Games that age well/dont age well.

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DoctorDanger99

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#1  Edited By DoctorDanger99

so im a collector and that means i play alot of old games and i thought this would be a fun topic. just list a few games that despite thier age, still play well and ones that because of thier age dont.

Metal gear solid trilogy:

I know alot of people wont agree with me but these games still play great. doesnt matter if your playing snake eater on the ps2,the 360 or the vita.they all look and play great.

Mega man series:

any one of them play great. i recently picked up the mega man collection on gamecube and it plays as well as it did back in the day and yes, i still suck as badly now as i did in the 80's.

Morrowind:

it hasnt aged well. there is still a great game here, but it's hidden behind terrible controls and messy graphics. i rememebr when i first played it years ago and think it was a mess.

Resident evil 1-3:

these games will allways have a spot in my heart. especially RE2. but they just havnt aged well. wonky controls,static graphics and hollow voice acting. but that still doesnt make me enjoy them any less. but i can recognize that they havnt aged well. my girlfriend who is as big a gamer nut as i am still cant bring herself to get used to the controls.

Nintendo 64:

There were alot of great games for this console but for some reason i allways find it a chore to play on. the graphics for most games are flat out terrible and the controls feel like they are coated in oil. it was a great console but a very large majority of it's games havnt aged well. hell, Ocarina of time is one of the best games ever made and its an eyesore!

Thoughts? accusations?

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renmckormack

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#2  Edited By renmckormack

seems like. early three d stuff does not age well. GOOD 2d stuff is essentially timeless, since we stopped doing it (for big games anyway besides new mario bros) as an industry.

BUT

Stuff with style still looks good. Wind Waker is older and still looks great in 3d because it was going for something specific.

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Ravenlight

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#3  Edited By Ravenlight

MGS1 is a mess to look at today but MGS 2 and 3 both hold up well.

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DoctorDanger99

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#4  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@Ravenlight:

i just replayed and ill admit that while it doesnt look as good as the others,it looks alot better than most games from that era.

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doobie

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#5  Edited By doobie

anything on the NES or PS1 has aged badly

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CL60

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#6  Edited By CL60

You can mod Morrowind to look better than Oblvion. But anyways, regardless of what a lot of people say, WWF No Mercy aged terribly.

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altairre

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#7  Edited By altairre

I would say that games with cel-shading age very well in general

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DoctorDanger99

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#8  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@doobie: i disagree with the nes. it has an 8-bit charm that alot of people enjoy.

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Justin258

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#9  Edited By Justin258

The original Halo is still a fantastic game by modern standards. Half-Life is also still quite a masterpiece. Metroid Prime 1 is still incredibly close to perfection, and its predecessor Super Metroid is still amazing as well.

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DoctorDanger99

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#10  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@believer258:

lol i was playing the aniversary edition of halo the other day and i was switching between new graphics and old and i ended up playing for like four hours with the old graphics and didnt even notice. the gameplay is that good!

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RandomInternetUser

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DMC3 aged very well. It still is the best feeling 3rd person action game I have ever played. I'm actually playing through it again right now.

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pr1mus

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#12  Edited By pr1mus

I'd say games with realistic graphics tend to age terribly. Of course with good gameplay some will remain classics forever.

Anything else, from cel-shading to 2D or sprite based graphics has the potential to age really well provided the gameplay is good.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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Final Fantasy 6 aged well.

Final Fantasy 7 did not.

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DoctorDanger99

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#14  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@Brodehouse:

yeah thats a tough one. the core game,story,controls and combat are still utterly fantastic. the grapics though,ugh.

which is funny, FF8 came out only a year or two afterwards and looks alot better.

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Jrinswand

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#16  Edited By Jrinswand
@DoctorDanger99 said:
Morrowind:

it hasnt aged well. there is still a great game here, but it's hidden behind terrible controls and messy graphics. i rememebr when i first played it years ago and think it was a mess.

Ha! I came into this thread specifically to talk about how well Morrowind has aged. Sure, the graphics and the gameplay mechanics are unabashedly products of their time but the art design and the uncompromising design philosophy of the game ensures that it still holds up incredibly well today. It tends to be the case that games with deep, complex systems at work age pretty well. Plus, as somebody above me said, you can very easily mod the game to look very good.
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deathbyyeti

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#17  Edited By deathbyyeti

I say the entire N64 and PS1 era aged poorly overall but as soon as I say this people hound me and can not move past their nostalgia.

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stryker1121

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#18  Edited By stryker1121

@DoctorDanger99: I tried to re-play Zelda OOT seven or eight years ago and yes the early 3D looked ancient even at that point. 2D side scrollers I could play forever, as there's naturally far less limitations. Just got into Morrowind a year or two ago and loved it to pieces, messy graphics and all. The art style is great, gameplay is great, trumping the graphical stuff and shoddy character models (Plus you can mod the game to hell and back, although I did not)

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Chop

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#19  Edited By Chop

Pretty much everything on the Playstation is unplayable nowadays. You could throw the N64 in there too, but I feel like they've aged terribly for different reasons. N64 games have shitty controls and playstation games just look like...blurry ass.

Also, all dedicated third person shooters that came before RE4 have become so obsolete that they are unplayable.

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Pabba

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#20  Edited By Pabba

All the PS2 platformer trilogies--Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper--have all aged just fine. Still a lot of fun to play many years later.

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DoctorDanger99

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#21  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@Jrinswand:

i wouldnt count mods. just the core game. and i do admit the game is really good. its just held back by some major flaws.

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mandude

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#22  Edited By mandude

@Chop said:

Also, all dedicated third person shooters that came before RE4 have become so obsolete that they are unplayable.

Max Payne?

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Justin258

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#23  Edited By Justin258

@DoctorDanger99 said:

@believer258:

lol i was playing the aniversary edition of halo the other day and i was switching between new graphics and old and i ended up playing for like four hours with the old graphics and didnt even notice. the gameplay is that good!

Yeah, I did the same thing when I was playing it last. I decided to switch to the old graphics and oh snap! I was already in old graphics!

The slightly cartoony look of that game served it well.

@Jrinswand said:

@DoctorDanger99 said:
Morrowind:

it hasnt aged well. there is still a great game here, but it's hidden behind terrible controls and messy graphics. i rememebr when i first played it years ago and think it was a mess.

Ha! I came into this thread specifically to talk about how well Morrowind has aged. Sure, the graphics and the gameplay mechanics are unabashedly products of their time but the art design and the uncompromising design philosophy of the game ensures that it still holds up incredibly well today. It tends to be the case that games with deep, complex systems at work age pretty well. Plus, as somebody above me said, you can very easily mod the game to look very good.

Vanilla Morrowind hasn't aged well due to the fact that its gameplay is just plain difficult to get into for newcomers. You walk agonizingly slow, your weapons don't always connect when they feel like they should because it works on dice rolls, NPC's look horrible, etc.. Those particular complaints aren't really an excuse, though - you can mod it to hell and back to make it play pretty close to Oblivion.

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Silvergun

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#24  Edited By Silvergun

I think the Might and Magic series covers both ends of this.

On the holding up well side, the World of Xeen games (4+5) have a really vibrant, distinctive art style that still looks great today, paired with gameplay that I think nicely straddles the line between more unforgiving CRPGs and accessibility. It's really one of the best RPGs ever made.

On the other hand, the next few games with their transition to 3d had some issues. MM6, 7 and 8 are not pretty games. MM6 was the worst by a longshot, and while MM7 did improve a fair bit, it still wasn't much of a looker. MM6 Also suffered from being the first game to radically redesign the core gameplay mechanics that had remained more or less constant from 1-5. Again, MM7 refined these quite a bit, and in that regard it actually has aged really well, it's one of, if not my all time favorite game (But DAMN is it ugly!). MM8 on the other hand, didn't really improve on 7 at all, and coupled with some really questionable design choices, probably took a few steps back as well.

We don't talk about Might and Magic 9...

Overall, it just feels like New World Computing never found their feet after MM6.

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_Zombie_

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#25  Edited By _Zombie_

I disagree on Morrowind. I played it again a few months back and I still loved it.

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SexualBubblegumX

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#26  Edited By SexualBubblegumX

For everyone saying ps1 games don't age well, play SaGa Frontier please. The artstyle looks like claymation so it still looks nice today. Also the gameplay and setting are unique enough to make it worth playing every time.

Also on ps1 that aged very well, Street Fighter Alpha 3. It makes Street Fighter 4 seem like a joke.

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Jay444111

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#27  Edited By Jay444111

@SexualBubblegumX said:

For everyone saying ps1 games don't age well, play SaGa Frontier please. The artstyle looks like claymation so it still looks nice today. Also the gameplay and setting are unique enough to make it worth playing every time.

Also on ps1 that aged very well, Street Fighter Alpha 3. It makes Street Fighter 4 seem like a joke.

Also don't forget Spyro the Dragon! Those games kicked ass!

Anyone remember the demo disk with MGS and Spyro and the video for Parasite Eve? Whatever happened to awesome fucking demo disks like that!?

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inkerman

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#28  Edited By inkerman

I'd say Morrowind holds up in some places, but crashes and burns in others. Still an amazing game.

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Hizang

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#29  Edited By Hizang

@DoctorDanger99:

  • Metal Gear Solid series - They all play really nicely, I have a lot of nostalgia for the series so I don't know if thats clouding my judgement. But I still enjoy them to this day, the HD collection was great.
  • Mega Man series - 2D Platformers generally hold up well.
  • Morrowind - Probably hard to go back to post Skyrim.
  • Resident Evil 1-3 - I couldn't play any of them after 4, although the Gamecube remake of 1 was great.
  • N64 - Despite housing my favourite games of all time (Conkers Bad Fur Day, Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie) I'd bet its a hard console to play if you never grew up playing it.
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monetarydread

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#30  Edited By monetarydread
@DoctorDanger99 said:

@doobie: i disagree with the nes. it has an 8-bit charm that alot of people enjoy.

I believe that most people that find 8-bit charming are 14-year olds that didn't grow up with the games yet enjoy the concept of 8-bit graphics, or thirty-somethings that are trapped in a nostalgia well.  If you actually try and play a NES (the actual system, not emulators) you will see that about 96% of the games on that system had terrible input lag that destroys any real fun to be had.  Sure you can get used to pressing the "b" button a quarter second earlier than when you actually want to jump, but why would you want to?  How about sprite flickering, constant slowdown, confusing level designs, or having to interpret an 8-pixel blob as being a ninja.  Plus if you look at the way the games were designed, they aren't really skill based experiences, almost every game is able to be reduced to, "die until you memorize this pattern, reach the next level, then die until you memorize the pattern, then start the whole game over again because you ran out of lives."
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cookiemonster

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#31  Edited By cookiemonster

@CL60 said:

WWF No Mercy aged terribly.

And I was thinking about firing that up the other day. Is it really that bad?

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AuthenticM

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#32  Edited By AuthenticM

Games that came out near the end of a console's life usually age well, while games that came out in its beginning age very poorly. This is true for nearly every console, even our current generation. The only exception I can think of is the Nintendo 64, where all of its games look and play like shit today.

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dirkfunk

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#33  Edited By dirkfunk

Some Playstation titles age ok.

Most however. . . are borderline unplayable.

Twisted Metal and Tenchu are a couple of games I used to love and were mind blowing back in the day. Now, I might play them to induce vomiting.

Twisted Metal is still playable. Whereas Tenchu feels like a hot mess. Tank controls+Crazy camera+Grappling hooks+Stealth = Bad Idea. But back then, I loved it.

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DoctorDanger99

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#34  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@MonetaryDread:

but it was the birth of modern gaming. thats like saying movies that came before the year 1986 are stupid and terrible because they are so cheesy and not as sophisticated as movies made today.

i bust out my NES several times a year and play the classics and they play and look just as good as they did then.

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CL60

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#35  Edited By CL60
@CookieMonster

@CL60 said:

WWF No Mercy aged terribly.

And I was thinking about firing that up the other day. Is it really that bad?

You can have fun with it, but the AI is awful and it really doesn't play that well compared to todays wrestling games. I love the game, buying still think people are insane when they say no wrestling game is better.
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upwarDBound

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#36  Edited By upwarDBound

@DoctorDanger99:

I have to disagree with you on Metal Gear Solid. You knew someone would! I think the games still look great especially Snake Eater, but the controls are incredibly wonky and the camera is simply terrible. I know I'm not very good at the games but the controls were so poor and unintuitive that I felt no desire to attempt to master them.

As for games that have held up through the ages I would have to say the 16 bit Sonic the Hedgehog games (minus 3d blast) Almost all Super Mario games, Jet Grind Radio and JSR Future, Chrono Trigger, Zelda LttP.

For slightly newer games I will go out on a limb (not really) and say that Okami will hold up over time as will Rayman Origins, two of the most beautiful games I have ever played.

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DoctorDanger99

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#37  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@upwarDBound:

i disagree. i think it's more of a matter that the metal gear games control like metal gear games. they arent like a platformer or a FPS where all of the controls are more or less exactly the same. the metal gear games have a unique style to them. ill admit it takes a little while to get used to them but they are games ment to be played a very specific way. once you figure that out,it's golden!

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upwarDBound

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#38  Edited By upwarDBound

@DoctorDanger99:

Just because they're unique doesn't make them good. I greatly enjoyed the first two MSX Metal Gear games as the control scheme they offered was perfectly suited for the gameplay. I'm sorry but that style of control does not mesh when you add another dimension to deal with. The restrictive almost top-down camera in the Metal Gear Solid games is absolutely ridiculous and the clunky first-person mode does not alleviate that. You should have been able to lock into first person rather than be forced to hold a button. And also incredibly limited movement in first person, what the heck! Also the shooting controls are whack. Auto-aim is horribly inaccurate with anything but an automatic weapon and holding the fire button and then releasing to shoot is absolutely counterintuitive. Aiming and firing in first person view is much more difficult than it should be with me sometimes holstering my weapon instead of firing it.

I am well aware that the main focus of the games is not shooting and the fact that the shooting is so cumbersome might be a reflection of that, but that does not excuse the horrible camera and controls for sneaking and snapping necks and all the other espionage related activities. Even as bad as the shooting in the games is, it's easier to get through them just blasting everything in sight!

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Red

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#39  Edited By Red

Early 3d console games don't really work anymore. The graphics are too bad, the controls are awful, and no one had figured out camera movement yet.

Most games from the PS2 era have aged fine, and, aside from occasional rough translations and excessive capitalization, the SNES era hasn't aged at all.

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huntad

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#41  Edited By huntad

@upwarDBound: I kind of agree with you, but only in terms of the sequel: MGS2. I tried playing it a few days ago, and the camera angle was driving me mad! I kept getting spotted even though I had no map, and I couldn't see the guy who was patrolling the area.

I think MGS1 holds up okay, but MGS2 makes me mad specifically for the camera and pressure-sensitive controls. Then again, I haven't played MGS1 in a year or so, so maybe nostalgia is clouding my judgement. MGS3:S, however, only makes me mad due to the pressure-sensitive controls. Other than that, the game is amazing.

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TheSouthernDandy

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#42  Edited By TheSouthernDandy

Doom. That game is just as much fun as when I first played it. The music and audio design of that game is burned into my memory.

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DoctorDanger99

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#43  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@upwarDBound:

well,agree to disagree.ill admit the controls are far from perfect but it think they suit the gameplay.as i said,they take some getting used to but once you do they are fine. just like metroid prime.

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endless_void

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#44  Edited By endless_void

-Gta 4 aged terribly, recently tried ps3 version again, and I don't think I could do another runthrough of that game ever again.

-Original assassin's creed, despite being a fresh new idea when it first came out, is extremely repetitive in today's game design. I still like the graphics however.

-San Andreas, another gta game that really hasn't aged well. The graphics for that game are terrrrrrible now, but the core gameplay is still fun. Very tedious missions however.

-The first crysis has aged bad imo. The graphics were amazing for its time but somehow they seem quite average for an action fps now. The mods for that game are fantastic though.

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DoctorDanger99

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#45  Edited By DoctorDanger99

@endless_void:

i just downloaded crysis on XBLA and it looks and plays great.

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huntad

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#46  Edited By huntad
@endless_void: Hell yes. I tried playing the Crysis PSN release and I was so bored. The graphics, while nice, were probably not as good as the PC version, but even if they were I don't think they would have improved the experience I had.
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theslothking

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#47  Edited By theslothking

Old fps games usually don't hold up too well.

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bjacks27

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#48  Edited By bjacks27

I remember loving the PS1 game Tenchu: Steal assassins . .that game looks like garbage now. The first Mortal Kombat looks and plays super poorly now too..Which is funny because when I was a kid I remember thinking that there was no way that any game could ever be better that MK

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TwoLines

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#49  Edited By TwoLines

@TheSouthernDandy said:

Doom. That game is just as much fun as when I first played it. The music and audio design of that game is burned into my memory.

Yup. Still awesome.

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ExplodeMode

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#50  Edited By ExplodeMode

I replayed Mario 64 and Ocarina last summer so it's not nostalgia at all when I say those games are still rad. Mario 64 especially.

That whole just figuring out 3d look from the beginning of the PS1 is a real eyesore.

I played Castlevania SOTN emulated on PSN not too long ago, and the 360 version a few years before that and that game is immortal.

The PS2 GTAs have a rough control scheme that's really hard to get used to again. I did it, but it took a while to get back into San Andreas. (Totally worth it)

Most of the SNES stuff that was great is still great: Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Mario World.