I know it's difficult to ignore the nostalgia factor, but

which is superior?

The days of Quake 2, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Final Fantasy 7/8, Jedi Knight (Dark Forces 2), Descent 2/3, StarCraft (or any -Craft), Tomb Raider, Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament etc. etc. etc.

Or today's slick world of Far Cry, Mass Effect, Doom 3, WoW, BioShock, etc. etc. etc.

Suppose you MUST choose. No "it depends."

10/24/2008 9:17:03 AM

i want to know if kids today get the "wow" factor i got the first time i played games like Myst or Half-Life or The Dig

btw, i need to bump that music in video games for The Dig, brb

10/24/2008 9:25:21 AM

Cyberia

Return to Zork

10/24/2008 9:30:27 AM

want some rye? course ya do!

here, have another!

10/24/2008 10:31:53 AM

Overall, I'd say most genres are better today than they ever were before. Games always look better though nostalgia glasses, but when you actually go back and play them, most of them look and play like absolute dogshit.

One major exception: CRPGS. Baldurs Gate 2 > All and there will never be another one like it.

10/24/2008 10:44:30 AM

I still say some of the old games like X-COM, Fallout (which I am playing now), Quake, Thief, etc. were fucking amazing. I think a lot of it was just my age at the time. If I grew up on games like Bioshock, and the new games, I would think they were great and the old ones just ugly crap like most kids do today.

I appreciate the beauty of the new games, but also appreciate the at times superior story and originality of the games in the 90s.

10/24/2008 10:46:12 AM

I think we were around for the time where all of these games and ideas were new and fresh

Now, any game that is released is just an improved version of a game we played 5-8 years ago

10/24/2008 10:53:11 AM

^ truth.

10/24/2008 11:47:57 AM

Quake was better than Quake II

You also left our warcraft (not WoW for all you ubernerds), the original GTA, and Duke Nukem

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 1:33 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2008 1:31:54 PM

I think

Quote :

"(or any -Craft)"

covered warcraft

zug zug

10/24/2008 1:35:54 PM

The difference, in my opinion, is that back in the 90's gaming was just starting to become mainstream so big companies would put money into some games that had new/different ideas to see if they would work. This resulted in some games that were amazing and some that were crap. Now that gaming is mainstream, the large companies only put money into proven genres (FPS, RTS, Sports). So you never see turned based strategy games, adventure games, etc released by the big names. There are still some great, unique games released, but they are released by smaller game companies, niche companies I guess. (Such as Paradox, and Matrix).

10/24/2008 2:27:48 PM

da-bu

10/24/2008 2:29:53 PM

^^ I would suggest too that the cost of producing games has grown dramatically over the last decade as well. As games grow more complex, as the art grows more sophisticated, you need more and more people, resources, and time to bring these games to life.

I'm going to say the late 1990s simply for nostalgia, but there are still plenty of great games coming out today. I suppose it feels that games are less innovative today because genres have been more clearly defined versus the 1990s when developers were still figuring things out. I guess you could say that you also have a lot more tradition and history now than you did in the 1990s, so developers' initial impulses are filtered through the genres and games they already know.

10/24/2008 3:09:03 PM

Today it's about trying to make things bigger greater and "better" than yesterday...

I miss some of the old simple turn based games... imo, Civilization I > Civilization II >Civilization III >Civilization IV

10/24/2008 3:39:07 PM

civ II>III>IV>I

10/24/2008 4:04:40 PM

^My order would probably be Civ 2 > Civ 4 > Civ 3 > Civ 1

I pretty much loved 2-4, and 1 was good, I just really thought Civ series became hot shit when it hit Civ 2.

10/24/2008 4:07:01 PM

Quote :

"The days of Quake 2, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Final Fantasy 7/8, Jedi Knight (Dark Forces 2), Descent 2/3, StarCraft (or any -Craft), Tomb Raider, Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament etc. etc. etc."

how could you leave out the epic games like Civ and Colonization!

10/24/2008 4:49:40 PM

i wanna play sam & max

10/24/2008 4:50:54 PM

Quote :

"So you never see turned based strategy games, adventure games, etc released by the big names."

umm firaxis is a pretty big company. You basically have EA and then everyone else in terms of size...but doesn't mean that they aren't big names.

10/24/2008 4:52:15 PM

There are plenty of things I liked from the late 90s that I think suck today, and things from the late 90s that sucked then that now are massively improved. I think it all depends on the genre examined.

For FPS games, in terms of single player, I would definitely pick today. Sure, the 90's still has jems like Jedi Knight and Half Life, but now these games are longer and much more immersive than they were before IMHO. Half Life 2 is one of the best games ever made in my eyes, and other games such as the Halo series and BioShock have such astounding fun factors and longevity that was unheard of years ago. However, in terms of multiplayer, I would DEFINITELY go back to the late 90s when multiplayer FPS games were crammed to the brim with content, and there were tons of mods and nuances to the game to keep you playing for years. It is a stark difference when compared to the dumbed down games of today where it seems everything you do fits in some cookie cutter niche, when 10 years ago the games had such incredible depth. The one exception to this I can think of is COD4 what with it's attention to detail, but even then the game pales in comparison to the Quake of old and the original Team Fortress Classic.

RPGs I would definitely pick the late 90's, if only because I was never a fan of today's popular MMORPG's and I've never been a fan of western RPGs. The decade of Final Fantasy 6, 7, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Secret of Mana has always been in my eyes the golden age of the RPG.

10/24/2008 4:53:55 PM

Quote :

"I think it all depends on the genre examined."

+

Quote :

"Suppose you MUST choose. No "it depends.""

=

FAIL

10/24/2008 4:55:58 PM

Quote :

"My order would probably be Civ 2 > Civ 4 > Civ 3 > Civ 1"

In my own defense, I've never played civ 2 or civ 4 Sometimes I like games without complexities (ie: a catapult can only bombard in civ 3, where a catapult in civ 1 was just a regular attack unit.) So yeah... ...

All in all, I'd rather play the 90's games anytime.

10/24/2008 5:17:50 PM

late 90s/early 00's were the shit imo

10/24/2008 7:48:32 PM

my fav late 90's was always counterstrike pre 1.5 and diablo2 . . .

10/24/2008 8:59:08 PM

Quote :

"Descent 2/3"

Wow I thought I was the only one.....I loved those games.

Most of the time people were like what?

10/25/2008 2:19:26 AM

Quote :

"I think we were around for the time where all of these games and ideas were new and fresh Now, any game that is released is just an improved version of a game we played 5-8 years ago"

10/25/2008 3:58:55 AM

Quote :

"Overall, I'd say most genres are better today than they ever were before. Games always look better though nostalgia glasses, but when you actually go back and play them, most of them look and play like absolute dogshit. One major exception: CRPGS. Baldurs Gate 2 > All and there will never be another one like it."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

But there is something else I miss about a lot of 90s games: Difficulty and challenging gameplay came pretty standard. Back then it wasn't uncommon to come across a game that was, simply put, too hard to beat with your current level of skillz. Partly this was due to mechanics in Save features (something that has vastly improved gaming, despite the downsides), and in "choose your difficulty" menus which have become all but universal in today's games. But at the same time, it ignores much of the appeal of certain games that were fun because of the extreme challenge they presented... battletoads, ninja turtles, a ton of others that I'm too tired to name right now. It shouldn't be so bad given the varying difficulty levels in today's games, but often times even the "legendary" and "impossible" modes of modern games can hardly stand up to the difficulty of some of the classics.

10/25/2008 5:45:57 AM

What you want?


I think it's expected that anyone who grew up within that period and played those games is generally going to have a soft spot for them.

I grew up playing Wolfenstein 3d and Duke Nukem 3D, and compared to Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock, those games were shit. I actually hated the FPS genre until around when Far Cry and UT2k4 came out, because the games were so poorly done they made me get vertigo.


In contrast, I can name quite a few other games from other genres in that period that I absolutely loved - the Ultima series, Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret, WarCraft and War2, and C&C .

Those games redone would not be so great to me, mainly because they wouldn't capture the essence of why I was so interested in them when they came out.

For me, the analogy is simple - I enjoyed the hell out of Nintendo games when I was a kid. Now I can run any NES emu and play any game I want from that period, but it never lasts more than 5 minutes. Why? Because I'm older, I've outgrown the expectations I had when I was younger, and I'm not as easily entertained. It's the same for probably everyone.

10/25/2008 10:06:00 AM

I know it was because I was young, but these will always be up at the top of a long list of games.

10/25/2008 10:20:07 AM

I do miss the feeling I got playing Wing Commander II, Ultima 7, and Fallout for the first times.

10/25/2008 10:31:55 AM

I'll wax nostalgic since I simply haven't had the time to play much of the modern lineup...

Ahhhh GTA1, RTZ, Doom 1 & 2, Full Throttle, and Sim City 2000

10/25/2008 11:27:13 AM

Squishing people in GTA1 is probably more satisfying than squishing them in GTA3.

10/25/2008 11:42:13 AM

I had more fun in Doom 2 and Unreal 1 than i would in any current FPS game.

I dont think any RTS game can capture the fun that Star/War-craft, AoE, and CnC had.

I think that games these days are more focused on looking good rather than fun factor.

10/25/2008 11:51:34 AM

10/25/2008 12:04:04 PM

Quote :

"Squishing people in GTA1 is probably more satisfying than squishing them in GTA3."

neither tops carmageddon or carmageddon 2.

10/25/2008 12:06:41 PM

C&C has definitely gone downhil

10/25/2008 12:43:10 PM

who can forget the first time they played Red Alert and did the first Tanya mission to hear her say some shit like "I GOT A PRESENT FOR YA!"

10/25/2008 1:51:59 PM

^^I completely agree. The original was the ultimate heat. RA probably was the only one that I thought matched the awesomeness of the original.

^Tanya still wasn't as good as the Commando in C&C when you first see him in Tiberian Dawn.

BTW funny ya'll are discussing C&C. This morning I was walking around the house saying "I'm Mechanial Man" for no reason. Just got the song stuck in my head.

10/26/2008 2:49:34 PM

I still have nightmares where guys in white uniforms jump out and yell "SPIEN!".

10/26/2008 4:44:54 PM

Trade Wars, L.O.R.D, Userper, Pimp Wars, Jump Joe 2, Space Quest. FTW!


You can have your hi-tech graphics..

10/26/2008 9:11:45 PM

L.O.R.D.

How disappointed was I when I realized once you killed the dragon you went back to level 1?

10/26/2008 9:12:36 PM

Crystal Caves

http://www.3drealms.com/caves/

10/26/2008 10:07:52 PM