age old discussion

[shim]

many say that games of our past where always better than the current games of we play today. sure without Doom, Dune2 and many other games we wouldnt have CoD, Sup com and the other recent big hits gaming might be completely different.

personally i believe gaming is like how man kind evolved from the apes, it is a continuously growing medium and without the history gaming has, it wouldnt be at where it is now days.. Doom was a great game for its day, revolutionized everything about the FPS genre. but if it was released today against something like CoD4, on gameplay and replayability it wouldnt last against CoD4*.

sure many of the current games that are being released are not the best compaired to some of the games of yesteryear (looking at you Speedball2 compaired to Speedball2 Brutal Deluxe**).. due to many games early last decade where garage games where production costs where no where nearly as much as nowdays, the devs where able to do what they wanted and we had many great games, and publishers now days try and not take risks

ill never be able to play the same game 6 hours a day for a year straight no more due to being able to get bored of the same game quickly.. i have many great memories from the games as i was growing up, but i believe games from today have better gameplay overall due to the evolution of where gaming came from, and from here, i believe it can only get better.. sure we may get bored of the same things, but just think of how many hours of playin the same genre of game have you spent? its an addiction

is gaming of yesteryear better than the current games out on the market.. whats your thoughts about this?



* graphics has nothing to do with this comparision
** SB2 Brutal Deluxe was the orig released in the early 90's
(been playin games for 23 years now, since i was 3, so i got some experience in me :P)

[Tulgar]

Originally Posted by shim

is gaming of yesteryear better than the current games out on the market.. whats your thoughts about this?

Do you know, I think most likely games are better these days. I think what's changed is us. In our youth, the novelty factor of games was so much greater. We are so surrounded by technology these days, and have been so swamped with aliens, demons, magic, war, dragons, magic swords, race cars, space ships, pirates etc etc that it is so hard to have a game come out now that pushes the envelope.

I am not saying its all been done, but it feels like it sometimes.

There are many games around these days which are potentially mind blowing in terms of size (x3, oblivion spring to mind), story (the witcher?) and now graphics and sound. I think it would be hard to argue that games from 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago are better, but I think how we hold those old games in our mind is critical.

When we first went down to the dungeons in the Bards Tale, or found all the secret stashes in Wolfenstein, or got smashed by caco-daemons in Doom, they were firsts! We were on the edge of brand new experiences. Those games set standards not easily erased. They are etched in our minds as eternal benchmarks that many latter games can not surpase due to the psychological significance of those experiences.

I think new games are generally better in so many ways, however the games of our youth defined in part who we are. The significant impact that they had on us and our expectations forever give them an edge in our minds.

To minimse further ramblings, I think objectively, games today as a whole are so much better on all fronts (generally), but subjectively, the indelible influence of the games of our past, means that there will always be high benchmarks from which we compare the games of today.

[paenggoy]

Cuts across the board, I guess, i.e., a few good ones and most otherwise for any year. I think others posted "top" games of all time in various threads, and I remember games like "Wasteland" and "Starflight" usually mentioned.

[Fully]

Well I agree that the games of yesderyear, have made what games are out there at the moment, but I'm find hard to find a game that I want to play like I did a few years ago.
10 yrs ago (I was 30) I was playing Kingpin (a quake 2 engine game), I wanted to play it 24/7 but couldent due to RL, then it was RTCW, then ET - but got bored of it.
Nothing now has that addiction factor that was present in those above titles.
But what made them games addictive? I think team play mostly was the reason I was so into RTCW (Return To Castle Wolfenstein) and Kingpin was due to knowing so many people in real life that played it as well, as about 12 of us would lan every fortnight playing Kingpin or Q3 or other games...

[hoppy]

I can get as much enjoyment from one of the small flash games, such as Boxhead, as I do from a full fledged DVD based game like Call of Duty or Team Fortress 2.

To me, it is all about the game play, not how pretty it looks.

I can still go back and comfortably play space invaders on my Mame setup for a few hours. I couple of turns is nostalgia, a few hours there must be something else there!!

Going back to my Unix admin days, we used to play Rogue and Hack for hours. Why? Cause the game play was there, the graphics were just ASCII characters so nothing special.



The early text based adventure games were the same (who remembers Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy!!!) BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game

It must have been so good for someone to make 2 different versions for the 20th anniversary of the book/game.

So to me you have to judge games on their staying power and memory jogging ability as to whether they are good or not. Not whether they were made recently.

[zero]

Agreed. It's no secret that developers (or more likely pushy publishers) these days largely focus on prettiness and gimicks over gameplay. They also push sequel after sequel if a game is a proven seller... where is the originality?

World of Goo and Braid are just a couple of examples of recent games that are fun & original, and don't push fancy graphics.

More of these please!

[Ulric]

zero, I agree that there is not a lot of originality, and am glad to see World of Goo get a mention.

Another current game that is not huge on the graphics but is great on the game play is Boom Blox on the Wii. Lots of fun, great repeatability on the levels, and great for all ages.

An old PS1 game that has found some re-life on the PS3 as a commercial download is Kooka World. Again a puzzle based game which does not rely on great graphics, but on a well thought out game concept.

Then there are others who take a well worn concept and provide something a little different to it. Red Orchestra is a good example of this. It was a game that was released only as a multi player game, which was very unusual in its time, and introduced many new things into the FPS games that were not readily available in other games at the time.

Again the graphics are not cutting edge, but it has managed to make its mark by passing the test of time, while many of its compatriots have not.

Cheers, Ulric.

[roob]

How i see it, i'd have to say it depends on the games you play and where you came in.

i'm a big RPG/RTS fan and i love to Co-op LAN.

During the golden years i had things like Might and Magic, Wizardry, Ultima, Dune 2, D&D gold box series and many many more games that would take you weeks to months to finish.

Space flight sims were a plenty with the Wing Commander, X-Wing and Elite series.

Over time, games have been released with more bugs and have been dumbed down to cater towards a more casual playerbase.
There's fewer and fewer games that can be played co-op over a Lan or if they can, it's only has a max of 4 players.
Or worse, the games have just vanished as nobody designs those types of games anymore.

I think when there was a flood of games of every type for a period of many years. It was more to do with designers wanting to make a game that they had dreamed of and wanting to see it come to life on the computer, rather than it is now where it's all about what'll sell and make a dollar or two in todays market.

But the topic would always depend on where you came into the scene.
If you came into gaming with certain tastes and there wasn't really much around at the time or before, then anything from that point on would obviously be an improvement.

For me, based on that, it's just not the case.


But that's not going to stop me from playing stuff that's out now. i just have to dig deeper to find the things i like.


-roob

[Nezuji]

First off, with regard to the rose-tinted glasses, I believe that it is often true that we look back at some games with an undeserved fondness. But then again one of my favourite games of all time is "Die Hard" for the NES, and even after replaying it every couple of years, it's still great, in my opinion.

Most of the games I play these days are indie games, including online Flash games. Yes, there are a lot of rubbish Flash games out there, but there are loads of terrible PS1, PS2, PC and handheld/mobile games, as well. I suspect that it's simply the price of freedom. Anyway, I'm surprised at just how much praise many "mainstream" games journalists gushes over XBLA and WiiWare, for reviving independent development. Perhaps developing triple-A tunnel-vision is an occupational hazard. XBLA and WiiWare are wonderful as new promotional platforms, but the small-time game developer never disappeared; they just became dwarfed by the big publishers that moved in as the medium matured. And as online distribution matures, I believe that the gap will narrow again.

Bottom line, there are still groups and individuals out there making new games with heart and soul, and occasionaly a unique new twist, and the bonus is that if they aren't cheap compared to the big titles, it's only because they're completely free.

Try:
101 Free Games 2009: The Best Free Games on the Web from 1UP.com (Includes links to their lists for 2006, 2007, and 200
tigsource.com
Independent game network / madmonkey.net
Gamershood - Escape Games, Room Escape Games, Point and Click Games, Puzzle Games and much more! 7000+ Free Online Games!
Jay is Games - Flash and Casual Game reviews, walkthroughs, room escape games, point and click games, puzzle games and more! (Don't be put off by the "Casual Gameplay" moniker)

You can even find some indie stuff at online distributors like Steam and Impulse. You'll have to do some sifting, but that's half the fun, I think

Nezuji