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farlark: Has anyone played Goldeneye recently? I get the feeling the controls would seem pretty awkward
by today's standards.
I played through it about five years back. It hasn't aged well at all. Obtuse mission objectives, low frame rate, poor level design, aesthetically inferior graphics, persistent fog everywhere... There is really no reason not to play Perfect Dark instead, which manages to fix some of the problems mentioned, and makes the rest forgiveable. That said, I haven't played Perfect Dark since before I played through GoldenEye.

Other games which just haven't aged well include Baldur's Gate (I played through it over a period of about a year, I think, about 6 or 7 years ago), which is almost laughingly primitive compared to any of its Engine sequels and, erm, does the first WarCraft count? That's not to say they both don't have quite a bit of charm, much like the first Command & Conquer, but hot dang, they feel old.

I was also intensely disappointed in Beneath a Steel Sky.

On the flip-side, I am happy to report that Donkey Kong 64 is just as awesome as ever: it was never a very deep game, being rather incredibly broad, but I finished it on New Year's Eve, joining the 101% club at the same time, and I had an absolute blast playing it. Diddy Kong needs to get his own game... again.
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htown1980: I was gonna say this one but you beat me to it. RTS controls have improved a lot since those days...
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Ghorpm: I think we may talk about the gameplay as well. AFAIR almost 100% missions in Dune 2 were
identical - build up your base, crate an unstoppable army, destroy the enemy base/bases. It
also got improved over those... oh my... it's 20 years already!
Yeah, but you sometimes got a new unit or building in the next mission... :)
This may be the exact opposite of the topic, but Turok still looks surprisingly fun despite the thick fog and the N64 controller. It's like a marathon run with angry dinosaurs and a bunch of interesting weapons. IIRC, the back of the box bragged that the game was X miles long. That's something I'd like to see in a new game!

Not to mention it was the first FPS (at least that i remember) that registered hits on different parts of the body, and it was the first game where the enemy's heads tracked your movement.
I don't know... I usually can find fun in every good game, no matter how old it is. I can adjust to any controls pretty fast and not get annoyed. It's like programming a muscle memory to ignore some buttons and to learn to press the others :P

The oldest game I played lately was Ultima 1 and it was quite fun. Ok, simplified, rather shallow, but fun. It's not that hard to adjust with cluebooks, reference cards etc launched in the background. (You know, gog usually adds them for you :P).

I think people not playin some games because of outdated graphics or mechanics really miss a lot of fun. Of course, if there is a VGA remake, or a remake like Dune 2000, it's better to play the refreshed version if you have aversion to outdated things, but really, some game and game series are too precious to be left out only because they don't fill your HUD standards.

That is, of course, if you have enough free time on weekends to learn how to play them. I, for one, find learning how to play an oldie, to be pretty fun. :-)
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jefequeso: Apparently objectivity has really crappy taste.
One of these days we have to send anjohl a dictionary.
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keeveek: I don't know... I usually can find fun in every good game, no matter how old it is. I can adjust to
any controls pretty fast and not get annoyed. It's like programming a muscle memory to ignore
some buttons and to learn to press the others :P
Ever tried Warcraft 1 or Dune 2 recently?

;-P
Post edited January 08, 2013 by SimonG
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SimonG: Ever tried Warcraft 1 or Dune 2 recently? ;-P
Well, I played Dune 2, the browser version. It was quite fun! So is Dune 1.
But as I've said, if there is Dune 2000 avaible, there is really no actual need to play Dune 2 - as
far as I know, Dune 2000 is the same game as Dune 2, but with modernished graphics and interface.
(yes, right click is supported :P)

Dune lore is too amazing to drop it only because of lacking interface...

I never played Warcraft 1 though. Only Warcraft 2 and it was amazingly fun.
Post edited January 08, 2013 by keeveek
Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Number 2 is just better in every respect.
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orcishgamer: Diablo 2, for sure, which is why I suspect so many still think so highly of it. It was amazing for
its time, simply it had a lot of nasty warts which other games managed to remove from their game
play.
Note: I know there's exceptions, Frater:)
Just no... I replayed it recently with the median xl mod and that plays out great. I never played
path of the exile but aside from that, I really do think that the hack&slay genre is a genre where
many games did strife to copy the aspects that made diablo good and just failed on a regular
basis.

Aside from that, any N64 title that is not zelda probably belongs on the list. (Well, actually I do still get something out of mystical ninja staring goemon)
Post edited January 08, 2013 by Robette
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AFnord: Heroes of Might & Magic 1 Again, a game that long since has been surpassed. The later
HoMMs just does everything HoMM 1 does, but better in every single way.
I remember playing HOMM1 after I was so familiar with 2 and 3...man...1 feels so shallow and....weird, even 2 Gold edition completely stomps all over it
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Stooner: YoYo Noid! (I think this is the name... ;p)
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naytk: NES flashback! :)
Ahhhh.... the bad ol' days when even advertising mascots had their own games!
Well, technically Yo! Noid didn't have his own game. He had a modified Kamen No Ninja Hanamaru (otherwise known as "That Game Who's Name I Can Never Remember").
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FantasyNightmare: Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Number 2 is just better in every respect.
There is one thing which better in the first part - mission restriction. I find it quite frustrating that in most RCT 2 mission either admission fee or price of ride tickets are set to zero and you cannot change it. I wouldn't mind if it were sporadically but there is just too many of them. Fortunately you can import RCT1 missions so it's not a big deal..,. as for the rest - I wholeheartedly agree
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AFnord: Heroes of Might & Magic 1 Again, a game that long since has been surpassed. The later
HoMMs just does everything HoMM 1 does, but better in every single way.
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Roman5: I remember playing HOMM1 after I was so familiar with 2 and 3...man...1 feels so shallow
and....weird, even 2 Gold edition completely stomps all over it
I find it hard to play old strategy games in general, when they don't have a strong story. It's such an iterative genre and you might as well play the latest entry. As much as I loved Civilizations 3 and 4 I just play 5 now, it would be weird to go backwards.

So different from shooters and RPGs that, to me, are more distinct and replayable, mainly due to story and environment uniqueness.
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Ghorpm: I think we may talk about the gameplay as well. AFAIR almost 100% missions in Dune 2 were
identical - build up your base, crate an unstoppable army, destroy the enemy base/bases. It
also got improved over those... oh my... it's 20 years already!
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htown1980: Yeah, but you sometimes got a new unit or building in the next mission... :)
Right. I think only the last mission didn't have any improvements but it was fun nevertheless because it was the last mission and you were fighting the Emperor himself. So a new enemy qualify as an improvement I guess ;) But the fact remains - modern RTS games spoiled us and we usually expect something more than new units...
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naytk: I found X-wing to not be nearly as much fun as I remembered it.
Hm, I recently played X-Wing from beginning to end. Still had fun with it, though I will agree that Tie-Fighter was the better game. The mission design was a lot better thanks to the diverse types of objectives, and thanks to the comm chatter and unexpected mission events, the game seemed so much more alive, whereas X-Wing could be a bit dull at times. I still enjoyed the challenge that X-Wing provides.
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SimonG: Ever tried Warcraft 1 or Dune 2 recently? ;-P
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keeveek: Well, I played Dune 2, the browser version. It was quite fun! So is Dune 1.
But as I've said, if there is Dune 2000 avaible, there is really no actual need to play Dune 2 - as
far as I know, Dune 2000 is the same game as Dune 2, but with modernished graphics and interface.
(yes, right click is supported :P)
Dune lore is too amazing to drop it only because of lacking interface...
I never played Warcraft 1 though. Only Warcraft 2 and it was amazingly fun.
Yeah but the fact remains that Dune 2 aged badly while it cannot be said about Dune 1. And just like you suggested - instead of struggling through Dune 2 you can play Dune 2000 (which I do at least once a year - my retailed version is still working fine). Dune 1 is unique in every aspect, I've never seen anything even remotely similar so there is no substitution. And what's more important - you don't really need any because Dune 1 is still perfectly playable (in my opinion at the very least)