Do you value 'old' games?

[Shareefruck]

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.

I think that these things might have historical value, but I wouldn't factor that in as a part of the quality of the game, personally.

What I'm interested in considering a great game is something that's good enough that its uniqueness is difficult or impossible to replicate, not something novel but spawns copy-cats that are able to easily outdo it.

The Beatles wouldn't be a fraction as admirable as they are if their influence resulted in a ton of bands tried the same thing they did, out-did them, and made their music redundant.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

It's not about forgiving flaws, at least for me, it's about being in a certain place at a certain time. Grandia is one of my all-time favorite games, but I would never argue that it is inherently a top 10 game on anything other than my personal list because it helped plant the seed of adventure in me and helped me get through a very rough time in my life. I'm not going to suddenly be awoken to life-changing ideas at the age of 31, like I was at 13.

I can still play that game today and adore it every bit as I did when I was 13...but I highly doubt it would have the same kind of impact on someone playing it for the first time today.

 

[Shareefruck]

It's not about forgiving flaws, at least for me, it's about being in a certain place at a certain time. Grandia is one of my all-time favorite games, but I would never argue that it is inherently a top 10 game on anything other than my personal list because it helped plant the seed of adventure in me and helped me get through a very rough time in my life. I'm not going to suddenly be awoken to life-changing ideas at the age of 31, like I was at 13.

I can still play that game today and adore it every bit as I did when I was 13...but I highly doubt it would have the same kind of impact on someone playing it for the first time today.

I would classify that as nostalgia, and appreciation of it as a gateway into better and more interesting things and perhaps its place in history, but would argue against factoring that timeliness and sentimentality into how "good" you actually think something is as a videogame, personally.

 

[Trap Jesus]

BioShock is an odd example. It 100% holds up, and is still arguably my favorite game ever.

I won't lie, I do think some games are just too old/dated to enjoy unless I'm looking at them with pure nostalgia. GoldenEye is Exhibit A for me; I just cannot play that game at this point. I thought it was good back in the day (not great), but it simply does not hold up anymore. Then you look at something like ToeJam & Earl on the Sega Genesis, and it completely holds up. Just depends on the graphics/art style to a large degree.

 

[Ceremony]

I'll reply to other stuff at length later. but...

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.

System Shock 2 is being remade:

Fake ed - well it was, although I discovered while writing this post that development went "on hiatus" a week ago. Isn't that wonderful.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Meh. Most Legend of Zelda games may be better, but I've never enjoyed playing a Zelda game so what good does that do me?

There's too much subjectivity involved here for me to pretend to be objective.

And for the record, that personal top 10 list of mine is top 10 'favorite' games, not best. I don't even know how to begin a best list.

 

[Shareefruck]

BioShock is an odd example. It 100% holds up, and is still arguably my favorite game ever.

I won't lie, I do think some games are just too old/dated to enjoy unless I'm looking at them with pure nostalgia. GoldenEye is Exhibit A for me; I just cannot play that game at this point. I thought it was good back in the day (not great), but it simply does not hold up anymore. Then you look at something like ToeJam & Earl on the Sega Genesis, and it completely holds up. Just depends on the graphics/art style to a large degree.

No one would argued otherwise.

But I think that all of these examples are just evidence that Golden-Eye was never a particularly good game, and we all just clung to it because we liked the idea of the genre and had nothing better to play. To continue to consider it a good game simply because of its influence and timeliness, despite the actual experience telling us otherwise with the benefit of hindsight, feels silly to me.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I just can't agree with that. GoldenEye was a great game when it came out, it just became more-or-less obsolete (or unfun to play) because of the limitations faced by t he developers. Almost every problem I have with GoldenEye holding up more or less comes down to the damn N64 controller.

I enjoyed GoldenEye a hell of a lot more than the original Halo relative to the times they came out, but Halo stands the test of time significantly better because basically anyone who has played a shooter in the past 17 years can figure out the controls within a few seconds.

 

[Shareefruck]

Meh. Most Legend of Zelda games may be better, but I've never enjoyed playing a Zelda game so what good does that do me?

There's too much subjectivity involved here for me to pretend to be objective.

And for the record, that personal top 10 list of mine is top 10 'favorite' games, not best. I don't even know how to begin a best list.

For the record, I have not been arguing in favor of separating objectivity with subjectivity and always argue that best and favorite should mean the same thing. I just think that what you end up thinking about something is a more accurate assessment of what you think of it than what you thought at one point or the nostalgia that you still have about what you thought about it at one point.

 

[Shareefruck]

I just can't agree with that. GoldenEye was a great game when it came out, it just became more-or-less obsolete (or unfun to play) because of the limitations faced by t he developers. Almost every problem I have with GoldenEye holding up more or less comes down to the damn N64 controller.

I enjoyed GoldenEye a hell of a lot more than the original Halo relative to the times they came out, but Halo stands the test of time significantly better because basically anyone who has played a shooter in the past 17 years can figure out the controls within a few seconds.

I can't make sense of why your view of the two games would reverse yet you would still feel inclined to think that the original view was equally true/valid, personally. Surely, if you change your mind about which one holds up better, it's because you've realized that something is fundamentally unsatisfactory about the former, which would have been an imperfection/flaw, even at the time, that you just happened to ignore or feel was unimportant when you were younger. Even subjectively, I would have expected that one of those two views are more true to reality, from your perspective.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I think that these things might have historical value, but I wouldn't factor that in as a part of the quality of the game, personally.

What I'm interested in considering a great game is something that's good enough that its uniqueness is difficult or impossible to replicate, not something novel but spawns copy-cats that are able to easily outdo it.

The Beatles wouldn't be a fraction as admirable as they are if their influence resulted in a ton of bands tried the same thing they did, out-did them, and made their music redundant.

I'd argue that video games straddle the entertainment and technology worlds, and the progression and mentality of technology has a significant impact on game quality. In the tech world, new and exciting take top dog until everyone does it and the next big thing comes out.

I think the often used example of Ocarina of Time is a perfect example of the two sides that both affect game quality. Is it still a good game? Sure, because the entertainment side is still a great adventure in an interesting world with a fun use of time and other mechanics. Is it as good as it was when it came out? Not even close, because the technology side is so dated it looks and controls terribly by modern standards. At the time, it was a top of the line marvel that blew the minds of our younger selves because of what it allowed you to do that no other (or at least very few other) games had done. Now, it gives me a headache.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'd argue that video games straddle the entertainment and technology worlds, and the progression and mentality of technology has a significant impact on game quality. In the tech world, new and exciting take top dog until everyone does it and the next big thing comes out.

I think the often used example of Ocarina of Time is a perfect example of the two sides that both affect game quality. Is it still a good game? Sure, because the entertainment side is still a great adventure in an interesting world with a fun use of time and other mechanics. Is it as good as it was when it came out? Not even close, because the technology side is so dated it looks and controls terribly by modern standards. At the time, it was a top of the line marvel that blew the minds of our younger selves because of what it allowed you to do that no other (or at least very few other) games had done. Now, it gives me a headache.

Yeah, personally, that's probably the aspect of the videogame world that I care least about. I couldn't care less what had been done before, I just care about how well it's done and perhaps the degree of inspiration communicated (still a constant regardless of time). In terms of visuals, things like aesthetics, style, and art direction are so much more important to me than fidelity and technical prowess, and I feel that the former is timeless whereas the latter is like a never-ending staircase that only has modest cosmetic value.

Personally, I didn't love the way Ocarina of Time looked when it was released, and thought that A Link to the Past looked much nicer, despite the former standing out more and appearing fresh at the time. I still feel the same way, and don't believe in giving either of them nostalgia points, influence/advancement points, or novelty points.

 

[syz]

No one would argued otherwise.

But I think that all of these examples are just evidence that Golden-Eye was never a particularly good game, and we all just clung to it because we liked the idea of the genre and had nothing better to play. To continue to consider it a good game simply because of its influence and timeliness, despite the actual experience telling us otherwise with the benefit of hindsight, feels silly to me.

I mean, we did have something better to play, considering Quake had been out for a year by the time GoldenEye showed up.

I'll agree at least that there's a layer of ignorance when it comes to a lot of people's favorite games (especially when it comes to shooters), but I have to say that your understanding of what makes something "great" is starting to sound a lot like some Platonic pie-in-the-sky stuff. There's no Formal ideal for video games or art that we're yet to see or should be measuring classic art against, or whatever.

What I'm interested in considering a great game is something that's good enough that its uniqueness is difficult or impossible to replicate, not something novel but spawns copy-cats that are able to easily outdo it.

The Beatles wouldn't be a fraction as admirable as they are if their influence resulted in a ton of bands tried the same thing they did, out-did them, and made their music redundant.

The Beatles are a good parallel to classic video games in that their popularity is largely nostalgic/social as opposed to being a result of any sort of objective measure. From a technical musical perspective they were never really impressive, and they've certainly been lapped several times over since in that regard. As somebody who wasn't alive through that craze The Beatles mean pretty much nothing to me; they're the musical equivalent of not being able to look up or down in the original Doom. At some point you have to consider whether or not empirical limitations that don't look great in hindsight like that are grounds for ruling out something's "greatness." I'd still say Doom is a "great" game. Maybe not the best comparison, since Doom did more for games than the Beatles did for music, but c'est la vie.

And overall the idea that great games are games that can't be copied sounds like something that is the opposite of being true, especially within capitalism and especially within technology within capitalism. The artistic elements of video games (art design, sound design, narrative, etc.) are a small part of their overall production and are often such a team effort that any sort of unique identity is going to be pretty hard to find most of the time. I can count the number of auteurs in gaming on one hand and one of them doesn't count because it's David Cage. That sort of thing is going to severely limit your ability to say "nobody could copy this." The biggest part of games is still mechanical/interactive, and literally alllll of that stuff can be copied. Gameplay is just tech, and anybody can replicate tech.

Games can have unique elements, but it's not enough to make a game great. Nobody will ever replicate Ar tonelico's soundtrack or mythos, but I'm not gonna sit here and say that those games are great. (2 is pretty good though.)

 

[Shareefruck]

I mean, we did have something better to play, considering Quake had been out for a year by the time GoldenEye showed up.

I'll agree at least that there's a layer of ignorance when it comes to a lot of people's favorite games (especially when it comes to shooters), but I have to say that your understanding of what makes something "great" is starting to sound a lot like some Platonic pie-in-the-sky stuff. There's no Formal ideal for video games or art that we're yet to see or should be measuring classic art against, or whatever.



The Beatles are a good parallel to classic video games in that their popularity is largely nostalgic/social as opposed to being a result of any sort of objective measure. From a technical musical perspective they were never really impressive, and they've certainly been lapped several times over since in that regard. As somebody who wasn't alive through that craze The Beatles mean pretty much nothing to me; they're the musical equivalent of not being able to look up or down in the original Doom. At some point you have to consider whether or not empirical limitations that don't look great in hindsight like that are grounds for ruling out something's "greatness." I'd still say Doom is a "great" game. Maybe not the best comparison, since Doom did more for games than the Beatles did for music, but c'est la vie.

And overall the idea that great games are games that can't be copied sounds like something that is the opposite of being true, especially within capitalism and especially within technology within capitalism. The artistic elements of video games (art design, sound design, narrative, etc.) are a small part of their overall production and are often such a team effort that any sort of unique identity is going to be pretty hard to find most of the time. I can count the number of auteurs in gaming on one hand and one of them doesn't count because it's David Cage. That sort of thing is going to severely limit your ability to say "nobody could copy this." The biggest part of games is still mechanical/interactive, and literally alllll of that stuff can be copied. Gameplay is just tech, and anybody can replicate tech.

Games can have unique elements, but it's not enough to make a game great. Nobody will ever replicate Ar tonelico's soundtrack or mythos, but I'm not gonna sit here and say that those games are great. (2 is pretty good though.)

I'm not implying that there is a formal objective standard that everyone should agree on (and if I was, it certainly wouldn't be based on a technical one), I'm arguing that our understanding of our own subjective standards for what is good and bad develops over time, and should not be built around nostalgia, influence, or available technology.

I disagree with most of your assessments, although admittedly, based on my own subjective standards, so it's difficult to engage with your points about them. I think that the artistic elements of a video game are no less important than the technical elements, and I don't see why evidence of auteurism would be a necessary requirement for being able to replicate something. Most games come together and feel a certain way when you play them, whether planned or not, and the meaningful part of that should hold up regardless of limitations or era, in my opinion.

 

[Osprey]

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.

In some cases, like AAA shooters, that's probably true (that game quality has dropped and it's all about graphics and scripted narrative, not gameplay and creativity). I'd say that that's not the case in others, though. For example, there's been an explosion in the "survival" genre since the Minecraft phenomenon. That was a game that prioritized gameplay and creativity over graphics, and we've seen so many games since that haven't had the most cutting edge graphics (anymore), but have given extraordinary control to the player to choose how to play and to be creative. All the rage right now is over open worlds, crafting, base building and so on. So many games are coming out with some or all of those features, and that's a great thing for creativity and defining one's own experience. Thanks to that, I might actually argue that creativity in gaming has never been so high.

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.

That's very true on the PC side, but not the console side. System Shock 2 was never released for consoles, so only PC gamers knew of and still know of it. It had some influence on PC gaming for years afterward, but a huge shift in gaming came in the mid-to-late 2000s when consoles could finally somewhat match PC quality and games started to be developed simultaneously for PC and console. BioShock was so important because it brought the revolutionary gameplay and storytelling of System Shock 2 to a whole new audience (console players) and ensured that it would live on by influencing games for another decade. Even though I'm a pure PC gamer who played System Shock 2 in 1999 and puts it on a pedestal even higher than BioShock, I'm very appreciative of BioShock for that legacy, since it means more games that are up my alley. Without BioShock, there wouldn't have been BioShock 2 or BioShock Infinite, Prey or, possibly, the upcoming System Shock remake and System Shock 3.

I have very similar feelings towards XCOM. I'll always prefer the 1994 original and to say that the 2012 version was new and original would be untrue, but there were almost no decent turn-based, action-based strategy games for 10-15 years before the 2012 version and, since, there's been no shortage of them. XCOM and BioShock are great examples of how, in gaming, being a remake or very derivative isn't the bad thing that it typically is in other media (like movies).

 

[John Price]

Not really. I'd probably pick up one for a while before getting bored. 8 bit or retro or whatever don't fly. Give me the 3d games now with the stellar graphics.

 

[Shareefruck]

That was a game that prioritized gameplay and creativity over graphics, and we've seen so many games since that haven't had the most cutting edge graphics (anymore), but have given extraordinary control to the player to choose how to play and to be creative. All the rage right now is over open worlds, crafting, base building and so on. So many games are coming out with some or all of those features, and that's a great thing for creativity and defining one's own experience. Thanks to that, I might actually argue that creativity in gaming has never been so high.

That's actually one of the trends that I've disliked most about videogames in general, the idea of taking control away from the creators and giving it to the player, and just giving them a limitless playground of customization to work with. I prefer admiring creative people's specific vision, sensibilities, and direction that is revealed through gameplay (the smaller and tighter, the better) over being immersed in a gigantic world of everything that I can think do within it and defining my own experience.

Don't get me wrong, it's fine that people enjoy that, but man, I would really prefer if the medium progressed in the opposite direction.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Once a year or so, I still fire up the Zork trilogy and try to complete it in the fewest moves possible. I'm pretty sure that is nostalgia driven for me though. I never used those invisi-clue books and spent countless hours mapping out the floor plans on graph paper as a kid. Some of the puzzles were much harder than others but that trilogy remains my all-time favorite game...even if it is a text-adventure.

 

[Osprey]

That's actually one of the trends that I've disliked most about videogames in general, the idea of taking control away from the creators and giving it to the player, and just giving them a limitless playground of customization to work with. I prefer admiring creative people's specific vision, sensibilities, and direction that is revealed through gameplay (the smaller and tighter, the better) over being immersed in a gigantic world of everything that I can think do within it.

Don't get me wrong, it's fine that people enjoy that, but man, I would really prefer if the medium progressed in the opposite direction.

I can understand if one's taste is not for a direction-less experience like Minecraft, but I don't understand why anyone would want things to go in the opposite direction, towards sacrificing player choice for the sake of scripted narrative. Wouldn't the best direction be one in which both exist? Right now, I'm playing Subnautica, which has no shortage of narrative or vision, but you don't need to follow it if you don't want to. You can just ignore it and work on building a huge underwater base, instead. Similarly, Fallout 4 had a strong story and vision, but you could set it aside to do your own thing, including building an epic base. Not every game is going to be able to pull off both like that--for example, No Man's Sky is a little too lacking in narrative--but I think that games in which the developers can be very creative while still allowing players to be very creative is a sweet spot that is very good for gaming.

 

[Shareefruck]

I can understand if one's taste is not for a direction-less experience like Minecraft, but I don't understand why anyone would want things to go in the opposite direction, towards sacrificing player choice for the sake of scripted narrative. Wouldn't the best direction be one in which both exist? Right now, I'm playing Subnautica, which has no shortage of narrative or vision, but you don't need to follow it if you don't want to. You can just ignore it and work on building a huge underwater base, instead. Similarly, Fallout 4 had a strong story and vision, but you could set it aside to do your own thing, including building an epic base. Not every game is going to be able to pull off both like that--for example, No Man's Sky is a little too lacking in narrative--but I think that games in which the developers can be very creative while still allowing players to be very creative is a sweet spot that is very good for gaming.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to be taken to an extreme (where it's just purely a movie and nothing else, like walking simulators or QTE games), but I want it to move in the opposite direction of where it is right now (which generally leans towards ultra-customizable, open-world focus on simulation, expansiveness, possibilties, and immersion). My favorite thing about art is probably the communication from the artist to the viewer, and experiencing/being compelled by what they specifically want to show you. In games, that's communicated through interactive engagement. But once it moves away from "This is what I want to show you/what I want you to do/figure out, now let's see if you can do it/how you approach it" and towards "Here's a thing that's available to do, now just have fun with it" I generally become disinterested and start to see games as a creepy escapist "role-playing" (in the literal sense) hero fantasy thing, which is an idea that I'm not very into and am a bit put off by..

For the record, the kinds of games that I lean towards are things like Super Metroid, Inside, Portal, and Shadow of the Colossus. They heavily involve interaction (and don't necessarily feel restrictive), but they also have a very tight and singularly focused intention, vision, and expectation, and are designed so that pretty much every moment is significant/essential and feels right, and nothing is bigger than it needs to be. I want more games like that and fewer games that are just playgrounds/settings to exist and do whatever you want in (even if it's accompanied by narrative). I want them to get smaller and more specific, not bigger and more unfocused.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

In some cases, like AAA shooters, that's probably true (that game quality has dropped and it's all about graphics and scripted narrative, not gameplay and creativity). I'd say that that's not the case in others, though. For example, there's been an explosion in the "survival" genre since the Minecraft phenomenon. That was a game that prioritized gameplay and creativity over graphics, and we've seen so many games since that haven't had the most cutting edge graphics (anymore), but have given extraordinary control to the player to choose how to play and to be creative. All the rage right now is over open worlds, crafting, base building and so on. So many games are coming out with some or all of those features, and that's a great thing for creativity and defining one's own experience. Thanks to that, I might actually argue that creativity in gaming has never been so high.

I agree about things like Minecraft, which truly enables the player to create their own goals and rewards creativity, but 95% of modern "open world" games do not. They are plenty of places to go and things to do, but the question is why are you doing these tasks? Often, they aren't enjoyable in and of themselves after the first couple times, but are fed to the player as a goal like a carrot on a string to better their character, whether that's money, stats, etc. One of the worst offenders is something like Red Dead, which gives you access to a huge wilderness but is mostly so barren and not-interactive it adds nothing to, and arguably detracts from the gameplay. I would much rather play a tightly crafted experience that is aware it's a game, not a "real life simulator" that provides various methods to complete a task than a huge world with nothing to do.

 

[Shareefruck]

Edit: Nevermind, that probably isn't fair.

 

[RandV]

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.

I might be biased because the last two consoles I've owned are the PS2 then Wii, and have stuck with PC gaming since, but I think you're nuts to say there was a bigger jump from the PS2 to the PS3 than thePS1 to the PS2. PS1 was the primitive stages of 3D gaming, and the standard controller didn't even have analogue sticks - those came later to the system. The way I've always looked at it is the PS3 was basically PS2 games but now rendered in HD.

Anyways no problem for me in playing older games, actually a couple months ago I went through Doom 2 playing some extreme mod. But while I missed a ton of PC gaming up until 2000 I find a lot of the 'recommended' games don't really cut it for me, like I couldn't really get into System Shock 2. That's more a case of not being my type of game than dated technology though.

 

[NyQuil]

I have very similar feelings towards XCOM. I'll always prefer the 1994 original and to say that the 2012 version was new and original would be untrue, but there were almost no decent turn-based, action-based strategy games for 10-15 years before the 2012 version and, since, there's been no shortage of them. XCOM and BioShock are great examples of how, in gaming, being a remake or very derivative isn't the bad thing that it typically is in other media (like movies).

My first X-Com was Terror from the Deep.

I think what was original to me was the learning curve and lack of hand holding early on.

Initially, I though I was playing it wrong because I lost so many operatives.

Then you realize that it’s part of the intended design of the game - that you steadily become more resilient as you become more accomplished despite the increase in risk.

It’s a feeling they did a good job in resurrecting in the remake.

 

[John Price]

In a relational issue I am concerned about all these retro 8 bit games I see on sale on Steam. None of them look enticing. One of them is like Enter the Gungraon. Like what the f***? It looks awful. Where are the 3d graphics? Where are the GRAPHICS THAT WILL PUSH MY VIDEO CARD'S LIMIT??

This looks awful!