Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
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
- 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.
I hope most people designing games don't have that attitude. I'd much rather buy a game that I know I can enjoy multiple times than one I'll never want to replay. I can play Super Mario 3 over and over again, even though I know where all the stuff is. There are a lot of SNES games that I've played multiple times through - I just have to give myself a few months to forget some of the details.
If I'm only going to play a game once, I'd rather just rent it.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
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.
"Hunt the Wumpus" never gets old for me.
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.
Are generalizations always wrong?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
ouch. as one of the girls who regularily cruises slashdot, I'd venture to say that we mix just fine, thank you.=)
More on topic though...you are right in a way...there don't seem to be a whole lot of women on slashdot in general (no worries...I know you're out there, but statistically, we're in the minority). Ditto with gaming - it's a rarity to find a girl really into some of these new games. They are out there, but on the whole, I've noticed my friends are MUCH more likely to fiddle around with the older games like tetris or arqanoid, or some of the less action-based games. I'm not sure why - societal thing maybe? who knows. But I personally only know 1 woman who really gets into the first-person shooter or RPG type games, but I can name off like 30 guys off the top of my head who just eat it up. Personally, I lost interest with "shooter" games with DN2 (if that even qualifies), but some of my old DOS based sharewares are still going strong.
...no two people are not on fire.