Old games resurgent!!

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I think there are two contrasting things at play here; one, it does seem when people get older and they start getting nostalgia-brained they decide that they want to play old games again. I’m extremely cynical about the weird nostalgia hard-on a lot of older people in gaming media start to express because it veers into weird political philosophy sometimes, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with preferring old games. And in fairness, there’s also a not uncommon strain of thought that says all old games are bad because technology has improved. That’s obviously just as ridiculous as saying all old movies suck. Good design is good design!

I play a lot of old games these says; mostly old 80s and 90s Mac games, but also old DOS games, Amiga, Atari ST, and on consoles such as SNES, Genesis, Saturn, PS1 & 2, and Gamecube. But I can also remember occasionally playing SimCity even as a kid well into the 2000s before I even could develop nostalgia and over a decade after it came out (IIRC technically it was released before I was born), so this isn’t totally new behavior. And I also picked up Diablo IV and am going through that, which is so new it came out yesterday.

This is a long way to say good is good. SimCity classic & 2000 are essentially perfectly designed and balanced games given the era they were released. Dark Castle is brilliant. Doom is a masterclass in movement and shooting. But The Witcher 3 is also brilliant and the FF VII modern remake is fantastic sci-fi and RPG all in one. Have fun!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

having only one guy with the boots of speed in a party of 6 is the "best" lol

I think there are two contrasting things at play here; one, it does seem when people get older and they start getting nostalgia-brained they decide that they want to play old games again. I’m extremely cynical about the weird nostalgia hard-on a lot of older people in gaming media start to express because it veers into weird political philosophy sometimes, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with preferring old games. And in fairness, there’s also a not uncommon strain of thought that says all old games are bad because technology has improved. That’s obviously just as ridiculous as saying all old movies suck. Good design is good design!

good games often stay good. heck, there are mario 64 speed runners who weren't old enough to play it at all (or weren't even born) when it was released for example, and i suspect their motivation is something other than nostalgia!

lots of new games are good too! anything from bannerlord to hollow knight (silksong when) to isaac etc depending on genre you like. i also think civ 6 is easily the 2nd best civ after 4, which also implies both are better in design (and ui implementation) than earlier iterations, despite that i played civ 2 as a kid. i thought warlords 2 and 3 were better games than civ as a kid. and if i compare them to civ 2 and 3 now, i still think that.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Videogames have been going through a constant evolutionary process for the last 40 years. One of the formative experiences of my youth was reading Livy's The war with Hannibal (books 21-30 of Titius Livius' History of Rome) and realising that these ancient people who lived thousands of years ago are basically the same as us.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

There is no doubt that nostalgia plays a role in returning to older games every now and then. Consider that some of the older games we fondly remember also had innovative gameplay which has not been duplicated since. I think a lot of publishers/devs took chances and made some interesting game types you just don't see anymore. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe being one of many old games that desperately need to be made again on modern engines.

 

[Farm Boy]

My comfy pair of shoes is Master of Orion. I still like just about everything about the balance of that one, even the janky stuff.

I keep thinking I should get a copy of the original King's Bounty, that sort of hits the same itch for me.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm talking about stuff I played on my Windows 98, Vista, and XP.

Some of the XP games I bought from Big Fish Games still work. A lot of them don't. Some sorta work but are glitchy now.

Rebuy on Steam or GoG if possible.

 

[Zardnaar]

My old games I play are because there's no modern equivalent or improvement.

Eg SMAC. Empire at war was the last Star Wars strategy game released, C3C was the last classic civ type game.

 

[caketastydelish]

Star Wars empire at war. I’m kind of dissapointed there had never been a sequel.

 

[Zardnaar]

Star Wars empire at war. I’m kind of dissapointed there had never been a sequel.

Lots of mod support now

 

[Akka]

I'm a regular at playing old games. Some of them just age very well, some others I play just for nostalgia factor.
I've replayed Dark Sun : Shattered Lands somewhat recently, and it's defintely the former. Graphics are a bit of an eyesore, but rather quickly you just... forget about them, and play the game, and enjoy. Dune and Doom are also firmly in this category.
Some time ago I decided to redo the whole Eye of the Beholder serie, which are rather the latter - I have very fond memories and enjoyed tremendously the first one, but the game itself is... well, it's the basics of a dungeon crawler with really, really minimalist story.

I'm also replaying Dragon Age, but from my point of view despite being from 2009 it's not an "old game".

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Rebuy on Steam or GoG if possible.

Some of them are rather pricey there.

BTW, if anyone wants to try an old game that is literally an OLD game, Egyptian Senet (on Steam) is good. I've seen it referred to as the world's oldest known board game.

 

[REDY]

While I don't play every day, I play hard and enjoy playing old games more than new ones.
It's not just nostalgia, its certain technical simplicity/style that appeals to me.
While I appreciate the VI, I also find myself drawn to the various sequels of the Civilization series.
I have great respect for the remasters of C&C and AoE, as they are the only game remasters that truly capture the essence of the originals.
When it comes to Paradox strategies, I find myself leaning more towards the older ones.
Additionally, I often find myself replaying notorious old games such as Baldur's Gates Gabriel Knights, etc.
However, I also enjoy playing old games for the first time out of curiosity. For example quite recently classics like System Shocks, Thieves, Gothics, Xenosagas, Ultimas, etc.

There are still some excellent new games like Disco Elysium.

 

[amadeus]

Balance of Power by Chris Crawford.

A simple premise: as U.S. President or Soviet General Secretary, use foreign policy tools to gain prestige without setting off WWIII.

Crisis in the Kremlin. This has been remade but I think the bias has gone too far over to the conservative, dare I say, neo-Stalinist side. The old game had much more of a pro-reformer bias, perhaps not intentionally necessarily but a function of its programming.

Shadow President was also something like this from the American side, although it had somewhat limited playability in my opinion through certain game mechanics that remained static.

SimCity 2000 had good balancing between too simplified (limitations imposed on the original game were understandable because of the time and power needed) and too complex: I’m thinking of the later games in the series which became very heavily focused on traffic management, and I would also say the design of SimCity 4 was just plain ugly unless you like every city to look like the San Francisco bay area.

Not at all an exhaustive list, but I think some games now are so involved that the immersion takes away from the game aspect of it. A bit of abstraction is nice, more easily to balance all the fundamental mechanics which should be worked on before adding the innumerable bells and whistles.

 

[Civinator]

Moff, you have opened a great thread.

I really like Civ 3 and Civ 2 ToT, especially with the Flintlock mod for C3C and TOTPP for Civ 2 TOT. I am also a great fan of AOW 2SM and AOW1, AOE, MOO1 and SE4.

All these games have in common, that they don´t use the tabletop presentation of the so-called 3D graphics. Looking on a game that is presented like a view on a toilet brush kills all the fun for me in playing these "3D games". Additionally new versions of existing games in my eyes mostly have the tendency to add new unnecessary stuff to present something additional, but are frequently no real improvements, as they often only destroy the streamlining of the older classical version without offering additional fun to the player with the added unnecessary micromanagement. Civ 6 and AOW3 were the last unsatisfying versions with those so-called 3D graphics I have bought and I think no more will follow.

 

[Darsnan]

many are the cht cht, very few are you

Their all laughing at me back on Earth!

 

[caketastydelish]

Lots of mod support now

So? A new game by the publisher would have a lot more features plus better graphics

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Star Wars empire at war. I’m kind of dissapointed there had never been a sequel.

Supposedly there is talk about making a sequel to EAW.

 

[Kyriakos]

A lot of classic games are being remade too, some with massive success (AOEII).
Common factor there is that they are not in full 3d (most not in 3d at all).

 

[Moriarte]

Fully voiced Morrowind came out recently. A free mod, which claims to have utilised AI to create voiceover for hundreds of NPCs. Anyway, pretty cool. I don’t mind reading, but I hear a lot of people do mind

 

[Farm Boy]

I like reading better, usually. It's a lot faster than listening to a voice actor and I get to fill in the voice the way I want. But for truly good narratives, ones that are worth waiting for somebody to read out loud, if they do it well they'll surprise me with the delivery from time to time. Which is absent when I'm the one filling it in. And that's the nugget that makes them stand out. Isn't it?

Edit: I was trying to come up with an example people would have played. Dark Souls 1 works. There is no way I would have been able to create the Crestfallen Warrior at the Firelink Shrine. Or the sheer "wtf is going on here" factor that had settled into my skin by the time I realized even the blacksmith savior himself doesn't share an orbit with sanity. All with that trademark (heh heh heh) at the end.