It seems, GOG reviews are sometimes (rightfully) mocked for being very generous in praising old games which not necessarily hold up today (take a shot every time something is called a hidden gem). However, many, like me, also came here to play games which they only saw in a magazine or had a demo of back then. In this thread you get to name up to 3 games which you believe truly hold up and up to 3 games which you feel are overrated in retrospect (I know, there are sure more games that come to mind, but this keeps it focused), while giving a brief description why you think so:

Good old games today:

1. Thief/Thief 2
I only played a demo back when this was new and only got to experience these games on GOG now recently (playing Thief 2 right now for the first time). I was very much blown away by how interesting the gameplay is (absolutely should be played on expert). This is the game that basically got me to (re)appreciate game design as manifestation of creative choices rather than technical necessities.

2. System Shock/System Shock 2
I could absolutely see how someone has trouble dealing with the clunkiness of System Shock 1, but much like Thief this game to me convey such an exciting sense of exploration. I was just completely sucked in by the idea of exploring the mysteries of the space station in both games.

3. Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines
I was only faintly aware of this game back in the days and only had played a demo of its predecessor. However, when playing it here for the first time it made for one of the most exciting RPG's I played so far with the quests feeling fresh and engaging all the way. Guess the only inconvenience was that they apparently ran out of money at some point and just tossed a bunch of grant fights in towards the end.

Games I was less impressed with:

1. Omikron
I bought and finished the game, and wouldn't even say that I regret this, but every step of it felled like someone had a grand ambition he couldn't live up to. There are so many elements tossed in the mix that are interesting but non feels finished. Instead, every bit of it feels half baked. I can ultimately appreciate the game for this, a bit like seeing the design of a machine or a city that was never build, but I wouldn't go around telling people this is a hidden gem just for that.

2. Outcast
I remember seeing this game in gaming magazines when the 900 MHZ rig this would have needed seemed like buying a super computer for playing this game. I might give this another try at some point, or at least the remake, but so far I absolutely couldn't get into it. Most of all, I dislike the narration. I somehow always think about an XKCD comic where he shows a graph that is about how the more made up words there are in a piece of fiction, the worse it is...

3. Planescape Torment
Ok, this is probably a controversial pick and it is not entirely fair. I actually do like this title in some way. I love the design and the characters and I do actually believe that this style of graphics ages just fine. Yet, throughout most of the game I kept wondering why I wasn't just reading a book instead.

The writing is obviously really good and so is the story, but I never quite enjoyed this as a game. While you can do a lot and join different fractions, it never gave me a sense of freedom like Arcanum or Fallout. Similar, the text choices to me rarely felt like deciding on a direction but instead like trying to solve them "right" (more like a JRPG where there is a best outcome and then degrees of failure).

100% agree with those pics! It's a bit of a shame that the Dark engine was only ever used for 3 games, it really took immersion to a whole different level that hasn't really been paralleled to this day. There was one spy game in the works (Deep Cover I believe it was called) that used the Dark engine, but that was shitcanned when the studio closed.


PS: To this day, my favorite moment in Shock 2 - and my favorite moment in horror games in general - is when you walk down that looong corridor on the Engineering deck and suddenly you hear one of the bulkheads sloooowly opening, hear the footsteps of something shuffling through and then the bulkhead again sloooowly closing and you realise that whatever just came through that bulkhead, it's going to come for you in a moment. And this wasn't some scripted event, it was pure craftsmanship (level design + audio + fairly advanced AI) creating an atmosphere of pure terror. An unmatched, unparalleled masterpiece!

Is this about games being overrated in one's personal opinion or games not having aged well? Because yes, in the case of PS:T, you actually seem to say it did age well and is just not your thing. The heavy amount of reading was not common and not viewed favorable by everyone in its time either.

What I could acknowledge though is gamers these days possibly being less patient with something like that than back then, due to being spoilt for choice and already thinking of the next game they could play instead, or the next series they could watch on Netflix, or generally having less time and patience due to leading a stressful adult life.

So if I understand you correctly, you want old classic games that were

a) Generally praised when they were released
AND
b) We only got to play recently,

then pick 3 which we think live up to the original praise and 3 which don't.

OK, off the top of my head

The Good:

1) System Shock 1 and 2.
First time played SS1 in 2017 and SS2 in 2020. As you said, the interface can be clunky for 1 (I played the original, not the enhanced edition), but once I got into it, I just loved the setting and the atmosphere.

2) Diablo
First time played 2020 (off my CDs which were gathering dust for about 15 years). For a game that hasn't many quests and is essentially a dungeon crawl where you just keep killing enemies, I really enjoyed it. As soon as I finished my first Fighter run, I did a second one with a Mage with Hellfire.

3) Might and Magic series
First time played 2010-1017 all the games from 1 to 9. 3 and 6 were my favouties, but I enjoyed all of them. Despite the games not being as "rich" as some of the RPGs I played (Ultima series, BG...) I really loved those.

The Bad:

1) Dungeon Keeper.
First time played 2016-2020. Yup, 4 years to finish it and its Deeper Dungeons expansion. Ugh, for a game that received so much praise I really disliked it. Not hated it, some levels were still fun. But many of them were annoying, buggy, could be won in a cheesy way, or required you to know not to dig to spot X because that unleashes powerful monsters.

2) Total Annihilation.
First played 2020. I loved the RTSs of the era (Warcarft, Starcraft, Red Alert...), but this I felt was bad in many ways. It's slow. The ships are especially bad and a pain to maneouvre. I just can't remember which bots/vehicles are good for what and they all look the same on the map. I felt like this game tried too hard regarding units: the other RTSs had fewer types and in this case less was good. And a very cheesy story on top.

3) Sin.
First played in 2019. Not that I hated it, but it came with its own set of bugs and overall, aside from the non-linearity, I didn't feel was particularly better compared to Half Life and other FPSs of its era.

Are we allowed to include modern mods / open source updates?

If we can then I'd pick

- Any of the classic impression city builders, like Caesar 3 with the Julius / Augustus mod
The 2D graphics still hold up extremely well, and it's as rewarding as ever to see (and hear!) your ancient city steadily grow and become more prosperous. Especially now that you can do it on a massive screen with glorious widescreen: https://imgur.com/a/MXVbSpf

- The original XComwith OpenXcom
The incredibly deep mechanics and strategic depth of the game hasn't waned at all over the decades. The only negative thing I can say about it is that the mind control was poorly implemented. But you can at least play the game in a way that nullifies that negative for the most part.

- Civilization 1
I dare anyone* to start playing this and quit after 15 turns :) There's something about the civ formula that taps into a primal urge.

Naturally it feels wrong not to mention several more Disciples 2, Dungeon Keeper, Fallout1&2, Stronghold, Simcity 4, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, OpenTTD and possibly HoMM3.

I'm not sure what could be considered overrated, in the sense that it is highly praised but will be difficult to play for someone without nostalgia, or at least someone much younger. I can venture some guesses:
Dune 2, Half Life 1, Age of Empires 1 (unless you've never played an RTS before)

* yeah yeah, of course, I'm sure there are 1 or 2 weirdos somewhere on the globe for which this doesn't apply :)

Games that Hold UP today:

Doom II
Last year I played it for about half an hour without running it rhough a fancy new engine, so no mouselook, no mouse at all!, no 3d approximating spinning sprites, etc. And it still holds up. Your pulse goes up, Your muscles tense. Your focus tightens. You memorize the maps. You scream out loud when you are killed. Oh, this game is glorious.


Overrated Old Games:

The Origianl Tomb Raider Games:
Clunky controls and bad camera angles make for a frustrating experience of dying over and over. That's the game. And it overshadows everything else. I suppose that when it came out every game was dying all the time because of clunky controls, so maybe the good in the game overshadowed the mediocrity in other games. Not so from the perspective of today. For a better retro experience of the same genre, I recommend Shadow Man.

I guess it can be either or both. The baseline is, that you view it from the present and you basically ask yourself, what are the old games I would absolutely recommend someone today (someone who possibly has no nostalgia for that game). On the flipside, you might appreciate how something was revolutionary in its time, but simply would not recommend it today. In terms of how it is overrated, it's not so much about a metacritics score or anything, but rather how GOG users call many old games "hidden gems" or best of x. It doesn't have to be terrible either, but just so that you feel the praise old games often get by default overstates what that games has to offer today.

In my experience, having played lots of old games when they were new, having replayed most of them the past ten years, or having played many old games for the first time the past ten years, good games have in general aged well.

Old crud is still crud, of course.

I've noticed not liking FPS games much anymore, though. Maybe I'm getting too old for them. OTOH me losing interest in FPS games also coincides with me getting slim and fit after being a fat slob a couple of decades.

BTW, I think it's a bit cute that for the OP games like System Shock 2 and the Thief games are "old". For me they are among the first generation of modern games, while 8 bit and DOS games are old.

Funny you should mention that, I used to love reading though everything back in the day of SSI games (and other 80's & 90's games) and loved reading through the journal entries. These days though I find it hard to sit through large walls of text for whatever reason.

I don't think for me it's about reading since I have a Kindle with 100's of books that I read (sometimes re-reading), spending probably 10 to 20 hours a week. I think when it comes to games, I may just be eager to get back to exploration and discovery of the game world.

I recall some games with collectable books (not related to quests), that I obsessed over collecting each volume in the past just to read that tragic story to the end lol. There was one (can't recall name) that I spent a crazy amount of time trying to find one missing volume.
.

Could also be that with time, age and experience we learn to distinguish the essential from the superfluous and choose to waste less time on the latter because we realize that (a) just because someone wrote something down and put it into a game, it doesn't nececssarily mean it's important and worth reading, and (b) our time is finite and we have to manage it ... Plus, fewer things are still new and exciting when you've already seen so much, there is a lot of deja vu, especially in fantasy stories. And yeah, you also didn't have a Kindle with 100+ books back then as an alternative. ;)

Anyway, I'll try and come up with a list myself, later today.

Ok, I thought about it, and given how time flies, I think PetrusOctavianus has a bit of a point - if I've played a game 10 years after release and still enjoyed it, is that really so surprising, and can I really consider it playing an "old" game then? For example, the first generation of games from the 'Great Indie Revival', as I will call it for lack of a better word, are already older than 10 years now, so if today someone would play Aquaria or The Blackwell Legacy or Braid, or even Portal or Psychonauts and then tell us how amazingly accessible and enjoyable these games still are, even without nostalgia goggles on, wouldn't that be a bit silly? :D

So the only really OLD games I could find something to say about - OLD as: in older than 20 years, or with at least 15 years time between release and my playthrough of them - are these:


DOOM (1993, completed in 2017)
I admit I knew the game back when it was released, watched a friend play it, possibly had a go myself, but if so only shortly. I never really played through it on my own until a few years ago. And I had a blast! This is definitely a classic that stands the test of time.

FORGOTTEN REALMS UNLIMITED ADVENTURES (1993, played on and off from ~1996-2020)
I guess this is my cheating entry, since I've already played it in the 90's. But I still do from time to time, even this year, and when I do, I'm immediately drawn back into it. Classic tactical D&D combat with the most comfort the Goldbox engine ever offered, nice VGA pixel graphics, very text-heavy as well, at least half of what's happening is happening in your imagination, and that never gets old. However, this is all with the caveat that most of what I play are player-made adventures that are heavily customized and modded. The default graphics and the sample campaign that came with the game editor can be a bit bland. Still, since hardly anyone ever talks about it, this - in my biased view - is a hidden gem, an underrated game.


RAVENLOFT: STRAHD'S POSSESSION (1994, played in 2020)
Not sure where to put this. I played it this year and still enjoyed everything that was working, just as I would have enjoyed it back in the 90's, had I ever had the opportunity to play it. Unfortunately, it's still as buggy as it was back then, and unknowingly I happened to do exactly what you should avoid, which ruined my fun and my playthrough. It's not a very popular game in general though.

GABRIEL KNIGHT 2: THE BEAST WITHIN (1995, completed in 2013)
The cheesy FMV style and the story-telling can be enjoyable, but the gameplay not so much. This is not a well crafted adventure game like e.g. The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), it's more of a showpiece for the pitfalls of adventure game design. Any classic flaw you can think of (pixel hunting, moon logic, inconsistencies, time pressure, mazes ...) - this game has it. So I would say GK2 might be a bit overrated. But it's understandable since it's an early FMV game and also quite a long adventure game with serious story-telling attempts, years before The Longest Journey.

DEUS EX (2000)
Never really managed to get into this. The tutorial is exhausting. The setting seems meh to me. Cutscenes are boring. Voice-acting is atrocious. Main characters are hard to tell apart. Is it overrated? I don't know. I can't really judge that, because admittedly I never even got to the end of the first level before giving up several times. It just couldn't hold my interest. So I'm missing out on something that many gamers hold in very high esteem.

Good old games that still hold up:

-The Secret of Monkey Island: I would go as far as to include most of the LucasArts adventure games.

-Another World: The graphics (especially close ups) look dated, but the game remains as good as ever.

-Commandos: This is still inspiring new similar games. Also, some of those which were made back in the day, like Desperados, have also aged well. I will never get tired of playing those two games! I agree Open X-Com is the way to play the game nowadays, though it would still be enjoyable without the mod. Also, I wish GOG could get Civ 1 and 2, I like them so much more than Civ 3 (I've never played the others in the series, except for the spin off Alpha Centaury, which I love and would also place among games that have aged well.)

Personally, I consider 2000 to not count as "old" or "classic", because we already have:
* Console games on optical media on dominant consoles (which means they now have load times, and also no saving to the cartridge)
* Games using 3D graphics were common (and I believe more common than today, given how, even before 2000, Sony of America had an anti-2d policy, and Nintendo's console was clearly optimized for 3d over 2d); this is a major change (and I note that games tended to change more than the extra dimension, like Super Mario 64 adding a health meter and falling damage, along with giving Mario a punch attack, while taking away Fire Flowers and other persistent power-ups)
* We also see a change in JRPGs around when the change-over happened (though we see some signs in the late SNES era, it was when FF7 was released that it became pretty clear that JRPGs had taken a different direction, and one that I don't care for)
* I also note that the last of the earlier Might and Magic games, before you start to see the games go heavily real-time, came before the PSX/N64 generation of consoles, so there are changes in the PC world as well. Even Baldur's Gate, which I consider modern due to its use of real-time-with-pause combat (instead of turn-based which used to be the standard for that sort of game), came out before 2000.

This is no exam, just an attempt at a conversation, so anyone is free to interpret old as they see fit. However, I generally roughly think of old as pre-2005. Some seem to think of old as even before that, but just looking at how some games still struggled with what to do with a mouse in early 2000s (I'm looking at you Gothic), it's already different enough to warrant the question if you can still go back to it today. I still remember when I brought Deus Ex over to my uncle and he was appalled upon finding out you aim with the mouse.

Frankly, for me, the early 90s have been loosely the limit for how far back I go in gaming and I have yet to be convinced that there is anything worth playing today beyond that, other than for appreciating it's historical significance.

Also, since the question came up: you don't absolutely have to have played the game recently if you trust your judgment, but there are some games for which I had some nostalgia I found disappointing upon coming back to them recently. For example Rune (remembered as great graphics and weapon variety, came back to corridor gaming and ended up jumping over avoidable enemies), Return to Castle Wolfenstein (unresponsive enemies that know where you are) or Shenmue (still have nostalgia for that game and enjoy it, but the game world is much emptier than I remembered and I would think twice before recommending it).