Retro Gaming - "Good Old Games"

AlBQuirky

How far back do you go to play a good old game?

I realize that much o it depends on the game, itself, but is there a "point in time" where you find the enjoyment is not worth the troubles?

I was poking about on GoG.com and saw their sale on "Classics" and got to wondering. I spied the Space Quest series (1-8) and wondered if bough them, would I play them? I have the original Bard's Tale trilogy but can't get myself into the games as I did when I first played them on my Commodore 64. They're just too "clunky and unwieldy" for me these days.

Could you, or would you, play Zork I or II again? How about the old LucasFilms Star Wars games in DOS?

cameltosis

My usual stopping point is '97, with the release of the playstation / sega saturn and later the N64, as well as a few PC games from that time period.

I still play the N64 on occasion (though, i have mario kart 64 running on my wii u, so the old n64 itself doesnt surface often). I play through FF7 pretty much every year still. Morrowind makes the occasional call too.

Games from before that time.....well, either the consoles have stopped working or the games are too much trouble to get running on a modern PC. I do have a go at getting War for Middle Earth (1988) running every couple of years but i usually give up pretty quickly. That was one of my first video games, lovely grand strategy set in middle earth.

Came with an interesting DRM device - at a random point in the game, it would pause and ask you for a grid reference. The map it referred to came with the game when you bought it - a pretty good DRM method in the pre-internet days! Sadly, my Dad had pirated the game, so we didn't have the map.....though me and my brothers made an attempt to guess and record all correct guesses!

Akulas

2000ish era

Sovrath

probably as far back as original doom or hexen.

Problem is, I think you have to do fiddling to play hexen with "modern" controls and that's a pain.

If a store platform would update the games so that the controls were updated then for me the graphics don't matter as long as there is solid art design.

Nebless

I picked up Sega Mega Drive Classics off of Steam super cheap.  Used to love playing Fatal Labyrinth, Landstalker etc... back on the TV when all that stuff was big.

Well they're exactly the same games, but man are they slow and clunky now compared to what I've gotten used to.   That was just too far back.

AlBQuirky

tzervo said:

Depends on the game. I recently re-played Monkey Island 1 to 3. They were remasters but I would not mind if they were not, in fact the remasters have an insta-toggle to the pixelated old version for the nostalgic. A few years ago I played a lot of Nethack. I am considering re-playing Myst, the old Dune 1 game or Rick Dangerous. I would not mind going back to the Commodore 64 or Amiga 500 days for some particular games. Most of them are clunky with today's standards but some aged really well.

Btw the Monkey Island remasters are beautiful. Recommended.

Nethack! I was going to edit my OP and ask if anyone still played Nethack, that glorious ascii dungeon crawler

AlBQuirky

Sovrath said:

probably as far back as original doom or hexen.

Problem is, I think you have to do fiddling to play hexen with "modern" controls and that's a pain.

If a store platform would update the games so that the controls were updated then for me the graphics don't matter as long as there is solid art design.

Yea, that's close for me, too (Doom & Hexen). Using arrow keys to move and <ctrl>, <alt>, or <shift> takes awhile to get back into. It's backwards from what I'm comfortable with today, though back then: easy-peasy

I do have some old DOS board games I still play, like 1830: Railroads and Robber Barons or Acquire, but those are board game ports, not really "video games", per se.

Graphics aren't a "make or break" thing for me, but controls definitely are.

Also, there are many games with smart players that have created updates for newer systems for them.

Amathe

I keep telling myself I will play original Sim City. But then I see it and I don't.

AlBQuirky

Amathe said:

I keep telling myself I will play original Sim City. But then I see it and I don't.

That's me with original Civ. Loved it on my friend's Apple (Mac?), way back when. Just can't play it now

Amathe

But, what I can always play is Galaga! A restaurant near where I work has the arcade version.

AlBQuirky

Amathe said:

But, what I can always play is Galaga! A restaurant near where I work has the arcade version.

I got Galaga for my XBox360 "gameroom", but it's just not the same

immodium

I've just finished another play through of System Shock (1994). Still up there as one of my favorites. I play Wolfenstein 3D (1992) from time to time. Monkey Island (1990) series I play again.

I also have an Amiga Emulator installed and play all sorts on that. Another World, Flashback, Cannon Fodder and SWOS being notable ones I return to.

So late 80's early 90's.

Po_gg

No set date for me, I used to replay my favourite older games from time to time.

That could serve as some sort of a cutoff point, the start of my gamer career - except there weren't too many games in the 70s...

AlBQuirky said:

Could you, or would you, play Zork I or II again? How about the old LucasFilms Star Wars games in DOS?

Actually, adventure games are aging the best. Zork or the Sierra line-up (Space Quest, King's Quest, etc.) is still fun to play to this day.

RPG's are decent as well, the second Ultima trilogy still blows out of the water a lot of current "rpgs"...

Action games took the years the worst, imo. Last year I've had a short affair with the first X-wing, and... didn't aged well, to put it nicely.

But I believe this is where your other notion comes to play, depending on the game itself, and the nostalgia factor/attachment to it.

I can go back to the id (and Raven) line-up any time for some quick fun, like Wolf3d to Quake II (Arena was the start of the downhill imo), while I mostly avoid others from the same time period (Dark Forces, Duke, Blood, etc.) probably because those never were among my favourites.

Gormogon

There are some older games that still hold up remarkably well IMO, but in general 1998 (Ocarina of Time, Baldur's Gate, StarCraft, etc.) is the point where games transition from historical curiosities to still really engaging entertainment for me.  

On the other hand, if I have not played it before I will go back to basically the beginning to try it.  In just the last few years I've played simulations of Nimrod (1951) and OXO (1952) -- although I would not really call them games so much as tech demos -- and typed out and run games from the 1973 book BASIC Computer Games. For the sake of staying in the mood, so to speak, I have a giant box of old dot matrix paper I use to draw maps for the text adventures of old.  

One of the advantages of many old adventure games is that they're really short.   A Space Quest game can be finished in a single night, especially now that the internet is right there to help you on that one screen you might have spent an entire day on in the 1980s.  For me, spending $5 on a bundle of those games is totally worth it, even if I only play through them once.

The Ultimas, Wizardrys, and other old RPGs are a different animal.  It's hard for me to justify spending 20-40 hours on those games when I can spend it on a more modern RPG which has improved gameplay, a more detailed world and story, and better presentation.

Amathe

AlBQuirky said:

Amathe said:

But, what I can always play is Galaga! A restaurant near where I work has the arcade version.

I got Galaga for my XBox360 "gameroom", but it's just not the same

I can't properly enjoy it unless the control area smells like pizza and is sticky from spilled beer.

Wizardry

Nebless said:

I picked up Sega Mega Drive Classics off of Steam super cheap.  Used to love playing Fatal Labyrinth, Landstalker etc... back on the TV when all that stuff was big.

Well they're exactly the same games, but man are they slow and clunky now compared to what I've gotten used to.   That was just too far back.

I also own and play Sega classics often.

Flharfh

Some of the earliest sidescrollers are still playable and very fun. In contrast, a lot of games from the early 3d period (N64, PS1, etc) are nearly unplayable due to the terrible graphics, horrible camera, etc.

TwistedSister77

Flharfh said:

Some of the earliest sidescrollers are still playable and very fun. In contrast, a lot of games from the early 3d period (N64, PS1, etc) are nearly unplayable due to the terrible graphics, horrible camera, etc.

Yeah, but I still love me some Goldeneye on N64.  

laserit

The original Prince of Persia was awesome. Anyone else ever played Dark Castle?

Ungood

Some games age well, some don't.

I mean for example, Pac-man is still as good as it always was, because it never tried to be more than it was. 

As far as Old School games go, I think most have not aged well, some have, like for example Dawn of War II, but a lot of it aging well, was because of it's expansions, it was continually updated over the years, the same thing happened with the Sims2.

DoWIII was a decent game, but it was a shadow shell of what DoWII was, same with Sims#, being a shell of what Sims2 was.

We see this also in MMO's, as the older ones expand, and grow over time, it becomes harder for newer games to be competitive, even if they might have better mechanics and graphics, they are not as vast, they not as filled out, they don't have those years of growth to them, that other older games have.

Sadly that also works both ways, sometimes those Expansions are Nails in the Coffin not revitalization and growth.

So, how far back someone might go, well vastly depends on the game and the gamer, for me, I'd play Pong with someone for old school kicks, if we are going to be honest.

DarkLight1337

It depends on what you mean by retro games. Personally, I like to play the old Zelda games on my Nintendo 64 every now and then. Especially "Majora's Mask" I felt already 10 times because it was one of my favorite games at the time.

Recently I came across my old GameBoy again and tried out the old Pokemon games there. Unfortunately I used to enjoy the games there more back in the days, because i wasn't familiar with the new technology. But it was enough to indulge in memories for a few hours.

Wizardry

I still play FF3 and the Shining series and Langrisser 2 is a big favorite of mine.

AOE series as well I love the Serious Sam games which started in 2001.I am right now about to play the newest just released Serious Sam 4,I just love the simple fun of those games.

PS...I hate having to hit the caps for i I i I everytime,i think i'll just not do it and piss off the language police ..lol.