Games that haven't aged well.
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Just because using the kind of camera controls made perfect sense for the time it doesn't mean that modern-day camera controls aren't pretty much fundamentally better in terms of functionality. It also doesn't mean that I still can't have fun with those old games. But try designing a game today with the kind of things they pulled for the N64. You wouldn't get away with it. That's the idea of not ageing well.Ezekiel said:
Sadly that doesn't stop developers from still screwing camera controls up though.
I think Spyro 1, 2 and 3 and Crash 2 and 3 have aged pretty well, even visually in some aspects. If it'll convince you i'm not completely blinded by nostalgia goggles I think Goldeneye is a bit shit by today's shooter standards.Johnny Novgorod said:
I remember Crash 1 lacking thumbstick control, and while Crash 2 and 3 had it (they definitely did, by the way) you were usually better off with the d pad.Evonisia said:
As for my personal contributions, Street Fighter 2 and while I can still enjoy them, every Pokemon game before X and Y. Although it's still a little hard to look at X and Y's overworld and S/M is a little bit of a pain in the framerate...
This thread isn't about whether a game is good or not. This thread is about whether a game aged well. Ocarina Of Time was and still is a good game and a momentous achievement in gaming. Doesn't mean it aged well. Those two things are not the same thing.Ezekiel said:
In terms of the N64, I think a huge part of this is the controller. That horrible controller and primitive analog stick aren't doing those older games any favors. I think something like Super Mario 64 would feel a lot less dated with a decent controller in hand.Johnny Novgorod said:
I'm saying he's trying too hard. I understand that those games can be seen as bad now, and maybe they are, but the sheer anger he put into his post makes it look like he's just someone that likes to be contrarian.Nazulu said:
I do think Spyro has aged pretty well, at least the 2nd game. Crash not so much.Headsprouter said:
Battlezone. My god Battlezone.
Though you can probably apply that to anything made before the NES era (and still, my god the shovelware on the NES) outside of select arcade games.
The Commanche series (combat helicopter) games are a big example of why early 3d doesn't age. Most of the games I cannot physically tell what I'm looking at. There are pixels. They are clearly meant to be something... and I flew into a wall.
Though you can probably apply that to anything made before the NES era (and still, my god the shovelware on the NES) outside of select arcade games.
The Commanche series (combat helicopter) games are a big example of why early 3d doesn't age. Most of the games I cannot physically tell what I'm looking at. There are pixels. They are clearly meant to be something... and I flew into a wall.
That's ridiculous. Mechanics can (emphasis on the can) definitely age if it shows they're held back by technology or other developments. And mechanics aren't even the only thing that can age in a game, just take a look at the examples put in the thread here. It's at least as often about controls and graphical fidelity. To put it in such a black and white light is as silly as extreme relativism. There's such a thing as context and perspective. If what you're implying is true then there'd be no such thing as improvement in games, and that's silly.Ezekiel said:
Like, take GoldenEye. It opened up FPS games for consoles. Back then it was top of the line. You try making a shooter now that has the same control scheme as GoldenEye and see how well it does. But people back then ate it up en masse because they weren't used to anything better on console. Hence why GoldenEye aged poorly as we now know how to do it better. Expectations change, technologies change. Ocarina Of Time especially feels extremely bare-bones compared to more recent Zelda titles, even Majora's Mask. That doesn't mean that it isn't a great game or doesn't have any good qualities, it's still an absolute classic and milestone. Pokemon Red/Blue? Classic mobile RPG's, but sure as hell superseded by their successors.
Oh, and I'd like to add to the OoT being outdated thing.
The biggest reason is Majora's Mask.
Same mechanics, a little more polish, but the story and setting were just far and away so much better.
They tried to touch on what made MM's story good at times in OoT but it was fully realized later. Even today we don't get stories filled with varied personalities and emotions tightly constructed around a thematic core (grieving and loss) anywhere close enough today. I don't think Zelda games have managed to come close to that high-water mark narratively even as they mechanically improved.
The biggest reason is Majora's Mask.
Same mechanics, a little more polish, but the story and setting were just far and away so much better.
They tried to touch on what made MM's story good at times in OoT but it was fully realized later. Even today we don't get stories filled with varied personalities and emotions tightly constructed around a thematic core (grieving and loss) anywhere close enough today. I don't think Zelda games have managed to come close to that high-water mark narratively even as they mechanically improved.
That's you, I'll bet that you've played the game plenty and are used to it. But try selling a console shooter with that controle scheme now. Try having modern audiences go back to that. I'm very, very sure that it ain't gonna work for people, it's well and truly superseded. It's archaic. You might be okay with archaic, many people are, but that doesn't make it any less archaic.Ezekiel said:
"He doesn't like things I like so I need a way to easily dismiss his opinion."Nazulu said:
- The Internet, 2017
Quod erat demonstrandum. Apparently not liking something a lot means that I'm just doing it intentionally to disagree with others, and doesn't mean that Ico was always a steaming bag of crap. It's not like I said that I owned an N64 at the time, or that Mario 64 was important, or that the Zelda games were good. No, just better come out with some unoriginal Internet term and slap it over the post rather than addressing anything that was said.
The notion that games can't age is idiotic. We improve our art, refine our tech, and do better. When you take Sly Raccoon and do an HD re-release, and fix the 1st game's camera, you have improved it. Moreover, you should improve it, because we've discovered better ways of doing things and can improve it. To not do so would be to release an old game in a modern era, where its control scheme would be regarded as archaic and inferior - it would have aged poorly.
On the other hand, Super Mario World's controls and mechanics are every bit as tight now as they were in the 90s. We've not improved the technology and mechanics used in that genre to such a point that Mario World is not still crazy playable. It has aged well.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, System Shock is a stellar piece of early 90s cyberpunk, and an incredibly important game. If you play it these days and don't play Enhanced Edition, you're only hurting your own experience. The standard controls are (and always were) clunky and barely playable. Mouse-look, an innovation that didn't hit gaming until Future Shock in 1995, so massively improved PC controls that FPS games before it immediately feel dated, and adding it to System Shock immediately revolutionises the game. The fact that we didn't know better back then is literally the entire point.
As a guy with more consoles than is really sensible (stretching back to the early 80s) to deny that many retro games don't hold up to nostalgia, or that we've improved upon them since, is myopic.
On the other hand, Super Mario World's controls and mechanics are every bit as tight now as they were in the 90s. We've not improved the technology and mechanics used in that genre to such a point that Mario World is not still crazy playable. It has aged well.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, System Shock is a stellar piece of early 90s cyberpunk, and an incredibly important game. If you play it these days and don't play Enhanced Edition, you're only hurting your own experience. The standard controls are (and always were) clunky and barely playable. Mouse-look, an innovation that didn't hit gaming until Future Shock in 1995, so massively improved PC controls that FPS games before it immediately feel dated, and adding it to System Shock immediately revolutionises the game. The fact that we didn't know better back then is literally the entire point.
As a guy with more consoles than is really sensible (stretching back to the early 80s) to deny that many retro games don't hold up to nostalgia, or that we've improved upon them since, is myopic.
Ha! I never heard the word contrarian before. Maybe you have a point, but to be honest, I don't feel it's that angry, though I can see what you mean. I don't agree with any of those strong criticisms in that post but he does explain a little. It's not like he's completely wrong about them. They all have their flaws, but I managed to see past those.Specter Von Baren said:
You're doing the same here mate. You gotta ask first.Silvershock said:
Now it feels as angry. C'mon mate, he didn't say that at all, he's commenting on the tone. Don't knee jerk with another knee jerk.
See, this is a much better showing of your opinion and knowledge on this. I'm at work right now so I can't make a long reply but I also feel that the more realistic a game is trying to be, either through being a simulation of something like sports games or trying to look realistic with their models and graphics, the worse they age.Silvershock said:
You know, I remember my experience with a little game called Fire Emblem, Shadow Dragon. I think it kind of fits in the whole 'Some games age as the craft improves'.
So apparently Shadow Dragon (the remake of the very first Fire Emblem) was by most metrics a good port. The art style wasn't bad at all, it was a faithful remake of the first Fire Emblem...
And by most accounts, it tanked in the US. Horribly. While it actually did well enough in Japan to warrant a sequel. Why?
Because American audiences for Fire Emblem didn't have nostalgia for the first Fire Emblem. Almost all of them got introduced to Fire Emblem with FE7, Blazing Blade, on the GBA. That and Sacred Stones really colored the expectations of what they wanted from a Fire Emblem game.
Things like the Support Conversations, and cutscenes that integrate your units to the point where they feel like an army of PEOPLE rather than a group of interchangeable soldiers.
Shadow Dragon, however, is from before those things were codified into the series itself. Hell, some of the later recruitment missions in Shadow Dragon only came about from letting enough of your soldiers die, when "Someone died - Reset the map" became the usual mindset for most players. The game just felt so DIFFERENT in its expectations that not many US players got into it.
At the time, Fire Emblem 1 was indeed an amazing concept. Hell, it might even be a very solid game formula. But it's one that got improved with time. And I think that's the important thing to keep in mind when talking about whether or not a game has aged well. You've got to look at a game's quality, yes, and also look at it in the context of when it was released.
So apparently Shadow Dragon (the remake of the very first Fire Emblem) was by most metrics a good port. The art style wasn't bad at all, it was a faithful remake of the first Fire Emblem...
And by most accounts, it tanked in the US. Horribly. While it actually did well enough in Japan to warrant a sequel. Why?
Because American audiences for Fire Emblem didn't have nostalgia for the first Fire Emblem. Almost all of them got introduced to Fire Emblem with FE7, Blazing Blade, on the GBA. That and Sacred Stones really colored the expectations of what they wanted from a Fire Emblem game.
Things like the Support Conversations, and cutscenes that integrate your units to the point where they feel like an army of PEOPLE rather than a group of interchangeable soldiers.
Shadow Dragon, however, is from before those things were codified into the series itself. Hell, some of the later recruitment missions in Shadow Dragon only came about from letting enough of your soldiers die, when "Someone died - Reset the map" became the usual mindset for most players. The game just felt so DIFFERENT in its expectations that not many US players got into it.
At the time, Fire Emblem 1 was indeed an amazing concept. Hell, it might even be a very solid game formula. But it's one that got improved with time. And I think that's the important thing to keep in mind when talking about whether or not a game has aged well. You've got to look at a game's quality, yes, and also look at it in the context of when it was released.
Nailed it. Although I would alter it to say everything that tried 3D from that era. The truth is growth is an ugly process.Johnny Novgorod said:
It's hard to play a lot of console games before the last Gen (PS360 era) now simply because controllers have become standardized now.
Twin stick controls, 2 shoulder buttons, progressive triggers, etc...
It's so hard to go back to the PS2 GTAs before 3rd person console shooting (Resident Evil 4 and Modern Warfare) made a logical shooting scheme and then the racing games on the PS360 made logical driving schemes.
For an old school perspective: It used to be super hard to go back to Super Mario Bros after SMB3 came out. It so completely refined the formula that it was hard to go back until like 15 years later.
Twin stick controls, 2 shoulder buttons, progressive triggers, etc...
It's so hard to go back to the PS2 GTAs before 3rd person console shooting (Resident Evil 4 and Modern Warfare) made a logical shooting scheme and then the racing games on the PS360 made logical driving schemes.
For an old school perspective: It used to be super hard to go back to Super Mario Bros after SMB3 came out. It so completely refined the formula that it was hard to go back until like 15 years later.
