Games that haven't aged well

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Sometimes it's nice to go back and play a game that you enjoyed a long time ago. And on some occasions, you might be surprised that that game isn't exactly how you remembered it. So just post what games you have found that time hasn't been very kind to. I'll start out with 2.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)- When this game was released on the GBA early on, it was probably one of the best portable games you could own. Now, there are 4 [recent] portable Castlevania games, with another on the way. It's not that CotM got any worse, it's just that Aria and Dawn of Sorrow are much more advanced, gameplay-wise.

Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)- Some games are best left in there original form. I have no problem looking at CBFD on the N64 and thinking 'Yeah, it was good for its' time,' but when Rare remade it for the Xbox, it was really apparent how much this game aged. The one-time jokes are outdated, as the movies they parodied have become old. The voiceovers aren't exactly pleasant on the ears, either. And don't get me started on the now-muddy controls.

So, what are some other games that haven't aged as well as you'd like?
 
A ton of early 3D games haven't aged well graphically, then again some have.

FF7 for instance has aged horribly as far as looks go.
 
The Multiplayer in Perfect Dark. I remember how much fun I used to have with friends using bots so I decided to bring it up to college.

The game got so slow and clunky, we stopped playing after 10 minutes.
 
These are all graphically, to the point where they just hurt my fucking eyes.

Perfect Dark
Silent Hill
Rival Schools
Any of the earlier Tekken's
Hell, any early 3-D fighter PERIOD
Any early 3-D FPS
 
I totally agree about Conker. When I first played it for N64 I absolutely loved it, it was right up there with my favorite games of all time, it even held up through multiple replays. When I played it recently for Xbox though, it just didn't seem nearly as good. The game looked great but like you said the jokes didn't age well. It still wasn't a horrible game but it was definately not as great as I remembered it.
 
Mortal Kombat games.

I tried to play these recently on compilation discs and they just sucked ass. Many older games have shit graphics and framerates when compared to newer games, but MK games still look okay, and the framerate is fine, they just play like shit. The rare case of the gameplay becoming outdated and ruining the game imo...
 
[quote name='ShimSham']FF7 for instance has aged horribly as far as looks go.[/quote]

Maybe I'm crazy and in the minority but even at the time I thought it looked bad other than the CG. Oddly enough, even the CG looks dated nowadays.
 
Goldeneye. I didn't even like it back when it was popular since I had played Half-Life on the PC, but NOW it's even worse.

Responding to above, MK2 is still kind of fun. 1 and 3 are pretty stinky though.
 
For me it's really hard to go back and play a FPS on the N64 after playing them on systems with two analog controllers.
 
Mortal Kombat definitely hasn't aged well... you have to wonder exactly how the hell people enjoyed it at one point. Apart from that though...

Doom
Duke Nukem 3D
Diablo
Goldeneye
Tech Romancer
Tenchu
(Insert any early 3D fighter here like Battle Arena Toshinden)


Essentially, the games that have aged the worst were those that tried to do a bunch of flashy things graphically but didn't have sufficient gameplay to back it up. The earlier PS1 games often had shitty gameplay, but they were kinda cool at the time because they were 3D. There's no way somebody could enjoy the majority of those early games now.
 
How about pretty much everything for the N64? As much as I loved the N64 controller at the time, going back now it's a pain to use and seems pretty crappy compared to the current controllers.
 
i tried playing goldeneye the other day and although its ok now the game hasn't adged well imo... the controls and hit detection are fucking terrible.
 
I agree completely with the "early polygonal games looking like ass" school of thought. I tried playing Perfect Dark N64 after finally getting an N64 RAM expansion cart. I just couldn't do it; I partly blame having been playing a lot of Halo 2 at the time.

How about a game like Ridge Racer or other arcade-to-console ports? These types of games are devoid of any features or modes, making them shallow experiences.
 
Let's try and get off the obvious graphical aging. Of course games of ten years ago won't look nearly as good as they did because of the change in technology. But what about games that just didn't play as well as you once thought they did? Conker and Ridge Racer were good examples of this - games that simply did not stand the test of time.

I say Black and White. This was a game that was hyped to the heavens, and even when it was released many reviewers just fell in love with it. But ask any of those reviewers now, and they'll tell you the game just wasn't very good. How they got beer goggles for that game, I don't know, but no one is in love with it now.

Another example is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. When it came out, all the reviewers said it was the return of the franchise, and one of the best games of the year. Not even a year later, they called the game lacking because of repetitive combat, among other things.

I don't know if these were examples of payola, but they do demonstrate that games can fall out of favor with the media rather quickly.

Jeremy
 
Metal Gear Solid. I remember that game looking so awesome. The funny thing is that Twin Snakes looks like I "remember" the PS1 version looking.
 
Whoever said Paperboy... AMEN. That game was insanely hard when I played it for the first time, and it's even harder now.

I thought that DOOM was not blasphemy at all, since the game sucks in comparison to the way you are now used to FPS games. Unless you stopped with DOOM. Then it will be always on top.

What _WAS_ blasphemy is the SNES StarFox comment. Like what you want, and dislike what you may, but StarFox plays beautifully to this day.


Games I thought did not mature well are Beneath a Steel Sky, Gabriel Knight, and every single thing done by Roberta Williams.
 
[quote name='MarioColbert']
Games I thought did not mature well are Beneath a Steel Sky, Gabriel Knight, and every single thing done by Roberta Williams.[/QUOTE]
Sad, but true. I have the Anthology to prove it.
 
I usually find that older games are more fun to pick up and play... I wouldn't consider many games to not have aged well.

But N64 FPS titles never seem as good as they originally were, games like PD, Goldeneye, and Turok were great back in the day but not much today. They're still hella fun in multiplayer though.
 
[quote name='MarioColbert']
StarFox plays beautifully to this day.
[/quote]

At 4-5 frames per second.

I don't see how you can say Doom didn't age well while StarFox did. They were both major technical achievements that are now so surpassed that the originals are hard to play.

An FPS that has no up-down controls? A 3-D shooter that only has a few hundred polygons rendered at less than 10 FPS?
 
PC games seem to age really poorly for some reason. But the advantage that they have over console games is that when you install a really old PC game on a more recent machine, the game runs extremely smooth. It's nice to replay a game that your older computer struggled to run on a PC that wasn't even in development when the game was created. Anywho, here is my list


Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans
Thief: The Dark Project
Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Dungeon Keeper (anyone remember that?)
The older King of Fighters games
 
Honestly, most games don't age that well. There are probably less than 30 games from every past system that I would consider playable today even though they were groundbreaking back in the day.
 
doom aged very well if you are playing it multiplayer. It is fun to play during a break from CS:C

For me
Die Hard Arcade (saturn)
 
[quote name='javeryh']Honestly, most games don't age that well. There are probably less than 30 games from every past system that I would consider playable today even though they were groundbreaking back in the day.[/QUOTE]

Though 2-D games tend to age much better. Those really relied on their pure play mechanics.

See: Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, and Castlevania.

Sonic may be a counterexample.
 
[quote name='Mindzeye82']PC games seem to age really poorly for some reason. But the advantage that they have over console games is that when you install a really old PC game on a more recent machine, the game runs extremely smooth. It's nice to replay a game that your older computer struggled to run on a PC that wasn't even in development when the game was created. Anywho, here is my list


Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans
Thief: The Dark Project
Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Dungeon Keeper (anyone remember that?)
The older King of Fighters games[/QUOTE]

As for the older KoF games, I still think that '98 was the best one. It seemed to be the most balanced and fun to me.
 
Perfect Dark was and is the greatest game ever made. I say that with very few doubts. The fact that the slowdown occurs frequently doesn't detract from the perfection of the gameplay and layout of the game elements. This may be because I have played it consistantly since its release, and I just learned to ignore or not even notice the slowdown, as I can judge my movements and aiming absolutely perfectly whether I can see the motion or not. A masterpiece. An eternal, unbelievable masterpiece.
 
All the Playstation Tomb Raider games.

God, the controls are horrid. I did get almost all of them from EB (during the good ol days) just to have them.

2D games that were considered good are generally still good because the controls and gameplay mechanics for 2D games are pretty much the same even today. 3D has seen so much in the way of improving controls (analog) and control schemes that most earlier games are just better in memory. Even when I went back and finished FFVII last year I was wishing for analog control.
 
[quote name='Chacrana']Doom
Duke Nukem 3D
Diablo
Goldeneye
Tech Romancer
Tenchu[/quote]Absolute blasphemy.

Doom - Doom sourceports FTW

Duke Nukem 3D - I haven't played it in years, but from what I know there is a sourceport. And I can't imagine the game being anymore senseless than it was back in the day.

Diablo - Again, it's been years, but I really enjoyed it. This one I'll give you just because it's been so long and I can't remember it too well.

Goldeneye - Low framerate and blury graphics almost ruin it for me. Almost. I'll half-way give this one to you.

Tech Romancer - We are talking about that Capcom fighting game for the Dreamcast, right? I just played it for the first time a couple months ago and thought it was really fun.

Tenchu - How dare you. Tenchu looks great, and it plays the best of all the Tenchu games.

As with the graphics hurting gameplay thread, I'll get a couple shots from Doom and Tenchu since they're the only ones I own AND can gets shots myself.

I'll post them sometime tonight.

[quote name='jrutz']Another example is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. When it came out, all the reviewers said it was the return of the franchise, and one of the best games of the year. Not even a year later, they called the game lacking because of repetitive combat, among other things.[/quote]I bought this one some time last year and loved it. I agree that the combat sucked, but everything else was perfect. The puzzles, the graphics, the music, the tightness of the gameplay. Amazing game. But I will say that the combat was the worst part of the game for me.
[quote name='SpreadTheWord']I don't see how you can say Doom didn't age well while StarFox did.[/quote]Yeah, that seems odd to me. Of the two, I'd say StarFox aged much worse ONLY because of the framerate, not graphics or gameplay, though the low framerate does heavily affect StarFox's gameplay for me. Doom still runs smooth and perfect, just like it did back in '94. Actually, my PC sucked and it didn't run smooth back then, but you get the picture.

[quote name='62t']doom aged very well if you are playing it multiplayer.[/quote]YES! Skulltag and ZDaemon are flipping awesome!

[quote name='GuilewasNK']All the Playstation Tomb Raider games.

God, the controls are horrid.[/quote]I always thought that. I never got anywhere in any of the games (I still own 1 and 3 and haven't touched them in years) because of the controls. The you had to walk slowly to a corner and jump back, run forward, HOLD the jump button until you jump five minutes later, then hold the grab button and yadda yadda... it was all too complicated and cumbersome.

That's why the new Tomb Raider is so good.

[quote name='GuilewasNK']Even when I went back and finished FFVII last year I was wishing for analog control.[/quote]FFVII would not benefit much from analog controls. I'd say it would hurt the game if anything.
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']
FFVII would not benefit much from analog controls. I'd say it would hurt the game if anything.[/quote]

I was just so used to it in other games that I found myself reaching for the analog stick by habit.

Funny you mention Doom. I was playing Ultimate Doom on my Doom 3: LE for Xbox and I think I enjoyed that more than Doom 3 for some reason.
 
Doom 3 isn't as good as the originals. Plain and simple.

EDIT: Doom and Tenchu pictures.







All of those pictures were taken in Doomsday with a bunch of different things like hi-res textures and whatnot. Keep in mind I downloaded the textures and Doomsday many months ago so there are probably newer and better versions of all of this.







These were taken in ePSXe.
 
[quote name='jrutz']Another example is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. When it came out, all the reviewers said it was the return of the franchise, and one of the best games of the year. Not even a year later, they called the game lacking because of repetitive combat, among other things.

I don't know if these were examples of payola, but they do demonstrate that games can fall out of favor with the media rather quickly.

Jeremy[/quote]
Link to the media being down on SoT a year later? From what I remember of the reviews the game got, the repetitive combat was one of the only downsides that was constantly mentioned about the game, so I'm not sure why the game would be looked down upon a year later because of something they all saw and wrote on when they reviewed.
 
I remember Driver and Driver 2 for the Playstation being amazing when it came out, realistic graphics, believable AI (Well.... sort of.) Now try going back and playing it, blegh.

I added screenshots for the hell of it:


driverscreen0289wq.jpg



driver21113screen0060hj.jpg
 
Everyone who says Conker hasn't aged well based on playing the XBOX remake should try playing the original. I still love the original but the remake sucked.

EDIT: Also I'd like to comment that Perfect Dark is still the best FPS. The guy who said Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is out of his mind, the combat always sucked but the rest of the game is so fantastic (and still unsurpassed by anything in the genre) that the game is still fantastic.
 
So basically any game that came out more than 2 years ago "hasn't aged well" because the graphics aren't up to snuff?

Wow....how profound.
 
[quote name='HeadRusch']So basically any game that came out more than 2 years ago "hasn't aged well" because the graphics aren't up to snuff?

Wow....how profound.[/quote]

Who said that?
 
[quote name='yukine']Who said that?[/quote]
Most of the people in the thread, though the 2 years thing was never stated. A better way to put it is anything not current gen.

As for Driver and Driver 2, pretty cool games there. I have the PC version of Driver and used to have the PS1 versions of Driver and Driver 2. Compared to the first one, Driver 2 will always be crap though.

I don't feel like installing it to take screenshots, but Driver still looks pretty good on the PC. The PS1 versions probably look good through ePSXe. I haven't seen a PS1 game that doesn't.
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']Most of the people in the thread, though the 2 years thing was never stated. A better way to put it is anything not current gen.

As for Driver and Driver 2, pretty cool games there. I have the PC version of Driver and used to have the PS1 versions of Driver and Driver 2. Compared to the first one, Driver 2 will always be crap though.

I don't feel like installing it to take screenshots, but Driver still looks pretty good on the PC. The PS1 versions probably look good through ePSXe. I haven't seen a PS1 game that doesn't.[/quote]
I guess, but that is a bit of a stretch. He (or she?) makes it seem like everyone in the thread is judging the games of previous generations, entirely on graphics, which isn't the case. It seems to me, that the majority of our complaints are more towards gameplay mechanics rather than graphics.

Driver is still an awesome game, don't get me wrong. But the game I remember was much better than what it is today.

And what the hell happened with DRIV3R? X__X
 
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