Do you play old games?

[babinro]

95% of the games I play these days are released within the last 3 years.

I used to revisit and play a lot of older generation games but there are a couple of reasons why that's changed.

1) PC gaming is dirt cheap thanks to Steam/Origin/GoG/Humblebundle, etc. It's tough to revisit an old favorite when I have dozens of games I bought for a reason that I want to experience first.

2) Newer games are often better than old ones. Generally speaking newer games give more options for play. You can select much easier difficulties to just enjoy the story and reduce grind. Newer games often have less artificial grind as well compared to those made 10-20 years ago. In addition newer games benefit from innovations of past genres.

For example try playing an outstanding classic like WarCraft 2 and compare it to the controls of and campaign level design of StarCraft 2. The flow and controls of the RTS genre has just made too many strides to truly enjoy WarCraft 2 on anything other than a nostalgic level for me. I feel the same way when looking back at games like Diablo 2, Street Fighter 2, Mario 64, KOTOR, and many many more.

 

[Potjeslatinist]

Sure. I've been buying a bunch of games on Steam lately that I've owned for ages but just don't work anymore on Win 7/8 out of the box. The Steam versions do. Finally I'm back into System Shock 2, Anachronox, and Silent Storm. It's bliss. I also regularly fire up good old Chrono Trigger.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I play "old games" almost exclusively.

I was playing through my Gamecube and PS2 backlogs all the way up until January 2009 before I bought a 7th-gen console. During the 7th-gen, I could count on one hand how many games I bought when they were less than one year old and still in the spotlight of "cutting-edge" relevancy.

Now I'm playing PS3 and WiiU games, while still dipping back to older consoles and downloadable classics I've never played, and I'm in no big hurry to upgrade to a PS4. I've still got plenty to I want to play without one.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Sure. And why not? It's not like the existence of newer games makes the best old ones suddenly not fun anymore.

 

[Kae]

More than I play newer games, it's not that newer games are better but I just prefer the older design sensibilities, granted though if it's really old than I'll play it if it was on NES or Atari, if it's like a PC thing it's a little bit too complex and convoluted and older PC games have pretty much no nostalgia value for me, since I didn't really start using PCs until around 2003.

 

[the December King]

Of course... what kind of gamer would I be if I did not?

Hell, a very large amount of old games are quite good even today. That is a sign that our medium is an art form to be honest... some things are somewhat ageless in it.

Just thought I'd add your post to mine based on a mutual interest, as I am still wandering the Garbage... and doubt I'll ever stop at this point!

In short, I'm more likely to play an old game than a new one.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Since I actually prefer older games for the most part, yeah.

Carmageddon, System Shock, GTA2/3, etc.

Games that didn't rely on DLC shenanigans are pretty much a breath of fresh air compared to most what you see today.
It honestly feels like that modern game companies dont give a rats ass (not everyone offcourse) about customer satisfaction.
Well, that and most modern games just dont fit my taste in gaming, which is why i hardly look forward to new games since 2008/9 or so.

 

[WindKnight]

Yeah, last year I replayed super metroid, and checked out metroid fusion. If its fun, I'll play it.

 

[Fappy]

Hmm, I'm not sure I can really agree to that.

Okay, can you at least elaborate?

Rare is the game these days that takes more than 25 hours to finish. In fact one of the more common complaints of this generation is that games aren't long enough.

While it is easy to cherry pick, it's something I personally disagree with. I think people have a very foggy memory on how long your average game was back in the day.

I see it as more common now that I used to. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I can only go by what I see which is a lot of people stating their progress on forums such as these. As I said, I would have to have Something elaborate before I can really counter. All I know is that, in general, I find that I can run faster through old games I pick up for the first time than I can quite a lot of my newer ones.

I think a lot of people around here grew up playing CRPGs in the 90's/early 2000's, which were often long (and old) games. I wouldn't be surprised if they think back to those (and perhaps JRPGs) when they picture old games they loved playing back in the day. I agree though. I believe games made since last gen are a lot longer on average than games made in the late 80's and 90's.

I grew up playing every platformer under the sun, and those games were all pretty damn short up until the 64-bit era. With the exception of RPGs, the only games I can think of from the 8-bit and 16-bit era that were consistently long were Zelda titles. Of the NES/Genesis/SNES games in my collection, I guarantee I can beat most of them within an hour each on average. Non-RPGs didn't really get to be prolonged experiences until the N64/Playstation era, and even then the games weren't typically as long as they were in the following generation.

OT: I play old games whenever I feel a particular itch for a games/franchise I played growing up or if I want to try something I never had a chance to play before. I have been playing FF9 on and off on my PS3 (only ever beat it once) and started playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the first time. I'm having a hard time getting over the really bad art/character designs in PoR though >.>

 

[9tailedflame]

Of course! I'll play whatever looks like it's worth my time, and there's huge amounts of gaming history to be played out there. It would be ridiculous to confine myself to current games.

 

[Odbarc]

I've got emulators for SNES because it comes with the all important SPEED button and SLOW and video recording if I ever cared to make a cheap TAS.
I've got a PS1 emulator too which is nice that I don't need a rom to play them in and still has the save/load and faster frame rate button.

I could just set up my consoles but I don't want to when I can just put it all on my computer which is already on and hooked up and used every day.

 

[Fappy]

I've got emulators for SNES because it comes with the all important SPEED button and SLOW and video recording if I ever cared to make a cheap TAS.
I've got a PS1 emulator too which is nice that I don't need a rom to play them in and still has the save/load and faster frame rate button.

I could just set up my consoles but I don't want to when I can just put it all on my computer which is already on and hooked up and used every day.

Emulators are kind of tricky because not every ROM can perfectly emulate the experience. Take games like Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country for example. Every emulator I have ever seen pixelates those games to high heaven. Playing them on the original hardware with a standard definition television looks way better.

Then again, I am a sucker for old hardware. I prefer the novelty of the authentic experience. It's not necessary for everyone, but if it's a reasonable option for me I go full retro every time. I even bought a USB SNES controller knock off for Shovel Knight XD

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

I pretty much play mostly old games. The newest console I could afford was a 3DS last Christmas and I haven't bought much new stuff for that. I still have a huge backlog of games for older systems that I keep meaning to get round to as well. So yeah, I have tonnes of old games that I still play and enjoy.

 

[Yostbeef]

Once the PC starts aging, and you're not in a position to upgrade, you really start to dig around for games to play. Personally I'm willing to play anything as long as the gameplay still holds up on some level. Some older games have astounding staying power while some were terrible then and will still be terrible now if not worse.

 

[Rabish Bini]

I play pre-mid 2000s games more than I do newer ones. Games like KotOR II and Pro Skater 3 are high on my replay list, I've started playing old cRPG's having just finished Planescape: Torment, and I still bust out the (S)NES every so often.

My XBone is more of a paperweight than a console at this stage.

 

[Odbarc]

Emulators are kind of tricky because not every ROM can perfectly emulate the experience. Take games like Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country for example. Every emulator I have ever seen pixelates those games to high heaven. Playing them on the original hardware with a standard definition television looks way better.

Then again, I am a sucker for old hardware. I prefer the novelty of the authentic experience. It's not necessary for everyone, but if it's a reasonable option for me I go full retro every time. I even bought a USB SNES controller knock off for Shovel Knight XD

My Gamepad doesn't work with windows 7 and locks up the system if I plug it in until I take it out so I use my PS3 controller instead.
Frankly, I like the unblurred highly pixelated look. If I wanted things blurry, I'd take my glasses off.
Though the novelty of the actual game is entirely tolerable and loveable when playing on the console, I seem to need to abuse the frame advance features to get past the slow parts. Especially when it comes to dialogue I've read a thousand times that gets into the lengthy expositions.

Two things I hate about modern gaming is that most games have load screens (and for the best graphics, you can't really avoid it); But Starcraft 1 loaded seemingly instantly once the count down hit 0. Starcraft 2 requires everyone to fill a load bar (and there's always that 'one guy' who takes forever).
It's a lot better with Diablo 3 where loads are on an individual basis.

The other is it's abandoned pixel art almost entirely save for the few indie developers who also work towards the marketable few who also like it. What's really appealing about it, the blocks of each pixel, is that with enough patience you can duplicate work from one source to another. Which is probably what made Minecraft so popular with some people. I like the idea that I could do pixel art too.

 

[manolocego11]

Hardly ever but I do remember playing lord of the rings battle for middle earth a while back with a few friends of mine

 

[Poetic Nova]

Such is life in the Zone. Just because something is old ... does not make it in any way bad.

Doubly so in the world of art. So in a sense I agree with you fellow!

This reminds me that I really need to revisit the Zone when New Vegas doesn't occupy all my time spend gaming anymore.
SoC is a really unforgettable experience, and one of my all time favorite games.

 

[gsilver]

I play a good number of old games, but only to a point.

I grew up on Dos and Atari games, and with rare exceptions, can't play those any more. Maybe just my top 3 Atari games, and only a few old-school dos games.
Even with the NES, I'm very particular about.

SNES/Genesis tend to hold up, PS1 does not, and PS2 onward tends to be alright, at least with the better games.


That being said, a large majority of my game time is spent with recent ones.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I'm replaying Warcraft 3 right now...
Is a 14 year old game old?