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Are Older Games More Satisfying?
Kwirl asks: "While the computer and console gaming industry is growing at a remarkable pace, the focus is usually on better graphics as opposed to stronger gameplay and plot development/story arc. I personally have several titles (Sims2, Half-Life2, Doom 3, MSFS2004, Unreal 2004) sitting on my shelf that were amazing games, but just couldn't hold my interest for long enough to really be considered a worthwhile investment. In the last couple of years I had thought that the answer to my gaming needs would come in the form of MMORPG's. I have purchased and played many of them, but all seem to come to a stagnant point where I recognize that only addiction would drive me deeper into the game, and not better gameplay (Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Everquest II). In truth, I have found myself spending more time playing old MUD's (TorilMud, Medievia) again, or even amusing web-based games ( KingdomofLoathing, PimpWar, NeoPets). I am curious to know how many other people here find themselves walking intentionally backwards along the technological timeline of games for your personal expenditure of free time? What games/sites do you feel give you the best return of satisfaction versus time spent playing the game over the long haul?"
Yes
Longer story, my favorite all time game is the old classic Chess. Whether it's getting cremated by my computer or playing and even occasionally beating humans online or offline. The depth and amount it makes me think is just great.
Favorite dedicated computer game you ask? Try Civilization 2. Civ 3 for some reason seemed more fluff and the same amount of meat as Civ 2 (hence making it slower and doing nothing really for gameplay). Though I need to try FreeCiv one day.
In general I just like games that make me think more than anything else. FPS games amongst others are interesting for about 10 minutes then I just walk away.
...in bed
The latest games are good, and have a wow factor the first time I play each of them, but they don't have any staying power. I always seem to go back to my megadrive/SNES games, and ScummVM.
Part of it is probably reminiscing, but mostly I think older games couldn't rely on great graphics, so they had to make up for it in other areas.
gaming is about short-term pleasure, not the long haul. it's more on the art side of things rather than the engineering side, as the time spent isn't a direct investment in beneficial life skills but instead is merely a pleasureable passage of time.
interesting thinking tho, there's definetly a progressing pattern to be assessed about the longevity of games. i'd beleive it has a lot to do with the audience and how they grow over time too tho.
In the 90s, it ruined my college GPA as it must have done other people. Everyone once in a while I download it again and play for a few weeks. Then I'll erase it after never getting past the mines and not think about it for a few years.
At least now it only ruins my normal sleep cycle. I work in land development so being awake isn't a major requirement.
There is one advantage for slow development cycles like with Nethack. You can pick it up years later and it'll be pretty much the same.
I just look for decent flash stuff on newgrounds and other flash portals.
I'm a 2D platformer at heart. The extra dimension allowed developers to get lazy, while the games that came from the 2D era had to be creative to set themselves apart from the hundreds of other 2D platformers.
To be honest, I think that a lot of people like older games because these they evoke memories from a more innocent/carefree time in the player's life (e.g. teen-age years, or college), rather than better gameplay.
It was a BBS door game. There was a Pimp Wars, and a Pimp Wars 2. This was back in the day of Trade Wars 2002, Kannons & Kattapults, etc.
I've been playing a fan translation of DragonQuest (DragonWarrior) 5 which originally came out in Japan.
While it has the annoying verbose interface common to the DragonQuest series, I'm finding that the game itself is quite enjoyable. Its a shame that it was never officially released in the US by Nintendo. It was a strong SNES title, IMHO.
Considering that Nintendo had a policy of censoring US releases, I'm tempted to drag up fan translations of the other games in the series and play them again.
Sure, there are modern games which are rather fun, but some of the old classics are worth playing again.
Then there are "timeless" games such as Nethack and the other roguelikes which are worth playing again and again.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Yes.
:).
The game needs to have a clever or fun design, who cares how it looks. Try elastomania across or whatever it's name is, it's simple yet kick-ass. Same goes for lemmings and so on
"Puzzle"/skill games like those are games I like, even thought I never think about it, and also Strategy and the regular Quake FPS for relaxing.
Quake was love.
I just gave a talk at a conference which talked briefly about this. One of the my points was that the large companies have no incentive to advertise about older games. Activision makes more money for every copy of DOOM 3 that is sold than they do when someone fires up the original DOOM. (There are also issues with losing the history of the industry, but that's a whole other rant.)
In the end, the newer games get more attention than the older games. Companies spend a lot of money convincing people to keep track of the new games and that technology drives "fun". This is how the companies make more money.
This is actually a very backwards way of thinking of some games. For example, online RPGs (aka MMORPGs) actually get better with age. A game like my own Meridian 59 has had several expansions and tweaks done to the game over the years. These games tend to be very bug-free and well-balanced. The game grows and expands over the years, and the game you can play now is often quite different than the game it originally was.
Finally, sometimes games change. I'm a huge fan of computer RPGs, but the games released these days are hardly RPGs. Instead of being able to create a character (or party), I'm forced to deal with a pre-made character and run him (or rarely, her) through a pre-set adventure. Sometimes I just have to fire up a Wizardry game or the original Final Fantasy as an antidote to the mostly passive games that are released these days. I guess they sell really well, but it's not the type of game I want to play.
I'll post the slides to my conference talk on my professional blog (http://blog.psychochild.org/) when I get the chance.
Some thoughts,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
I'm deeply thankful from the bottom of my heart for emulators of old systems. It's true. I find myself playing the good old games a lot (mostly NES and SNES) more than the newer, shinier games. Maybe it's the nostalgia factor that brings me back time and time again. But it's probably because I share the exact same sentiments as the article. Games are not designed to be fun anymore. They are designed to make companies hoards of money. Those two business models are disgustingly different, and hence so are the games they produce.
I'm sure there are others like me out there who have let their passion take them far enough to the point where they make their own game in the "old-school" style. Of course I doubt anyone is out there making loads of money off of making new games that look like they could have been released in the 90s, but I bet there are quite a few like me who spend their spare time working on their game as a hobby.
On a side-note, I bet you kids these days wouldn't give such "ancient" looking games a second glance, since they've been suckered into the game media hype machine of "better-looking game = better game". *grumble grumble* Rotten kids!!!! Why I remember back in my day, we only had one button on our joypads, and that was damn well enough for us!
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
Many games today have too much flash or pow, though the art or message or depth of the games have improved in some places.
For example: The Marathon trilogy, made by a few guys whose company went on to make another pretty popular game. This game was the "thinking man's" Doom, complete with aliens, serious weapons (many of which have returned in one form or another in Halo), and a deep storyline that enriched play. Marathon was also one of the first (if not THE first) multiplayer FPS game, introducing the concept of the mouse-as-head game control to make for rapid movement.
The coolness of this game is that it's now freeware (not open-source, however). The game originally appeared as an original Mac OS game. That game is available and (currently) playable only a Mac that can run Mac OS 9 or Classic (in Mac OS X). However, Bungie also released the second game, Marathon 2, as a Windows game. So Mac and Windows users can download a special Mac OS X-native or Windows-native application (thanks to enterprising programmers who loved the game and wanted to play on) to play the original code, complete with a few modern graphic pick-me-ups.
Bungie still puts in a few Marathon in-jokes in their games. The first one you'll see is the insignia on Captain Keyes' uniform in Halo, and later, look closely at the Monitor's eyeball. Familar?
I'm still fond of old-school Zelda games on NES, SNES, and Game Boy, too.
Frog blast the vent core!
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Netrek has been around for nearly 15 years, and it is still one of the best online games out there.
Long live ModemJoe! king of the BB's...
You've run into what Nintendo is fighting against. Games are becoming involved to the point where EVERYFUCKINGTHING, whether it needs it or not, has some lame attempt at an engrossing story. You can't sit down and play a game for 15-30 minutes anymore because almost every game has 10 minutes of cutscene or exposition before you play a fucking thing.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
personally I'm addicted to Boggle on games.com. Its competitive, pitting you against other players.
This space available.
How about trying some role playing and actually teaming with other players. People who play massively multiplayer games as if they were single player games and then shout from the rooftops that they suck really piss me off. The game isn't designed for single player gameplay.
How we know is more important than what we know.
- The set of all new games; let's say "from 2002 onwards" for concreteness.
- The set of all games from before 2002.
Now, consider your standard of "goodness". The questioner uses something he calls "satisfying"; there are many possibilities here. This is a meta-argument, so I really do want you to substitute your personal standards.Now, unless your standards truly contain something highly technology based, like "I just can't play a game without reflective glass or incredibly realistic water", which set is going to contain more good games?
Is this really surprising?
Cherry pick from ~20 years of games, and compare that to the cherry-picked games from the last three years, and the former set will typically be larger.
That said, there are some ways modern games are legitimately better. Linear RPGs are one strong example, I think (though non-linear RPGs are, for a variety of reasons, effectively dead). I'm not saying all standards will have this result... just the vast majority of them.
Tetris gives more satisfaction than anything.
Also, multiplayer is key. The new bomberman for the DS is perhaps the best multiplayer bomberman ever.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
That is exactly what I was going to say regarding the Civ series. Civ 3 was basically just a graphics upgrade of Civ 2. Hopefully, Civ 4 offers more to enhance the gameplay. But, I doubt they'll make it materially different.
This also reminds me of the SimCity series. SimCity 4 is basically the same as all the other SimCities. If you've played SimCity 1, then you're not going to get much more out of SimCity 4.
Given that I've played all the Civs and SimCities, I know exactly how each game will progress. But occasionally, my memory will fade. Then I'll start a new game. The game will go on for a while and be fairly interesting at first. Then it'll hit me: I know what the end will be. I know because that's the way the end always is. The fun of the game fades away and I shut it off.
The last game I actually bought was Unreal 2, which I played all of 1 time and then promptly gave away because I got bored.
I still play Halo I, the original Ghost Recon Island Thunder and Mech Assault on my XBox.
I'd kill to have time to configure one of my older boxes to boot to DOS with sound to play the original TIE Fighter (still have the floppies) and X-Wing Fighter (still have the CD).
Dunno, maybe it's just an age thing =)
"The Secret Island of Dr. Destructo" on the old home 8bit computers. I played it to death on my old CPC6128, and I still fire it up every now and then under emulation - would do more often if the CPC emulator key repsonse weren't as slow.
It was a 2D side-view shoot-em up where you controlled a little plane and had to shoot down a variety of planes, bombers and helicopters and by making them crash into the ship or island on the screen, sink the island/ship.
I've never seen a game with the sprite control of Dr. Destructo: Very unusual, z made the plan circle anti-clockwise, x clockwise, such that you could loop and bank all over the screen. Very very effective.
Great little game.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I'd say you need a bit of games that are classic in nature, but are at least reletivly new. For instance, games like Viewtiful Joe, or any of Nippon Ichi's creations bring out a nostalgic rush, and play like their older cousins, but are much, much deeper and/or stylish.
Personally, I get a lot of replay value out of the Metal Gear Solid series. To this date, it retains a very traditional camera placement, with very contraversial or thought provocing themes and fantastic graphics. The games, while holding on to the classic roots of the original MG or MG2: Solid Snake, also blur the lines between game and movie, but in a good way.
If MGS isn't your kind of game, go for the Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) series. 1 - 4 are for NES, 5 - 6 weren't released here (SNES), but have fan translations, 7 was released on PS1 a few years ago and is one of the few games I've played to actually go over the 100 hour mark, and Dragon Quest 8 should be here by the end of the year for PS2. There's some excellent documentation and forums over at http://www.dragons-den/.
Anybody remember the old door game Iron Ox? It was truly great. But sadly, it only ran on OS/2-based bbs-serving software, so it was never as widespread as Pimp Wars or L.O.R.D. Great, in-depth gameplay, team dynamics, and much else. And the RIP graphics were pretty decent-looking too.
The only console I own is a SNES. I don't like 3D games very much, I don't like shooters at all. There are a few on GameCube I like (such as Zelda 4 Swords and Paper Mario - both being basically 2D!). Games are just much better when the people who made them care about the gameplay, not making the graphics as cool as humanly possible. Of course, there are some nice graphics in those two Gamecube games I mentioned - but they're not going for photorealism. I like cartoony graphics better than realistic ones, anyhow.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
If you want an old game that has real depth, play Starflight. I recently started playing it for the first time, and it's like a good book but without being linear. I've been picking up clues to the story, while exploring planets and trying to stay alive.
The DOS version of Starflight is an 80808 era CGA game that has a lot of things that were way ahead of it's time. Inside of 700K there are hundreds of unique planets, several races and an involved storyline. The planetary details are generated by fractals but remember what you do on them. Almost everything is done in real time; if you stay silent on the comm channel too long, the aliens on the other side can get annoyed or take over the conversation. A lot of descriptions are done by text, so it requires a little imagination, but the atmosphere of trying to survive, alone in a cold unforgiving universe is very strong.
If you want to give Starflight a chance, I suggest using dosbox with the speed set to 1000 cycles. Anything higher will make battles and communication impossible. Be careful, though: saving or even playing the game modifies the main game files (stara.com, starb.com, starflt.com), so make archives of them if you want to save. You can't quit without saving.
Despite a slower pace than many modern games, this game is quite addictive once you get started. I'm going back to it right now... now if I can just find some promethium so I can repair the sheilds...
as Scott mc Loud would say 100x better, using symbols in drawing, or graphics allows the brain to treat the data it's presented in a totally different way than if the subject was looking a a detailled drawing. You instantly know when you look at a symbolic graphic that there's more to it that what you see.
Old games used symbols to display things on screen almost of the time, because the machines couldn't do more. But you didn't treat the things displayed on screen as if they were realistic drawings anyway, you knew they were just symbols which meant tree, kobold, or whatever and all the real action had to happen in your imagination.
So everyone in fact had a different, and extremly rich perception of the game.
Constrast that with 3D. The things you're looking at are generally not symbols, they're literally what you, or your character, see. That means your imagination can't interface with what is displayed. Those realistic, tangible objects aren't compatible with it.
That means that if the illusion isn't 100% perfect, the charm will be broken.
Now, you're just consuming a world someone as prepared for you, the same as everyone else. Before, your brain had to build it itself, but it was incomparable.
Ultima V
//e with a green screen. Then one year later I discovered girls and gaming died that day.
Amazing game. One of my all time favorites. Nothing beat playing on my old Apple
"Hunt the Wumpus" never gets old for me.
Congratulations, Everyone! You have become your parents!
I agree that emulators are a godsend. Now I can play all of those SNES games that I couldn't afford in hight school, thanks to industrious and generous random sons-of-bitches. Chrono Trigger for the SNES is possibly the perfect adventure game (called an RPG, but we all know there is no role-playing). Neverwinter Nights held my attention for quite a while, but I can only play games occasionally these days--no all-nighters like in my youth! For the Mac, one can visit Macintosh Garden and download a bunch of old abandonware for earlier mac platforms. Many of these games are much more satisfying than modern shooters/sports/stealth games because they rely on creative writing and interaction instead of immersion. immersion is good during one's initial contact with a game, but usually it gets old.
cue inevitable 'subjectivity' response. :-)
i find older music more satisfying, for instance the rock music that was made & performed in the 70's over the homogenous sludge that's pumped out & exalted today. yet, if i was a rap afficionado, perhaps the music of the moment would be more appealing.
it works the same way with games, i find. i have little patience or motivation to play the games of old since opening the pandora's box that is online gaming. consequently i find complicated, balanced and highly playable games like guild wars far superior to anything i enjoyed in my youth, when my multiplayer gaming was restricted to consoles.
when i revisited (rose tinted glasses firmly in place) mario kart, street fighter et al i was frankly underwhelmed... it's was analgous to comparing scribbles on an ancient cave wall to a work of picasso. sure, it's the same end (be it artistic expression or gaming entertainment), but the means utilised make alot of difference.
once you wade through the dross, certain games of today are undoubtedly superior, at least from the perspective of a multiplayer junky.
Before MMORPGs can become fun, they need to seriously change. Everything needs to be interactive, the world completely dynamic and persistant. Levels make for a grind doing one thing while you want to be doing another - skills make more sense, and are more realistic. By far the best attempt Ive seen is Ages of Athiria which is being developed in house, and hasn't made any public(even NDA) releases yet.
Alpha Centauri is the best turn based game ever, and Starcraft is the best real-time strategy, and X-Com is the best squad based tactical turn based game. Why even bother trying to make new games like this when the originals are so good? Tetris, anyone?
First person shooters, on the other hand, can always use good new graphics. Final Fantasy hasn't really changed much from it's old days, either. Console RPGs were never deep, in depth games anyway.
There really is no rush to make new games anymore, at this point.
Yes. They have more experience and are grateful for the attention.
Oh wait, you said games? I thought you said dames.
Best game ever: Star Control 2. It's a hilarious RPG with, in my opinion, fairly high replay value. The best part? It's now abandonware!
This discussion reminds me of Sim City 2 VS Sim City 4. Sure, SC4 had more features, but it lacked the same soul. Pretty graphics can't make up for a sense of humour and fun gameplay. Another example: the decline of the Leisure Suit Larry franchise.
One of my other favourite games is Chopper Commando by Mark Currie. CGA Graphics, but the messages when you died were awesome.
"I'm sorry, but your husband died on his last mission."
"That's okay. He wasn't that good of a husband anyway. What are you doing tonight?"
"He didn't make it on the last mission, sir"
"Alright, you win. Here's your five bucks."
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
I play Yahtzee mostly, on my Palm Tungsten E.
Hours of it, in little bits of time when I'm waiting for something.
Otherwise, I'm mostly too busy doing other stuff to play games.
My wife is addicted to pogo.com.
For any gamers looking for a fresh (freeware) 2D platformer with an old-school feel, look no further than Cave Story. It's an amazingly designed game by Studio Pixel, which is actually just one guy with a lot of talent. The game plays a lot like Metroid or Mega Man, but it has a unique weapon system. The graphics are very reminiscent of an SNES or DOS-based game, but the pixel art is spectacular and the story is very engrossing. I highly recommend it to anyone, as it's easily the best freeware game I've ever played.
- Neverwinter Nights - I have a PW Server that I have been playing on for years now. Still a ton of fun. I play this several times a week usually.
- Jagged Alliance 2 (and its mods) - Every couple months or so I get heavy into a game of this for a week or so. This game is brilliant! Been playing it regularly for years now.
- DOSBox - While not a game per se, I use this to run X-COM, Master of Orion, Privateer, and Ultima Underworld. If you have DOSBox and a good PC then abandonware sites are like gold mines. I regularly rotate through the above games as the whim strikes me.
- 4X Games - These tend to have lots of replayability. Master of Orion (DOSBox), Space Empires IV, and Galactic Civilizations are some of my personal favorites.
- Bioware and Black Isle games - Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout. These series are great to replay every so often. Fallout 1 is always cool to play through because its a quick game compared to the rest.
- Shooters - I think the most fun ones are Quake, Quake2, Serious Sam, Fortress mods, and Duke Nukem 3D. Others are cool but I keep coming back to these for some mindless blasting. I gotta say I'm burned out on shooters right now though.
There's no doubt that the replayability of most new games has suffered. It seems like the old ones always had randomizers and scenario generators while new ones just trust that they will live on in multiplayer and user-made mods.My hope for the future: Duke Nukem Forever, Jagged Alliance 3, Fallout 3, Quake IV, and Elite 4. They all come from a long lineage of "fun" games and hopefully they will uphold the tradition.
Clickety Click
I've gotten hopelessly into Marathon recently. I've been disappointed with commercially-available games since Star Fox Assault came out for GameCube and Ninty/Namco let me down. Sony's lineup just isn't my tastes, and Microsoft...Well...Can you say 'fascist'? Too many shooters. Granted, there ARE some Nintendo DS titles that have intrigued me as of late (KIRBY! METEOS! BOMBERMAN!) but...Meh. What the heck is wrong with the industry these days?
That much said, FROG BLAST THE VENT CORE!
Are generalizations always wrong?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Its time to admit it, we are not kids anymore, obviously the games that we used to play when playing was a meanignful part of our lives will will always look better but thats mostly due to the memories attached to them.
I used to play Muds, try to convince a MMORPG, Final Fantasy fan to play one because "gameplay is better" Not a chance. Kids laugh at our games and their "tech", Ive seen it, I've gotten laughed at when I showed "altered beast" and "after burner" as "cool games from the classic arcade" to some kids at work. They are getting raised playing Halo, MGS, Soulcalibur 2 and Metroid prime, what did you expect?
And in all honesty, older games are not better, how could you choose space invaders over halo 2 ? is simpler yes, fond memories sure, maybe even similar but not better, I mean Invaders doesnt even have an extra weapon or infinite lives or an ending. hmm.. wait a minute... oh anyway you get the point.
Btw. New doesnt meet good either, Doom 3 and half life 2 can get quite boring, try Katamari, God of war and/or halo 2 online. Now we are talking.
I own a Gamecube and several other more modern consoles.
In the end, I find that I spend the most time these days playing PC Engine (Tubro Grafx) games than anything else. It's nice to be able to pick a game up for 10 minutes and leave it at that... Then, come back later when I have time and have the exact same experience.
On the new consoles, the old formula still applies. I've been playing Ikaruga off and on for more than two years now. The classic formulae (shmups and 2d-style action titles) are timeless.
Nethack.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
try as I may, I can't get back into those old games. THEY just don't hold my interest, whereas I keep going back to the newer games for fun. I played Bloodrayne 1 & 2 and they were an absolute blast, killing nazis and zombies and whatnot was very satisfying, whereas I wouldn't be able to pck up goldeneye (or even the controller) and go back to that. I got used to my keyboard (and nice new controllers) and there ain't no going back. but even beyond that, I'd rather play world of warcraft or guild wars than the olde and magnificent emperor of the fading suns. I really don't see what you geeks find in those old games. Perhaps it's just my amazing ability to be entertained by anything. I could stare at a ceiling for 4 hours and keep myself happy (and sane, I swear).
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
What about good old pen & paper games? I play D&D regularly and it's quite a bit more fun than pretty much any computer game I've played. Obviously, it has that pesky "need to have friends" problem, but if you happen to not be a complete hermit it's the best gaming experience you can have. As for computer games, I play a lot of different things, but I think rogue-likes are my favorites. Especially Zangband. :)
Reeve the cat
I personally miss the days of the classic adventure games. Space Quests 1-6...Rex Nebular: the space quest rip off and I also loved the Quest for glory series from the old Sierra. Those were the days...
"Insert Sig Here"
I think this is an amazing series. BF1942 didnt have the greatest graphics. Yet reviews of it were all outstanding. It came out in 2002 and i would still be playin it (and its mods, of which there are many good ones) except that Battlefield 2 came out. THese games have infinte replayability b/c of the human component
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
Wow, I seriously thought I may have been the only one to know about that Chopper Commando game. I remember playing that for hours! It really had a lot of replayability. Sometimes I would play a game with self-imposed rules such as only getting enemies by setting your helicopter on course for them and ejecting out at the last second. Or one where I wouldn't fire a single shot...I had to maneuver such that they'd shoot themselves. It had some wierd features/bugs too like that Mark Currie zone where you could crash into words floating in midair, and also when sometimes if you ran into something fast enough you'd create an explosion that would never end...
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
I always felt a great sense of satisfaction playing, and finishing the older rpg games like Bard's Tale, Ultima and Wizardry. Each time I finished any of the games, it actually felt like I had saved the world or something like that. Finishing Diablo just a few years back didn't give me quite the same experience. Shooters? This sounds funny but playing Digdug back then was probably as intense as my Q3A games now. The Ancient Art of War (not quite an RTS) kept me up more than any recent wargame (RTS or turn-based) I've played recently. And personally, I find Infocom text games like Zork or Spellbreaker to be more entertaining than their modern-day point-and-click counterparts like Myst.
Maybe the lack of good graphics back then forced me to use my imagination. Either that or its just my aging brain talking.
I remember vaguely this caption in an Infocom ad, "We use the most powerful graphics card in the universe: your brain."
I think in general older games only seem more satisfying because we tend to remember the best parts of the good ones. But when I look back, I remember:
-Ungodly frustrating games that could only be beaten with codes or Game Genie, either because they were just too hard (Konami Games) or too long to play in one sitting and had no way to save.
-Instability - Stability was a horrible problem with console games, although the Japanese have had it far worse than others due to getting the games first. I had plenty of NES games crash on me (TMNT was the worst) and while it still happens now, it isn't nearly as bad as it was back then.
-Really crappy games. Remember all those really horrid licensed games like Bart vs. The Space Mutants?
Overall, while there are still plenty of horrible games, and IMHO, the majority aren't worth $40-$50, the high production costs of twenty-first century games are leading executives to try and protect their companies from big failures.
I've been playing computer games since the Apple II days, and I have to agree that recent single player experiences haven't been as fullfilling as I remember older games being.
I remember playing Civ and later Civ 2 for literally days at a time. I remember playing single player Doom all the way through and going back and doing it again and again trying to improve on my level statistics.
With the exception of Vice City (and now San Andreas), I just haven't had this level of involvment with any games in the last few years. Undoubtedly Halflife 2 is a better game than the original Doom, but after playing it through once, I feel no real desire to play it again.
Part of this, of course, can actually be attributed to the "story" aspects of most modern games. In order to be considered a great game now-adays a game HAS to have a coherent and enjoyable story. Unfortunatly, these stories actually DETRACT from the replayability of the title (at least for me) I no more want to replay thirty or forty hours of world saving than I'd want to re-read the Hobbit two weeks after I'd read it. Perhaps in a year or two when my mind has calcified over the plot details this'll be different.
The real killer for me however, has been the rise of multiplayer gaming. No matter how intriguing the gameplay and story of a singleplayer game are, they just can't compare to the thrill and challenge of playing with other actual people. Doom co-op on the Highschool Lan was an epiphany... and then I realised there was a "Deathmatch" mode as well. Then Quakeworld rolled around and suddenly I wasn't just limited to playing against my buddies after school.
For better or worse, multiplayer is here to stay. I'd rather spend my allbeit more-limited play time beating up on the script kiddies in Battlefield 2 or in the sublime fps experience that is Red Orchestra than forgetting to pee yet alone eat while playing Civ 4.... At least FPSes give you a "load" break every once in a while =)
"42"
Zork me, baby! I'm the Wizard of Froboz!
:)
I spent more time on those games generally having a great time, than I've spent on any game since. That ASCII text was simply captivating, too!
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
I got into gaming because of Mario Kart 64, and I'm very satisfied with having bought that game. Other game that I felt were well worth the purchase include: Super Smash Bros, Goldeneye, kind of Pokemon Puzzle League (I had never played Tetris Attack before), Paper Mario 2, to a lesser extent Mario & Lugigi: Superstar Saga, Mechassault, and Epic Pinball (got Crash & Burn and Enigma from Blockbuster, played at home, brought it to school to play during break). Probably Burnout 3 also, spent many many hours on that game. Probably some that I'm forgetting.
Kwirl, you cad! You pimp some muds, and don't even give any love to Duris? For those who like TorilMud, but really wish you could kill some of the people on there and take everything they have... telnet://durismud.org:6666 or http://www.durismud.com/
To put the parent a little more politely, games are now having to compete on the experience they provide. For example, Grand Theft Auto 3-5 have a Story, Missions, Races, Hidden Packages, and special bonuses if you collect everything, ensuring that players go for the complete experience.
Nintendo creates some interesting extra features with their platform crossovers (Zelda that connects to the Gameboy).
New Updates to Old Games are going strong and inculding new features - Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls, for example has a bestiary and many new dungeons, with new items, dungeons and monsters, with a few nods at other characters that (most) Final Fantasy fans appreicate.
In other words, maybe there's been a bit of a backslide over the past couple years, but I think that overall most games have improved quite a bit since, say, King's Quest I.
Though I do wish the adventure game genre would return to popularity. LucasArts used to make some really excellent games.
Games have never been as good they are now. I just got this new game, Tetris and I can't tear myself away.
What? No one mentioned Scorched Earth? Blasphemy!
If you feel that games are not interesting any more, it simply means that you are getting old :)
While I'll aggree that there is _some_ nostalgia involved, that is definitely not the whole story. Games _are_ becoming more and more "streamlined" and shallow.
1. Games are becoming more and more simplified, I assume for the benefit of the casual gamer. I'm all for cattering to casual gamers, since I like a good intuitive interface myself. But often it means degrading gameplay as well.
E.g., look at a single series of games, from the same company, not even going that far back to be a case of nostalgia. Look at the (d)evolution that happened between Patrician 2 and Port Royale 2. (And if you're nasty, trace it all the way back to Elite, since Patrician 2 to Port Royale 2 are basically Elite on water.)
The economy got over-simplified. Basically while Patrician 2 was _hard_ and actually a trade and economy simulation, in Port Royale 2 you pretty much are guaranteed to make money as long as you don't actively try not to. It also doesn't help that the whole strategy element of leading a _fleet_ in Patrician 2, eventually devolved into a sea arcade game with a single ship in Port Royale 2. (The rest of the ships in your fleet are basically extra lives in that arcade fight.)
2. As an additional reason for that, there's a bunch of stuff that's just hard to implement properly in 3D, or not obvious to the casual player in 3D, so it either disappeared or got the equivalent of a big neon sign saying "use it HERE ==>"
E.g., I can think of old 2D games where you could scale any wall, or (try to) blow up walls, or use a grappling hook on any ledge. Nowadays you have clearly marked "you can climb this one" walls, e.g., in Sudeki. Or if you get a grappling gun, there will be a big marking where you can use it, and typically not too often.
3. There's a lot of stuff that gets streamlined because everything today has to be real-time. Actual strategy tends to be replaced by whack-a-mole clicking without a plan. E.g., whereas a PC RPG used to involve basically squad tactics and use of a whole range of spells (status effects, buffs, etc), nowadays you get action-RPGs where you have to run, hit and block in real time, and if you get any spells they're direct damage.
Compare for example, the old D&D games from SSI, which were practically a turn based tactics game, to, say, Demon Stone. Right. Nothing says "D&D" like having to do attack combos, and all spells being nothing more than a weapon upgrade for the mage.
4. Variety _is_ shrinking. Games tend to be easily dividable in narrow "genres" lately, often meaning a clone of other games that sold well. While it doesn't necessarily say "new games are bad", playing an exact clone of a game I've already bought before, does somewhat reduce my satisfaction.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Just in case nobody mentions it.
Older game that kicks the snot out of almost everything to come after it.
vk.
And I definitely think the reason is the gameplay. People can try to put great graphics into games all they want. But if they don't get the gameplay right, the game simply won't be worth playing.
If the gaming industry wants proof that gameplay can make a game more popular than graphics can, they just need to look at bzflag.
I still play tetrinet from time to time.
Video games, movies, food, places we have seen in our passed life have been experiences by a different person: ourself younger. Comparison is impossible.
Watch a video game, a cartoon you loved, eat one of those sweets you were so fond of
--
Go Debian!
Been enjoying oasis recently. Clean game play and brilliant mechanic. A little bit of Civ and levels that play in 3-5 minutes. Fantastic game.
I simply can't stop playing it, there is an insane amount of mod support, and with the PRC prestige class/race pack, module replay value is literally endless. Don't even get me started on the plethora of Persistent Worlds.
The son of Civ II: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri... I can't keep away. The graphics are great, the gameplay even better. , customizable units, unobtrusive mood music you don't mind leaving on... See, I feel like playing it right now!
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.com
NWN is particulary impressive as I can now use it on modern hardware with higher gfx settings that makes an old game shine. But even ignoring the gfx, the atmosphere and stories are thoroughly enjoyable. It may very well be part nostalgia, but thats fine too.
So yeah, I only buy old games, partly because they appeal better to me and partly because they are often cheap.
Hmmm, maybe it is unfail calling NWN old, its certainly thriving and new expansions still showing up.
European Air War is one of the few games I play on my home comp.
Easy and fun.
I don't play online but there is a large group of people who do with all sorts of mods etc that have grown over the years.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
When someone asks me what my all-time favorite games are i tend to include old fps games like Doom, Quake, Shadow Warrior, ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen... the lot.
While in my memory these were all superb games which i spent many hours playing i must admit only few were still appealing when i tried them again. You find out game play of fps games has improved in a subtle yet essential way.
Memorieeeees...
Sample this!
Followed your PimpWar link, and found myself very surprised -- again. First time was seeing the famous Snoop Doggy pretending to be a pimp on MTV, some weeks ago.
That may be because I live in europe or something, but I consider prostitution too tragic to make fun of it, and pimps even more.
Are pimps admirable in the US? How come?
. . . is a great example of a more modern game that's fun and going in new directions. For me, I've noticed that limitations are what make games fun. The more modern games progressively try to find ways to remove them, which is the wrong approach.
Take Chess. Chess is popular because, in my opinion, you have very rigid limitations. Pawns can only move two spaces on the first movement. Rooks only horizontally and vertically, etc. It's creative exploitation of combinations of limitations that make the game fun.
Or Tetris. The standard tetris is nearly ubiquitous. It's not that complex of a game. You have maybe 8 blocks total. You can rotate them and you can speed them up towards the bottom. A very, very rigid system. But in concert with other blocks, you have the most cloned game of all time.
Darwinia is much the same way. You don't command a huge army, like most RTSes. (Uhm . . . that's the closest genre I can place it in.) You command very small groups of squads towards complex goals. The gameplay is very much about smaller elements working to a larger whole.
TETRIS
Users of the world: We're here to help you, but help us help you. (your IT dept)
I replay older games. The reason is that there are simply not enough good new games to hold my attention (and I play for about an hour a day, which is not a lot). I rather go back to a classic which I know is good, than that I let myself be bored with the new stuff.
So there is good new stuff, but not enough to occupy all my gaming time. However, the same held when the old stuff was still new. No changes there.
Currently replaying Baldur's Gate, did the Monkey Island games before that. Now if I could only get the original System Shock to run on my new machine...
Of course, every now and again something special will come out brand new...
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
Master of Magic 2!
I was just thinking of reinstalling Roller Coaster Tycoon again, not the 3D part 3, not even the humongous-level part 2, but the original.
I tend to do this every one-and-a-half year or so, then play through all the levels in about 1-3 weeks and repeat in another one-and-a-half year.
RCT is still by far the best game I've ever played and perhaps the only full-price game I play at all anymore (mostly casual games for me), perhaps beaten only by the game that is a universal drug; Tetris.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This game released 1998 has everything. Though the graphics ain't good compared with todays games, the gameplay is the excellent. There are 3 different races in this RTS that are very different, yet so well balanced. And the story is really good too. I do still enjoy a good game of SC with my friends, and even the single player campaigns are still enjoyable. (I know Blizzard sued the Freecraft project but beside that they are the best developer around)
Back in the day, I used to be a huge gamer. All the money I could get my hands on would go towards my gaming life. I couldn't get enough of games like King's Quest, God of Thunder, EcoQuest, Doom and many, many more.
These days however I can't seem a game that'll hold my interest. Most games are extremely repetitive and quickly become quite boring.
So yea, I agree with this. Old games are much better. These days most games have great graphics but very poor gameplay.
*pokes*. I'm not trying to start a flamewar here. These are just my observations and how they relate to the parent's question.
Most console(Xbox/PS/etc) carry mostly instant-fun (almost arcade-like) games. Most of those games have a short *wow!* effect. You usually play those games for a couple or days or even hours before doing anything else. Of course there are some exceptions, but, it's what most people generally expect from a console; that you can sit down and just have fun for an hour or so, sometimes with your friends.
PC-games are more of the long-lasting kind of fun. The fun is spread out over a couple of weeks, sometimes even months. Cities need to grow, characters need to be leveled, progress needs to be made.
At least, that's how it used to be (think of all those old PC games you played for ages!).
Something has changed.. Gameplay has become less important, and Graphics and all those other 'goodies' such as real-time physics simulation have become more and more important, why? Who knows! It probably sells better in the first few months.
Also, more and more and more games are being developed in a "multi-platform" way; ie, they make the same game for PC/Xbox/PS2. So what? That's only good! More joy for everyone! Well, is it? Take a look at the game Deus Ex , that's one excellent game. Now, its successor, Deus Ex: Invisible War was a multi-platform game and it all went wrong. Why? Because while Deus-Ex was a typical long-term-fun PC-Game, the sequel was a typical instant-fun short-term game; that's what its design elements reflected. Now, this is an extreme case, but I believe that more and more games are becoming the 'instant-fun short-term' kind of games for various reasons; multi-platform, better sales, more focus on graphics.
It's a shame really, but there's still hope. I'm pretty sure that this is just the zeitgeist of gaming, and it probably acts a bit like a sinus-wave, y'know? In a couple of years there might be more long-term fun-games than the instant-fun ones, it'll reach the top and then it makes way for short-term instant-fun arcade-like games, once again.
One studio that holds my interests in particularly is Lionhead Studios . Black & White II seems like a typical PC-game, and hopefully its not as bug-riddled as its predecessor. Also, they also seem to try and change the definitions of gaming, or at least experiment in its boundaries, take a look at The Room (Scroll down to "Gameplay Moves Forward into the 21st Century" and click the Register button, register or fill in any dummy info and watch the video, skip through to the "The Room" part).
So there's hope, but right now, I'd say yes; old games are definatly more satisfying. But right now, you got to know where to look and what to look for. May I recommend Psychonauts? An excellent multi-platform adventure game for all ages?
No
The vast majority of old games are, to be honest, pretty dire compared to even an average shovelware release these days. Almost every time I find myself pining to play an old game, I'm disappointed when I actually load it up. I can think of any number of games that fall into this category; Civilisation, Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dune 2, Paradroid, Final Fantasy VI, Eye of the Beholder, Xenon 2... the list goes on and on.
So why do we still get nostalgic for older games? First of all, we only tend to remember the absolute best games from any given period. This is why it always annoys me when people cry "innovation is dead" and that "franchise games are all that is left". I remember when I was playing C64 games, 15 years ago. For every classic, there were a hundred tedious, badly designed platformers, shoot-em-ups with non-existent hit detection and unresponsive controls and insipid, "main character might just about look like a very blocky batman if you squint a bit and turn your head on its side" movie licenses.
Second, it's all too easy to forget just how far games design has come in terms of features, interfaces and ergonomics. We've come to take a lot for granted from games. For example, it's a brave rts these days which doesn't allow you to drag-click to select multiple units. When I got the urge to go back and play Dune 2 last year, I was astounded to discover I couldn't do this. I lasted about 30 minutes before I gave up, disappointed. Selecting and giving orders to units individually just isn't something I'm prepared to do any more. Some old games have fared better than others here. I actually found Ultima Underworld's interface reasonably usable, when I played it again a few years ago, but it's still primative after playing World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, Jade Empire or pretty much any other modern RPG, be it online of offline.
Third, standards and expectations have risen across the board. We live in an age when the genuinely bad game has all but ceased to exist. Actively bad games are a dying breed; hell, when one does crop up, it might even get its own slashdot games story (remember that truck-racing game last year). Take a recent "shovelware" game. . Ok, let's take the example of Area 51. This is a recent release, for PS2, X-Box and PC. It's an absolutely generic fps. It wasn't a big, AAA release, it wasn't particularly heavily hyped and nobody was expecting it to revolutionise anything. And it didn't. This falls into that category of games, which has always existed, which will be completely forgotten by everybody but the developers in two years time. Compared to the big stories in the fps genre of the last 12 months or so (Farcry, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Halo 2), this looks pretty poor. However, consider it on its own merits and it's a good game. Consider it, on an entirely unsentimental basis, against the rest of the fps genre over the last 10-15 years and it'll come out right near the top of the pile. It has fairly decent graphics, the controls and interface are well-thought-out and clean, there's probably a decent amount of game in there (I've not completed it, so I can't say this for certain). If the last fps you played was Doom, you'd almost certainly think this was awesome. I'm not trying to sell Area 51 here; believe me, there are much better ways to spend your money. Just pointing out that games, particularly console games, these days have a series of minimum standards that are high compared to previous generations and can be pretty much taken for granted by consumers. This has not always been the case.
So why do people still claim older games are better? In a very small number of cases, classic games *are* still worth playing. Mostly in the RPG and adventure game genres, there are a couple of titles whose gameplay or writing is good enough that this can still shine through *despite* their limitations. By and large, though, I think it comes down to elitism.
There's no denying that the nature of games and the way we play them
Go. And computers are a very long way off from beating humans in this one.
Direct away from face when opening.
I haven't bought a new game in ages. They're too fluffy.
The only game I'm playing right now is Morrowind.
I only got a bank account set up last week so I've been limited to browsing the used games section at EB Games and the like, but now, eBay, here I come.
"The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn."
Katamari Damacy kicks some ass. It's a seemingly innovative game with the option to play short rounds (a few minutes) up to much longer ones (30 minutes, although after meeting certain criteria some areas have a timeless option).
There are no complex controls to remember, and replay value has been there so far. It's not addictive, but remains genuinely fun. There's also the additional factor that females seem to be just as likely to love it, so if you're looking for a relatively cheap game with replay value that's not just another rehash of some 15-year-old game it's definitely worth a look.
The only problem is that it can be hard to find a copy, but since it's been out for a little while that's getting better. Some EB stores stock a copy, as does Best Buy.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
"Now, unless your standards truly contain something highly technology based, like "I just can't play a game without reflective glass or incredibly realistic water", which set is going to contain more good games?"
Well, that all is a very insightful post, and I'll largely aggree with your analysis, but what I quoted there hints at a different aspect of the problem too.
You've correctly pointed out that for one criterion ("I just can't play a game without reflective glass or incredibly realistic water"), you only find something satisfactory in the "from 2002 onwards" group.
However, there are other personal criteria where the same situation happens in reverse. There's stuff which is basically _only_ present in "The set of all games from before 2002". Or at the very least, a tiny minority in the other.
It's not just a case of selecting from two different sized sets. Even if you take equal intervals to pick from, some things will be severely missing from one or the other. E.g., let's take the intervals '90..'95 and 2000..2005, with a hiatus in the middle just to leave some space for the transition to have a noticeable effect.
E.g., what if my standards include "but I really want my RPGs to be tactical turn based, and thus be an _intellectual_ exercise, instead of an exercise in reflexes"? You know, closer to playing chess than to an exercise in circle strafing.
In the '90..'95 interval I can find _plenty_ of turn based RPGs, and in fact they're dominating the RPG scene. In the 2000..2005 interval they didn't disappear completely, but the dominant flavours have become the real-time click-fest and the "action-RPG".
Even admittedly good games like the two Vampire games, basically are more about testing the _player's_ reflexes than about carefully planning team tactics. Whether I hit anyone with a Mac-10 in Bloodlines depends more on my control of a mouse, than on planing my _character's_ stats and tactics.
E.g., the same can be said to an even more extreme extent about _strategy_ games. It used to be that they were like chess for nerds, and relied on carefully considering each unit's many stats and carefully planning the exact sequence of moves.
Now it's more like clicking 20 times on "Build Dwarf" and rushing. Units have been "streamlined" to barely having 2 stats, maximum 3, or even literally to a rock-paper-stone system (e.g., in Empire Earth.) And you don't have time to carefully plan and execute anything. You just drag a big rectangle around whatever you could build quickly, and send them that-a-way in a chaotic mass.
This isn't necessarily to say that RTS is "crap" for everyone or anything. But if what you're really looking for is a TBS, a RTS isn't even the same genre.
So, again, it's not just the size of the interval from which we cherry-pick. It's that whole genres or gameplay elements we've grown up with, are now all but extinct. Even taking equal intervals, you just don't have much of a choice to cherry-pick from.
Of course, that may well be the whole problem. We're talking stuff that we grew up with. Someone who's just growing up on RTS, click-fest real-time RPGs and circle-strafing in action-RPGs... well, they probably won't miss the old elements. In some cases they may not even know that anything else ever existed.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...is the only reason I still have the Classic environment on my Mac. In fact, I was just playing yesterday. That game has legs!
As for Civ3, I couldn't get into it. It buzzed and beeped and annoyed the hell out of me.
My only goal is to conquer the world and build railroads on every square. If I had time, I'd mine every square as well.
--Mike
You may as well ask: are the tunes of this year as good as the greatest hits of the last ten years? They aren't? Decline of civilisation! We're doooomed!
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
i understand what you mean when you say some new games rather hit the shelf after - or even before - completion instead of hanging around your hard drive.
:)
there are a few reasons behind that.
first reason - times change. back in the old days, the beatles were great. Don't take me wrong, they're great performers, but if they were released now, they'd be dilluted into all that's going on nowadays. there are just too many bands, too many genres, too many releases everyday just for you to be able to really focus on and enjoy a few specific bands. It's the same with games today! How many FPS are out there? How many RPGs? How many come out every week? How many are available for you to borrow from friends, rent, or simply download? One thing i've learned from dealing with kids. You give them 1 game a month and they'll enjoy them as you hand them away. But if you give them a pack of ten games, they'll stick to one or two and they won't even try out the others... Plus, they won't enjoy the games as much, because they'll be eager to play the others.
Plus... we are more trained in the subject of games. When Half Life came out, it wasn't an EASY game. You had to play it, to improve your hand-eye coordination. well, now you already have trained, so similar games seem rather easy compared to HL1 or the like. Hell, even HL2 turned out to be fairly simple to overcome and finish. People want MORE! They are more demanding, they want MORE!
There is, however, a thin line between realism/how difficult a game is and FUN. If the game's too real it might be too difficult or worse, NO FUN at all. Take an FPS for instance. You want it real, alright, but do you want it so real as if you fall from a ledge and brake your foot you'll have to be limping across the map? No instant-healing medical kits can save you! Would that be "fun"? Would it sell?
So, some people are turning to the old games, alright. Keeping it simple. Most of them are lead to those games by nostalgy. They HAD fun with that game, they might as well give it a try again. Hell, i'm doing it with Jedi Academy and i do it quite often enough with Jagged Alliance 2.
Where will this end? It's all in the software developers' hands. We can't take many games like HL2. Of course the die-hard fans love it, I DO... but it always seem like there's something missing in that game and otherrs of the like lately...
let's wait and play
This side up
nothing has ever surpassed elite in terms of hours spent playing. Populous and Powermonger on the amiga came very close. But I've found nothing in recent times that sucks me in anything like those games did. Maybe that's because im older or have less time on my hands , but i'd sure as hell like to see those games brought bang up to date!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Yes!
a rflight.html
;)
I still love and play Starflight from the 80s! It had alien diplomacy, exploration, space combat, resource management, several mysteries and a count down to doom....it was awesome. I still like the exploring in the game..
Here's a link to a fan site for Starflight I & II
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Maze/4979/st
There is even thoughts about Starflight III
http://www.starflight3.net/
The project looks a bit stalled...but that is what online communities do with projects right?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
If you keep that in mind this is easier to understand. And it goes through iterations; even out of the good rare games which you play for a few nights, or epics which you play for months (Doom, TIE Fighter, Hitman series) only a small minority are so good as to be of legendary (Nethack) quality which are good for literally decades.
"We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
Find a copy of blockfall.xpi if /. isn't enough of a time waster for you.
Install in firefox.
Anywhere you can run firefox you can play Tetris.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
FPS games make me nauseous. I stopped playing them when Quake 2 was the rage.
/.-er).
The only games I'm into when/if I have time besides wife, kids and work. (Yep... I'm a married family man
RTS - Starcraft, WC3, Homeworld
Turn based strategy - X-com TFTD, Scorched Earth and Scorched Earth 3d.
Plain jane multiplayer shoot 'em up. GTA 2.
Frankly, the biggest factor for me concerning how fun a game is are my friends. Am I playing with them? Are they sitting next to me, or are we playing online miles away? There is a reason LAN parties rock. Whatever networked game you play, as long as your friends play it, will be the best for a LAN party. Whether it is Halo 2, Starcraft, Counterstrike, or even a game that's kinda bad, it doesn't matter. What matters is having fun with your friends, making jokes, and generally just having fun. Granted, if you don't have a set of friends for this sort of thing you have to simply play something meant for only one player. And the fact is that there are more old games then there are new ones, and so there will always be more good old games then there are good new games, and if you look at old games, only the good ones remain to have a name. But still, I prefer LAN parties.
But it will be about a couple of current generation games.
Seriously, there are great games from this generation, last generation and all the way back to Pong.
I also think your want to go back and play them is determined by how easily you can get a hold of something to play them with. SNES, NES, and Genesis games are easy to go back and play because of the emulators that are out there.
When an emulator comes out way down the line for a Gamecube, how many of you will probably go back and play The Wind Waker or Metroid again, or Prince of Persia, Sands of Time? I think I will be one of those people.
But seriously, there's great games from all the generations.
Nice, free advertisement for a mud that openly broke the DikuMUD license.
The two games I return to again and again are Master of Orion II and American McGee's Alice. Even better, both run just fine under Wine on my Linux box.
I feel that gaming began to die at the turn of the century. Post 2000, Inovative games and 1st generation games (Non Sequels) have been on the decline. The only thing I see nowadays is some sequel to some great franchise that emerged from the good ole days. I'm not saying that there isn't new innnovative games coming. I just think that the market is clouded with money grabbers. Example: Romance of the three kingdoms. It started on the nes, then the snes, and so on. Do their really need to be 10 romance games? After moving the series to the ps2 they should have just stopped. Or dynasty warriors, now I own dynasty warriors 2, but what number are they up to now? 5? Its the same game. Also, I think they beat the hell outta Sam Fisher, Seriously, how many splinter cell games am I gonna play before They give me a new franchise?(Until they milk us dry) So before I get excited and start ranting some more. Lemme get to the point. The classics are the great games that we all grew up with. Consider them like the Classic Rock Station on your Radio. You can listen to the new music that sounds the same on the pop station when something you like When things get stale on this "new hits" station. You can always go turn the dial back to what was good and will always be good. And remember what Adam West said about the new batman movie: "Bigness does not equal Greatness"
"Biggness Does Not Equal Greatness" -- Adam West
A few months ago I ran across a dusty CD wallet with all of my old LucasArts adventure games. I introduced Monkey Island to my girlfriend's little brother and the kid loved them. It you want to go into "they don't make 'em like they used ta" - there are some games that make the case. On the other hand my E.T. for my Atari 7800 just hasn't geld up well. Hehehe... For those who are interested make sure to check out scummvm.org and the recently released Psychonauts.
"..." - Silent Bob
- Imperialism (1 and 2 both are really good)
- Monkey Island (the Curse of and Escape from, 3 and 4)
- Crusader: No Regret
- Theme Hospital
- MDK (get 1, not 2, 2 sucked)
These are truly some of the best, in my opinion.My last sig was ridiculed
Still playing MoM here. And Colonisation. And Masters Of Orion 2.
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
I agree with the OP, and in my opinion the market is partly to blame. As the gaming industry grows in size and competes with the movie industry, we see a focus on making more money per game which means making sound investments in sure fire games that will definitely do well. Thus, we get fewer innovative games. Things in the industry now seem to operate on the "we did this last time and it sold well, so let's do it again but with better graphics" (Halo -> Halo 2), or "someone else did this and it did really well, so let's copy it and focus on the racing missions" (GTA -> NFS:U)
In other words, it's more costly to make games and for this reason publishers aren't going to invest money into new genres and unfamiliar, original concepts because there's no market data to show how well they might do. Only a few developers/publishers have the guts to do this (Maxis are working on Spore which seems pretty original but is, as Will Wright puts it, basically all the fun bits from Populous and Civ and a bunch of other games, and Introversion recently released Cannon Fodder... Erm.. I mean, Darwinia. Both look sort of original. Lionhead's Black & White was quite original too.)
As with the music industry, the gaming equivalent of pop and r&b (FPS) tends to occupy the top of the charts, so that's what publishers make more of. The problem with the gaming industry is that small, independent developers making fun games rarely find a label/publisher to release those games on. In the music industry there are many indie labels for releasing music to the underground, and bands can use these to gain recognition and revenue and move up the ranks until they're spotted by a big label. There is no equivalent scene in the gaming industry and every attempt to run an indie publisher has pretty much failed.
I worry that the big bucks development costs of popular games scare off smaller developers who might be considering setting up a games company. There's no prospects. "You want to get into the games industry? HAR HAR HAR" is usually the response given to any aspirational young developer who wants to make their own game. They worry that they'll never find a publisher. In the past, there were shareware houses like Apogee that produced various games and funded development by small independent software houses. There's no equivalent of that now that I've heard of.
I suppose that ultimately we're headed for a revolution. To keep the industry afloat the public will demand choice and innovation, otherwise they'll simply get bored of video games. Steam, despite its reputation, was probably the first step towards a new way of publishing games that is very accessible to independent developers publishing smaller games, since it bypasses the publishers who generally aren't interested in these companies anyway. The download model also works well for shareware-style publication, i.e. you can publish the first episode of a game on your download service, and people can pay a fee to play the next episode(s). They could even buy each episode as it becomes available (obviously at relatively low cost).
Older games didn't suffer these problems because back in the 80's and early 90's all PC and home computer publishers (i.e. not Nintendo) were pretty much small, independent, and would publish nearly any half decent game they could get their hands on. So we saw more diversity and experimentation with the capabilities of new platforms. I sincerely hope that this will happen again with download platforms.
Without even commenting on the quality of the games, it's probably safe to assume that, over time, the more games we play, and the older we get, the more jaded we become. Thus it becomes harder for a game -- any game -- to hold our interest. It just seems natural to me that our enthusiam for gaming in general might simply diminish as we age. So, maybe this could affect our perceptions of new games' quality.
I really can't agree with the author about this one... Its one of the very few games I constantly come back to, and furthermore can enjoy as much as when it was new.
The number of differnet games and continuous stream of enthusiast-generated maps keep this game forever fresh (well, at least until UT2006 comes out! ).
Yes, Galaga still rocks. Yes, you can get to a million points without cheating (I've done it) and, yes, there is a stage beyond which the game will not continue -- which is how you "beat" the game. And no, I don't remember what that stage is. But I reached it, I really did -- at a laundromat.
RP
I still actively play a lot of the text based games myself. Be it MUD, MUSH, MUSE, or any other version of the MU* base, there is something for just about any subject you can think of. If it's a geeky genre, you can bet on finding at least 10 or more MU* catering to that.
These games have to attract people solely on gameplay, content, and quality of characters/players in their little world. You'll also find that most of these places ask for no money at all, and are often paid for entirely by the owner. A few have made the leap to pay for play, but those are rare compared to the free ones. Finding them is pretty easy, just look for any MU* listing out there.
http://maelstrom.areth.org/mud/ is a small list of active places that even includes 'talker' based chats rooms, while http://www.mudconnector.com/ is one of the larger ones and even lists pay for play. If you want to see an interesting MUD that is a mix of a few of the more geekier genres in one, I recommend http://www.areth.org/ as something you don't find everywhere else.
I've become addicted to BZFlag. I log on in the evenings and take part in a capture-the-flag tank battle involving 30 players. The interface to the game is simple, and the learning curve to obtain basic skills is not steep, yet the skills required for mastery requires lots of practice.
In order to win, it's important to play as a team. There's a sense of accomplishment when you work well together with your teammates.
I find older games, where the game is essentially a finite state machine you're interacting with, become too predictable in comparison.
I've been a long time game geek from the pen and pencil D&D days, what has been most challenging for me is to find games computer and non-computer that I can play with my 12 year old daughter. She is relatively innocent still, so stuff like Doom 3 and Half-Life were relegated to after she went to sleep. I played EQ for four years and finally burnt out on the same old pull-and-kill every night.
So what follows here are the games we've found that I can enjoy with her and are pretty much age appropriate and a lot of fun.
1. Neverwinter Nights - yeah, it's graphics are not state of the art, but what it lacks in graphics it makes up for in replayability, story, game play and ability to customize and create your own adventures. We just finished Hordes of the Underdark and it was a real challenge and a heck of a lot of fun. She loves it. And the ability to play any of the literally 100's of user created modules for free just makes it that much easier on my wallet. She begs me to play most nights and their is a content control to lower the violence level. We both love this one and it doesn't take a massive computer to run. Just be aware that each computer you play on (if doing multiplayer) will require a copy with a license key.
2. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 w/ In The Wake of the Gods free expansion (WOG)
HOMM3 was a great game even before the user created WOG expansion. After 3DO went under, some users out there took the best parts of Heroes 4 and some of their own ideas and created an expansion that gives you a ton of new options and content. If you liked it before, get the WOG download and check out the changes - new monsters, demolish buildings, build new towns, give magic items to your hero's champion, etc. Here's a link to the WOG site - http://www.strategyplanet.com/homm/wog/wog.shtml
3. Magic the Gathering Online (and off)
Again not a great graphics game, but the game play is always awesome and the online version enforces the rules. That eliminates a lot of the quibbling that goes on in real life Magic games. The only drawback here is cost - you have to pay for your online boosters. There is a good aftermarket, however, on Ebay and other sites where you can sell your entire collection or just buy that one card you need to get your deck tuned up. We like playing in real life too as I've been playing 10 years and have lots of cards laying around. Give it a try - free on the demo site. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magicon line
4. Neopets
She loves the Neopets site and I have to admit that some of the games are fun for a while. It keeps her interested and I would recommend it for any kid. My sister-in-law spends hours on the site. There is a reason that MTV bought it - you don't want to leave because there is so much to do there. Oh, and it's totally free. www.neopets.com
5. MAME
We've got an old 300MHz box setup with an X-Arcade dual joystick. Nothing like firing up a game of Galaga or Black Tiger. My daughter loves discovering those old games and trying to beat them. Dig out that old PC in your basement, what are you waiting for.
Non-Computer Game All Stars
1. Puerto Rico
This board game has great replayability as every game ends up different. It sounds cheesy trying to become the governor of a little island by growing and selling coffee, sugar, indigo and corn, but the game revolves around tough decision making and its weird turn based system is pretty cool once you get used to it. An all-time favorite at our house.
2. Talisman
If you can find it, pick this one up. Games Workshop made this and a number of expansions some years ago and it went out of print for a long time. The originals sell for huge amounts on Ebay, but I found a recent reprint at a local game store a few months ago for $75. Great g
Think about it like this...graphic games will always be limited by the very technology that everyone is so amazed by. The pictures are beautiful, the effects are stunning. Yet because of these very factors they eat up huge amounts of memory, require top of the line pcs to operate, and frequently require large cash outlays in software, updates, upgrades, and perks. In contrast, text base MUDS are almost unlimited in the number of zones they can put in, the number of people they can accomodate, and any amazing effect that can be imagined because ...well, text does not take up the space or cost what graphics do. The adventures in a text base game like Medievia are limitless, and because MUDs are constantly growing, changing, and adding new things they will never have the constraints placed on them that graphics do.
A text base mud is only limited by their implementors imaginations, not by the amount of space on their hds or the amount of memories in their computers.
Fire emblem for gameboy, Resident Evil 2 and Bionic commando are nearly as good today as they were back then. I played doom 3 for a half hour, got bored. Played Half life 2 and just got bored...but those old shootem ups like Ikaruga, Gunbird, Castle Shikigami 2(just came out for PS2 a few months ago) are also great games that will at least entertain you for a hour or two. But Fire Embelm for Gameboy has that old style gameplay that is really hard and rewarding mixed with some pretty slick design.
I miss L.O.R.D. and other funny board games. I even thought if it was possible to build some telnet/ssh BBS port/emulation. But they, we have to evolve to web-based games like realthugz and stuff.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Considering the code is a DIKU dirivative and they refuse to credit this claiming they didn't use DIKU which has been proven time and again. They do not follow the license. Also they do not mention that payments to the owners HELP you signifigantly in the game. They claim that "Donations" are not to help in game but everyone who coughs up money has a better position in the MUD. Boycott Methievia
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BF
Tetris Attack is an incredible game that came out for the snes. I have yet to play a puzzle game even half as good. I bought the DS for the sole reason that someday, there may be Tetris Attack DS with online multiplayer capabilities.
I seem to enjoy this more than NetHack or Moria. Not sure why, just one of those things I suppose. It beat out HL2 for attention many times - especially after I had beaten HL2. RLGs are great. Different game every time. http://www.adom.de/
Love sees no species.
When we were kids, Double Dragon was all had, and there was nothing better, so we were engrossed in playing that really lame game.
:-) with random fun plugged in.
That brings back little nostaligia, as I never really liked it. At the arcade it was always someone else who wanted a 2 player game.
Wonder boy in monster land, now I clocked that with 885,000 odd score, possibly the world record, and on 1 ten pence piece I might add. Yes, I could kill any boss within a few second (down down, jump slap attack - repeat).
Going back to that, I had nostalgia, but I also enjoyed playing it! I played it a good 20 minutes before I got killed, and then bored.
Adventure games - I would probably replay DOTT and S&M and also Loom and those others, heck, Another World and Flashback. But I probably wouldn't be arsed to finish them cos of time.
Kingpin - only 5 years old game, I see no foults in playing this again multiplayer (if there are active servers)
Back to old skool, spin dizzy, I can play then game a lot, and also action biker. Paperboy, despite consuming my life between 4 and 7, I don't think I could ever be as good as I used to be... it wouldn't hold my attention today.
Modern games are both dumbed down, and more interactive. maybe someone could remake paper boy as distroboy, and you ride a nice 3d bike up the same view, throwing distro cd's into windows (hahah WINDOWS!) houses.
The map of the city could be fed from xml pulled from google maps for the 3d buildings they use, or any shp file of your choice
I like the fact that games far more elegant than those of old are coming to small devices faster. It is easier and quicker to write a game, you can write arkenoid in 2 hours using flash and action script, because you are now only writing pure game code, nothing else (you are not writing file save code, or graphics code).
I do get bored of 3d gaming. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, I thought it would cure me, but I was bored after 1 hour... I couldn't do it any more.
I like that flash game where you balance on a rope though.
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Definately get this game, I played it on my dx2, back in the day when it was across, and the graphics were sparse, I look at online time records today, and I think, I am sure I beat that once.
That game is good because of control, I always put forward that games are good if you can have lots of control. Think about it. Simulcrum (I think) was a neat game on amiga, you could morph betwee different shapes, and fly etc... silly putty.. that was fun... *thinks* hunter (amiga, first 3d 3rd person game I played? lots of vehicles).
Robocop 3 was the best gaming/movie franchise, the graphics were unbelievable, and it had atmosphere.
If you want to try a game like elastomania, goto miniclip.com and look for Trials game, that version is in Java, great graphics. Uses a bitmap collision map, so you can actually make your own levels with the demo, but, you know, keep it quiet.
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I have yet to find a computer RPG as satisfying to play over and over again as Fallout 2. Another old computer RPG that withstands the test of time: Realmz.
I find myself playing irogue and adventure. Now it's on my Tungsten, but it's still the old game with that great old gameplay.
The argument is sound from a certain point. The top 30 games are all mostly sequels, sports, ports or franchise. It is the same in virtually all forms of entertainment. Books the top 30 are all Dan Brown, Stephen king, Clive Cussler etc. Movies, Batman, Star wars etc. Theatre is Cats, Lion King, Phantom of the opera etc. It is the easiest stuff to sell - the masses think they are being cultural (maybe they are !!!) There was just as much of this crap around on old consoles/computers (everyone remember publishers such as Ocean, Konami, Elite and such dire cash-ins as highlander, flash gordon and international soccer?) Some people say the old games are all in our memories and that once you play them the nostalgia ends. I think the point here is not the visual/audio representation but the underlying mechanics of gameplay. Many modern games have hundreds of meg of video/audio assets, modern AI, New controllers and yet still provide the same - sometime less actual interaction. I would argue that Paradroid on the c64 is more atmospheric and satisfying as a game than ratchet and clank. The other way - Resident Evil 4 is a significantly better game than Forbidden Forest. Faerie Tale on the Amiga contains aguably the same gameplay people playing Diablo get some 10 years later. Ghosts and Goblins was better than capcom's own remake in Maximo. Green Beret has more subtlety than ONI. Super Mario 64 is about the pinnacle of 3D adventure/action games - still. Most the Lara Croft games are better than the text games and old SCUMM games - but not really much better than Dynamite Dan (an old game - when they were still known as CORE).
The point - many new games hide the same gameplay elements in new graphics/sound. They might spread a simple premise over hours of gameplay (the new measurement) as opposed to size/speed/intensity of playfield (the old measurement). Some games are better for the treatment others are worse - like spreading one scoop of ice cream between 20 mates its fine if you don;t like ice cream, but if you do you'd better be good at killing people with an uzi.
A shrubbery