cinnamonandgravy
Member
why stop at 1 day-one patch?
day one 6am patch
day one 9am patch
day one 11am patch
day one 3pm patch
day one 8pm optional extreme patch for patch enthusiasts
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were 90's and 00's games really better ?
- Thread starter samoilaaa
- Start date
day one 6am patch
day one 9am patch
day one 11am patch
day one 3pm patch
day one 8pm optional extreme patch for patch enthusiasts
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
For a game that came out in 1993 (I think I played it in 1994), this game was mindblowing. Maybe young people who grew up on PS2 or 360 will think it's shit, but it's an awesome game. Also had built in map tracker where you could write notes on the page since this game (and the original) don't have icons and symbols telling you everything.
This guy must be playing a CD version because my fam's game didn't sound this good as we didn't have a CD based PC till later.
This guy must be playing a CD version because my fam's game didn't sound this good as we didn't have a CD based PC till later.
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anthraticus
Banned
The worst years of gaming started with the release of the PS3/360. The overall quality in games declined sharply as the larger focus and budgets from big name developers went towards marketing and graphics, with an army of artists.
Mindless cinematic shit became the norm, achievements and micro transactions were introduced (horse armor), the rebooting of franchises in dumbed down/barebones form began and everyone was riding the sellout bandwagon hard. No beloved game series survived the rape. You'd walk down a corridor, some scripted shit would happen, you'd press an awesome button, fireworks go off, pop a few moles, rinse and repeat. Complete degeneracy.
But they realized they couldn't keep doing that utterly braindead shit and keep popamolers impressed forever. So instead, as one example, devs seem to lean on sandbox skinner box collectathon with 100 handholding features type design. It's shallow and weak as fuck too, but still more involving and complex than the late 2000s games that were barely even games.
The soul of gaming was gone because it became a huge business and back in the day a lot of great companies went to shit because they took risks in order to do what they love. The only people doing that now are a handful of indie developers. And things didn't get any better until some of the smaller teams (that weren't trying to make games for EVERYBODY) were able to get their stuff to the public through things like digital distribution, steam, etc..
And even with those sometimes you still have to deal with the identity politics and other horseshit they cram into games now, so they've now also become digital propaganda or, at the very least, a virtue signaling circle jerk.
Mindless cinematic shit became the norm, achievements and micro transactions were introduced (horse armor), the rebooting of franchises in dumbed down/barebones form began and everyone was riding the sellout bandwagon hard. No beloved game series survived the rape. You'd walk down a corridor, some scripted shit would happen, you'd press an awesome button, fireworks go off, pop a few moles, rinse and repeat. Complete degeneracy.
But they realized they couldn't keep doing that utterly braindead shit and keep popamolers impressed forever. So instead, as one example, devs seem to lean on sandbox skinner box collectathon with 100 handholding features type design. It's shallow and weak as fuck too, but still more involving and complex than the late 2000s games that were barely even games.
The soul of gaming was gone because it became a huge business and back in the day a lot of great companies went to shit because they took risks in order to do what they love. The only people doing that now are a handful of indie developers. And things didn't get any better until some of the smaller teams (that weren't trying to make games for EVERYBODY) were able to get their stuff to the public through things like digital distribution, steam, etc..
And even with those sometimes you still have to deal with the identity politics and other horseshit they cram into games now, so they've now also become digital propaganda or, at the very least, a virtue signaling circle jerk.
There are great games today and gaming is more accesible than ever but...
Games from the 90s through mid 00s had BALLS. Instead of the focus group tested PC AAA games we been getting since gaming got really popular around the sixth gen.
Also AA games were more of a thing and those were t afraid to experiment.
I wonder when gaming and society in general will get back to the attitude era.
Games from the 90s through mid 00s had BALLS. Instead of the focus group tested PC AAA games we been getting since gaming got really popular around the sixth gen.
Also AA games were more of a thing and those were t afraid to experiment.
I wonder when gaming and society in general will get back to the attitude era.
Midnight Bliss
Member
Any post that talks about how many “bad” games there were has completely invalidated itself. You’re only supposed to focus on the good games because you wouldn’t play bad games anyways so they don’t really exist.
gaming died in 2001 and modern games are terrible
gaming died in 2001 and modern games are terrible
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MidGenRefresh
*Refreshes biennially
Games are better than ever. Variety of games (at least on PC) is better than ever.
TheBROgamer
Banned
True words
TheBROgamer
Banned
Gaming died in the mid-late 7th gen (when the suits took over), tbh...
zaanan
Banned
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Going 3D was import, Sonys leadership sharpened.
eastcoastkody
Member
i know i liked sports and fighting games more back then.
im not convinced that Madden 22 & The Show 21 are better than Madden 07 & MVP Baseball 2005.
i would take Tekken 5 over 7 all day
im not convinced that Madden 22 & The Show 21 are better than Madden 07 & MVP Baseball 2005.
i would take Tekken 5 over 7 all day
no and yes. The games of those days were complete packages and like someone else said innovative. The games of today are better because they have made so many improvements on what makes these games works and quality of life improvements. Unfortunately we now have microtransactions and very buggy games but we also get more dlc and fixes to bugs eventually.
Hypereides
Member
I'll just say, that despite that I intend to invest in a PS4 at some point, I'm entirely content with my PS3 as is, really. I've just accepted that modern games are categorically, not for me anymore. I'm not the kind of gamer the industry wants anyway. They're looking at the generation that grew up on IAPs. They're more than willing to fill the industry's pockets for digital items and purchases that will eventually become inaccessible.
If some people enjoy the modern gaming era then that's cool. Personally, I feel indifferent about many modern games these days apart from maybe a handful if I'm being generous.
If some people enjoy the modern gaming era then that's cool. Personally, I feel indifferent about many modern games these days apart from maybe a handful if I'm being generous.
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64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
quick reminder that during 7th gen we got far cry 2, GTAIV, smash bros brawl, dead space 1 & 2, bioshock 1 & 2, Portal 1 and 2, L4D2, Crysis, God of War 3, prototype, bayonetta, modnation racers and the list goes on....
while the decline of gaming did happen around the tail end of the 360 generation, to imply that it died the moment those 2 consoles came out is goofy and is clearly ignoring all of the literal masterpieces that came out during the mid-late 2000s
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Agreed. 360/PS3 era was solid. The Kinect/Move shit was bad and Wii had lots of shovelware, but the era had lot of good games.
I'd say the Xbox One/PS4 era and current era are the worst. Games look, play and load faster so the games are technically the best versions of whatever sequel they churn out, but I don't see a lot of innovation or wow factor aside from up-ports. The biggest innovations might be battle royale or consoles having tons of quality F2P games.
kainslayer
Neo Member
yes they were better for 3 reasons,music,no politics,no censorship.Low graphics ultra talent,now days are super graphics but you get the feeling been there done that...
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Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
They did have more passion because a lot of gaming business were smaller akin to a more niche industry like board games. Games we're made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. A lot of game devs were the computer nerd types not the body covered in tattoos, piercings all over and gauges wearing devs we see today like at Ubisofts 2020 E3 event.
vito_don_corleone_
Banned
No.
Shadowstar39
Member
Played the first one in 1992. Family computer went from a handme down 8088 8mhz 4 color cga , 2 5.25 floppies and no hdd to a 386sx 16mhz with VGA, 20mb hard drive, CD Rom and Sound blaster pro.
First game I got with it was Battle Chess and a dual game disk of ultima underworld and wing commander 2, with full music and speech. I was blown away!! Amazing for the time.
So can definelty related. The free form emergent game play has really only been done in other looking glass titles, Thief, and its cousin System Shock and Deus Ex. Dishonored, Arx Fatalis also take some of this and the lineage can also be felt in many rpgs. Still nothing has matched the first ultima underworld for mystery and exploration of the unknown. You had no clue what was down there.
I never got to play uw2 until years later on a modern pc where i wasn't too thrilled. It was missing the charm of the first one and the time period and hardware it was on too.
Shadowstar39
Member
The problem here is all the original devs for those games left the industry, and many who stayed got cancelled by all the twitter bullies and blue haired pronoun police. So you are left with people who don't respect the lore, and what came before. They inject politics and make cringe worthy characters and you are left with crap.... If not proove me wrong devs.
DavidGzz
Member
Purely nostalgia. Games are better than ever today. I'll never again experience the greatness of Halo lan parties that I had as a teen and that's ok. It's part of growing up. Teenage years are magical. Halo Infinite is still a better game. Saying otherwise is just nostalgia speaking.
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xpresstuning
Member
Well, for some genres yes and for other no. Immersive sims for example, while they had a recent rebirth, aren't even close to the gameplay design (immersiveness and freedom of choices) of the 90s - early 00s immersive sims. Can't speak of Ultima Underworld (because i haven't played it), but System Shock (the original) is basically the most complete immersive sim ever made, though that came at a cost; it is ridiculously inaccessible because of its complexity, but that's sort of alleviated in the Enhanced version.
Thief is a great example, and so is Deus Ex. The original Deus Ex is basically the culmination of the immersive sim genre and the best of its kind, by far. There are so many documentaries that show exactly why it was designed as it is and it truly is a wonder how brilliant the game holds up compared to anything out there.
It's also very subjective apart from technical aspects, sort of like saying my favorite color is better than yours.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
The technological leap of Gen 6 and beyond made it literally impossible for the lonely garage developer to make a complete game. Huge groups of people became necessary to make a game that exploits the full power of the hardware. So of course you need an army of artists to make a good-looking game, and it’s hard to see game making as a hobby and not a job when whatever you’re doing for the game is probably going to be a drop in the ocean of the complete product.
The problem is made worse by the fact that tech advances happened so fast in such a short time. If you had learned to code before the early 3D era you could still be able to make a great game, albeit with the help of a rather big group of people. But later on the only way to learn much has become to work on huge productions in the big studios. It’s the basic reason most indie studios could never make what we call a AAA game nowadays, even if given an infinite budget, and it’s also the reason most 3D indie games are terribly basic and often broken beyond repair.
Games were censored to hell and back in the West in the past. Like in, actually censored, not “pre-emptively” censored avoiding any kind of controversial content in the finished game. If you couldn’t play the Japanese versions of games you’d miss on almost all the mature content.
This is why people gatekeep and hate when things become mainstream. Gaming was more creative and interesting when it was associated with basement dwelling losers. Once normies and corporate America really got into gaming your average AAA game is now a boring, broken mess and the gaming media is about clickbait and not actual gaming.
TheBROgamer
Banned
The difference is Halo CE revolutionized console FPS, in terms of controls and gameplay.
Halo Infinite is just another FPS.
That's the difference, games back then made way more impacts in terms of game design.
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TheBROgamer
Banned
This is true, gaming went mainstream during the PS360 era with CoD 4 paving the way.
unintelligent orange
Member
yeah this industry too corporate now. all the new suits came in the building cuz they heard there was money, now everybody playing it hella safe. 90s and early 00s games were better because they werent afraid to be creative/edgy. It was good because it wasnt some overpolished nice looking turd like a lot of games end up being these days. there was passion behind the games and it was evident in the quality i think. these days i feel like games are too strategicly planned, people arent making shit because they want to make something and they want it to be great, the sole intent and bottom line when producing one is financial gain. how do i make more of that shit.
and its exacerbated by the way everyone buys into the bs. yall gotta start choosing with your wallets smh. seems like the only pockets of decent games come from indie studios who are just trying to get some food in their mouth. Triple A titles are becoming more and more safe as well its trash.
and its exacerbated by the way everyone buys into the bs. yall gotta start choosing with your wallets smh. seems like the only pockets of decent games come from indie studios who are just trying to get some food in their mouth. Triple A titles are becoming more and more safe as well its trash.
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TheBROgamer
Banned
The games of the past were made by passionate devs, the games of today are made devs being pushed by suits to make a game that has "mass appeal".
Ladioss
Member
Devs are as passionate now as they were in the past - they have to, when you see how they are treated and how much they are paid
What changed is that you have many more suits in the industry now - managers, bullshit consultants, and socjus grifters.
PerfectDark
Banned
Games were not a cash grab. Also didn't cost as much to make.
You played a game unlocked and earned everything.
You played a game unlocked and earned everything.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
it's not just that-
Halo CE had a far, far better art direction, better story, far superior level design and better gameplay to boot. same for 2, 3, ODST and reach. it's not a matter of being another FPS, it's that its legitimately superior
besides, we can't exactly evolve gaming any more than we already have with our current tech. we need a revolution similar to 3d, like VR to really expand video games again and bring back the big game design changes we got from games like mario 64 and halo
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
games actually can cost way less to make nowadays, it's just that AAA devs artificially inflate the budget by pouring all of the cash into visuals and marketing, and then say that "games take too much cash that's why we add MTX" even though they know damn well they can lower the budget and still get great visuals
Wildebeest
Member
The game industry is more professional, now, which can be good and bad. Sometimes being professional means that there is a set way of doing things, which can make games feel very bland and samey. On the other hand, you get fewer games that feel like they were thrown together at the last minute, because they were. But you don't even have to only play games made by huge teams, unless those big production values are the main attraction for you. You can find smaller games made by passionate people that are more experimental or throwback in style.
cireza
Member
Big modern games are stuck in templates, that's the real issue here. Back in the 90s, you had a much greater variety of games. Budgets were lower and the big games could be made by smaller teams.
Now everything has to fit the mold. Currently everything needs to be an open-fucking-world. Content is padded to no end. You get shit to pick up every two steps. Fetch-quests. Crafting. Skill trees. We knew how to make awesome games without any of this before. And developers are struggling to make their open-world interesting, because the real issue here, is that it is impossible to make an interesting world when it is so big. You have to resort to copy/pasting stuff, and it become obvious to the player. Games nowadays are super predictable : you know way too much without having played the game before.
Open-world needs to die if we want to get back to more interesting designs and shorter games.
At least we get some nice games like Brigandine or Valkyria Chronicles 4 every once in a while. Support these games. They are proper games, not some more tedious work to do after you have completed your days actual real work.
Now everything has to fit the mold. Currently everything needs to be an open-fucking-world. Content is padded to no end. You get shit to pick up every two steps. Fetch-quests. Crafting. Skill trees. We knew how to make awesome games without any of this before. And developers are struggling to make their open-world interesting, because the real issue here, is that it is impossible to make an interesting world when it is so big. You have to resort to copy/pasting stuff, and it become obvious to the player. Games nowadays are super predictable : you know way too much without having played the game before.
Open-world needs to die if we want to get back to more interesting designs and shorter games.
At least we get some nice games like Brigandine or Valkyria Chronicles 4 every once in a while. Support these games. They are proper games, not some more tedious work to do after you have completed your days actual real work.
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AeonGaidenRaiden
Member
Well they were great because the tech was going so fast, its like every 6 months a new game engine came out with a better looking game. And then slowly more and more adding narrative and making them more deeper. I like some old games but realistically, Im not going to say yeah, id rather play them. I barely managed to play 3 hours of the GTA remaster and not because of bugs but because of terrible old controls and barebones story.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
Ah, the memories. Remember how I bough the best GeForce (5950 XT) back then only so I could barley run Doom³ on Ultra settings. And then a couple months later Ultra setting were already something I could only dream of.
I was quite frustrating at the time but damn did tech move fast. Today you only need new hardware for diffrerences that are barly visable. Bach in the days the difference between medium and ultra settings was hugggggeeee.
PC gaming was much better, as they didn't 'streamline' games to cater to a casual crowd. The depth of games like Baldur's Gate 2 is amazing. Splinter Cell is another series that was much better 'back then'. I feel the industry has regressed in terms of stealth games since Chaos Theory. There was also much more variety in types of games. Character designs were much better, especially Japanese designs. I don't know what happened, but the majority of Japanese games has that art style that goes on those anime pillows.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
I think it has much to do with the "game for everybody" approach of todays games. Everything is designed so that everyone can play it.
I'd say it used to be much more clear cut back in the 90s and 00s as in you either like a game or you don't.
I'd say GTA III + sequels are largly to blaime for this shift as they showed the mass appeal of Open World game play. Then in the past generation you had several games like AC who only reinformed the mass apeal of these games. I mean, you can see it now most clearly with Elden Ring and it's success. Meaning, even the hardcore Souls gameplay has infinately more mass apeal when moved into the Open World. It's the future and we are never going to get away from this again.
stn
Member
It is difficult to compare because games from the current generation will obviously look and sound better. That said, just on gameplay alone, I do think the 90's and beyond produced amazing games - and this is not nostalgia talking. For example, Donkey Kong Country is still a masterful platformer and the music still bangs. Super Mario World, too. NBA Jam is still fun. Saturday Night Slammasters is still awesome. I played the Sonic games the other day on XBLA and they hold up brilliantly.
Shits_McGiggles
Member
Since the overall gaming audience was younger back in the day, they were willing to deal with more imperfections. Games were more experimental, sometimes at the cost of being unrefined.
If those games were released to today's gaming audience, the industry would have become more consolidated and more streamlined much earlier on.
People are complete assholes these days who vastly downplay the amount of work it takes to make a game.
Like holy shit, the amount of people who are absolutely brutal on a budget game for not looking like a AAA game is insane. No nuance, just "this looks like shit" or "This looks like a ps2 game!"
Indie games get a pass, but the moment a small company is behind developing a game, the shit hits the fan.
If those games were released to today's gaming audience, the industry would have become more consolidated and more streamlined much earlier on.
People are complete assholes these days who vastly downplay the amount of work it takes to make a game.
Like holy shit, the amount of people who are absolutely brutal on a budget game for not looking like a AAA game is insane. No nuance, just "this looks like shit" or "This looks like a ps2 game!"
Indie games get a pass, but the moment a small company is behind developing a game, the shit hits the fan.
Kokoro2020
Member
I think nostalgia plays a big part. Sometimes, nostalgia may make something seem better than it actually was. People say the same thing for movies and music too.
I like both retro gaming and modern gaming, personally. But I will still admit that there's many older games that just haven't aged very well today.
I like both retro gaming and modern gaming, personally. But I will still admit that there's many older games that just haven't aged very well today.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Game companies have such a high focus on sales, they got no choice but to pump out whatever makes money. And if that means the millionth COD or EA sports game they got to focus on that instead of the tons of variety of games decades ago, where a company like Sierra could make Jones in the Fast Lane for fun. Publicly traded companies like EA and Activision back then had stock prices so low nobody cared about them as investments. You'd never even hear about gaming sector companies. Now it's important as stock prices can go +/- 30% in a day of something big happens. Back in the 80s and early 90s, stock prices barely moved. There used to be a stock quote channel on TV in my area that would show one by one the stock prices of companies. My dad watched it as he read his newspaper and sometimes I'd sit there with him doing stuff and saw the listings. Almost every stock went up or down under $1. If a stock at $60 changed $1 or more that was huge. Now that happens daily like it's nothing. I remember my dad getting excited one of his stocks went up like $2 or something and the guys is happy as a clam like he won the lottery.
And got to make it easy to get mainstream gamers. That's why tutorial levels in games became a big thing maybe 20 years ago and since then.
As for Japanese art it's a love it or hate it thing. Either you lived with it as console gamers back then when most big games were by Japanese studios, or you played PC games which were western/european based games. As tech improved, western studios strive for realism and Japanese devs still focus on their art style. It seems the only games that look western are Gran Turismo and Dark Souls kinds of games. Everything else has that Japanese look. Even games that try to look realistic still have character models and faces that are obviously made by Japanese artists.
I dont know why that is, but it is what it is. A Japanese gamer would probably rather play big head baseball than a realistic NPB game, and an anime RPG with bright colours vs a gritty looking dungeon romper. However for car games, somehow it seems Gran Turismo is king.
Going by the trending in games as a whole for high budget games, people prefer realism as the best selling games aside from Nintendo where gamers skew to western style games.
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unintelligent orange
Member
What would be smart is if they broadened the market as a whole, and stabilize gaming as more accepable thing (kind of already there). Then slowly manipulate those markets over time into liking the less cookie cutter/more creative/more edgy shit. What I would do I if I was given the reins.
Possibly it'd backfire tho, cause ppl are pussies these days and have no skin..