Which games have aged worst?

johnny_ultimate

All this talk of the best games / worst games ever got me thinking. Out of all the games you own, which have succumbed worst of all to the ravages of age? I for one nominate the Tomb Raider series to start off with : clumsy, awkward controls and ugly polygonal graphics have rendered a once revolutionary series completely unplayable.

Any other nominations?

Rhyme

As soon as i saw the title of this thread i thought Tomb raider... damn

It doesnt effect my enjoyment of the game, but Resident Evil 1 for the PS1 isnt exactly a graphical marvel... its still in my top 5 games of all time regardless

cousin_borat

all the Street Fighter 2 variations

at the time seemed like a timeless classic but has suffered badly in recent times

The Free Man

starwing!

that used to look amazing.....

Hercule

after playing the arcade versions of tekken that come with tekken 5 i have to say that i find tekken 1 has aged terribly - I remember playing that for the first time and thinking it was fast and exciting and had really good graphics now whenever i play it i find myself thinking "move goddamit! come on! hurry up! what kind of fighter are ya? GRRRRRRR!". Tekken 2 and 3 still hold their own in terms of gameplay and to a certain extent graphics but 1 looks well dodgy now.

Retr0gamer

Tomb Raider 1 is still a classic. It may look ugly but the puzzles are still fantastic and its great fun to play. The other game sin the series have aged badly and I don't think I ever liked them.

As for who ever said Street Fighter 2, you are a heretic and have been reading too much GamesTM. Street Fighter 2 is still the most balanced fighting game ever created. It's still great fun to play and the two player mode is unchallenged by even todays beat'em ups. Get back to playing Tekken will you.

Resi 1: Looks crap now we can see through the prerenders but still a fantastic game.

My nominations:

Goldeneye: Still great but it just it just isn't as great a game as when it first appeared. The innovations it brought in control and gameplay are now cliche and the frame rate is terrible. Still no game has come close to the high class non-linear level design. It is disappointing to play it again.

Mortal Kombat 2: The others in the series have always been crap. MK2 however was decent. The juggle combos were decent. However now that I can see through the terrible gore and fatalities it really is terrible compare to SF2 KI and Samurai Showdown. All the characters have the same move set and only separated by their special moves. Also thanks to the excellent conversion from Probe software as usual (sarcasm) the Mega Drive version was left with a few basic juggle combos and sucked a large amount of balls.

After getting my N64 i've noticed just how bad the slowdown in those games are. Some are still very much playable but some really don't live up to the reviews they got years ago.

And yes starwing looks terrible and has a crawling framerate but it is still a great game.

tman

The Free Man wrote:

starwing!

that used to look amazing.....

too damn true!
was the first thing that popped to mind when i saw this thread's title.

i wish i'd just stuck with my happy memories of it, instead of firing up an emulator
i'm not saying it's **** btw... i had a blast playing through the first few levels again. i just didn't feel that adrenaline rush you got from barrel rolling out of the way of laser fire and trying nifty flying tricks.
i'm not a kid any more... my sense of disbelief isn't so readily subdued these days

Hercule

Starwing does look crap now, but it has two redeeming features - Gameplay its still really intense and the other feature is ..................... sound!!!!! I love the opening theme music to the first level with all the ships zipping out of the station, also the little chirps and beeps from you copilots are bloody hilarious - i "acquired" wink wink the unreleased starwing 2 emulated which improves on pretty much everything in the game but afaik (correct me if im wrong) starwing came out in 1995 the same year as the saturn and the playstation so the graphics werent as good in comparison anyway.

Retr0gamer

Another one!

Unreal: It looked lovely and still looks okay today so it ensured the graphics whores loved it. The game however was crap and is even worse today since the graphics don't hold up today. Dumb bad guys who's AI consisted of either strafe and shoot or a crap dive animation off a cliff and some of the worst weaponry ever (I present to you the useless snot firing blob launcher). I tried to like it. I tried to finish it on a challenge with Praetoian (he had to play Deus Ex, wonder who got the raw deal?). I just couldn't finish it. I had far better games to be playing.

tman

Hercule wrote:

i "acquired" wink wink the unreleased starwing 2 emulated which improves on pretty much everything in the game but afaik (correct me if im wrong) starwing came out in 1995 the same year as the saturn and the playstation so the graphics werent as good in comparison anyway.

nah. starwing would've been 1991-1992 iirc
a long time before the ps and saturn came into being anyway...
and the graphics were ****ing mindblowing at the time

Retr0gamer

Starfox was 1993. It was amazing when it came out. It ran a polygonal engine relatively speedily and looked fantastic compared to other polygonal console games. It also had a small amount of light sourcing and texture mapping. None of this was ever seen before on a 16-bit console and the jaguar, 3DO were just on the horizon sporting similar looking titles. Remember the PS1 and Saturn only arrived around 1996

Rhyme

tman wrote:

nah. starwing would've been 1991-1992 iirc
a long time before the ps and saturn came into being anyway...
and the graphics were ****ing mindblowing at the time

The first 'truly 3D' game' apparently... *shrug*

Hercule

Starfox was 1993. It was amazing when it came out. It ran a polygonal engine relatively speedily and looked fantastic compared to other polygonal console games. It also had a small amount of light sourcing and texture mapping. None of this was ever seen before on a 16-bit console and the jaguar, 3DO were just on the horizon sporting similar looking titles. Remember the PS1 and Saturn only arrived around 1996

ok, ok, i wasnt very old at the time neway and still only played with lego - (hadnt discovered computergames at the time) i think it was starfox 2 that said 1995 underneath it not 1 my mistake.

monkeyfudge

I played Duke Nukem 3D recently.. and after about a minute I wanted to throw up... I don't know how I managed to play it for hours and hours all those years ago.

At least we still have Duke Nukem Forever to look forward to.. it's coming out any day now, isn't it?

tman

Hercule wrote:

ok, ok, i wasnt very old at the time neway and still only played with lego - (hadnt discovered computergames at the time) i think it was starfox 2 that said 1995 underneath it not 1 my mistake.

the release date for an unreleased game
i need to go back to bed

jaggeh

Rhyme wrote:

The first 'truly 3D' game' apparently... *shrug*

that statement is so incorrect i just had to reply First true 3d game

plus this game is one of the finest aged games ever, i would still easily and readily play it.

TerrorFirmer

I was playing Unreal Tournament yesterday, now thats a game that still looks great for its time.

Hmm....its more so early 3d games that age worst as opposed to 2d games. 2D classics such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2 and Streets of Rage are still as fantastic as they were 10 years ago.

As for worst aged game, I guess some of the early 3d Snes/Genesis games look brutal now, namely Starwing on the Snes and f22 Interceptor on the Genesis.(f22 runs at about 2 fps... )

Nothing really stands out at me otherwise for god, that looks crap now....I guess its funny playing the Original Medal of Honor and Goldeneye - both in their time the ultimate in visuals in respect of their home consoles. Now, they are still great, but they really look - rough. To put it kindly.

Can't wait for the day, when people can say damn, Doom 3 has aged terribly, can't believe we thought that looked good

Retr0gamer

Quake 2: Was it ever good. Okay multiplayer is great but the single-player was arse. It even didn't look all that nice to begin with. Coloured lighting was used way too much and just looked garish. The fantastic AI that was promised was like ported code from Quake 1 except some of the minor enemies ran from side to side, sometimes.

TerrorFirmer

Retr0gamer wrote:

Quake 2: Was it ever good. Okay multiplayer is great but the single-player was arse. It even didn't look all that nice to begin with. Coloured lighting was used way too much and just looked garish. The fantastic AI that was promised was like ported code from Quake 1 except some of the minor enemies ran from side to side, sometimes.

Don't forget the chaingun guy that ducked so realistically everytime you fired a rocket at him!

Doodah7

What about Virtua Racer for the megadrive. Arcade port!!! Unbelievable graphics!!! Now looks like a three year old's toy blocks...

TerrorFirmer

tallpaul wrote:

What about Virtua Racer for the megadrive. Arcade port!!! Unbelievable graphics!!! Now looks like a three year old's toy blocks...

I was actually going to say that, but couldn't remember the name....thats aged so badly, far worse then anything mentioned so far in the thread!

Wasn't there an equallt **** port for the 32x or saturn or something?

Retr0gamer

MobileInfantry wrote:

Don't forget the chaingun guy that ducked so realistically everytime you fired a rocket at him!

He did? He also did it when you fired a po-po gun shot at him and got it in the face anyway :rolleyes:

Retr0gamer

MobileInfantry wrote:

I was actually going to say that, but couldn't remember the name....thats aged so badly, far worse then anything mentioned so far in the thread!

Wasn't there an equallt **** port for the 32x or saturn or something?

32X one was actually very good. The game still plays great. Saturn port wasn't great.

johnny_ultimate

Isn't it amazing though how many SNES / Megadrive generation games - Mario, Zelda, Sonic mainly - remain playable, but much more PSone / N64 games have aged badly (FF7, Mario and Zelda discounted)? 3D games seem to have a much shorter lifespan than 2D ones, technology just catches up on them too quickly.Do you think the cutting edge now will be rendered obsolete when the PS3 , Revolution and XBox 360 come out? Imagine, one day we may be saying how badly Resi 4 has aged. "Jesus, look at those crappy decapitation effects!".

Blub2k4

I'd say hard drivin' has aged pretty badly, was great, first game with clutch action and a pretty cool polygonal graphic, played deadly too, looks crap now though even if the driving engine would still hold up with the best of them.

Anything on the speccie, always hated that machine and thought the games looked dated the day they were released.

Setun

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Isn't it amazing though how many SNES / Megadrive generation games - Mario, Zelda, Sonic mainly - remain playable, but much more PSone / N64 games have aged badly (FF7, Mario and Zelda discounted)? 3D games seem to have a much shorter lifespan than 2D ones, technology just catches up on them too quickly.Do you think the cutting edge now will be rendered obsolete when the PS3 , Revolution and XBox 360 come out? Imagine, one day we may be saying how badly Resi 4 has aged. "Jesus, look at those crappy decapitation effects!".

Nice thread johnny, I often wonder why is it that the 3d graphics seem to age so badly in many cases. Remember Goldeneye's 'box hands' and 'box heads', sharp, geometrical and angular all over the shop - back in the day it looked the business. I'd imagine that with 2d graphics it wasn't about creating realism but a more fun/ humorous gaming atmosphere, in today's games realistic graphics is an essential aspect for a consumer-friendly game.

When will the day come when I look at Metroid Prime 2 and say:
"Those graphics... theyre a bit rubbish. I don't remember them being that bad... etc

madrab

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Isn't it amazing though how many SNES / Megadrive generation games - Mario, Zelda, Sonic mainly - remain playable, but much more PSone / N64 games have aged badly (FF7, Mario and Zelda discounted)? 3D games seem to have a much shorter lifespan than 2D ones, technology just catches up on them too quickly.Do you think the cutting edge now will be rendered obsolete when the PS3 , Revolution and XBox 360 come out? Imagine, one day we may be saying how badly Resi 4 has aged. "Jesus, look at those crappy decapitation effects!".

think about in terms of tv programs, old cartoons still look really good (tom & jerry, looney toons, micky mouse etc) but compare them to live action shows (bill & Ben and other crap) and there is no comparison

2d cartoon looks will always look good; for example metal slug will always be one of those games that will look fresh

iregk

As someone said regarding how snes and megadrive games aged quite well while ps adn such like didn't i think its exactly to do with resources. Snes and megadrive programming had very limited graphics to work with so the emphasis was purely game play. Now they can create cinematic battle scenes emotion on faces etc... so game play almost becomes secondary. Well in any EA title its pushed way down the list so thats pretty much teh problem.

Tell you a game that has aged woefully and dont laugh. Leader board golf on the Commodore 64...

1huge1

I find a lot of N64 games havent ages well (but seeing as i never had a ps i would probably be saying the same if i had one)

tman

1huge1 wrote:

I find a lot of N64 games havent ages well (but seeing as i never had a ps i would probably be saying the same if i had one)

graphically, neither the ps nor n64 games have aged well.
gameplay wise, the n64 back catalogue is still a hell of a lot more playable than the ps' (imho)

Dar

X-com. The gameplay is still great, but the interface has aged horribly.

dearg_doom

Lads, ye can't look at old games being dated just because their graphics are crap by todays standards, that's like one of my aquantainces who says that Kraftwerk are shoite because their music sounds simple compared to modern dance music, the guy reckons he could come up with better after a few hours on Reason therefore the music must be shoite. Obviously I told him how wrong he was.


For example, people still play old speccy/NES/SNES etc games on emu's like SensibleSoccer etc..

SF2 is the best 2d fighter ever probably, depth, good charachters etc...

Starwing is brilliant, the only 3d SHMUP that really works well. IMO the graphics looked kind of **** on release(1994 iirc) but I was still blown away by playing a real game in 3d, I felt like I was in the future! The superFX chip was ingenious and added atleast anothe 18months onto the shelflife of the SNES(for free to consumers too, which was nice)

TombRaider, as was said, is great too, really clever design, if not my particular cup of tea.

VR racing on the other hand was crap in the arcade, and even worse on the MD;)


One game that has aged terribly imo is RidgeRacer on the PS; I thought it was crap at the time tho so that probably doen't mean much... 1 track?!WTF

Oh and the 3d GTA games too, I loved them a lot when I first played them, but, I just can't be arsed struggling with them now(I tried to play VC a couple of weeks ago, hopped on a motorbike, 'Sunglasses at Night' on the radio... and NOTHING... it just felt like a chore. I can't tell you how sad it made me feel realising that I probably won't ever play the game again:()

1huge1

ya i know what your saying dearg doom for me gta sa really put me of the gta series was totally same old same old was a chore to complete it i can imagine that becoming obsolete easily

Retr0gamer

I've a feeling time won't be kind on the GTA games.

I think a lot of people are concentrating on graphics and not gameplay. Graphics will always be bettered but a true test is if the game is still fun e.g Starwing.

iregk

Well the thing time hasn't been kind to any gta game. As I said in another post how wretched and horrible are the top down versions of GTA? They were and are woeful games. At the time they were different and completely original that was about it.

As for the 3d. GTA 3 was class, vice city gave us what we wanted, more of the same please. San Andreas, im playing at the moment, i wont say its bad because I love the 3d series but you can see how dated it looks already. They still use the same engine and core as GTA 3 so in retrospect its purely an update.

If they release a GTA4 or what ever they will call it they must pull the game apart and completely redo the graphics engine and core of the game. Another version of the same again please simply will not do and I think would kill off the series completely.

Retr0gamer

I think they would need to re-do the combat. It controls like a bad 3rd person game for the PS1.

tman

iregk wrote:

If they release a GTA4 or what ever they will call it they must pull the game apart and completely redo the graphics engine and core of the game. Another version of the same again please simply will not do and I think would kill off the series completely.

as much as i adore rockstar. i'll point blank refuse to "buy" gta4, unless it's nothing short of the revolution gta3 was.
and that's pretty damn impossible really.

i can't think of any other games to add that weren't already crap in the first place...
shiny graphics may lose their appeal over time. but the core gameplay will still be intact. (just look at pacman ffs. it's still fun!)

1huge1

god i never liked pacman though i was born in 1990 so its well before my time

ExOffender

Can't believe everyone's so down on GTA! The top-down versions blow, I agree, but I never played them. My mate gave me GTA after I got 3, and I'm like wtf?!?! How could anyone play this sh*te? Vice City was class, ok, it was basically just an update of 3, but SA is a whole new game! I confess I don't know much about the techy side of things, but you're all ignoring just how massive the game is. Of course it doesn't look the Mae West; graphics have been sidelined to concentrate on size. All this reminds me of a conversation I was having at a party the other weekend (do I not rock? :rolleyes: ). Will post thread in due course.
The reason so many early 3d games have aged worse than late-generation 2d games is just that... 2d games 1990 and up were building on 10 - 15 years of experience, precedent and the mistakes of others, they were at the top of the 2d ladder. Being that the first 3d games were at the bottom of the 3d ladder, naturally they're only going to get worse, look embarrassingly crap, etc. Even the gameplay ware was new, and thank f*ck they've improved.

seamus

The top-down GTA versions were good at the time. The top-down gameplay wasn't new, but the concept was (mostly). They have aged a bit now - they're still playable, if a little bland. Of the last three, the 3d versions, each has come on in leaps and bounds. I can't believe that people are saying that San Andreas looks the same as the other two. Have you gone back and played the other two?

djmarkus

The top down versions blow??? well gta2, yes, but gta was soooooo much fun, i still play it when i'm bored, maybe do a mission or two. it isn't great graphically, but it doesn't blow. as was said earlier gameplay is 75% of a game.

ExOffender

That's as may be for someone who played it initially, but I can't drive a car top-down to save my feckin life... I can't tell what are people and what are road markings... overall just not great.

the_syco

Still play Wolfenstein3D every so often, but it has aged a little...

GTA ruled, as the top down was cool at the time, multiplayer ruled (esp if there was 5 or more of you playing), and the actual storyline is still very good, imo. The dodge at full speed always looks good.

redmosquito

Sega Worldwide Soccer on the Saturn has aged so bad. I remember when it came out it was hailed as the greatest soccer game ever, and at the time it was the tits, I played it for hours upon end, but having played it a couple of days ago for the first time in years it just looked so bad and played like a complete dog. It was so easy, you can just walk past defenders, gauranteed at least 4000 one on ones with the keeper a match and the keeper just stands on his line!

Retr0gamer

redmosquito wrote:

Sega Worldwide Soccer on the Saturn has aged so bad. I remember when it came out it was hailed as the greatest soccer game ever, and at the time it was the tits, I played it for hours upon end, but having played it a couple of days ago for the first time in years it just looked so bad and played like a complete dog. It was so easy, you can just walk past defenders, gauranteed at least 4000 one on ones with the keeper a match and the keeper just stands on his line!

It was always hailed as being crap. Can't remember seeing one review of it above 40%. The poor Saturn owners were starved of a soccer game and it sold rather well.

Prior Of Taize

Retr0gamer wrote:

Another one!

Unreal: It looked lovely and still looks okay today so it ensured the graphics whores loved it.

funny enough i think Unreal 2 has aged the worst of that series. the graphics are so flat and plain looking. i was never a fan of the series but having recently played it i found it horrific looking.

TerrorFirmer

Unreal 2 still looks good if you have a good computer. Unreal Tournament and even Unreal Original hold up pretty well for games of their age.

One game I was playing last night that's still as fun as ever and graphics are managable is Medal Of Honor on PSone. True Classic. The Enemy AI still holds up against FPS games coming out on the Xbox and PS2....even better in some cases. Fantastic sound as well....music score in particular.

Deadwing

MobileInfantry wrote:

Unreal 2 still looks good if you have a good computer. Unreal Tournament and even Unreal Original hold up pretty well for games of their age.

One game I was playing last night that's still as fun as ever and graphics are managable is Medal Of Honor on PSone. True Classic. The Enemy AI still holds up against FPS games coming out on the Xbox and PS2....even better in some cases. Fantastic sound as well....music score in particular.

Yeah i remember being blown away by MOH back in the day. It was a class game, before EA turned it into another one of thier cash cows and sullied its good name with crap like rising sun

jaggeh

i for one think that the 2d version of GTA were better. the missions were fun, the driving was simple and incredibley fun. the story and inyourendo's was very good. it was a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the carbon copy games that came out around the same time.

anyone ever play 8 player cannonball run? now that was fun.

thelordofcheese

Retr0gamer wrote:

It was always hailed as being crap. Can't remember seeing one review of it above 40%. The poor Saturn owners were starved of a soccer game and it sold rather well.

I think Sega Worldwide Soccer '98 had Jack Charlton doing commentary, and it's probably the most unintentionally hilarious thing ever.

Only slightly more funny was the way that a run down either wing, followed by a cross would magically find your strikers head and result in a goal about 70% of the time...

iregk

thelordofcheese wrote:

Only slightly more funny was the way that a run down either wing, followed by a cross would magically find your strikers head and result in a goal about 70% of the time...

So its kind of like FIFA 2005 so...

90% of my goals are crosses and headers, can't miss...