Things Older Games Got Right

[Recusant]

Three dimensional maps. Near the top of the List Of Wonderful Things About Daggerfall (a staggeringly long list made no less impressive by the only slightly shorter List Of Awful Things About Daggerfall) was the fact that it's enormous dungeons actually had 3D maps that accurately let you judge how far you were moving in each dimension. The technology of the era only let you see so much at once, and it was a little awkward to use until you got used to it, but once you did... Morrowind abandoned the idea of "dungeons larger than a matchbox", and it wasn't needed, so it was taken out, and no one that I can recall encountering since has bothered putting one in. But I can't tell you the number of times since I've gotten lost trying to navigate to a point that my map says I've already arrived at, only to realize it's at another Z-point and ponder when exactly our society will finally manage to mimic the tech of the Great Future Year 1997.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Being perfectly functional on the surface, but completely broken with glitches in spectacular ways underneath.
Example, I've played through Ocarina of Time several times and never encountered a single bug, yet this awesome let's play exists:
It's amazing, some of these things are like magic. You do an arcane set of movements and then boom, something completely unrelated and fantastic happens! With games today, most of this stuff would have been patched out after release.

 

[laggyteabag]

Health bars 100%. I hate judging my health level based on how red/jammy my screen is. Give me a value, a number, something, anything, so that I know if I can survive a hit or not.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The whole offline mode to a perticular rpg game (Phantasy Star Online) and aswell having AI players in FPS games (Timesplitters and Unreal Tournaments).

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Putting solid gameplay before everything else. Some story-based games are still enjoyable, but after so much talking, cutscenes, scripted gameplay it gets frustrating. That's why Souls was such a breath of fresh air; They trimmed the fat on all that and left the meat and potatoes for gameplay. But even Souls could get monotonous in terms of fighting the same enemies over and over to gain souls, find better items, weapons, etc. I'm glad the series is being put to bed.

I'm actually playing more older games now than anything new. After I finish Castlevania: LoS2 and RDR: Undead Nightmare I'm going through the first four Hitman games, with Deus Ex: HR Director's Cut thrown in for a change of pace.

 

[The Raw Shark]

Someone mentioned above unlockables.
That's literally all I need in a game. Any cool things to unlock for playing? Any new costumes any new items to use any soundtracks or concept arts for the hell of it?
It's the reason I love Platinum games so much. In about any other game I'd have imagined all the skins and extra weapons you could unlock would have just been there as DLC. But no, you have to work for them and earn them.

 

[Saltyk]

Remember when you played a game and unlocked lots of awesome stuff just by playing it? Like Spiderman in Tony Hawk? Or characters in fighting games? Now, if you wanna unlock Evil Ryu, you have to pay $9.99. Want an alternate costumes? $3.99.

Why? I paid $60 for the game. Why are you keeping characters that were once unlockable in the game behind a paywall? Why are cosmetic items that are just fun behind a paywall? This is annoying and scummy. Next I fully expect Big Head Mode to appear in some game, but cost $2.99 to unlock.

Health bars.

This is mostly an issue with newer shooters, but can apply to other genres. Now. I've nothing against regenerating health at all. I've even got nothing (fundamentally) against the jam screen wherein red appears on your screen as you take damage, but I am extremely annoyed at not having at least a somewhat accurate representation of your remaining health.

This is actually something that has bugged me in Division. The game has a health bar. Why does the screen like to change color, heavily featuring red when you are low health? It makes seeing things that are red, like grenades blast radius, impossible. This is a bad design choice. Not to say the game couldn't give a minor "Your health is low" warning since some enemies can eat your health in seconds, but it should be well designed.

 

[BrawlMan]

CRATE THROWING
Since Rescue Rangers on NES I haven't encountered a game where throwing stuff felt as satisfying.

MadWorld let's you throw a lot of things, including many crates.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Thanks to everyone for the replies, some interesting suggestions.

Another I miss is having side-quests expand and enhance the main plot. it still occurs, but seems rarer now. Side quests often seem to be totally detatched from the main plot, which is fair enough and there's definitely room for that. But I loved how the likes of FF7 handled side-quests - an adventure in itself, but one which explanded the world/plot/lore in some way.

The pathetically lazy "get me 10 wolf pelts" style of questing we see nowadays is awful. For me each quest should reward the player with deeper knowledge about something tied into the world or plot.

As fancy and impressive it is to have all that spoken dialogue, the variety of topics and discussion in games like Morrowind is cool for all the smaller touches that don't get cut due to having to have someone actually say them. Sure there was some redundant bloat, but having a dunmer woman early game passively mention some sunken daedric ruins, or other instances of unique dialogue hidden throughout.

The neccessity to voice each and every line of dialogue harshly limits the amount of lines of dialogue that can be spoken by any of the characters in RPG's. I mean, OBVIOUSLY many modern games don't rely on voice acting (such as Shadowrun, for example), but most games still try to use it as much as possible. These modern kids are too gosh darn lazy to read *grumble grumble*.

Also, allow me to hop on the"budgets are too big" Train.

Yeah, good call dudes. I think we've come too far to not have spoken dialogue tbh, but I think the gap between the player & reading dialogue allowed the players imagination to create various aspects of the conversation, which in some cases - Morrowind the perfect example - actually helped enhance the immersion.

I'm glad there's voice acting, and done well (Alister & Morigan for example) it adds loads. I just wish more devs gave more care to the content, and realized that's the priority, not how that content is delivered.

No Paragon/Renagade judgemental restrictions, no deprivation of XP for killing people; just a natural, organic evolution of the game, where each choice has it's own natural concequence with it having to fit into an overall pre-detirmined template.

Personally, I think the Paragon/Renegade system (or Friendship/Rivalry in Dragon Age) gets a little too much hate. Yes, there are ways in which these systems easily break down (e.g. Fallout's karma system), but I think we're too quick to judge them even when they don't fall completely apart.

For starters, they aren't always treated as a purely good/evil decision (as way too many people accuse them of being). Sometimes this is obvious (e.g. Dragon Age's friendship/rivalry system), but even the Paragon/Renegade of Mass Effect was treated, from the beginning, as Shepard's mental state rather than what was considered good or evil. Did Shepard believe benevolence and diplomacy could get what he wanted, or did he think threats and violence were the best ways to deal with worse threats? And whether or not Shepard could pass a Paragon/Renegade check depended on how strong his convictions were towards one or the other.

But what things like Paragon/Renegade meters do allow is to show how dozens of choices have small effects on people that build up over time. It's not a simple "if x then y, else z" check. Whether or not Isabela returns in Dragon Age 2 is not based on scouring her past looking for a two or three events that would determine if she'd come back. It was based on years (given the story's timeframe) of interaction that built into a strong enough friendship or rivalry with Hawke that gave her associated motivations for coming back. On the other hand, Shepard doesn't just draw from a single or handful of experiences to pass a Paragon/Renegade check: He draws on the entirety of his life and the small effects each event and outcome had on him and his convictions.

And in the grand scheme of things, that tends to be how things really go. As much as we like to think that single event X shaped a person so thoroughly as to put them on a permanent path towards Y or Z depending on how things turned out, that very rarely (if ever) happens. People and their relationships are shaped by countless experiences. To me, that's what some games (particularly recent BioWare ones) are trying to capture. If each choice is seen as a simple black/white morality choice, that's the player's own problem of simplifying the matter.

This isn't to say, though, that every game with a similar system handles itself well. I just think that people too quickly dismiss such systems because they, not the game, overly simplified what is going on.

It's the mathmatical approach to the game which it encourages which I don't like mate. By all means have that type of system, but I'd have it running invisibly in the background and the choices you make be presented with no pre-judgement attached to them. I much prefer dialogue trees for this reason.

So by all means have that system, just don't allow us to see how we're unlocking Paragon/Renagade options, and don't highlight them when they are unlocked either. Allow it to fit in to the game naturally via the gamer's choices.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Older games had minigames that tied in with the main game.

Lemme give you an example, FF7 had a crap-ton of minigames but the one I remember most was the Chocobo breeding, I think its a perfect example because it ties in with not only racing but also getting the Knights of the Round summon. But it wasn't just an entirely self contained thing, you needed to run around getting items from enemies, tame chocobos in battles. It wasn't just a side thing because it worked with the rest of the game.

Generally when I see stuff like this in games these days its practically something different from the rest of the game(if I see them at all). At their very best it will be entirely self contained and you'll get maybe an item reward for it.

A positive example I can come up with though is settlements in Fallout 4, they don't feel like side content and feel really well integrated into the game. I never feel like saying "screw this side content whats the point?" because I know exactly what the point is.


Also I think older video games had really standout soundtracks and a focus on sound that I think is underappreciated, I mean when is the last time a character or boss had a theme to them? Not very often these days I would imagine. I can think of examples like Bastion, Halo and Undertale that have really standout music but I can't think of nearly as many as I should.

 

[Trunkage]

So I don't understand these answers. Almost all of them are found in recent in video games.
For example (from those that haven't already been countered),
Minigames - Witcher 3 and Far Cry 4
Unlockables - Any FPS with "RPG elements" or Batman games
Sidequests that enhance the main quest - ESO. You can also ask for rumors and it leads to landmarks (like Morrowind)
Secrets - literally any game
Gameplay above storytelling - Gungeon, Binding of Isaac, Hotline Miami
Soundtrack - Fallouts (I like the radio stations), Hotline Miami, Witcher 3

I point this out because, like today, each of these things that were suggested were in separate olden day game. I don't think that games today are more restrictive, but individual game and companies can be (e.g. morality system in Mass Effect). Some of these are mutually exclusive and cant be in the same game. Its like people think this question asks why these aren't all in the same game.

Also, I hope you understand that having a paragon or friendship systems running in the background is still going to be mathematical. I think the reason why they show it is to keep track of the decision you made over an 40 to 50hr game. Which might take you months. In real life, if you do enough favours for another person, they will do favours for you. How do you keep track of that in a game? DA:O decided to lock conversation options behind a "friendship paywall". No, in real life it wouldn't be mathematical. But you would have a better estimation of the impact of each favour and what you can ask them in return because conversation don't happen with just words. Tone, body language and actions are very important to and we have no way to communicate them. At the moment, we still only have words, and some inflections

 

[Lindale FF]

Part 1:

The problems with today's games are:

1: Microtransactions, or not so micro in some cases. You don't want to do 2 MISSIONS to earn the this shiny thingy? Pay me money to get it right now. You want this outfit? Pay me money! You want this gun? Pay me money! You want this ship? Pay me money! Which then ties directly into....

2: DLC. When the transactions stop being micro, they become DLC. You want this mission? Pay me money! You want to access this part of the map, pay me money.

3: Season passes. So, the game is not even finished, but it is already in stores. The game itself is $60, and the season passes are also $60, THE SAME AS THE BASE GAME. That means you just paid double for a big box of mystery. And when is this box going to come? Next year?

4: Pre-order exclusives. You pre-order from Gamestop, you get this car. You pre-order from Amazon, you get this outfit. You pre-order from Steam, you get these things for TF2. So, you are expected to buy ALL OF THEM, just so you can get all the things.

5: Things that were CLAIMED to be exclusive to pre-order. The game developers specifically promised you that these shiny things would ONLY be available to those who pre-ordered the game. And you were wise enough to screenshot the page, so you have photographic evidence that this was promised in writing. But a month after release, the shiny things get released as DLC.




Games stopped being good after the Playstation 2 era. Back then, when you bought the game, you owned the entire game. And you would own the entire game for the entire time you owned that disc. The only thing that would change that is when old games were not compatible with the newest operating systems, but that is what virtual machines are for. Knights of the Old Republic was notorious for not working with Windows Vista, and with 7.

Simply said, if any game developers read this post, put the entire game in the box, or go away.

Now, the game developers want you to pay for mods, which points 1,2, and 3 are, PAID MODS. Points 4 and 5 are just straight up greed. Back in the day, mods were free. In fact, if you read the User Agreement in any game, that specifically states that you are free to mod it, but that you are NOT allowed to charge for them. It needs to be released for free. And you cannot copywrite a mod, which meant that modders could use your codes and materials. Just make sure you ask for permission if you plan to upload a mod with someone else's codes and materials.

For example, Nexus still has a thriving community for Skyrim, with content being uploaded daily. And at FileFront, we had mods for Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, and several other, all being uploaded daily for at least 10 years. The only reason that stopped is because we changed hands a few times, and the new owners had no idea how to use the code, which means the pages got broken, and no one knew how to fix them.

That said, if some mods are good enough, go ahead and give the authors something. over the years, I have used several mods that would make me absolutely throw money at the authors. So, go ahead, and provide a link to your PayPal. That is a fair way, and a great way to do things. But to make up straight up PAY for mods, that is pure Capitalism, and I refuse to buy into it.

And this is why I don't play games made after 2010.

 

[BodomBeachChild]

I miss unlocking stuff. Now if I want to unlock something I have to buy it. GREAT REWARD SYSTEM.
I also miss manuals and difficulty. Why did we cut hardness of games off at the knee? I also miss not having everything GPSed to me. Evne if the game I'm playing is 90% moving straight for some goddamn reason everything has to be highlighted or I have arrows.

 

[Lindale FF]

Part 2:

The other problem the vast majority of today's games seem to have is the need to always be online. I can understand when you buy something from Steam, you need to be logged into Steam for that game to work. Granted, games such as Star Trek Online can completely bypass steam if you know how to create a shortcut, and make that shortcut linked to a certain thingy.

But if I buy the physical copy of a game from Amazon, or from Gamestop, I expect that game to entirely operate from the disc. But NOOOO. I bought Rocksmith 2014, and it needed to be linked to Steam. I bought Skyrim, and it needed to be linked to Steam. Why? Because Capitalism.

And what happens when Steam goes down? You cannot play ANY of those games.

We saw this come to the erupting point when SimCity was forced to be online to play the SINGLE PLAYER game. And Spore could only be installed 3 times per disc, and then you would be forced to buy the game again. That is why these games were the #1 most-pirated games the year they come along.

I understand having the install code, which guarantees you have a genuine copy. But when the code on the box only works once, that is stupidity. And it ruins the ability to buy and sell used games. Even a few months ago, I bought several used Playstation 2 games. Let us keep doing that with PC games.

That is the same as the developers sitting beside you any time you want to play, and said developers check your receipt every 10 seconds. And if you cannot provide your receipt every 10 seconds, you go to jail. Again, this is pure Capitalism, and it needs to stop.

Or, what would happen if Steam completely shut down? With sites such as GOG.com, you get a folder of installers. But with Steam, you get downloads. So if Steam goes away, all those games you paid for go away, too.

My trusty Playstation 2 has never been connected to the internet. Even still, I can put in any PS2 disc, and I will be able to play that game with no problems. And any XP-era games I have all still work perfectly fine if run them in an XP virtual machine.

Game developers, you need to stop with this online dependence. If I buy the physical copy of a game, it needs to be able to run perfectly without any internet. So, for example, if I am on a long flight, I had better be able to install that game on my laptop, and have it run perfectly for the entire flight.

In short, stop the Capitalism stupidity.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It's the mathmatical approach to the game which it encourages which I don't like mate. By all means have that type of system, but I'd have it running invisibly in the background and the choices you make be presented with no pre-judgement attached to them. I much prefer dialogue trees for this reason.

So by all means have that system, just don't allow us to see how we're unlocking Paragon/Renagade options, and don't highlight them when they are unlocked either. Allow it to fit in to the game naturally via the gamer's choices.

Personally, I don't really try to play the math, so having it upfront doesn't bug me. I guess I would understand more if there were serious gameplay advantages to going all-in, to the point where it would break role playing. But outside of some potential stat bonuses from characters (e.g. Dragon Age, Xenoblade Chronicles), we seem to be moving away from that. At that point, it seems like the only people who'd care are those actively going for a pure run in either direction, and those people would probably appreciate knowing what path they're taking before they get 60 hours into the trilogy and realize they screwed up ten hours in. For everyone else, I would think the desire of playing the role instead of the math would be a non-issue.

 

[MCerberus]

Odd to think but MMOs and lobby games used to actively restrict the capabilities of client-side modding. Some of them still do or on lockdown, but mod-spammed games have a habit of turning the community cancerous. WoT has XVM which... ugh. Then there's WoW in which mods got so out of control that the game had to be designed around them, and that was probably the unsung bringer of the game's decline.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I kind of miss the days where secondary fire meant more than an underslung grenade launcher. Where a flechette gun also shot time delayed bouncing balls you could ricochet off walls to hit enemies, but more often than not just hurt yourself in the process because you were trying to be clever.

 

[step1999]

And what happens when Steam goes down? You cannot play ANY of those games.

Not true. Steam Offline Mode lets you play steam games without connecting to a server indefinitely. The only games on steam which you have to be online for are online multiplayer games (obviously) and games with other DRM added.