Games That Aged Horribly

[Norrdicus]

People say that Deus Ex has aged badly but Deus Ex 2 has aged even worse.

The character-models are downright immersion-breaking, the elliptical look of the HUD reminds me just how ugly some of the PS2 age menus were and for some reason the interiors simply look fake

 

[Darkmantle]

The Return of the King game, one of the few Movie licenced games ever that was good.
But when I tried it again a while back it just wasn't that good anymore.
The graphics ages horribly, the gameplay is stale and repetitive, etc. A damn shame. Oh how I long for a new good LOTR game...

what about war in the north?, that was pretty awesome

 

[Gardenia]

Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 are just not very engaging, or at least they haven't been since Fallout 3 and F:NV.

Not to say that you aren't entitled to your opinion, I just want to add that I spent roughly 100 hours on Fallout 2 last week, as I had no internet connection to speak of. I also have Arkham City, but I don't really enjoy it, so I finished the story on Fallout 2 three times instead.

OT: Deus Ex springs to mind, as I never played it until last year, it just seems so horribly dated.
Oblivion is another, but then again, I don't like any of Bethesda's games besides Skyrim.

 

[Jynthor]

Its gota be the Original deus ex for me, one of the ugliest games ive ever played.

The graphics ages horribly

The graphics are so butt-ugly.

And here I was thinking The Escapist cared little for graphics as long as it had decent gameplay

I don't care for graphics, I was just pointing out they aged terribly and I said the gameplay isn't that great either.

 

[pilouuuu]

Jesus Christ, Fallout 3 hasn't even aged yet!

Sadly, the Commander Keens controls just feel too clunky for me to get into too much again. Played the hell out of them as a kid, but the slight response time in the jumps and air control just put me off. If it felt like Super Mario when moving I'd still play the hell out of it.

Fallout 3 was dated since the moment it was released. It looked fine at the moment, but it's completely dated now with its awful animations and grey and brown environments.

 

[Jennacide]

What the hell , nostalgia ? Fall out 3 ? That game isn't that old. Geez . People sure are spoiled .

OT : Fear effect . God i loved that game back in the day . But the controls and the disk swapping in random orders make me cringe , add the trial and error and god it's terrible .

This. =( Fear Effect was a great game in it's time, one of the only games I would call a playable anime, but it's really hard to play again due to tank controls and bad inventory by today's standards.

Also really hard to go back to Deus Ex, the models and acting are so hilariously bad.

 

[DazZ.]

Jesus Christ, Fallout 3 hasn't even aged yet!

Sadly, the Commander Keens controls just feel too clunky for me to get into too much again. Played the hell out of them as a kid, but the slight response time in the jumps and air control just put me off. If it felt like Super Mario when moving I'd still play the hell out of it.

Fallout 3 was dated since the moment it was released. It looked fine at the moment, but it's completely dated now with its awful animations and grey and brown environments.

Seemed to fit in perfectly with all the other grey and brown environments of the time.

 

[sgtshock]

If anything, The original Medal Of Honor is the biggest victim of nostalgia. It needs a remaster with better visuals and controls to be worthy of one of the greatest soundtracks ever made.

Pretty much all the console Medal of Honor games fall victim to this. I went back and played Frontline again a while back, and it was bad. The aiming was awful, level design confusing, AI brain dead, and the graphics weren't too great either. The only thing that made it worth playing was, like you said, the amazing soundtrack.

 

[Aarowbeatsdragon]

Its gota be the Original deus ex for me, one of the ugliest games ive ever played.

The graphics ages horribly

The graphics are so butt-ugly.

And here I was thinking The Escapist cared little for graphics as long as it had decent gameplay

I dont care about graphics but i was just stating that the graphics have aged horribly. Which is entirely OT. you want more? so have the controls and the Ai. On the playstaion 2 version anyway.

 

[JesterRaiin]

well it may be hard to judge from a picture but those graphics don't look that bad, you can tell what is what (Although I usually draw the line at halo 1 original xbox graphics). PS1 games like crash bandicoot 3 and abes oddessay have barely aged at all while ironically some PS2 games like killzone have aged very poorly (its probably partly to do with the low resolution and bad frame rate), other FPS that came out in the same year like Farcry, halo 2, half life 2, doom 3, star wars republic comando. they have all aged rather well.

Sometimes it's not enough. What can i say... See for yourself - there are plenty of screenshots all over the 'Net. Alternatively - i encourage You to try and play that game. :]

 

[Manoose47]

A small list from me.

1. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (seriously that game has aged worse then Daggerfall, and Daggerfall is even older!)
2. Deus Ex (will always be remembered as a great game, but man when you take a peak at the voice acting in todays age, just...wow. Horrible lol)
3. Mortal Kombat II (with the way fighting games have evovled today, this game is just hard ot even pick up and attempt to play now.)
4. Planscape Torment (special game, but can require A LOT OF PATIENCE and you have to do a lot of reading.)
5. Pretty much any turn based game from late 80s and 90s.

Thats all I got.

Blasphemy! burn the heretic!

what older games lack in standardized controls and visuals they often more than make up for with immersion. This is Something sorely lacking in many modern games which now over rely on visuals, fully spoken dialogue and other limiting modern standards.

OT ------

1.i wouldn't say mount and blade has aged badly,per se, its just surpassed in every conceivable way by war-band, and thus obsolete.
2.Dark forces, Jedi Knight 1... oh dear... The extensive use of accurate licensing in star wars games has rendered these two titles really, really awful. in jedi knight 1 your fathers house on dantooine is attacked by tusken raiders wielding bowcasters.... so wrong.. nerd spasm.
3. Die by the sword.. brilliant concept.... with no controls! whatsoever! just mash the numpad and pray!

 

[Mustang678]

Master of Orion 1. Most older games I can still enjoy though.

You're breaking my heart, I love to plow through MOO1 every two months or so yet

As for me, Ultima Online isn't even a shadow of what it was when it was released.

Yeah I just find it a bit slow. Master of Magic aged even worse, or at least, I downloaded it off Gog and couldn't get into it and turned it off after like 10 minutes.

Speaking of Ultima Online though, I do still want to finish playing through my ultima collection which is even older.

I still love MoM too D:
I haven't been able to seriously play any of the Ultima series aside from 7. I hate 6's interface with a burning passion and everyone knows about 8 and 9
Any of the ones before 6 just feels like a chore now

Edit: I'd even go so far as so say MoM and MOO1 are my favorite DOS games...until I remember X-COM exists

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

DOOM, I just can't get past what is a completely awkward interface + mechanics for a first person shooter and textures and animations which don't excite or stimulate me in the slightest. Then again, I never played it when I was younger, so I don't have the sort of nostalgia that some hold.

Contrast that with Deus Ex, which I really enjoyed and immersed myself in despite a complete lack of nostalgia. It's all in the details, I think. Very linear, simple games don't age as well as those with more depth and freedom.

Yeah, I am the total opposite. I still think Doom is the greatest shooter ever made and I can play it today and have a blast, especially with the massive community of fan made wads out there.
It was also the first game I ever played on PC back when it came out, so that probably colors my perspective.
OT: I find that almost all games that utilize 2D sprites age very well, whereas early 3D games do not.

 

[Ninjat_126]

DOOM, I just can't get past what is a completely awkward interface + mechanics for a first person shooter and textures and animations which don't excite or stimulate me in the slightest. Then again, I never played it when I was younger, so I don't have the sort of nostalgia that some hold.

Contrast that with Deus Ex, which I really enjoyed and immersed myself in despite a complete lack of nostalgia. It's all in the details, I think. Very linear, simple games don't age as well as those with more depth and freedom.

I remapped my Doom controls to WASD, Space and the arrow keys to look around. Seems kind of clunky, but it controls more like a modern shooter with mouselook and lets you circlestrafe with ease. As for the graphics and gameplay? Didn't age one bit, still look great. And I didn't even play it when I was younger.

As for Deus Ex, the voice acting, terrible 3D graphics and stupidly low weapon accuracy turned me off fast. The choices and freedom are cool, but I only beat one level before getting sick of how flat out terrible it looked and sounded.

X-COM: UFO Defence is kind of in a class of it's own here, the gameplay hasn't dated and I can tolerate the graphics, but the UI is clunky as two printers having sex with a dump truck. Still fun though.

 

[Forgetitnow344]

Diablo 2.

I know I'm going to get allllllllll kinds of hate for that, but it's true. I tried playing with some friends who promised it would be the best thing in the world... After playing for a couple hours I realized it was exactly like every other grindy RPG ever made.

It was like Borderlands but without the guns.

It was like WoW but without the people.

It was like War in the North but... Well it was exactly like War in the North except War in the North had Lord of the Rings to keep me entertained.

Seriously don't understand the love. It HAS to be full of nostalgia despite what the fans insist.

 

[MammothBlade]

DOOM, I just can't get past what is a completely awkward interface + mechanics for a first person shooter and textures and animations which don't excite or stimulate me in the slightest. Then again, I never played it when I was younger, so I don't have the sort of nostalgia that some hold.

Contrast that with Deus Ex, which I really enjoyed and immersed myself in despite a complete lack of nostalgia. It's all in the details, I think. Very linear, simple games don't age as well as those with more depth and freedom.

I remapped my Doom controls to WASD, Space and the arrow keys to look around. Seems kind of clunky, but it controls more like a modern shooter with mouselook and lets you circlestrafe with ease. As for the graphics and gameplay? Didn't age one bit, still look great. And I didn't even play it when I was younger.

As for Deus Ex, the voice acting, terrible 3D graphics and stupidly low weapon accuracy turned me off fast. The choices and freedom are cool, but I only beat one level before getting sick of how flat out terrible it looked and sounded.

I also mapped the controls to WASD.

DOOM is just not interesting to me. The atmosphere, even the gameplay premise is totally unexciting. Shoot blocky demons on awful linear maps to find some stupid key so you can shoot more demons on more linear maps to find another key, ad infinitum.

Whereas in Deus Ex, you can interact with many objects and NPCs in the ingame world. It's not just about the graphics. If you have a little imagination and gameplay depth, something to work on, bad graphics don't matter that much. I can suspend my disbelief quite a bit. Though I agree that the weapon accuracy was at times awful, especially with the assault rifle. Of course, it depends on personal taste.

 

[5-0]

DOOM, I just can't get past what is a completely awkward interface + mechanics for a first person shooter and textures and animations which don't excite or stimulate me in the slightest. Then again, I never played it when I was younger, so I don't have the sort of nostalgia that some hold.

Contrast that with Deus Ex, which I really enjoyed and immersed myself in despite a complete lack of nostalgia. It's all in the details, I think. Very linear, simple games don't age as well as those with more depth and freedom.

I remapped my Doom controls to WASD, Space and the arrow keys to look around. Seems kind of clunky, but it controls more like a modern shooter with mouselook and lets you circlestrafe with ease. As for the graphics and gameplay? Didn't age one bit, still look great. And I didn't even play it when I was younger.

As for Deus Ex, the voice acting, terrible 3D graphics and stupidly low weapon accuracy turned me off fast. The choices and freedom are cool, but I only beat one level before getting sick of how flat out terrible it looked and sounded.

I also mapped the controls to WASD.

DOOM is just not interesting to me. The atmosphere, even the gameplay premise is totally unexciting. Shoot blocky demons on awful linear maps to find some stupid key so you can shoot more demons on more linear maps to find another key, ad infinitum.

Whereas in Deus Ex, you can interact with many objects and NPCs in the ingame world. It's not just about the graphics. If you have a little imagination and gameplay depth, something to work on, bad graphics don't matter that much. I can suspend my disbelief quite a bit. Though I agree that the weapon accuracy was at times awful, especially with the assault rifle. Of course, it depends on personal taste.

I find it really interesting how Deus Ex can be cited as both an example of a game aging well and badly. For me, when I first picked it up it was already seriously old (this was maybe two years ago). But I don't care. The graphics are functional enough, I can tell what object models are supposed to be and what characters are supposed to look like. I play with graphics mods now, but even then the changes are pretty minor. It's the open-ended approach to gameplay and the terrific story which continues to captivate me.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Diablo 2.

[...]

Seriously don't understand the love. It HAS to be full of nostalgia despite what the fans insist.

Nostalgia, definitely, but there are two other things:

1. Atmosphere. The game has an amazing soundtrack [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGTUz4OnzdM] and some great voice acting to go with its dark, gothic take on Middle Eastern oases and tropical paradises.

2. Loot. This isn't really a good thing - for the game, it is - but D2 has one of the rawest player-reward systems available in any game. Once you get comfortable within the game (luckily for you this proved tougher for someone entering the game so many years later) the process of finding better and better loot is insanely rewarding in how simple and refined it is. Get good gear. Find Magic Find to allow you to get better gear. Get better gear. Increase your Magic Find to find good gear even faster. Rinse, repeat, potentially into infinity. WoW dilutes this experience by providing diversions, ie. exploration, mini-game type quests, being social. In D2, it's at its purest and most dangerous form. There is nothing between you and better gear than better gear (higher MF).

 

[Forgetitnow344]

Diablo 2.

[...]

Seriously don't understand the love. It HAS to be full of nostalgia despite what the fans insist.

Nostalgia, definitely, but there are two other things:

1. Atmosphere. The game has an amazing soundtrack [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGTUz4OnzdM] and some great voice acting to go with its dark, gothic take on Middle Eastern oases and tropical paradises.

2. Loot. This isn't really a good thing - for the game, it is - but D2 has one of the rawest player-reward systems available in any game. Once you get comfortable within the game (luckily for you this proved tougher for someone entering the game so many years later) the process of finding better and better loot is insanely rewarding in how simple and refined it is. Get good gear. Find Magic Find to allow you to get better gear. Get better gear. Increase your Magic Find to find good gear even faster. Rinse, repeat, potentially into infinity. WoW dilutes this experience by providing diversions, ie. exploration, mini-game type quests, being social. In D2, it's at its purest and most dangerous form. There is nothing between you and better gear than better gear (higher MF).

I can understand those two things (especially the first, though that definitely doesn't make the game, but my problem with it in the modern day is that I've already done all of those things in your second point. I can definitely see the influence. Borderlands is basically Diablo with guns. I get it. Borderlands is fun. What isn't fun is if you take the guns away and age everything by a decade or so. Diablo 2 was probably loads of fun back in the day, but now, it's sort of pointless. I'm sure a lot of modern-day RPGs wouldn't be what they are without its influence, but that doesn't mean it's fun to play itself.

Seriously though, have you tried playing Baldur's Gate? Fuck a game that lets you spec to be good with small or large weapons and then doesn't tell you what weapons qualify as such. I'm glad Diablo was around to influence mainstream RPGs.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Visually any FMV game just looks horrific.