Things we miss from old games.

[pilouuuu]

Fun, innovation, creativity...

If games were ever to be considered like art then you could find much better examples in the 90s because nowadays games are commercial crap made by people who only care about $$$ and not about games. Developers used to respect gamers.

Also deep gameplay. Games are becoming so dumbed down that it's better to simply watch a Let's Play of the damn things instead of playing them.

I also miss leaning on the walls and levels which weren't completely linear. And likeable characters. And ADVENTURE games! They were amazing.

 

[pilouuuu]

Shadow Warrior has almost everything I missed from old games and things I didn't thought I missed.

-Fast movement. Playing Bioshock Infinite right after playing SW was extremely jarring.

-Backtracking and secrets. I like these when they're optional, not because the story tells you so (I'm looking at you Bioshock Infinite).

-Quicksave. Good God, I hate when games don't let you save anywhere, whenever you want, especially with shitty checkpoint systems (hello again, Bioshock Infinite!).

-More than 2 weapons. I generally don't have anything against the trope of "just 2 weapons" that Halo popularized, but I definitely appreciate when I can hold more, especially if they're the enemies' own head and hearts >

-Challenge. THIS is what a shooter should have, not some bullshitty shootouts where you need to cover in chest-high walls every 5 seconds.

-Longevity. I'm extremely surprised at how long SW is and how BIG the levels are! (although the ship levels are a bit bland, sadly).

-Huge ass bosses. I don't want to just "look at them" (yes, I'm talking about you Gears of War 2), I want a big, epic fight and this game just frakking delivers!

-Colors. Lots and lots of colors, not just shades of brown and grey (yes, I know the Crysis series and Bioshock Infinite, among some others, are very colorful, but they're the exception rather than the rule).

-Complete games. I don't have anything against DLC, but I DO hate it when they sell you an incomplete mess and later sell you everything else with "season passes".

So yeah, I want more of this please :3

Haha it seems like Bioshock Infinite is an example how not to do an FPS game. I kind of agree. They should have gone for a more RPG thing with less shooting instead if they wanted to do something special. So disappointing.

Shadow Warrior sounds amazing though!

 

[hermes]

Inventiveness in FPS weapons.

At some point, someone decided that arcade was a bad word for FPS. Everything has to be "realistic", "gritty" and "modern" (meaning "unimaginative", "copied" and "generic"). The original work of Insomniac and People can fly seems far away now, since their latest games don't have the same level of creativity, and Halo represents the zenith of science-fiction weapons.

Borderlands did a good job, but it feels weird including it since they are randomly generated. I don't like (and don't count) games that call themselves "creative" in that area, yet most of the weapons are "almost an RPG", "a gun with another name" and "works like a shotgun".

 

[Hero of Lime]

When you buy a game, hurry home with it, put it in a console, and being able to play it right there. It's pretty lousy that games have to take a lot of time to install the game and trophies, achievements. I just want to play the game when I put it in the console, is that too much to ask?

 

[JayRPG]

And yeah, sure... All JRPGs released on the gamecube were pure gold, all... three of them.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Tales of Symphonia
Skies of Arcadia: Legends
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Baten Kaitos Origins
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Custom Robo
Lost Kingdoms
Lost Kingdoms 2
Evolution Worlds
Phantasy Star Online
Pokemon XD: The Gale of Darkness

And they were all good

Actually, one of the most disappointing things is that Baten Kaitos never got another installment

 

[MrBaskerville]

Instruction manuals. Back in the day if you wanted to know how to do combos, or which button did what you would look in the instruction manual. Now, since they long since stopped given manuals with games, they give you an unnecessary amount of tutorials.

I actually find this both sad and a little weird when I do buy a new game and there's not even a trace of any sort of manual inside the game case... So far, the only games that I know that still come with an instruction manual is Pokemon... (or any game I buy for my 3DS, that is...) Really, other recent games on my game shelf that are not Pokemon or 3DS-related? Not even a digital instruction manual, since some of these games I could have gotten off PSN and/or Steam??

...Maybe it would have cost too much money to even print out an instruction manual in the first place and just making in-game tutorials is the most "cost-efficient" solution or something... *starts mumbling with anger*

Wii games always has manuals, it's a nintendo thing i guess?

 

[Rad Party God]

Haha it seems like Bioshock Infinite is an example how not to do an FPS game. I kind of agree. They should have gone for a more RPG thing with less shooting instead if they wanted to do something special. So disappointing.

Shadow Warrior sounds amazing though!

Don't get me wrong though, BSI did a lot of great stuff, like the rails, they truly make the battles more dynamic, but yeah, all of the other stuff I ranted said still applies

And yes, Shadow Warrior is ALL kinds of awesome

 

[karloss01]

Manuals, did everyone suddenly become illiterate over past ten years? and now a portion of a game is dedicated to telling you the controls when a single page in a booklet would give you all the info you need. Hell, the control options is your tutorial right there.

and as others say the difficulty, let me explore the world on my own instead of having my hand held along the way.

 

[Jodokh]

Unlockables, like characters,levels and etc. That were in game and not DLC.

 

[FPLOON]

Instruction manuals. Back in the day if you wanted to know how to do combos, or which button did what you would look in the instruction manual. Now, since they long since stopped given manuals with games, they give you an unnecessary amount of tutorials.

I actually find this both sad and a little weird when I do buy a new game and there's not even a trace of any sort of manual inside the game case... So far, the only games that I know that still come with an instruction manual is Pokemon... (or any game I buy for my 3DS, that is...) Really, other recent games on my game shelf that are not Pokemon or 3DS-related? Not even a digital instruction manual, since some of these games I could have gotten off PSN and/or Steam??

...Maybe it would have cost too much money to even print out an instruction manual in the first place and just making in-game tutorials is the most "cost-efficient" solution or something... *starts mumbling with anger*

Wii games always has manuals, it's a nintendo thing i guess?

Ah... No wonder only Nintendo still does manuals... They must have a patent on all physical instruction manuals retaining to video games... That must be it! ...Or other video game companies realize that a "majority" of those that play video games don't even bother reading them in the first place... *shakes head* What a shame...

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

little to no hand holding. and come on, do we really need a tutorial on 90% of the games we play.

i like the way you were free to miss things happening, instead of control being taken over to show an epic set piece.

there were plenty of clones in the past of whatever was sucessful, but there seems to be zero risk taking/innovation now.
i think we need more middle ground between AAA and Indie

 

[scorptatious]

Frankly I don't mind games being a bit more accessible now. Better than the days when enemies you just defeated would magically reappear when you move back a bit and move right again. I will say though, I do wish more games settled for a middle ground in terms of difficulty and accessibility.

 

[Ishal]

snip

I recommend you try Demon's Souls, its Dark Souls predecessor and it's quite a bit more difficult. Several of the more convenient aspects in Dark Souls aren't present in Demon's Souls. Also your health is cut in half if you die and aren't in human form, I believe.

 

[Yoshi4102]

I miss a wide variety of platformers. There's something about them that just tickles me pink, specifically 2d!

Catchy music that will stick in your head. Not some forgettable movie soundtrack between exploding set pieces.

An over world with separate levels would also be nice a la Super Mario Bros. 3. It has a nice aesthetic to it.

I'm weird though, unless it's a pseudo retro game none of these are coming back

 

[Lunar Templar]

Good games as far as the eye can see.

Diversity in those good games.

Diversity in a games genera (like how Mario, Mega Man and Metriod where all different despite being 2D plat-formers)

Colors >.>

The lack of 'realistic grit'

 

[Arqus_Zed]

And yeah, sure... All JRPGs released on the gamecube were pure gold, all... three of them.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Tales of Symphonia
Skies of Arcadia: Legends
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Baten Kaitos Origins
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Custom Robo
Lost Kingdoms
Lost Kingdoms 2
Evolution Worlds
Phantasy Star Online
Pokemon XD: The Gale of Darkness

And they were all good

Actually, one of the most disappointing things is that Baten Kaitos never got another installment

Okay, Fire Emblem, I can get. I don't like the series (TRPG and all that), but I can respect it. The same for Tales of Symphonia: good reviews, but not my cup of tea. Then there's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, it's a fairly good game, but I always had a bit of trouble seeing it as an RPG. It's kind of like calling Super Smash Bros. a fighting game. It's not. It's really more a party game with heavy beat 'em up influences. With Paper Mario, there's not enough depth to call it a full-fledged RPG, but it balances that out with all the stuff it does besides that. It's kind of how you wouldn't really call a Zelda game an RPG, but for different reasons.

Skies of Arcadia? Sure, port of a Dreamcast game, but a good one. And the Baten Kaitos games were made by Monolith Soft, they know how to make a good RPG. These were actually the three that came to my mind in my previous post.

But Evolution Worlds, really? Really?! Really... "Pure gold", you said. Son, I can shit bricks shinier than this turd. And then there's Pokemon XD: The Gale of Darkness. Christ! Now, the Pokémon series has always been infamous for its utterly shameless recycling behavior, but even for Pokémon standards they went really overboard with this one. Fool's gold is more like it.

Then there's Custom Robo, never heard of it (and a quick google search explains why: no PAL release). Same for the Lost Kingdom series, these did have a PAL release, yet they somehow eluded me. So I've got only your word to go on that they are "pure gold RPGs", but since that was also what you said about Pokemon and Evolution Worlds... I really don't know if I can trust you on that. Also, I've actually managed to pick up Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution just recently, but I haven't played it yet, so I can't give my opinion on that one either.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

The lack of the obsession with depressing and "realistic" settings.

 

[The_Echo]

I miss collectathons.

I miss cheat codes.

I miss the days when games understood they were games, and had fun with it.

I miss the days when L2 and R2 were buttons. I fucking hate "triggers."

 

[mad825]

Loading bars.

Nowadays we usually have a stupid little spinning logo or something, like a little buffering sign in the corner. They're just so ambiguous... They don't tell you anything about how long you have left to wait.

To be fair, loading bars never really told you how long you had to wait either, and you'd always get those times where the loading bar would stop for too long and you'd start wondering if the game had frozen. At least with the stupid spinning logos you know the game is still loading and hasn't secretly crashed.

There's nothing really stopping this from happening. When my OS (Win7) plasters this feature on everything to installing updates, booting,copying/deleting and shutting down I can't help to think that the developers just got lazy.

 

[The_Echo]

little to no hand holding. and come on, do we really need a tutorial on 90% of the games we play.

Yes, we do. Tutorials aren't handholding. Batman: Arkham Asylum would show you button prompts for the most basic of actions, and those prompts would show up the entire way through the game. That is handholding.

You and I have been playing games for a while. But, say, my mom? Far as I know only thing she's played is Wii Fit.

There's no singular "first game" for everyone. That's why they all have tutorials. It's basically an evolution of the instruction manual. Though it'd be nice if all tutorials were skippable.