Things bad or dated games did well...

[votemarvel]

that other games have failed to capitalize on?

The game will always have a special place in my heart and remains one of my favorite RPG's, however it is hard to deny that Knights of the Old Republic has not aged well. The combat in it has become extremely dated and the reason it's so well liked nowadays is because of it's rich story. A huge part of that is in its moral choice system. You can shape and reshape the story within certain confines to your liking.

I actually completely disagree. I think Knights of the Old Republic has aged very well and I appreciate its combat style compared to the twitch route that every game seems to want to go these days.

That's the thing. One mans dated is another mans classic.

 

[The Enquirer]

that other games have failed to capitalize on?

The game will always have a special place in my heart and remains one of my favorite RPG's, however it is hard to deny that Knights of the Old Republic has not aged well. The combat in it has become extremely dated and the reason it's so well liked nowadays is because of it's rich story. A huge part of that is in its moral choice system. You can shape and reshape the story within certain confines to your liking.

I actually completely disagree. I think Knights of the Old Republic has aged very well and I appreciate its combat style compared to the twitch route that every game seems to want to go these days.

That's the thing. One mans dated is another mans classic.

For me the UI makes it feel very clunky and archaic. It's sorta like playing Deus Ex: HR then going back and playing the original. That said I still love the hell out of KOTOR and play through my old disc copy of it every few years.

 

[lacktheknack]

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is a horrible game. IT'S SO BAD. But it did one thing that no other game has done since, when Lara climbs stairs, she puts her flipping foot down on the stair.

Railroad Tycoon 2, on the other hand, was a masterwork. Why? It was a simulation game that actually allowed you to mess with your company's stocks. No other game I've played allowed this. There's something immensely satisfying about buying out that 51st percentile of the stocks, effectively securing your job forever, and then just lining your pockets with gobs and gobs of cash.

 

[Asita]

A huge part of that is in it's moral choice system. You can shape and reshape the story within certain confines to your liking.

I would actually disagree with how well Kotor implemented moral choices. By giving the player a tangible reward for having more lightside or darkside points, the game incentivises choosing one and sticking with it no matter what, meaning that (if you want to have the most powerful character), you pretty much lock yourself into blindly following one or the other regardless of the situation. If you try and play a greyer character, you're effectively gimping yourself. This discourages role playing because now, instead of choosing an action based on what your character would do, you are choosing actions to game the system.

I'd actually argue that in the context of Star Wars that's absolutely brilliant. One of the core ideas in the lore for that franchise is that the Dark Side has an addictive if not corruptive effect, so the only real defense against the Dark Side was refusing to indulge in those decisions that could lead to it. Yoda's "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny" obviously was shown to have some exceptions, the way various falls to the Dark Side in the franchise are accompanied by a strong shift in personality and values show it to be more true than false. It's certainly not a good system for general application, but in a franchise with that kind of lore acting in the background for your character, a morality system that encourages min-maxing is arguably a stroke of genius.

That said, you're quite right that this was undermined by some...odd decisions about what constituted Dark Side actions...such as mere knowledge of the Sith Code as if it was a passage from the Necronomicon.

 

[MeatMachine]

The original Legend of Zelda on the NES, regarding non-linear progression and true freedom to beat the game in whatever order you wanted.

Though there are certainly tools and items needed to access certain areas, the game doesn't contain you in any other way. You can ignore all the dungeons and focus entirely on farming money or discovering hidden permanent power-ups. Likewise, you can beat the dungeons in virtually any order, and challenge yourself to preemptively get late-game dungeon items with only 4 heart containers and a wooden sword.

LoZ hasn't aged poorly per se, but compared to how playable other equally dated franchise entries are (such as the original Super Mario Bros.), it isn't a great experience for most unfamiliar newbies. Damn shame, too, because it's still the pinnacle of non-linear main quest gameplay. Every other Legend of Zelda game (with a minor exception for Link to the Past) almost entirely dictates which areas you get to explore, and in what order.

 

[meiam]

I've been thinking about going back to play last remnant lately, it's a terrible game filled with really cool idea. It's a JRPG where you control 20 character at the same time split into 5 team, the team composition allow for a good variety in combat, plus it has tons of class and customization aspect. It also integrate well the story into the gameplay, the story is all about "remnant" which are super weapon, and when you use remnant in gameplay they are indeed super weapon, which sell very well how important they are.

Sadly the game is massively brought down by the fact that you have almost no control over the class/equipment/customization of your character for pretty much no reason. Also it's one of those game were enemy scale with you, except in this case character you don't use in combat don't scale very well and this include character you haven't recruited yet, so if you fight random battle as you play naturally trough the game, you're making all the character that join late absolutely worthless. I'm skipping plenty of stuff too, it's like there was one amazing guy on the development team and everyone else was an absolute moron.

There's also this game called gundam:crossfire, it was a launch title for PS3. It's pretty terrible in many way, but it nail the feeling of mech as these huge lumbering war machine and the different mech feel satisfyingly different.

 

[sanquin]

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.

 

[BrawlMan]

Old game: Dead to Rights (2002). Keep in mind the version I played was the GameCube version so it was easier than the original Xbox version. The game itself hasn't aged well with the bland melee combat, some bad camera angles, and a mostly competent auto targeting. If it's anything the game got right it was taking cover, though basic, and the disarm moves. Many games of today would have you disarm an enemy by quick time event or button prompt, but in that game, you had to figure it out by trying different button combinations. The disarms we're sick,cool, and fun to do and watch. The game had a killer soundtrack too.

Bad game: Final Fight: Streetwise. A bland game with uninspired graphics, a poor GTA clone, and dull combat. The only good thing about it were the rock and roll/heavy-metal remix tunes of Final Fight 1. God dammit Capcom, why couldn't you stick with the original plan for this game. At least we have God Hand acting as a better sequel to Final Fight then Streetwise.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Dialogue trees. I know a huge reason for this is the fact that games have moved away from the times of Baldur's Gate and Planescape (where 95% of the dialogue was just text) and to having it all be voice acted, but I loved how in BG or Planescape, you had so many freakin' options over what to say. And the game actually presented exactly what you were going to say, and didn't just give you a vague idea of what your character was going to say and then you had to hope for the best.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

The game of thrones RPG from 2012 actually had some pretty interesting story elements. at one point you are shown a series of accused criminals and have to listen to their testimonnies for clues about wether they are guilty or not. for example one guy says he left the scene of the murder before it happened yet somehow knew how the victim was killed. another guy is accused of murder because he was found with a bloody knife but the blood is dry and if you explore the town beforehand yoou know he is actually a butchers apprentice. it also incorporates elemnets of the books that are largely forgotten by the show like making moles town actually underground. if you are a GoT fan who doesn't mind bad graphics then check it out. iit's kind of like dragon age with slightly worse gameplay but beware of bugs and crashes. they happen a lot

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It's not exactly an old game, but Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning received a bad rap sheet for feeling like what it essentially was, which was Curt Schilling's incomplete MMORPG baby. It's like a Bethesda WRPG with all of the micromanagement you'd tack onto an MMO framework, and everything from the camera work to the way the minigames tie into the central progression system serves as a callback to That Other MMO Which Needs No Introduction. Plus, it had the nerve to sell itself as an epic storyline waiting for a few extra sequels to be properly developed - and we all know how that turned out.

It's not bad in terms of gameplay, I'd say it's a "bad" game in the sense that the stink of mismanagement is stuck to it. Even with that in mind, what it handled surprisingly well was the combat system. It wasn't quite Arkham or Mordor-esque, but you could still easily flit from enemy to enemy. More importantly, your basic class choice didn't pin you down to any single of the three angles of martial approach. You could be a mage with a side-spec in dagger-wielding, a sword-wielding tank who occasionally lets his chakrams loose or a spell-slinging rogue, among other combinations - and a lot of them came with specific nomenclatures and stat buffs to incentivize repeat playthroughs or just give you that nice feeling of having nailed a smart synergy in your character's skills.

Personally, I remember the combat engine more than saved the game's otherwise humdrum presentation. Within hours I was acting as Dante's forgotten High Fantasy clone, juggling or stun-locking enemies left and right, when I didn't rely on a few high-level spells to supplement my base DPS. It almost made me consider playing TERA, but I've already sacrificed enough of my time and money to one particular MMO. I don't need more time sinks and money pits in my life.

 

[Recusant]

The first thing that springs to mind is Invisible War, the Deus Ex sequel we all like to pretend never happened (bonus points for it, as it's both bad and dated!). I tell people that game was made up of good ideas done badly, bad ideas done badly, bad ideas done horrendously, and spiderbot grenades. For those who didn't play it, they were a type of grenade that, instead of exploding, transformed into a small spider-shaped robot that ran about zapping enemies. They didn't do much damage, but they were a wonderful distraction tool and served as a means of salvaging a failed stealth attempt- and part of the reason they tended to work for that was that the games loading zones were so tiny you could often dodge past the newly-distracted enemies and into somewhere safe. Granted, they also helped when you needed to run away and heal up, but the way they were made useful by one of the Invisible War's more glaring flaws (a phrase akin to "one of Earth's wetter oceans") was something I found fascinating.

Dated game: Morrowind. It was an open world game, with many sidequests that didn't overshadow the central quest.

I was about to suggest Morrowind, but specifically as an example of a [relatively] dated open-world narrative done right in terms of giving almost complete freedom for RP (it is a true RP'er), alongside a superb MQ that's organically and seamlessly interwoven into the world and story. None of Bethesda's open-worlders since have got close to it, and Fallout 4 seems to be a flat out contradiction of defined/forced narrative and game design.

I'm not disagree with you but I hope you realise why they changed? It was so easy to break the game. If I had a choice between quest dependant unkillable NPCs or that stupid message about breaking the prophecy come up, I would forever and always choose the former. Because the latter is far more world breaking to me. How would I know what would break the prophecy? How does that even make sense. I don't know if you remember that also being a huge problem in Daggerfall where you couldn't progress and you probably didn't know why.

And the idea of NPCs who should've been killed just inexplicably "falling unconscious" is supposed to be better? It accomplishes the same thing, though I'd argue it's more immersion-breaking that these people can't be killed- especially since the game doesn't even bother trying to come up with an explanation.

And the only way to permanently remove your ability to progress in Daggerfall was to refuse to meet up with Lady Brisienna; the first quest of the game. I'll grant you that it was sometimes unclear what you needed to do- unless you went to the various palaces and talked to the prospective quest-givers; then they'd tell you "you need more experience", which made what you should do rather blatantly obvious.

I also didn't like how you had to pick one House in Morrowind. You were missing out on content and I eventually just made myself part of every house.

Having to pick a single house was the point, though: being able to do everything and be everything makes it all kind of meaningless; when that happens, you're not playing a character, you're playing a game. You're not part of a larger world, you're the thing the whole world revolves around- the biggest immersion-breaker of them all. That change was a big part of why Oblivion sucked so much in comparison.

Anyway, it's funny that you mention Daggerfall, since that's the other one I intended to bring up. It's certainly not a bad game, but a great many of its elements are outdated, both for better and worse. One of the positives we lost (from the Elder Scrolls specifically; though it'd be interesting almost anywhere) was language skills. I was deeply disappointed to see that Morrowind stripped them out. I once made up a character whose primary, major and minor skills were all languages (well, half of the minors, but there were only so many languages to choose from). The way language skills worked in Daggerfall was that whenever you met a creature of the given type, the game made a check- if you passed, the creature was non-hostile. I died many, many times as that character, but by the end, I didn't have to fight anything (well, okay, aside from animals and undead) if I didn't want to. I can't think of any other game- before or since- that's allowed that kind of thing; not as a "this boss fight is optional", but as a core strategy.

 

[loa]

Dawngate was a moba daring to have actual characters with depth that uttered itself in hundreds of little unique character-specific interactions.
You'll learn so much about who you are playing as while playing, it makes league of legends or hots "I am badass with big gun" characters appear flat like cardboard.

Too bad you can't see for yourself anymore. EA shut it down.

 

[Elijin]

Dated game: Front Mission 3.

It was Fire Emblem meets Mechwarrior. Diverging stories based on character choices, weapon skill ranks, mech customisation piece by piece, tactical grid combat. Location damage (arms, legs, body, head, weapons, each which can be disabled with varying consequences in combat). It was glorious. Sometimes I go back and replay it.

These days anything in mechs has to be a fast paced shooter. Even the most recent Front Mission game was a third person mech shooter.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Bad game: Starship Troopers: Marauder, and how the entire game was built around fighting enormous swarms of enemies. It was a buggy, poorly balanced piece of shit with the various boss enemies having more health than ammo you could carry (I had to use the max ammo cheatcode 5 times to kill the final boss) and the enemy A.I. snapping in half if you stood on a box, but fighting large co-ordinated swarms of enemies was a fun element I've rarely seen replicated elsewhere.

Admittedly, I can understand why. Having 100+ enemies all coordinating their attacks and roles with one another and adapting to their thinning numbers is not an easy undertaking, and is probably why Marauders A.I. had the stability of wet crackers.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Resident Evil 6, which is by all measures a horrible, horrible game, did drop-in online multiplayer really well
I loved being able to tell my buddy "good job!" after a kill, and it had a corresponding thank you button
All multiplayer games should have buttons for the niceties

 

[Elijin]

Bad game: Starship Troopers: Marauder, and how the entire game was built around fighting enormous swarms of enemies. It was a buggy, poorly balanced piece of shit with the various boss enemies having more health than ammo you could carry (I had to use the max ammo cheatcode 5 times to kill the final boss) and the enemy A.I. snapping in half if you stood on a box, but fighting large co-ordinated swarms of enemies was a fun element I've rarely seen replicated elsewhere.

Admittedly, I can understand why. Having 100+ enemies all coordinating their attacks and roles with one another and adapting to their thinning numbers is not an easy undertaking, and is probably why Marauders A.I. had the stability of wet crackers.

Have you ever played anything from the EDF series? Its an arcadey shameless japanese game where you kill giant bugs and spiders. Its more or less what a starship troopers game should be.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Bad game: Starship Troopers: Marauder, and how the entire game was built around fighting enormous swarms of enemies. It was a buggy, poorly balanced piece of shit with the various boss enemies having more health than ammo you could carry (I had to use the max ammo cheatcode 5 times to kill the final boss) and the enemy A.I. snapping in half if you stood on a box, but fighting large co-ordinated swarms of enemies was a fun element I've rarely seen replicated elsewhere.

Admittedly, I can understand why. Having 100+ enemies all coordinating their attacks and roles with one another and adapting to their thinning numbers is not an easy undertaking, and is probably why Marauders A.I. had the stability of wet crackers.

Have you ever played anything from the EDF series? Its an arcadey shameless japanese game where you kill giant bugs and spiders. Its more or less what a starship troopers game should be.

I have, and they were quite fun with the swarm gameplay, but they didn't have the level of coordination that the starship troopers game offered.

Much better A.I. though.

 

[Mister K]

( I am not sure about whether this game is considered bad by the majority of people or only by a vocal minority)

You may hate Dragon Age II all you want, but at the very least it TRIED to show us characters that are not only interesting, but also were also NOT Tolkien-bred stereotypes.

It could have been a great game instead of just average-to-good.

Screw you, EA.