Are there games that stand the test of time? By that, I mean really old ones, that are still playable today.
My own feeling is, not many of the “old classics” would be considered playable by today’s gamers. Over at brainygamer, Michael Abbott had his students play (ahem) Ultima IV and Super Mario Brothers 3.
U4 was not well-received. The students considered the game incredibly ugly, and hard to play as well. Mario Brothers, on the other hand, was much more popular.
I can understand the “ugly” part. Graphics have advanced enormously over the years, and anyone who wasn’t around for the 8-bit/early 16-bit eras, is likely to consider such games as visually atrocious.
Hard to play…well, the earlier Ultimas were known for their “alphabet soup” command list, although most Rogue-likes today have even longer ones (49+ in ZAngbandTK, for instance). Or maybe the game had a learning curve they found difficult.
Super Mario I’m not familiar with, but I gather it’s a platformer, given the name and the fact that a controller was used to play it. Since the students seemed to have little trouble here, I’d guess that games of this type haven’t changed much over the years.
Of course, as Abbott points out, comparing a complex RPG with a simple action game is hardly fair. However, U4 is considered a classic (perhaps SMB 3 is also; I wouldn’t know), one of the greats in the genre.
Even so, it appears the game doesn’t have staying power; modern players find it both visually unappealing and hard to play. Mario, on the other hand, is apparently as much fun for today’s gamers as it was for an earlier generation.
After giving this some thought, I concluded that the simpler the game’s mechanics, the more likely it is to be playable years in the future. Simple, not necessarily easy. Consider, for instance, Arkanoid. That’s just knocking out bricks with a ball and paddle, and all you need do is move the mouse back and forth. But the game becomes tougher with each level.
We could say the same for Doom. Graphically, it may be “old hat”, but the visceral thrills of the first-person shooter are still there. And it takes only a couple of minutes to learn the controls.
So in regard to “modern gamers”, the more action-oriented products are likeliest to “stand the test of time”. But what about us (we?) veteran gamers?
Are there oldies we still enjoy playing, even after all these years? Or have we become spoiled by more recent games?
odd issue to debate. NOT sure that anyone new to gaming in 2005 could adequately compare 1982 RPG (wiz i, ii or iii for example) to a 2004 RPG.
way too many factors to consider. consider compariing model T to 70K cadalic of today. No radio, no cd-rom, no dvd player, NO air conditioning, no power steering or brakes, no self adjusting power seats, NO GPS, acceleration would be almost non existent, top end speed not even close.
would they stop and consider the availability of gas stations back then, road side assistance, hell the non existence of roads even.
nope anything really taken out of it’s era is doomed to pale in comparision. yet compare a model T to horse and buggy and it wins, while comparing it to traveling on the orient express would probably fail in all creature comfort, speed and reliability issues. while winning on flexibility in travel options, ie orient express travelled from point A to B and back (discounting changing trains and conintuing journey). while a model T could go from A to many more locations (yeah may want to use the phrase almost limitless but then how far straight EAST could a model T get from NYC so that phrase is in some reqards silly).
Star Control 2. :)
That’s a tough one. How about Diablo 2 and Starcraft?
Yes, of course, there are many who do enjoy an old-style text adventure. I game very much less than before, but I played TADS and AGT adventures many years after the genre was commercially dead - I found a site with the Scott Adams adventures earlier this year, and if I could get the save feature to work right, I’d be playing through them even now, and if I ever unpack the Infocom Gold discs, at least some of the ones I didn’t finish before, I may. (The super-super hard ones lose their appeal, but only in the sense that getting older & having more responsibilities and interests cuts down on time for them, and they don’t have the feel of something you can “relax for an hour with”).
That may not quite answer you if you’re only talking about individual games rather than types - but of course if you wait long enough and didn’t write the walkthru, even the same games may be worth a revisit.
Also, I believe droidquest was the site that carried the port for Robot Odyssey I - now there is a game that could really use a modern-graphic version, but a couple of years ago I replayed it even with the 1980’s graphics ’til I hit a bug, simply because I never met another game that was quite like it.
I noticed that the Bard’s Tale Construction Set was fun even way after CRPG’s had gone way past it in graphics/playability (but of course, making something custom for family or friends is a special kind of gift - if you have time, which, who does?).
A good indication of a game’s longevity might be if it has been updated and re-released. A few recent titles come to mind.
Loderunner. The controls were about as simple as you could get. Dig left, dig right, and move character. It was recently re-released on XBox Live Marketplace and still has much of the fun of the original.
Pipemania. Another that has had several incarnations, the last I remember was included in one of the Microsoft Windows Entertainment Packs for Windows 3.1. It just got a new makeover as well.
Kings Bounty The Legend. I never cared much for Heroes of Might and Magic, but a lot of people still play those too. I thoroughly enjoyed the remake of King’s Bounty, the gameplay was quite different than HOMM though they shared some elements.
Another that has held up for me was Tristan Pinball by Little Wing. It is still my favorite computer pinball. For one thing, the entire table is visible on-screen. Most computer pinball games scroll the screen, making it more difficult to line up shots.
Ultima IV probably wouldn’t go over well with today’s gamers. A while back my son asked what my favorite game was and I showed him Ultima IV. He caught on to the basics pretty fast and played it for an afternoon, but it didn’t draw him in like it did me. He didn’t care for the turn based combat very much either, though he did like it in King’s Bounty.
How old? X-Com: UFO Defense is certainly playable today. I loaded it up just a few months ago, and it was just as much fun as ever.
Civilization, too. Well, Civilization II. I didn’t actually play the original, but Civ II is VERY playable today. I enjoy it more than any of the sequels, though Civ IV is also impressive. (The only reason I don’t still play it is because I’ve played it so very many times over the years, and there’s a limit to how much you can play the same game.)
I think I’d have more trouble with early RPGs than with strategy games. People still play checkers, after all. I actually prefer the early types of RPGs like Ultima IV or the SSI “Gold Box” games, but I think they’d be hard to play today - mostly because of the graphics, but also for interface reasons.
Very early games were terribly limited by the computers of the time. You’ve got to take that into account. It’s not like reading classic science fiction, for example, where the technology of printing hasn’t changed. But the old game designers accomplished great things with what they had available.
technology of printing has changed, from print on demand lasers, color lasers. but yeah basically it’s still mostly black type face on whitish paper.
or an electron note pad E-Book.
First of all, as someone who came of gaming age with a Nintendo, Super Mario 3 is definitely a classic. Many consider it the best pure platformer of all time (and it would make my top 3, though I haven’t played platformers in forever). I also wonder if, given the general tenor of the article, they were playing Ultima IV on an NES. There was in fact a port which I enjoyed, and which had for me the benefit of streamlined and simplified controls. There are definitely games for me which have stood the test of time. For instance: Wizardry I and VII; Might and Magic I-III; Ultima III-VII; and the AD&D Gold Box games. I also still sometimes play Dungeon Hack. Space Rogue was a game I thoroughly enjoyed, and still do, though people will probably laugh at me for that one. Add to these a few console RPGS, which I probably play more than anything else, thanks to the ease of emulators (don’t tell, even though I own the cartridges): Dragon Warrior I-III; Final Fantasy (the original); Lufia I and II; and Chrono Trigger. Also the Genesis “Shining” games and Phantasy Star. Whew. I guess I just really like old games.
I would agree that the simpler the game, the more likely that it would be considered playable today. Just look at the popularity of classic arcade games from the 70’s and 80’s - pacman, frogger, defender etc., they are still very playable in an emulator like Mame today. Plus we have modern remakes of these games.
Although these old classics are simple, they are quite different from games we play today which adds to the enjoyment of playing them. Games like Joust, Qix and others have very interesting, yet simple, play mechanics.
The older RPGs are complicated, often more complicated than their modern equivalents due to complex commands. But underlying this interface complexity the games were often quite simple and repetitive.
What I would like to play today is an RPG with the same game mechanics as Wizardry, but with modern graphics and interface. And also added variety - more monsters and more puzzles.
malcolmm–You need to have a nintendo DS, but here’s a game along the lines of what you’re looking for:
http://www.atlus.com/darkspire/
The biggest problem with replaying the classics, like U4, is that they are difficult to control by today’s standards. Assuming you can get them to run, and to run at the right speed, the control issues are my main concern. It’s all about accessibility.
Those of us that consider U4 and titles of that era to be classic are somewhat older gamers (usually mid to late 30’s or so now). We played these games in middle and high school. We had PATIENCE and TIME. For the first several years as a computer user, I loaded games from cassette tape; 20 minutes to play, no saves, and a reset or crash meant 20 more minutes. But, I had all the time in the world and it taught me patience. For these two reasons, I had no problem with what would today be considered horrible control schemes. Besides the “alphabet soup” control in U4, remember moving your characters IN ORDER through tight dungeon areas? This was the hardest part of getting through the Abyss…. Then there was trading gold and items between characters in U3 (or constantly having to indicate which character was going to do something). I’ve mentioned that even visually identifying items could be tricky in the DOS days; like in ASCII roguelikes, it was like interpreting ancient glyphs.
Whether young or old, now that we have games with slick mouse control, context menus, quick-select bars, etc., it’s hard to go back to the old, clunky ways. That’s why it’s so great when old games are even mildly updated. For Ultimas, just new tiles and mouse support is enough. Two years ago I replayed U3 via an Amiga emulator and was hooked for days. U4 with nothing but those changes would be great!
I agree with Cherub. Coming from the Atari 2600 era it isn’t the graphics that kill me, it’s all the user interface improvements I’ve gotten used to. I just finished playing the PC version of Starflight and I didn’t mind the crude graphics at all but the evil of nested menus that had to be scrolled with keys (and which did not wrap) almost drove me insane. And this is a game I LOVE!
Thanks Aelfric. Actually, I do have that game.
I haven’t started it yet, trying to finish up my current batch of games.