Personally, I think SOME old games are still great (I.E Persona 4 for the PS2) but most should just be dead (I.E Red Faction)
The good old days really all that good?
- Thread starter pyramid head grape
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Well, as Billy Joel said in his song "Keeping the Faith"
You know the good old days weren't always good
and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
There were some genuinely good games made back in the day, and there are some good ones in the now, and near future.
You know the good old days weren't always good
and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
There were some genuinely good games made back in the day, and there are some good ones in the now, and near future.
Well compare Mario to LittleBigPlanet, Quake to Halo, Starcraft 2/Warcraft 3 to Starcraft 1/Warcraft 2. I love all the games I just mentioned but I have to admit there have been some improvements as time has gone by. I think Fallout 3 and Fallout 2 are too different to compare fairly as well, I also preferred Oblivion to Morrowind but I do see why you would prefer the older one. Actually talking about that, compare Morrowind to Daggerfall. A buggy as hell mess of a game that was for the most part made playable in Morrowind, occasional crash notwithstanding.x-machina said:
It is mostly nostalgia. Each generation will have a few games that become "classics" with the rest being banished from memory. The real issue here is that games are so much more difficult and expensive to produce than they used to be. The price for content has gone through the roof since the old days. That means fewer games can afford to defy the mediocrity of mass appeal; The FPS dominates the way the platformer never did.
Many of the games people are nostalgic for feature ideas that have largely gone by the wayside. There isn't much call for X-COM or TIE Fighter these days. The open world philosophy of Might & Magic 6 or Star Control 2 or Starflight has largely vanished.
Many of the games people are nostalgic for feature ideas that have largely gone by the wayside. There isn't much call for X-COM or TIE Fighter these days. The open world philosophy of Might & Magic 6 or Star Control 2 or Starflight has largely vanished.
If your favourite genre is TB strategy or simulation or tactical rpgs, then the 90s were definitely better.
It's not nostalgia, when you keep going back to those old games, because new titles are not as good or simply don't exist at all.
When a 14+ year old game like MOO2 still hasn't been equalled, let alone surpassed, something is clearly wrong with the industry and the market.
Action genres haven't suffered much from the simplification trend, so not every gamer can see what's going on.
It's not nostalgia, when you keep going back to those old games, because new titles are not as good or simply don't exist at all.
When a 14+ year old game like MOO2 still hasn't been equalled, let alone surpassed, something is clearly wrong with the industry and the market.
Action genres haven't suffered much from the simplification trend, so not every gamer can see what's going on.
I've played games since I was 6 years old and I'm 29 now. It seems to go from simplistic to more in depth games as the developers got a handle on new styles of graphics.
When I play Baldur's Gate 2 (and I still do) it makes me shake my head that somewhere along the way we lost that 'go forth and adventure' idea. Atm games just seem to be a corridor with cutscenes. There's no real sense of exploration.
Mass Effect 2, a game which I adore, suffers alot from this. You have the entire galaxy to explore and only a handful of the planets have small side quests on them. Why? because it takes graphics, voice acting, and the quest interaction. It's too much effort whereas in old games they could just go mad writing text and create whatever the hell quest they wanted. I think with advanced graphics that freedom of expression has been lost and games and thier worlds have just gotten alot smaller.
I like the fact that characters talk and I think this is where Oblivion drew a line. They have around 12 voice actors but they basically said screw it we are going to have TONS of content and make those buggers work until they lose thier voice. The gamebryo engine although skittish and buggy allowed them to easily make areas for extra quests.
That's my 'nostalgia' issue I think games are suffering becuase of this polished up corridor mentality that seems to be developing. Even the Final Fantasy series suffered from it from 10 which (coincidentally?) was the first time they had voiced parts. I love games like Mass Effect 2 but they simply lack that open adventurous feel for me that the old ones did.
I'm hoping Skyrim will remedy that
When I play Baldur's Gate 2 (and I still do) it makes me shake my head that somewhere along the way we lost that 'go forth and adventure' idea. Atm games just seem to be a corridor with cutscenes. There's no real sense of exploration.
Mass Effect 2, a game which I adore, suffers alot from this. You have the entire galaxy to explore and only a handful of the planets have small side quests on them. Why? because it takes graphics, voice acting, and the quest interaction. It's too much effort whereas in old games they could just go mad writing text and create whatever the hell quest they wanted. I think with advanced graphics that freedom of expression has been lost and games and thier worlds have just gotten alot smaller.
I like the fact that characters talk and I think this is where Oblivion drew a line. They have around 12 voice actors but they basically said screw it we are going to have TONS of content and make those buggers work until they lose thier voice. The gamebryo engine although skittish and buggy allowed them to easily make areas for extra quests.
That's my 'nostalgia' issue I think games are suffering becuase of this polished up corridor mentality that seems to be developing. Even the Final Fantasy series suffered from it from 10 which (coincidentally?) was the first time they had voiced parts. I love games like Mass Effect 2 but they simply lack that open adventurous feel for me that the old ones did.
I'm hoping Skyrim will remedy that
Damn this makes me feel old. I recently bought Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and Actraisers 2 for SNES for a bit of nostalgia. I never really liked them when I was a kid, but I wanted to play them again. Hell, a year ago I bought Gargoyle's Quest II for nostalgia, but I still argue that was the best looking game on the NES.
As for the 'good old days' being that good, it depends on the game. I still like playing Gargoyle's Quest II, Super Mario 1,2,3, Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Actraisers, E.V.O., Super Metroid. It depends on the game, but the last game I played that really felt like it did something new and epic was Half-Life, in 1999 (I got it a little late). Since then, every game seems to be rehashing the same ideas. Half-Life was the last game I played where I felt like I was playing something new, the same with GoldenEye, Quake, Doom, Warcraft 2, Super Mario 64, Super Mario 1,2,3. It might be my fault by growing up, but I haven't felt the 'this is new' feeling from a game for quite a while. They're fun, but they all seems to be rehashing the same ideas with a bigger budget.
As for the 'good old days' being that good, it depends on the game. I still like playing Gargoyle's Quest II, Super Mario 1,2,3, Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Actraisers, E.V.O., Super Metroid. It depends on the game, but the last game I played that really felt like it did something new and epic was Half-Life, in 1999 (I got it a little late). Since then, every game seems to be rehashing the same ideas. Half-Life was the last game I played where I felt like I was playing something new, the same with GoldenEye, Quake, Doom, Warcraft 2, Super Mario 64, Super Mario 1,2,3. It might be my fault by growing up, but I haven't felt the 'this is new' feeling from a game for quite a while. They're fun, but they all seems to be rehashing the same ideas with a bigger budget.
To be fair though, it's much easier to make a isometric RPG seem big than it is a massive 3D world.x-machina said:
As for me, I went back and played both KotOR and Jade Empire over recently. I had no trouble getting into KotOR, and powered through the game in three days. As for Jade Empire, I got up to about the third level and stopped.
I loved them both, back in the day, but as graphics and mechanics move on, I believe that only truly great games will be remembered, although to a much greater degree than much of the crap today.
I think that , for some of us at least, a lot of it has to do with the fact that it was easier for companies to cater to niche genres like mech combat and space shooters. Freespace 2 isn't held on a pedestal because no one can make a game like it these days. It's held on a pedestal because no one does. There are some quality games out there today, but those games don't cover as large a spectrum of playing styles as we once had. And really, isn't that the opposite of what we should be expecting from companies?
I tend to prefer older games mostly because they are still complex gameplay wise. Sure, alot of those old RPGs are obtuse as fuck, but at least they are something I can feel invested into you know? I mean, BioWare keeps on making their games simpler, and while there's nothing wrong with that idea, they just go overboard with it.
