Well, I´d describe it like this:

"Nostalgia" comes to my mind, after I played a game - I´ll take Westwood´s Dune 2 for example to make my point - where I was totally sure, that none of the present games could beat it, when it comes to playability oder atmosphere.

But when I played it again after so many years, I realized that maybe graphics aren´t what I thought they were, controls (one unit per click, no possibility to put units together, etc.) are outdated...
Things like that...

"Actually better" comes to my mind, if I play a game again, and everything is "just as I left it" many years ago.
Commandos oder Baldur´s Gate are those kind of games. When I played them in 1998, I loved their detailed 2D-graphics. Today they still look, like I remembered them. Sure, they may not be able to keep up (HD and all) but they don´t give me the creeps like Tomb Raider 1.

Controls may not be state of the art, but they are what they should be: useful. Nothing about them, where I would say:"Oh my! GameX from 2011 does it so much better...


This is the difference (to me!) between nostalgia and "actually better".

A game, which is about 10 years old or even older and STILL fascinates you - makes you play it instead of present titles, IS "actually better".

I agree.
Has anyone seen "The Party" from 1967?
That's comedy.

Ah, I did not think about that one. While I have used it in past playthroughs, I've never used it to skip ahead, and did not think about it as a way to do so.

Fucking Arsenic and Old Lace!

I can think of plenty, both from the late nineties and the past three years. I don't get why some people seem to think that age has anything to do with it. What matters is the quality of the individual title. Not the year it was made.

In many ways the late nineties / early 2000s was the worst era for gaming. Early 3D was forced on the industry. Publishers insisted on it. So we got probably the biggest pile of crap since just before the great crash of 83.

The biggest problem with the market now are the consoles. Antiquated and underpowered, but overwhelmingly more popular than the 'ten times more powerful' PC. It's like a ball and chain and not just graphically.

Agreed. Even if you hate mainstream stuff there was probably 10 quality indies across the last 3 years.

Also agreed, the N64/PS1 console era was the WORST, I have very few good memories of that time on any platform and kind of got out of gaming.

True to a large extent, also the focus on regurgitated sequels until the new consoles come. Luckily that is only a year and a half away though.

I didn't want to go there but, yes, consoles are holding games back. Techinically yes. They are. That's no denying that.

I, on the other hand believe late nineties were the best era of PC gaming :P Lately added to GOG Soul Reaver is a once fine example.

These are the times when Fallout came out, Baldur's gate, Metal gear solid, Quake 3 Arena, etc etc. Biggest legends of all time. At least for me.

I never actually watched Friends so I'm not sure whether you're saying it's funny or not funny.

I don't think Modern Family is as good as 30 Rock, but it's still good. 30 Rock is probably the best show I've seen (in any genre) in over a decade, though.

Oh, I probably mistunderstood your sentence. You mentioned Modern Family and then said something about how awful are recent comedies. I'm confused. I need to go to sleep :P

It's mainly the reasons listed above that turned me off. Way too early for 3D, everything looked boxy and fuzzy and terrible to me. Also movement was all clunky in my experience. I played some games, but it's not my favorite era by any means.

I was out of games for a long stretch there actually, played them very casually. At one point I stopped gaming completely for like a year and then got back into it when Doom 3 came out.

The way I see it, there's games that hold up well upon replay and there's games that don't. Age of the game is irrelevant and the replay value is purely objective.

In example, I starter playing the Witcher through again and I have to say, it really isn't as good game I remembered it to be. It's okay but the I'm not really getting much of a replay value out of it. This is, of course, my own view of the game. For some other, the replay value might be much bigger.

Half Life came out in that era, for fucks sake :P

I'm just going to leave this here, as I've done in a previous "nostalgia" thread. Points two and four to be exact.