Have old games aged well?

[Lilani]

So escapist's what do you think? Do you know any old games that make you want want to tear out your eye-balls? Or maybe some games which you think have aged well and still look good?

Well there is a world of difference between graphics and aesthetics. Discounting old games for low polycounts is like discounting old movies for being in black and white. It's sort of inevitable, so it's sort of trite consider that a strike against them. You can't tell me Charlie Chaplin's films are inherently flawed because he had the misfortune of being alive in the early days of film. True greatness is timeless.

Most people will tell you Silent Hill 2 still looks great because its aesthetics are phenomenal, working with the limited graphics to pull off the right atmosphere. I personally still love Spyro: Year of the Dragon, because even though the graphics are very rudimentary, the cartoony style and the acting of the characters just sell the world so well.

 

[Joccaren]

Graphics age, but aesthetics, gameplay, and writing don't.

Definitely this.

Graphics will always age. Hell, in 10 years we'll be looking back and saying how crap BF3 and TW2 look compared to the new Uber High Res games we'll be playng, or something of the sorts [Though personally I see a large shift in that sort of thing towards alternate forms of presentation, rather than a constant increase in resolution of screens].

The gameplay however, is the same as it always was, and what keeps me playing. SW:BF2's graphics are crap. However, they do their job well enough, and I can enjoy the gameplay still.

IMO, its the gameplay and story that matter most. Graphics are just some nice icing on the cake [Unless its terrible graphics and terrible aesthetics that make the game unintuitive to play].

Captcha: Get Over it.
Damn straight, get over the poor graphics and have fun playing those good ol' games.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I just played Kingdom Hearts 2 again last week.

It looks great considering it came out in 2005.

Graphics age, but aesthetics, gameplay, and writing don't.

To a degree, a good graphical style can stay looking good for quite some time. XIII, Kingdom Hearts, Persona. They still look pretty good graphically, at least compared to some other games.

Indeed, good sir.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

A lot of 16 bit games hold up well in looks and gameplay today. My personal example would be Mega Man X with its tight controls and neat-looking sprites.

...But then, it IS one of my favorite games of all time. Perhaps I'm a little biased...

Anyways, most of the "haven't aged well" thing seems to come from early 3D games. Some games are just flat-out ugly.

For myself, though, this mostly only applies to PS1 games. I can handle PS2 era stuff quite easily.

 

[dimensional]

If you actually remember an old game well then it will never age you remember how it looks and plays sure it may look crap in comparison to modern games but it will never be unplayable because you never forget what it was.

I can play games back to NES era quite easily but before that I admit I can find it can be hard although this may be because I really only properly started gaming in the NES era.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I'd take it on a case-by-case basis. OP, if you think PS2 graphics look bad you may want to avoid PSX and N64 games but games from before that gen, when a majority of them were side-scrolling and whatnot, you may like those. I prefer older games so I'm automatically going to say 'yes'. Wind Waker still looks beautiful to me, as does Okami but I wouldn't call those old games either. Donkey Kong Country on the SNES is another one that looks amazing to me, even today.

Graphics age, but aesthetics, gameplay, and writing don't.

Basically this.

 

[Kalamala7]

So escapist's what do you think? Do you know any old games that make you want want to tear out your eye-balls? Or maybe some games which you think have aged well and still look good?

Well there is a world of difference between graphics and aesthetics. Discounting old games for low polycounts is like discounting old movies for being in black and white. It's sort of inevitable, so it's sort of trite consider that a strike against them. You can't tell me Charlie Chaplin's films are inherently flawed because he had the misfortune of being alive in the early days of film. True greatness is timeless.

Most people will tell you Silent Hill 2 still looks great because its aesthetics are phenomenal, working with the limited graphics to pull off the right atmosphere. I personally still love Spyro: Year of the Dragon, because even though the graphics are very rudimentary, the cartoony style and the acting of the characters just sell the world so well.

I have nothing against the game. In fact I went on to continue to play for a good 2 hour's until I had to get some work done. Someone mentioned above that it was because of up-scaling that the game looked worse than I remember it because I have a bigger TV than I had back then. I stress that I have nothing against the game or the aesthetics it's just that I was commenting on the fact that they always looked better in my memory which is of course always going to happen in this age of HD and 3D.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Graphics (not aesthetic) can be a real deal breaker some times. I say this because I remember a few months ago when I booted up Legend of Zelda for the N64 as part of a nostalgia trip, and it's prehistoric 3D graphics literally gave me a headache after a few minutes of playing it on my HD tv (I managed to get to the maze behind Kokiri village before I had to lie down for a spell).

Still, look at games like Deus Ex, Silent Hill 2, Morrowind, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. They're 12, 11, 10, and 8 years old respectively, yet they still maintain huge cult followings to this very day.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Older 3D games didn't age well graphically, but most PS2/GC/XB games are still very much playable by today's standards. Most PS1 and N64 games aren't, mostly because of shitty early 3D controls.

Old 2D games which have good aesthetics still look very good today, and a ton of them still play very well to this day.

 

[CynicalB]

As always, there are two types of graphic styles. Realistic graphics and Stylized graphics. Realistic age pretty fast, since technology moves on, widening the gap between their attempt to look as real as possible and the current generation. Stylized graphics will always be stylized, even when resolution may increase, so they often get close to the intended effect of the designers.

Want to test this theory? Try playing Chrono Cross (2000) and Chrono Trigger (1995), and tell me which one aged better...

QFT

Games like The Curse of Monkey Island still look great but Tomb Raider II does not.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

Icewind Dale 1/2. Everytime I go back to them I still think the backgrounds are really well done.

A more recent game, Swat 4. Although it wasn't released that long ago (2005) it still stands up remarkably well IMO.

 

[TehCookie]

Nope, old games looks like shit on HDTVs. However old games on SDTVs still look great to me as long as they have a clear artsyle. Then again I also judge graphics by how well I can tell what things are. Older games look better since you can tell what's important and what's not more easily. Also I like my rusty keys to sparkle rather than having to look for realistic dirt covered key in a pile of dirt.

 

[malufenix]

There seems to be two groups - people mention console games and not liking the retro titles, and PC games where people are a lot more happier to play the older classics. I would say it's a mentality thing. When console gamers were playing Mario style platforms and racing and fighting games, PC gamers were playing text based and graphic based adventure games, management games like Simcity, hex based wargames, deep roleplaying games along with intelligent shooters like System Shock and more basic shooters like Doom.

This means PC gamers from the early on were getting access to many styles, some that required the best graphics (Wing Commander, and those that were okay with simpler graphics, like the Sierra Quest series, for example, or 2D Hex based wargames.

This means it's easier for PC gamers to go back and play these retro games. Hence the huge success of GOG.com.

Let me give you an example of why retro titles are so important:

Microprose, in 1994, came out with an RPG called "Darklands". This RPG had a story about the "Wild Hunt" as used in The Witcher 1 and 2. Darklands also had another side story of Dragons taking to the skies as a portent of Armageddon - just like the main quest of Skyrim!

There is a connection between the retro titles of the 90's and the modern games of the 00's+, we forget this at our peril!

 

[Scarim Coral]

Considering that I chosen the Wii I'm fine playing older games as I always hold the valve of Gameplay > Graphic but by all mean graphic still got some importance.
Example I played and love Knight of the Old Republic which I played it years after it was release unlike my brother would doesn't dare touch that game at all since he said he was put off by the graphic. In saying so he did want to play it since he love Mass Effect and he did bought FF13 for the solve purpose of the fancy hi-res graphic it had on that game.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Here are some examples of games I can play even in today's age:

- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: It gets a lot of slack for being overrated but honestly for how old the game is we can't forget how it revolutionized adventure games on the console. The fact that I can pick it up and play it all over again shows how well the game was crafted.

- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: It's perfect.

- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Plays well and looks good, cell shading and colors really show how well a game can stand the test of time.

- Super Mario Bros 1 & 3: Classics.

- Half Life 2: Another fine example of a good game.

- Okami: Cell shading and excellent gameplay, it really shines.

- Shadow of the Colossus: For it's time there was nothing else like it and it's still playable.

- Chrono Trigger: Charming.

 

[Alhazred]

Graphics never bothered me. If a game looks particularly dated then I can just laugh at the silly looking character models and environments. And besides, the less spent on graphics, the more time can be spent on gameplay.

 

[Luca72]

To me it has more to do with controls than graphics. I couldn't imagine a game better than Goldeneye when I was 7 or 8, but it's unplayable now. I can deal with the dated graphics, but the controls are a mess.

In a similar way Ocarina of Time is hard for me to go back to. I have fond memories of exploring every inch of that world, so I'm not saying it's a bad game. But now that I'm older I'm more concerned with beating the game - going through it's "obstacle course". And OoT is a lot more bland than I thought.

On the other hand, I love Majora's Mask as much if not more than when I was a kid. It's gameplay was a lot more varied and the design was so out there that it doesn't seem aged.

I tried Deus Ex for the first time in 2011 and it's now one of my favorite video games ever. Terrible, terrible graphics, but tight gameplay with variety unlike anything I've ever seen. And obviously there's Half Life (any of the games really) where I find it impossible to be bored because almost every room has a unique style of gameplay.

Jet Force Gemini on N64 is another one that's never gotten old - excellent visuals and music, and mindlessly fun shooting combined with exploration.

 

[Conn1496]

Most consoles aged well, actually. Especially Nintendo consoles. It's mainly down to the "cartoony" graphics of most Nintendo console games having no real boundries to what they have to look like, so most games look fine.

 

[Nazulu]

I've only had difficulty enjoying some classics on the N64, like Golden Eye 64. Other than the blocky designs, yeah, no problem. As long as I can tell whats going on I don't have a problem that is.

 

[DioWallachia]

I've just booted up my old PS2 and played some old games and I have a few words to say. ARRRGGGHHHH MY EYES! I am of course referring the games graphics being like looking very pix elated while I still have memories if them being some of the best I've seen.

So escapist's what do you think? Do you know any old games that make you want want to tear out your eye-balls? Or maybe some games which you think have aged well and still look good?

Load up Soul Reaver 2, God Hand, Shadow of The Colossus and Strecht Panic and graphics problem be-gone.