im a very nostalgic person and i collect video games. i have never sold a video game and i replay most my old games.

ive recently bought some old games (here and elsewhere) i had always wanted to play, but could not for whatever reason.

how to put this nicely... they were not fun.

games that im sure i would have loved had i played them new, when they were cutting-edge.

for example, i bought Thief the other day. A game ive wanted to play for near 15yrs, but never got around to it. i could not get into it. it is right up my alley and looks great. it is just NOT holding my interest and i can tell it is the age.

so, what im getting at it this:

what are these games without nostalgia?

have you played old games here, that you had never played before, and really loved them?


seems, to/for me, nostalgia is everything here... should i just stop trying old games? i know the ratings are mostly based on nostalgia here (where else do you see such high average game ratings? i know of no where) and you really have to read into the reviews.

it might just be older 3D games im not enjoying.

anyone agree? know of games that you were able to "get past" the lack of nostalgia? think im a lost cause and should just give up?

opinions very welcome; thanks for reading!

Actually, I didn't play all that many games 'back in the day' because I'm a gamer since roughly 2001, yet I enjoy a lot of games here, like Blood, Outcast, Thief 2, and got my hands on others trough time, like System Shock or System Shock 2 - enjoyed all of them a lot.

Nostalgia can influence opinion, but you know what? If you enjoyed the game, it doesn't matter if it's merely the nostalgia of it. There's no reason to play if you don't like it and every reason to play if you do, regardless of why you do/don't like it.

Early 3d games have not aged well. The original Star Fox, for instance, was incredibly cutting edge at the time, but the graphics were one of the biggest selling points but they're horrendously ugly by modern standards. Other games, though, especially non-3d ones, have aged pretty well.

HoMM3, Planescape, Tyrian, and Divine Divinity were all games I'd never played before, but I instantly fell in love with them. It's a very personal thing, though, to figure out how much old design you can really stand, and it really comes down to taste. I don't really mind poor graphics, so long as the game isn't UGLY. But there's a lot of stuff in older games that you don't really see much anymore, so for me the other features more than balance out of the lack of eye candy.

But again, games have come a long way, especially in the fields of UI and controller schemes, so you will get occasional "How did they think this was a good idea?" moments when playing older games.

I find the first generation of 3D games hard to get into, because they have aged very poorly.
Good design and outstanding gameplay go a long way, as an example the Heroes on Might and Magic series come to mind.

There are games that I never got the chance to play here on GOG and mostly I enjoy them greatly like Jagged Alliance 2 or Age of Wonders.

Games like Darkstone, for me are hard to look at and as such are really hard to get into.

Hmm...

Yes, I think there is an element of nostalgia to enjoying older games, perhaps more than a person would had they not had good memories from way back when.

To use a non-gaming example, I love (and always will love) the original G1 Transformers cartoon, and can happily sit down and enjoy it for what it is. Objectively, I can see all the flaws (although 'Carnage in C-Minor' is a turd no matter how forgiving you try to be :-) ), but I have so many good memories from when I was younger, I can easily overlook them and enjoy watching giant transforming robots kicking the tin out of each other :-)

With that being said, yes, I have played games here, that I'd never played before, and loved them.

'Psychonauts' was my first ever GOG purchase, and I loved it. Granted it's a fairly recent game that has (thanks to its art style) aged well.

For an older game example, I absolutely LOVE 'Fallout'. I'd never played it before I got it here. After a few moments getting used to it, I found it a wonderfully engaging game with a brilliant atmosphere.

I'm currently playing 'Planescape: Torment' for the first time, and although my progress is slow but steady, I'm loving every moment so far.


For older 3D games, though... yeah, I do see the issue. They don't tend to age quite as well as older 2D games. First time I played 'System Shock 2' (thanks, local boot fair :-) ), I couldn't quite get over the very blocky character models. But a quick Google search turned up the SS2 Rebirth mod and... damn, what a great game!

I wonder, could there be something similar for 'Thief'?

I guess it all comes down to how much you are willing to forgive, or how easily you can look beyond the surface details and see the core gameplay that makes games like 'Thief' the revered classics they are.

Well, certainly 2D graphics age A LOT better than 3D graphics. Lots of old 2D games still look as beautiful today as they did when they were new. Old 3D games... Not so much.

On the other hand, graphics don't mean that much to me. The control scheme however... I've given up on several old games because the controls were simply too clunky. I can't play an FPS without mouselook anymore. Thankfully, many of the oldies can either be configured for it directly, even if I didn't use it back then, or they have modern source ports which can do it.

I also tried playing Dune 2 again a few years ago. I couldn't. The lack of modern controls were simply too off-putting. Having to move each unit individually, and doing it by clicking the unit, clicking the "Move" UI button, and then clicking where I wanted it to go, was just too much of a hassle.

I can generally play new or old games, irrelevant of age or the technical capability of the engine. But it has to be good, otherwise I'm just wasting my time. (Above) Average just doesn't cut it.
But I rather give those a try as well, just to see how it feels.

A good game is a good game, independent of age. I played Thief when it first came out and didn't like it then. Sometimes it's just not your thing.

A big difference between older games and newer ones is difficulty (or possibly accessibility). If you're reared on modern games, you may find older ones harder -- not necessarily strictly by design, but because the UI may be more difficult to work around or some such.

If you're looking for an older 3D Shooter, try instead Duke Nukem 3d. It was never wowing people much with its graphics (though the level of interaction with levels/world still exceeds many new games today). It's got some of the greatest level designs in any game of the genre -- ever. Even its weakest levels are gems amongst most modern games, nostalgia aside.

Related, I continually replay the first 3-4 levels of Settlers 2 every year. I've never progressed any farther than that into the game. The first few levels of the game are brilliant, but beyond that it's an awful game fueled only by nostalgia -- extremely repetitive and nothing new after the first couple of levels except a palette swap.

I have found a number of games here that I enjoy, without nostalgia being a factor.

Am a little unusual in that once I start a game, I finish it unless game control issues get in my way, but if it makes it past 20 minutes, I'll play it until I beat it.

Alpha Centauri was pretty well thought out, and Witcher Enhanced version was ok (ok graphics too), but have played many others, tedious as hell, but well put together. Lionheart, Sacrifice, Sacred come to mind, and they'll occupy hours cheaply.

As for the reviews, take them with a grain of salt, mine included, and research a few screenshots of the games you might be interested in, as well as the ui/control mechanics.

Best of luck in finding something good, and if you find any gems yourself, post back and let me know!

When playing older games, I've found that I often need to spend a bit more time with them, before they start to really shine. This is because I need to work away some of my modern expectations, in order to really get into it. But many older games still holds up really well to this day. I've not bought a single game that I've previously owned here on GOG, and only one game was one that I had previously played (and that was ironically enough the one, out of the ones that I've played, I found least entertaining (Total Annihilation)).

Games like Arx Fatalis, Tyrian, Freespace 1&2, Might & Magic 4-5, Wing Commander 1-2, Realms of Arkania 3 and a fare amount of other oldies that I missed for one reason or another when they were new (in many cases because I did not have a computer back then) can still be a lot of fun to me, and the above mentioned were games that I played for the first time last year or this year, and enjoyed just as much as modern games (not all of those were bought on GOG though, some were boxed copies).
Games that sold because of their cutting edge graphics are usually the games that age more poorly.

Yes I have, actually. An old 3D game, even. I had never even heard of Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising before it was released here on GOG, but it sounded interesting, so I bought it. I absolutely loved it, and it pains me that it's been removed from the catalog, so others cannot experience this fantastic game.

Indeed, Blood is fantastic. Or Unreal, purely for level design.

Hah, same here :-)

I absolutely love the game, but I never manage to stay with it long enough to get through mission 4, "On The High Seas".

OP, I hear ya. Same kind of stuff with me really.

A great example is Under a Killing Moon and The Pandora Directive. I played UaKM when I was a kid and loved it and I can still play it today. TPD is basically the same game but I can't play it at all, because there is no nostalgia hook there for me.

The same thing happens with RPGs and shooters too, to varying degrees. I know I would have loved Lands of Lore if I played it when it came out, but I didn't, and now I can't. I love a lot of old point and clickers that I played as a kid, but I can't stand playing new ones.

Nostalgia is powerful.