Games that Aged INCREDIBLY well

[gorfias]

There's a thoughtful thread on this forum about games that have NOT aged well. Its a sad thing. You loved a game, went to revisit it and when playing, asked, WTF?!?!?! Ugly. Gameplay style ancient and should have been retired! Why am I even playing it!

But tonight I played something I am soooo ashamed to admit I have not finished. Uncharted 3 in 3D on the PS3. I got past a really hard part in part 15 and I was amazed. Yes, I have Uncharted 4. It is better looking. Even so, Uncharted 3 in 3d? So fun, game play works, visuals look amazing. As I played, I marveled at the fact that this was last gen.


Those types of games are out there: games that have gameplay as good and fun as anything gen 8 can offer up with eye popping visuals.

What games have you played that you have to write, several years on, have aged incredibly well in terms of graphics, gameplay, or both?

 

[American Fox]

Cookie Monster Munch

 

[American Fox]

Heiankyo Alien

 

[American Tanker]

I'm just going to come right out and say that there are plenty of N64/PS1 era games that, yeah, their graphics are primitive by today's standards. But their gameplay is actually pretty damned good.

I'm sadly going to exclude GoldenEye 007 from that list, though. Despite my nostalgia for it, I will admit that it's pretty clunky by today's standards. However, there were those "dual controller" control schemes you could use to play it, which probably pioneered the use of dual-analog control in shooters. I remember a similar setup being an option in Star Wars: Episode 1: Racer, though that was locked behind a cheat code.

But to get back on topic, I personally think the San Francisco Rush games still hold up as solid arcade racers to this day. Also, Hydro Thunder.

And the original Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on N64 will never get old. Fighting the Galactic Empire as a Rebel Alliance fighter ace, flying iconic Star Wars ships(including the Millennium Falcon!), that's always a thrillride.

 

[gorfias]

I'm just going to come right out and say that there are plenty of N64/PS1 era games that, yeah, their graphics are primitive by today's standards. But their gameplay is actually pretty damned good.

I'm sadly going to exclude GoldenEye 007 from that list, though. Despite my nostalgia for it, I will admit that it's pretty clunky by today's standards. However, there were those "dual controller" control schemes you could use to play it, which probably pioneered the use of dual-analog control in shooters. I remember a similar setup being an option in Star Wars: Episode 1: Racer, though that was locked behind a cheat code.

But to get back on topic, I personally think the San Francisco Rush games still hold up as solid arcade racers to this day. Also, Hydro Thunder.

And the original Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on N64 will never get old. Fighting the Galactic Empire as a Rebel Alliance fighter ace, flying iconic Star Wars ships(including the Millennium Falcon!), that's always a thrillride.

I do recall loving many games on the N64, particularly Shadows of Empire. I do think it was Gen 6 that got it right with dual analogue controllers. NES and SNES games work fine for what they are meant to do but by N64, 3d was a thing and that dual control became vital.

I grew to really appreciate this control scheme with Xbox Halo Combat Evolved. Went back to play some N64 Turok and felt it really didn't work right.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Conker's Bad Fur day​

Fuck you it was the best N64 game of all time!

Foul-mouthed, wise-cracking squirrel who just wants to go home, fuck his girlfriend and sleep his hangover off, gets roped into a cartoonishly comical adventure to get cogs blowjobs, shit on other squirrels then feed them to a meat grinder, piss off Death, see building sized tits of a Neanderthal Queen, bounce on the EEE tits of a sunflower, and eventually make fun of Saving Private Ryan in a teddy bear vs squirrel war that ends with possessed little girl doll bears surgically grafted to Godzilla sized Nazi zombie bear monsters.

If that doesn't do it for you, you are not a person and shouldn't be reading this!!

 

[gorfias]

Conker's Bad Fur day​

Fuck you it was the best N64 game of all time!

Foul-mouthed, wise-cracking squirrel who just wants to go home, fuck his girlfriend and sleep his hangover off, gets roped into a cartoonishly comical adventure to get cogs blowjobs, shit on other squirrels then feed them to a meat grinder, piss off Death, see building sized tits of a Neanderthal Queen, bounce on the EEE tits of a sunflower, and eventually make fun of Saving Private Ryan in a teddy bear vs squirrel war that ends with possessed little girl doll bears surgically grafted to Godzilla sized Nazi zombie bear monsters.

If that doesn't do it for you, you are not a person and shouldn't be reading this!!

Can this game be played today? I had the remake for Xbox but had to give it away but would love to try again.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Actually came into the thread to nominate the very first Uncharted. I'm watching my girlfriend play it right now and while it hasn't aged impeccably - water/foliage textures are always a dead giveaway in these games - the perfectionism in the animation department remains outstanding. Game is full of little details here and there that were way ahead of its time, and many of the games of today would only do well in learning them.

Uncharted 2 on the other hand I think has aged about as well as the third game.

 

[gorfias]

Actually came into the thread to nominate the very first Uncharted. I'm watching my girlfriend play it right now and while it hasn't aged impeccably - water/foliage textures are always a dead giveaway in these games - the perfectionism in the animation department remains outstanding. Game is full of little details here and there that were way ahead of its time, and many of the games of today would only do well in learning them.

Uncharted 2 on the other hand I think has aged about as well as the third game.

Two was my on my top 5 of the entire Generation. I never finished one as it is supposed to be notably a lesser game to 2 but I really should.

Just saw this; there is a lot of love out there for the N64 on this very topic:
EDIT My top 5 of Gen 7
Batman Arkham City
Uncharted 2
G-d of War 3
Halo 3
Burnout Paradise City

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Actually came into the thread to nominate the very first Uncharted. I'm watching my girlfriend play it right now and while it hasn't aged impeccably - water/foliage textures are always a dead giveaway in these games - the perfectionism in the animation department remains outstanding. Game is full of little details here and there that were way ahead of its time, and many of the games of today would only do well in learning them.

Uncharted 2 on the other hand I think has aged about as well as the third game.

Two was my on my top 5 of the entire Generation. I never finished one as it is supposed to be notably a lesser game to 2 but I really should.

Storywise 2 is the better one, it takes more interesting turns. It also has better action set-pieces (like the train sequence and the raid on the Himalayan town) and I think a richer variety of levels. 1 is too much of an Indiana Jones romp and not enough of its own thing, on top of having fairly straightforward shootouts and some parts that are an absolute pain in the ass. Good game but the sequels definitely improved on it.

 

[American Tanker]

I could not agree less with that list. Seriously.

No Rogue Squadron? No San Francisco Rush? No F-Zero X? Those people wouldn't know a good game if they had it downloaded directly into their brains.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Conker's Bad Fur day​

Fuck you it was the best N64 game of all time!

Foul-mouthed, wise-cracking squirrel who just wants to go home, fuck his girlfriend and sleep his hangover off, gets roped into a cartoonishly comical adventure to get cogs blowjobs, shit on other squirrels then feed them to a meat grinder, piss off Death, see building sized tits of a Neanderthal Queen, bounce on the EEE tits of a sunflower, and eventually make fun of Saving Private Ryan in a teddy bear vs squirrel war that ends with possessed little girl doll bears surgically grafted to Godzilla sized Nazi zombie bear monsters.

If that doesn't do it for you, you are not a person and shouldn't be reading this!!

Can this game be played today? I had the remake for Xbox but had to give it away but would love to try again.

There are...means I would be banned for for stating. Means that involve playing N64 games on non-64 consoles. Also there is an Xbox360 version and a Xbox 1 version in Rare Reloaded.

It truly is the best game I've ever played!

Get it.
No mater the odds.

 

[Asita]

Fuck you it was the best N64 game of all time!

Foul-mouthed, wise-cracking squirrel who just wants to go home, fuck his girlfriend and sleep his hangover off, gets roped into a cartoonishly comical adventure to get cogs blowjobs, shit on other squirrels then feed them to a meat grinder, piss off Death, see building sized tits of a Neanderthal Queen, bounce on the EEE tits of a sunflower, and eventually make fun of Saving Private Ryan in a teddy bear vs squirrel war that ends with possessed little girl doll bears surgically grafted to Godzilla sized Nazi zombie bear monsters.

You forgot "Listen to musical crap. Literally".

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Throw another vote in for pretty much all of the Uncharted series.

I sold my copy of the Nathan Drake Collection (I'm a heathen, I'm gonna go back and get my own copy, I swear) to my friend a long time ago and he finally got around to playing it and he's astounded by just the first one, I cannot wait to see him get to the later ones, whenever that happens.

But to say what my first thought was when I read the title:

Metroid Prime Trilogy

And here I thought I was gonna be first.

I haven't played them in a while so it's hard to think about what truly nails down the aesthetics for the game. It doesn't shoot for photo-realism nor does it go for a stylization in it's graphics, I think it might be stylization in the design of things but I can't quite nail it down.

Actually, as long as I'm here, I got another one, an honorable mention rather.

Serious, serious props to the artists that did the backdrops for Bulletstorm. It's been ages since I've played it and maybe the wow factor would be worn away if I went back (I don't think so though) but with the Full Clip Edition coming out in a little while, I've been thinking about it lately and I think that was one of the first games to really make me appreciate a horizon in a game, gorgeous stuff sometimes.
And I like to think of that as a relatively high praise for a game that was pretty mindless bro-dude shooting most of the time, they didn't cut corners when it came to building the world, at least from a visual standpoint.

 

[Elijin]

I think Front Mission 3 holds up really well. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut a huge part of that is there hasn't been anything like it since. So even though the graphics are super dated, the core RPG mech suit system is robust, with nothing to age it by comparison.

Also, most 2D platformers. If you liked them before, you probably still like them. They're polarising though, so I can see a lot of people saying they're trash 'coin eaters' now, and were trash 'coin eaters' back in the day.

 

[The Madman]

Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 still hold up amazingly well today and I don't foresee them becoming unplayable anytime soon.

On a more personal level, I'd say Heroes of Might & Magic 3 as well as Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic both hold up extremely well also. Both have a similar sort of semi-cartoony 2D art-style and presentation which I think ages well and both have a simple, timeless sort of gameplay and UI that remain fun to play today. There are more modern 3D versions of both those series around today, some of which are even really good, but those older 2D games are still the more timeless high benchmarks to which I hold the series.

I'd also be tempted to say the Baldur's Gate games, but I realize for a lot of people the old 2nd edition D&D system really makes it difficult for a lot of newcomers to enjoy. Shame that.

 

[meiam]

I think Front Mission 3 holds up really well. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut a huge part of that is there hasn't been anything like it since. So even though the graphics are super dated, the core RPG mech suit system is robust, with nothing to age it by comparison.

Ehhh yes and no, the suits upgrade is needlessly complicated, there really wasn't any need to have the player just upgrade the part (ie just make it +1/+2 and so on) which just made comparing different part a pain in the ass. The actual tactics itself could also have used a bit more, like being able to aim at specific part (always hated it when my guy would destroy just the enemy chest).

Story was really cool though, and the world building was excellent with the in game internet. The mission lenght was also nice, FM4 mission tended to be far too long imo.

 

[Cowabungaa]

The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past is still pretty much god-tier in every aspect, from its 16-bit art to its basic mechanics.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door could also be made this year, you'd only notice it wasn't thanks to the resolution.

I was also surprised Just Cause 2 was as 'old' as it was when I got it. That game has stellar art direction alright.

I'd also name Earthbound if it weren't for that fffffucking inventory management. Mother 3 fixes that at least.

I'd also be tempted to say the Baldur's Gate games, but I realize for a lot of people the old 2nd edition D&D system really makes it difficult for a lot of newcomers to enjoy. Shame that.

Yeah I couldn't get into the BG games because of that. After I did a long rest after fighting a few goblins twice in a row I nope'd out of there.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dont think any of the old Mario games 1,2,3 have aged at all they still look and play amazing. Bubble Bobble is still great fun as well and I would also put Street Fighter 2 in there or more specifically SF2 Turbo (or Hyper edition as some call it).