When a modern gamer tries out an ancient game

[Schadrach]

System Shock (both of them) - Neither of these has aged particularly well, and I'd wager even in their heyday were a little experimentally janky at best. System Shock the first has the benefit of being a pioneer in its time of course. System Shock 2 was post-Half Life/Thief/Unreal/etc so there's no real excuses for it.

Thief and System Shock 2 were in development at the same time. And yes, even at the time System Shock 2 was experimentally janky, in part because they were building it on the Dark engine but the Thief team was doing all the core engine development -- they were basically bolting the RPG elements onto the Dark engine, and needing to keep those up with updates to Dark which they had nothing to do with all through development.

If you go hunting, there's an interview with one of the devs from years ago talking about it.

Also, you lot are making me want to go back to one of my first games, Adventure.

 

[sXeth]

System Shock (both of them) - Neither of these has aged particularly well, and I'd wager even in their heyday were a little experimentally janky at best. System Shock the first has the benefit of being a pioneer in its time of course. System Shock 2 was post-Half Life/Thief/Unreal/etc so there's no real excuses for it.

Thief and System Shock 2 were in development at the same time. And yes, even at the time System Shock 2 was experimentally janky, in part because they were building it on the Dark engine but the Thief team was doing all the core engine development -- they were basically bolting the RPG elements onto the Dark engine, and needing to keep those up with updates to Dark which they had nothing to do with all through development.

If you go hunting, there's an interview with one of the devs from years ago talking about it.

Also, you lot are making me want to go back to one of my first games, Adventure.

Putting out a game that has been passed by the evolution of the industry isn't really forgiving being behind the curve just because you started before things hurtled past.

Like, I'm not degrading the effort or intent that went into System Shock 2. Just they took too long on the ball and were miles behind their contemporaries by the time it actually came out. Its not even a rare phenomena. Tech was moving fast as hell in the late 90s/early 2000s, and a lot of studios were struggling with all the transitions going on. The most infamous case of course was Duke Nukem Forever which kept trying to pivot to new standards, and evnetually just kind of landed as the flat thing it was a decade later (they probably should just kept in the vault another 4 years to try and do the nostalgia reboot on that one).

Its the same sort of thing we're starting to see with Bethesda (and Square, and Rockstar). They put out a game that was an influential blueprint, but they take ages upon ages to push out the next one, and in the meantime dozens of others have copied and built farther upon their blueprints. Then they finish and put out something thats drastically passed by.

I'd place pretty good money that thats exactly whats going to happen with Borderlands 3 too, if it ever does arrive. B2 was pre-Warframe, Destiny, Shadow Warrior, or even Overwatch (different genre, but it does have a lot of gimmicky guns/abilities and something of a class system, even if you don't choose the builds). Its pretty easy to get PUBG'd or DayZ'd where you drag your heels a little too long and your pioneering thunder is stolen.

 

[Elfgore]

MandaloreGaming made me want to try out Gothic, so I did. Of course I had to use the systemkit and another pack to help bring it up into the 21st century. Honestly, this was the most stressful part. I don't know if the original guide I used wasn't correct or what, but I tried this about five times previously and it wouldn't work. Game would boot up to to a black screen, if I alt-tabbed out the game would show in a small window, but I had no control. I recently upgraded to Windows 10 and tried it again with a new guide, worked first time.

So finally playing the game, wow is it dated. Mandalore said in his review you could play this game with one hand... you actually can very easily. It's weird, but not awful. Pretty much every action is handled with holding ctrl and forward, which just means you have to be careful not to have a weapon out when you want to talk to somebody, or you'll hit them.'

The story is pretty cool honestly. The start of the setup is really generic fantasy, but the second bit is really cool and unique for a fantasy setting. I'm looking forward to playing more.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't have the patience for a lot of older games because I don't have the time for gaming I used to. Carpal Tunnel syndrome means I just can't play some of the old favourites anymore.

I still go back and play old games, but I find myself more inclined to play new games with short levels and autosaves and other QOL elements that fit my adult life.

Last old game I played was Super Mario World. Not exactly a hard game to play, but it reminds me of my teen years and my first contemporary gaming system (always had second-hand consoles and computers before). Before that, it was Mega Man, and my thumb died on me.

 

[Bernzz]

Probably the only two games that apply for me are Paper Mario and Super Metroid. Never had a SNES (hand-me-down NES jumped to hand-me-down N64), never had Paper Mario for the N64. Finally got a chance to experience both on the Wii U Virtual Console (bring it back for Switch pls).

Played Super Metroid for the first time in about, 2015/2016? That makes it 21/22 years old when I finally played it.

As for Paper Mario, finally gave it a shot in early 2017, making it about 16 years old when I jumped into it. I'd say those qualify as "old", at least from my perception (I'm almost 26, so).

 

[Squilookle]

System Shock (both of them) - Neither of these has aged particularly well, and I'd wager even in their heyday were a little experimentally janky at best. System Shock the first has the benefit of being a pioneer in its time of course. System Shock 2 was post-Half Life/Thief/Unreal/etc so there's no real excuses for it.

Thief and System Shock 2 were in development at the same time. And yes, even at the time System Shock 2 was experimentally janky, in part because they were building it on the Dark engine but the Thief team was doing all the core engine development -- they were basically bolting the RPG elements onto the Dark engine, and needing to keep those up with updates to Dark which they had nothing to do with all through development.

If you go hunting, there's an interview with one of the devs from years ago talking about it.

Also, you lot are making me want to go back to one of my first games, Adventure.

Putting out a game that has been passed by the evolution of the industry isn't really forgiving being behind the curve just because you started before things hurtled past.

Like, I'm not degrading the effort or intent that went into System Shock 2. Just they took too long on the ball and were miles behind their contemporaries by the time it actually came out. Its not even a rare phenomena. Tech was moving fast as hell in the late 90s/early 2000s, and a lot of studios were struggling with all the transitions going on. The most infamous case of course was Duke Nukem Forever which kept trying to pivot to new standards, and evnetually just kind of landed as the flat thing it was a decade later (they probably should just kept in the vault another 4 years to try and do the nostalgia reboot on that one).

Its the same sort of thing we're starting to see with Bethesda (and Square, and Rockstar). They put out a game that was an influential blueprint, but they take ages upon ages to push out the next one, and in the meantime dozens of others have copied and built farther upon their blueprints. Then they finish and put out something thats drastically passed by.

I'd place pretty good money that thats exactly whats going to happen with Borderlands 3 too, if it ever does arrive. B2 was pre-Warframe, Destiny, Shadow Warrior, or even Overwatch (different genre, but it does have a lot of gimmicky guns/abilities and something of a class system, even if you don't choose the builds). Its pretty easy to get PUBG'd or DayZ'd where you drag your heels a little too long and your pioneering thunder is stolen.

Could it not also be argued, though, that it is equally bad if not worse to change a game's core concept after production has begun just to incorporate gaming trends, which themselves may turn out to be just passing fads?

Think of all those utterly forgettable cover based shooters that came out in the wake of Operation Winback and Gears of War. How many games took a massive dive in quality just because they decided to shoehorn Quicktime Events in back when that was all the rage among developers? How about when everyone was fighting to have the most gameplay breaking DRM in their titles? And how many games do you think we're about to see emerge that think that somehow Ray-Tracing is a good substitute for any depth in gameplay?

On the other side of the coin, are we to say that Super Meat Boy is a dud game, because it's a 2D platformer that released after Super Mario 64 in 1996? Is XCOM: Enemy Unknown an utter failure just because strategy games are all real-time now? Is Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress crap because of their graphics? And is No Man's Sky supposed to be good just because it's the absolute biggest game-environment around?

Personally I think 'the evolution of the gaming industry' is a complete myth. There are trends, and advances, but no game should feel under any obligation to follow them. Indeed the best games are usually the ones that ignore trends entirely, and do something completely different. This is in fact the only way that new trends can begin in the first place.

 

[sXeth]

Could it not also be argued, though, that it is equally bad if not worse to change a game's core concept after production has begun just to incorporate gaming trends, which themselves may turn out to be just passing fads?

Think of all those utterly forgettable cover based shooters that came out in the wake of Operation Winback and Gears of War. How many games took a massive dive in quality just because they decided to shoehorn Quicktime Events in back when that was all the rage among developers? How about when everyone was fighting to have the most gameplay breaking DRM in their titles? And how many games do you think we're about to see emerge that think that somehow Ray-Tracing is a good substitute for any depth in gameplay?

On the other side of the coin, are we to say that Super Meat Boy is a dud game, because it's a 2D platformer that released after Super Mario 64 in 1996? Is XCOM: Enemy Unknown an utter failure just because strategy games are all real-time now? Is Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress crap because of their graphics? And is No Man's Sky supposed to be good just because it's the absolute biggest game-environment around?

Personally I think 'the evolution of the gaming industry' is a complete myth. There are trends, and advances, but no game should feel under any obligation to follow them. Indeed the best games are usually the ones that ignore trends entirely, and do something completely different. This is in fact the only way that new trends can begin in the first place.

I believe you're altering my point to make some unrelated one. I didn't say System Shock 2 should suddenly become (whatever was popular in 1999), or ever touch on graphics. The game struggles mightily on the basic mechanics level of an FPS. The core gameplay isn't smooth at all, and struggles to keep up with stuff from years before. It's exceptionally padded between its bits of incredibly one-note story. Most of the added mechanics barely or don't work. The environments just seem like static NES levels where the enemies respawn everytime you change hallways.


Is Super Meat Boy a dud because of a 3d Platformer? Obviously not. Would it be a dud if it had incredibly basic level design or even worse the hitboxes were way off, or with questionable controls. Would it be worse if it had a bunch of added mechanics that didn't quite work, or were less well done versions of platformers before it?


The scale of the game, and the shiny pixels aren't whats at fault. Its the core game being a padded up pile of filler with mostly jank to distinction it from some rando's MapEdit campaign you downloaded for Doom 2.

I'd also put forth that there are some objective forward pushes in games. You'd certainly look askance at an FPS on PC that didn't have mouse look. Or a game still doing the framerate tied to physics. Rebind-able controls.


Genres or design concepts can evolve too. If Minecraft came out today, it wouldn't be the graphics getting savaged, but a lot of the UI would be a lot less tolerated, and the very shallow (unmodded) nature of it, and level of utter RNG of the actual story progression. The "Hunger/Thirst" metre that was sort of the pioneering survival mechanic is nowadays regarded as an utter nuisance (though thats often a failure of scaling itself).

 

[cathou]

When someone describes a game from the 90s as ancient, and the first game you played was on a mono-colour screen...

Spoiler

Ah hell, I'm old.

meh, dont feel bad, this is the first flight sim i ever played

https://youtu.be/zFQuYko1RO4

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Daggerfall - Possibly the earliest contender for why proc-genning terrain to make your world big doesn't work so well. If I wasn't the big fan of Ultima and Might'n'Magic growing up I might've dug this more, but it just seemed like copied homework (which somewhat jives with the fact that Elder Scrolls didn't take off until both those series went kaput).

Daggerfall is amazing. You have to think of it in terms of 'fantasy life simulator' ... Having played it roughly the time it came out, I was blown away by just the idea of point at a location on a map riddled with things and just going there. It was an amazing thing to experience, and while Morrowind is and will always be the best TES game, Daggerfall is just a sandbox in the most ojective definition.

As a kid I played a lot of 2E... Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, etc... Daggerfall was the first game that channelled an idea of the supposed, non-railroady GM that could improv everything. Limited solely by technology, that is. It advertized why campaign structure is nice, but gave you the closest argument why it was so and yet still amazingly enjoyable, and provides hours more content than random place looting of Oblivion and Skyrim.

Plus that CC... Oblivion and Skyrim effectively removed clunky, 'outdated' mechanics, axing unique spell creation, non-positive feedback mechanical systems (like hitting was separate to just actually swinging a sword at something) without realizing once you get rid of those things to 'streamline' the experience, you make them inherently stupid and inherently less fun to play aroud with those mechanics.

Daggerfall lets you dig through the guts of a game's mechanics, build literally anyone you want and just actively test it in a way that Morrowind would hone and trim, and OBlivion and Skyrim just actively cut away to appeal to--let's say, people with a lower appreciation and capacity for active character creation...

 

[Squilookle]

Could it not also be argued, though, that it is equally bad if not worse to change a game's core concept after production has begun just to incorporate gaming trends, which themselves may turn out to be just passing fads?

Think of all those utterly forgettable cover based shooters that came out in the wake of Operation Winback and Gears of War. How many games took a massive dive in quality just because they decided to shoehorn Quicktime Events in back when that was all the rage among developers? How about when everyone was fighting to have the most gameplay breaking DRM in their titles? And how many games do you think we're about to see emerge that think that somehow Ray-Tracing is a good substitute for any depth in gameplay?

On the other side of the coin, are we to say that Super Meat Boy is a dud game, because it's a 2D platformer that released after Super Mario 64 in 1996? Is XCOM: Enemy Unknown an utter failure just because strategy games are all real-time now? Is Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress crap because of their graphics? And is No Man's Sky supposed to be good just because it's the absolute biggest game-environment around?

Personally I think 'the evolution of the gaming industry' is a complete myth. There are trends, and advances, but no game should feel under any obligation to follow them. Indeed the best games are usually the ones that ignore trends entirely, and do something completely different. This is in fact the only way that new trends can begin in the first place.

I believe you're altering my point to make some unrelated one. I didn't say System Shock 2 should suddenly become (whatever was popular in 1999), or ever touch on graphics. The game struggles mightily on the basic mechanics level of an FPS. The core gameplay isn't smooth at all, and struggles to keep up with stuff from years before. It's exceptionally padded between its bits of incredibly one-note story. Most of the added mechanics barely or don't work. The environments just seem like static NES levels where the enemies respawn everytime you change hallways.


Is Super Meat Boy a dud because of a 3d Platformer? Obviously not. Would it be a dud if it had incredibly basic level design or even worse the hitboxes were way off, or with questionable controls. Would it be worse if it had a bunch of added mechanics that didn't quite work, or were less well done versions of platformers before it?


The scale of the game, and the shiny pixels aren't whats at fault. Its the core game being a padded up pile of filler with mostly jank to distinction it from some rando's MapEdit campaign you downloaded for Doom 2.

I'd also put forth that there are some objective forward pushes in games. You'd certainly look askance at an FPS on PC that didn't have mouse look. Or a game still doing the framerate tied to physics. Rebind-able controls.


Genres or design concepts can evolve too. If Minecraft came out today, it wouldn't be the graphics getting savaged, but a lot of the UI would be a lot less tolerated, and the very shallow (unmodded) nature of it, and level of utter RNG of the actual story progression. The "Hunger/Thirst" metre that was sort of the pioneering survival mechanic is nowadays regarded as an utter nuisance (though thats often a failure of scaling itself).

My bad; I thought you were speaking generally about the phenomenon, not about System Shock 2 in particular. I missed SS2 at the time so I can't really comment on it beyond what I've heard others say about it over the years.

So would you say we agree that (generally speaking) changing a game in mid-development to reflect an industry trend can (but doesn't always) backfire on the end product itself?

I'd also agree that there are objective forward pushes in games, though what decides them as objective is very tricky. For instance I can't think of there ever being a downside to re-bindable controls, but I'd hesitate to call mouselook a standard all FPSes should abide by. Console shooters manage alright without it, and I'm sure someone out there could put together a compelling keyboard only FPS somehow (buggered if I'd know how to do it but I'm sure someone could).

 

[sXeth]

So would you say we agree that (generally speaking) changing a game in mid-development to reflect an industry trend can (but doesn't always) backfire on the end product itself?

I'd also agree that there are objective forward pushes in games, though what decides them as objective is very tricky. For instance I can't think of there ever being a downside to re-bindable controls, but I'd hesitate to call mouselook a standard all FPSes should abide by. Console shooters manage alright without it, and I'm sure someone out there could put together a compelling keyboard only FPS somehow (buggered if I'd know how to do it but I'm sure someone could).

Oh yeah, I'd agree with that. Ultima (my favorite series) kind of lost the plot as the main gameplay went when it started trying to do real time combat (nevermind adding in Tomb Raider esque platforming stuff in 8 and 9). The stories still generally held up, and the worlds were impressive (until the actual mess of 9 which had a very rocky development and seemed to forget the rest of the series lore wise), but the generally deep party based semi-tactical RPG, and especially the complex magic system got lost or horribly unusable by the attempts to pivot to real time action combat.


Breath of the Wild, as a big Zelda fan. Going full open-world didn't bring much to the table. All it seemingly did was annihilate most of the narrative, remove most of the mechanics, and leave us with no dungeons. All to be replaced by a lot of shallow repeating puzzles (if that) for a generally unchallenging collecthon game.


Survival games in general also tend to suck at being Survival games, because they're all in the Minecraft trend. Big free for all build-your-castle is by and large antithetical to a constant survival challenge. Prettymuch every survival game within a few hours tops gives you some way to completely surpass the survival challenge, which is why the hunger meters just become a background annoyance rather then a driving motivation.

 

[CaitSeith]

When someone describes a game from the 90s as ancient, and the first game you played was on a mono-colour screen...

Spoiler

Ah hell, I'm old.

meh, dont feel bad, this is the first flight sim i ever played

https://youtu.be/zFQuYko1RO4

Oh, I remember that!

I played this version tho...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCehXfpJVUA

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

When someone describes a game from the 90s as ancient, and the first game you played was on a mono-colour screen...

Spoiler

Ah hell, I'm old.

Tell me about it. Now that I'm thinking about it I was exposed to a lot of different systems when I was a kid. I've played an Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and MSDOS games through various family members and friends. Probably explains why I was so into video games.

 

[Squilookle]

That's always been a problem for survival games- how to let the player get proficient but still maintain a level of danger. Subnautica had a good system of tackling it, with getting the player to want to explore ever further and deeper, where the more dangerous creatures live. Overall though, I'd love to see a desert island survival game that manages to pull it off successfully, damned if I know how it can be done though...

 

[Tanis]

I started on 'ancient' games.

Though playing the first Star Wars game was an eye bleeding blast.

 

[CaitSeith]

I started on 'ancient' games.

Though playing the first Star Wars game was an eye bleeding blast.

I have fond memories of it...

 

[Squilookle]

I started on 'ancient' games.

Though playing the first Star Wars game was an eye bleeding blast.

What I meant is are there any older games you've played for the first time recently.

Out of interest- what Star Wars game was it?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

When my Dad passed away he left me his entire video game and console collection which has everything from Pong to Turbo Graphx 16. I pretty much own a playable gaming museum. At Christmas we do a random game draw and play them together in memory of my Dad. This year we played Venture on Colecovision, Subroc on Colecovision, Faery Tale on Sega Genesis, Mutant League Hockey on Sega Genesis and Betrayal in Antara for PC.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=67&v=xNRC0u5zc70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ZCfxheLV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=anPAf-MJBA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsD5z0Yor64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=87&v=Qt1oQoRhr6c

 

[Squilookle]

When my Dad passed away he left me his entire video game and console collection which has everything from Pong to Turbo Graphx 16. I pretty much own a playable gaming museum. At Christmas we do a random game draw and play them together in memory of my Dad. This year we played Venture on Colecovision, Subroc on Colecovision, Faery Tale on Sega Genesis, Mutant League Hockey on Sega Genesis and Betrayal in Antara for PC.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=67&v=xNRC0u5zc70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ZCfxheLV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=anPAf-MJBA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsD5z0Yor64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=87&v=Qt1oQoRhr6c

That's actually super sweet- I don't think I've played anything from that era on the original hardware- have there been any hidden gems among those in your opinion?


Also, it's finally happened. After hounding the Huns for a year and a half, my wingmen shooting down Ernst Udet, me downing Lothar Von Richtofen, being challenged to a duel by Werner Voss and besting him, none other than Manfred Von Richtofen- the Red Baron himself- has challenged me to a 1 on 1 duel. I get to his prearranged spot and the conniving rogue has brought two wingmen along with him as insurance! So I gain height above his flight, then roar down at tremendous speed on the formation. I only have time for one pass... better make it count...

 

[Rangaman]

You'll have to define "ancient", as I've heard some young'uns going around calling the PS2/GameCube era retro.

A lot of my experience in gaming comes from going back to older games. Reason being I'm terrible at online multiplayer games and (because of this) generally tend to ignore the big floating ball of novelty multiplayer modes and pay-to-win schemes that is the modern gaming industry. I'm not sure how many of them I'd define as "ancient" or "classic". For one thing, it feels weird to define something like GTA: San Andreas as a classic game.

Zelda II is a fairly ancient game I played recently. Dear god, that game has not aged well. Aside from the standard NES bulllshit (obnoxious difficulty spikes, questionable design choices) the game was designed to sell copies of Nintendo Power. The result is that it's incredibly obscure at times and pretty much unbeatable unless you have a walkthrough.