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[Stuart360]

Unless its a nostalgia related game (and in which case i can play from any era), i only go as far back as PS2/Gamecube, and the N64 as N64 games at higher resolution can often still look decent. Thats as far back as i can go though, and even then it has to be on a emulator where i can turn up the resolution.

 

[SSfox]

Some games are never too old to play again. I mean they're too old but still worthy to play. MGS Saga, Classic RE, Core design Tomb Raider games, and so on.

 

[MarkMe2525]

You didn't understand the question, so I'll try to rephrase,

What aging elements from a game would make you not enjoy playing it ?

I'm not asking wether games before 199X are unplayable and that universally applies to everyone of them. You can perfectly enjoy a game frome say 1995 or older, but find games that came out around 2005 unenjoyable because some of their elements (gameplay, sound, etc...) have really badly aged contrary to other games.

In the spirit of the question then, I would say camera control. That took them awhile to figure out.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Never expect good graphics from old games rule #1.

 

[RoadHazard]

The earliest 2D games are generally too outdated for me at this point. I'm basically talking everything up to and including the NES, although on that console the are examples of both. The Mario games are still great, but I can't really enjoy the NES Zelda games, etc.

SNES is still awesome.

The same goes for the first 3D generation. Many PS1/N64/Saturn games are barely playable now, but others like SM64 are still amazing.

PS2/GameCube/Xbox, like SNES, is generally still awesome. Actually the generation after that (PS360) is often worse to go back to I think. Those consoles tried to run games in HD, but the result was often awful performance with terrible screen tearing.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Give me savestates and I can go way back to anything that isn’t a pure arcade loop, or those obscure adventure games of the home computer era.
I just have a very hard time accepting huge time losses in games these days. The other day I replayed Banjo-Kazooie. It’s always a great game, but getting all the notes in one go in the later levels… I can’t imagine how I could manage that in my youth.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Time is not really relevant.

I can still play Tetris on my original black & white GameBoy and enjoy it better than some game.

The real answer: depends of the game, some are timeless.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Cool, so Half Life series is shit, Doom is shit, Zelda OoT is shit, FFVII is shit, Bioshock is shit, just to name a few… you’re mental!

That's it, actually anything before and after Fortnite is pure garbage (maybe Roblox and Minecraft are exceptions, but this is a stretch).

 

[Cyberpunkd]

But Dark Souls is 2011

Proves his point.

J/k, Dark Soûls is dope.

 

[Belthazar]

My limit is the NES/Master System generation. I can play anything up to that point, but Atari crap is just too ancient for me.

 

[cortadew]

Not counting arcades, when it was released before the 3rd gen of consoles (8 bits)

 

[Mr Hyde]

I love retro as much as modern games and play everything from NES to PS5. If a game is good it doesn't matter when it was made. But if I had to draw a line it's probably Atari/Commodore 64 stuff. Not really into that.

 

[saintjules]

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

The real question is, at what point does a game become too new for you to play?

 

[alabtrosMyster]

The real question is, at what point does a game become too new for you to play?

I always wait for the game to be on sale before I buy it, so a couple of months I guess?

 

[cireza]

Not before NES/MS.

Many Master System games are still beautiful today. Disney games, Sonic games, Power Strike II etc... and they played perfectly. Such an awesome 8 bits console.

 

[JayK47]

PS3 and 360 games are hard to look at. Hard to believe they were cutting edge once.

 

[cormack12]

I try but fail tbh. If it hasn't got some sort of real nostalgia attached to it then I'm usually only current gen.

Exceptions are sometimes PC games or old TCMs

 

[HF2014]

Increased difficulty and buttons managment in games. Old days 6 buttons snes were fine, i digged 8 , dig the button press for the analogue, but now you have some button combinaisons. Im older and sometime my head just want to explode. And now well games are harder, you know i beat Returnal becaude i want to really play it, but having hard time with Elden Ring dont know why, beat all Souls games in the past. Im getting older, plain n simple, even Metroid Dread gave me headaches, and i dont think for me a harder game is still an enjoyable experience.

Thats why my GOTY is Stray!

 

[Black_Stride]

I still play Tetris and Pong today.
So I guess as old as videogames have been around?

 

[Calling 911 Melts Beams]

yesterday

 

[TheGreatMusashi]

I typically don’t touch much before the NES.

 

[anthraticus]

Jesus Christ. Stop posting/clowning yourself op

 

[Mownoc]

The biggest problem with older titles for me is UI. I don't care too much about the games graphics but if the UI is really clunky, difficult to use or looks horrendous then that's hard for me.

Mainly old RPGs and Strategy games that suffer that problem the most.

 

[LordBlodgett]

Graphics are not the hard part for me to overcome in 90% of older games. Sometimes it is the really outdated game play or concepts. I can still go back and play any Mario game and have a blast, but games like the first Bard's Tale is super hard to go back to after playing modern RPG's (or even later games in the series) just due to it's repetitive and outdated game play loop. I do have a hard time playing a lot of early 80's games, but even then games like Burgertime, Pac-Man, or Donkey Kong are still good for some fun every now and then. Game Play is super important

 

[BusierDonkey]

I played the original Wasteland last year, it was great. I played Final Fantasy 1-6 this year, they were all worth playing. I played Quake for the first time ever, it was great. I played through a bunch of first-year Game Boy games this year, all great.

Good games will always be good. Sure, newer games in a series can improve on an old formula and add to it but more often than not the classics hold out just fine. I find more often than not games just become more complicated as time moves on and they lose what made them fun in the first place.

 

[D-ray]

If it's not fun anymore, I won't play it.
Regarding mechanics, if they suck, I'll just bare them until the end of the game and then never touch it again.

Mafia 1, for instance, has TERRIBLE game mechanics (for the genre at least), and since the story was the only interesting part, I'm not going to play it again.

Anything made after 2012 is shit

Nuclear Throne is made after 2012. Go play Nuclear Throne.

 

[I_D]

Most old games are totally fine for me, regardless of graphics and gameplay.

The only thing that is really hard for me to get re-accustomed to is older shooters which lack separate movement/looking controls.
N64-era shooters, for example, are super tough to replay, due to the lack of an extra joystick.

Third-person games, even shooters, can usually get a pass, since they have some sort of other (albeit, minimal) camera-controlling button.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

By "old" I mean Outdated in terms of gameplay/visuals/audio/anything you can think of, not old in the sense that games realeased before "enter date" are not enjoyable.


So I downloaded the original DEUS EX on PC because I love the Cyberpunk genre and loved both Human revolution and Mankind Divided but never played the first one. (I was something like 6 y.o. when it released)

I started a new game after fidling with the option menu. First impression is that visuals are more than dated but that was to be expected so it's not a big issue. But damn as much as I would like to experience the story, I just can't get pass the obsolete gameplay. I played games from the same era not too long ago (MGS1 comes to mind) and it wasn't as bad. The first person view might not help it, but gunplay, movement, and AI is too dated for me to enjoy playing it. i fell 3D games suffer much more from this than 2D ones. I guess this will be a good contender for a youtube playthrough.

So I'm curious, do you feel there's a point where old games (3D or 2D) are too dated for you to enjoy playing them, wether it's gameplay/graphic related (or other) ?

PS: Yeah sorry guys I know this forum has a majority of its audience that is around 40 y.o., but 2000 was 22 years ago, games from that time are old now

 

[March Climber]

Any 2d game that has aged extremely poorly in controls, no matter how much it is revered, I have trouble playing.

 

[brian0057]

If the controls are almost impossible to get, or if not even mods can make it work, then it's too old for me.
The original System Shock is just barely playable (and the Enhanced Edition improved a lot) so I'd say 1994 is my cut-off point.
Anything prior to that, short of a point-and-click adventure game, is too archaic for me to play.

 

[Bonsaibäumchen]

I love all types of games. I’m not booting up [...] or Master of Orion.

 

[gaming_again]

I can get past almost anything if the game is fun (I never understand people complaining about the frame rate in Bloodborne, for example), but man… some of the muddy textures from the ps3/360 era are tough to deal with sometimes.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Usually around 4-6 years. Some games hold up really well though so I'm willing to go further in some cases. Others were obsolete almost immediately.

I went to play Dragon Age Inquisition after I finished my Witcher 3 Wild Hunt playthrough despite DA only being out less than a year before W3 and that was.....not great. It was like going from 4k 60fps to watching shadow puppets on the wall of a cave.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I have a hard time with RTS games. I’ve tried countless times with EA’s RTS PC collection, a decent library on GOG, and being there front and center for StarCraft 2’s launch. I wouldn’t mind being a fan of Civilization and Master of Orion. I’ve played Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. I owned that big Civilization box set that came out ages ago with 5 or more CD’s to it. I liked Heroes of Might & Magic III and Disciples 2. I always wanted to go back someday and check them out. I’ve read Sid Meier’s memoirs. He helped create chopper sims and his legacy with Civilization is interesting to read about. I’m not a huge Civilization player. It’s maybe because my own taste in games is more action/RPG based. There’s something that doesn’t click with me when I’m given the captain’s chair.

 

[Rayderism]

Most of the games I loved on the C64 are pretty intolerable to me now.

 

[Trilobit]

I have a hard time with console games before NES, well, except for Pong. The games before that are just too archaic. When it comes to PC games with outdated graphics like Jedi Academy it doesn't matter to me as the story and game mechanics and controls are so terrific.

 

[TGO]

I think Max Payne is pretty unplayable
A lot of those games that was made for PC back then are actually.

 

[ACESHIGH]

I can't play games from before the NES era.

 

[Futaleufu]

I have no problem playing arcade games from the late 70s.

Atari 2600 games, OTOH, are not fun for me.

 

[Icymanipulator]

If the game is good it won’t matter that it’s old

 

[yamaci17]

as long as it is semi compatible with a dual analog gamepad: i'll play it

 

[AetherZX]

Depends on the mechanics, the OG Monster Hunter isn't playable to me tbh.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Early 3d games. Controlling the camera on n64 games is literally painful.

 

[justiceiro]

Only two occasions i could think of:

• When the game demands the use some specific, out of use, old peripheral. This is when the nostalgic becomes cumbersome
• When a remaster/hd texture pack was already released for that game. I can appreciate games in isolation, but playing a game with worse textures when better textures where already made available is just too much.

 

[Roger Rabbit]

Consoles before the NES and SMS for me, although there are a few exceptions. Galaga is a timeless classic, and there are some ZX Spectrum games I still enjoy, and Elite will always be good in its original form.

I find the SNES and Megadrive have aged better for the most part than the PS/SAT/N64.

 

[EDMIX]

When your 90+ years old and jamming a N64 game into the M.5 slot of a PS7, out here asking your grandson shit like "why the fuck isn't Metal Gear Solid 6 : Daughters Of The Deep State not working jr"

only to realize its Goldeneye 64 and you are screaming into a Wendy's Bank ATM (in the future, Wendy's becomes the biggest bank buying out Bank Of America, Chase, all cause they went back to the classic yellow cause it hit different)

lol

jk aside, imho a game becomes too old for you when the design is too dated to be enjoyable, now this is subjective to many I understand. When we are done with this gen and are used to damn near 1 second loading, it will be hard to go back to waiting minutes or something, as we go deeper into generations, that will be much hard to return to for many.

The next point I'd say is work arounds. How many work arounds is needed to have the game run? Some PC titles I have a note pad where its like "turn off Vsync, only play on medium to avoid white screen, runs better on Windows 7, start with save file 12" or some shit. Depends on how many steps, if a remaster or "enhanced" version exist that is more modern etc.

Next I'd say is the display output. Does it NEED some CTR tv to play based on compatibility? They do have converters for this as I own one to use for Gamecube, N64, Dreamcast etc

For the most part, I really feel it comes down to design. We are used to fast loading (or going to be) cameras that make sense as we don't even fucking debate or rate that show now days that so perfect and set in stone now, before that was factored a lot, now every game has a 3D camera angle that makes sense by default and I can't tell you 1 game in the last 15 years where that was some massive issue or something. So I think action games get the worst end of this as at the time they were cutting edge, to todays standards, they are just awful to play.

turned based RPGs imho age maybe the best in this regard as most of the game is conceptual, as oppose to some exact action thing that will be dated, so the worst part about any of those older games really is the loading, if someone can suffer thru that, they should still be able to have a pretty good time, everything else? Maybe not.

 

[Griffon]

Anything from NES to today works for me. As long as the game itself is good or interesting.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Honestly, the game is not really about the gunplay or how the enemy AI behaves in combat. It's primarily about engaging with its reactive world and having fun by poking it with a stick to see what happens.

I always thought that the first option that you're being given in the game was a bit of a noob trap because the selection consists of some of the worst weapons that you can get at that point in the game, and they're only really useful in very specific situations, or after you upgrade specific skills needed to use them (which by that point you won't be able to). So you might think that you're gonna get a rocket launcher and go in guns blazing, but then it's only gonna end up in a quick and painful reality check.

It's worth experimenting with different approaches without getting too discouraged when you're gonna fail right out of the gate every time. It's an incredibly rewarding experience once you figure out how to play it and accept the fact that it's not a traditional first person shooter. What's great about this game has the least to do with the action shooty bang bang aspect of gameplay, and it's more about immersing yourself in its world, exploring the environments, discovering new ways in which you can approach each situation, have fun conversations with NPCs and see them react to your actions, and so on...

The atmosphere in this game is also incredible. I just love this setting and the story, which is jam-packed with character and charm. It's very much representative of its time, i.e. when The X-Files was still one of the most popular shows on TV, and The Matrix was all the rage, but it also touches upon some very profound topics and it even turned out to be prophetic in some ways (and I'm not just talking about the World Trade Center stuff).

I would strongly encourage you to stick with it at least until you figure out how to beat the first level and return to Unatco HQ, where you can just explore the environment and interact with other NPCs. If the game won't click with you by that point, then indeed maybe it's just not for you.

 

[Roger Rabbit]

It's surprising sometimes how subtle a change can be, yet it can make it difficult for me to go back to earlier games. In some PS1 driving games, to enter a race of, say, 2WD FW cars, there was no indication of which cars met those criteria. You had to find out for yourself. In modern racing games, if you enter that kind of race and go to the Purchase Vehicle option, it shows you all the cars which would be eligible for that race. End result - I can't be bothered with games that don't do that, so they are, I suppose, too old for me to find them enjoyable.