic's levels are exactly what 3D Sonic should have always been, though with a bit less linearity.

Though I completely agree about the graphics. Good god, the lip synching. The lip synching!

 

[Kanatatsu]

Civilization. Best game (or game series) of all time, hands down. But it's pretty boring now, even with the new bells and whistles of Civ 5.

 

[Ladette]

Sonic Adventure
Why the fuck were fishing levels put in the game? Why are the Tails race levels so easy? Where the fuck am I supposed to go? Who thought making Amy playable was a good idea? Why do the Knuckles levels suck so bad? To top it off, the Chao garden wasn't as fun to dick around with in Adventure as it was to play with in Battle. Wretched game as a whole.

Morrowind
The graphics are horrible, but I can deal with bad graphics. What I can't deal with are the same problems I had when I first played it. Why do I need to spend 2 minutes swinging at a guy to do damage? Why do I move so freaking slow? I love how open the world is, but the combat and movement is so bad that I prefer Oblivion despite it having a worse setting.

 

[Jfswift]

Deus Ex.

Good god, Deus Ex.

Where's my scope button O.O ... oh the backslash button... of course, why wouldn't it be there. *facepalm*

 

[Klarinette]

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat kick my ass now. I used to be so good at that shit.

Oh my god it doesn't play like my childhood remembers, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Just putting it out there, but it might be because it was an unfortunate victim of the Dreamcast...

 

[roostuf]

Every single arcade remake.

...and world of warcraft.

 

[regalphantom]

The Morrowind/Oblivion thing has come up alot, so I'll say my bit. As far as combat goes, Oblivion has the better system, in that everything is playable and BALANCED. I remember in Morrowind not being a combat specialist was like giving you a near crippling handicap, whereas in Oblivion both Stealth and Magic are viable choices, Stealth mainly through the subtle addition of the visibility eye thing, and magic with the fact that it, by default, regenerates automatically. The one big hit I found with Oblivion that Morrowind did not have, however, was the scaling difficulty. I understand why they implemented it, as they wanted you to be able to go anywhere you wanted without having to grind, but I found that it removed some of the drive from the game. In Morrowind yes you would accidentally stray into a level 50 dungeon as a lowly level 5 and get your face eaten by zombies, but once you were able to go back there, it felt all the more satisfying. In Oblivion, you don't really have that.

Anyhow, back to the original topic. Games that have not aged well. In my opinion, graphics will rarely be the cause of a game ageing poorly. The culprit is either Gameplay or Story. In that respect, the first 2 Zelda games fail. Zelda 1 in particular is so annoying its almost unplayable, and while there is a large open world, it just gets dull if you can't find the one square where you're supposed to go to next.

 

[Tupolev]

The main things that seem to mess with a games' ageability are control innovations and artistically questionable uses of 3d graphics done seemingly because it was impressive for its time.

So yeah, I totally get the Goldeneye 007 complaints.

Though I admit I'm a little surprised by all the complaints on the original Starcraft. I just tries it again, and while it's controls aren't as helpful as modern RTS's, they're still quite tight and by no means an interface screw. And I guess I'm a minority, but I still think that game looks and sounds gorgeous.

Well, the only one that comes to mind is Half Life 1. I played Half Life 2 first, loved it, then went back to the one that started it all to know how the story began. I was expecting something awesome, because everyone always says it is, but when I actually played it I found it very underwhelming. "This is it?" I thought to myself. "This is the game that is supposedly one of the greatest of all time? How did this get sequel? Not that I am complaining of course...".

First shooter game to have a developed plot and story, plain and simple.

Hmm. I can't say I agree. Pathways into Darkness (1993) might be a good contender for that spot, and its immediate successor (and in the same universe), the Marathon trilogy (1994-1996), arguably has some of the most complex storytelling in video games ever; the first two games are extremely deep and interesting with a healthy dose of mind screw, and the final game in the series, Marathon Infinity, is just plain absract.