Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-18, 23:37:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-18, 15:09:

There are some games that I really liked as a kid, but I just can't get into them nowadays. In most cases, it's because the UI feels too archaic to me, and I can't be bothered with the jankiness. Other times, I simply don't enjoy the gameplay as much as I used to.

It is blasphemy that I find Duke Nukem 3D has fallen into this category?

It was my favorite shooter of the 90s, but I find it just hasn't aged well either in terms of gameplay nor content.

I'm like that towards Duke3d's multiplayer now though. Everyone ignores the tactical weapons and just go on a steroids shotgun/rpg jousting spree not too unlike the pistol zooming bots of atomic (when they're not in a wall kick frenzy). It's a wehaveDoom2AtHome kind of multiplayer game in the 00s/10s

I get that towards Quake3 too in this post cpma "carmack's vision" cheat world. Fortunately I can try to do something about it. Should a 25th Q3 ever happens, i'll be happy for the "restrictive" casual online crossplay but probably angry if they break gamma and lighting (Q3 normalizes and overbrights while some nd fan tells me i'm the wrong)

Yeah actually, I remember DN3D deathmatch being all about creative use of the pipe bombs.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-18, 23:37:

It is blasphemy that I find Duke Nukem 3D has fallen into this category?

It was my favorite shooter of the 90s, but I find it just hasn't aged well either in terms of gameplay nor content.

I still like Duke3D on the whole, but I'm not a fan of some of its level design, especially in episodes 2 and 4. Cramped areas with little room to maneuver and enemies that explode in your face as soon as you open a door? Yeah, no thanks.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-18, 18:51:

Clunky controls, archaic player hostile game design and lack of music are things I have hard time tolerating, no matter how revolutionary and amazing the game was when it was released.

For my part, anything that requires me to rapidly mash a key, constantly click the mouse, or perform some sort of quick time event is unlikely to get replayed. Same goes for games which use some weird graphical effects that flicker all over the place, or have terrible chromatic aberration and motion blur implementations that can't be turned off.

I recently tried playing Duke Nukem Forever and encountered all of the aforementioned crap. I might give it another shot on my Xbox360 at some point, but the PC version is pretty much unplayable to me at close proximity to the monitor.

I played EoB some time back.

It is full of some fascinating tidbits that show the developers actually were awake when making it.

Take the bone pile right in the first room, with the lockpicks and the dagger.

You can pick these up!

I doubt most people would-- but if you do, you can get them resurrected later. Get a halfling thief recruitable out of the deal.

Little things like that.

As for 'getting lost', i'm gonna be a little douchey on this... maybe develop some memory skills?

That's what I did.

'Oh, I know where I am now!' Is an important part of exploring a dungeon, imo.

There are definitely mechanics that have aged poorly, such as QTEs and button mashing mentioned by Joseph_Joestar above (though I would argue that they were never good to begin with), but I do get annoyed with the narrative that old games are archaic and clunky, as though game design is something that inevitably improves over time and has only been good the last X years. There have been plenty of old games I never played back in the day, that I only recently played and completed, and I had a blast doing so.

The fact of the matter is that most of the "journalists" and pundits writing about games don't attempt to understand, or in many cases even play, the games they write about. They examine everything from a modern perspective, which is akin to reviewing KRAMER VS. KRAMER in terms of how EPIC and AWESOME the effects are. Appreciating anything in any depth requires effort, and with old games that means learning a unique interface and mastering the mechanics. Games were made to be something of a challenge, and it's not wrong that they were designed this way. Not every game needs to be a progress treadmill you cannot fail to complete as long as you put the time in... and yet most game critics seem incapable of making any effort whatsoever to break out of this modern gaming mindset and appreciate games for what they are.

I really don't want to criticize the podcast mentioned in the OP too much, since the individuals involved seem like decent people and do at least give the games a shot... but they have mostly become conditioned by modern games where the most important thing is to make "progress" no matter what. They do not appreciate the appeal of a game that takes time to learn and master (a different kind of progress, but no "%" displayed on a screen), and so it's no surprise they get annoyed with complicated games.

However, I must criticize the Eye of the Beholder episode, as it's an especially frustrating listen not only because they failed to understand such a simple RPG with an interface that is actually surprisingly modern, but because it's yet another example of someone stumbling around for a few minutes and parroting the "old games are clunky and archaic" narrative. I recall one of the guys complaining that you have to make a party and he had no idea what all these classes and attributes meant. This is absolutely ridiculous. The game does assume that you're familiar with Dungeons & Dragons if you want to create your own party, but also comes with a perfectly fine default party... so you don't really need to understand any of this stuff to actually play and complete the game, and still the guy complains!

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-19, 04:20:

As for 'getting lost', i'm gonna be a little douchey on this... maybe develop some memory skills?

That's what I did.

'Oh, I know where I am now!' Is an important part of exploring a dungeon, imo.

I'd rather use graph paper or a mapping tool. My memory is awful and memorizing maps would probably overwrite something useful. Last time I played a Gold Box game, I forgot how to tie my shoes (-:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-19, 03:52:

Same goes for games which use some weird graphical effects that flicker all over the place, or have terrible chromatic aberration and motion blur implementations that can't be turned off.

Yeah, now that you mentioned those I'll also add blurry AA to my crap list but this thankfully didn't become a thing until 2010->. Try playing Dishonored 2 and or Prey 2017 on 1080p screen and enjoy the vaselin, they might look gorgeus on a 4k monitor these days but I wouldn't have been able to play them without a sharpening filter back at launch, both are blurry as hell.

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-04-19, 04:40:

I recall one of the guys complaining that you have to make a party and he had no idea what all these classes and attributes meant. This is absolutely ridiculous. The game does assume that you're familiar with Dungeons & Dragons if you want to create your own party, but also comes with a perfectly fine default party... so you don't really need to understand any of this stuff to actually play and complete the game, and still the guy complains!

I haven't listened to the podcast and assumed they were retro enthusiasts who just didn't like the game because it's not their thing, but that sounds like the "I didn't read the manual, don't know how it works therefore it sucks" attitude I so very much hate. I'm starting to understand why you guys are getting so bothered by this, I kinda assumed this is just another old man yells at cloud case 😀

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-19, 05:32:

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-19, 04:20:

As for 'getting lost', i'm gonna be a little douchey on this... maybe develop some memory skills?

That's what I did.

'Oh, I know where I am now!' Is an important part of exploring a dungeon, imo.

I'd rather use graph paper or a mapping tool. My memory is awful and memorizing maps would probably overwrite something useful. Last time I played a Gold Box game, I forgot how to tie my shoes (-:

I have so many old game worlds fully mental-mapped, it's quite sad.

Dungeon Master? Yup. LoZ for NES? Yup. Wizardry7, up until sky city? Yup.

I have not 'permanently' burned EoB's dungeon, but it was not at all hard to keep track of.

Those tools should try Wiz7 without graphing paper. 🤣

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-19, 05:54:

Yeah, now that you mentioned those I'll also add blurry AA to my crap list but this thankfully didn't become a thing until 2010->. Try playing Dishonored 2 and or Prey 2017 on 1080p screen and enjoy the vaselin, they might look gorgeus on a 4k monitor these days but I wouldn't have been able to play them without a sharpening filter back at launch, both are blurry as hell.

Agreed, and I think that might be because of the TAA implementation in those games. Digital Foundry recently released a video on the subject.

For me, TAA blurring is less of an issue when playing on a large TV set (from 2-3 meters away) than on a standard 24" or 27" PC monitor (from 30-50 cm away).

It is quite often stated that Nostalgia is the main reason for enjoying retro games. And while Nostalgia plays some part in retro gaming it is not telling the full story.

I like Retro games more than modern games due the different experience they offer. Many modern games are not plug and play anymore. Many times game require some work to get into them. So they are not very well suited for just a short gaming season.

I als think that older games are more pretty compared to modern games. Not from a pure technical point of view of course but from the art direction. Games today use the same engine and the same tools so games look alike.

Back in the days with custom engines many games had their own visual idendity which made them unique.

i might be weird retro game but nostaligia plays no part at all for me to enjoy retro gaming.

It is even the other way around. I run very often into games I did not like a kid but I really like now.

I just started playing Star Wars Episode 1 on the playstation 5. Back then when it was new for the Ps1 I did not liked it that much. But now I think it is nice game for a Star Wars fun. It is not pretty and the gameplay is flawed but the Star Wars atmosphere in that game is on point and the soundtrack is great. So i can enjoy playing it.

Eye of the Beholder was not a game for everyone back when it came out either. It is a love affair for me, and probably one of my favorite games of all time. My last run through EOB and EOB2 was in 2011 IIRC and I still loved every single bit of them, so it is not a nostalgia only feeling - I still love playing them. However, I also had friends at the time who just did not 'get' it. There were even those among people I knew to love gold box SSI games who did not really enjoy the dungeon crawling of EOB. They probably still don't 'get' it. It happens. I love strategy games in general but Paradox's Europa Universalis / Hearts of Iron / Stellaris games completely elude me - I don't 'get' them, which is heresy to a lot of my friends, but they just don't tick for me. To each their own.

That said, EOB is GOAT and if you don't like it you are wrong.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-18, 17:40:

What annoys me, is when a game (or a TV Show etc) was the first or among the first to do a certain thing, which contributed hugely to it's popularity, BUT was copied ever after, such that it is a cliche, and now people hate on the original for being .... unoriginal.

this is a good observation and i've noticed too that returning to the originator of some technique often reveals it to be less sophisticated than it seemed at the time - and of course it would be, like driving a model T again after having driven all subsequent cars

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-04-19, 04:40:

The fact of the matter is that most of the "journalists" and pundits writing about games don't attempt to understand, or in many cases even play, the games they write about. They examine everything from a modern perspective, which is akin to reviewing KRAMER VS. KRAMER in terms of how EPIC and AWESOME the effects are. Appreciating anything in any depth requires effort, and with old games that means learning a unique interface and mastering the mechanics. Games were made to be something of a challenge, and it's not wrong that they were designed this way. Not every game needs to be a progress treadmill you cannot fail to complete as long as you put the time in... and yet most game critics seem incapable of making any effort whatsoever to break out of this modern gaming mindset and appreciate games for what they are.

very true to say that games were different and are not being properly assessed if compared to current games. I also find that lots of people who started gaming in the PS3 or later era simply cannot 'cope' without HD graphics in a similar way to some of earlier generations simply wouldn't watch a black and white film - dismissed it without any reason other than the superficial presentation. Its not because those people (in either generation) are 'bad' its just that their expectation of what qualifies as a game (or movie) is so focussed on what they have experienced that anything outside that feels 'wrong' to them.

i'd also add that a lot of modern games, especially some indie games, are far far more stylish, engaging, thought provoking and interesting narratively than most older games. Some older games seem to have a timeless quality though and i'm not sure if its nostalgia, the test would be in discovering an older game i never played and then upon playing it think of it as fantastic!

appiah4 wrote on 2024-04-19, 07:47:

Eye of the Beholder was not a game for everyone back when it came out either. It is a love affair for me, and probably one of my favorite games of all time. My last run through EOB and EOB2 was in 2011 IIRC and I still loved every single bit of them, so it is not a nostalgia only feeling - I still love playing them. However, I also had friends at the time who just did not 'get' it. There were even those among people I knew to love gold box SSI games who did not really enjoy the dungeon crawling of EOB. They probably still don't 'get' it. It happens. I love strategy games in general but Paradox's Europa Universalis / Hearts of Iron / Stellaris games completely elude me - I don't 'get' them, which is heresy to a lot of my friends, but they just don't tick for me. To each their own.

That said, EOB is GOAT and if you don't like it you are wrong.

All the gold box games are GOATs, Unlimited Adventures was amazing back in the day.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-19, 05:54:

I haven't listened to the podcast and assumed they were retro enthusiasts who just didn't like the game because it's not their thing, but that sounds like the "I didn't read the manual, don't know how it works therefore it sucks" attitude I so very much hate. I'm starting to understand why you guys are getting so bothered by this, I kinda assumed this is just another old man yells at cloud case 😀

I do feel bad about criticizing them, as the podcast is just for fun--they have an online club where they vote for a game each month, and then try to play it as much as possible the following month for discussion during the podcast. There's no pressure at all, and no one is required to actually finish the game. These aren't just a bunch of random people trying old games for a laugh, as most of the regulars did actually grow up playing DOS games... which just makes it more frustrating, because you still get the comments about how old games are so unplayable because game design has advanced so much over the years, or how they have "no time" in their busy adult lives to figure some old game out (but do have 50-100 hours to spend doing every little thing in Horizon Zero Dawn or whatever).

appiah4 wrote on 2024-04-19, 07:47:

Eye of the Beholder was not a game for everyone back when it came out either. It is a love affair for me, and probably one of my favorite games of all time. My last run through EOB and EOB2 was in 2011 IIRC and I still loved every single bit of them, so it is not a nostalgia only feeling - I still love playing them. However, I also had friends at the time who just did not 'get' it. There were even those among people I knew to love gold box SSI games who did not really enjoy the dungeon crawling of EOB. They probably still don't 'get' it. It happens. I love strategy games in general but Paradox's Europa Universalis / Hearts of Iron / Stellaris games completely elude me - I don't 'get' them, which is heresy to a lot of my friends, but they just don't tick for me. To each their own.

That said, EOB is GOAT and if you don't like it you are wrong.

Yeah, this is true, and I don't mean to suggest everyone should love EotB; I definitely prefer the Gold Box games, myself. I just cannot believe that, in this day and age where we have every resource at our fingertips including walkthroughs and maps if you need them, someone can have an entire month to play EotB with no pressure at all just for fun, only to whine about not knowing what a Fighter or Magic-User is and whether your Magic-User should have high Strength or whatever, and complain about getting lost in the maze. This is precisely the reason why the game comes with a default party on disk and partial maps for the first few levels! There's no rule against using walkthroughs and maps, either (I'm sure plenty of people back in the day played with official cluebook in hand). What more can one possibly need just to give the game a fair chance?

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Anyway, I don't know about everyone else, but the nostalgia argument really bothers me because it suggests that old games weren't good, but you were just a dumb kid or tasteless adult when you played them, so of course you liked them. It also, therefore, sort of suggests that you're still pretty dumb if you still like playing them today. What's even worse, is that this thinking is pretty pervasive, not just among people who write about games for a living, but even among hobbyists that should know better.

For example, in addition to computer RPGs, I also really enjoy a good console RPG... so I bought this book, A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games, thinking I could use it to look for recommendations. I read this 600+ page book cover to cover, and nearly every single entry ends with a sentence or two about how archaic the game is and how it's just a bunch of grinding "like all RPGs of the time." I've actually completed a LOT of these console RPGs and I know for a fact you don't have to grind at all (in fact, most console RPGs are extremely linear, simple, and easy)... so I know these "reviews" are complete bullshit written by people who haven't completed, and probably only briefly played, the games they are writing about. And this is supposed to be a love letter to Japanese RPGs written by fans! Absolute nonsense.

No one was ever fired for buying IBM, the same could be same for disparaging something that is old since old=crap. (Not my mindset it's just the echo chamber).

The only way to ultimately fix it is proper upbringing which will never happen so the other side is regulation but protection for "old" things requires $$$ which is spending $$$ on old things which means less $$$ for new things and then you have the government should stay out of my business folks even when it is obviously necessary that it's needed.

You can either run for politics to attempt to change things (Like tiliting at windmills), start some kind of movement or website to shed light on these false beliefs or ignore the idiots and continue to enjoy old games.

I dunno I feel there are some old games that had a mix of interesting mechanics , or designs that haven't really been copied and make them special but might be considered not as accessible by modern standards.

here are two :

1:

For example I'm playing Tex Murphy the Pandora Directive right now , and by all accounts some parts of the game are clunky like the movement system with the mouse , but I found it pretty immersive ,
I can't find any other games that let you play the role of a private detective in a post apocalyptic town and roam around in first person perspective ,
collect items point and click style in the service of a missing persons job you've been hired to do whilst having live action cutscenes and a good mix of cheesy humor and serious bits.
The only more recent title I can think of would be the final Tex murphy game The Tesla Effect , or i dunno maybe there's a mission in a fallout game that comes close.
On top of that Traveling from crime scenes to Tex's apartment and hustling with people you eventually get into a routine and feel a bit like you are Tex , going back and forth doing errands to finish the job.

2:

Ecstatica with its ellipsoid driven graphics and freeform almost feeling : the game drops you in a medieval town and you just have to run around and , get away from the demons that chase you and have ravaged the place and find weapons and items , solve puzzles and take the fight back to them , followed by this fun progression curve where you eventually become so well armored and equipped after being hunted for so long that you can cathartically demolish all the denizens of hell that gave you such insane amounts of trouble at the beginning.

These are games that take some time investment , Tex murphy was pretty easy to figure out since you just have to hit space to go into point and click mode, but Ecstatica took some work , I died and got stuck a bunch but after mastering the controls and the movement of the character and awkward combat and getting my bearings I managed to get into some rooms , followed by collecting items without dying and eventually getting a sword that let me win fights , that's when the game clicked and after a few sessions I managed to power on through the rest of the game and figure mostly everything out and only used a guide like once.

So I think it depends , there are in every era games that will be bad and there are games that are classics.
And for those classic games some have a bit of a learning curve and require investment and time set aside but once you do you can find a very unique experience.

So yeah maybe there's something in the whole notion of having to play it right.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-04-19, 16:21:

I dunno I feel there are some old games that had a mix of interesting mechanics , or designs that haven't really been copied and make them special but might be considered not as accessible by modern standards.

...

So yeah maybe there's something in the whole notion of having to play it right.

Great examples! I agree with both, especially the Tex Murphy games as I'm currently playing Under a Killing Moon for the first time now, and loving it. It's clunky and weird, and to be honest, my first thought when I started the game was, "this first person mode is unplayable." But it only took a few minutes of playing to get used to it, and now it's fine. I like the fact that nothing else in the world plays like it (other than the other Tex Murphy games I guess).

I had a similar experience with System Shock. It's another one that feels completely overwhelming and bizarre when you first try to play it, but once you sit down and give it a few minutes of solid play, it makes total sense. The fact that it controls like no other game out there gives it a lot of character, and it's really satisfying to master the controls.

I can't get to grips with a lot of modern fps, shooter or even action games, despite being there at the founding era of the PC FPS shooter.

It seems as though there is a huge percentage of games made now that require the reflexes of a hyperactive flea to play them. I don't 'get' the whole genre made around twitch gaming and ultra-low-latency-insane-key-combo competitive gaming.

When someone says Doom to me, I always assume Doom, 1993. I've tried playing the 2016 and 2020 versions... but I can't get over the mad jumping, swinging, dashing mechanics.

I suppose that is just part of getting old; I started playing games at the dawn of the 1980's on Spectrums, VIC-20's, Atari and Pong systems.... and I suspect I would have a hard time now, nearer 50, going back and playing even some of those games!

No, the latest Doom game was shit for a Doom game. I think of it as Quake 3 amped to 11 with a doom skin. It's not you. heh.

esports is where the money is at and it's infected the Doom games with that bullshit. You shouldn't have to be on crack to play a new Doom game but sadly that's where we are at.
You want multiplayer shit? Fine that's what multiplayer is for but leave the single player alone assholes.

The same thing happened with Diablo. It's was based off of a roguelike and then it digressed from there. Diablo 2 was still good but then it went massively downhill with D3.

Both cater to online game/esports gaming mentality. It used to be by gamers for gamers but they feel they have to follow the money and when the original team leaves and the replacement were brought up in a different environment then here we are. You have to program the game by the spreadsheet of required features which has to be approved by marketing to be as popular as possible to get that money.

Mabye we should all pay Romero to crank out more doom maps. heh.