The Nostalgia Curse

[Project .hack]

I used to think like that too, but then at one point I realized I was only saying that those games were better and not actually playing them anymore, so I played some of them and realized they weren't as good as I remembered, so I usually choose my past vs. present arguments more carefully these days.

Also old LAN RTS games = always good imo

 

[r0manz]

For the longest time, I was convinced when it came to movies and music, nothing good came out after the 70s, and definitely after the 80s. The movies Jaws and the original Star Wars brought the end of cinema as an art form, and in music, Led Zeppelin breaking up and MTV taking over spelled the end of the counter culture.

I can't stand the horrible acting of old movies, the shitty quality of old music or the styles. Modern+classical ftw.

I only got into gaming in 2004 so I never played older games when they were revolutionary but I still liked them. Hard to play them when there are nice 3D engines to gaze at (games can be an art form imo).

 

[r0manz]

IMO most games atm are what movies were in the 90s, games just started to get pretty and experiment with story, 3D and all that in the late 80s/90s when gaming got out of the "Arcade" or classic console sector, and they were usually made by small companies that had a great idea and a vision and wanted to realize that giving us a lot of masterpieces.

Gaming after 2000+ became a "big business" in some cases even overshadowing the movie industry and instead of original ideas, fun games and great storylines (exceptions like Bioware aside) nowadays its only about "bigger", "prettier", "more violent" with a lot of cash-in on certain IPs and sequel after sequel. I can only hope that gaming as a general medium gets out of this and becomes more complex and compelling in a few years time xD

I disagree. I think gaming is doing quite well at the moment. We have great games like GTA IV, DAO, Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, RotA, The Saboteur, Trine, A Bards Tale (inXile version), Fable 2, etc that deliver impressive stories, good humor, and nice graphics (knock off 1 and 3 for Bards Tale obviously).

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'd be the first to say that everything was better during my childhood, but that doesn't mean everything sucks in this day and age.

It's all just not as much of a flowery meadow as it used to be.

 

[r0manz]

I disagree. I think gaming is doing quite well at the moment. We have great games like GTA IV, DAO, Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, RotA, The Saboteur, Trine, A Bards Tale (inXile version), Fable 2, etc that deliver impressive stories, good humor, and nice graphics (knock off 1 and 3 for Bards Tale obviously).

Okay... Fable 2, Rise of the Argonauts, The Saboteur, Trine and Bard's Tale as some of the games with the most "impressive stories"? xD Don't get me wrong some of those were fun and all but really... I think I'm just gonna have to back off a little here... just a few steps...

Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy were/are both a big Quicktime Event and I don't think I even have to lose any words about the ending of the second xD

Dragon Age: Origins was pretty good but nothing compared to stuff like Fallout 1+2, Planescape, Baldur's Gate Trilogy etc. and GTA IV was pretty nice I guess but heavily overhyped for what it was.

Haven't beaten Indigo Prophecy but it's going well so far (80%), I sort of enjoy the quicktime events in it. Had to customize the PC controls so my hands didn't fall off but still. I found Fallout 1 and 2 boring. Baldur's Gate was nice but it just doesn't compare to Dragon Age, the lore, the combat, voice acting, not gonna say graphics cause that'd be a cheap shot.
I didn't pay attention to the hype for GTA IV so I really can't be disappointed, but the story was great. Gameplay was nice. Graphics ugly.

The Saboteur is my #2 favorite game of all time, not because of that silly black and white diddledallying but because you didn't play as generic badass antihero as seen in some other games, or the blank slate that you are in BG and Icewind Dale. I don't say that lightly, I hate almost every game I play except a few greats.
Trine is generic but well told. Fable 2's was good, you just have to take the behaviour of non-story NPCs with a grain of salt. Argonauts is great, combat not the best but everything else is nice.
Perhaps you didn't read when I excluded Bard's Tale from my impressive story category,

There were no characters in BG or IWD that I cared about or could attach myself to. Same with Fallout 1, didn't get far enough into 2 to make judgement.


Edit: Didn't bother with the side missions in GTA IV and everything went fine. I'm looking forward to Mafia 2 as well. Not many other good games to look forward to except DAA and ALAN WAKE WOOT lol.

 

[JEBWrench]

Oh, and don't forget that when it comes to nostalgia, you don't remember the middle-of-the-road stuff from days of yore as much. So it looks like there's a lot more meh in contemporary entertainment, because the saturation is still there.

 

[AlanShore]

Same here, I actually missed that gem back in the day (cause I was turned off by the round combat in the Demo I believe), played Fallout 2 at some point in the 200x's but only played Fallout 1 a month or two before Fallout 3 and boy what a game it was!
Playing Fallout 3 afterwards kind of felt like being forced to eat out of the toilet after having a meal at a 5 star restaurant...

It is similar with some of the other old games I play or replay nowadays... for example I recently bought some of the LucasArts classics I never played back then on Steam like Loom, The Dig or Indiana Jones and they're awesome games too that overshadow a lot of what's coming out today... I acknowledge and do play a lot of the new releases too but somehow I never really get the feeling of involvement or fun I got in some of these old masterpieces, even playing them NOW with all the "3D" and "explosions" around to compare them to xD

I haven't got round to the 2nd one yet but I'm looking forward to it (Courtesy of GOG.com) and I hear it's better than the 1st. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that FO3 is a bad game, in fact it's one of the best games I've played this generation, but it simply doesn't stand up to the originals.

Those steam deals are great, I hope that people do pick them up (I mean, FFS, they're only a few pounds, there's no real reason not to!) and it gets people looking at the old stuff again. If you haven't already played them have a look at the King's Quest and Space Quest packs on steam too, they're insane value for money and great fun.

Okay... Fable 2, Rise of the Argonauts, The Saboteur, Trine and Bard's Tale as some of the games with the most "impressive stories"? xD Don't get me wrong some of those were fun and all but really... I think I'm just gonna have to back off a little here... just a few steps...

Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy were/are both a big Quicktime Event and I don't think I even have to lose any words about the ending of the second xD

Dragon Age: Origins was pretty good but nothing compared to stuff like Fallout 1+2, Planescape, Baldur's Gate Trilogy etc. and GTA IV was nice I guess but heavily overhyped for what it was. Personally I preffered "MAFIA" for example over any GTA, partially because the story and characters were (imo) a lot better and it didn't have all those shitty distractions and minigames you had to do to keep characters happy or do certain missions... it focused on the story from start to finish. Can't wait to see what they did with MAFIA 2, its the game I'm probably looking forward to the most this year and I will be wrecked if it disappoints xD

My thoughts exactly. If this is what constitutes "impressive stories" then I despair. I think the trouble is that people think these stories are amazing simply because they don't know any better, and a related problem is that people don't read books any more and only watch films (which incidently are suffering from the same woes as gaming at the moment).

I agree with you on GTAIV. Mafia is the far superior game, even the original GTA games were better than it (which you can now get for free) because they were fun and a bit crazy. GTAIV just put me to sleep and all the time I played it all I could think was "Wow, this cost $100 million, what a waste!"

 

[Meggiepants]

Every decade has its share of crap. I just don't remember the crap from when I was growing up, because 1. I was young and still figuring out how to multiply, I had no time to remember how crappy something was 2. When I found the good stuff, and played the heck out of it, those are the memories that still stick with me after all these years.

That being said, there is something about first experiences being important to people. I can remember playing Fallout 1. But someone born say... in the mid 90s, is less likely to have had that experience. But they might have managed to get a hold of Fallout 3, and that might be the first Fallout they ever played. So that's their Fallout experience. It's also hard to see things from their point of view sometimes. I can remember playing games in VGA. So for me, in perspective, playing Fallout is not so bad. But someone who's first introduction to gaming was when they turned eight in 2000, well, I can excuse them for not being able to tolerate the same low level of graphics I can.

I don't really understand the whole, I will only play old school titles thing. Been playing for a long time. Games have gotten more complex and interesting imo. I loved Pitfall when I was a kid, but... there wasn't much of a story there and levels were incredibly repetitive.

I can't think of a game released back then that had as rich a story or environment as say a game like ME2 or Oblivion, just to name a couple. You don't really have to like those games to see that they have progressed gaming in significant ways.

 

[Scrythe]

Well, interestingly enough I have never felt this way about video games, I mean I am nostalgic about old games, but no curse making me feel like nothing else compares like some old man sitting at a park bench complaining how times were better when he was a kid pushing a hula-hoop with a stick down a hill.

But I have noticed a lot, and I mean A LOT of people do seem to suffer from this when it comes to video games. The extreme cases of course being all those people that refuse to get anything but a Wii, those stuck playing Monkey Island or System Shock 2 for the rest of their days on the PC. Or simply just those with 8-16bit consoles watching the Angry Video Game Nerd and cursing the day Sony ever got into the business.

I'm pretty much the same way when it comes to games. I still play, and have fun with, several games going all the way back to the Atari 2600 to the most recent generation.

Having said that, the only bones I pick with old/new games are:

1. Going backwards from this year, games overall will get progressively harder. I don't know who is to blame (although many will say it's because of "casual gamers"), but for some odd reason video games just get easier and easier.

To further illustrate my point, take your typical 12 year old, mouthbreathing, teabagging loudmouth. Now have him play something like, say, the original Castlevania or the first Metal Gear (not MGS) or even the Double Dragon. I guarantee these kids won't be bragging about being "$upah 1337" for long.

2. With the rise of the internet, gaming has become a cold and impersonal thing. When I was a pup, I love having friends over or going over to another friend's house so we can play each other's games. I've had and known people who's entire friendships would not have existed because of this. To quote a good friend of mine of almost four years: "To be honest with you, the only reason why I hung out with you in the beginning is because you were the only one in the neighborhood with a PS2".

Now these days, more and more games are going multiplayer or massively multiplayer. Which is fine, right? You get to meet hundreds if not thousands of people every time you hit the power button. But because of this, there's no HUMAN interaction. You're not playing GoldenEye with Mitch and Steve, you are just clicking and killing CuntDestroyer69 and ipwnjoobitch on some faceless server. This is even worse now that more and more games are dropping LAN support. Call me a nerd, but I think LAN Parties are one of the funnest fucking things ever.

 

[teisjm]

Nostalgia was way better 10 years ago.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

So is this the thread to go to if you want to insult people for enjoying old games and not being carried away with the hype for every new title? I've noticed that Wii owners and PC owners have been targeted with the same sort of scorn for being more than 21 years old and having a memory of good older games. I'm proud to be a PC and Wii gamer. Viva the PCWii axis of evil!

I do play new games on my 360 but to be honest they are mostly not that interesting and not very good value for money. It's these new games that make me go back to retro games.

 

[Nomanslander]

So is this the thread to go to if you want to insult people for enjoying old games and not being carried away with the hype for every new title? I've noticed that Wii owners and PC owners have been targeted with the same sort of scorn for being more than 21 years old and having a memory of good older games. I'm proud to be a PC and Wii gamer. Viva the PCWii axis of evil!

I do play new games on my 360 but to be honest they are mostly not that interesting and not very good value for money. It's these new games that make me go back to retro games.

I don't know what other people make of this thread, my OP was about accepting newer games and not letting old ones distill you into thinking they're all that matter when nostalgia is involved.


It's very natural the older you get, the less interested you become with newer things.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

It's very natural the older you get, the less interested you become with newer things.

I'm very interested in new things. I'm not 80 years old. That doesn't mean I have to be interested in everything that is new especially when it is actually something old that is now sugar free and repackaged. In fact, I doubt that a lot of younger members of this site work as hard to find new things as me.

 

[Trifixion]

I love my older games, but I also enjoy newer material. There are games that suck now, but there were games that sucked "way back when" as well.

Nostalgia-vision does tend to blur out the old ones that sucked and make you think more often of the ones that were really good, but that's just human nature - whenever people talk about how great things were in the past, they're usually forgetting about the parts that weren't so wonderful. (Or to quote Billy Joel, "Cause the good ol' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.")

Maybe part of it is because in the days where my nostalgia-range lies there weren't nearly as many games, game systems, or game-making companies out there as there are today - thus the larger number (as opposed to a larger percentage) of not-so-good games today makes us think that things were better "back in the day."

 

[Spiner909]

I'm not nostalgic about anything, except for when the economy was good.
My friend always raves about his old school games though. Him and his NES, pfft.

 

[Nomanslander]

I'm offended that you'd insult the 90s like that >_>

Teenage years always make you think of things differently, I actually like the 90s now a lot....once again nostalgia has done it's job...lol

 

[Hiphophippo]

It's very natural the older you get, the less interested you become with newer things.

I think you might be right. I'm nearing 30 and find myself hating all new music and wearing clothes my grandfather things are cool.

Personally, I think I'm getting more and more awesome by the day. If there's one thing I'm not nostalgic about, it's the ten year younger version of me.

 

[Regiment]

Um.

I think it's only irritating when it comes to Poke'mon.

It's better now, get over it, people.

Yes, a thousand times yes. When sequels are made for games, nine times out of ten the sequel improves upon the original. Let's use the Pokemon example: I grew up with Pokemon. Pokemon Blue was one of the first two video games I ever owned. Pokemon Blue (and later Silver) was my life for more than a few years. And do you know what? Pokemon Diamond is better.

It's like Yahtzee said: Children will like anything, and we see our past through rose- tinted glasses because they remind us of a time when we were more innocent. Perhaps it's less that games have gotten worse and more that our standards have increased.