Games that Aged INCREDIBLY well

[gorfias]

Moore's Law is pretty much dead at this point. It strictly speaking means every 18 months you get double the number of transistors onto the same size of die. That's not happening anymore because we're approaching the limits of how far we can shrink the transistors on silicon. Case in point it looks like Intel will now have four generations on 14nm because they are having so much trouble getting 10nm to work, it used to be Intel would only have two generations per process node. It's part of the reason why CPU advancement has more or less plateaued in the past 6 years and the only way to get big improvements on CPUs now is to add more cores and go onto a larger die.

It's not as linear as Moore describes but in the 1990s we got the Pentium II, AKA the "Candy Bar" . The theory was pretty much what you write about 20 years ago. [Oh dear. I'm wicked old :-(]

I anticipate great things, even if things appear stalled at the moment. (Will Quantum computers ever meet the proposed possibilities?)

GPUs face a similar situation, but they aren't hurt nearly as bad as they are designed from the ground up for parallel computing vs. CPU tasks that are more serialized and where software developers have a hard time scaling that stuff across many cores.

I haven't seen the slow down there yet. And while GPUS are getting much faster, we're getting much more bang for the buck too. My HD 7970 w/ 8 Gig DDR5 cost $600. 5 years later, for $240, I got an RX 480 8 GB DDR 5.

The next big change over the next 10 years?

In the past, you had to pay, adjusted for inflation, about $150 for a good sound card. I can now get 5.1 surround sound from my mother board. I think we'll see an APU that can match the best CPU and GPU combos built into motherboards 10 years from now. Making this kind of power available to the masses is an advance as well. Game development will make better use of this power under such conditions.

As for DX12, so far it hasn't been very impressive, not that many games have supported it so far, and those that do often run worse than in DX11 mode without any real improvements to visual fidelity.

I'm liking it so far. And if I understand it correctly, AMD optimized its cards to work well with it going back as far as my HD 7970 (replaced twice over since) while the Nvidia GTX 5 (and 6?) series do not work at DX 11. And I think things will only get better as developers get used to working with it.

 

[CaitSeith]

Chrono Trigger (SNES version)

It's 16-bit JRPG done right:

- Interesting characters (except for the main one; he is pretty much a blank slate)
- Great main story, full of mysteries and twists
- Side-quests that develop the characters even further (both in strength and in narrative)
- Simple, yet deep combat (including different AoE special attacks and combos)
- Visuals and animations that effectively communicate the situation
- Seamless transition between exploring and starting a battle
- Player choices that have tangible effects on the story and the game's world
- Multiple endings
- Great music
- It ends with teenagers using the power of friendship to kill God

 

[CaitSeith]

I discovered the Serious Sam series recently and I fell in love with it.
The games look like garbage graphically speaking but the gameplay is fantastic.

I've heard of Serious Sam only because of the Talos Principle's easter eggs. What kind of gameplay is it?

 

[k0n9]

Lets see here let me get my comically sized scroll of a list.
The Snes Final Fantasy games, including Mystic Quest ( I think it's still okay.)
The DKC trilogy
The Oracle games
TMNT IV Turtles in Time
Knights of The Round
That DnD Arcade Game
Street Fighter 2
King of Fighters 98
Samurai Shodown II
The Last Blade 2
World Heroes Perfect
Fire Emblem 7
Garou Mark of The Wolves

 

[CaitSeith]

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.

Oh, I remember that game... more or less. Mostly I remember its stealth mechanics (pretty solid).

 

[Hops]

Battle for Bikini Bottom and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Game. I could play through both about ten times each and not get sick of them, so fun!

 

[pookie101]

for me its mass effect.. even the graphics hold up and its a 10 year old game i was playing 10 minutes ago
otherwise crusader no remorse/no regret for games that are 20 years old (crap i feel ancient) they are still surprisingly good even graphically although the controls take a while to get used to

 

[Bad Jim]

Will Quantum computers ever meet the proposed possibilities?

Yes and no. Quantum computers are very good at solving some 'hard' problems like factorizing huge numbers. Lots of money is being spent on research, and primitive quantum computers are being sold for ridiculous sums of money.

On the other hand, most of the things modern computers actually do is 'easy' tasks where the processing time is proportional to the amount of I/O. Quantum computers have no fundamental advantage in this case, so they probably won't ever replace conventional computers for most applications. They will probably be available on the cloud for anyone who wants a 'hard' problem solved.

 

[gorfias]

Will Quantum computers ever meet the proposed possibilities?

Yes and no. Quantum computers are very good at solving some 'hard' problems like factorizing huge numbers. Lots of money is being spent on research, and primitive quantum computers are being sold for ridiculous sums of money.

On the other hand, most of the things modern computers actually do is 'easy' tasks where the processing time is proportional to the amount of I/O. Quantum computers have no fundamental advantage in this case, so they probably won't ever replace conventional computers for most applications. They will probably be available on the cloud for anyone who wants a 'hard' problem solved.

Interesting. I'll have to look up `hard` problems. I was talking with an IT Security guy that was worried something like this would be able to brute force anything. Sounds like not hopefully!

 

[Bad Jim]

I was talking with an IT Security guy that was worried something like this would be able to brute force anything. Sounds like not hopefully!

Cracking encryption is a 'hard' problem, so he was right to be worried. On the other hand, while quantum computers could crack modern public key encryption, that's because it assumes factorizing huge numbers is hard. There are other algorithms though and quantum computers are not known to be able to solve all 'hard' problems (ie NP-Complete) quickly.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

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.

Can't just write off all text adventures like that. There are some great ones which are very fair. Try Plundered Hearts, Trinity, Spider & Web and Anchorhead before you write off the whole genre.

 

[Jerast]

Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie

Both seriously stand the test of time.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

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.

Dude, I was playing Starfox 64 last night and my god was it fun. It's really given me the urge to dive back into my N64 collection and maybe devote quite a few hours to Ocarina of Time again.

OT: I think Warcraft 3 is still a pretty impressive game. Blizzard's art design has aged incredibly well and the story is great. It's still a solid RTS and I really hope a remaster or WC4 ends up happening.

 

[MrBenSampson]

The original Spyro trilogy aged beautifully. I played through it less than a year ago. The only thing I wish to change would be the camera controls. The right analog stick saw very little use in the PS1 days.

Along with Spyro, the Crash Bandicoot games held up just as well. Crash Bash is still my favourite party game.

One that I discovered recently is Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. After having played through the original Silent Hill and Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark was gorgeous by comparison. The environments are hand drawn, so the PS1 only had to render the characters and enemies. The results still look great. The gameplay is the same as any other classic horror.

 

[Raggedstar]

Considering how rocky 3D was in the 90s, Crash and Spyro have made it through relatively unscathed. Still very much playable and visually appealing (well, more than other games of that era at least. Spyro 1 still looks and feels a little janky). Spyro especially handles so smooth, especially in underwater segments where many games even today still suffer.

Conker's Bad Fur Day looks fantastic, even if it's handling isn't the greatest. It's one of those games I wish Microsoft would buckle down and port to Steam, because that game would print money.

EDIT:

The original Spyro trilogy aged beautifully. I played through it less than a year ago. The only thing I wish to change would be the camera controls. The right analog stick saw very little use in the PS1 days.

Along with Spyro, the Crash Bandicoot games held up just as well. Crash Bash is still my favourite party game.

Wow, you posted that minutes before I did lol. Timing.

 

[American Tanker]

Dude, I was playing Starfox 64 last night and my god was it fun.

Oh don't get me wrong, Space Furries isn't a bad game, just limited compared to Rogue Squadron. (Plus the fur factor... The less said about that, the better.)

With more different ships to fly, more different kinds of missions to complete and larger open levels to explore, Rogue Squadron just feels like a genuinely better experience to me.

 

[McMarbles]

SNES-era Final Fantasies, especially VI.

Whereas VII aged incredibly poorly.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Rocket Knight Adventures is still one of the best 2D platforming experiences you can have, imo. It's very short but it has a nice visual style, great music and sound (especially for a Mega Drive game), fantastic controls, a challenging but fair difficulty level and great level design. Well worth seeking out if you've never played it.

I think the Mega Drive Sonic games have aged really well, too. A lot of people don't like the momentum driven movement that means you can hardly jump forward from a standstill but if you dislike that now, you probably would have if it were still the 90s as well. That momentum based movement is precisely why I think they're good, nothing besides Freedom Planet really does that. And Freedom Planet, good as it is, messes it up a little in a few ways (there's never any reason to use horizontal bounce pads because you'll immediately come to a screeching halt after you hit them).

Someone mentioned A Link to the Past so I'll also nominate Soleil for the Mega Drive which is probably ALTTP's best clone besides Alundra on PS1, which has also aged extremely well and is, for my money, actually much better ALTTP in just about every way.

Team Buddies on PS1 was this weird little top down, team based shooter that is and was fantastic and there's just nothing else like it. It's rare as rocking horse shit now, sadly, but fuck me it's good.

Psi-Ops was a multiplat TPS from 2003 that had a pretty decent pre-Gears cover system, impressive AI and probably the best use of telekinesis in a game to date... to the point that you can fuck the shooting and cover system off and throw your enemies around like screaming ragdolls. Second Sight is also good. It's more stealth based and story driven but also has a surprisingly good cover system, great use of TK and other powers, a decent narrative and a distinct, very Timesplitters-y visual style. It suffers from some control issues that were a problem even at the time, though.

Speaking of Timesplitters, 2 and Future Perfect have aged really well for 6th gen shooters. Still my go-to for local multiplayer when I'm entertaining.

Pretty much any JRPG after the 80s that was good when it came out is still at least enjoyable today if you're into the genre but I have to give special mention to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne/Lucifer's Call for still having never been topped in my opinion. It holds up really nicely visually, too.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

X-COM: UFO Defense has aged remarkably well for a 20+ year old game

balance and UI problem aside, is still extremely fun