To Mirror...Games that aged well

[Veldt Falsetto]

Wind Waker is like 10 years old now and it still looks gorgeous. The art style is amazing.

Yes, I recently re-played this and it looks beautiful, honestly my mate was in awe when he realised I was playing a gamecube game but hell, most of the Nintendo classics age ridiculously well

 

[illas]

Wind Waker is like 10 years old now and it still looks gorgeous. The art style is amazing.

Agreed 100%. To think that at the time of release people were sceptical about it...

My contribution: Ikaruga. Still looks spectacularly complex and beautiful to this day. Screenshots don't really do it since it looks best in full motion:

 

[sextus the crazy]

A buncha good games from the SNES, Genesis, GC, XBOX, & PS2. Developers got their shit together with regards to technology and games looked nice and played better.

 

[Riddle78]

Freelancer. Freelancer. FREELANCER.

Contols are nice,graphics are great,the skyboxes are STUNNING,and overall,a VERY good play. Then there's the Discovery mod for the game,which just adds a whole new level of awesome,if you play multiplayer...

And then there is a marverllous freeware game called Cave Story. I only picked it up a couple days ago,and get pwnt in Sacred Ground quite regularly,because I already used my Health Pot on the Red Demon,but that's not the point. The point is that the game is expertly crafted,with tight controls,great graphics for what appears to be a 16-bit game,the music is made of winsauce,and...It's just...Beautiful. It's free,and there's a translation out there (original is Japanese),so you have no excuse to not get it.

My two picks may not be as old as many of the other entries here,but they deserve mention. Amid a wave of the comparitive mediocrity of modern game releases,it's pleasing to see games of even that vintage stack up. Freelancer was released in 1999,with Cave Story (if TVTropes is to be believed) starting in 1999,releasing 2004,by one man. Not even ten years ago,these marvellous games were made. I only acquired them recently. They rocked my gaming world. And I can guarantee that they rocked others.

 

[Rai^3]

Ooh joy, another chance to spread my love of the Otogi games:

Spoiler: Otogi: Myth Of Demons

Spoiler: Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors

And people say Okami has great art direction. The Otogi games are probably the best interactive representation I've ever seen of a mythological Japan. The more I've read up on things like Japanese mythology, Shinto and Buddhism, the more I can appreciate just how much effort FROM put into realising their vision of a fairy tale Japan.

You are my new second-favorite person.
(My top favorite is me)

 

[Luca72]

Morrowind, Half Life 1/2, Deus Ex, not original but I had to mention them.

More interestingly, I think Oni aged really well. The graphics aren't good, the environments don't give you much to do, but I love the combat! Seriously, I'll take Oni's style of third person un-targettable wushu over games like God of War. It's fluid, and if you beat the game you can play as any of the other characters in the game, which turn out to have their own unique movesets. As a kid I used to try running through the game again as a Ninja or a Heavy Android, and it was a blast.

Also, Jet Force Gemini. N64 graphics are pretty dated by now, but I think Rare nailed the goofy Sci-fi look so it's still vibrant and creative. It's a pretty simple platformer/shoot-em-up, but the environments and music are so good that it's always stayed a favorite of mine. These days I'd even rather play it than Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask.

 

[shimyia]

Prince of Persia: Sands of time - i absolutely love the "warm" lighting effects in this game

 

[Dryk]

As someone who only played through them for the first time a year ago or so. Doom and Doom II surprised me at how well they've aged. The levels are (for the most part) designed so that they don't slope too much that you're shooting at things you can't see and the game just generally tries to work within its limitations.

Agreed, I especially love it when you purify an area, more games should use that type of art style

I was somewhat surprised when I did that for the first time. I remember describing it to my friends as "And then nature happened"

 

[Padwolf]

Pure Epic!

Agreed! I still love that game!

I would say that Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg has aged well, anyone remember that game? It was so much fun! I still love it.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Still the best Sonic Game ever made.

 

[ColeusRattus]

This one:

twenty years old, still plays very well, and the looks, while very low res, are still good enough. It actually established the PC as a true gaming plattform on it's own by being the first to use the awesome processing power.

Love me Wing Commander.