Things bad or dated games did well...

[Danbo Jambo]

As 008Zulu & Darth Rosenberg have already suggested, Dated: Morrowind.

The world which you're sucked into in Morrowind is absolutely stunning. Everything feels so organic and naturally interwoven that quests, side quests, objectives etc. all just feel like a natural part of a fantastic journey & adventure.

Neither Oblivion nor Skyrim have come close with their mathmatical, by the numbers approach.

Another slightly dated shout is Dragon Age: Origins. I personally think the tactical combat is almost perfect, with each battle forcing you into different reactions constantly.

I played Morrowind a little bit when I was a teenager, but even then, the game was horribly, horribly obtuse. I like having the freedom to go everywhere in a game from the very beginning, but some of the sidequests practically required you to look up a guide in order to complete, and it was easy to lose stuff forever. Morrowind desperately needed to give its players more information, instead of leaving vague clues...and in some cases, no clues at all.

But the dealbreaker was the combat. If I swing my weapon and hit something...I should actually hit something, instead of my sword magically passing through the city guard I pissed off by wearing some sort of ceremonial armor I picked up off of a random dead dude. It's why I'm waiting (probably in vain) for Skywind to finally be done.

OT: F.E.A.R. had some of my favorite FPS weapons of all time, and more recent games have had a hard time replicating the visceral effects your weapons could have. Pinning guys to walls with the HV Penetrator, disintegrating them with the Plasma Rifle and leaving behind a charred skeleton, dismembering them with the good ol' shotgun, or blowing them into tiny chunks with the Repeating Cannon was some of the most fun I had as a teenager. Most modern games don't have much in the way of weapon effects, which is why I think Bulletstorm was such an underrated game.

Did you have the modded journal installed? I found that fixed most questing issues. Yes it meant a bit of work, but I MUCH prefer that rather than these hand-holding, quest marker setups we see so much of.

Hearing of a location and checking your map every so often to check you're headed in the right direction, only to then stumble over someone in need etc. - to me that's great organic questing.

The combat was poor though, but that just forced me to adapt and play differently as a more stealth & magic based character, which I loved. I've tried many other approaches since and, now I'm used to the game, find they work too.

Here's hoping Skywind makes it more accessible for you though mate. There's a cracker of a game in there. One which Oblivion & Skyrim bare scratch the surface of.

 

[Nazulu]

I'll mention Morrowind again. (It's just such a good example franchise!)

Sure, some games still do it. But most mainstream rpg's see it as a taboo. Monsters not leveling with you. In morrowind, sure, you could go to any area in the game from the start. But be prepared for an ass-kicking if you head into a dwemer ruin right after the intro. And that's how it should be. Dungeons difficult for seasoned soldiers shouldn't be beatable by a prisoner that was only just set free and doesn't have more than some basic, used gear.

Fuck Yes! It really killed Skyrim for me. Well, it was one of things that annoyed me, cause there were many, though I thought it was still Ok. But Still! It gives me more to look forward to when I can't just go anywhere on the map straight away, which is what I did in Skyrim.

 

[Weaver]

System Shock had 4 configurable difficulty settings for Combat, Cyberspace, Puzzles, and Missoin difficulty. I wish more games had adjustable settings for their various parts rather than just a global "difficulty".

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I'll mention Morrowind again. (It's just such a good example franchise!)

Sure, some games still do it. But most mainstream rpg's see it as a taboo. Monsters not leveling with you. In morrowind, sure, you could go to any area in the game from the start. But be prepared for an ass-kicking if you head into a dwemer ruin right after the intro. And that's how it should be. Dungeons difficult for seasoned soldiers shouldn't be beatable by a prisoner that was only just set free and doesn't have more than some basic, used gear.

Spot on.

The absolute stupidness behind such a tact is just crazy for such types of games. One of the big draws is meeting enemies who seem super-powerful, only to return hours later and kick their arse. It's one of the best feelings of reward in games and really creates a grand sense of epicness throughout the worls.

Why on earth they chose to change it I'll never know. If I walk into a cave with a badass troll living there and I've just stepped off the boat with a stick & level one powder puff spells, I deserve my arse kicked.

 

[spartandude]

Alot of older RPGs did dialogue choices much better than they do today. Most of the reason is voice acting as back then it was all text so you could have a myriad of choices and responses where as now you may only have a handful. This has also lead to some pretty stupid stuff like in Fallout One where you had to convince The Master that his plan was illogical to kill himself. You needed stats in the right places but then you also needed to pick the right options and it was more of a puzzle. Compare this with President Eden in Fallout 3 where if your charisma is high enough you just tell him he's wrong and he agrees and blows himself up.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Dated: Mobile Suit Gundam - Journey to Jaburo.

The controls are wonky compared to newer games, but the overall tone and feel of the missions and how the Gundam handles once you master the controls made me feel like it was one of the best Gundam games. Every other game I played felt a bit too arcadey, didn't have the sense of urgency to the battles like Jaburo did. I liked how desperate it was, it actually translated the series it was based off of well into game format. Would love to see another Gundam game like it, with more accurate but overall similar controls.

Dated: Quest for Glory series. To me this was the best overall Sierra adventure series. Over 5 games it maintained a story arc, even while the last game was a severe departure from the previous entries mechanically. The writing was especially well crafted, the paths you could take between each class were interesting. Although the story was fairly linear you could miss or just ignore plot threads and still complete the game, which would affect the ending. I can't rightly recall if after you save the game at the end and import it to the next, whether the endings you get in all the previous entries had impact on the final game but I felt like my choices mattered at least in each chapter. I know other games have tried to do this and met with limited success, but I'd love to see QFG redone as a modern RPG arc. Let your class decide some of the game events, how they occur or even if they occur, let your decisions actually impact the ending signficantly (rather than moral choice, it either lessens your impact as a hero or strengthens depending). And most of all I want another game with that style of humor, blended with the myths of many cultures spread across a wide land of interesting and awesome places. One note, its the only RPG-ish game where I've found that rolling a thief meant you actually did some work as a thief and not just become a faster, weaker, lighter-armored fighter or archer.

 

[Odbarc]

Dated game: Front Mission 3.

This game was awesome!

Without any specific game in mind, older games did better was have excellent replayability. When the PS1 came out and saving became a huge part of the game, games tended to become plot driven (which isn't bad) and asked you to invest hours to beat the game in partially sittings.
But I'd rather play Super Mario Kart for 100 hours than 5 plot based games that took 20 hours to beat each. Some games are just made to be beaten once. It's what made rentals so appealing.

 

[llsaidknockyouout]

Bad game: Bioshock. The gameplay was terrible but the overworld was beautiful.

 

[Neonsilver]

Metal Fatigue
an interesting rts game. A lot of the combat is done with mechas that you could configure the way you want, by choosing what parts should be used for arms, legs and torso. In that regard it was quite interesting that sometimes parts are left over when a mech gets destroyed. Then you could collect them and reverse engineer them, this allowed you to get access to technology of another faction.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

I rather like the nemesis system in SoM. It made a mediocre game good.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

GTA IV was a slog to get through. Plus, the mechanics(overall concept) really started to show their age in this part. But i absolutely loved the damage model. Nothing more fun that wrecking havoc with a garbage truck on a crowded freeway. Real shame cars in V seem to be made of nintendium again.

Oh, and also IV had the best music theme:
And that's about it.

 

[babinro]

Diablo 3's Real Money Auction House.

I'll clump this under 'bad' game because D3 sold like gangbusters but got a ton of hate from the player base for the first couple years.

I absolutely loved this idea and was wishing it would pick up elsewhere in the game industry. It fully funded my gaming hobby through Blizzard over the last 2 years just for playing a game I wanted to play. For someone like me who is on a very tight gaming budget this was AMAZING!

It saddens me that Blizzard dropped the idea and it's even worse that no one else has picked it up.

Runner up from Diablo 3:
No copycats for the skill/rune system.

People are still copying Diablo 2's dated skill tree/web system. The skill/rune system in Diablo 3 shows a TON of promise and just needs some iteration to make it interesting beyond the level 60 stage and into the ultimate end game.

 

[Trunkage]

Snip

All I can tell you is that currently I think the best one is unattackable NPCs. I'm not saying its a good idea, just its the best of the bunch we have. As to Daggerfall, I actually only finished it once and have had around 7 attempts at it. I cant remember broken main quests, but I remember it happening in particular with Daedric quests, but I also remember it happening with the Dark Brotherhood. That literally stopped me playing for ages.

I also remember a Dark Brotherhood quest in Oblivion where you had to kill a guy, but he was a quest giver and you could finish it if you didn't do it beforehand.

Which brings me to the houses in Morrowind. The reason I have trouble with it is because, whatever house you pick, it doesn't change the storyline other than what quests you have to do to gain approval. My feeling is that if there is no real consequences then whats the point in blocking that content off. Witcher 2 is a game that had separate sections during an act and had different quests in the last act depending on your choices. That was great and should be cordoned off. It didn't make a difference in Morrowind and that made any world building/changing aspect pointless to me.

Wasteland 2 had the same issue where there is a section where you can only save one place. But it had no affect on anything other than a different companion and one different quest. It made me pretty cranky and I cant finish that game. ESO has far too many false choices as well. I don't even bother reading the quests in that anymore because it makes no difference