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[samoilaaa]

Alot of people are praising games from the 90's and 00's and they say that it was the best time to be a gamer , those games had better game design , better gameplay , better characters and those games just had a soul unlike most modern games that just give you chores to do until you reach the end of the story

Im 32 years old so ive played alot of 90's and 00's games , deus ex , thief , system shock , doom , metal gear , old fallout games , baldurs gate , never winter nights , resident evil games , silent hill , fear and many more

In my opinion games today are so much better as long as developers really want to make good games and not cash grabs and im gonna give you a positive and negative example

First the negative , old thief game compared to the 2014 one , the difference is huge , the olders games are so much better , so much freedom to do the missions and interesting story

A positive example is doom , old doom games were awsome but doom 2016 and eternal (except the parkour stuff ) are so much better

Are those people that say older games were better correct or just cant see beyond nostalgia ?

 

[Dream-Knife]

Depends on your tastes I guess. That time period had a lot of creativity and experimentation that doesn't really exist anymore because people want to play it safe.

In your example, I actually hate the new Doom and wolfenstein games. RTCW was a much better game IMO.

 

[TintoConCasera]

I don't know if better or worse but, as a whole and talking about numbers, we got more good games back in the day than today. They were also more creative than those that came out today, which most seem to be designed in the exact same way.

That of course depends on what anyone considers good games.

Oh, and I love DOOM Eternal but man, I still think the original is better.

 

[TheGodfather07]

They felt like they had more passion behind them back then or maybe Its just childhood memories that makes me feel like that. You can't beat the awesomeness of being a kid and discovering all this amazing technology you knew nothing of.

 

[Kuranghi]

Games have become more complicated and drawn out, some people prefer simplicity/immediacy. I think thats a huge part of it. Plus variety is way lower than it used to be in the biggest/mainstream games, due to there being more money involved so less risk is taken.

 

[waquzy]

No.

End thread

 

[.Pennywise]

They weren't better. They were more innovative.

 

[Ezquimacore]

Was only better for a few franchises, but these days we have so much and even indie games now are better than many big games from the past. Good thing is we can always play old games and new games, so today is definitely better than the 90's

 

[BryceNobody]

I do miss the ‘simpler’ presentation for games that wasn’t so dependent on DLCs, subscriptions, online play, etc. Almost every triple AAA title these days is built to be financially profitable years after release vs. just focusing on making a great experience.

As for whether or not they were truly ‘better,’ that’s highly subjective. Ideas did seem a little more fresh back then. Who knows.

 

[Punished Miku]

Some things were better, and some things were worse.

They weren't better. They were more innovative.

Probably a decent summary here.

 

[kunonabi]

They were absolutely better. There have been a handful of amazing titles since but in terms pure volume and titles that that try push things forward the 90/00s are still way ahead. Shouldn't be true but it is.

 

[PaddyOCanager]

They weren't better. They were more innovative.

/thread

All this new tech and we still have braindead A.I., static environments, and tired gameplay mechanics.

 

[Romulus]

On the whole, they didn't bank on releasing a half-finished game and patching for a year to actual completion.

For me, the games were simply more passion-driven and had real soul. Most everything today just feels like it's trying to recapture the old games, which is revealing in itself.

 

[Mr Hyde]

The 90s and 00s didn't have Elden Ring so no.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Felt like there was a lot more variety and less focus tested safe AAA games. People were taking risks. Games also cost way less make back then so it makes sense.

 

[Dark Star]

games today kind of are "better" in a lot of ways

but I do agree that games from the 90's, 2000's had more soul/passion and overall charm and imagination to them.

HP video games are a good example. The first 3 perfectly captured what I'm talking about. Chamber of Secrets alone perfectly capture the spirit of making a good game not because it will make more money, but because the fans deserve it and the artists deserve to express their creativity.



The later HP games absolutely failed to do anything interesting and the last game left us with a crappy third-person shooter. The whole development of later HP games just became a lazy cash grab to attract as many people as possible, focusing on mainstream trends




same thing with movies, tv shows, music, etc. everything just felt more authentic and driven by a pure creative vision rather than the modern: "let's try to include everyone and not offend anyone of any race, gender, etc, and let's also make this as sterile and mainstream trend following as possible to rake in the most customers because all we care about is money"

 

[drotahorror]

For the most part I think games have been getting better and better as time goes on. Almost all my favorite games ever made came out in the past decade. I’ve been playing games for over 30 years.

 

[deeptech]

Maybe not 100% better, but lot less shittier and way more unique games than today. Today I feel like more and more titles are becoming one and same game, so much borrowed mechanics and design choices.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Is OP seriously comparing todays games with the ones from 20+ years ago? Of course todays games are better but you take it completely out of context. On average a new game released today has significantly less chance to make an impact. Back in the 90s and to some extent the 00s every year a game released that brought the medium a huge step further. Wether it was presentation, AI, graphics or gameplay. THAT is what made these time so awesome. There was always a new wonder around the corner.

Just taking the games and comparing them with the ones todays is stupid. You had to be there. If I let a kid today play RE4 it will never be able to understand how awesome and genre defining it was back when it release. It will never be able to understand how mindblowing MGS2 graphics and AI were. It will never be able to understand how HL2s physics blew us away or how Crysis graphics melded our PCs.

And how could it? It wasn‘t there.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Absolutely. The mainstream gaming industry is now a soulless, bloodless, corporate machine which chases exploitative trends designed to separate people from their money. It now targets idiots and children instead of hobbyists and enthusiasts, and the 'live service' creep is entirely built around normalising the most extreme predatory corporate behaviour imaginable. They don't want you to own anything, they don't want you to feel anything, they just want you to buy more currency packs and feel 'pride and accomplishment' in spending real money on .JPG files in the form of 'cosmetics'. It's a sad, sick, pathetic industry.

The 1990's and early 2000's were the last stand of real, genuine, enthusiast gaming. It was the time of Carmack and Romero and Warren Spector and Richard Garriott and Roberta Williams - games were made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. The mod scene is now a pathetic shadow of what it was during Quake 3/HL1/HL2. Communities were all server based, and there was no 'matchmaking'. Consoles offered completely different games when compared to the PC, and often completely different games compared to one another. Games were still games - not 'experiences', or whatever idiot marketing buzzword the zoomers are now parrotting. Developers still made video games - they weren't failed filmmakers desperately attempting to co-opt the medium and turn it into a pretentious mess which is neither a good game, nor a good movie. And games weren't seen as vehicles for your personal politics. There was no 'we have to do better' horseshit. Games were fun. That was it. The gaming press of the 1980's and 1990's put today's bloggers and grifters to shame. People like Julian Rignall knew how to talk about games that made you care about them - they weren't in the business of recruiting their audience to their cliched, uninteresting, pet political causes.

The graphics are better today. That's it. That's the only advantage of gaming in 2022 over gaming in 1992. I get that this makes some of the younger kiddies here mad. I get it. But, sorry. That's how it is. You missed out. Which is a shame, you would have loved it.

 

[German Hops]

I'd say gaming overall is better these days with all of the QoL improvements abound, but . . . 1998.
Incomparable.

 

[nemiroff]

Nope, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.. Been gaming four decades and I'm in the "what a time to be alive!" zone right now playing Elden Ring. I do love my classic Doom though, still play it once in a while.

 

[Punished Miku]

Nope, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.. Been gaming four decades and I'm in the "what a time to be alive!" zone right now playing Elden Ring. I do love my classic Doom though, still play it once in a while.

Yeah, I mean ... it's going to take a lot to argue that this isn't the case. My backlog is basically scrooge mcduck's vault at this point. You're probably right.

 

[ShirAhava]

Yes, the genre of games that I enjoy basically aren't even being made anymore I'm not into open world bore simulators so most modern games do nothing for me

 

[Faithless83]

They tried a lot of new things. There was no woke BS for starters.

 

[The_hunter]

I feel it's pretty mixed. Overall today we have a huge amount of choice on what games to play, that we never had before. But like others said, back then games were more experimental or innovative. Sad to see my favourite genre, the western rpg die out today, but games are in a good spot at the moment.

 

[intbal]

What we've lost: variety
What we've gained: more hollywood actors

Yes. Gaming was much better in previous decades.

 

[mxbison]

Big devs still took risks and tried out new stuff back then, now it's all 90% safe with some new stuff springled in here and there.

 

[PaddyOCanager]

This game is from 2001. The fact that this level of environmental interaction isn't minimum by now is embarrassing.

 

[Optimus Lime]

This game is from 2001. The fact that this level of environmental interaction isn't minimum by now is embarrassing.

Red Faction + Red Faction Guerilla still have the best destruction models in gaming (runner up - Bad Company 2) and that's fucking pathetic. I guess doing something, you know, fun, was less important than figuring out new ways to sell dance emotes to zoomers.

 

[IDKFA]

To a certain degree, yes they were.

Graphics, AI, physics and online gaming is a lot better today than it was in the 90s and 00s.

However, the 90s and 00s were better for a different reason. Back in those days, especially with console games, a majority of games were offline and this meant that games had to be shipped in a complete and playable state. A developer couldn't release a broken game and patch it later.

Game ownership is also a big one for many people. In this period you bought the physical game and that's it. The game was yours for life. Lend it to friends, sell it or keep it in your personal gaming library. That's still around today, but it won't be for much longer. With the rise of subscription services, many people are preferring to rent the games they want to play as a service. As this becomes more popular, it's only a matter of time before the physical market no longer exists.

 

[k_trout]

I'm biased - I think system shock 2 and deus ex were so monumental they made the era seem better than it actually was

 

[ReBurn]

They weren't better. But honestly games haven't really evolved much since then, at least from a gameplay perspective. Games are bigger now than they could be, and they're somewhat overproduced compared to then. But at the core not a lot has changed. Battle royale and roguelike are now their own genres, but that really comes from focus on a subset of gameplay mechanics more than innovation. It feels to me like games were better back then because developers had to innovate within technical boundaries that don't exist in the same way today.

 

[Sub_Level]

A positive example is doom , old doom games were awsome but doom 2016 and eternal (except the parkour stuff ) are so much better

Personally disagree here. People are still making levels for Doom 1 and 2 today, and likely will continue to for another hundred years. The core gameplay, bestiary, & weapon selection still hold up.

Doom 2016's level creator? Completely forgotten.

 

[Catphish]

I feel like it was a more creative time, likely because things were less formulaic then and less beholden to the whims of shareholders. Plus, the science of “player engagement” wasn’t even a fucking thing yet, so your brain wasn’t under constant assault by forces attempting to addict you.

Tech wise, it’s better now.
Creativity wise, it was better 20-30 years ago.

 

[Jeeves]

I think it's more accurate to say the industry was better and more fun back then. In its more mature age now, the industry has formed unhealthy habits that either were not possible at all back then or were just unthinkable. These day bigger budget games are more often designed by shareholders than the earnest vision of developers.

Even setting aside unfinished games and the dark side of DLC, core game design has become...perhaps refined in some eyes, and cookie-cutter in others. There are still indies experimenting, but it used to be the big names pioneering the possibilities of gaming and making big gambles on it.

 

[LazyParrot]

Probably yes, if only because making what would be considered a major release at the time required way less money, time and manpower. Big budget games look prettier today, but they're prohibitively expensive to make, which discourages studios and publishers from taking risks and innovating.

Indie studios sort of make up for this, but you need to put some real effort into weeding through all the crap that gets released, announced and kickstarted every week, finding something that looks interesting and then hoping it'll turn into an actual game at some point.

 

[V4skunk]

Alot of people are praising games from the 90's and 00's and they say that it was the best time to be a gamer , those games had better game design , better gameplay , better characters and those games just had a soul unlike most modern games that just give you chores to do until you reach the end of the story

Im 32 years old so ive played alot of 90's and 00's games , deus ex , thief , system shock , doom , metal gear , old fallout games , baldurs gate , never winter nights , resident evil games , silent hill , fear and many more

In my opinion games today are so much better as long as developers really want to make good games and not cash grabs and im gonna give you a positive and negative example

First the negative , old thief game compared to the 2014 one , the difference is huge , the olders games are so much better , so much freedom to do the missions and interesting story

A positive example is doom , old doom games were awsome but doom 2016 and eternal (except the parkour stuff ) are so much better

Are those people that say older games were better correct or just cant see beyond nostalgia ?

Deus Ex and BG2 still have not been surpassed.

 

[brian0057]

 

[Rest]

Not really, no. Game design is much better these days. Especially well made, well balanced games still stand out as classics, but as a whole games are much better now than they used to be.

 

[Spaceman292]

games today kind of are "better" in a lot of ways

but I do agree that games from the 90's, 2000's had more soul/passion and overall charm and imagination to them.

HP video games are a good example. The first 3 perfectly captured what I'm talking about. Chamber of Secrets alone perfectly capture the spirit of making a good game not because it will make more money, but because the fans deserve it and the artists deserve to express their creativity.



The later HP games absolutely failed to do anything interesting and the last game left us with a crappy third-person shooter. The whole development of later HP games just became a lazy cash grab to attract as many people as possible, focusing on mainstream trends




same thing with movies, tv shows, music, etc. everything just felt more authentic and driven by a pure creative vision rather than the modern: "let's try to include everyone and not offend anyone of any race, gender, etc, and let's also make this as sterile and mainstream trend following as possible to rake in the most customers because all we care about is money"

Try playing Chamber of Secrets again. It sucked, my friend.

 

[Fart Knight]

Deus Ex Human Revolution is from 2011 and Elden Ring from 2022 so no.

 

[Xeaker]

JRPGs 1990-2008 was the best time.

 

[fermcr]

Not they not... if we played those games today, most people wouldn't give a crap about them. Games nowadays are better in almost all aspects in relation to old games. Better graphics, gameplay, game design, music, sound effects, etc.

The only thing that's debatable is the writing. Are old games better written then newer games? I say NO they are not... but like I said, that's debatable.

 

[Kappa]

No

 

[KuraiShidosha]

Yes

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

Of course they are. That was when gaming actually was gaming in major ways, that's when major sagas were birthed/in their apex. That was when software and hardware innovated to form interactive experiences that were greater than the sum of their parts, which is where that soul and passion many are describing probably came from. And the culture/fandoms hit different too as they were simpler back then

 

[levyjl1988]

Gaming peaked for me around 2010- 2015 on Xbox 360.
Halo 3, Reach, Alice Madness Returns, etc.

 

[Neff]

The industry wasn't held hostage by its own excessively expensive production values and cutthroat sales expectations back then, so yes in a way it was better because it was permitted so much more freedom, variety and experimentation.

But then again those same bloated production values have given us some incredible, vividly spectacular experiences, not to mention games featuring a great deal more content than they used to.

There are pros and cons to both eras.

 

[Pagusas]

no, but I was younger and more impressionable and had a much lower bar for quality. Doesn't mean they were bad though, my favorite games are all from that time, and its 90% rose tinted glasses and nostalgia. Except for FF7, that game is a masterpiece, and even with the Remake, I still hold FF7 above all else.