What is it to you

What is it to you that makes classics so darn special to us?

I mean, I'll cut on lets say Alien Isolation - love the game. But but but but but,
I'd much rather cut on Duke Nukem 3D and play it all day every day for a year and STILLL love it just as much as I did like 20 years ago.

So what is it to you, that makes these classics so special?

I wish I could figure out how to simulate the Duke Nukem 3D Camera in Unity, because it's not actually a 3D game, so simulating it as well would be kinda neat Like when you look up, it sortra like stretches or whatever, I don't know how to explain it, but it's little things like that that I appreciate, because man they revolutionized everything.

 

Isn't Duke Nukem 3D using the DOOM Engine (idTech 1) ? I know there's a Duke Nukem game using it, but don't know which one is it. The iDTech 1 became "open source" for years now, try to find the sources and see how it works, you may be able to replicate it on Unity.

 

Naw Duke Nukem 3D is using the Build Engine (Created by i believe his name is Ben Sullivan) - which is open source.
But that's the thing about Duke Nukem 3D. It's not really a 3D game at all lol.

 

Fun to play, fun characters, bimbos , mini games, environment interaction and some environement destruction.
I prefer the first Duke Nukem than the last , because hyper realism graphics don't feet with Duke Nukem.

 

Different kind of game. Less fluff and nonsense. More focus on the core important stuff. Yes a big part of that is because of tech at the time. But also as you said that is also one reason for the "simulated 3D" games feeling different.

You can actually do the same thing in Unity. In fact, I found an asset on the store a couple of months back that is basically the same style. First Person RPG Template and you can check out its demo here.

It is not the same feel because it is RPG oriented but still is much of the same style as the games you are describing.

Also, reminds me of my current game experiment.

It is a hodgepodge of assets I have made and assets other people made. Seems like people love making super HD stuff which I then need to process. But I did find some low poly stuff yet even they had much higher res textures on them than I needed.

For example, my original test scene looked like this:


Which I then just processed down to low color 32x32 textures to get the look I want:


And in-game it is like this:



Of course, there is a ceiling but I just happened to have it off when I took these screenshots.

Anyway, this visual style is what I am after. I can knock out the models easily and the textures. Other stuff I can get and scale down the textures as necessary. It's still not perfect visually but close enough for me.

But it is more than just the look. Like turning and movement for example was very slick in those older 90s FPS games. I just implemented a little turn helper last night that basically carries the player to the nearest 15 degree angle in direction they are turning even after they stop turning. This makes it much nicer to move around and actually head straight ahead and so forth. It made it feel much more like those older games so I think they may have done the same kind of thing.

 

Uhhh maybe how easy it is to beat it now

 

Nostalgia mostly. The classic games were some of the greatest tech/graphics/gameplay/ect for their day. If you spent a lot of time on them you built up a lot of good memories.

For me it was BlakeStone and 007 and Warcraft 1 and Dune 2. Perhaps I'm just a little bit older.

But pretty much every one I know has fond memories of the AAA games that were out when they got into gaming. Dispite the fact that the modern versions of the game are better in every way.

 

I think what you are saying is definitely true for some people especially people greatly influenced by the movie-like productions of today's AAA games. It's not that way for everyone though.

There are differences between the older games and the newer games. Not everyone likes the newer games better. At least not all of the newer AAA games or even most of them.

For example take something like Duke Nukem 3D that was mentioned in the OP. It is a completely different style of game than modern AAA shooters. For me the newer games are not better they are simply different. DN3D offers a very different experience from say COD for example. For me (and I think) many others it is these differences that we like. From the simpler graphics style to the controls to the movement speed and the motion in general to the various weapons and so forth. It is fairly simple yet it is very fun. And that is what makes people still enjoy it.

I actually just bought a new game this past weekend called Super Noah's Ark 3D. Never played it before but it is a good bit of fun. I decided to do a bit of research on the game and found that when it was originally released many people didn't like it because it is not the normal kind of edgy violent blood n guts game that most FPS are. And it was centered around a Christian theme. However, today it seems many people like it simply because it is cool. And it is cool because it is something different.

I am not saying nostalgia never plays a part in people enjoying older games. Just saying there are many other reasons as well.

 

I'm just thankful that we are at a point in gaming that classic games from a decade or two (or three) are equally enjoyable now to the younger crowd, because it jusifies that those of us who choose to develop our games to the level of gameplay and graphics of those classic games can definitely find an audience.

For example, I was playing Grim Fandango Remastered yesterday. It's great that new audiences are enjoying the game. I pressed the button to switch to classic graphics and actually didn't notice that much of a difference! So, the way I enjoyed it years ago is still the way I enjoy it now.

Another example, my 15 year old nephew asked me about a DS game I showed him 3+ years ago on my phone emulator. The game is Advance Wars 2!

 

Sorry I was sleeping guys, I promise I read through all the replies lol.

But I'm gonna try to answer all of you in one post to keep it short. I'm not into making long messages lol.

@zenGarden - Yeah I think it's honestly the fact it wasn't based around trying to look real, but being unique for it's time, memories, and the fact it wasn't trying to be something it wasn't. I've noticed through time that games really aren't the same as they are now days.

On a game like Duke Nukem (LIKE) not Duke its self though, you can run around with giant scissors and cut the Aliens head off or explode them into pieces. I think it's things like this that make these older games unique, and then you'd have like one of the Duke one lines he says after he kills/dies lol.

@GarBenjamin - You're game is starting to look good man! (Not sure if that's your game). But I will assume it is as I remember you were making your maze game and that looks like a maze game lol). I love how the texture quality drops

@BoredMormon - Golden Eye was the frist N64 game I ever laid my eyes on, I remember that day still to this day, I walked into my Uncles room, and he had to go, so I cut it off and wanted to play Mario, so I got tired of playing Mario and was like you know what let me try golden eye out, stuck it in, went to the Caverns level and I was stuck on it for life!

But - I still prefer Perfect Dark for the N64 more.

@GarBenjamin - Yeah I remember that game, never played it, but I certainly remember it on the Shelf at Walmart

@aer0ace - I haven't found a young person yet who likes the older games, unless they were raised on them lol.

 

Thanks. Actually this is a completely new game experiment although along the same lines. The last one that I threw up on GameJolt was my first real experiment with 3D in Unity and testing different ways to build 3D game worlds.

After that, I spent some more time getting into the whole working in the Scene Editor thing and testing out building levels. Then I decided to do a little game experiment again but this time basically a more straightforward old school FPS style game.

So I more or less threw out that FPS Action Adventure experiment. Started over from complete scratch but of course I had the workflows and other things to take advantage of that came out of that first experiment.

Just playing around really with another experiment and this one also has me testing completely throwing out monobehaviors except for a single instance on one GameObject named GameManager. That one object's Start then in turn handles all of the initialization and its Update handles updating everything. Basically the way I am used to developing in any other thing besides Unity.

I have been playing around with graphics a bit more than I normally do. Instead of 5 to 10 minutes on something I may spend 10 to 20 minutes. But many things are from the asset store too. Of course, the walls, floor and ceiling are simple Unity 3D cubes that have been textured. Makes it very fast to build.

Although I want to modularize things. Basically make a certain # of rooms and hall ways and then use those as building blocks to quickly build out a large game world.

 

@GarBenjamin - I hear you man, that's great!

I'm actually gonna start working on a Duke Nukem 3D style game now sense I mentioned it at the start about it, now I want to make it haha.
Of course - make it unique compared to everything else lol.

 

You had same effects and dialog in last Duken Nukem Forever. I just found the realistic graphics and realistic monsters didn't match with the old game, because aliens looks really hilarous. They loosed their comic factor because of realistic graphics. Perhaps modern graphics keeping the cartoon old aspect or some pixar style would have been really better i think.

 

@zenGarden - Yeah the modern graphics don't match for it, that is definitely true.
I actually find the original Duke in its own way - mysterious. Like I don't think I've ever found all the secret spots yet, actually I know I haven't - I mainly played the one on N64, which doesn't have all the levels that the pc version has.

But yeah I think the pixel graphics made the game shine more than it will ever shine with any future iterations of it.

 

If you compare the old version, they look almost stupid and hilarous


While they looks too realistic and menacing, they don't have the fun face look.There is also too much details on the body towards realistic and the colors are also very towards realistic.
This doesn't match with the original Duke Nukem game that was not trying to looks survival realistic, and looked fun.



If you look at the stadium boss, it was hilarous with long teeth and fun look


In the new version , there was no more bright colors, no more long teeh. The look is realistic and the model
could have been used on a realistic UFO game for example.


Anyway this is two different styles, not the same game vibe as the first Duke Nukem.

 

Yeah the new one ruins it to me.....
Just like the New Turoks ruined the originals on the N64 and PC... Like the last one, they left out allllllllllll the awesome guns, like really, you left out the freaking CEREBRAL BORE! THE NUKE, And gave me a freaking - (Bow,Shotgun and rifle and knife) lol.

#EDIT -
If you ask me, most AAA developers are just plainly lazy and build something for just money to get it out as soon as possible.

Like wow the Original Turoks had like what - 20 weapons. And the new one has like 4 / 5 and that's it.

 

You've hit on something that I think is an important part of the appeal of the older games. All of the focus on ever increasing realism in today's games well it just gets boring after awhile. One of the things that is missing is as you mentioned... some personality, just being fun, not taking themselves so darn seriously. The older games basically saw themselves as games. Sometimes I think the people making these modern games actually believe they are real or just want them to be taken so seriously or whatever. It is as you said just a very different vibe.

 

I think it seems like that to you (and others) just because the focus has changed. Instead of making a game with an attitude/personality & focusing on just making a darn fun game they are focusing on making a fantastic interactive cinematic experience. For example, 4 to 5 guns in ultra HD with very realistic sounds, realistic physics, secondary aspects (maybe realistic flash, smoke, whatever) all of that adds up to a lot more work and time required than if they just focused on making a dozen or more fun weapons that were not trying to accurately model real life in every way possible.

 

Honestly if I wanted to play something that was real life, I'd just go spend 200 to 300 dollars an go get me an Automatic Airsoft Gun that shoots 500 feet per second and get fully dressed in BDU's and go out in the woods and go play War capturing territory lol. and trust me 500 feet a second pellets don't feel good when they hit your skull or any kind of skin, it's like a Bee string that goes through the skin and actually cuts it open depending how far away you are lol. So that's the best way to simulate a real war without killing people lol.

So yeah, I believe games should revolve around fun and not reality.
Games like Alien Isolation - that's where the good graphics can actually help the experience. But truthfully,
9 times outta 10 in todays AAA games, they are the same thing just a different title.

Call of Duty for example, most have the same story, a terrorist wants to detonate a bomb, that's the story lol.
Battle Field on the other hand (At least Online) is actually enjoyable, because it's not really a story online, it's a mission object - capture this control point and hold it off.

But Duke Nukem and stuff, for single player - whether the story makes any sense or not - is actually enjoyable. They keep it where you just want to keep playing and playing and playing, and I honestly can't even figure out what drives me to keep wanting to play it, I just want to lol.

 

That's funny. It's actually the same way I view that stuff. Sometimes I jump in the truck with my camera and just take random road trips driving around until I see something interesting. Get out and do a little hike then take some photos of the area. Haven't done it in a while but enjoyed going over to my cousins and shooting at targets. Even had an old musket with the lead balls and black powder. That was fun too. I am a outdoorsy kind of person even though I really enjoy computer games and development.

I've never actually understood the fascination with these military games. Just get out of the house and play some paint ball or if that hurts too much do nerf. Or if you want it for real join the military.

Anyway, I've seen some awesome views out in nature and some old architecture and stuff. Like you said, if you want realistic graphics good Lord get up and walk around the house or town. Get out of the house. Get away from the computer. Now if it is something like a flight simulator. A game putting me in control of a space ship I can appreciate the realism a bit more.

I think this is why I actually prefer games to look like games and feel like games. And by that I mean to not look realistic or otherwise strive for realism. I know what shooting a pistol and a rifle are like. I know too well the feeling of the first time holding one improperly (not sure what exactly but it was a powerful gun) and my shoulder being sore for a couple of days after. And fishing, boating, hiking, playing war in different ways and so forth. I've already done those things with real-life graphics and physics and audio. So it is boring to me to do it on the computer in a simulated real life sense.

Now give me that same kind of experience with something crazy, something impossible (or at least darn unlikely) in real-life... attack of the mutant grasshoppers or whatever (lol)... and I will find that far more interesting.

 

Are you sure? You don't want a Life Simulator?

 

LOL! No! I play games to have fun and / or to experience a different reality. I already have a life simulator. Play it every single day.

Of course, it depends on what you mean exactly. Ant Life Simulator or Life on Mars Simulator. Things like that would be cool. I would like to see more realism in games as far as interaction goes. I wish I could interact with the environment and population more. I don't care so much about accurate physics and stuff like that.

Like even in the older 2D games it always annoyed me that I (well my game char obviously) would be walking along unarmed and yet apparently I was surrounded by all kinds of things that I should be able to use. I don't know about the rest of the folks but if I was wandering through a cemetery, skeletons were coming up out of the ground and there were some big rocks or a good heavy tree limb visible I would grab one or the other very quickly. May even try to break off the top of a tombstone. Never could do that stuff in games and to this day for the most part still cannot.

That is my goal for my own games over time. If you can see it you can use it. So for me I don't care if it looks like a game from 1983 it would feel far more realistic to me (in a fun way!) if I could interact with the things I see other than jumping over them or moving them around slightly when I bump into them (courtesy of modern physics systems... that is not interaction to me).

I guess I have weird views though because I think the same thing when watching movies. Horror films are really annoying in this way. I'll see a few people huddled inside a room and some psycho with a knife / creature is outside. They will be screaming about not having any weapons and I think are you insane?

See that flat screen tv sitting there. Probably weighs a good 100 to 150 pounds. Smash that over their head. See that table / stand sitting there. Flip it over and break the legs off. Hell for that matter flip the couch up on its end, open the door and quickly run back. When he/it comes through jump on that couch and bring it down on top of him / it. So many ways to interact with things in real life and so few ways to do so in games or even movies.

 

True. Like, Her Story can be considered a "life simulator". A very narrow, focused game. I want to see more games that explore this sort of psychological reality. I started playing Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and while there are some fantastical elements involved, the mystery/solving game mechanic can work for real life as well.

 

To me classic games are more of a game than cinematic experiences as 'games' these days seem to me.

Games from back then seem to be more like a toy to me.
You kinda had to use your imagination to really get into the scene. Like playing as a kid with a toy car on the carpet imagining the wildest things. Or connecting some lego blocks saying "that's a dinosaur now".
Today games just give you that, you don't have to use your imagination (as much) anymore, your brain is required less than it was before, and it's less of a toy but more an interactive tv show now.
And i'm no big fan of tv. But a lot of mainstream people are tv-people and that's probably why they enjoy cinematic games so much.

 

There was a fun little soccer game in my youth sensible soccer (video below)

Look at the graphics 8 pixel sprites a player. But get this fans of the game would chat about it and they would say that the players had made moves that were not in the basic sprite animation sheets. With limited information their imaginations would fill in details that were not in the video game, but would be in a real life game of football.

Maybe retro games are a bit more like books (needing imagination to fill the gaps) than modern games that are more like films.

 

@Fuzzy I agree and that is an interesting point that I never considered. I also am not much of a tv watcher. There are a few shows I enjoy but definitely not one who watches tv night after night for hours on end. That does make me wonder if there is some correlation between people who greatly enjoy tv (perhaps are big-time watchers of it) and enjoying the modern cinematic games. And likewise, is there a correlation between people who watch much less tv and appreciate retro games more.

@Arowx I agree with you too and this is something I have thought of and mentioned before. I definitely think there is something to this. It's why I cannot get the people who look at older games and see just a bunch of blocky pixels and such. At one time we played games that were more or less blocks of colored rectangles and other geometric shapes yet in our minds these were aliens or wizards and orcs and so forth.

In both of these cases what we are basically talking about is the ability to immerse ourselves into a game without needing every single detail to be spelled out for us. The older games provided a basic structure and some visual clues, guides in a way, and our minds then filled in all of the missing details and made them into almost epic experiences in some ways.
And no matter how good the cinematic FX become they cannot actually compare with the power of our own minds being in that state. In a sense the games became more immersive due to providing only vague hints of what things really looked like.

Adding on to that it is also why I think sometimes in a modern game every little flaw stands out so much more. They are trying so hard to literally create the entire experience for us that if they miss something it is painfully obvious. Yet with older, we could say more abstractly presented games, our minds filled all of the details.

 

The book was better.

 

Like many games that let place for your imagination on the visual side.

 

And this is why I hate this argument. Most of the people who have put their foot down have made their decision not based on quality and design, but whether those games better fit their definition of what a game is supposed to be. If you think games are supposed to be primarily, if not only, about being fun, the future is bleak for you, because that ship has sailed and it's not coming back.

Ninety percent of everything made is crap, and that has always been the case. If we go down a release list of NES games I doubt even one in ten is worth actually playing.

 

@N1warhead I'm glad you posted this thread. I finally got a chance to work on my project a little tonight and thinking of all the stuff we discuss and what I personally want to do I threw everything out and started over again.

Now, I have finally made it to the point I needed to be:


A visual style that is clean & easy to "read" for players and very quick n easy for me knock out as the developer.

It's amazing how distracting graphics stuff can be. Even for me... someone who normally judges a game based on everything besides how it looks. It's almost like some kind of twisted addiction that happens to us developers. Even if we start out thinking we're going to keep things very simple we end up tweaking here, adding something there and so on.

Anyway, this is exactly what I need. Now I can focus on actually building my game. No textures will be used at all. Everything is simply vertex colors.

 

That's kind of funny. We said the same sorts of things when Duke Nukem 3D came out. It was to gritty and serious, going for realism over fun. The devs had forgotten what the game was about. Duke Nukem 3D totally killed the vibe.






Totally cartoony and fun. None of this shooting cops stuff or hanging out in the red light district watching R18 movies.

Duke Nukem 2 was definitely where the series peaked for me.

 

Still Duke Nukem 3D is moe funny looking than lot of other today fps games.
I agree about the 2D game to be more cartoon, perhaps it was surfing on 2D platformers vibe, not trying to look realistic appart from some rare games like Shadow fo the Beast for example.
With 3D raycasting, they deciced to go further about textures and graphics, i don't know if a full cartoon 3D fps would look good ? i seen cartoony fps , but only few look good because of the lightening or the style.

 

I don't think these things are at odds. Basically it shows the turning point and continual trend.

With the main point being


and


may provide a different kind of expectation and experience than modern AAA games do. It doesn't have to be that way although the visuals can definitely help to set the mood for the experience. I haven't played the modernized remake of the Duke Nukem game. It could be it provides the same basic experience as the older game simply with a different graphics "set" swapped in.

I am always coming from an angle of the actual game itself. There is definitely a different experience playing a 2D side scrolling run n gun game compared to a 3D FPS run n gun game. It's basically the same gist but still a different experience.

FPS games in general were never my favorite genre. Still that way. Hellgate London and Borderlands were the games that made me give FPS a second look. I greatly enjoyed those two. Many years before that I played a COD game on PS2 and enjoyed that. But I didn't want to play a string of one war game after another.

I started looking for other FPS games mainly the retro games and there I found different games to play. Things that were more interesting to me than playing the same basic war game again.

Anyway, I do enjoy some FPS games and basically approach them the way I do all games. That is to see what is there and the potential they have. That is probably another reason why I like older games because they are cleaner slates in a sense compared to modern games. With modern games it is very evident the way developers chose to evolve them. With the older games they still have the potential to evolve in different ways.

Fortunately, Indies are doing this already. If you just want fun and interesting stuff in your games... well that is what the Indies are for! They have made for a bright future I think.

Here are a couple FPS games I will probably pick up on Steam at some point this year:

Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike

Bedlam (Not Skyshine's BEDLAM)

Yes both look more like retro games but there are more differences between these and [whatever the current popular AAA FPS games are] than just how the games look.

Games should provide fun and interesting experiences. Sometimes that is in the way the modern AAA games do it and other times it is the way retro games did it and still other times it is in the way modern Indie games do it. That is the key to me. Different gaming experiences. Normally the graphics are very different too. And often it does seem like you can almost tell what the game experience will be like simply by looking at the graphics. Not always but often it does seem to be the case.

Anyway, see these two games look interesting to me. Partly because they look different and mostly because they just seem to really be very different.

 

I like these fun to play games.
You know it's like Doom, Doom 1 had lot of colors and lot of lights colors, if you take a look at Doom 4, you'll see there is no more colors like before, their goal is realistic in some way ,more dark mood as this is the actual zombie mood.
They let down the un realistic graphics and colors unfortunatelly.
Anyway it's good for indies because that leaves space for them to create such unrealistic and more fun games. I think lot of players would like next gen cartoony colored fps games based on the fun factor.

 

My "theory" on this is that the games you play when you're between about 10 and 18 years old will always have some of the biggest impressions on you. So, I'm interested to see if in 10 years or so, people who are young now will think that League of Legends, Starcraft II, or the latest Battlefields/Call of Duties were some of the best games ever.

I think nostalgia affects each "generation". Anyways....just my theory. I could be very wrong lol.

 

What the F*** are you talking about? It's not like Doom was intending to be bright and colorful. The main color palette was brown, grey, and red. Any other color they used was mostly for contrast.

 

Why so angry ? it's an open discussion

I don't remember well the game as i didn't play it since a long time, so i was wrong.

 

So you were talking out of your ass about things you don't actually remember? Take off the nostalgia glasses and dust off some old games, and then you can come back to the discussion with an opinion that might actually be valid. If I wanted a discussion from a bunch of blowhards, I would watch a presidential debate.

 

RockoDyne calm down man. He misremembered, it happens, and you proved your point. No need to insult him or say he can't express his opinion here. You're acting like he punched your sister or something.

 

You have a serious problem, this is a friendly discussion and i never said i was right on all points.Are you nuts ? we don't need haters.

 

So many times it comes back to these points. We remember the games we played as a teenager when we just discovered games. The games were new to us. After 20 years of playing games, it gets harder to be impressed and see the novelty.

This. Actually play the games again. You will realize most of them don't hold a candle up to today's AAA market.

 

I still play the games. Even tried some of the ones I hated ~30 years ago and yeah they still still suck today. lol But there are still many I still enjoy playing. Jackal one was one of my favorite NES games. I still play it from it time to time. Some people hated Alien 3 on the NES but I liked it. Actually just played it again a bit ago and found it to still be a fun time.

Interestingly, I just checked out a video of someone reviewing the NES Alien 3 game. Overall, he didn't hate the game but listed off all of its faults at the start. And one of those I think is perhaps one of the things that makes people not get playing these older games. In the video he simply takes off running like a maniac then complains that you have no warning when enemies will be there and you cannot just shoot continually because you have limited ammo and need to find more.

It's crazy to me because the first time I played it I cautiously moved little by little as if I was in that environment. When doing so you have plenty of time to see the aliens that are directly ahead. Many times these games take a bit more of a focus on strategy and caution than what most folks seem to do for some reason. I don't understand it really. Makes no sense to me. I watched the video and thought why would you just take off running like that if you have limited ammo and there are freakin aliens all around and you don't know exactly where?

Castlevania 1 & 3 are a couple more games I really enjoy playing. C2 is not terrible but it tried taking a more RPG approach. I think 3 is probably my favorite. I never played SMB back then. However, my girlfriend loves the game and so I bought it a while back and finally tried it. It was actually pretty good. I am nowhere near as good at it as she is though.

Anyway, I have tried many of the older games over the past several years. Many that I had never played before. Some I hated. Some I enjoyed.

For some reason people always want to label it nostalgia and I am not sure why. It really doesn't fit the truth. Most of the people who like older games will definitely tell you there were games that sucked, they hated those games, often tried them again recently and yep still hate those games.

For me it is a simple thing. There are games I enjoy that were made long ago & there are games I enjoy that were made recently. The opposite is true as well. There are definitely games I think suck that were made long ago the same as there are games I think suck that were made recently.

I think when people say they like or miss the older games they are certainly talking about the games they actually enjoyed. Or just the different game ideas the devs came up with even if the game ended up sucking. lol I often check out the older games that I don't like just as a design exercise thinking ya know this could have been a very good game if they had ditched that thing and added this thing.

 

Actually it only seems like a no-nonsense art direction to us newer developers. In truth a lot of developers were thrying their darnedest to get as realistic as the Hardware allowed them at the time.
Realize that these games had to run on stuff like 386DX & 486SX, without a dedicated GPU.
Also lack of polish in graphics meant gameplay weighed more. Even then a lot of stuff that is handled by middleware nowadays was handcrafted and tuned to the smallest detail. That translates to tighter controls and a more satisfying game experience.

On the overuse of middleware remember how it felt to control Niko (GTA IV) as opposed to Franklin (GTA V) or CJ (GTA:SA). GTA V toned the realism in control response down because while on paper, it looked cool in GTA IV, in practice it ended up being too sluggish.

As for holding a candle to today's AAA market, it depends on what you're looking for.

Strictly in terms of graphics, that much is true. But gameplay-wise it's not so clear-cut. That's before even getting into the "metaphysical" (story, demographic pandering, etc.)

 

Fair enough. Unfortunately there is no clear objective standard to judge game play by. I would typically put Halo's gameplay as much tighter and more engaging then Doom. But @GarBenjamin will disagree with me. Its ground we constantly stomp over.

 

Actually, I won't disagree with you. I might come across the wrong way in my posts. I truly believe that for you Halo is much more engaging, a more enjoyable experience than Doom is. And that is all I think some of us are saying. I find Blood, Blake Stone and other such games enjoyable.

I guess in a sense I see it much like some people love RTS games and others love RPG games. There are people who are big fans of a specific RTS game and actually hate certain RTS games and so on. We're all just different people with different interests.

That is the thing I am trying to get across to people. There really is no wrong or right answer to this stuff. There is no right kind of game to play. There is only the right kind of game for you or me personally to play.

I have enjoyed playing the Diablo games since way back in 99 or 2000. Really liked D2 and thought it was a big improvement over D1. D3 came out and I really enjoy it too. I like it more than D2 however there are many people who think it is worse than Diablo 2. In fact, I think @Tomnnn is one of them.

That doesn't mean that he and others are looking at Diablo 2 with rose colored nostalgia glasses on. It just means that for him personally, he prefers the mechanics and scoring (skills and atts) and gear upgrades and so forth in D2 over D3. The way they did things in Diablo 2 made it a better gaming experience for him than the way they did things in D3.

And that is completely valid. No one game will be what every person is looking for. It just sometimes seems like there are a few people who get almost offended whenever some of us are not oohing and ahhing over the modern games and talk about older games we enjoy playing and wish we could find games like those again.

It's really not nearly as serious of a thing as these discussions end up making it seem to be. It is just people sharing their game playing preferences.

 

i think theres a thing, when the graphics are so good they make you feel like its real ... you expect EVERYTHING to be real and if its a little off it feels like its crappy

idk just a thing i noticed myself..

oh and... games are (generally) about fantasy, if everything is entirely defined, there is no room to fantasize, when u see like an atari sprite, you imagine what its meant to represent, but if you see a realistic 3d model... theres nothing to fantasize about.. ... there is, but fantasy is not as strong ... or something lol

 

The bigger limitation wasn't even the processor, it was memory. Even if you wanted to try for the "cinematic experience" and drop the framerate, you wouldn't get anywhere since there wasn't any reasonable way to store the art in the first place.

If I wanted to imagine, I would take shrooms. I like worldbuilding too much. I don't want to play games like I'm in some fever dream, where I can't remember what was actually there or not. I want to explore worlds created with intent and meaning, with details that are the remnants of stories that took place in the world. I don't want to be staring at a 16 x 16 sprite of a horse, wondering if it's male because of one spurious pixel, or if it's a camel, or an AT-AT.

 

LOL! Well that is the beauty of having choices! You certainly don't have to play anything except the modern (or even the utmost modern cutting edge) AAA games. Nobody is trying to make you play these older games. We are just having a discussion here for the people who do enjoy something different than the modern AAA games.

If you don't like the older games at all then of course you will find it a real challenge to relate to this discussion.

 

@RockoDyne No picking on zen garden. He's polite and entitled to his opinion without being shouted at. And more the point why are you shouting on a forum? Doesn't suit you.

 

Depends on who I am. I believe the neutral stance I maintain is that the games are so mechanically different and were made by different developers that it isn't really fair to compare them anymore than it would be fair to compare the death race movies. Right now, I'm more likely to give a sly jab at diablo 3 for masquerading as an rpg game without meaningful roles or stats and an action game with 2 minute cooldowns. Activision really though outside the box on that one... and by box I mean definition. It'd be like if telltale games invented minecraft. For the sake of olives, why didn't north take their IP with them!?

I defend d2 because it is mechanically fascinating, but really what I like about it is their implementation of a necromancer. It's the most powerful one that there is in any game. Where else can you summon an army of the undead? Where else can a necromancer (literally: dead summoner) animate the flesh inside a corpse and raise a blood golem from it? It's such a well thought out character!

The only way that character could have been more awesome is if there was a skill set that used its own life force as a reagent. I'll be sure to include something like that when I eventually get around to making a game focused on necromancy.

--edit for additional diablo 3 jab

Someone on the forums once complained about not being able to use any character to fulfill any and every role. In a role playing game. Why can't my healer have the highest dps? Why can't my rogue tank as many hits as the meatshield classes? They want the role removed from the design. And D3 gives it to them more with each patch. Soon it's just going to be a genre called 'G' for Game.