Do you value 'old' games?

[Ceremony]

I read something in the poll on here to decide on the best game of 2007 which almost annoyed me more than the fact that BioShock is going to finish behind an alien f***ing simulator and the 4000th Mario game. Someone who said they'd never played it, but that it was "too late" to go back to it.

Several things struck me about this.

First was that it reminded me of an internet comment around the time I finished Dead Space (in 2014) saying it "looked really good for an old game," which made me very sad because I remember downloading and playing the demo for it when it came out. Although a late adopter of the 8th generation of consoles I consider the jump from the PS2 to PS3 to be a much bigger departure from 1 to 2 or 3 to 4, so to have BioShock described in such a fashion seems really jarring to me, if only for the reason that the past ~twelve years of video games sits in my estimation largely as a single entity.

The second which can be drawn from the first is that if I consider 2006-2018 to be the same thing - largely because I'm still playing PS+ backlog titles from across that time period - then I'm surprised that someone could consider a game from just ten years ago to be too far gone to be worth their attention.

The third which can be drawn from the second is that as part of the games industry's last great attempt to remain profitable at the AAA level all three BioShock games have been collected and had some extra starfish thrown at them, re-mastered and re-released as the BioShock Collection in September 2016

The fourth is that this is a critically and widely acclaimed game which is still readily available to be played.

The fifth is that this is f***ing BioShock and that whatever misgivings you have about playing something which to me is still current-gen and still, crucially, current, are patently wrong and should go away.

But, all of these are things which face a creative medium which has seen unprecedented growth compared to other formats of narrative delivery which have established and maintained/enhanced their popularity in wider pop-culture. Films and novels have been written about different things throughout the centuries but the basic premise hasn't evolved much, outside of films adding colours and words and the myriad changes to languages which books have been printed in over the past four centuries.

The passage of time hasn't adversely affected these fields. People still read and study novels and poetry from the 1700s. Film critics will still watch Citizen Kane and say it's the best film ever made, mostly because they didn't see all of it through Simpsons homages first.

Yet we haven't reached a half-century of video games as home entertainment being a thing and it's a format maintained by an industry which has to be so predicated on money because of production costs and exposure that it can't do anything to maintain any legacy it creates. We've gone from 2D side-scrolling Mario to VR headsets within 40 years and multi-billion dollar companies which can only remain such if there's new games and new hardware for people to keep buying.

I've posted at length before about games which should be remembered not being so I won't repeat it here, but am I over-reacting to someone saying they don't want to play my favourite game because they feel it's too late? Is this a common feeling among the video game player? Is this something which will fundamentally undermine video games' ability to create legitimate works of art, no matter how many Classic SNESes Nintendo bring out?

PS - I forget who it was who said this in that thread, but feel free to name and shame yourself here. Then go and play BioShock.

Click to read more...

 

[Shareefruck]

People just get too stuck on the escalation of technology when it comes to videogames (other mediums too), and overstate its importance when it comes to how good something is. In reality it's just a shallow cosmetic thing that only moderately factors into the equation, IMO.

If something is truly great, it stays great forever. Art doesn't improve over time, it just becomes different. You're still better off digging through history and picking and choosing from the standouts of every era than you are keeping up with all of the latest games, and you'd end up finding more rewarding experiences by doing so. In reality, only a handful of things in the modern era are of comparable quality to the best things that came before. How often something truly great comes along stays pretty consistent over time regardless of the fact that technology keeps skyrocketing in its capabilities.

For example, Shadow of the Colossus being remade with pristine graphics that are far superior to the original is an improvement on the original overall, and makes it more approachable, but in terms of overall quality, not by as much as you'd think, and not enough to push it into some new level. It's still essentially the same game of comparable quality but prettier to look at.

As much as we like to think that videogames have come a long way (and they have, technologically), it's not like the bar raised even by something as simple as Super Mario World has been cleared and made redundant over time. At best, improved technology has only given the opportunity for different new experiences to be created that hover at around the same level.

Edit: That said, I don't know if Bioshock is in that category for me. But whether it is or it isn't has very little to do with the technology and era in which it was made.

 

[Common Sense]

Yeah I don't see how anybody can possibly think a 7th gen game is too old to go back to. The jump from 7th gen to 8th gen was basically nothing.

 

[Osprey]

You weren't kidding, Ceremony. You really were apoplectic .

I'm mostly like you in that I don't really start considering games to be "old," nowadays, until they're at least a decade old... and, even then, it doesn't really matter. To me, it's never "too late" to play a game. If anything, the older that a game gets, the more interest that I have to play it. Oddly enough, I often drag my feet on playing new games because I know that I have the next decade to play them (and they'll run better when I do, since they'll be patched up and I'll have better hardware by then).

BTW, in that poster's defense, he did thank me for pointing out the remastered edition of BioShock and suggested that he might, indeed, finally play the game.

 

[SniperHF]

Since I think games have basically gotten worse on the whole since 2005+/- I'm gonna say...yes.

Also you should play System Shock. At least #2 anyway.

 

[syz]

am I over-reacting to someone saying they don't want to play my favourite game because they feel it's too late?

Yes.

The passage of time hasn't adversely affected these fields. People still read and study novels and poetry from the 1700s. Film critics will still watch Citizen Kane and say it's the best film ever made, mostly because they didn't see all of it through Simpsons homages first.

Firstly, most importantly, and probably a bit of a tangent: the passage of time almost certainly affects literature and films--although whether or not they're affected "adversely" is a more nuanced conversation. People still read and study novels and poetry and films from all eras, but whenever somebody like Freud or Barthes or Derrida or Butler et al. show up, how those things stack up from a critical perspective can be affected either positively or negatively. This doesn't always happen. Some things more or less stack up regardless of developments in literary theory, others don't, and some can even manage to improve. You bring up Citizen Kane (which BioShock is certainly not, but I digress), but compare that to something like Vertigo, which was panned when it was released, yet as of the 21st century now often finds itself in the conversation with CK.

Outside of a literary perspective, some films have definitely been adversely affected by the passage of time in technical ways, but things like bad special effects or a lack of colour don't impact the quality of a film in quite the same way that antiquated mechanics adversely affect a video game. It's the difference between merely having to watch something and having to interact with a thing on a mechanical level; sitting through dated special effects is easier than playing through dated mechanics.

Having said that, I would imagine that the number of people who would be willing to sit through a classic movie with bad SFX is relatively low nonetheless. Critics and the general population have very different desires with regards to their art in any medium, main stream video games being exhibit A.

Is this a common feeling among the video game player?

A general pettiness stemming from somebody not liking a thing that we like is something that everybody likely feels from time to time.

Is this something which will fundamentally undermine video games' ability to create legitimate works of art[?]

Not especially. Again, the number of people who would be willing to sit through [old, classic movie] is probably just as low as the number of people who would be willing to play through [old, classic video game], so I think the comparison here is a bit of a fallacy. Kind of like how we're sitting here talking about BioShock as opposed to the objectively better/more important System Shock 2.

The marketplace and its desire for violence is the primary thing that undermines video games' ability to create legitimate works of art, but this is only a problem that profit-driven, main stream gaming has to deal with. This isn't to say that you can't have a legitimate work of art that's violent, just that that violence necessarily limits what kind of story you can tell, and that the element of player agency that video games necessarily have can absolutely serve to undermine the legitimacy of a story (see: most things by Ken Levine, absolutely everything by David Cage, and most things by Naughty Dog.)

 

[Blender]

While graphical quality and technology has improved dramatically, for most genres of games I don't think the general game play has even changed that much in the last 10-15 years. We are still playing games more or less the same way as we did back then. So it's definitely not too late to go back that far. The further you get back into the 90s or 80s though, you do really start to see some big differences in typical game play, as the technology was a lot more restrictive. For me personally, I think platform games, like the Super Mario franchise for example, are the only ones that can truly be as enjoyable today as they were when they were released.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

People just get too stuck on the escalation of technology when it comes to videogames (other mediums too), and overstate its importance when it comes to how good something is. In reality it's just a shallow cosmetic thing that only moderately factors into the equation, IMO.

If something is truly great, it stays great forever. Art doesn't improve over time, it just becomes different. You're still better off digging through history and picking and choosing from the standouts of every era than you are keeping up with all of the latest games, and you'd end up finding more rewarding experiences by doing so. In reality, only a handful of things in the modern era are of comparable quality to the best things that came before. How often something truly great comes along stays pretty consistent over time regardless of the fact that technology keeps skyrocketing in its capabilities.

For example, Shadow of the Colossus being remade with pristine graphics that are far superior to the original is an improvement on the original overall, and makes it more approachable, but in terms of overall quality, not by as much as you'd think, and not enough to push it into some new level. It's still essentially the same game of comparable quality but prettier to look at.

As much as we like to think that videogames have come a long way (and they have, technologically), it's not like the bar raised even by something as simple as Super Mario World has been cleared and made redundant over time. At best, improved technology has only given the opportunity for different new experiences to be created that hover at around the same level.

Edit: That said, I don't know if Bioshock is in that category for me. But whether it is or it isn't has very little to do with the technology and era in which it was made.

I agree, and to me at least the quality of games has dropped over the past 10-15 years. Mostly due to developers focusing on things that don't really matter in games such as graphical fidelity and scripted narrative (which is vastly surpassed in non-video game works) while sacrificing the core gameplay and creativity in scenarios the player is put in.

 

[SpookyTsuki]

No game is too old to play. The closet things are games that have worse mechanics then the sequel.

 

[The Head Crusher]

I believe I fit into that "too late" category when it comes to Bioshock, and I have regularly commented on my overwhelming disappointment with the first installment. For me it was never about the graphic aspect why I didn't like it or why I take that "too late" to have played it category. For me it was about the game mechanics. At the time it was released the mechanics were something new and unique that they added to the 1st person shooter genre. By the time I came to actually play Bioshock (about 4-5 years after its release) many of the unique elements they had introduced had been reused or modified in other games that made me feel that there was no real separation between it and most other game of the over saturated 1st person shooter genre from that time period. So that added with that I coudn't get invested into the story line just made me not very interested in the game and I quit part way through and never came back.

If I had played the game right a launch I probably would have forced my way through the story at least once and been done with it, but the fact I played it several years after the fact and the unique elements that added to the FPS genre we already being used by other games just made the game seem plain to me.

 

[syz]

I believe I fit into that "too late" category when it comes to Bioshock, and I have regularly commented on my overwhelming disappointment with the first installment. For me it was never about the graphic aspect why I didn't like it or why I take that "too late" to have played it category. For me it was about the game mechanics. At the time it was released the mechanics were something new and unique that they added to the 1st person shooter genre. By the time I came to actually play Bioshock (about 4-5 years after its release) many of the unique elements they had introduced had been reused or modified in other games that made me feel that there was no real separation between it and most other game of the over saturated 1st person shooter genre from that time period. So that added with that I coudn't get invested into the story line just made me not very interested in the game and I quit part way through and never came back.

If I had played the game right a launch I probably would have forced my way through the story at least once and been done with it, but the fact I played it several years after the fact and the unique elements that added to the FPS genre we already being used by other games just made the game seem plain to me.

I dunno if I'd say anything about BioShock was new or unique or additive to the genre when it was released, to be honest.

It did existing things well.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I've tried playing BioShock 1 & 2, and never really got very far in either. I don't really understand the appeal, but perhaps that is because I am 'too late'.

Things is, I don't have a problem with older games, but they do require you keeping in mind what you are playing lacks certain quality of life improvements that have been made in newer games. I wonder if 'too late' refers to elements that were relatively new and interesting at the time being old hat now, the graphics, or a bit of both. Or maybe I got bored too quickly before getting to the good parts.


That said, I do think I know how you feel. After all this:

I read something in the poll on here to decide on the best game of 2007 which almost annoyed me more than the fact that BioShock is going to finish behind an alien ****ing simulator and the 4000th Mario game. Someone who said they'd never played it, but that it was "too late" to go back to it.

...was just said about one of my favourite games of all time.

 

[Papa Francouz]

As somewhat of a video game collector, I don’t think it’s ever too late to go back and play any game from any era. I do, however, think it’s pretty stupid to remake games from too many generations ago without using the advancements made in technology and development to your advantage, ie GoldenEye 007: Reloaded.

Edit: To be fair, narrowing down an entire year’s worth of release titles to ~20 games is always going to disappoint someone in the end. I mean, one of my favorite games ever came out in 2007, and it wasn’t listed in the poll.

 

[Mrb1p]

Shit, i still play Melee at least once a week and I love every second of it, this game will be 20 in a few years.

Theres no reasons a game should EVER be considered too old. Obviously, some age better than others, but id say thats the case for unremarkable games rather than the real great games.

A game could be considered dated compared to the current games available though, or if the version is better. Is there any reason to play Bros instead of Melee? Blue/red instead of the newer pokemon games?

 

[dr robbie]

Yeah, I value "old" games .

Seriously though, graphics rarely hold back a game's gameplay value. My 4 year old daughter plays both Super Mario on the NES and Breath of the Wild on the Switch and likes them both. 30 years of graphics improvement doesn't alter the game mechanics or the enjoyment of progression in the games. The only time I notice any issues with this personally is during the early N64/PS1 lifespan when they were doing 3D games, but very choppy. Even then I can appreciate the game for what it is. A good quality game should never be to hard to go back and play because it's "too late" IMO.

 

[Rygu]

I absolutely do.

To this day I still love playing games such as Mario 64, Super Metroid, No One Lives Forever (PC), Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Tony Hawk PS1 and 2, A Link to the Past and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Graphics although they get better every year, seem to mean less and less to me every year. Give me a game that's fun and has a high replay value with mediocre graphics over a game with great graphics but no reason play it a second time.

 

[X66]

Yeah, I value "old" games .

Seriously though, graphics rarely hold back a game's gameplay value. My 4 year old daughter plays both Super Mario on the NES and Breath of the Wild on the Switch and likes them both. 30 years of graphics improvement doesn't alter the game mechanics or the enjoyment of progression in the games. The only time I notice any issues with this personally is during the early N64/PS1 lifespan when they were doing 3D games, but very choppy. Even then I can appreciate the game for what it is. A good quality game should never be to hard to go back and play because it's "too late" IMO.

Awesome collection! This is about 30% of my stuff, going to take a lot long to organize everything.

 

[Shareefruck]

I believe I fit into that "too late" category when it comes to Bioshock, and I have regularly commented on my overwhelming disappointment with the first installment. For me it was never about the graphic aspect why I didn't like it or why I take that "too late" to have played it category. For me it was about the game mechanics. At the time it was released the mechanics were something new and unique that they added to the 1st person shooter genre. By the time I came to actually play Bioshock (about 4-5 years after its release) many of the unique elements they had introduced had been reused or modified in other games that made me feel that there was no real separation between it and most other game of the over saturated 1st person shooter genre from that time period. So that added with that I coudn't get invested into the story line just made me not very interested in the game and I quit part way through and never came back.

If I had played the game right a launch I probably would have forced my way through the story at least once and been done with it, but the fact I played it several years after the fact and the unique elements that added to the FPS genre we already being used by other games just made the game seem plain to me.

I've tried playing BioShock 1 & 2, and never really got very far in either. I don't really understand the appeal, but perhaps that is because I am 'too late'.

Things is, I don't have a problem with older games, but they do require you keeping in mind what you are playing lacks certain quality of life improvements that have been made in newer games. I wonder if 'too late' refers to elements that were relatively new and interesting at the time being old hat now, the graphics, or a bit of both. Or maybe I got bored too quickly before getting to the good parts.


That said, I do think I know how you feel. After all this:



...was just said about one of my favourite games of all time.

The way I see it, something only becomes dated if it was never all that good in the first place. If something feeling novel and unique at the time but not anymore is enough to make it a weak experience now, then that only suggests that, from your perspective, it was a weak experience to begin with and was over-hyped at the time because it relied on novelty rather than substance. Saying that you played it too late is such a bizarre method of evaluation.

Avatar isn't a good movie that would be too late to see now just because it relied on the over-hyped novelty of 3D boundary-pushing, it's just a bad movie that one could have falsely gotten caught up in at the time.

If this is how you feel about playing Bioshock now, it is more reasonable to straight up criticize Bioshock for elements of it that haven't held up, in your eyes. You don't need to walk on egg-shells about how you feel about it just because it's revered as a classic.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The way I see it, something only becomes dated if it was never all that good in the first place.

I disagree. Mechanics and improved technology alone can alter a games standing...GoldenEye 007 was masterful for a 90s console shooter, but the N64 controller made sure it was almost impossible to go back to playing after Halo.

Plenty of my favorite games growing up are outright obsolete now. That doesn't mean I was wrong as a kid, it just means Mario Kart 8 has eclipsed the need to go back to Mario Kart 1. A ton of games get superannuated by their own sequels...I'll always have a place in my heart for the original, but I'm going to have a better time playing the newer games than the old

All that said, of course I value old games. Modern gaming can never do something that games in 1999/2000 could: I can't play them as an adolescent now. There's a reason a majority of my personal top 10 came out within a few years of each other.

 

[NyQuil]

As someone whose first gaming machine was an Intellivision and first computer was a Commodore 128, I feel that I have a lot of willingness to play older games even decades afterwards.

My favourite games had very little to do with graphical quality and everything to do with story and gameplay.

Typically, I don't buy games when they come out - I usually wait 6 months to a year until the game is fully patched and ready to go. I generally don't like having to go back and play again to integrate the DLC that has come out.

I'll replay older games all the time. I'm playing through Neverwinter Nights 2 right now, and it's from 2006. Using DosBox and Commodore emulators, I'll play games that are even older. I just finished replaying the original Wasteland which is from 1988 as it was bundled for free with Wasteland 2.

As I said elsewhere, I bought Bioshock just before Bioshock Infinite came out and still enjoyed it immensely. (not as much as Mass Effect mind you)

Quite possibly my favourite video game of all-time is M.U.L.E. by Dani Bunten and Co. of Ozark and published by Electronic Arts.

The graphics suck but the gameplay is fantastic, with endless replayability and cut-throat multiplayer mechanics.



(unfortunately he's playing at the beginner level which is missing some game mechanics)

There are freeware versions of this game that are playable on PC if you're interested.

On average, I'll play games across a span of time that is almost 30 years.

 

[Rygu]

As someone whose first gaming machine was an Intellivision and first computer was a Commodore 128, I feel that I have a lot of willingness to play older games even decades afterwards.

My favourite games had very little to do with graphical quality and everything to do with story and gameplay.

Typically, I don't buy games when they come out - I usually wait 6 months to a year until the game is fully patched and ready to go. I generally don't like having to go back and play again to integrate the DLC that has come out.

I'll replay older games all the time. I'm playing through Neverwinter Nights 2 right now, and it's from 2006. Using DosBox and Commodore emulators, I'll play games that are even older. I just finished replaying the original Wasteland which is from 1988 as it was bundled for free with Wasteland 2.

As I said elsewhere, I bought Bioshock just before Bioshock Infinite came out and still enjoyed it immensely. (not as much as Mass Effect mind you)

Quite possibly my favourite video game of all-time is M.U.L.E. by Dani Bunten and Co. of Ozark and published by Electronic Arts.

The graphics suck but the gameplay is fantastic, with endless replayability and cut-throat multiplayer mechanics.



There are freeware versions of this game that are playable on PC if you're interested.

On average, I'll play games across a span of time that is almost 30 years.

I miss my old Commodore 64C. Dig Dug and Pole Position were amazing for their time. I remember my uncle getting an Amiga 1000 right as it came out and it blew me away playing SNES caliber games in the 8 bit console era.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Depends on the game. Some are still great and feel good even well after the fact, others have aged slightly, and others have aged horribly.

Mario games tend to hold up, as they got 2D platforming down to a T, and even Mario 64 still is a lot of fun despite being the granddaddy to all 3D platformers. Feels fantastic throughout and they aged just fine. If you haven't played older JRPGs, turn-based combat might feel stale, so even classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI (my personal #1 and #3 favorite games of all time) might feel a bit archaic, clunky, and slow to jump into. And then there are games that have been made just wholly and completely obsolete by every measurable standard, probably most notably Goldeneye.

There are lots of old games that I'd recommend to anybody, some old games that I'd recommend to some, and others that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. And if someone's not interested in playing an old game, I don't have an issue with that given the quantity and quality of new releases that come out every year. Hell, I have a backlog of games from this current generation that I haven't been able to get to yet, and there are probably a number of really good games that I legitimately want to play that I'll never get around to just from a time factor. So, with that in mind and recognizing that any other gamer is in the same boat as me, I don't see how I could take offense at someone just not being interested in playing an old or recent classic.

 

[NyQuil]

I miss my old Commodore 64C. Dig Dug and Pole Position were amazing for their time. I remember my uncle getting an Amiga 1000 right as it came out and it blew me away playing SNES caliber games in the 8 bit console era.

Loved the racing games.

Some of my favorite Commodore 64 games:
-Airborne Ranger
-Aztec Challenge
-Bard's Tale 1,2 and 3 *
-Beachhead and Beachhead 2
-Commando
-D&D Goldbox Games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds) *
-G.I. Joe
-Impossible Mission
-M.U.L.E. *
-Racing Destruction Set
-Seven Cities of Gold *
-Sid Meier's Pirates! *
-Spy vs. Spy
-Summer Games, Summer Games 2, Winter Games, World Games
-The Last Ninja
-Ultima 3, 4 and 5 *
-Wasteland *

-the games with asterisks are games that I've continued to play even into the PC and console era with emulators or updated versions.

RPGs and strategy games hold up much better than action-based games.

 

[Commander Clueless]

The way I see it, something only becomes dated if it was never all that good in the first place. If something feeling novel and unique at the time but not anymore is enough to make it a weak experience now, then that only suggests that, from your perspective, it was a weak experience to begin with and was over-hyped at the time because it relied on novelty rather than substance. Saying that you played it too late is such a bizarre method of evaluation.

Avatar isn't a good movie that would be too late to see now just because it relied on the over-hyped novelty of 3D boundary-pushing, it's just a bad movie that one could have falsely gotten caught up in at the time.

If this is how you feel about playing Bioshock now, it is more reasonable to straight up criticize Bioshock for elements of it that haven't held up, in your eyes. You don't need to walk on egg-shells about how you feel about it just because it's revered as a classic.

While I see your point, I think there is an intrinsic value in novelty, uniqueness, and innovation. This is especially true in the gaming industry where everybody tends to clone what's popular, i.e. open world RPGs now, or CoD or WoW clones a few years ago. In hindsight, games that gained popularity because of how unique or new they were no longer seem very special after they have been cloned or copied so many times.

I've said it before, but I think one of things that helps hold up a game like Mass Effect is the incredibly detailed and interesting world that BioWare built around the game - something that only gets stronger over time with more sequels, and doesn't really fade. That said, if you were to go back and play the original Mass Effect now for the first time, you might not be able to get over the dated game play to even get to the point of appreciating that world.

This might be my problem with the BioShock series as well. The only real criticism I feel qualified to give BioShock is that I didn't find it in any way gripping at the time, partially because of the pseudo-horror atmosphere that I'm not a big fan of in general.

 

[Shareefruck]

I disagree. Mechanics and improved technology alone can alter a games standing...GoldenEye 007 was masterful for a 90s console shooter, but the N64 controller made sure it was almost impossible to go back to playing after Halo.

Plenty of my favorite games growing up are outright obsolete now. That doesn't mean I was wrong as a kid, it just means Mario Kart 8 has eclipsed the need to go back to Mario Kart 1. A ton of games get superannuated by their own sequels...I'll always have a place in my heart for the original, but I'm going to have a better time playing the newer games than the old

All that said, of course I value old games. Modern gaming can never do something that games in 1999/2000 could: I can't play them as an adolescent now. There's a reason a majority of my personal top 10 came out within a few years of each other.

I personally would see this as a suggestion that the adolescent version of you (like anyone) was ignorant of what made something good and ultimately ended up being wrong, based on what your older self thinks, and that you appear to be allowing nostalgia get in the way of that.

I was obsessed with Final Fantasy VII as a kid, and a lot of it had to do with the innovations and things that it got right. I don't love it so much anymore, although a lot of it I still appreciate. The flaws and imperfections became apparent over time, and the things that it did well aren't as profound and interesting as I used to think. All of the nostalgia I have about that period has nothing to do with the quality of the game, and the enthusiasm I had at one point doesn't count for much. The current version of me is right, and sees a more accurate picture of it, IMO. I just didn't know any better before.

I agree that it's possible for something new to eclipse something old (obviously), but I think that if that alone changes your perception of the quality of the old thing, then your view on the old thing was probably pretty skewed and inaccurate. I tend to think that our lasting opinions are the only ones that end up being meaningful, and the imperfections of our arguments crumble under their own weight over time.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that a lot of this stems from the fact that I don't think how good something is considered should have anything to do with the capabilities and limitations of the thing it's made in, or if comparable or better things are available at the time. That caveat and excuse that we factor in is what skews that perception, IMO. The only thing that matters, in my opinion, is how well something works in a vaccuum, irrespective of what I think is technically possible.

That said, I think that the original Mario Kart is still a ton of fun, and has a charm and simplicity to it that Mario Kart 8 doesn't (although it's better in a lot of other ways).