But I do play some old games still. A lot of different ones actually. From the old Final Fantasy games to games like Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.. So.. Yes I can play older games
There's this hypothesis I have, and it seems to hold pretty well.
You can go back and play any game you've ever played in your life with minimal issues. You can play any game from the year you started gaming onwards and at least be able to appreciate what it was at the time and maybe still have fun. However, if you weren't a gamer when that game came out, for example you started gaming in 1995 and the game in question was released in 1990, chances are you will find it impossible to get in to and see why it was/is so popular.
There's this hypothesis I have, and it seems to hold pretty well. You can go back and play any game you've ever played in your life with minimal issues. You can play any game from the year you started gaming onwards and at least be able to appreciate what it was at the time and maybe still have fun. However, if you weren't a gamer when that game came out, for example you started gaming in 1995 and the game in question was released in 1990, chances are you will find it impossible to get in to and see why it was/is so popular.
I think that only applies to the young, immature, or barely gamer gamers. I was born after the Atari 2600 came out, yet I've gotten enjoyment out of some of the better 2600 games.
To me there are old games that I used to love that I don't enjoy anymore, and old games I never played that I finally learned about and loved.
I go back ALL the TIME. And then I give up and play Pokemon.
Nah, I'm going through the original Final Fantasy right now. I think, really, they only games that will have a really hard time holding up are 3-d games, but I beat Ocarina of Time just last year so what do I know?
I bought Half Life source off steam recently and am playing that. It's a lot of fun, and after that I will of course replay Half Life 2 and so on. I still play Commander Keen, and Quake 3.
There's this hypothesis I have, and it seems to hold pretty well. You can go back and play any game you've ever played in your life with minimal issues. You can play any game from the year you started gaming onwards and at least be able to appreciate what it was at the time and maybe still have fun. However, if you weren't a gamer when that game came out, for example you started gaming in 1995 and the game in question was released in 1990, chances are you will find it impossible to get in to and see why it was/is so popular.
I think that only applies to the young, immature, or barely gamer gamers. I was born after the Atari 2600 came out, yet I've gotten enjoyment out of some of the better 2600 games. To me there are old games that I used to love that I don't enjoy anymore, and old games I never played that I finally learned about and loved. "
What Diamond says sums up my feelings as well. I have an especially hard time going back to some of my favorite PSX games as the graphics on that system did not age well at all. I looooved Rival Schools when it first came out, but trying to play that now makes me ill. On the flip side, I can go back and play Snafu on the Intellivision or Pitfall on the Atari 2600 and enjoy them even if the systems were made before (or the same year) I was born.
@Diamond: Hence the term 'holds pretty well' instead of 'is 100% true.'
I think this really starts after the switch from 2D to 3D, probably a little before then, around some of the more elaborate 2D games. That's when games tipped the balance between simple reaction testers and actual works of creativity with deeper stories, character development, etc. Games changed so much in this period that it is difficult to really get anything out the the more pedestrian affairs that were the games before then, unless you were there and are used to those types of games. Hence my little theory. Perhaps I should have made it clearer. Calling anyone who got into gaming after 1993ish "young, immature, or barely gamer gamers" kinda makes you sound like a bitter old fart.
Calling anyone who got into gaming after 1993ish "young, immature, or barely gamer gamers" kinda makes you sound like a bitter old fart.
I didn't say that. I said I don't think your theory applies to anyone but the young, immature, and barely gamer gamers. I've not noticed that kind of behavior in anyone but those people.
" There's this hypothesis I have, and it seems to hold pretty well. You can go back and play any game you've ever played in your life with minimal issues. You can play any game from the year you started gaming onwards and at least be able to appreciate what it was at the time and maybe still have fun. However, if you weren't a gamer when that game came out, for example you started gaming in 1995 and the game in question was released in 1990, chances are you will find it impossible to get in to and see why it was/is so popular. "
I don't agree. I was born in 1987 and my first game was the Mario/Duckhunt cartridge at a very young age. I played games for a long time before being introduced to Joust about 2 years into the original Playstation's lifetime. That means I enjoyed a whole spectrum of advances in gaming between when I started and when I discovered Joust. I got hooked on Joust. I thought it was a lot of fun and it kept me interested with its simple game mechanics that were so damn fun for some reason or another; I can definitely see how it was possible for this game to be so popular. Joust also turned me on to some other really old games like Digdug and Robotron which I enjoyed as well.
Calling anyone who got into gaming after 1993ish "young, immature, or barely gamer gamers" kinda makes you sound like a bitter old fart.
I didn't say that. I said I don't think your theory applies to anyone but the young, immature, and barely gamer gamers. I've not noticed that kind of behavior in anyone but those people. "
Fair enough. I have noticed that behavior in other people, and that is where that theory came from. While I can concede quite a few of them may be "barely gamers" (which doesn't make much sense, as anyone who games regularly is a gamer in my book), they are neither young nor immature unless college-educated, salary-earning adults are now considered young and immature. If you want to think that way that is obviously your choice, but that doesn't make it sound any less snobbish.
Fair enough. I have noticed that behavior in other people, and that is where that theory came from. While I can concede quite a few of them may be "barely gamers" (which doesn't make much sense, as anyone who games regularly is a gamer in my book), they are neither young nor immature unless college-educated, salary-earning adults are now considered young and immature. If you want to think that way that is obviously your choice, but that doesn't make it sound any less snobbish.
College educated, salary earning adults can be immature, I know some. I'd bet those people you know probably fall into the barely gamer category but I don't know. What kind of person wouldn't want to play a good game just because it was old? I can only imagine someone that didn't really care about games thinking that way.
That doesn't make me a snob, it just means I look at things clearly.
People's expectations change over time. For some, it means that they cannot enjoy older games (this applies to some other forms of media as well, like cinema I'd imagine).
I am someone who can see past the technical limitations of hardware and recognize the core of what makes a game good or bad. People don't respect Altered Beast anymore because it isn't good, and never was, though people were blown away by the presentation at the time (just an example, I personally love Altered Beast). People generally do respect (and many people still play) the original Legend of Zelda because it really was a fantastic game and true quality cannot get worse with age.
To the guy who posted Shadow Dancer, that game is pretty sweet.
And for what's its worth, I do think that Half Life counts as an old game. We're not talking about wine here, we're talking about an industry where the technology improves exponentially with each passing year. Half Life is an old and very good game.
@Diamond: I didn't say you were a snob. I don't know you. You are just acting like one.
What kind of person doesn't want to play a good game just because it's old? Someone with limited free time who likes games and would rather play one of the many good modern ones, for starters. Gaming is entertainment, nothing more. The fact of the matter is most people would rather be entertained by the latest summer blockbuster than sit in the dark and marvel at Citizen Kane. Is it right? I don't know, that's up for the suits in Washington to decide. It is however just the way things go.
I am someone who can see past the technical limitations of hardware and recognize the core of what makes a game good or bad. People don't respect Altered Beast anymore because it isn't good, and never was, though people were blown away by the presentation at the time (just an example, I personally love Altered Beast)."
Dude I totally agree and know what you mean. I owned this lovable abomination for the Genesis. I never really liked the game yet I couldn't stop playing it. Its true though: It was never good lol.
Truthfully I dont play on my older games all too often, but yeah if i were to slip some classics in i'd imagine id still have a sweet time. I mean i was playing RE2+RE3 till like...well last year infact.
I can't really play games from the period when we started making 3D games today. Pixel shooters like Doom or Duke Nukem hurts my eyes really bad because I can't seem to focus my vision on anything when everything's all blurry. Early polygonal 3D looks even worse, like Nintendo 64 and Playstation games that tried to do realistic graphics makes me nauseous and I get real bad headaches after playing for a while. Anything before 3D graphics and after 3D acceleration kicked in is fine. It's just that transition period I have problems with.
What kind of person doesn't want to play a good game just because it's old? Someone with limited free time who likes games and would rather play one of the many good modern ones, for starters. Gaming is entertainment, nothing more. The fact of the matter is most people would rather be entertained by the latest summer blockbuster than sit in the dark and marvel at Citizen Kane. Is it right? I don't know, that's up for the suits in Washington to decide. It is however just the way things go.
I don't know about Citizen Kane, but lots of movie goers prefer the original Star Wars movies than the prequels. That's what old games are like. There are plenty of crappy ones, but there are plenty of old great games that are better than their equivalents today, and that's the point.
@Diamond: That's true, but to continue on with the Star Wars analogy, truely great and lasting games of similar quality and importance to the medium only come along once every couple of years or so. I interpreted the topic as "can you play any old game," which is what I've based that rather unpopular theory off of. Though re-reading it it's clear the topic creator uses the fantastic Half Life as his example. I guess we just see the role of older games differently, which is okay. Hope there are no hard feelings.
@JakJ: No problem, just discussion man. That's what forums are supposed to be about. Yea, the Half Life example is important, because I personally think of a gamer missing out on the classics of gaming like Super Mario Bros 3 or something as crazy to do willingly. I'd say the majority of old games I don't want to play at all, but that's true for new games as well.
I find it easy to play older games. The game im mainly playing right now is Star Tropics which is a NES game which is essentially a rather good zelda clone. But I spend a lot of my time playing a lot of C64-era games and older PC games I never played (im looking into playing American McGee's Alice).
There are certainly a lot of people I know who cant play any game which isnt brand new or isnt the latest game in a series but most serious gamers I know dont let time, graphics or system stand in the way of fun.
" There's this hypothesis I have, and it seems to hold pretty well. You can go back and play any game you've ever played in your life with minimal issues. You can play any game from the year you started gaming onwards and at least be able to appreciate what it was at the time and maybe still have fun. However, if you weren't a gamer when that game came out, for example you started gaming in 1995 and the game in question was released in 1990, chances are you will find it impossible to get in to and see why it was/is so popular. "
Some games definitely haven't aged well, and I'd say the original Half-life is one of them. Many old PSOne games suffer from this really badly as well, where the graphics these days are just plain horrible and the gameplay is frustrating but they're still playable. Perhaps the only exception are some N64 games such as Perfect Dark that have such fuzzy graphics and poor frame rate, they literally make me ill. But I can wait patiently for the XBLA remakes.
But I have no problem playing them really, if I want to go back and enjoy an old game, I do so quite regularly. I love retro games and still own all of my old consoles. I only recently played through the first two Yakuza games (hoping the third gets released at some point..) and played through Skies of Arcadia and the Shenmue's on the DC.
I would say there still playable if you played them when they first came out but if your young and didn't play them when they were "the shit" then probably not. but depends on the person at the end of the day I guess.
there was definately a point where things went 3D that a whole lot of games became unplayable... Street Fighter 2 is still almost perfect whilst Battle arena Toshinden which wowed me at a games show months before the PS1 was out, is a horrible unplayable mess of a game... Sonic games, mario games I could play until the end of time yet I played Banjo Kazooie on the 360 last year... and It feels almost broken with terrible collision detection, bad controls and camera.
It depends. I think old console games hold up better than old PC games because older console games are quite unique and have the control scheme to go with it. Playing older games on the PC just doesn't seem worthwhile when almost strictly better versions are out. Then there are even older games that are nigh unplayable by today's standards, such as the X-Com games.
it depends on the type of game, many old school shmups and platformers are still perfectly playable today. gradius is still tight as fuck (just brutally, murderously difficult)
when it comes to genres that have evolved more like fps's, id say no. half life is still playable and some fun, but doesnt hold up at all when compared to modern games
" It depends. I think old console games hold up better than old PC games because older console games are quite unique and have the control scheme to go with it. Playing older games on the PC just doesn't seem worthwhile when almost strictly better versions are out. Then there are even older games that are nigh unplayable by today's standards, such as the X-Com games. "
You just reminded me of games on the PC like Daggerfall.. utterly, utterly unplayable.
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