Features - QOTW: Are computer games better now than they were 20 years ago?

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Or are oldies still goldies?

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In my near 30 years of gaming. I've found the games are getting easier but also look better.

The term 'game over' no longer really exists :(

Games nowadays have better visuals than those from twenty years ago but they are not better overall. Multiplayer used be a feature that enhanced and already good game; now it's used to sell mediocre games with almost non-existent single-player campaigns. The use of Steam and Origin as digital distribution and management clients does not help either.

I enjoy some games from the last few years but have come largely nostalgic for the good old days. Not because we had better games back then but because you could enjoy the game you purchased without the greed factor (not being able to resell a game because it's tied to a Steam or Origin account is just damn greedy). In order for games become truly enjoyable again the industry will have to find a medium that doesn't punish people who legitimately buy their games and protecting their products (since that's what games are: products not services).

Pffffft.....Super Nintendo for the young whipper snappers.

You need to be looking at the ZX81 and Commodore Vic 20

Today, I have actually been playing Myth by System 3 on the Commodore 64, not on an emulator though. This was loaded from tape on my trusty 30yr old Commodore 64.

After about 5 minutes or so of loading I was greeted by voice synthesis saying welcome to Myth with a rough picture of a goddess.

Few minutes later I was whisked to Hades battling Skeletons, Imps, Medusa, Hydra and a Chimera. Each bit actually leads to the next, for example to kill the Chimera I needed to first summon a demon, do this by knocking a damned hanging skeletal corpse into the lake of fire, then go to the base of the screen and kill skeletons and knock their heads into same lava, this summons the demon. Then kill it with frost balls / magic you get from the Imps to get the Trident, face to face with the Chimera fire the Trident at it to kill it. Next section sees you on the island of Psirens, here you have to be careful as one summons you, get it wrong and move to close to fast and she turns into a snake and instant death, patience though rewards with another life orb. Then destroy the statue of Achilles by hitting its ankle while fending off the Trojans (Or Greek Soldiers) there, once statue is destroyed you get the shield needed for the next level. Also if the soldiers are running at you hold the shield up and they bow and stop attacking you.....cool. Then I went into the temple and equipped the shield, ran over to the right and there was Medusa firing bolts out of her eyes, you can jump them but holding the fire button steadies the shield and deflects the blasts, miss and you get turned to stone instantly killed. So get close to her with shield up and have your sword ready to switch, time it right and switch to the sword and quickly behead her, then grab the head and continue the level. You will come across a Hydra, now anyone that is interested in Greek Mythology will know, chopping off the Hydras head is a big no no, you have to be smart or you will end up with even more heads. So equip Medusas head and fire the eye blast at the Hydras heads to kill it outright.....smart for its age.

After that you end up in Asgard from Norse Mythology and it gets even better, having to save a maiden in a forest and slay a dragon, then into Odins Fortress and take out the Mighty Thor to prove your worth.

Its absolutely awesome stuff, I have enjoyed playing that more than an excellent session with Farcry 3 or Borderlands 2.

Older games feels more worthwhile to replay over and over...and some of them are very hard too, which makes it very challenging. Current games nowadays are way too short and mostly a bit too easy...

A number of the older games can be way overrated IMHO,as people tend to look at them through rose tinted glasses.People tend to forget there were loads of absolutely crap older games,which is what lead to the crash of the computer game market in North America in the early 80s.

They are plenty of modern games which are fantastic examples of story telling and immersion,and many of them more importantly are fun too.

Moreover,when you start looking at the credits of many modern games,you start to realise how many people have had to work on them - it almost looks like the credits for a film at times.

People also need to consider games cost relatively less now than say 20 years ago, and even the hardware needed is not as costly as it used to be I suspect.

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the neverending wait for a bug-fixing patch

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Do not agree with this at all.

Does this suggest that all the good-ol-games were bug-free when they were released, since they couldn't be patched? Rubbish, every piece of software would have bugs of some sort or another. Sure the rapid development cycle of games like the Call of Duty series means that the devs wil have less time to iron out the bugs, but at least the bugs can be fixed at any point after the game releases, whereas in the games which weren't patched any glitch that was in the game stayed in the game.

But on the downside, the ability to add to the game after somebody has brought it has lead the way for rather nasty practices like taking content away from the game with the intent of releasing said content as optional DLC in an attempt to extract more money from the player.

I think that there has been a "toning down" of the difficulty level as games have tried to appeal towards a more casual player.

At first, I thought I hadn't played a game from 20 years ago, but then I realised that one of the first games I ever experienced was Microprose's Grand Prix, which was apparently released in January 1992. It was alright, but even through the rose-tinted specs I can recall that the gameplay never really changed, and you just went through the same motions endlessly. There was little to progress to, little to aim for, and little new to experience after the first 10 minutes.

There are obviously a few games that really stand out as being exceptional, even compared to now, like some of the Westwood RTS games - whilst there are much flashier RTS games out now, I don't think they can compete with the story, balance and overall fun of the old games, and the new features like better graphics, online matchmaking and so on don't influence me at all in RTS games - I couldn't care less.

But in general, I think it's just nostalgia. It's one thing to go back and play a game you thought was great, and realise how rubbish it was, but to go back and play a game you never played the first time around... it can be a very painful experience. Half-Life was genuinely rubbish to play by modern standards - everything might've been novel back then, but now most of it is what you'd expect out of a half-decent game. Fallout as well I've found very tough to enjoy, not least with the awkward controls. Monkey Island is another one, to me as a modern observer, the humour still works, but everything else is largely nauseating.

There's no doubt that there were great games back then, and there are some woeful ones now, but there's equally no doubt that I expect a heck of a lot more from games now.

I remember one of the versions of Jet Set Willy, think it may have been the Spectrum 48k version when it first came out had a MAJOR bug. There was one of the items that was impossible to get no matter how you tried. The programmers realised or were told by players about this and the game was re released fixed a few weeks later, thing is though all the initial purchasers of the game couldn't do anything about it and if they wanted to finish the game they had to buy it again or borrow the fixed version from a friend.

The 90's has to be the golden era as we transitions from 8bit, through 16 and finally at 3d games. Everything since, has been evolution rather than revolution.

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Originally Posted by Ferral

I remember one of the versions of Jet Set Willy, think it may have been the Spectrum 48k version when it first came out had a MAJOR bug. There was one of the items that was impossible to get no matter how you tried. The programmers realised or were told by players about this and the game was re released fixed a few weeks later, thing is though all the initial purchasers of the game couldn't do anything about it and if they wanted to finish the game they had to buy it again or borrow the fixed version from a friend.

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If you mean "the attic bug" - that was fixed by a typing in POKEs in your own copy - official ones no less.I remember doing that.

Actually yesterday I was watching my nephew play Lego Batman on the Wii and thinking how similar the jump and run / collect items gameplay was.

[rus off to google if there really was a trailer in lunar jetman...!]

Nothing that can be categorised. Games have individual merits. Sure, there are a load of terrible games now, but if you look back at libraries of old games, there are a large number of horrific games there too. Just be careful to remove your nostalgia glasses.

I would say for the most yes, the scale of games now are huge and of course the visuals! There are some games however that will never get old to me like streets of age 2, saying that though the online functionality added by emulators was much appreciated.

In absolute term, I'd say that yes, the best of most genres are better than 20 years ago.

But it doesn't change the fact that my very favourite are mostly classics.

The thing is that the way I measure games is partly via what/how I felt when I was playing, rather than breaking down the various aspect of the games (graphics, music/sound, story/gameplay, etc.).

So the first game that used the sacrifice of a likeable character, or perhaps the return of a character left for dead as a plot device will have a great advantage of shock/surprise. Subsequent games may use such plot device better in all measurable sense, but it may well be that it won't (/may not) sadden/awe as much just because the concept is no longer new.

Over a short period, some games may be a step behind compared to previously released titles, but going as far as 20 years, then I'd say that most if not every probably every surviving genre have improved:
FPS: Doom vs modern shooters (Doom was the 2nd first person shooter I've played so the genre was still very fresh. But ignoring the technology, it has no more story than the most MP oriented FPS with some kind of SP, you can't mouse look).
RTS: No idea what was before Dune 2000 (1998), but I doubt that whatever it is can stand up to SC2?
2D Beat-em ups: Super Street Fighter 2 vs Super Street Fighter 4 AE (Well, those kind of games has aged more gracefully than others - I guess there is a limit to what you can do with having 1-1 fights). But I would say that it would take one more year (Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo) before we have all the elements of modern fighting games as it also introduced the "Super gauge".
3D Beat-em ups: Virtual Fighter vs Virtual Fighter 5/Tekken 6 (I was not too big on earlier 3D fighting games, but I like them more now. But again, it's fair to say they've not evolved too much).
Dating Sim: Tokimeki Memorial (1994) vs New Love Plus (Not much has changed in regards to basic gameplay, but pretty much everything is improved)

Okay, I don't plan to go through the whole list as I don't have all the data in my head, nor do I feel like spending too much time Googling up the date of games.

But this link should illustrate how there dire games has existed since the old days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8mQHotlaFo (naughty language warning)

Current games devote practically all development resources around making them look shiny on consoles by strict deadlines. Story, plot, gameplay, and bang for buck have all been suffering for it. What used to be deeply engrossing games you could get months of play time out of, is now a cheap shallow thrill ride lasting mere hours.

Twenty years might be pushing it. Back then we were still mostly limited to 2D games, sprites, MIDI sound, etc. I think the pinnacle of gaming was the late 90's/early 2000's when you still got relatively small development teams, creative freedom, but also had the hardware for 3D, reasonable AI, etc. Now gaming is a massive entertainment industry and ran by corporations so everything is mediocre and derivative and depressing.

All the improvements in hardware since then have basically went towards improving eye candy and nothing else. I mean there were features in games back then that you don't see in modern games, like enemies responding specifically to body part injuries (e.g. hopping if you shoot them in the foot) in Goldeneye, and blood trails from wounded enemies and fleeing when injured, etc. in Deus Ex. We've went backwards with regard to immersion.