If you could bring back one thing about retro games what would it be?

[Kinitawowi]

[li] Arcades.[/li]

[li] Some modicum of effort being put into a single-player mode.[/li]

[li] Multiplayer on the couch. [/li]

[li] PC games in proper boxes. It's ridiculous that a big DVD case now basically contains a download code. [/li]

[li] Self contained products, released as finished. No mentality has done more to damage gaming than "ship now, patch later". [/li]

[li] Proper expansion packs. It pains me to see so many people refer to D3: Reaper Of Souls as "DLC". [/li]

[li] Good Final Fantasy games. *zing* [/li]

 

[Treeinthewoods]

Honestly... not a damn thing. Games where the way they were back in the day because of technological limitations. If a time traveller had taken the NES controller out of my hand and started up Skyrim for me I would have lost my shit and never wanted to touch Mega Man or Super Mario again.

I still enjoy some of my older games like X-Com but I refuse to be blinded by nostalgia when so much awesome stuff gets dropped in my lap these days.

 

[FoolKiller]

Well, if I were to pick one... Oh, got it! You know how you could unlock different costumes for character(s) by doing tasks, rather then buying them with cash. This I want.

Ooooh.... I like it.

I want actual rewards for collectibles, not just an achievement/trophy.

 

[JazzJack2]

Skipping past the obvious choices like Challenge or more interesting and varied stories and art directions I guess I'd have to go for ambition. Games seem to lack the ambition to make their own authoritative statement, and to truly push themselves to the limits of what they could be, they're all just so safe nowadays. I mean look ELITE, a game that attempts to simulate a whole galaxy and it came out in 1984 and yet has more ambition, more scope and simply more balls than pretty much anything being made now even when computers and consoles are more powerful than ever.

 

[Aluwolf]

Can't really pick just one. The Super Nintendo era was objectively better than modern gaming in all ways that matter.

1.) Intro level design that teaches the player the basics as a course of gameplay, rather than through tutorial popups (see EgoRaptor's Sequelitis video about the MegaMan X series)

2.) Real disadvantages to failure, including widely-spaced savepoints, potential loss of character stat progression (bring back level downs! XP debt is for losers! )

3.) Greater focus on story and characters in RPGs, and lesser focus on graphics (Seriously, we've got photorealism already. Stop pushing graphics and start hiring writers who aren't shit.)

4.) Finished games on release day.

5.) Expansion packs with entire new games' worth of content, or at least DLCs with more than an hour's worth of story, rather than bare-bones, overpriced DLC.

6.) The brutal, painful death of the concept of 'pay2win' freemium business models. It's not okay to sell power. Basically, Secret World good, Warframe bad. (in monetization, anyway. Warframe's gameplay is at least rather fun for a while)

7.) The measurement of a game's playtime in days rather than hours. Remember back when you could buy a brand new Super Nintendo game for $35, and it would still be fun next year? Sorry, but a $60 RPG with only 40 hours of story is not okay. And post-story bonus dungeons don't cut it, either. The story is over, you won. So why do you care about an extra dungeon? Basically, dungeons and loot should serve as stepping stones to progress the story, not the other way around.

8.) No voice chat unless players ~choose!!~ to use third-party VOIP software. Granted, a huge part of the reason why I don't like first-person shooters is because I'm bad at them. But an even ~bigger~ part is the other players who are given an avenue to constantly remind me of that fact, while simultaneously throwing sexual harassment and misogyny in my face.


Anyway. Sorry for the wall of text. There're plenty of things that weren't as good back then as they are now. For example, we have less in the way of artificial difficulty nowadays. We seem to have learned that, if something is only difficult because it happens faster than even the twitchiest FPS fan can react, that's not actually difficulty, it's just bullshit.

I agree with most of that, except the bit where warframe is pay to win. It's essentially yeah you could pay, but everything you want is too stupidly easy to get without paying so why would you except to support them? The difference in progression between me, who has probably given them about 30 dollars and a friend who hasn't spent a cent is minimal. My warframe just has some more colors and stuff like that. Even the fact that they give us cosmetics for free is saying something.


As for what I want to see, more than anything is the soul of gaming to return. Before games were multi million dollar projects, people had fun, took risks and loved what they did. I still feel that in indie games, but it's hard not see the front page of a game store and see a bunch of games that all play similar to one another and take mechanics from one another because it's the safe thing to do. Then when someone like Rocksteady comes in and truly innovates everyone copies them for years to come. Rinse and repeat, it's so sad.

 

[FourCartridge]

If anything, I would die to see the return of arcade-like philosophies to the medium. I miss the days when games were meant to be fun. Stuff like Monkey Ball and Daytona USA (though I suspect this is mostly the bitter SEGA fan in me). Whatever happened to it's subgenres, like the arcade racer and beat-em-ups/SHUMPS? There's still stuf I like, like The Last of Us and Uncharted, but those are mostly story-based things that attempt to do something "profound" to the medium. Sometimes, I just want to have fun.

Granted, they were created with the intention of sucking quarters, but at least you had enjoyed them and came back every now and then.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I think one of the biggest problems with this whole retro vs modern games thing is the vast majority of games made using the good old fashioned bits are indie, very few if any AAA developer wants to make something that intentionally goes back to the past for a bit.

 

[Bad Jim]

The idea of limited lives should be brought back - there is an inherent satisfaction that you get in finishing a game with a limited number of lives and it alters they way you play. Of course, this should be coupled with "secret codes" that allow unlimited lives or exploits like the Super Mario Bros. infinite 1-UP trick.

I'd go with this to some extent. It should be noted that you could usually get through those games in an hour, so it wasn't all that big a deal when you ran out of lives. But it might be really annoying with a game that took 10 hours or more to play through. So an AAA game would still need to be broken up into sections or something.

But yes, I'd say playing for half an hour or so with a limited stock of lives is much better than having one life but only having to survive between checkpoints that are maybe two minutes of gameplay apart. Long sections require mastery, while short sections tend to devolve into repeatedly trying to kill the same bad guys until you get lucky. Limited lives also make exploring worthwhile, since extra lives are always welcome as secrets.

 

[Lennie Briscoe]

I would bring innovation and creativity back in games. Back then games seemed to always be unique and be constantly outdoing themselves in terms of creativity and technology. We never knew what to expect.

I remember the first time I played Lemmings and thinking to myself: "Wow, I never played something like this before." Now, it's all Call of Duty 7, Ass Creed 8 1/2 or whatever.

I also liked that a few years ago you were always expecting the new breakthrough technology in games. When Doom 3 was released it had amazing shadows, something totally new and innovating back then. Half-Life 2 had amazing characters among many other innovations. And in gameplay there were also innovations, like the amazing Gravity Gun.

I think that's it. The sense of awe is missing from games. Even with a new console generation there's barely any innovation.

^^^ This x100

Awe and creativity used to be the norm. Companies seem so utterly devoted to these gritty/super-serious sensibilities now that folks forget to have fun. Or innovate, for that matter. For every Portal or Little Big Planet we have five me-too wannabes like MoH: Warfighter (pff haha!) that lack any kind of creative spark; titles that exist to cynically capitalize on a trend.

I'm not saying creativity is completely dead, I'm just saying that now would be a good time to practice your White, Thirty-Something Smartass routine and look for a job in the voice-acting industry.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Just saw this beautiful illustration of another part of gaming I'd like to see return from the dead:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=331

 

[Xan Krieger]

Just saw this beautiful illustration of another part of gaming I'd like to see return from the dead:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=331

Reminds me of some DLC for Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag I saw on Steam.

Spoiler

http://store.steampowered.com/app/260471/
Well you could go out and search for the collectibles or you can pay a dollar to have their locations revealed to you.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/260470/
You could go out and plunder for the resources you need to upgrade your ship or you can pay two dollars to have your ship's storage space increased and you gain 500 of each resource.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/260472/
For a dollar you can learn of each activity's location, or you could just go to each location, find a place to synchronize, and get it revealed for free.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/264750/
2 dollars gives you all the plans for better ship equipment

I get that it's for singleplayer but still, you're paying to get stuff you could get for free if you have the time to do it. I think each thing should put dollar signs on your map and ship to indicate that you didn't legitimately get the stuff, you took the easy way and paid for it.

 

[scorptatious]

I would bring innovation and creativity back in games. Back then games seemed to always be unique and be constantly outdoing themselves in terms of creativity and technology. We never knew what to expect.

I remember the first time I played Lemmings and thinking to myself: "Wow, I never played something like this before." Now, it's all Call of Duty 7, Ass Creed 8 1/2 or whatever.

I also liked that a few years ago you were always expecting the new breakthrough technology in games. When Doom 3 was released it had amazing shadows, something totally new and innovating back then. Half-Life 2 had amazing characters among many other innovations. And in gameplay there were also innovations, like the amazing Gravity Gun.

I think that's it. The sense of awe is missing from games. Even with a new console generation there's barely any innovation.

^^^ This x100

Awe and creativity used to be the norm. Companies seem so utterly devoted to these gritty/super-serious sensibilities now that folks forget to have fun. Or innovate, for that matter. For every Portal or Little Big Planet we have five me-too wannabes like MoH: Warfighter (pff haha!) that lack any kind of creative spark; titles that exist to cynically capitalize on a trend.

I'm not saying creativity is completely dead, I'm just saying that now would be a good time to practice your White, Thirty-Something Smartass routine and look for a job in the voice-acting industry.

Oh yes, games NEVER capitalized on trends back in the old days. There were never a bunch of Super Mario 64 clones (some of which are good mind you)or games involving anthropomorphic animals with attitude.

Seriously, I hate threads like this. I love some of my older games as well, and I do agree with some of the points on here. But for the most part, it feels like a lot of people on here are blinded by nostalgia.

Yes, things aren't exactly peaches and cream in the game industry right now. But don't go telling me the gaming industry never did the whole "cynically capitalize on a trend" thing back then.

 

[Kotaro]

The feelies that used to come with PC games. Like, I remember an old spy point-and-click that came with a themed notepad, physical case files, and a few other knick-knacks. Not the best example, but just one that I can remember.

Nowadays if you want this stuff, you need to pay an extra $20 for a collector's edition.

 

[Lennie Briscoe]

I would bring innovation and creativity back in games. Back then games seemed to always be unique and be constantly outdoing themselves in terms of creativity and technology. We never knew what to expect.

I remember the first time I played Lemmings and thinking to myself: "Wow, I never played something like this before." Now, it's all Call of Duty 7, Ass Creed 8 1/2 or whatever.

I also liked that a few years ago you were always expecting the new breakthrough technology in games. When Doom 3 was released it had amazing shadows, something totally new and innovating back then. Half-Life 2 had amazing characters among many other innovations. And in gameplay there were also innovations, like the amazing Gravity Gun.

I think that's it. The sense of awe is missing from games. Even with a new console generation there's barely any innovation.

^^^ This x100

Awe and creativity used to be the norm. Companies seem so utterly devoted to these gritty/super-serious sensibilities now that folks forget to have fun. Or innovate, for that matter. For every Portal or Little Big Planet we have five me-too wannabes like MoH: Warfighter (pff haha!) that lack any kind of creative spark; titles that exist to cynically capitalize on a trend.

I'm not saying creativity is completely dead, I'm just saying that now would be a good time to practice your White, Thirty-Something Smartass routine and look for a job in the voice-acting industry.

Oh yes, games NEVER capitalized on trends back in the old days. There were never a bunch of Super Mario 64 clones (some of which are good mind you)or games involving anthropomorphic animals with attitude.

Seriously, I hate threads like this. I love some of my older games as well, and I do agree with some of the points on here. But for the most part, it feels like a lot of people on here are blinded by nostalgia.

Yes, things aren't exactly peaches and cream in the game industry right now. But don't go telling me the gaming industry never did the whole "cynically capitalize on a trend" thing back then.

I love the smell of unwarranted hostility in the morning.

Of course cynical cash-ins have always been a thing; where did I say they weren't? I have as many good memories with Sonic and Mario as I have bad ones with rip-offs like Bubsy and McKids. I just personally believe that it's a bigger issue today than it was yesterday just by virtue of the industry being an order of magnitude larger.

If that means I'm blinded by nostalgia, then so be it.

 

[asdfen]

dont understand whats stop anyone from playing any retro games most of the consoles have emulators out there and 99% of all old PC games are still playable on modern PCs

 

[sageoftruth]

I miss games being easier and less costly to make. Strange, since I've never helped make a game in my life, but we can see how that has stymied so many AAA devs and scared so many AAA publishers out of trying new things.

Now they're under the impression that they can't go back to more workable goals without losing everyone, and they just might be right about that with all these kids growing up with the idea that anything less graphically-sound than Call of Duty is unplayable garbage.