Games that Aged INCREDIBLY well

[baddude1337]

The Thief games. I recently picked up the first two on steam for 2 quid, and they are still really fun to play. The huge expansive levels really let you go where you want, the difficulty levels change your objectives which is great. I also really like how most of your arsenal is the bow with its variety of ammo. And of course no other game has been able to replicate its directional sound, making it easy to pinpoint where an enemy is coming from. For the time it was very revolutionary and to me still holds up today.

While the graphics aren't the best there are HD mods that update it quite an it, and fan patches to make them run on modern computers and in widescreen. I'd recommend any stealth fan to give them a go, and to also check out the fan made Dark Mod, which ports the gameplay over to a more modern engine andntoolset.

 

[chrissx2]

Hmm where to start :

Heroes 3

Age of Empire 2

Quake 2/3

Knights and Merchants

Transport Tycoon Deluxe

Discworld 1

StarCraft 1

Diablo 2

Fallout 1/2

Arcanum

From more recent games, Crysis 1, Mafia 2, Dishonored, H-L2, Fear etc.

 

[bjj hero]

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.

Front mission was amazing and still worth a play through today.

I would also add:

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
A massive game with so many secrets, the way you power up your hero is amazing and highly customisable.

Shining Force/2:
Tactical RPG that oozed charm. The charecters are still nice looking even now theyre low res, the tinkle that played as they spoke was different for each charecter so it felt like a strange language. It is a shame voice acting killed this style.

I'd also add Streets of rage 2. The musical score still gives me chills.

Lemmings: Still worth a play through. Nothing like getting to the end of a level and realising you have missed something as 70 lemmings plummet into a fire.

 

[DarklordKyo]

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet (far as I can tell right now that is), I'm going to vouch for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Seriously, that game's visuals aged like a fine wine compared to other 3D games of the time and before.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

If we don't account for the dated visuals, I find Deus Ex still extremely absorbing and enjoyable. Same with the earlier Thief games. Same with both Half-Life games. The aesthetic and the atmosphere (particularly in Thief's use of shadows and colors) make up for the lack of crispy visual fidelity and it's easy to get lost in all of the above without paying any attention to the rough polygons and low-res textures.

Visually I'd argue anything involving good sprite-art is timeless.

 

[distortedreality]

I'll go with the first F.E.A.R.

Still looks pretty good, plays great and has some of the best AI ever seen in a FPS, so much so that I can't think of a game released since then that tops it in that regard.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm actually surprised the two I'm gonna list have't been mentioned yet They can be found anywhere, lots of people play 'em, and they just get plain addictive.

Doom and Tetris.

 

[veloper]

Why not just mention the Witcher 3 or For Honor, if we're going to take that easy route?

Gameplay and game controls haven't evolved since dual stick controllers became the norm. Any game that was good from the PS2 and onward should still be considered good now, if you can get over a game not having the prettiest visuals.
Finding a 3D game on the N64 that a kid used to dual sticks could get into, is the real challenge.

On the PC we've been doing keyboard and mouse controls for ages, but if you go way back you can spot changes in design philosophy or improved GUIs for different genres that make a big difference.

Base RTS:
Dune 2 was very clunky, lacking many shortcuts, queues and group commands we're used to now, but the young genre evolved fast and C&C already had most of the functions we now expect in place. The genre continued to evolve, but a recent game like SC2 is actually a step backwards in terms of GUI functionality and streamlining from an oldie like SupCom. Many (SC) players don't demand all the conveniences and are willing to do some repetitive, mundane tasks. Nothing happened after SupCom.
Any old answer up till SupCom works, but I doubt anyone without nostalgia goggles, would find beating Dune 2, Warcraft 1 or AoE 1 worth the bother nowadays. It's a very big leap from WC2 and AoE2 back to the originals. For me, SC1 is still a good game, but for the pioneers, a lot of the original appeal was just novelty and unreached potential.

Puzzle AG:
The designs of the old text AGs like Infocom's and the early graphical AGs relied on trail&error, dead ends and restarts and the purpose was to challenge the player for a very long period of time. Fairness wasn't much of a consideration in puzzle design and the pacing of the story was non-existent. After that came two distinct, popular variants: Lucas Arts style AGs that did away with the dead ends and made solutions require a little less moon logic and Puzzle box AGs such as Myst that featured series of self-contained, logical puzzles. The first variant eventually reduced most of the distinct commands to just look, operate/take and use an inventory item and the second evolved to include games that are a series of rooms with physics simulation based puzzles.
Here it mostly comes down to tolerance levels. A player who can handle BouT I would expect capable of enjoying old Monkey Island and if you can do the Talos Principle, Myst should be at least palatable.

MI1 holds up, but so does Leather Goddesses of Phobos and the best personal answer here would be finding the oldest true classic that doesn't overcome your patience, willpower and stubbornness.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

I'm actually surprised the two I'm gonna list have't been mentioned yet They can be found anywhere, lots of people play 'em, and they just get plain addictive.

Doom and Tetris.

I was thinking to mention Duke Nukem 3D, because I've been playing the Megaton Edition lately and I've been having a blast, but I was afraid the added mouse look support disqualified my experience with it. I did play the original a few years back, it holds up for what it is.

Why not just mention the Witcher 3 or For Honor, if we're going to take that easy route?

Gameplay and game controls haven't evolved since dual stick controllers became the norm. Any game that was good from the PS2 and onward should still be considered good now, if you can get over a game not having the prettiest visuals.

Not necessarily. There have been mechanical design choices that are now considered dated, including camera control (a lot of the early PS2 era 3rd person games didn't know what to do with the right thumbstick), difficulty curve, player handicaps and so on. Meaning, you're right that good games from that era onward are still good, but I wager we factor in how much modern gamers are willing to deal with certain design choices that wouldn't be popular in modern games.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Gameplay and game controls haven't evolved since dual stick controllers became the norm. Any game that was good from the PS2 and onward should still be considered good now, if you can get over a game not having the prettiest visuals

Oh yes they have. It's been a subtle change, but one you instantly notice once you go back and play some of those games. The first God of War and Ratchet and Clank, and the entire Jak and Daxter series suffer from an awkward stiffness to the controls. Don't even get me talking about the PS2 era GTA games.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Every Commandos game is still amazing. The games came out 20 years ago and they're still gorgeous and fun to play.

Spoiler

It's a shame this kind of strategy game didn't become popular.

 

[Victim of Progress]

Hmm where to start :

Knights and Merchants

Discworld

This man knows what's he's talking about. I would also say the Cossacks Series. They look amazing on high def monitors

 

[meiam]

Are you remembering the wrong game? You didn't upgrade suit parts, you found or purchased them. And aiming for certain body parts was covered by the skills system. Then again, I liked the system with each part having its own HP pool, and outside of skills specialising a better chance at certain shots, it breaking down to the chaos of combat. I've played games since which had had targetable body parts, and the trade off is either the game is too easy due to just disabling enemies easily, or the % to hit parts other than the body too low to be worth the effort.

FM4 never came out in my country, so I don't have comments on it.

Hum, nope you had to, here's a lets play where the player does it

https://youtu.be/zQSmDcqJYS0?list=PLF73BEB58FED83D48

You could get certain skill to target part, but iirc those were just randomly activated or they were limited to only few parts and the chance of learning them was low.

 

[Elijin]

Are you remembering the wrong game? You didn't upgrade suit parts, you found or purchased them. And aiming for certain body parts was covered by the skills system. Then again, I liked the system with each part having its own HP pool, and outside of skills specialising a better chance at certain shots, it breaking down to the chaos of combat. I've played games since which had had targetable body parts, and the trade off is either the game is too easy due to just disabling enemies easily, or the % to hit parts other than the body too low to be worth the effort.

FM4 never came out in my country, so I don't have comments on it.

Hum, nope you had to, here's a lets play where the player does it

https://youtu.be/zQSmDcqJYS0?list=PLF73BEB58FED83D48


You could get certain skill to target part, but iirc those were just randomly activated or they were limited to only few parts and the chance of learning them was low.

Ah yep, forgot about the small upgrades you could do. I still stand my supporting the targeting system. Games where you can target are either too easy, or targeting anything away from center mass is not worth the hit chance drop. I liked the straight combat, with skills which can weight certain outcomes without assuring them.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Quite frankly, the first thing that sprung to mind when reading the title was Carmageddon.

I think it stil looks nice, it's engine is physics based so that gets quite some mileage, and runs on practically everything (atleast it runs fine on my Windows 8 laptop).

90's 3D engines tend to get flakked for aging badly, but I really don't think it applies to this game. It's sequel however...

 

[gorfias]

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet (far as I can tell right now that is), I'm going to vouch for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Seriously, that game's visuals aged like a fine wine compared to other 3D games of the time and before.

It plays like a completely new game on the Wii U. If I didn't know better I would think it made new for Gen 8.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I still remember all the words to the great mighty poo's serenade. Twas a unique experience. And why haven't Scouser dung beetles been utilised since?? It's the sort of thing begging for spin-off dlc story content. That and, well, all the side characters could do with more exposure.

Am going to just be an uninteresting bore and go straight for the Perfect Dark option. Recently saw an LP of the multiplayer and it still looked pretty great fun.
Though a little voice in my head is telling me that 4 player split screen with 8 bots might not run as well on the N64. So at least Rare had the modesty to admit they can't make good games anymore by rereleasing it for the last 2 generations with nought but a spit 'n shine. That game had everything. I can't even go into detail about it without bringing a sad damnation to all developers who ignored all the cool shit that was in an FPS nearly 20 years ago!
And Conker had a great multiplayer. Just throwing that out there

 

[Kajin]

Glances over at the shelf where I keep my old consoles, sees Star Fox 64 and Mega Man X in the 64 and SNES

Yeah, those.

 

[josemlopes]

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.

Since when is the Xbox 1 version on Rare Reloaded? You better not be rustling my jimmies.

OT: I mean... Uncharted 3 is rather new, isnt it?

Mirrors Edge 1 is a bit older and damn, that shit looks wack, have a nice read on its lighting
https://pt.slideshare.net/DICEStudio/henrikgdc09-compat

Then you also have the Timesplitters series, mainly 2 and 3. Also Unreal Tournament 2k4, it just looks so crisp and clean.

Halo 3 hasnt aged a day, the artstyle is so nice. And I still like the look of Quake 1 so there, I guess.

 

[veloper]

Gameplay and game controls haven't evolved since dual stick controllers became the norm. Any game that was good from the PS2 and onward should still be considered good now, if you can get over a game not having the prettiest visuals

Oh yes they have. It's been a subtle change, but one you instantly notice once you go back and play some of those games. The first God of War and Ratchet and Clank, and the entire Jak and Daxter series suffer from an awkward stiffness to the controls. Don't even get me talking about the PS2 era GTA games.

But is it just us, or is it those games were always lacking a bit in that regard though? Because looking back, my memories of when I first played GTA on the PS2 was that I disliked the controls even then.
What I liked about GTA 3 and vice city was the scope and the setting and the driving was tolerable, but running and shooting always felt incredibly clunky and subpar.