Why nostalgia makes games seem better today

[Doodlebox]

I feel like I've lost the wonder that made games when I was a kid more fun. Now I focus on things like innovation, graphics, replayability, balancing and controls instead.
When I played Goldeneye at my friend's house as an 11 year old, I never thought about Oddjob as a flaw in the game. He was fun to play as, and I never cared about whether someone else played as him, all me and my friends cared about was how cool the characters looked. That's why most of us played as Bond, even though nowadays I would choose Oddjob because he was the most rewarding in gameplay.
But it's not just Goldeneye, in 1999 when all I had was an old mac to play games on, I was pretty damn good at starcraft. I beat the campaign without any cheats, something my dad and brother couldn't do, and I dominated many online matches despite not knowing how the hell to control an RTS at first. And I did it all through tactics that I thought were cool. I got as many wraiths as I could, and sent them in a huge strike fore towards the protoss base. Economically efficient? No. Could I have done a better strategy? Of course I could. But my imagination ran wild, and the idea of a hundred space ships speeding just above the surface of an alien world with weapons primed was thrilling. Now, what would I do in SC2? I would marine and marauder rush while sending medivacs behind the enemy base with ghosts so I could mess with their economy. This, despite working, wouldn't have pleased my younger self. I'm not the only one who thinks this, right?
So, why do games from back in the day have so much more quality and depth than a more recent game? Because despite their flaws which makes them less than enjoyable today, it reminds us of a time when videogames were REALLY fun, and that's all that mattered.
Thoughts? I'm sure someone else feels the same way.

 

[Ridgemo]

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

Maybe your just getting bored with gaming, so you don't get the same enjoyment. Either that, or as you grow up, it's harder for your imagination to run free. I have this problem while watching films and i am just simply unable to suspend disbelief at whats going on.

For me and games, i'd much rather play modern day games to old ones because they are better. It's probably the amount of shovelware that we have to deal with now, but then, there were just as much shovelware or knockoff games back then. Plus all you could really do was jump or attack with sword/gun.

 

[MrhalfAwake]

Ill admit that Im probably just getting bored with gaming as a whole. It's expensive and time consuming and Im at a part in my life were the amount of time I can actually afford to spend gaming is getting more and more limited. So I have to decide If I want to try a new game and sink money and time into or use that time and play an older game that I really really like and save the money for something more important. Ive been gaming long enough that Ive built up a library of enough games that it will be a long LONG time before Im even remotely sick of them all so Im even in less of a rush to buy new releases when I still have old ones to beat.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

That is a silly thing to say and you're a silly person for saying it.

The way that games are made today makes certain parts of game design harder than it was 5, 10, 20 years ago.

For instance I feel like Planescape: Torment is the best written game of all time. However I don't think the same script would work in today's gaming industry. There's simply TOO MUCH writing. It would all have to be voiced, acted, recorded - and that would detract from the writing.

It's also much easier to design games in 2D than it is in fully rendered HD 3D. Without the massive expense of High Definition visuals, designers were free to expand further on gameplay ideas, story, writing, etc.

Now obviously some people are victims of nostalgia. It was easier to view games that you thought of as 'toys' as entertaining than it is games you think of as a hobby. We also had much more free time as kids, so when we spent long hours on a game that sucked it wasn't as big of a waste of time.

But that doesn't mean that older games are always worse than newer games, you silly person.

 

[LordXel]

Nostalgia is a bit of a nice thing, and while you can argue that it makes old games seem better, it makes newer games seem worse. Say for example if I said 'Twilight Princess isn't as good as Ocarina of Time because it doesn't have this memorable moment in it.' but then when I play Twilight Princess without nostalgia on my mind, it is better than Ocarina of Time.

That's my opinion.

 

[MrhalfAwake]

I love that this is like the 7th time Ive seen someone bring up Torment ehre

 

[C117]

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

It's true for the most part, like Ocarina of Time (I still think Twilight Princess is better in every damn way) and Secret of Mana (though it's a damn good game, I still prefer Granida II and Kingdom Hearts).

But I have yet to find a game that is better at the stuff Super Bros. Allstars do. Like nice graphics, really good music, exciting gameplay and a good following of the old "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master"-philosophy of game designing.

 

[Doive]

Games don't give you as strong a sense of wonder because you aren't a child anymore. That said, I think it is better to rate old games in terms of the time in which they were released.
If pushed, I'd probably say the best game of all time is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This is because, in my opinion, it is the best game of it's time ever. I have lots of memories of it, of course, but it's legacy can be seen today in any free roaming RPG on the market. Also, the sheer number of people who regard it in a similar way to me is demonstrated by a song from the game being featured in the film "Scott Pilgrim vs the World".

Sorry if I've banged on about zelda alot.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

Maybe your just getting bored with gaming, so you don't get the same enjoyment. Either that, or as you grow up, it's harder for your imagination to run free. I have this problem while watching films and i am just simply unable to suspend disbelief at whats going on.

For me and games, i'd much rather play modern day games to old ones because they are better. It's probably the amount of shovelware that we have to deal with now, but then, there were just as much shovelware or knockoff games back then. Plus all you could really do was jump or attack with sword/gun.

Let me be the first (and probably only) person to agree with you. Well, not entirely, there are definitely some exceptions of games that have aged really well. But in my honest opinion, 95% of the "classics" people praise (especially on this website) just aren't very good games anymore.

I'm sick of people praising games like Deus Ex, Goldeneye, and basically anything on the N64, which have all aged terribly and play poorly, just because they were great "for their time". What? That's not even relevant. Yes, by all means, respect old games for what they did for certain genres and have fond memories and enjoy them because of those memories. But coming out and saying something like that is the best game of all time, is an insult to modern games of the same genre which have all improved the game mechanics tenfold. You are supposed to view things by modern standards because that's the standard we are now at. Simple logic. If you have to lower your standards to enjoy a game it's not as good as you're saying it is.

I believe gameplay has evolved as much as graphics have in pretty much every way. Sure there are games I played when I was a kid, and I can play them now and enjoy them because of my nostalgia. But I don't go ahead and say they are great games anymore, because most of them are not.

 

[veloper]

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

Start coding real fast then.

UFO:Enemy unknown
Jagged alliance 2
Master of Orion 2
Master of magic
Day of the Tentacle
Planescape Torment

and don't counter with some worthless trash like fable3.

 

[TerranReaper]

I feel like I've lost the wonder that made games when I was a kid more fun. Now I focus on things like innovation, graphics, replayability, balancing and controls instead.
When I played Goldeneye at my friend's house as an 11 year old, I never thought about Oddjob as a flaw in the game. He was fun to play as, and I never cared about whether someone else played as him, all me and my friends cared about was how cool the characters looked. That's why most of us played as Bond, even though nowadays I would choose Oddjob because he was the most rewarding in gameplay.
But it's not just Goldeneye, in 1999 when all I had was an old mac to play games on, I was pretty damn good at starcraft. I beat the campaign without any cheats, something my dad and brother couldn't do, and I dominated many online matches despite not knowing how the hell to control an RTS at first. And I did it all through tactics that I thought were cool. I got as many wraiths as I could, and sent them in a huge strike fore towards the protoss base. Economically efficient? No. Could I have done a better strategy? Of course I could. But my imagination ran wild, and the idea of a hundred space ships speeding just above the surface of an alien world with weapons primed was thrilling. Now, what would I do in SC2? I would marine and marauder rush while sending medivacs behind the enemy base with ghosts so I could mess with their economy. This, despite working, wouldn't have pleased my younger self. I'm not the only one who thinks this, right?
So, why do games from back in the day have so much more quality and depth than a more recent game? Because despite their flaws which makes them less than enjoyable today, it reminds us of a time when videogames were REALLY fun, and that's all that mattered.
Thoughts? I'm sure someone else feels the same way.

You're not a child anymore, you can think in more complex ways than before and can analyze whether that "cool" thing is actually efficient or not. It seems like with the examples that you used, you didn't really care about efficiency when you were younger and winning or losing didn't seem like an issue. Nothing stops you from using the equivalent of your original mass wraith strategy in SC2, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to because it might not be a good idea.

Also, in terms of games in general, the games before seemed like they had more complexity because maybe it was the first time you came across it or that it was something you hadn't seen before.

 

[quantumsoul]

As you play more and more games. Your tastes become more refined and it's a lot more difficult to be as excited about playing a game as before.

So your memories of older games are colored with the feelings you had when you were easy to please.

Play some of your old games and see what ones have aged well and what ones are crap. You'll have a good idea on how to make a great game.

 

[Ridgemo]

Wow, i think i've been quoted more times on this thread than the entire time i've been browsing this forum. I believe it's only polite to respond and maybe clarify what i said abit better. Or make it worse....

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

I'm sorry, that is just completely untrue. It's personal preference, I love old games and new games. Me thinking Final Fantasy 6 is far better than any other game like it on the market is not nostalgia, it's personal opinion. I didn't play final fantasy 6 when I was a kid, I played it for the first time last year, and I still haven't found a game like it that I've thought was better.

Of course, i was never intending to dispute that anyone can enjoy an older game anymore than a newer game. Infact, dare i say some of my favourites are from past systems, like the Jak and Daxter series. What i was mostly refering to was the product. It's like a car. A car today is better in everyway to one made 10-15 years ago. However some people prefer the ones from 10-15 years ago because its something they grew up admiring, or perhaps they think the design of cars was better back then than it is now.

I don't feel like this analogy is working very well. I'm saying that the actual mechanics of a game is better now than it was then. The products are more sophisticated. That doesn't neccessarily(sp?) mean that people will like them more, but it is a "better" game.

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

That is a silly thing to say and you're a silly person for saying it.

The way that games are made today makes certain parts of game design harder than it was 5, 10, 20 years ago.

For instance I feel like Planescape: Torment is the best written game of all time. However I don't think the same script would work in today's gaming industry. There's simply TOO MUCH writing. It would all have to be voiced, acted, recorded - and that would detract from the writing.

It's also much easier to design games in 2D than it is in fully rendered HD 3D. Without the massive expense of High Definition visuals, designers were free to expand further on gameplay ideas, story, writing, etc.

Now obviously some people are victims of nostalgia. It was easier to view games that you thought of as 'toys' as entertaining than it is games you think of as a hobby. We also had much more free time as kids, so when we spent long hours on a game that sucked it wasn't as big of a waste of time.

But that doesn't mean that older games are always worse than newer games, you silly person.

I am indeed a very silly person!

I fully agree that sometimes having a voice acted story could possibly take the soul out of a game. I'd say like FF7, people clamour for a remake but something would be lost after they voiced it. The characters might not have the same voice, or attitude that we ourselves put onto that character.

Maybe RPG's could be as good back in the day as they are now. I'm not sure, the mechanics are really down to how you go about combat, interacting with other characters, partys and that kind of thing. Indeed FF7 has probably been the most enjoyable Final Fantasy for me to play, and part of that was down to the materia system. So maybe i'm talking from my behind. Refer to above quote for a very poor excuse of a description into what i meant by a better game.

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

Maybe your just getting bored with gaming, so you don't get the same enjoyment. Either that, or as you grow up, it's harder for your imagination to run free. I have this problem while watching films and i am just simply unable to suspend disbelief at whats going on.

For me and games, i'd much rather play modern day games to old ones because they are better. It's probably the amount of shovelware that we have to deal with now, but then, there were just as much shovelware or knockoff games back then. Plus all you could really do was jump or attack with sword/gun.

Let me be the first (and probably only) person to agree with you. Well, not entirely, there are definitely some exceptions of games that have aged really well. But in my honest opinion, 95% of the "classics" people praise (especially on this website) just aren't very good games anymore.

I'm sick of people praising games like Deus Ex, Goldeneye, and basically anything on the N64, which have all aged terribly and play poorly, just because they were great "for their time". What? That's not even relevant. Yes, by all means, respect old games for what they did for certain genres and have fond memories and enjoy them because of those memories. But coming out and saying something like that is the best game of all time, is an insult to modern games of the same genre which have all improved the game mechanics tenfold. You are supposed to view things by modern standards because that's the standard we are now at. Simple logic. If you have to lower your standards to enjoy a game it's not as good as you're saying it is.

I believe gameplay has evolved as much as graphics have in pretty much every way. Sure there are games I played when I was a kid, and I can play them now and enjoy them because of my nostalgia. But I don't go ahead and say they are great games anymore, because most of them are not.

Thanks for agreeing with me, and explaining what i was trying to say better than i did! I salute you sir.

Anyone who thinks an old game is better than any new one is victim to nostalgia.

Line any game up, and there is a modern day counterpart that as a game will blow it out of the water.

Start coding real fast then.

UFO:Enemy unknown
Jagged alliance 2
Master of Orion 2
Master of magic
Day of the Tentacle
Planescape Torment

and don't counter with some worthless trash like fable3.

Two problems here. One, i don't have a damn clue how to code games. Just as well i've never said i could do a better job than the people who do code games. Two, i don't know any of those games. Call me a philistine if you must, but i only really got into console gaming from the Playstation onwards and have never had a capable PC, so i don't have knowledge of every game.

I will however look up these games and see if there is a modern day game that has mechanics from these games that it puts forward better. That or just take your word that there isn't.

 

[Netrigan]

There is only one Golden Age of Video Games: twelve.

Really applies to everything (although the age varies a half dozen years). I once saw a succession on VH1 documentaries about various music scenes which a) were the font of all creativity, b) created sex, c) enjoyed but did not abuse drugs and alcohol, and d) replaced cynical commercialism. It was basically four consequtive music scene where the only thing that changed was the older generations. The kids always seemed to find a scene that satisfied them. The adults were the ones mourning the loss of their youth and enthusiasm.