Games That Haven't Aged Well

Remember Goldeneye? Awesome, right? Now that you've most likely played at least one FPS on a console using a controller with two analog sticks, try going back and playing Goldeneye again. Yeah, not so great.

What games have you gone back to only to realize that they haven't aged terribly well for one reason or another?

EDIT: Oh! And while we're at it, are there any games from that same era that have aged well?

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Sure, it's ugly as hell, but it still plays beautifully.

Games that go for photo realistic graphics never really age well with me. A lot of N64 games do not age well at all.

Final Fantasy VII. It was created during the period when 3D was new.The graphics are beyond awful.

I really hate to say it but my old text-only Infocom games haven't aged that well. Or maybe I have no imagination anymore. Probably the latter.

the biggest disappointment for me was Jet Set Gemini on N64. I loved it in the day, but controls and graphics are awful.

Anything from the PlayStation/N64 era pretty much. Sprites age well, all things considered, but the early attempts at 3D games with polygons, from Final Fantasy 7 to Metal Gear Solid are absolute crap.

Works for PC games too for the most part. Diablo II is still playable to an extent, but I am not touching Quake.

I do not see how "classic" Atari 2600 games could ever sell today (and yet I see little 1-off devices that have 5-10 of them built in).

Nostalgia. You're not playing a game so much as a bunch of memories...

Bioshock. It does not hold up. Once you know the plot, it's quite apparent just how thin and empty that world is.

Technically, most games don't age very well, we just accept the quirks because there's still some decent gameplay in there. This is more true for me when it comes to genres that are no longer in high demand. For instance, I still enjoy booting up X-com or Jagged Alliance 2 every now and then, but I find games like Doom or Goldeneye unbearable now. This is probably because there have been so many advancements in FPS titles that I have less tolerance for antiquated concepts. My guess is if there had been a glut of turn-based squad strategy games over the years, my opinion of those titles would also be much more negative.

Ulairi wrote:

Games that go for photo realistic graphics never really age well with me. A lot of N64 games do not age well at all.

The problem lies with the fact realistic graphics rely heavily on technical proficiency, which changes rapidly. This ruins the look of the game because you already know that "realistic" graphics look a hell of a lot better now. This can be avoided somewhat if you go for artistic value. It's why the original LucasArts games are easier to look at now then the FMV titles, or why Super Mario 64 still looks pretty decent while even more recent titles like the first Call of Duty look increasingly ugly. As a result, Crysis is probably going to look a lot more dated in five years time then Team Fortress 2.

System Shock (the first one) is one of my top 3 favorite games. Truly ground breaking. Awesome atmosphere and voice acting. I still have some of the deck layouts in Citadel Station memorized.

The graphics are understandably quite poor at this point, but it's the dated Ultima Underworld control scheme (no mouse look) that makes it unplayable.

My other 2 favorites (Star Control 2 and Planescape Torment) aged much better...

EDIT: Oh, I'd cite Deus Ex as an example of an FPS that holds up despite poor graphics. Unfortunately, in many ways this game still hasn't been surpassed

Hmm back in the day I use to play the crap out of some Wizardry 1-3. I don't see that kind of gameplay holding my interest anymore. Empty featureless maze with random encounters to break it up.

As for a game that has aged well I'm going to say Cyberball 2072. I'd still be playing it if my arcade cabinet worked.

A game that didn't age so well for me: GTA 3. Exploration of the unknown is the chief part of the game. But once you know what there is to know, and have discovered what there is to discover, there's not much more sandboxing or replayability beyond that.

That said, I'm still enjoying GTA 4 - that world is still very new, and pregnant with possibilities.

As a counterexample, a game that aged really well for me is Civ (any in the series, actually). It's probably because of all the procedural content generation. These games don't rely on a pre-authored world - the game designer creates the rules of the world instead, and leaves the actual world generation to an automated process. It makes the results very interesting, and replayable.

(That said, mere replayability is not the whole story. There are many games that use a randomized map - but if the game rules are uninteresting, that's not going to help any.)

In general: any game from the ''32 to 64 bits'' era like the Saturn, Playstation and N64. One of the worst I've witnessed (recently) is the original Syphon Filter. it was re-released on PSN and good lord, it hasn't aged well at all.

On the other hand, games in 2D have a surprisingly long lifespan. I can still play Metal Slug and find it beautiful, but I also play games like Joust and Monkey Island and have no problem with the graphics

There's just something horribly wrong with bad 3d graphics.

Marathon was the first one that sprung to mind for me. I played it a couple of times on a friend's computer when I was younger, and it was awesome. Of course, that was with Wolfenstein 3D as a benchmark. Tried it again earlier this year, and it just seemed... bad. I can't even put my finger on why, but after 10 minutes I just had to turn it off.

Seconded on System Shock. I tried it after having a ton of fun with SS2, but the control scheme was awful.

Nightmare wrote:

Nostalgia. You're not playing a game so much as a bunch of memories...

I think that's why I've avoided replaying games that I used to love. Nostalgia is exactly the right word - your memory will always be better than the game itself.

The original system shock. Aged horribly.

SS2 aged fairly well though.

Anything from the early days of 3D graphics, including everything on the N64 and the original Playstation.

Goldeneye is a particularly bad offender. I look back on it and wonder what it was about it that was impressive in any way at all. I had a Voodoo card in my PC and a copy of Quake 2 before I first played Goldeneye, so it certainly wasn't the visuals, which weren't even good for the time.

I guess it was just that it was four player split screen play with friends that otherwise would never have played an FPS game in multiplayer with me.

Malor wrote:

Bioshock. It does not hold up. Once you know the plot, it's quite apparent just how thin and empty that world is.

Woah, what? Are you basing this on all the mega hype it received last year? Because the game was way, way over rated. That's not the games fault, its just that most everyone rated it overly high. I started re-playing it on the pc a few weeks ago -thanks MyBrainHz!- and I think if you don't go into it with stellar expectations its really just a fun freakin' game to tool around with. My first time through was on the 360 but I'm actually enjoying it more now on the pc because I do know the plot, and I'm not playing it to crush, just to have fun messing with stuff.

From the thread title alone my mind went straight to Goldeneye. So many hours in that game both multiplayer and trying for all the time goals to unlock cheats.

Went back to try it again about a year ago, and had trouble making out which blob of pixels was the guy I was supposed to shoot, let alone which part was his head. My guess is that TV size has a lot to do with its issues, and many others of the era.

LilCodger wrote:

From the thread title alone my mind went straight to Goldeneye. So many hours in that game both multiplayer and trying for all the time goals to unlock cheats.

Went back to try it again about a year ago, and had trouble making out which blob of pixels was the guy I was supposed to shoot, let alone which part was his head. My guess is that TV size has a lot to do with its issues, and many others of the era.

Were there any Goldeneye fans (especially multi) who were also PC gamers? Because I remember seeing my brother-in-law and his friends play it and laughing at how terrible it looked compared to the games I was playing on the PC.

I find that there are a number of N64 and PS1 games that have aged pretty well. Not graphically, obviously, just overall. I loved them back then and I still love them today.

There are a number of other games that I've gone back to and realized that time hasn't been so kind to them. Body Harvest is a good example. I really enjoyed it when it first came out, but I find it to be unplayable now. Super Smash Bros. is another. Melee basically ruined the original for me because Melee was so quick and fluid and the original is so slow and clunky.

Super Mario 64, on the other hand, never stops being fun. The camera seems to get more annoying over time, but the rest of the controls never disappoint.

The Resident Evil games are a good example of both. I never minded the controls and had fun with those games. At the same time, they were really scary. Now, while I still find the games fun and the controls still hold up for me, the games aren't scary at all because the graphics are so primitive. One aspect has aged just fine, not hurting the game at all, while another aspect has aged incredibly poorly, hurting the game in the process. It sort of turns the old Resident Evil games into completely different games for me, but ones that I enjoy almost as much.

EDIT: I was a Goldeneye fan who was also a bit of a PC gamer. I didn't really get into PC games until the first Half-Life, but I still enjoyed Goldeneye for what it was.

Jadawin wrote:

Were there any Goldeneye fans (especially multi) who were also PC gamers? Because I remember seeing my brother-in-law and his friends play it and laughing at how terrible it looked compared to the games I was playing on the PC.

I did, but like I said above I'm not sure what it was exactly that drove me to keep playing Goldeneye. The only thing I can think of that would have made it fun would be playing the game with people who otherwise wouldn't have ever gotten into an FPS with me. I was still playing it when and after Half-Life came out. Short of the social thing, there really isn't any explanation.

Sonicator wrote:

Marathon was the first one that sprung to mind for me. I played it a couple of times on a friend's computer when I was younger, and it was awesome. Of course, that was with Wolfenstein 3D as a benchmark. Tried it again earlier this year, and it just seemed... bad. I can't even put my finger on why, but after 10 minutes I just had to turn it off.

Seconded -- that's what I was coming in to post, actually. The entire Marathon trilogy represents a ton of fond memories from late high school through college. A bunch of us on the same dorm floor used to have LAN Marathon sessions late into the night... hell, this was The Game that we played during college-break LAN parties.

And then Marathon: Durandal was re-released on XBLA.

I'm sure the storyline would still stand up very well these days, but I just could not get over how awful it looked and controlled, compared to any modern 3d FPS.

Panzer Dragoon Saga, man it wasn't pretty on the Saturn but man go back to it now and it looks like roadkill. I'll still play my copy because I love the story. If anything it's a game Sea needs to go back and remake for next-gen consoles.

Jadawin wrote:

Were there any Goldeneye fans (especially multi) who were also PC gamers? Because I remember seeing my brother-in-law and his friends play it and laughing at how terrible it looked compared to the games I was playing on the PC.

We were very much PC players. Many all night LAN parties for Baldur's Gate, Warcraft II, and others.

Goldeneye and NHL 'Ninety-something had huge amounts of play time, as I think we were a little tired of lugging PC's everywhere and setting up.

Conker's Bad Fur Day aged pretty okay and that's an N64 game

Just finished Fallout 2 and besides some UI clunkyness and AI pathing its damn amazing with a resolution patch.

I think I have Baldurs Gate 2 lying around somewhere I should give that a shot to see how it holds up.

Fallout 1 hasn't aged as well. The UI is really clunky and is missing "simple" things like mouse scroll unless you mod it up. The AI pathing in 1 was even worse than 2 and it didn't have a "get out of my way" command. In one area of the game each of the levels is connected by elevators which exit in a tiny room with one door. I had a full party of henchmen and they would block the door every damn time.

I can think of a few that fared pretty well. Tie fighter with the direct X graphic improvements is no so far off Freespace 2 with graphics on minimum. Its a pity that version nixes most of the music and other stuff that made the dos version so great.

Daytona USA (Saturn) and Blast Corps (N^64) come to mind.

Wipeout 2097 and Wipeout 3 on the PSX still look great to me, but I think that's because they went for a very stylised look that could be achieved very well within the technical limitations of the day. The Wind Waker is much the same -- it's still a remarkable game to look at because it's a great realisation of the style they were going for. Twilight Princess, on the other hand, already looks very dated.

The SNES Donkey Kong Country games are quite jarring to look at today as well.

In terms of gameplay, I'd say the original Zelda and Metroid games haven't aged very well at all. Sure, they were groundbreaking back in the day, but as a modern gamer that's used to having in-game maps and (in Metroid's case) a decent save system, it's quite hard to go back and play those earlier titles. The Super Mario NES titles are still a lot of fun to go back and play though, even if you're like me and have no nostalgia for them, though I don't know how anyone ever finished Mario 3 without a save system.

Soulblade on PSX. Once you've played Soul Calibur it makes that game look like crap and the controls prehistoric, even though it was awesome at the time.