mostly trial-and-error gameplay, bad controls and lives.
Could you elaborate some? I don't know what you mean.Pink Gregory said:
Things we DON'T miss from old games
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There are many little things, including the sort of gotcha gameplay Sierra was fond of (You ate the pie 10 hours ago? Ha! No chance to get past this yeti, then! Better start over!) and severely limited save slots... But above all of those things was being in a nice groove playing a game and then seeing...
"Please Insert Disc 2."
Bonus points if you then had to switch back and forth at multiple points.
"Please Insert Disc 2."
Bonus points if you then had to switch back and forth at multiple points.
Well judging by the other thread - and to be fair that's not exactly all people ever doing the talking - I get the impression that people think that DK3D type shooter design is inherently superior to any other.Zachary Amaranth said:
Much as there is much to be praised to that kind of design (open levels filled with content, enemy variety, weapon variety, just variety really); all the bugbears seem to come down on two-weapon limits and regenerating health/shield. You get the impression that people seem to think that their shouldn't be room for both schools of design.
For context, I enjoyed Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Serious Sam et al, but it can be done wrong. Painkiller bored me immensely, my favourite shooters are the Brothers in Arms series and the Bioshock series (loved Infinite).
I just don't subscribe to the idea that certain mechanics are inherently superior to others, rather than simply being design choices.
The lack of auto saves. Replayed lots of my old games lately and that bothers me so fucking much. Had to quit most of them because I hadn't saved for a while and died.
I don't miss those old copy-write protection methods like in Monkey Island 1
Those systems usually predated any kind of saving media, it was the only way you could restart a game later back then.ShinyCharizard said:
I personally take manual saves over autosaves any day. Autosaves can get especially annoying if the game locks you out from previously played areas, for example if you missed a secret door or something.DanielBrown said:
From games,
The norm, unskippable cutscenes and poor/lack of auto saves.
From gaming,
may I present the Commodore Datassette:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commodore-Datassette.jpg
The bane of my childhood, especially when the game sipped on more than once tape! (I remember Lemmings was 4 tapes!)
The norm, unskippable cutscenes and poor/lack of auto saves.
From gaming,
may I present the Commodore Datassette:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commodore-Datassette.jpg
The bane of my childhood, especially when the game sipped on more than once tape! (I remember Lemmings was 4 tapes!)
Thing is, most competitive medpack layouts are along contested paths, it's not traditional cover but it is the predecessor of regenerating health but unlike regen health where you aare encoruaged to play defenseively, you are encouraged to keep on the offensive to pick up the +5 bonus as a reward for gracefully avoid getting killed and 25 for quick detours from the main health paths with the tricky to get ones being the big reward.shrekfan246 said:
Poor controls due to crummy hardware.
-TMNT or most arcade ports, anyone?
Difficulty artificially increased due to the 'gotta get all their quarters' mentality.
-Battletoads+Double Dragons was REALLY bad about this.
Pyramid boobs that can kill you.
-Same goes for those weird crotches that look like meat grinders.
Live-Action cut-scenes
-Yes, there WERE some good ones, but there's a LOT more crap out there.
Fake MP3 music
-While I 'get' that some of this music IS good, it's only good AFTER it was remixed to hell or remade on REAL instruments.
-TMNT or most arcade ports, anyone?
Difficulty artificially increased due to the 'gotta get all their quarters' mentality.
-Battletoads+Double Dragons was REALLY bad about this.
Pyramid boobs that can kill you.
-Same goes for those weird crotches that look like meat grinders.
Live-Action cut-scenes
-Yes, there WERE some good ones, but there's a LOT more crap out there.
Fake MP3 music
-While I 'get' that some of this music IS good, it's only good AFTER it was remixed to hell or remade on REAL instruments.
Unskippable cut scenes (especially the ones right after an autosave and right before a boss) are still a fucking problem.
Voice acting remains as it always was: some good, mostly shit.
But, some things I don't miss
1) Lives systems: lets be clear that lives don't make things harder than quick or autosave, they make things more grindy.
2) Shitty controls: my god some early PC controls were bad, early RTS especially -- unit limits that were far too low for control groups and lack of attack-move was awful. This isn't to mention the fucking arcade ports to consoles and early console shooters.
3) Climbing down ladders in 3D games before people realised contextual buttons had uses besides pick up shit.
4) Early 3D graphics, 2D graphics that accepted their status as 2D were fine and even hold up today to an extent, but early 3D was arse -- the first Unreal Engine in particular sat behind a lot of games (including Deus Ex) and I've seen nothing built on it or anything that came before it with 3D that didn't look like dog shit.
Voice acting remains as it always was: some good, mostly shit.
But, some things I don't miss
1) Lives systems: lets be clear that lives don't make things harder than quick or autosave, they make things more grindy.
2) Shitty controls: my god some early PC controls were bad, early RTS especially -- unit limits that were far too low for control groups and lack of attack-move was awful. This isn't to mention the fucking arcade ports to consoles and early console shooters.
3) Climbing down ladders in 3D games before people realised contextual buttons had uses besides pick up shit.
4) Early 3D graphics, 2D graphics that accepted their status as 2D were fine and even hold up today to an extent, but early 3D was arse -- the first Unreal Engine in particular sat behind a lot of games (including Deus Ex) and I've seen nothing built on it or anything that came before it with 3D that didn't look like dog shit.
Level Passwords. I know it wasnt their fault, since Arcades and the like couldnt just save progress from every kid playing. But especially when they were 16 Characters long and had to be typed with that godawful X-Box method it seemed like it wasnt worth my time.
The Zelda Owl-Thing, or unskippable-Tutorial-Traps. Usually a Character would explain mechanics or give exposition, whereafter asking "Did you understand everything?" By Default, the cursor hovered over "No." or "Explain it again." which meant that you would have to press trough that crap again and again if you were unlucky.
No progress indication. Without Questlogs or some kind of journal, it was sometimes infuriating when you came back to a game. I think it was a FF-Game where i had that last. I had a Savegame which i couldnt play for a few weeks, and after loading it i had NO idea where i was supposed to be going. It took me hours to visit every Village and finally find the goal.
Ultra "Secret" Areas. Donkey Kong Country comes to mind. It was a fantastic game, but if you wanted to collect all hidden Coins and other collectables, there was no other way than either run into every wall of every level in every world (And jump down every potentially deadly fall), or look them up Online. As a Dwarf, i took it as a personal challenge to find that sh*t myself. I got to around 90% before i gave up.
Dead Ends. This was sometimes the case in Adventure Games. If you didnt pick up a certain item at a certain time, you could get stuck permanently later on. I dont remember the name, but it was a game about a prince trecking around with an Owl. At one point, you had to pick up a Key item very early on. If you didnt, you could not complete a section very late in the game. This meant you potentially lost hours of Gameplay, or even worse, you were left thinking it was a bug. I think i played the game twice to that specific spot, before reading Online that i was missing ONE DAMN ITEM.
The Zelda Owl-Thing, or unskippable-Tutorial-Traps. Usually a Character would explain mechanics or give exposition, whereafter asking "Did you understand everything?" By Default, the cursor hovered over "No." or "Explain it again." which meant that you would have to press trough that crap again and again if you were unlucky.
No progress indication. Without Questlogs or some kind of journal, it was sometimes infuriating when you came back to a game. I think it was a FF-Game where i had that last. I had a Savegame which i couldnt play for a few weeks, and after loading it i had NO idea where i was supposed to be going. It took me hours to visit every Village and finally find the goal.
Ultra "Secret" Areas. Donkey Kong Country comes to mind. It was a fantastic game, but if you wanted to collect all hidden Coins and other collectables, there was no other way than either run into every wall of every level in every world (And jump down every potentially deadly fall), or look them up Online. As a Dwarf, i took it as a personal challenge to find that sh*t myself. I got to around 90% before i gave up.
Dead Ends. This was sometimes the case in Adventure Games. If you didnt pick up a certain item at a certain time, you could get stuck permanently later on. I dont remember the name, but it was a game about a prince trecking around with an Owl. At one point, you had to pick up a Key item very early on. If you didnt, you could not complete a section very late in the game. This meant you potentially lost hours of Gameplay, or even worse, you were left thinking it was a bug. I think i played the game twice to that specific spot, before reading Online that i was missing ONE DAMN ITEM.
wait, you liked infinite as a shooter? you would honestly be the first one i heard say that, generally people seem to dislike the shooting, especially because it interrupts the rather excellent story.Pink Gregory said:
regenerating health and limited guns is just lazy design, you don't have to consider how much health the player has left at the beginning of an encounter or if they saved up their ammo for the bigs guns instead of wasting it on grunts, you just give them the gun they need and can be certain they will drop it later because they don't have ammo for it anymore. mind you, i don't mind regenerating shields or some innate healing ability of the character(shadow warrior does a great job with that), it's actually my favourite method since just medpacks either doesn't allow for you to screw up or involves a lot of backtracking.
i don't miss left-left move controls in RTS, it was just so terribly imprecise and i really can't play some of my favourite games from back in the day because of that.
bad voice acting, no VA is fine but bad VA just sucks.
FPS games that had platform jumping sections that just didn't fit with the rest of the game. Felt tacked on as if the dev's couldn't let go of the era of platform jumping.
But a lot of the old mechanics in games from the past seem not too harsh or unnecessary even by today's standards. A lot of the save aspects or lack thereof added to the difficulty and made you more careful with what you do. Nowadays with most games you can just die, restart at a checkpoint and move on which makes it easier IMO. Learning to do everything correctly in older games made you think, and it feels like how Demon's/Dark Souls resets the enemies and makes you redo a section if you fuck up.
One thing I don't miss from the NES era, "save" codes. I'm glad I don't have to write down a huge string of characters just to pick up where I left off in previous gameplays.
But I still love the older games, especially ones where you had to figure out the mechanics on your own because the manual only gave you the basics and no tutorials. I really dislike most tutorial sections because they feel like they take away from the rest of the game.
Unskippable cinematics though... AND games still fucking do this.
But a lot of the old mechanics in games from the past seem not too harsh or unnecessary even by today's standards. A lot of the save aspects or lack thereof added to the difficulty and made you more careful with what you do. Nowadays with most games you can just die, restart at a checkpoint and move on which makes it easier IMO. Learning to do everything correctly in older games made you think, and it feels like how Demon's/Dark Souls resets the enemies and makes you redo a section if you fuck up.
One thing I don't miss from the NES era, "save" codes. I'm glad I don't have to write down a huge string of characters just to pick up where I left off in previous gameplays.
But I still love the older games, especially ones where you had to figure out the mechanics on your own because the manual only gave you the basics and no tutorials. I really dislike most tutorial sections because they feel like they take away from the rest of the game.
Unskippable cinematics though... AND games still fucking do this.
I have a hard time finding something, but unskippable cutscenes is a given, unfortunately we haven't gotten rid of that yet and it's been over 15 years by now :/. I'm also glad we got rid of bad voice acting and most important of all, we finally got rid of fixed camera angles. Fixed camera angles has got to be the worst :/.
I'm also glad we for rid of ugly sterile 3D from the Half-Life era (though worst in pc games and N64, Ps1 generally had better use of textures to cover it up), now we have ugly sterile 3D wax puppets instead, but still an improvement.
Oh yeah, stairs aren't as big of a problem as they used to be, for some reason stairs were death traps in the early 00, you could never climb down without falling. I'm glad that problem got solved!
I'm also glad we for rid of ugly sterile 3D from the Half-Life era (though worst in pc games and N64, Ps1 generally had better use of textures to cover it up), now we have ugly sterile 3D wax puppets instead, but still an improvement.
Oh yeah, stairs aren't as big of a problem as they used to be, for some reason stairs were death traps in the early 00, you could never climb down without falling. I'm glad that problem got solved!
Well i do like having a sense of direction, playing the witcher 2 and being in the dwarven area really shows the lack direction to the target of interest. I'm not saying the witcher 2 is old but that old gripe is.
Good riddance
1 Pixel hunting in AGs. Modern is having a highlight key.
2 The lack of queue functions and group selections in old RTS games sucks.
3 The jagged, spikey mess of the early 3D games including the N64 and PS, was a downgrade from late 2D.
4 Midi music still doesn't sound right and never did.
5 Code tables and other creative copy protection schemes suck.
6 Pen and paper mapping in old RPGs. Auto-mapping is a suitably boring task for the computer.
1 Pixel hunting in AGs. Modern is having a highlight key.
2 The lack of queue functions and group selections in old RTS games sucks.
3 The jagged, spikey mess of the early 3D games including the N64 and PS, was a downgrade from late 2D.
4 Midi music still doesn't sound right and never did.
5 Code tables and other creative copy protection schemes suck.
6 Pen and paper mapping in old RPGs. Auto-mapping is a suitably boring task for the computer.
I think it depends on the game, i like games where you aren't trying to complete it but just trying to see how far you can get and how many points you can get. There's something cool about playing a game for ages and suddenly reaching a level you never saw before. It's just a different way to play a game and it obviously require that the game is fun to play from the get go.Doom972 said:
Another thing i don't miss is FMV games with horrible mini games and QTE "Gameplay". Those games has got to be some of the worst ever made. And games as horrible as Ubik for the ps1 is also a rarity, games so poorly designed that you can barely control them and so slow loading that it would take extreme patience to wrap your head around the game. This one also ties in with the fixed camera angles as you most often die horribly becaus you can't see what the hell is going on.