Will Modern Games Stand the Test of Time?

The Multiplayer blog spoke with Tadashi Iguchi, one of the developers for the recent Pac-man and Galaga remakes, about the decision to bring new life to old classics and whether today's games will receive similar treatment twenty years down the road. "'I think more than half of the games you see today with huge budgets and such a "realistic" focus will be either stale or forgotten in 20 years,' he said. 'On the other hand, the masterpieces of the '80s will definitely be enjoyed far into the future. The reason for this is simple — many of these classic titles have unique and fascinating mechanics that can't be diminished by the advancement of technology.'"

Comments

What's the bench mark for "the test of time"?

[hey!]

If it's chess, I'd guess "no".

Re:What's the bench mark for "the test of time"?

[The Iso]

I would say that standard chess has actually become a much less interesting game in the past few decades. It may have been a rewarding field of study once, but these days, whoever has spent the most time studying what is already known about optimal strategies in the first 10-15 moves will have the upper hand. Competitive chess is a contest of memorisation, utterly dominated by machines.

Re:What's the bench mark for "the test of time"?

[Skrapion]

You can compare classic games to chess, because they're pure gameplay.

Many modern games are more about story-telling, so a comparison to Citizen Kane would make more sense.

What about today's classics

[Goalie_Ca]

There are classics out there today as well. Consider star craft. The gameplay mechanics are pretty good. In fact, what i'm hearing about star craft 2 is that its a remake of the old game with a little more colour.

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

Ya kidding right?

Starcraft suffers from the classic "tank rush" problem that the turn-based strategy predecessors said that all real-time strategy games would suffer from.

They were wrong, it is possible to balance an RTS to not suffer from tank rush, but Starcraft wasn't.

Re:What about today's classics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd really like to hear how you plan to tank rush a zerg doing a standard muta-ling build. There's a reason people mostly go medic/marine/vessel nowadays... Tanks are extremely important in TvP and TvT, but they still die horribly if not guarded adequately (Zealot bombs, dt, zealot rush, and storm for Protoss, which need turrets or goliaths, scan, and vultures with mines for Protoss, and other terrans will use mostly Goliath drops or wraiths. However, tanks are not the be-all and end-all that they are in so many other games, they're instead a valuable and useful weapon that must be carefully preserved and used effectively but has intense rewards if used well.

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

Oh dear. "tank rush" has nothing to do with tanks. It's a historical term for building faster than your opponent.

Kids these days.

Re:What about today's classics

[miscz]

It is most commonly used for describing producing tons of tanks in Command & Conquer series. I don't get how do you see tank rushing (as you have described it) a problem in Starcraft.

I will have to agree with GGGP post, this game is really balanced. Blizzard worked on Starcraft for years after it came out and it shows. I'm still playing it sometimes with my friends - it never gets old.

Re:What about today's classics

[delt0r]

Oh dear, I think the point rushed over the top of your head....

So you are for Multiple building select or do you think we should also get rid of multiple unit select?

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

Well it really doesn't matter what your opinion is. The fact is that a large part of playing Starcraft is rushing. That's the problem. It's universally acknowledged - he who builds fastest wins. As such, the whole "strategy" part of the game is lost.

Re:What about today's classics

[PylonHead]

One of the beauties of Star Craft is that the game can be over in 4 minutes. Your adrenaline starts pumping from the time the first probe hits the mineral line.

You've got to be prepared for the rush. If you leave yourself open to it then you have no one but yourself to blame.

If you're good enough, you can stop it and still have a better economy than your opponent who had to sacrifice his own economy to get early units.

I can understand if that style of game doesn't appeal to you, but I've always found it to be a very enjoyable part of the core mechanic of StarCraft. Rushing loses to standard openings, standard openings lose to economic powering, and economic powering loses to rushing. This rock, paper, scissors element shows up in the game over and over again.

Re:What about today's classics

[mrchaotica]

In fact, what i'm hearing about star craft 2 is that its a remake of the old game with a little more colour.

Nah, Starcraft had plenty of color. You're thinking of Diablo 3. Starcraft 2 is just going to have better resolution.

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

hehe, "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"

Re:What about today's classics

[LithiumX]

The ability to think quickly, manage a complex and changing battlefield environment, and not only defend the infrastructure to manufacture a large army but also maintain the flow of resources in order to feed that (hungry) tank machine - all add to the appeal of RTS games - and I'm a veteran of both turn-based and RTS wargames.

Turn-based strategy games are intellectually stimulating. It requires deep strategizing and planning, and can result in a good game that lasts days. They are also, regrettably, a bit boring. They lack the same shifting-puzzle nature that makes Chess a classic for the ages. There is a reason why the RTS market completely dominated the TBS market as soon as it became viable.

RTS games are a totally different animal. It's not as dry as a TBS game - the speed and constant activity give you a much more solid connection to the mind you are trying to defeat. Every moment of attention spent in one place is a gamble. There is no boredom - you never have to wait for a slow player. Additionally, it rewards quick thinking and resiliency in ways that TBS just can't compete with. I never broke a sweat during a TBS game, but there is no gaming experience like the nervous tension (often filled with chainsmoking) you experience when you have an entire army poised on the tip of an all-or-nothing assault.

Also, psychology is difficult to employ, and impossible to deploy well, in all but the very best TBS games. On the other hand, even the most poorly-designed RTS game allows for misdirection, confusion, and outright misleading your enemy.

The average RTS games, in my opinion, have generally been superior (in terms of entertainment) to all of the best TBS games I have played (and I have fond memories of Axis and Allies, Risk (if that counts), and of course a blast from the past - Ogre). Risk remains popular largely due to it's simplicity - more complex versions of it have been made for a very long time, but never stand the test of time.

I don't think many individual RTS games will last for long, largely because they are all based on a specific gimmick, story, or appearance. As a format, I think RTS will remain a major theme in games for the foreseeable future. TBS has already fallen by the wayside, no matter how much a few segments of the populations love them. The only way a specific RTS would last is if it were more generic - if it had fewer associations, and fell into the format of "army vs army" with less emphasis on story.

Also, I happen to be a tank rush aficionado. A great many have fallen, sobbing, before the unholy might of my inhuman efficiency.

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

Reading comprehension fail.

I wasn't advocating TBS over RTS. I was just saying that Starcraft was one of the RTS games that failed balance the game to prevent tank rushes. Dark Reign, Total Annihilation, and plenty other games didn't fall into the same trap. The tank rush is not some basic necessity of the RTS experience, it's a bug that must be avoided.

Re:What about today's classics

[HolyCause]

Your argument is a bit flawed in that StarCraft 2 is being made by the same makers as the first StarCraft, whereas a lot of the clones of the "classic games" are made by a wider scope of developers.

Yes StarCraft's mechanics are significantly more advanced than Pac-Man, but that doesn't really matter. Arguably, a lot of games nowadays are based heavily on StarCraft's format... but how many do you see that copy the formula exactly like many Pac-Man clones or remakes?

Re:What about today's classics

[3p1ph4ny]

Remind me which RTS or turn based game rewarded you for diddle-assing around more than your opponent?

You have to build faster than the other guy in every strategy game, the only difference here is the timeline. In Starcraft it is shorter than what you're used to.

Another example: Quake 3 vs. Halo. They're both FPSes, they have similar weapons, etc. However, Q3's gameplay is about a million times quicker than Halo. All of the 1337 Halo players would get destroyed on about any Q3 server. It's all relative.

Re:What about today's classics

[QuantumG]

Both DR and TA had turrets that you could use to build kill zones. No matter how many troops rush into the kill zone they won't make it out. Setting up kill zones to trap your opponent and driving them into them is strategy and it balances the tank rush "strategy". Fanbois of Starcraft are unaware of all this as all they've ever done is play the same game over and over in the same way: the tank rush.

Re:What about today's classics

[telbij]

Starcraft suffers from the classic "tank rush" problem that the turn-based strategy predecessors said that all real-time strategy games would suffer from.

That's what made Myth such an amazing game. Take the production element completely out, add a real 3d physics model, excellent play control, and a dozen different game types. Suddenly you have both deep strategy and hard-core tactical elements. It's funny, because when it was in development back in 1996, the graphics and what they were doing with 3d landscape and blood was really grabbing gamers attention. Now 12 years later, the graphics look quaint, but the depth of gameplay (particularly Myth II) and emergent strategies that have evolved in the community over the last decade show what a truly great game it is.

I think the reason it never got really popular was because it required too much precise motor control for the RTS crowd, but it required too much strategy for the FPS crowd.

Re:What about today's classics

[KDR_11k]

Building up "kill zones" is just excessive defensive play. You ceede territory to the enemy and invest your money into strength you can't move (also most games include fortification busters that can destroy all kinds of fortifications). In most if not all games that's a way to get a slow and painful guaranteed loss. Unless the map is very heavy on chokepoints the enemy will just move around your killzone (hell, it happened to the French twice, once in each World War) and wreck your base, having a resource disadvantage plus investing a lot of money into defenses leaves you with a weaker mobile army. Railroading an enemy into them isn't going to be easy and will only work once.

Besides, the matches of TA I see these days are usually all about raiding, trying to eliminate the enemy's territory expansion and possibly even vital structures of his base. You can't get defense up fast enough to protect against that completely.

Re:What about today's classics

[KDR_11k]

Flashspam says hi.

The tankrush is only a bug if it's the unconditionally best way to win, many RTSes allow it as one valid strategy but make it possible to counter as well so it's a massive gamble, try to defeat the enemy early but risk economic growth in the process or build up more econ and risk less.

Hell, even in Kernel Panic we've got that mechanism, you can go and spam cheap units quickly and hope theys win you the game or you can use a con unit and expand to increase your production capabilities. If the first rush fails you're usually left crippled so going tank rush all the time isn't a good idea, especially once your opponent expects it.

If the tankrush seems impossible to stop to you maybe you're just not playing well enough.

Re:What about today's classics

[meringuoid]

There is a reason why the RTS market completely dominated the TBS market as soon as it became viable.

That everybody turn-based player in the world bought Civ 2 and then never needed to buy another game?

Re:What about today's classics

[jonaskoelker]

what i'm hearing about star craft 2 is that its a remake of the old game with a little more colour.

Roughly speaking, yes, but not exactly. Some skills have moved around: I've heard that Mind Control will now be available to overlords instead of dark archons. Some skills have changed a little: zealots will have the ability to move faster in short bursts (somewhat like the Stimpack). Some new concepts have been added: you now have a mothership, which I expect to be somewhat like a hero in Warcraft III.

But at its core, it's still zerglings vs. marines vs. zealots.

-- Jonas K

Re:What about today's classics

[JoeDuncan]

If the tankrush seems impossible to stop to you maybe you're just not playing well enough.

That's not the problem. Tank rushes in Starcraft can be stopped, but only by a better, faster tank rush. All that really matters is speed.

Re:What about today's classics

[Anonymous Coward]

Some skills have changed a little: zealots will have the ability to move faster in short bursts (somewhat like the Stimpack). Some new concepts have been added: you now have a mothership, which I expect to be somewhat like a hero in Warcraft III.

Not quite. The zealots close the last distance to a target quicker--it's an upgrade.

And the mothership is just a protoss caster/heavy air unit. Like the Arbiter and Carrier rolled into one.

Re:What about today's classics

[uncledrax]

Um.. there are other RTS games out there that don't require building squat.. in those games sometimes you -can- win by 'diddle-assing' (depending on your definition of course)

Myth is an excellent example.. there of course were several levels in WarCraft (and I assume the sequels, but I never played them, but also StarCraft as well) where you didn't get to build anything either.

I have fond memories of playing Slug-Matches and VRPoolParty.... it's a shame Bungie put on blinders for the Halo franchise, they used to be my favorite company before it.

Re:What about today's classics

[slashgrim]

Plus "driving them into" a kill zone never works as it requires having an army large enough to "drive" the enemies army while having a defense strong enough to kill the enemies army...way too much resources

Re:What about today's classics

[Jaeph]

"Also, psychology is difficult to employ, and impossible to deploy well, in all but the very best TBS games."

Psychology works as long as there's fog of war and/or diplomacy. IMO, a necessary step in TBS games is to turn off the score (and all related charts, e.g. economy size, army size, whatever). Force people to get that information the old-fashioned way, by probing the enemy's territories. Add multi-player, and you got yourself all the psych you need.

-Jeff

P.S. I'll plug dominions III - best TBS game I've played, *IF* you like complexity.

Re:What about today's classics

[jythie]

Heh. Given the number of Civ players that have been dissapointed by Civ3 and Civ4, you might be on to something there.
 
I still know more people who play Civ2 then the newer ones.

Most of the old games were crap too

[Hatta]

Grab yourself a full set of MAME ROMs off a torrent, the signal to noise ratio is pretty low. Most of the classic arcade games have been forgotten, and rightfully so. Same thing here.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's that bad. The height of arcade games was between 1980 and 1982 (possibly as far as 1984; only 2 to 5 years). In that short time frame I can think of dozens of classic games.

Now if we look at the period between say, 1990 and now (a whopping 18 years) and you would be hard pressed to pick ten classic games out of that comparatively huge time frame.

Personally I'm sick of the "realistic" trend. It's getting so boring. But maybe that's just the kind of gamer I am, I would prefer a game of Quake3 over some realistic boring war simulation.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Perseid]

There are a LOT of games in MAME that are utterly terrible. I don't consider the "signal-to-noise" ratio any better on arcade games than any other platform.

My opinion has always been this: If you take a random game from any system in history chances are it sucks. Most games, let's face it, aren't very good. And the gems that there are, whether they be recent or past, will be remembered, probably through more of those rose-colored glasses people have been going on about.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Darkness404]

Now if we look at the period between say, 1990 and now (a whopping 18 years) and you would be hard pressed to pick ten classic games out of that comparatively huge time frame.

Oh lets see here...

Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy (VI and IV), Super Mario RPG, Shining Force, Super Mario Bros 3 (released in 1990 in the US), Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, etc.

Nope, none of them are classics. Nope no one ever spends $8 to replay them on the Wii.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[maglor_83]

Not to mention Civilization, Doom, Dune II, The Secret of Monkey Island, Prince of Persia (89 is close enough). There are tons of games from that era that I will go back and play on occasion.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Babbster]

And those are just a couple of consoles. How about Civilization, Doom, The Sims, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Grand Theft Auto III, Baldur's Gate, Diablo (1 and 2), Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandago, Tie Fighter...oops, went to 12.

Anyone who claims that game design somehow peaked in the 1980s is locked in a nostalgic haze.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Babbster]

PS- I should note that I'm 36 years old and I owned the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 in their heydays and, obviously, at ages where I was most impressionable. One would think that if anyone was going to be stupidly nostalgic, it would be me. :)

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[moosesocks]

There are also the games that got popular past their prime. These are pretty rare, but Freespace 2 and The Longest Journey both immediately come to mind as being among the best ever in their respective genres, despite lackluster sales upon their release.

It's a shame that The Underdogs has gone semi-defunct. They were pretty good at picking out the forgotten gems.

Also, the games that got incrementally better with each sequal (eg. SimCity, Unreal Torunament, C&C) will likely be remembered pretty easily. These sort of games also have terrific "replay value." It takes a good while for SimCity to get old.

Of course, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so what do I know......

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarcasm aside, you're right, those aren't classics.

Judging by your UID you grew up with those games so feel a certain nostalgia for them. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad games, but a classic has to stand the test of time. Arguably a couple of games on your list do, but most of them... don't. To put it another way, they aren't "good games" they are "good games for their time". Their biggest draw isn't their innovative gameplay, but their nostalgia.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[afidel]

Masters of Orion, Masters of Magic, X-COM UFO Defense, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 are also good examples that are still sitting on my HDD's =)

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[BlueStrat]

Let's not forget MechWarrior.

A bit off-topic, but the games I still play are the MechWarrior series and European Air War, a classic WW2 air-combat sim. Both games still have 3rd-party skins, aircraft models/mech models (forMW), mods, utilities, and patches being produced.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 29 years old... and I don't think I'd have trouble naming 10+ good games on ANY system. Atari, Sega, Dreamcast, NES, SNES, GC, Wii, Gameboy, GBC, GBA, DS, etc etc etc... Hell... I could probably find some good games on crap like Neo-geo

To say there were more good games in a 2-3 year period than there has been in the last 18 years? Someone needs a new pair of glasses...

Now... finding 'time tested and proven' games might be a little tougher, but even then... I'd bet good money that you could easily find 10+ games a year if you open your eyes.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[moosesocks]

Ah. True. I was never really into that series, but can definitely appreciate that it seemed to have had an absolutely rabid fanbase.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[triffid_98]

My 3dfx card has fallen and it can't get up. Mechwarrior was not only cool, it spawned the outstanding funk that was Interstate 76'.

One problem with newer titles is online play. It's only fun until the servers go poof.

Let's not forget MechWarrior.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy (VI and IV), Super Mario RPG, Shining Force, Super Mario Bros 3 (released in 1990 in the US), Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, etc.

Of those the only ones I have played are Street Fighter (meh) and Super Mario Kart (again, meh).

Classics they are not.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

crap like Neo-geo

= "Goodbye, credibility."

Re:Most of the old games were crap too

[Anonymous Coward]

...Super Mario Kart (again, meh)

Didn't have any friends as a child, eh?

It'll be the same as before..

[EvolutionsPeak]

Great games will be remembered and the rest will be forgotten. There was nothing special about the 80's in that regard. There were just as many crappy games (ratio wise at least), we have just forgotten those.

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[philspear]

It's also telling that it seems to be the guys who made the "classic games" in the 80s that are praising remakes of their games and saying things like

I think more than half of the games you see today with huge budgets and such a ârealisticâ(TM) focus will be either stale or forgotten in 20 years...On the other hand, the masterpieces of the 80â(TM)s will definitely be enjoyed far into the future. The reason for this is simple â" many of these classic titles have unique and fascinating mechanics that canâ(TM)t be diminished by the advancement of technology.

Yes, just like how those earliest black and white silent movies, with simple concepts like going to the moon on a zepplin, are still being remade wheras more modern movies like "Jurrasic Park," with huge budgets and "realism" are forgotten in a week.

In honesty, Galaga and Pacman I find quite boring. It's ludicrous to imply that high budgets and production values prevent good concepts from seeing the market, only an arrogant old man out of touch with current videogames would suggest that. There are plenty of good simple mechanics that also utilize more modern machinery and higher quality graphics, just as there are movies that are good movies and also have decent special effects. It's a mistake to see that many of the high-budget films made are crap, and look at a filtered library of "classics" distilled from the last 50 years of film and suggest that you can't make a good high budget movie.

The media has really evolved since the 80s as well. The story in pac man is what? Fruit good ghosts bad? If there is a story, it was told in the game packaging, not through the game itself. I would suggest that games are still evolving, the basic mechanisms of gameplay and storytelling are being fleshed out, and those 80s stars are actually dinosaurs who can't recognize that the type of videogames they made are largely obsolete.

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[Anonymous Coward]

If one game does survive due to innovation, it will be portal. It just has hard puzzles, simple pick-up-and-play and thinking outside the box(or should that be through the box?).

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[Digital Vomit]

Yes, just like how those earliest black and white silent movies, with simple concepts like a lovable tramp, are still being remade wheras more modern movies like "Waterworld," with huge budgets and "realism" are forgotten in a week.

Hmmm... I should get my cherry picker fixed. :-P

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[sa1lnr]

How many of those older great games were DRM crippled with only three to five installs?

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[Anonymous Coward]

In honesty, Galaga and Pacman I find quite boring.

I would consider them boring too if I actually dedicated much time and focus on them, expecting an immersive, grandiose experience. Bigger games are equally unsuitable for quick, simple diversion.

It's ludicrous to imply that high budgets and production values prevent good concepts from seeing the market, only an arrogant old man out of touch with current videogames would suggest that.

Read. Iguchi didn't say that big production hindered quality game development. He simply drew attention to the fact that it doesn't add much, and therefore doesn't diminish or outmode quality small-production games from the past. You can stack a $20 burger as high as you want, but when you want a slider, only a slider will do - and depending on the mood, the experience has the potential to be just as satisfying, if not more. It's when those $20 stackers taste like shit that they become easy targets for conversation, simply because they cost so much.

The media has really evolved since the 80s as well. The story in pac man is what? Fruit good ghosts bad? If there is a story, it was told in the game packaging, not through the game itself.

The implication here that games MUST have a fleshed out story serves to underline who is really out of touch.

Re:It'll be the same as before..

[philspear]

The implication there was actually only that gaming has evolved nearly in every way to a point where the standards are completely different.

Nope.

[urIkon]

Technology IS what makes modern games "good" (most of the time don't shoot me please see top 10 best selling games lists). There may be a few gems few and far between, but for the most part I would wager the only test of time a modern game will stand anymore will be a continuation of the franchise, the beating of long dead horses.

If good gfx is all you have to offer

[Daimanta]

Your game's reputation will suffer in the long run because gfx will improve with time. If you focus on the total picture of gfx/gameplay/tilt/sound/etc. and do it properly your game will have a much better chance of keeping it's rep high.

But that's an easy made analysis.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[JPLemme]

I think that even if you have a great game, the mere fact that it has "representational" graphics is going to hurt it in the long run. Pac Man has essentially no graphics--it was abstract in 1980, it's still abstract in 2008, and it'll be abstract in 2080. But in 20 years GTA 3 will look like a poor representation of reality, rather tahn not looking like any reality.

It's almost like the Uncanny Valley--graphics that don't try to look real can't take you out of the game, whereas graphics that are more realistic *will* take you out of the game once those graphics are out-of-date.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[Daimanta]

True, but games that people have thoroughly enjoyed by most people will still be fun if you play it again. Example: Zelda Ocarina of Time. Sure, the gfx are old but I still enjoy playing it because it's such a kick-ass game.

I fear for Crysis though, gfx quality will catch up on them and then *poof*. You have a standard shooter with lame gfx.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[quantumplacet]

never have mod points when you need them. I was scanning through this thread to figure out where to post exactly what you just said. I will add though, that early video games had simple gameplay mechanics that couldn't really be improved upon without making it a completely different game. Games today will see and endless amount of minor enhancements, improvements and spinoffs over the next many years. When most people look back at games from today, they will be weak early versions of current games. Games from the 80's will never have modern equivalents. That being said, it's not really a knock on today's games, they're still good, just someone else will make the same game but better sometime in the near future.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[Dutch Gun]

Yes, but we're fast approaching photo-realism with our current technology. The difference between the generations of consoles will be less dramatic with each iteration (or, the lifetimes will simply extend further). Honestly, I don't think some of the better-looking Xbox 360 or PS3 games will look horribly dated in 20 years (not compared to the difference between modern games and '80s arcade games). After all, both high-def TVs (which will hopefully not become obsolete for a while) and our eyes have a maximum resolution.

At the point where game developer can display just about any scene they wish to, the differences in game will come down to technique, innovation in gameplay, sheer scope of the virtual world, advances in AI, and the like.

At least, that's what I'm hoping...

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[trip1ex]

Yeah and because the graphics were abstract they really had to concentrate on unique and fundamental gameplay mechanics. Today's games get by much more on realistic graphics.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[im_thatoneguy]

I agree about graphics but not gameplay. It's just that people have stopped trying to advance the simple concepts.

On the graphics front you have a game like Team Fortress 2. Which with very little work will look great in 100 years.

On the gameplay front you have games like Braid which is essentially Mario + a horde of other 80s games + New time manipulation widget.

Even Duke Nukem for Xbox now is going to get "rewind" instead of save. Also the flash version of Portal is freakin' brilliant. As good if not better puzzling.

What makes a 3D game great is the immersion. Someone could make a top down TF2 clone very quickly. What I think should happen is a move to prototyping your game concepts in 2D and then the 3D transition should be relatively simple. If you have a 10 million dollar budget put 100,000 into prototyping a complete 2D working version to play until you've gotten the game you really want then spend the effort better directed at creating an immersive experience to make it *sizzle* and *pop*.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree for the most part, but wanted to put in my two cents. The reason I still enjoy playing OoT is because I played it as a kid and enjoying it immensely then. Friends have forced me to play nostalgic games from their younger years, many of which released to high critical acclaim (Starfox is one), but I just couldn't get into them. Likewise, I'm happy to play games that weren't well-received simply because I grew up playing them with my friends.

Long story short, our present likes and dislikes are forged by our past experiences, and reliving those happy memories we create as children brings us pleasure. It makes us happy again. Not because of the gfx, not because of the storyline, not even because it's a "kick-ass game" - though that may have some effect ;)

As far as I can tell, the only games that have stood the test of time thus far are those originals that are still universally recognized - pong, pacman, tetris. It's impossible to know what games will have joined this category in 100 years, but judging by how big a part of adolescent life games are these days, I'm sure some will survive.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[KDR_11k]

I didn't like OOT when I got it with my copy of Wind Waker, I hate limited camera systems. I had no problem going back to the old 2d Zeldas though, even Zelda 1.

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[KDR_11k]

Naah, they just had lower standards for what counts as cutting edge graphics. Back then they would boast about free scrolling into all directions (as opposed to scrolling in only one), large sprites, many sprites, 3d rendered sprites, photographed sprites, mode 7, (flat colored) polygons, "blast processing", ...

Re:If good gfx is all you have to offer

[MuChild]

I gotta agree with you on this. There are some games, though, that I bet will be fun enough despite the distracting soon-to-look-cheesy "realistic" graphics. Games like Portal, for instance, whose enjoyment are entirely predicated on the mechanics and story will do fine.

Even games like Crysis, will soon look dated. The story line and its delivery is OK, but ultimately it's just a FPS.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[Haoie]

Rose tinted glasses, my good fellow.

Nostalgia has this way of making anything in the past seem wonderful.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for some Pacman on the Atari.

Classic Sierra Titles

[Enderandrew]

Many classic Sierra titles have been remade by fans, even after they received official updates into the VGA world.

Ultima VII is still played via Exult, and is being remade by fans at the same time.

Some games are considered classic, and are revisited. Most won't.

I wouldn't be shocked to see Half Life 1 get ported to Valve's next engine.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[grahamd0]

I wouldn't be shocked to see Half Life 1 get ported to Valve's next engine.

But would that indicate that Half-Life is a classic and timeless game, or that it's got a pretty good story that, when some modern graphics are applied becomes playable again?

If one of greatest games of our time needs to constantly be upgraded to latest graphics to keep people's interest it would indicate that, no, in fact today's games don't stand the test of time.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Enderandrew]

The two statements aren't exclusive.

It many get updated, but the updated graphics aren't necessarily needed to keep the gameplay enjoyable.

However it is an axiom none the less that it is MUCH easier to sell someone initially on a title based upon graphics. Many people have zero interest in playing something with antiquated graphics unless they've already played it before, and know it to be fun.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Anonymous Coward]

Does West Side Story indicate that Shakespeare's stuff hasn't stood the test of time?

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Martin Blank]

You reminded me to go check on HL: Black Mesa. Still not done. :\

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Enderandrew]

Didn't that project basically change directions a few years in, from recreating the HL1 campaign, to only recreating multiplayer maps?

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[grahamd0]

No, it's neutral. Many less-than-stellar works are re-interpreted with varying degrees of success all the time, they don't necessarily reflect on the quality of the original.

An indicator that Shakespeare's work stands the test of time is that people still perform Romeo and Juliet.

And, as an aside, did anyone ever see that terrible show Kindred: The Embraced?

There was a preview for an episode with the most unintentionally hilarious script I've ever seen, it said "They're like Romeo and Juliet - Except their families are AT WAR!".

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Macgrrl]

My favourite line from that show for unintended humour was the new Brujah Primogen declaring as he took power that he would be around for a long time.... the last episode before it was cancelled. Oops.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Martin Blank]

Not according to the site. They are using some models and textures from HL2, but the intention still seems to be to recreate the entire original game. I'm expecting to see it around 2017.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[goose-incarnated]

Well, I'm currently in the middle of replaying Duke Nukem 3D, and I am enjoying it immensely, even though I have FEAR + expansion pack sitting on my desk. Now why do you suppose that is? I can't see myself revisiting HL, or Doom3 (although i want to replay Doom1+2). I play starcraft all the time, and DiabloII as well. All "bad" graphics (by crysis standards, which I also have on my desk), but I'm having more fun than with the "good" graphics.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[KDR_11k]

Updating the engine allows better maintenance. You can patch more issues (especially hardware ones), update it to work on newer OSes (or port it to ones that weren't supported), add features that weren't invented until later (e.g. Doom sourceports with full 3D aiming instead of vertical autoaim) and possibly even create a good base platform for mods.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[The-Bus]

I'm excited, actually. With some of the hardware coming out in the next one or two years, I feel like I may finally be able to build a machine that runs Ultima IX at more than 20 fps.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[The Gaytriot]

I thought it was? I bought it on Steam, it's called Half-life: Source or something like that. I played through the first few levels but haven't touched it since.

Re:Classic Sierra Titles

[Enderandrew]

I was saying they'd update it to their next engine as well.

"Classic" games were the first...

[TheSambassador]

Remember that gaming in general is only about 30 or 40 years old. We'll see if ANY games can withstand the "test of time"

Classics like Mario and Pong will always be around because they were some of the first things to come out of a completely new media. Nowadays every other game is an unmemorable FPS. Games will become classics when they are experienced positively by a huge number of people.

Elder Scrolls

[Deorus]

A series that I'll never forget.

Not unlike old movies

[spineboy]

Not a lot of money went into special effect, so the concentration was on the story(gameplay), and it yielded excellent results. Of course there are some duds from long ago.

We will continue to see great games, and those will continue to have as an absolute requirement excellent gameplay, fun, replayability, and involvement.

Special effects, realism, etc are nice to have, but can not be the focus. Again chess is the example.

Nostalgia rules all

[Kelz]

I call BS on the "unique and fascinating mechanics". The real reason games from the 80's will be "enjoyed" far into the future is that the generation that grew up with or played it will get nostalgic and run back to it every once in a while.

Games that I think might be hailed as "classics" in 20 years:
Portal
Most Mario games (they're still reselling all the old ones on handhelds, I doubt this'll stop in 20 years).
Counterstrike - Immensely popular in the day, it'll certainly be a fun fallback in the future.

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[johannesg]

I call BS on the "unique and fascinating mechanics". The real reason games from the 80's will be "enjoyed" far into the future is that the generation that grew up with or played it will get nostalgic and run back to it every once in a while.

I'm just slightly too young to have fond memories of Pacman in the arcade (or maybe I just got into computers late, I don't know), and I never liked it. It is incredibly boring, the gameplay is the same for each level!

Games from that era tend to be simplistic, ugly, incredibly frustrating, and mostly rather crap. And while I do play the occasional game from the system that I did grow up with (MSX, for those who care), I wouldn't expect anyone else to look at it today and see anything of worth.

On the other hand, I expect there will be remakes of Deus Ex, Sands of Time, and System Shock 2 at some point, and people will still enjoy playing them.

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[meringuoid]

I expect there will be remakes of Deus Ex, Sands of Time, and System Shock 2 at some point, and people will still enjoy playing them.

Deus Ex doesn't need a remake, you're living in it. Look at the copyright date on the game, look at the skyline in the New York levels, look at what's not there, and get paranoid :-)

System Shock 2... well, there's Bioshock. But that was too easy and nowhere near as frightening. There was nothing in that game to compare to the madly shrieking psi monkeys. Or the spiders. Oh God, the spiders...

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[KDR_11k]

I think a factor is that many people have to have played them so a good guess would be a selection of the best selling games available. Even if they're just copies of less popular games they'd get recognized for bringing the concept to the masses.

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[Orkie]

I am far too young to have any fond memories of any arcade games released before about 2000 (besides Final Fight, which they had in the café at a sports centre we used to go to) being born right on the 80s/90s boundary. Yet I have 2 cabs at home and find Pac Man, Donkey Kong etc. fun (not so much Space Invaders though)... Now, just as it was 'back in the day', some people will like these games, and some will not!

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[gaijin99]

One thing to remember about games from the 1980's is that the game mechanics were designed around one central principle: the player must lose, requiring them to insert another quarter, frequently; ideally gameplay would last no more than three to five minutes between the need to put in a new quarter.

Talk of "game mechanics" in those games that omits that, genuinely central game mechanic, is missing the point. The game didn't have to be able to hold your attention for more than a few minutes, and it really didn't *want* to hold your attention much longer. You die, the next person in line [1] plays, dies, and the cycle continues. After a few other people play you get your turn again.

Advances in gameplay weren't really possible until we moved away from the arcade paradigm and into the home console paradigm. On a home system the object is to produce a game that will hold the player's attention for hours, a game where winning is a genuine possibility, and storylines with some depth are possible.

Pac-Man is a game designed to make you lose in three to five minutes, and have a moderately enjoyable time during those three to five minutes. Its model is broken, in that sufficiently dedicated people can memorize patterns and play effectively indefinitely, but that's a bug not a feature. It's *purpose* was to make you lose quickly and pop in another quarter.

[1] Remember putting a quarter on the case to indicate that you had dibs?

Re:Nostalgia rules all

[Shaterri]

As beloved as Portal is, and as amazing as it is, it feels more 'of the moment' than 'enduring classic' to me. Meme-ish, if you will; and it's no surprise that most of what's still alive (innocent look) from Portal at this point is the memes. Contrast that with a game like SMB1, where certainly everyone remembers that the Princess is still in another castle, but most people can easily see the rough layout of level 1-1 (and probably even level 1-2) in their heads even 20 years later, and can tell you the broad themes of the sublevels.

To my mind, Counterstrike has an even more serious issue -- it's an inherently multiplayer experience, arguably even an inherently large-group experience. While there may be multiplayer games that survive the test of time (party games: Charades, Truth or Dare, and the like), the sheer volume of setup required to get a CS game going compared to any of those will probably keep it from being eternally replayed.

Portal will, but a lot of others won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Portal is the sort of game that becomes as a classic. It's different, it's memorable, and it is almost certain it will influence other games.

All? no. Some? yes.

[Scorpinox]

There are incredibly good 3d games around that stand the test of time. Personally I've recently been going back and playing some games considered "ugly" by today's graphics standards, and they're still amazing.

Examples like Psychonauts, Shadow of the Collossus, Mario 64, Half-Life, Fahrenheit. These are more "modern" games that don't look very pretty anymore, and yet I've been having a great time playing them and I don't see how even more time past will change that. I suspect some games like Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Portal, etc. will also stand up later on, not for their graphics, but for the unique elements they bring.

Four Words

[Tau Neutrino]

Duke.

Nukem.

For.

Ever.

Re:Four Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Forever is one word.

Re:Four Words

[Dutch Gun]

Yep. It's just as awesome today as it was ten years ago.

If that isn't withstanding the test of time, I don't know what is.

Re:Four Words

[Atriqus]

It must have an unforgiving DRM. It's been ten years and still no torrent!

DEAD HORSE BEATS YOU

[tepples]

but for the most part I would wager the only test of time a modern game will stand anymore will be a continuation of the franchise, the beating of long dead horses.

Unless the franchise is Tetris, invented in Soviet Russia, where dead horse beats YOU! But seriously, The Tetris Company has been running its own franchise into the ground, adding new official rules such as infinite spin, counter-intuitive rewards for counter-intuitive moves, and a randomizer that makes it easy for even a dead horse to play forever.

Faulty comparison

[PotatoFarmer]

"'I think more than half of the games you see today with huge budgets and such a "realistic" focus will be either stale or forgotten in 20 years,' he said. 'On the other hand, the masterpieces of the 80's will definitely be enjoyed far into the future.'"

Well, they weren't all masterpieces back then, now were they? I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly remember some stinkers from that era. Pitting the average game of today against stuff that has obviously stood the test of time seems a bit disingenuous.

Re:Faulty comparison

[TheRealMindChild]

Games in the 80's were unique. No one wanted to play a cheap rip-off. Especially if we are talking arcade games. If you walk into an arcade today (providing you can find one), they are fighting games, driving games, or light-gun games. All so similar. All so mediocre.

Re:Faulty comparison

[UncleTogie]

Games in the 80's were unique. No one wanted to play a cheap rip-off.

I'll have to disagree here... There were a LOT of ripoffs, and they got played... for what choice did you have? What your local arcade had was what they had.

Re:Faulty comparison

[KDR_11k]

Er, hello? Videogame crash? Caused by countless crappy clones? Even before the crash there were tons of clones (even Pong had them), it's just natural for people to think "hey, we can make something better than that" and try to sell that. The clones are forgotten but they did exist. Of course these days the arcade is in a terrible state since noone really cares about it anymore, noone really puts much effort into big new arcade games. The arcade is dead, look at home consoles for the current games.

Re:Faulty comparison

[kabocox]

Well, they weren't all masterpieces back then, now were they? I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly remember some stinkers from that era. Pitting the average game of today against stuff that has obviously stood the test of time seems a bit disingenuous.

Um, compare it to any other art form. You know the artwork isn't worth anything until the artist has been dead for 50 years or so. Only what some rich folk like get preserved that long. Every run of the mill game of today still has to compete against classics like tetris, solitaire, free cell, and mine sweeper every day. You could just say that it's applying evolution to video games/artwork and those that stay in the public memory are generally "greats" while everything else could be good to crap. ;)

Name one piece of artwork other than the Mona Lisa or Scream that the average person could name of the top of their head. All modern artists are still competing against those as well. Why didn't anyone make a painting of Marilyn Monroe or let's even use Britney Spears and it compete successfully against the Mona Lisa?

Re:Faulty comparison

[dzfoo]

Not only caused by crappy clones, but by an insanely huge amount of ill-conceived, therefore crappy, games. I love a lot of those old Classics from the 80s, which I played endlessly in my youth; but what most people tend to forget about the 80s is that, just like now, for every one classic Pac-Man or Galaga or Donkey Kong, there were hundreds--if not thousands--of lame and decidedly forgettable bad games (I'm sorry I can give any names because, well, I guess they were really that forgettable).

I'm sure that 20 years from now will show that, likewise, a few of the modern games will indeed pass the test of time.

      -dZ.

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

People tend to look at the past through rose coloured glasses. They remember the good things, not the bad ones. In the case of games it is no surprise. You find a game you love, you play that thing to death. Thus it stands strongly in your memory. You find one that sucks, it quickly gets set aside and thus more easily forgotten.

There was a lot of pure crap released in the past. You just don't remember it because you didn't spend much time on it.

Re:Yep

[Daimanta]

If you do not believe the parent, just check this site out.

http://www.cinemassacre.com/new/?page_id=13

It's a satirical show about shitty games from the past atari/NES/SNES/PS1/etc.
Looking at several episodes of it I can conclude one thing, there were some very good games but some games simply SUCKED MONKEY BALLS.

Fortunately, we humans can easily repress those feelings. Just don't make me play Deadly Towers again.

Re:Yep

[Zeussy]

People seem to forget or not realise that there were hundreds and hundreds of games for the NES/SNES/Master System/Mega Drive, almost every film, TV series, comic book seemed to have some cheap tacky game tie in, even more so than today. Just look at this list List of NES Games , but then back in those days the Nintendo Seal of Quality actually meant something, there were very few truly bad games, but really only a small fraction of those games are really remembered as great games as the parents have said.

A good measure for this is take a look at Nintendo's virtual console on the Wii, all of the really popular old titles got released first and the list has slowly extended and almost everything on the list could be seen as a classic.

There are plenty of titles from the later 90's and the 00's that will be fondly remembered into the future, I'm a main fps gamer so things like Doom, Quakes, Half-lifes, Team Fortresses, Counter Strike, UT, Deus Ex 1. A lot of them won't get played as much as the older 80's and early 90's stuff, as they are not pick up'n'play like Pac-Man or Mario, and as Windows marches on and the 'legacy' support fails it becomes more of a pain to install them, but that doesn't mean they will be forgotten. A good game you have invested/lost a lot of time to, had some laughs and other memorable moments. Games are like films you will always remember the good ones, the bad ones forgotten into the $1 discount bin. If games were just discarded aside as the new games come out, then why is backwards compatibility for consoles held in such high regard? Even the XBox 360 now has the XBox classics you can download and play.

Re:Yep

[geminidomino]

Come on. Deadly Towers was hard (probably the 2nd hardest-without-being-stupidly-frustrating game on the NES) but it was a good game.

Battletoads, OTOH...

Re:Yep

[Aereus]

Don't remind me. If you didn't want to break something after the speeder bike stage of Battletoads, there is something wrong with you.

Re:Yep

[Adam Jorgensen]

Yep... The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki!!!!!!!!

Re:Yep

[IorDMUX]

Agreed.

I love my NES. I bought it when I was in elementary school with money I saved in a shoebox under my bed. In college, I manually disassembled, refurbished/cleaned/cut the stupid 10NES chip, and reassembled it and each of my 50-odd games to keep everything in top, working order. I still play many games on it; classics such as Super Mario Brothers 1-3, Final Fantasy, StarTropics II, Crystalis (my absolute favorite), etc.

But for each amazing-classic-game that I own, there are two or three games of pure crap also in my collection. Game publishing companies who had not the least idea what they were doing have put out such horrid titles as "Back to the Future", "Dino Riki", and the like... In fact, I can barely remember most of them, even though I shuffle through their cartridges every time I go to play one of the classics.

So I'm sure that, 10 years down the road, time will have similarly shuffled through what we have today for a few 'new' classics that will survive the test of time. ... ... after all, my old college friends and I still meet online to play StarCraft, Age of Kings, and Diablo II. I'm sure there's still a chance for a few of today's games.

nah, it never lasts

[jollyreaper]

Kind of hard to compare. The equivalent of games 20 years ago are the cheapie games you download over the console's net store. Zumies is the kind of thing that will be around for ages.

Something like a Half-Life will maybe end up feeling old, ucky, and unfun to play but it will eventually be superseded by another well-done shooter. Same play mechanics, better graphics, different storyline, you know the drill. The next best racing game? Well, the big one from 1995 will feel skunky by this point in time but the latest one on current gen consoles feels great. The good points will be taken from it and other contemporary games and be reworked into various new racing games and fifteen years down the line we'll look back at 2008 and say "wow, just look at how far we've come."

I agree with what the poster said above, grab the old ROM's and see how poorly the games stack up to your own memories. I love shooters but Doom feels awful and clunky now. I say this as a person who played the shit out of that game and was disdainful towards every shooter that came after it until Half-Life.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[WDot]

I don't think graphics are a problem. Yes, I know the graphics in Quake I, Diablo I, Red Alert I, and Half-Life I are "bad." But I love them nonetheless. Also, I have played NONE of those games before I was 17. I'm 19 now, so I haven't had too much time to get nostalgic over them.

The problem with really old games is CLUNKINESS. You know, how in the original Metroid Samus's beam gun only shoots two inches before the shot disappears? Or how Link's shield in the original Zelda only works against projectiles, and it's fickle at that? How about leaving games on all night because otherwise you need to start from the beginning?

I think everyone has a certain level of "clunk" that they are willing to tolerate. The things I listed above may be fine for others. Someone may get frustrated at my childhood favorites like Kirby Superstar, Sonic 2, or Civ II, for whatever reason.

I don't think there are really that many graphics whores out there. I do, however, think that there are people who are used to modern saving systems, matchmaking systems, control systems, etc. that make modern games feel more refined than their "classic" counterparts. Who knows, maybe in the future people won't understand why our online shooters had hitboxes, or why our online fighters lagged so much. Maybe it will seem weird that MMO's of today took cuts in detail to render large open spaces. Hell, maybe they will think it odd that we stored our games on discs instead of hard drives. As new generations come and go, the average level of tolerable clunkiness will move forward. Maybe someday Call of Duty 4 or World of Warcraft will be as old as some people would be willing to go.

And then old people will reminisce about the days when 360 and PS3 graphics were "next-gen."

Re:nah, it never lasts

[Anonymous Coward]

> The equivalent of games 20 years ago are the cheapie games you download over the console's net store

I don't know... Let's see. Dungeon master: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(computer_game). 21 years old now. Still more fun than 95% of the RPGs made today. Beats the ever loving crap out of Oblivion, for instance, even though Oblivion looks 10000x better.

It's all about the gameplay.

Of course, I also believe that since the bad games from yesterday are forgotten, there *was* a lot of crap around then. But the gems from 20 years ago have stood the test of time and are still as fun as anything made today, except perhaps to the people who've grown up thinking a game can't be any good unless it has cutting edge graphics.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[Darkness404]

How about leaving games on all night because otherwise you need to start from the beginning?

Just about every emulator can do that via savestates. Heck, the Wii has a suspend play feature that allows you to do just that. Most older games will be played on emulators in the future because of the radical changes in OS/hardware design 10-20 years into the future.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with really old games is CLUNKINESS. You know, how in the original Metroid Samus's beam gun only shoots two inches before the shot disappears? Or how Link's shield in the original Zelda only works against projectiles, and it's fickle at that? How about leaving games on all night because otherwise you need to start from the beginning?

Woah, and you give me the impression you've only played these games for 10 minutes before giving up. I see you never got the Long Beam in Metroid (the first power-up after missiles you collect), and the shield is meant to work like that in the classic Zelda games.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[meringuoid]

Or how Link's shield in the original Zelda only works against projectiles, and it's fickle at that?

The shield you have at the start of the game is rubbish; it'll usually stop rocks and arrows but not blades or fireballs or magic. Buy the upgraded one - prices vary from 80 to 160 rupees depending on which store you visit. Beware of Like Like.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[KDR_11k]

A bigger complaint about Samus's gun is how it shoots over most enemies since most are just 1 tile high or how you need to shoot tons of bullets into even simple enemies to kill them. Overall I hate that game, no map + repetitive map design + awful combat + horrible restart system (30 health?) = pure annoyance. I think Adventure of Link could have been fixed up by making a game over move you back to the beginning of the current dungeon or to the last town but Metroid has too many things wrong with it to be worth playing anymore, everyone should just grab Zero Mission instead (and maybe pretend it ends after the Mother Brain is destroyed) or better yet Super Metroid. I don't mind difficulty but I mind death penalties that pretty much require mindless grinding to make up for.

That the Zelda shield blocks projectiles is fine, of course, it would be kinda OP if it made you completely invulnerable from the front since it's always out. I think it was the same in LTTP, only LA changed it.

Re:nah, it never lasts

[ciderVisor]

Of course, I also believe that since the bad games from yesterday are forgotten, there *was* a lot of crap around then.

About 90% of games from yesterday were crap. Of course, as Theodore Sturgeon reminds us: "Ninety percent of [i]everything[/i] is crap".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have fun playing Pong on the Atari. It's DANG fun - whammies and such.

Many will be unplayable

[CSMatt]

It doesn't really matter that much whether or not modern games are good enough to withstand the test of time. Many are so reliant on developer servers being up that eventually they will become unplayable after the game isn't popular/profitable enough to justify further server uptime.

Re:Many will be unplayable

[TheRealMindChild]

Wait. Are you actually saying that games don't exist outside of a mmorpg?

Re:Many will be unplayable

[CSMatt]

No, I'm saying that stuff that has DRM on it that depends on a central server will cease to be (legally) playable after the server is shut down. But yes, MMOs of all kinds will suffer the most from this.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[mattack2]

Whoosh... You're agreeing with the parent article you're supposedly disagreeing with.

There are modern day classics...

[blahplusplus]

God of War is one of them of this I am certain. It got everything right -- graphics, atmosphere, audio, animation, gameplay mechanics.

It was like a symphony of gaming, everything about the game cohered together well.

Some unsung classics (i.e. underground/cult following)

Xenosaga episodes 1-3 had a great and interesting story and some very good graphics and concepts but the interest was lacking from the masses and the execution of the gameplay was standard JRPG stuff (not very well designed). The gameplay was a bit stale, but the art, story, etc, was very fascinating in and of itself. It's too bad too because it would make for a great remake IMHO, it could have been a total classic, it's more of tarnished "could have been one of the greats".

Re:There are modern day classics...

[trip1ex]

GoW is not a classic. It won't survive.

Re:There are modern day classics...

[blahplusplus]

What is your idea of a classic this gen?

Re:There are modern day classics...

[KDR_11k]

God of War? It seemed like a bog standard beat'em up/"platformer" with a "lol im badass" main character when I played it just like the dozens of such games that came before it. Is there some hidden super mode I missed or what?

Re:There are modern day classics...

[malkavian]

Not so sure it would. It's one of those that I bought and played, and about halfway through just ended up thinking "Meh, this is standard fodder". There was nothing groundbreaking, or innovative about it.
Standard platform style, with story borrowed from a mashup of mythology.

The audio, good, if the music is your cup of tea. Video? Good, as was just about every other game around then. Gameplay? Interesting, but sometimes frustrating. Nothing different there.
It's a fair enough implementation of a formula, but not anything that I'd call a classic.

Maybe you will be one of those that fondly loads up an emulator in 10-20 years and plays sections the game with that feeling of nostalgia (I get that feeling with Pong, the first arcade game I ever played).. But I think you'll be one of a select few.

Re:There are modern day classics...

[dzfoo]

>> But I think you'll be one of a select few.

You can count me in that select few, also. Yay!

I loved God Of War and thought pretty much the same as the grandparent poster.

Kids nowdays. Sheesh.

And get off my lawn!

        -dZ.

Re:There are modern day classics...

[malkavian]

Had to laugh at (seemingly) being called a kid when I'm pushing 40.. Made my day I'll tell ya!
I'll try and avoid your lawn, but not quite sure where it is (seeing as the world's a reasonably sizable place, I'll hazard a bet that I'll be reasonably successful), I can't guarantee it..

Re:There are modern day classics...

[blahplusplus]

Neener neener god of war still rules!! :P

People are saying a lot of good stuff here

[CrazyJim1]

I don't feel the need to echo others. I'll just give points people haven't brought up. Warning:I'm going to get a bit abstract.

If you're 30+, you lived through it all. 2d games are great because there are only so many situations you can put someone through in 2d without tacking on a big storyline. 3d games opened up a whole new realm of possibilities, but opened up even more challenges. How do you control the camera? How do you move around? If you mess up some basic things making a 3d game, you can't build a fun game on top of it. It is more challenging, but it can be more rewarding too.

I mean games are getting better especially with hardware progressing so far, but there is a lot of garbage being made. I think there is 2 main reasons for garbage games. 1) Indie developers don't have the funds to make the basics 2) Corporations do not have the inspiration to try new things and get off tried and true formulas.

The control system on NES is cerebral in that it doesn't have a lot of bu which forced game designers to be tighter in their game play. The reason I dislike playing many 3d games so much is that game designers feel that because the joystick has 8 buttons and 6 axis of control that they have to use them all... This leads to sloppy games where one button is overpowered for example.

There is a lot of good games in the past. If you go back too much earlier than the NES or c64, the hardware restrictions are such that in all likely hood a better game has been made in its genre. Too bad video games don't have a 20 year copyright on them such that any video game from 20 years ago or before is public domain. If this was the case, computers could be sold with a library of video games installed on them, and then reviews could be made that explained what video games were the best. Also, if a video game from 20+ years ago is too good, modern publishers wouldn't be trying to remake it unless they knew they could do better.

Re:People are saying a lot of good stuff here

[KDR_11k]

I disagree on the variety of situations 2d can produce, people just aren't trying. Many 3d games aren't really using the third dimension well anyway, they could just as well be done in 2d. The inherent complexity of 3d also doesn't help, in a 2d game you can shoot things by being horizontally or vertically aligned with them, no biggie. In 3d games you have to align your aiming line with the target or just rely on the autotargetting the game provides. Dodging things in 3d is just a pure pain, as is accurate platforming since you can only see 2 dimensions on the TV but the game uses 3. Moving stuff in the air (be it your character or whatever else) means you almost always have to guess where it is, leading to positioning errors that you didn't even knew were there.

I think many games would be better served by simply dropping this 3d-at-all-costs pursuit since it tends to complicate things without much real gain.

Amen to that.

[Anonymous Coward]

I own Psychonauts and ICO and Shadow of the Colossus and Okami, and they are four games I will still be happy to play 20 years from now.

As for Farenheit, well, I just played it for the first time last week (the North American version actually!) and its a great game which I will probably want to play about once a year for the next 10 years!

Just like I still play Super Mario Kart regularly, and play Super Metroid about once a year, and play through about one or two of the early Zelda games per year, and so on.

Replayability

[Amphetam1ne]

There really havn't been a lot of games of late that have had me diving back in for a 2nd go after finishing them.

The only ones that have stood out in that respect in the past few years have been:

Half-life 2 and the Episodes because HL2 always feels like a grand masterpiece to me, and the episodes are bite size enough to be tackled in an evening.
Portal because it's short and makes me laugh every time.
Call of Duty 4 because its one of the most intense gaming experiences ever created, also it's quite short.
Devil May Cry 4 because it just feels fun to play.
Quake 3 Because it's perfectly balanced online play is timeless.

I was going to list Final Fantasy 7, but after having played through it twice I really couldn't face the prospect of another 60-80 hours.

From that list COD4 and DMC4 are the only games that I've started again on a harder difficulty imediately after finishing them.

Re:Replayability

[travbrad]

I think it's funny how 4 of the 5 games you listed are sequels, just goes to show how few truly original games there are. For me HL2 isn't quite as good as the original, despite the improved graphics/physics/etc. It's an awesome game (one of the best in recent years) but it's really just a tweaked version of the original. I think when I look back I will remember Half-Life more than Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid more than Metal Gear Solid 2/3/4, etc, etc. I question whether those 80s games have really "stood the test of time" though. It's only been like 20-30 years, and hardly anyone still plays those games. Yes everyone remembers them fondly, but there's still a lot more people playing World of Warcraft than Pacman. I should note that I play through Mario 3 a few times a year, but I still spend more time playing newer games, and Mario 3 is basically the only "old" game I still play.

Re:Replayability

[Amphetam1ne]

Also funny how you mention Metal Gear Solid rather than the original Metal Gear on the NES.

Re:Replayability

[travbrad]

I think the differences between Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid are fairly massive, in both terms of quality/immersion (Metal Gear didn't even have correct english translations..) and also popularity/impact. Yes Metal Gear was "first", but Metal Gear Solid is so different that it's really an entirely different game. Only the characters/storyline have any similarities. It's sort of like comparing the old Atari Star Wars games to Star Wars Galaxies...they may have some small similarities but the games are really not similar at all. Most series (Devil May Cry, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Unreal Tournament, the list goes on) are very similar no matter which "edition" of the game you choose.

Also I bet hardly anyone playing Metal Gear Solid had even heard of the original, let alone played it (which just supports my statement that 80s games AREN'T standing the "test of time").

Re:Replayability

[Amphetam1ne]

I thought that MGS played too much on it's 8-bit heratige. Things like firing the radio controlled rockets down the twisty coridors just felt too contrived for the game that it was trying to be. Essentially it's just a top down shooter with puzzle elements, like the original. It may have added the stealth element, which at the time was a relatively new concept, but it's mechanic was still very similar. As for this comparison being like comparing 80's arcade starwars to SWG, I think that MG and MGS share enough similarities in gameplay mechanic for the comparison to be viable.

The comparison of 80's SW to SWG on the other hand would be ridiculus, since you'd be skipping huge numbers of games that came between them, like the X-wing series which if compared to the 80's arcade SW would share some considerable core gameplay mechanics and likewise shares elements with the JTL portion of SWG. For the most part though MMO's only share a core gameplay mechanic with other MMO's.

Looking at the recent release of Bionic Commando Re-armed, I'd say that there is still a market for 8-bit gameplay (with seriously updated graphics in this case). However, the question of whether it's just nostalgia, or if it's truely good gameplay that's driving them back is somthing we'll have to wait and see because I don't think anyone can really tell at the moment.

For the record, I thought Operation Logic Bomb was superior to Metal Gear anyway.

Warcraft II

[Paeva]

To me, in middle school when it came out, Warcraft II was absolutely amazing and revolutionary. From the beautiful opening cutscene, to the pre-rendered musical score, to the beautifully-done graphics and interesting gameplay that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Then, a few weeks ago, I started it back up, and was shocked by how klunky the interface was. It was hard to select things, hard to manage the economy, hard to figure out what buildings I had to build to get certain improvements. Peons would stop working when their resource depleted (and they wouldn't even tell me!). You couldn't save and recall groups of units. Worst of all, the beautifully-balanced gameplay seemed to have been almost a figment of my imagination.

The truth is: Warcraft II (Command & Conquer which came out around the same time, also upped the bar) broke a lot of new ground in RTS design. And while newer games can often go astray, nobody will say that they haven't also improved on the genre. Warcraft II was great because it *first* exposed us to many of those great designs, but games that came out afterward often improved on that.

The same could be said of the Civilization series... CivII will always have a fond place in my heart, but whenever I go back to playing that, I really miss the innovations that have been made in the series since then. (I never played CivI, sorry!)

Re:Warcraft II

[nomadic]

To me, in middle school when it came out, Warcraft II was absolutely amazing and revolutionary

Thank you for making me feel ancient.

Re:Warcraft II

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree with the topic. There are several games which hold special places in my heart. From Jezz Ball on Atari to FF7. They were games that I spent days playing, but when I go back to them now, they can hardly hold my interest. It is really nostalgia. There are games like World of Warcraft that will probably be remembered forever, but one day there will be a game to come out to really best it. There are masterpieces from every generation, they are few and far between.

I may be a bad judge of games though considering that I played Red Neck Rampage with a friend over a direct modem connection for hours a day.

To the poster above, the Civ games are good but nothing will compare to Alpha Centauri the game played like reading a novel.

Re:Warcraft II

[Anonymous Coward]

You couldn't save and recall groups of units.

You certainly could. It was even listed in the manual.

Sure it's not as advanced as today's RTS (or even Starcraft).

Total Annihilation's unit orders system was a great idea for its time. The ability to set a path for your repair bots to patrol around your base with "standing repair" orders was interesting. If the repair bots patrolled past a damaged building or unit, they would repair it, then move on. It became easy to repair units, all you had to do was send them back to the repair bots and they would auto-repair.

Re:Warcraft II

[Macgrrl]

Civilisation (I) + ResEdit = Win once upon a time on a Mac LCII. :) Good Times.

Civ II came with it's own cheat menu for when you felt like messing around.

Skipped Civ III

Trying to decide if I can afford the time sink to go buy Civ IV.

Re:Warcraft II

[MK_CSGuy]

Civ IV is really good.
I played all the Civs including Alpha Centauri and Civ IV was the only one that came close to making me rethink my conviction that 'Alpha Centauri is the best civ-like ever.(period)'.

Re:Warcraft II

[KDR_11k]

I'm stull surprised how few games actually let you properly queue actions, often even simple waypoint movement is pretty damn clunky already, never mind actually queueing different kinds of orders (and if it's just "move here and shoot that, then that")

Re:Warcraft II

[archen]

Peons would stop working when their resource depleted (and they wouldn't even tell me!).

Sounds strangely... realistic. At least where I work.

Re:Warcraft II

[dzfoo]

Try playing Warcraft III. I do every so often and can say that it truly is a great game. Talk about a classic. Most of the issues you mentioned (damn, I remember those!) have been fixed in Warcraft III, and it brings along better graphics, music, and mechanics. There's even better AI and path-finding algorithms for your peons, so they (almost) never get stuck when encountering a tree or rock on their path, when you send them somewhere.

The only things I miss from Warcraft II are the boats. You don't get to build shipyards and boats to transport your human troops. Oh well.

      -dZ.

Try playing some "classics" now

[martinde]

Try playing the following classics from the Atari 2600:
- Pitfall
- River Raid
- Adventure
- Yars Revenge

As a 10 year old, all of those games rocked. Play them now - no, they didn't hold up. I give them credit for their place in history, but would I play them for hours on end now? Nope.

Re:Try playing some "classics" now

[acvh]

when I played Pitfall for hours on end I was using my imagination to fill in the blanks. It was more engaging in that regard because my own fantasies were part of the game. Turok, to pick a game with an arguably similar concept, doesn't have blanks for me to fill in, I have to play in the developer's fantasy. and yes, my ringtone is the swinging on a vine sound from Pitfall.

Re:Try playing some "classics" now

[dzfoo]

I don't know about that. There's this game, whose name I've forgotten, where you man a submarine and have to go around the water avoiding getting shot down by other subs and picking up stray scuba-divers, before surfacing to replenish your air supply. I love that game and still play it often (on a PS2 emulator).

I play that game purely for its gameplay, not for any nostalgic value. I never owned an Atari VCS/2600 when I was young (though I had an Intellivision), and don't even remember this particular game from back then. I'll admit that there are many games that do not stand the test of time, but some of them do purely on their merits of fun.

Now, on the Intellivision, some of my favorite games that I played endlessly when I was a child do seem rather lame nowadays (I'm looking at you Star Strike). However, there are some that I still enjoy playing very much nowadays; and some of these (like the Atari example above) I never owned nor played when I was young, so they have practically no nostalgic value to me.

        -dZ.

Re:Try playing some "classics" now

[SwordsmanLuke]

There's this game, whose name I've forgotten, where you man a submarine

It's called SeaQuest. It was published by Activision and it holds up quite well. 8^) Classic.

true for almost any game

[acvh]

Professional golfers repeat the same swing time after time. Baseball players try to perfect their swings. A bowler strives for perfect repetition.

Back to the subject at hand... old video games were more like chess than newer games. They could be mastered with study and repetition. Today's games more and more rely on simulating the real world, meaning that each new game renders the last one obsolete as the simulations improve. I believe that the move from 2d to 3d represented a fundamental shift in gaming, away from the abstract toward the concrete.

The old games, lacking the realism, had to rely on the challenge. Today we're more concerned with reflections, textures and socializing. PacMan would have been very different if other humans controlled the ghosts.

Re:true for almost any game

[rtb61]

Older games continue to thrive because it always was and always will be about the game play. The older games defined and created each of the different styles of game play and became memorable for them. As they are updated with the latest graphics etc. but retained the original game play the are revisited by players who remember the original games and are often still playing them.

Level and campaign design are critical to a good game and crapping out on those can kill a game of regardless of it's history ala doom or game play.

The reality for modern game designs to be able to stand the test of time, is far more about whether that particular game studio or game publisher is be able to stand the test of time or whether they fail after a string of poor decisions and take their game library into obscurity with them.

Re:true for almost any game

[KDR_11k]

PacMan would have been very different if other humans controlled the ghosts.

Yes but PacMan Vs. is still considered a pretty good game.

Re:true for almost any game

[Sique]

But it's not all older games that thrive. It's a very, very small selection of older games, only about 5 oder 10 from all the games titles released from the beginning of computer games until 1990. But released were surely more than 10,000 games, which makes it less than a promille.

And so I guess, also a promille of the games titles of today will pass the test of time.

Re:true for almost any game

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Not every golfer has the same swing. Baseball players are KNOWN for the idiosyncrasies in their individual batting stances and pitching mechanics.

GP's claim is that chess is played the same by EVERY player (or, that there is an optimal move followed by every player that has said move memorized) - not that each individual player approaches each game trying to mimic his previous attempts.

No

[Datamonstar]

because they take too long, they aren't memorable enough, are full of soul-sucking DRM, the hardware isn't stable enough and online features won't be online long enough to truly re-create the experience. Unless you're talking about fan mods and third party servers, which don't really count.

graphics ? gameplay?

[Anonymous Coward]

one of teh longest running, most sucessful games of all time is the championshipmanager/football manager series. (SI games) mammonth following. It;s a soccer (footabll) management simulation. Currently the game simulation engines shows dots (thats right dots) moving around the 2d field. Other games in the genre have full 3d sophisticated game engines (ala fifa soccer) but ChampionshipManager/FootballManager OWNS this genre.

Many people prefer some of the older versions of the game (2000/2001 version very popular still)

The Games Industry is Hollywood. Very slick technical skills, but story?gameplay? The first person shooter is just like action films. There is always a lot of crud games being made.

Graphical engines can be cool, but a cool interface dont make a game.

Warcraft, Starcraft, CS .. you miss the point.

[sammyF70]

People are listing their favourite games, be it WarcraftII, Starcraft, Counterstrike, whatever ... but I think you miss the point.

The 80s games that are considered classics are generally not the "best" version, but the "first successfull" one.

Take Pacman : A classic 80s game if there ever was one. When you think of pacman, you think of a yellow mouthy thing, a blueish maze on a black background and the ghosts. What people forget, is that there were hundreds of pacman clones and sequels, some of which were actually better than the original. Nevertheless, the classic game is still Pacman, and not Ladybug, or Mousetrap, or whatever, because it was THE game that made maze-munching monster games popular.

In the same vein, the classic FPS is still Doom.
Who, of you who are too young to have played it when it came out, ever played Quake 1?
Now, how many played Doom? (yes, I'm actually aware that Wolfenstein came first)

I'm pretty sure most will have played Doom, but only a few ever played Quake1

So, will Warcraft or Starcraft ever make it as classics? Perhaps, but probably only one of them. The rest will fall under the "oh .. And there was that one too" category

Incidentally, many of the 90s games that became classics came from the Looking Glass Studio (System Shock2 and the Thief Serie anyone?), Bullfrog (Populous series, Syndicate, Magic Carpet), and other now-dead companies ...
There's probably a morale to that ... something about gold sinking and some other material floating up :/

Re:Warcraft, Starcraft, CS .. you miss the point.

[KDR_11k]

something about gold sinking and some other material floating up :/

Is it ducks?

Civ

[Repton]

Civilization will be 20 years old in a few years (released 1991). I wouldn't be surprised if I'm playing Civ5 by that stage -- either that, or I'll occasionally pull out Civ4 to relive the experience.

Re:Civ

[WDot]

I recently decided to reinstall Civ IV just to play a quick game. I came home from classes early in the afternoon, and the next thing I knew it was dark out. Every Civilization game since the first one I played (II) has been able to do this to me. It's crazy. No matter how much Sid Meier tinkers with the Civ formula, the result is always the same: once I click the icon, I kiss the rest of my day goodbye.

Re:Civ

[Sique]

To me it's Alpha Centauri. Same Game Designer, same effect :)

Re:Civ

[Sobrique]

Civ3 for me doesn't have that - there comes a point where it 'just annoys me'.

Actually, Civ4 I had a problem with too, but only because I was terrible at it, and kept getting barbarianed.

Now Civ4 is a guaranteed timesink. Civ2 looks a bit ... old, and Civ1 is still one of the most awesome games I ever played.

Re:Civ

[uncledrax]

There is a Civ '5'.. i think it's for consoles only.. unfortunately it looks like Sid did to it what he did to alot of the newer titles.. 'streamlined and simplified it for Consoles'. :[

Now I do have and like Civ4.. some of the mods for it are pretty damn nifty.. unfortunately since I never got the BTS expansion it means I can't play -some- of them.. but the ones I can play still entertain me and help to mix up the whole Ironmaking->GunPowder->Rule The World formula.

Bait and switch!

[NathanRF]

This article consists of two elements:

1) Interesting title
2) 14-paragraph advertisement for freaking Galaga.

Nathan

Though there are a few shining counter examples

[Anonymous Coward]

Like E.T.

popular and enduring games will pass for sure...

[houbou]

The 80s started the game industry (arcades) and with projects like MAME and other console emulators out there, those games will definitively survive for years to come.

But like anything else for example: movies, music, etc... video games which peaked for years in popularity, will go through phases of "revamping" and I think that as long as the "new improved" version builds upon and somehow is as cool if not more than the original, this will keep the franchise alive.

Unlike movies or music, a newer version of a game can actually be a welcomed addition, more so than revamping a classic movie or song.

In the end, it's all about sales.

Games like Wolfenstein and Doom for example can fall into that category of truly hardcore dedicated fans.

People just love continuity. There is an emotional investment in playing games, the same way one would readia book or watch a tv show serial, when it's really good, you just can't wait for that next installement... you are hooked!

The future is never new and it's never old either

[liquiddark]

The basic notion that a "classic" can exist in today's society neglects to acknowledge that reuse of content has been a basic formula in "classic" art for centuries. Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays took well-known stories and reinvented them for the "modern" (Victorian) audience. Everyone who wrote a book in the past millennium took a lot from Beowulf. Everyone who wrote an epic in the past 3 millennia or so took a lot from the storytellers collectively known as "Homer". Read Homer's originals versus Ovid's distillations versus any number of playwrights' comic and tragic riffs.

Of course, in the current copywrong environment, it's going to be impossible to preserve truly great artistic achievements in a living framework of re-imagination. That's what the whole fight is about, n'est-ce pas?

They don't have to. They never have to again.

[DeanCubed]

The best stuff will continue to get sequels every 3-5 years, and the sequels will almost always be better than the originals now unless they're like Mario and Final Fantasy - changing almost everything completely with each release. If a bad change was made, people will stick to the originals anyway. But even Mario and Final Fantasy games each stand up individually no matter how different will be able to stand the test of time (One can argue that FF8-12 and Mario Sunshine won't hold up). When something looks like it might fade away into obscurity (Mario64, FF1-6) they're just going to update it and re-release it on handhelds. PC games will never have to stand the test of time because everyone still plays all the older games anyway cause nothing has come out to dethrone StarCraft/HalfLife/Diablo2/DeusEx/UnrealTournament/Counterstrike/TheSims in the last 5 or more years. Spore, Diablo3 and Starcraft2 might. But no FPSs will dethrone the classics because new FPSs all require large hardware upgrades and the classics can run on anyone's PC without upgrading. Plus everyone's friends are still playing the same things. Also, nothing's going to stop WoW in terms of MMOs, which are basically immune to obscurity anyway unless the given company dies. And Spore, Diablo3, and Starcraft2 are all basically sequels to classics which, if successful, mean that those franchises enter Mario and Final Fantasy territory, and if unsuccessful, will peter out after 4 years and everyone will still be playing Diablo2/Starcraft/TheSims.

Rose colored

[nEoN nOoDlE]

As others have pointed out, people are looking at the 80s games with rose colored glasses. A lot of those games really sucked. Another thing to note is that those games are very easy to recreate, so of course they're still recreated. Stuff like Pac-Man and Frogger are games that you could make in a weekend by reading a tutorial in a C++ book - and those original games had 1 programmer working on them start to finish. Try recreating GTA4 in 20 years time. It's still going to take a lot of time and money just like it did the first time. The game mechanics are complex, there's fairly strong AI. Comparing the gameplay mechanics between that and Pac-Man is apples and oranges. There are a bunch of gameplay mechanics in current games all working together. Each of those gameplay mechanics will survive long into the future, being copies from generation to generation in the games that people are gonna make. You could say that we're still playing Wolfenstein 3D 16 years after it originally came out in the form of any current FPS game. The innovations that each game incorporates should be the things that are judged whether they will stand the test of time. Not the games themselves, which are getting too complicated.

If you want an analogy, look at the movie industry. We're not seeing remakes of Casablanca every couple of years, but we are seeing elements from Casablanca that have been integrated into the language of cinema - even long after the average moviegoer wouldn't know a Casablanca reference if they saw one.

So what? You completely miss the point...

[dino2gnt]

a "good gameplay experience" is completely relative. Regardless of how perfect Pac Man may have been, some people disliked it. Some people hate Galaga, some Mario, some Final Fantasy (I through XXMVC). You'll never make the Perfect Game. People will remember what they relate to the most - some puzzle that elated them after solving it, some graphic that left them in awe when they saw it, some cutscene that fucked the story they were expecting so badly they were left cradleing their head in their hands in utter despair.

Make engaging, thought provoking, interesting games and regardless of how shitty they might be, someone will love them and use them as a stick to define their gaming experience.

Fire Emblem

[Toonol]

As an example, I just finished playing it on the Wii; in my opinion, it's the best game for that console.

And yet, in gameplay, it is nearly identical to the SNES version... which is still very playable, today. My kids are playing them in emulators. The Wii version could have it's 3d graphcis swapped out with 2d sprites, and it would be every bit as enjoyable.

I will bet that most games that are trying to push the graphical edge will rarely be replayed twenty years from now, because their primary draw will be meaningless; but a game that would be a great game regardless of what it looked like may end up being a classic.

True for video games too

[Moraelin]

Well, it's true for almost any competitive video game too.

E.g., take a l33t zerg rusher from Starcraft and put him in a situation where he can't mechanically repeat the same rush, and watch him proclaim that the map is crap.

E.g., I once had the mis-fortune of working with a complete CS-head, and made the mistake of listening to him at first, which made it nigh impossible to shake him off when he got boring. Well, actually, I am a gamer, and at first it was just another talk about just another game, so it was interesting.

Then it got massively boring as I quickly realized that he was playing the exact same map, and did the exact same thing, every bloody day. Several hours per evening. He'd buy the same bloody weapon and a grenade, run behind the same warehouse, climb the same ladder, drop through the same vent in the roof, crawled through the same duct, dropped in the same room, and shot the guy camping in the corner, if one was there.

I guess that's the thing that got him the best score, or something, and he repeated it religiously. (And somehow thought it's worth talking about again, every day. But I digress.)

One time I'm dumb enough to say "yes" when he wants to show me how cool CS is and how great he is, after hours. (We were pretty much free to install what we wanted to on the company computers, and a multiplayer round in the lunch break or occasionally after hours was pretty much a sacred tradition for most people.) So he finds a server with that map, and he's even on defense this time, so it promises to be different.

He buys a weapon and runs and starts jumping in place in front of a vent. Some guy drops into that duct from the roof, my co-worker shoots him, and keeps on jumping. Next round, the same. Next round, you guessed, he's jumping in front of the same vent again like he's got mad kangaroo disease. Repeat for two bloody hours O.o

So I'm standing there dumbfounded, mostly out of sheer morbid curiosity. I mean, it was painfully boring even for me to watch that repetitive _work_. I expected him to go, "ah, screw this, lemme show you something else" any time now. Nope. For two bloody hours he repeated the exact same sequence and hopped in place in front of the same vent.

Re:True for video games too

[Tom]

And that's why CS will not "stand the test of time".

It was wildly popular for a while, mostly because there was no serious competition, it was new, and the hardware requirements were so low that a lot of people could play it. Oh, and also because it was popular, never underestimate the self-reinforcing aspect of multiplayer games.

I used to play a lot of CS. I was pretty good. Not one of the top-players, but always in the top 5 or so scorers. But if you ask me today what I remember, it's exactly what you described: To be "good" at CS meant to know the map, the important places and the timings to reach them. All the popular CS maps had their choke points, sniper locations, etc. and the most important skill was to know where they were and whether you or the other guy would be there first.

That's mechanical rote knowledge and simply doesn't make good memories. Our memory system is built to trigger on stuff that it recognizes. So if I play those maps again today, I'll have all the routes and points back in active memory after one round. But those memories won't be triggered by anything else, because they're so specific.

That's why CS will be forgotten, but Warcraft or Starcraft will stay - because the things that you learnt to play those games are repeated again in every other RTS. It's no the Zerg, but you still have rushes, and the basic mechanics (pump out as many as possible as early as possible and go berserk) is the same.

Re:True for video games too

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys get a two hour lunch? Or is this one of those threads you assume your boss isn't going to read?

Re:True for video games too

[binarylarry]

I have to disagree with you here. If there's one game that is close to "standing the test of time," it's Counterstrike.

It's one of the few games that hasn't changed much in almost ten years, not at all really, and it hasn't diminished in popularity.

And it's simple enough that skill does really matter... you have to have good reflexes and make good tactical decisions.

Re:True for video games too

[VeNoM0619]

And it's simple enough that skill does really matter... you have to have good reflexes and make good tactical decisions.

Believe it or not, that's actually how most FPS games are (that have objectives in it, plant a bomb, rescue VIP, etc.). It's about flanking and stealth, (unless its like your quake, run around and twitch games, but that's because its a deathmatch game, not an objective game). Reflexes have a little to do with it, but only a portion.

If they can't see you, you win.

Re:True for video games too

[Anonymous Coward]

Warehouse is a crappy map.

Re:True for video games too

[Anonymous Coward]

"To be "good" at CS meant to know the map, the important places and the timings to reach them."

Isn't that how people in the 80's got "good" at Pac-Man or Donkey Kong or the other old-school arcade games? The documentary "King of Kong" made it seem so.

So what did Pac-Man have that Counterstrike didn't?

Unique?

[KDR_11k]

Maybe unique when they were made. Many games of the 80s got sequels, clones, etc that sometimes were genuinely better. Of course the original game will probably be remembered for longer since it has a famous name.

Conversely I don't think the "focus on realism" has any meaning here other than being a popular meme to complain about. Even bad games that sold only because of graphics occassionally get remembered later (Myst, anyone?). Other than that I expect people to remember games more for defining a phase in their life (the phase in which the console the game was on was current) and that would make any really popular game well remembered.

What I wonder more is what the new players the Wii brought into gaming will remember about this generation.

Is it just me...

[religious freak]

Or does this sound like my dad when he talks about just HOW great rock 'n roll was in his day and how everything is crap now?

Re:Is it just me...

[Sobrique]

Nostalgia rules, but not like it used to.

Re:Is it just me...

[dzfoo]

Idunno. Your dad never talks about rock n' roll with me.

      -dZ.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony. Look it up.

Question of Size

[Tom]

Games today are very different from games 10, 20 years ago. Not all of them, but a good part of the AAA titles.

It's a question of size. You simply couldn't do games with the complexity and content of a current, say, MMORPG before. You could do tricks with procedural content (Elite comes to mind), but even then you were limited by the available code size.

"Old" games were built like chess, or Go, or card games or any other non-computer game that mankind invented. They have a fairly simple set of rules and goals, of pieces and moves. Strategies could get complicated (see Go), but the game "as a whole" was within view. Sure, you could have 100 levels, but aside from layout and details they were essentially the same - you didn't move in totally different ways on each level, for example.

Many of todays games aren't really a single game anymore, they are a collection of games tied together in a hierarchy where the result of one game gives you advantages in the next higher up. Take the dice poker from The Witcher - a self-contained dice game built into another game, and winning at it would progress one branch of the storyline for you.
Your average MMORPG probably contains dozens of games, if you think about it, all linked together through some common elements (money, your character's stats, inventory, etc.). There's the crafting game, the adventure and exploring game, the questing game, the combat game, often a seperate PvP game, you can buy houses and furniture and play around with that, and so on.
Back on the C64 or early PCs, each of those would have been a seperate game.

That's what's really new and different. We start emulating life in our games, as you can view life as a collection of (serious) games - the love game, the work game, the sports game, etc. - all self-contained but linked together through shared ressources and participants.

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[meringuoid]

Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays took well-known stories and reinvented them for the "modern" (Victorian) audience.

Wrong queen. Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901 - Shakespeare was long dead by then. Shakespeare is most identified with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, though his career lasted well into the reign of King James I.

Namco's recycling routine

[FornaxChemica]

"unique and fascinating mechanics that can't be diminished by the advancement of technology"

What a pretty hyperbole to mask the true reason why these games keep coming at every generation of consoles since they were invented in the early 80's! It's not due to an exceptional gameplay, it's simply because they never significantly change the game's mechanics, which makes those so-called remakes quick and dirt cheap to produce.

I don't know the numbers but I seriously doubt they sell a lot of these Pac-Man games. Yet, it must be profitable or they would stop doing it every so often and that's only possible because, no matter what Iguchi claims in the article, they just keep serving the same game over and over. The graphics are enhanced with the latest design trends (here the flashy light effects a la Geometry Wars) and the gameplay is slightly tweaked as to give the illusion they're presenting something new even though they are not.

The very low-cost production costs combined with a small core of early gaming devotees and "accidental customers" (people who lack a reason NOT to buy a product) must be enough to generate a revenue. To Namco's credit, it must be said they did try to get Pac-Man do something else than eating pellets in a maze (platformer, adventure, puzzle... respectively Pac in Time, The New Adventures and Pac-Attack) but with mild results and poor sales.

I'm fond of retrogaming and I believe some of the most interesting games have been made back then (am I lost in the haze?), however I don't think Pac-Man and Galaga qualify as imperishable classics like Super Mario or Castlevania. Early Namco titles have been unable to evolve beyond their original formula. The "true and fascinating mechanics" are impervious to the passage of time -- they don't even need to be remade to be enjoyed -- but they are also capable of moving forward with new ideas.

mr8kc

[Anonymous Coward]

I am currently playing Half Life... I started it again on Tuesday after it sitting on my shelf for an awful long time.

Fair enough, it does look a bit dated, and the interactive elements (light switches, lift buttons etc) aren't up to the new games standards, but the suspense, atmosphere and story involved is enough to make you forget these. The entire story (with the exception of the mad alien baby thing) is immersive, enthralling and highly addictive. You can also push those graphics settings up to a full res now to tidy up those pixely lines a bit!

I think that this, along with other 'modern classics' such as Baldurs Gate and C&C will stand the test of time.

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[KDR_11k]

Naah, with even a modicum of creativity one can copy an existing work without it being immediately apparent. Eragon got called Star Wars with dragons, copyright didn't exactly stop that.

Note that I'm not disagreeing with you

[FoamingToad]

But there are other reasons to update the game engine than to tweak the graphics - compatibility.

While I've got some fairly old games running quite happily via Dosbox or virtualisation, there's a few of the early 3D PC games that does not like Windows XP on modern hardware but that requires 3d acceleration. Virtualisation doesn't cut it as it doesn't expose sufficient hardware resources (and there's probably a case to be made that it shouldn't, as this may compromise the integrity of the sandbox).

While I am aware that Half-Life was ported to Steam, I seem to remember that the original was not compatible at all with XP. I didn't experiment with it much though, so it could be that some enterprising souls found a way to work around this.

There's one of the classic RPGs that I wanted to give a trial to - it's either Planescape or Fallout, I can't remember which. One of them is supposed to be incompatible with XP. It is probably something that can be worked around, but I haven't taken much time to find out how yet.

Thief 2 also seems to be unstable at best (at least on my desktop - GeForce 8 + AMD64x2). My laptop (P4 + Radeon 9200) plays it quite happily though, so I can still get my fix of taffing.

Re:Note that I'm not disagreeing with you

[grahamd0]

There's one of the classic RPGs that I wanted to give a trial to - it's either Planescape or Fallout, I can't remember which.

Fallout is not compatible with XP, I don't know about Planescape.

learn to read, lemming

[Moraelin]

You guys get a two hour lunch? Or is this one of those threads you assume your boss isn't going to read?

Learn to read, lemming: "One time I'm dumb enough to say "yes" when he wants to show me how cool CS is and how great he is, after hours. (We were pretty much free to install what we wanted to on the company computers, and a multiplayer round in the lunch break or occasionally after hours was pretty much a sacred tradition for most people.)" Emphasis added for the literacy impaired.

The whole episode happened from about 6 PM to about 8 PM.

I know that reading and comprehension are hard, but do at least try to read before jumping to the trolling ;)

Additionally, well, if you're that interested:

1. The company went bankrupt in the wake of the dot-com bubble bursting, I no longer work there, so I have no particular reason to fear what that boss thinks. We parted on good terms, though.

2. It was a small company and both company owners were in the next room, and quite often in the middle of us. So I'd _worry_ if they need to read Slashdot to find out what went on there.

3. They both took part in those multiplayer rounds. In fact, the one with the most shares in it, was actually the best FPS player in the company. The afore-mentioned willy waver was consistently in the #2 place, but that might also be because nobody else was deranged enough to play only his favourite map or only CS.

Same as books, music, or movies.

[EWAdams]

Large quantities are produced all the time. Much of it is dross -- short-lived light entertainment at best. But the greats will eventually begin to stand out. It's no different for video games. Tetris is our The Gold Rush.

We'll probably never find out because...

[fyrie]

We'll probably never find out because we won't be able to play the games 20 years from now when the DRM servers are kaput.

Of course they will

[Mister_Stoopid]

People will still be playing Nethack for centuries to come!

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[liquiddark]

Yeah, I always screw those two up. Thanks for the correction - maybe this time it'll stick.

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[liquiddark]

I've never heard it called "Star Wars with dragons" until right now. So that's not at all the same thing. These authors were working explicitly with well-known material precisely because that was what the audience loved to hear. Can't really do that in the draconian copyright scheme that envelops the creative output of the western world.

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[meringuoid]

I've never heard it called "Star Wars with dragons" until right now.

You haven't been listening then. Eragon is so close to Star Wars it's comical.

Classics never die.

[Anonymous Coward]

Graphics and effects dont make a game. Gameplay does. For this reason i can still pick up Streets of Rage 2 at anytime, and enjoy it greatly. Also games back in the 80s-90s were harder than todays games. Beat a game like Contra and you feel like you have conquered the impossible.

Re:The future is never new and it's never old eith

[liquiddark]

Point out to me where in this first search page you see the words Star Wars. You can't? How surprising. Now click through those links. Where do you see Star Wars references? One reference in wikipedia:

Common Sense Media called Eragon's dialogue long-winded and clichéd, with a plot "straight out of Star Wars by way of The Lord of the Rings, with bits of other great fantasies thrown in here and there".

which is a qualified way to say "I didn't like this movie and feel like it's derivative, but I don't want internet trolls to tear my facts to pieces." And then there's Rotten Tomatoes. If you haven't been to RT before, let me introduce you: Every movie is simultaneously completely derivative and startlingly original, steadfastly boring and dangerously exciting, and a total rip off of some French movie you and I will never see.

I understand the urge to compare the thing. But if I have to search for a specific comparison, if it isn't in the top 10 results for the thing, then I can safely say that it is Not What I Was Talking About.

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[LrdDimwit]

No, he's saying that there are plenty of old games that didn't stand the test of time. In fact, all the games that people remember from that time are the ones that DID.

Perhaps you were not aware that Pacman for Atari was an unmitigated disaster, that most analysts think contributed to the crash? That it was nothing like the arcade version - graphics, sound, and even the boards were different and inferior?

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[mattack2]

I won't completely defend PacMan for the 2600, but as a kid it was fun. Literally blinking ghosts (since it could only redraw 1 on each refresh IIRC). I remember buying Donkey Kong for the 2600.. $40 of my own money. THAT made me mad.

Though even now, one of the Atari 2600 baseball games would be fun. I think it was Mattel Baseball. (I haven't played my 2600 in a long time. But I did bring it to college looooong after the NES had become king, and played that baseball game with my housemate.)

Re:Most of the old games were crap too - nostaglia

[LWATCDR]

Not really rose tinted glasses. I think it is human nature. We remember the good and forget the bad. It is the same with music, movies, and just about everything else.
Hey Pacman on the Atari was great. If you are talking about an Atari 800 or even Atari 5200

16 Colour Graphics YEAH!

[BlogTheHaggis]

Hey that icon for 'Games' looks like the controller from an Atari 2600. Woot!

Man, the lost hours spent playing "Skateboardin'" with that background music you would be humming for days after.

"Bom bom bom, tick-e-tick-tick, bom bom bom, tick-e-tick-tick, bom bom bom..."

Counter-Strike *hearts*

[ArcSecond]

I actually haven't played CS at all since the 1.6/1.7 switch. But I imagine it's not radically different now.

I think a few important elements of CS have been overlooked.

first, i found it to be a more-or-less perfect balance between simulation and game, with physics and damage that were satisfying because they allowed a certain amount of survivability and mobility while still feeling like death was always just around the corner. I used to sweat and scream during a good match. I never felt anything but dissociated from most FPSs (only exception being Red Orchestra).

second, your tactical choices really mattered, to the point that planning and reaction time played a major role. one mistake and you had to hope you got lucky. even making zero mistakes you could still buy the farm, which tended to drive the meeker players into defensive camping. which worked, was "smart" but OMG if you got capped by a lunatic on the offensive you looked like a timid schmuck. better to stay aggressive and have fun and not worry about your score, UNLESS...

third, teamwork made all the difference. none of the safe, repeatable strategies could save you if you were faced with a team that worked together and communicated. not that most people did a good job of that, but it was really impressive to see a bold and coordinated manoever. it even made being dead alright if you could watch a good end-game go down.

i know teamwork and player interaction isn't limited to Counterstrike, but the way the game worked it was the thing that would always tip the balance. especially with a damage system that rewarded accuracy (i only ever liked playing on FF=on servers)and the importance of weapon choice and stealth meant that covering each other and coordinating your tactics gave you a real sense of esprit de corps when you played with people you grooved with. buying team-mates weapons, sacrificing yourself in a rush knowing the guys behind you would follow through, and the joking and cheers/jeers from your team-mates made the game.

because, in the end, people would respect you not primarily because of your kill ratio or rank on the server, but because of your style and attitude. so if you were always doing the same thing over and over you might as well be a bot.

I found the challenge of working with team-mates (and sometimes even cooperating with the enemy... like a declared knife or pistols round, or even a little judicious TAing for the sake of ) to try to find some new and interesting way to solve a map was one of the real joys of CS. because it allowed you to be somewhat creative.

and being creative is something that makes you feel good. which is something a "perfect" algorithm or high score don't automatically do.

Deus ex

[Sithdemon]

Not only is it a Classic game already in my heart, and that of most of my friends, though some prefer thief or system shock more. Heck in my mind it's beyond a game, it was high art, and perhaps even higher then something like a movie or a play, only because it's both a rich multimedia story AND interactive. Great graphics for the time, supplied by the unreal engine, but with the art direction of looking glass studios. events that echoes the ACTUAL events of Sept 11, years before. A story which was pretty much engrossing from the first stage to the very end, and thats after hours and hours. But most importantly, one of the first games to actually make you under stand the consequences of your actions. I can still remember playing through the first mission, for the first time, and playing it as a typical shooter, killing just about everything, it's a game why the hell not right? Well I go to report to my boss Joseph Manderley, and he chews me out for being a maniac murderer, and I actually felt BAD, yes it's usually just easier to kill everything, and just reload the last save game if it goes bad, but man after getting used to the carnage that DOOM brought into our lives, this turned that on it's head, and said it's a choice. thats when I learned sneaking is pretty damned easy too, is alot of ways more challenging and thus more rewarding. but whats even better, this game you could go either way, or a mix, it wasn't a "sneaker" or "action shooter" it was both, also a RPG, It was alot of things, and clearly by my gushing a classic for me. But thats not really the question your asking, I think, but rather as a consensus for most of society, and the establishment of the art form's academics, proffesionals and critics. We have that for older games because they have stood the test of time, asking if a modern game will be classic is impossible to say, something thats great right now, might be topped, and forgotten, or at least just become the blue print for the master peice (see blizzard games) we can wait 20-50 years and then tell if and which the games of the 90's 2000's are classics for the society at large, though by then people that enjoy that medium will be dealing with the soon to be classics, so really the classics are just things that you've missed the boat on, like finding out about a great artist after they died.