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Games that really show their age but were great at the time

cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Recently I was playing some older games and came to realize how gaming has evolved. Especially in regard to the first true 3D games. Going back to the 2D era of SNES and Genesis it's not as bad since they didn't rely on camera control as much and presented the game in a more or less linear way. Once we got games like Mario 64 for example things changed. At the time it was really good and nothing else really was like it. Going back to it after 20 years though and I start to see the evolution of things like camera control, character physics etc. Not so much graphics and animations but the mechanics of the game didn't age that well. Limited camera angles that sometimes frustrate you(not as bad as Sonic Adventure though), the momentum of Mario as he runs making platforming a little bit of a chore. Things like that have come a long way since 1996 and as much as I hate to say it I don't get enjoyment out of many of the 3D games released from the PSX and N64 era today as I do games from the previous generation due to these factors. Don't get me wrong, at the time of release games like Mario 64, Spyro etc were quite amazing but after so many years of playing 3D games with full camera control, tighter controls where characters stop more realistically, they start to show their age a bit more.

Does anyone else feel this way about some of the early 3D titles where you accept them as being revolutionary for the time but it simply doesn't hold up today and they are now harder to enjoy because you can nitpick the flaws?
 
Most older 3D games don't age well. It just comes with the territory. Controls for it were just getting the hang of how to use it effectively, graphics are not good at all. Sprites don't have that problem.

If we played them when they came out, they were like a whole new world, but going back it's just very hard for older 3D games to hold up as well as older sprite games.

I loved Metal Gear Solid and Half Life when they were released but playing them today I'm sure would not be a good experience because of the advances in 3D gameplay.
 
Funny you mention Metal Gear Solid. I found that game aged surprisingly well in the gameplay department. Obviously the graphics are atrocious after playing MGS5 and others but the game didn't seem to have any major gameplay annoyances when I played it last.
 
Goldeneye was considered one of the best games of its time... with the variety of controls and level design etc. Now, it's quite sluggish to play... but I bet I could do a few levels still!
 
Tweak155 said:
Goldeneye was considered one of the best games of its time... with the variety of controls and level design etc. Now, it's quite sluggish to play... but I bet I could do a few levels still!
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Strictly based on console shooters yes but the pc had many more advanced FPS games around this time. Quake 2, Unreal, Half Life all came out between 1997 and 1998. It's probably unfair to include those against an N64 game though.
 
I honestly hated almost everything about the shift to the first 3D platform games. Never liked Mario 64, or the N64 Zeldas, Resident Evil games frustrated me with their bad cameras during frantic moments, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot....pretty much all of them I didn't care for because they ultimately were very clunky. I ended up trading off my N64 pretty quickly because I didn't like a single game on it.

FPS games are a whole other animal.
 
I have to agree with others that the initial gen of 3D games and systems have aged very poorly. Very few games of that era had decent gameplay/controls, and relied entirely on the "OOoooooOOOO 3D!!!!!" factor to sell the game. So many of those games would have been better off using sprites (both performance wise and even visually. Sprites would have made FFVII a lot better as there was a huge loss of detail for characters compared to FFVI and FFV).
 
ImpulsE69 said:
I honestly hated almost everything about the shift to the first 3D platform games. Never liked Mario 64, or the N64 Zeldas, Resident Evil games frustrated me with their bad cameras during frantic moments, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot....pretty much all of them I didn't care for because they ultimately were very clunky. I ended up trading off my N64 pretty quickly because I didn't like a single game on it.

FPS games are a whole other animal.
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Resident Evil yes, the tank controls were horrible and didn't get fixed until years later but Mario and Zelda were awesome control wise, even if today they are easy to pick up and play. I think because both of those were made with one analog stick in mind.
 
zerocool84 said:
Resident Evil yes, the tank controls were horrible and didn't get fixed until years later but Mario and Zelda were awesome control wise, even if today they are easy to pick up and play. I think because both of those were made with one analog stick in mind.
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I think Mario and Zelda from n64 have bad control because of the collision detection, poor camera control, and it can feel like the character is on ice skates at times. Not necessarily that the game has bad controls but the mechanics of the game make them frustrating, if that makes any sense.

Resident evil controls were pretty bad because no analog on the first PlayStation release so they did more of an u,d,l,r control method. It feels bad now but when I played it back in the day it wasn't too terrible because the atmosphere and isometric view seemed to work for me.
 
Only game from that era I can think of that didn't age poorly was the original Crash Bandicoot. That's probably more to do with the simplistic mechanics and level design and fixed camera position. That's really the issue I have with most games from that era, the camera controls were just downright awful, the majority of fixed camera positions were horrible, and the ice skating character movement that was carried over from 2d era games did not translate well.
 
ImpulsE69 said:
I honestly hated almost everything about the shift to the first 3D platform games. Never liked Mario 64, or the N64 Zeldas, Resident Evil games frustrated me with their bad cameras during frantic moments, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot....pretty much all of them I didn't care for because they ultimately were very clunky. I ended up trading off my N64 pretty quickly because I didn't like a single game on it.

FPS games are a whole other animal.
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Yeah I have always disliked Mario 64 from the second it came out. I did like Zelda OOT when it came out, but it feels almost unplayable now at 20 fps.
 
It's not just PS1/N64 that aged badly due to control. Some of the early PS2 games too. I tried to replay GTA 3 a few weeks ago and it felt horrible due to it being basically a single stick game (the second analog stick is weird, it drops you into a first person mode briefly).
 
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