Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated? Games that, in theory, you would enjoy, but don’t because the controls, graphics, writing, or mechanics just don’t feel good anymore. Games that, compared to today, just don’t hold up to your standards.
I recently tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, and I realized that a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players. Not only that, but I imagine there was a lot of crossover between video games and board games back then, so maybe that language was used as well. I ended up downloading a manual and putting it on my second screen and I get it and played it, but it just wasn’t for me.
I also dropped Mirror’s Edge, but this time it was because of the graphics. It looks and feels great, but the graphics give me a headache. There is way too much bloom, and for some reason, there are some parts that look like the imaginary lens has been covered in Vaseline. This didn’t bother me before, but my eyes are not used to it anymore.
There are also games like the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games. The levels and controls feel great, but they don’t feel complete without those mechanics. It keeps me from enjoying the games as much as the others.
Please share yours!
When Witcher 3 was winning all those awards, I wanted to give the original game a go.
Don’t. I imagine it’s nothing like Witcher 3. It aged terribly poorly.
I remember playing the first game and getting stuck on the tutorial because I was mashing the left click button trying to swing my sword only to have Geralt hip thrust at the enemies.
But once you figure out how to swing the sword, the game’s actually pretty fun. One thing I particularly liked is that there’s an investigative storyline where you actually have to go and investigate and figure out the answer with the clues provided, and you can fail. I went into it thinking it would be like most modern games where you only get obviously correct or incorrect dialog options and angered everyone in the process.
It did have some positive traits, but the gameplay just didn’t do it for me at all.
I did make it through the whole game, so I feel like I can hold that opinion, haha
People didn’t like its mechanics even back when it launched. Personally, it’s still somehow my favorite even tho objectively it’s less fun to play and less polished than the other two. Something about its story and the atmosphere makes it more unique and genuine.
It does have a great story!
I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.
That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.
My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.
Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.
Gta 5. Story progression is just awful. You play a mission, it ends and you’re forced to do open world activities instead of continuing the story. Then just when you’re getting into the groove in the open world you get a call to do a story mission and it turns out to be shooting imaginary aliens. The missions are too linear and short. Gunplay is weak. Also the characters feel like they were written for 10 year olds who think swear words are funny.
I’m hoping rdr2 is better
I’m a big Guild Wars 2 fan, though I don’t play that much anymore. Often in the game, Guild Wars 1 references, and stories told by players of how great it was, made me want to try it.
It still fully works, and can be played. But for me, it was a no-go. I could live with the graphics, and the environments were fine. Good music and sounds.
The interface killed it for me. Dozens of windows, shortcuts, clunky ways of doing things, the inventory. I couldn’t take it anymore after a few hours.
It’s not about disliking old interfaces. I basically live on the Linux-shell, and I still play xcom: ufo-defense. But the gw1 one is all over the place, like it hasn’t been planned but just happened by random people dropping into the studio and adding some stuff for the fun of it.
Come to think about it, it isn’t even about old games. I couldn’t play Xenonauts for the same reason. I suppose I just don’t enjoy clunky interfaces…
It bothers me how fucking monumental of an achievement Xenogears could have been, how incredible it still is, and how unbearably painful it is to try and play today.
It’s still one of the most wild sci-fi stories I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, [and I read a LOT], but even at the time it was a really clunky combat system and the controls can be absolutely maddening.
Probably going to get some hate for these.
FFVII. The pc port was ass, controls were a pain on keyboard and there wasn’t great controller support. The graphics were really tough to ignore, and the combat felt like fighting the control scheme more than anything. I’ve played and liked many other titles in the series, but I couldn’t manage this one by the time I got to it. The experience was also so bad I have no interest in the remake/remaster.
Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated. Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game. Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items. Movement speed was tied to a skill, jumping is significantly faster, but also a skill. The leveling process is arcane and not adequately explained in game. The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing. Item storage was a pain because crates had weight limits, and merchants had pitiful amounts of gold to sell items.
I get that. FF VII is probably my favourite game. But, I grew up with it. I think that plays a huge roll. If I discovered it for the first time now, I’d probably feel the same way you do.
Don’t skip the remake, though. I hate that there’s differences from the original, but I view it as a retelling from a different perspective regarding the story. The gameplay kicks ass. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the style of game.
Have you tried Tifa’s Bootleg? There are mods that can drastically improve the graphics
Modded FF7 on PC ruined PS1 FF7 for me. Wonderful stuff. 7th Heaven is such a joy.
Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated.
I played through it for the first time a few years ago, using the open-source OpenMW engine. It definitely isn’t graphically-competitive with modern games, but I was still able to enjoy it.
Here’s a current image:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUYr7JhNXg
Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game.
I feel like a lot of people enjoyed the game because they could break it in the late game.
Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items.
Yeah, though I don’t think that any Elder Scrolls or Fallout game has really had a truly balanced skill tree, though.
The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing.
Yeah, I have to say that automated quest tracking and note-taking is definitely something that I like about modern RPGs. Sometimes it starts to feel too much like “go to waypoint, do thing, repeat”, but I remember manually mapping dungeons with teleporters on graph paper in the D&D Gold Box games, and it was just arduous.
Thief.
But I HAVE to try again! I want to write my bachelors about game design of stealth games and not analyzing Thief would be a crime against humanity
I let civvie11 play it and I lived thru him vicariously
I tried playing the original Deus Ex for the first time a couple of years ago and I sadly had to put it down before I escaped the tutorial. Early 3D graphics have not aged well, the controls were not very intuitive, and it just seemed like it wasn’t worth the effort. I then played and enjoyed Human Revolution though; I know, I’m an absolute peasant.
One thing that’s really interesting is once you get to the headquarters after the first level, the floors and things are super shiny and have actual reflections. Most modern games use screen space reflections now (although raytracing is fixing this), so things not on screen can’t be reflected. Deus Ex, and many games of the time, have better reflections than modern games. The graphics do look dated generally, but it’s funny how technology advancement can cause some things to be worse
Give it a try again with GMDX. It’s a mod that modernizes Deus Ex mechanically and visually without losing the original vision like what “New Vision / Revision,” does
Ooh interesting, how easy is it to set up mods for DX? Reckon it’ll work on a Steam Deck?
I didn’t do it on the Deck but on Linux, so steps should be something like:
- Switch to desktop mode
- Download GMDX and place it in the game folder
- Install “ProtonUp-QT” from Discover store
- In ProtonUp-QT install “SteamTinkerLaunch”
- Switch back to game mode
- Make sure to launch Deus Ex unmodded once before continuing
- Set the compatibility tool for Deus Ex to “SteamTinkerLaunch”
- Start Deus Ex
- Click “Main menu” in steamtinkerlaunch
- Click “One time run” in steamtinkerlaunch
- Choose the GMDX exe file in “One time command” and hit “Run command”
- Install normally
- After installation go back to the main menu and select “Game menu” in steamtinkerlaunch
- In “Custom command” select “Play_GMDX.lnk” in the “GMDXv9” folder
- Hit “Save and Play” and it should launch modded
Baldur’s Gate 3 was good, but I can’t play 1 or 2. They definitely don’t feel the same.
For newer games, I can actually play the older Zelda games, but I can’t stand the latest games. Not a big fan of the gameplay with weapons breaking and how much they pushed the open world thing. I very much prefer smaller maps with more story.
Knights of the old republic 1 and 2. First my old PC couldn’t run it and my new one it just feels too jank and ugly. I love star wars games and am sad if the remake stays dead.
Personally I love that era of graphics tbh. I bought Valheim on the Steam sale just for the jank graphics lol
KOTOR is jank, but I would say it’s entirely due to the controls. It acts like point-and-click even on controllers, where you have to use the D-pad to select the element and interact with it using the face buttons.
Also, the semi-pseudo-turn-based combat system doesn’t really totally hold up, I wish there was a way of smoothing it out.
There are higher resolution texture projects for both KOTOR 1 and 2, I think KOTOR 2 has it available natively with the Steam Workshop.
Funnily enough I’ve played KoTOR so much that I can still go back and play those, and aside from the camera control it’s totally comfy for me.
Personally, the earlier Witcher games. Great story, but it’s trapped in an old RPG missing all kinds of modern features and mechanics.
When the first Witcher came out, Yahtzee’s review was spot on. It’s a good game, it’s got a lot of depth, but a lot of the mechanics are arcane and just not fun.
Witcher 2 made big strides in this department, finally culminating in Witcher 3 - I am in a similar boat in terms of having serious issues trying to play the first two Witcher games.
I don’t really understand what it is about HMMIII you don’t get. It is a relatively simple game concept, and the fundamentals has remained largely unchanged from iteration to iteration. I personally prefer III over most of the later ones exactly because of its simplicity (and none of those ugly 3D graphics).
For me what mostly antiquates a game is if it was primarily based on graphics which have been outdated, otherwise I don’t really have a problem even with much older games. But then again I also grew up playing games in the 80s, so I have been used to those my entire life. Some of the games which fascinated me on account of the complexity, like the early Ultima games (at least I and II), doesn’t exactly stand revisits, because they were very barebones compared to the later games in the franchise. Ultima V still holds up beautifully, simply because it is so complex behind those primitive graphics.
I got the PS1 anniversary edition which had Metal Gear Solid on it, and I don’t get how that game was ever as popular as it was. The handling is super janky, and the graphics is so dark that you basically cannot discern the environment and the enemy unless you stay still and watch for moving pixels.
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Anything with consoles as the primary focus. You know the games, the ones where the controls suck if you don’t use a controller…like witcher, and all those dark souls copy/paste clones. Cameras are too jank
For me it was Ocarina of Time. Ugly, and very clumsy. And I play tons of retro games. Early 3D stuff can be rough.
There are specific things about OoT that irritate me, but I can generally still get some enjoyment.
Life
Not to be confused with John Conway’s the game of life. That one is fine, a classic.
I dunno man, Conway’s Game of Life has a quite boring endgame, I must say.
Yes, but absolutely no grind.
