How does the age of a game affect your immersion and enjoyment?

For me, practically none. The age of a game almost has no relation to how much I'll enjoy it. I just played and beat System Shock 2 earlier this year for the first time. Later in the year, for the first time as well, I played and beat Bioshock, Dark Souls, Uncharted 2 and Skyrim and as much as I loved those games, I still probably enjoyed System Shock 2 more than any other game this year (the only real competition comes from Super Mario Galaxy 2). Twelve years later and it's still amazing, IMO. I played the Half-Lifes for the first time this year too, and found them both to be particularly fantastic.

However, I have noticed when I play old FFs like IV and VI, I find myself not connecting with the characters as much, possibly because they're just like nine pixels (exaggeration), but I'm not sure. That's the only time I can site the age of a game impeding my enjoyment or immersion. What about you? Have you played any old games this year for the first time and were blown away by them?

Usually, all age affects is the level of nostalgia

the only problem i have with "age" is that some of the older 2 color games i can't get into, they're a little too simple for me to find enjoyable.

There are moments when I can connect to older games better than current gen games. Older games often leave a lot to the imagination which can actually be a good thing, even in a game.

I still play games from the early 1980s, and enjoy them as much or more than I did back in the day. I can still play "Time Pilot" for hours and hours and hours... It never gets old. I've probably dumped a king's ransome of quarters into those machines (and home ports) since 1982. My "Konami Arcade Cl@ssics" PS1 disc still sees a fair amount of screen time. Awesome collection, with "Super Cobra", "Scramble", "Gyruss"... Killer.

:lol:

Enjoyment nope. I can enjoy an 8-bit classic on the NES just as much as Gears of War 3 or Resistance 3. It depends on what type of game I want to play. I remember when the NES was "state of the art" which is hard for people to understand. (Some people were not even alive yet)

So those 8-bit NES games were hard as hell and ebjoyable. The difficultly is something that I do actually like and enjoy. A game like SkyShark is Hard as hell but fun. enjoyable in the fact that it is hard but not impossible.

I enjoy games from all genres and ages of Videogames. I might even enjoy the old games of the 8-bit and 16bit generations a tiny bit more than the PS3 and Xbox 360 generations. By the slimest margins

It doesn't have any effect on my ability to get sucked in. A good game 10 years ago is a good game now. Same goes for the bad ones.

it makes me enjoy the game more .. i feel like im time traveling to the past...awesome

It does affect it. The newer games these days have incredible sense of atmosphere, and it really helps with the immersion. That said, older games can still captivate me. I played through Link to the Past about a year ago, and it was one of the most enjoyable and immersive gaming experiences I've ever had, and it was a playthrough that kind of just happened in between a bunch of great current gen games. Link to the Past is a true classic.

Early 3D graphics, like PS1 and N64, are harder to enjoy and get immersed into, (Though I still can enjoy many of them) but 2D games are still just as enjoyable as games today. Well, I dunno about the really old games like Atari 2600, but NES and SNES games are still just as great now as they were then. Well... actually I can't compare, I haven't plaayed those games when they were new. I played the Sega Genisis a bit but I never really got into games much untill I got an N64. But there are lots of old games I played for the first time recently and enjoyed quite a bit!

Only for horror games. I know the concept of older horror games can be scary but it doesn't do it for me, anything before ~2002 isn't to my taste.

Well, considering you're asking this on the Legacy Platform Forum, you're probably gonna get a pretty biased answer for the majority of answers. And I'm gonna agree with that majority and say hell no. As long as the game is well made, has good gameplay, and and is entertaining then it will immerse me just fine.

Bad frame-rates and controls are the only aspects that put me off. And as long as they don't give me motion sickness, the graphics don't matter.

Not at all provided that the game is good. Most games aren't.

It doesn't.

There's this game by Yuji Horii (of Dragon Quest fame) called The Portopia Serial Murder Case. It's a text-driven game akin of Myst by way more archaic. It was first released in '83 on PC then ported to the NES in '85. An English fan translation exists.

I so want to get into it but the presentation is so statle, slow and ancieint that I find myself quitting 10 minutes in. I'll try again and this time will try to stick to it longer. I'm a sucker for good plots in video games.

I would be lying if I said it didn't. It's possible for me to be immersed in older games, but I think it's harder for the game to achieve a level where I can be immersed in it. The lesser the graphical capabilities, the more important music seems to become. If it's playstation or beyond, I probably wont have trouble due to the age, however.

Almost none. I grew up and began gaming right near the end of the N64's lifespan, so I'm used to dated looking graphics. I love me some 2D games, too. "Bad" graphics take very little away from a game imo, for instnace, I can easily immerse myself in Majora's Mask even after all these years.

only if the frame rate or controls suck, but then , if that was the case, most chances I didn't like the game at the time too.

The age of a game doesn't really make a difference to me. I wasn't born until the mid-90s, but I still love a lot of retro games, some of which were made a couple years before I was born.

Nope.

I have more fun playing the first Spyro trilogy than any other game.

There's this game by Yuji Horii (of Dragon Quest fame) called The Portopia Serial Murder Case. It's a text-driven game akin of Myst by way more archaic. It was first released in '83 on PC then ported to the NES in '85. An English fan translation exists.

I so want to get into it but the presentation is so statle, slow and ancieint that I find myself quitting 10 minutes in. I'll try again and this time will try to stick to it longer. I'm a sucker for good plots in video games.

Aero5555

It is likely more akin of Deadline by Infocom - the first sleuthing adventure. I haven't found much motivation to get into Portopia myself (I've known about the english patch for a while), but the introduction, or rather the lack of one, doesn't hint at much beyond a routine exercise, the streamlined interface might or might not have been sufficient for what the game set out to do - of course, there weren't many options in converting the game to console, but that's a concern of mine, that something would've been left out in the conversion. And the images for the locations look like they were drawn by a 5-year old kid. :(

Have you played Deja Vu for the NES? If not, maybe that'd be a better place to start?

So technically unsophisticated, yet after all these years I find the soundtrack - exclusive to the NES-version - most memorable.

Some games are too realistic for their own good. So sometimes, I prefer older games to newer ones graphics-wise. There are some games that are just too old to play though, but usually not because of in-game graphics. It might be too slow, the presentation might be sloppy, or it's just bothersome to navigate through menus and such.

I remember went I played Galaxy Force II back in the 80s, I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie or something. Those were some of the best graphics and immersion you could see at the time. Those SEGA deluxe cabinets were the real deal.

I look at the game now, and its still enjoyable, and its sprite scaling is still pretty cool, top-notch 2D graphics.

But it's nowhere the same where it was the best you've ever seen.

Same with other games like Ridge Racer (arcade). Me and my friends used to joke that it looked better than real life. Of course you look at it now and its just an old 3D polygon game.

So at least in my opinion, immersion sure takes a hit. Its just not the same thing experiencing a game on its prime, then when it's a legacy game.

In terms of immersion age doesn't matter to me much. The graphics and sound design for the game, story, and lack of frustrating glitches are my main concerns. For example, I find the original Castlevania game to be one of the games I get most immersed in despite its age. On the other hand I have no immersion in modern games such as Star Ocean 4, because the story is so laughably bad that I can't take it seriously.

Age does impact my enjoyment to an extent though, as I don't enjoy games that are too easy or simple. I haven't found a pre-NES era game that's been enjoyable for more than a couple of hours, and even among NES games there's only a handful that I'll return to often.

It is likely more akin of Deadline by Infocom - the first sleuthing adventure. I haven't found much motivation to get into Portopia myself (I've known about the english patch for a while), but the introduction, or rather the lack of one, doesn't hint at much beyond a routine exercise, the streamlined interface might or might not have been sufficient for what the game set out to do - of course, there weren't many options in converting the game to console, but that's a concern of mine, that something would've been left out in the conversion. And the images for the locations look like they were drawn by a 5-year old kid. :(

Have you played Deja Vu for the NES? If not, maybe that'd be a better place to start?

So technically unsophisticated, yet after all these years I find the soundtrack - exclusive to the NES-version - most memorable.

doubutsuteki

Well, I'm pretty much never gonna touch Portobia again. I read awhile back that one of its merits for the time was its twist ending, and ever since then I've been contemplating how a "twist" would be set up in an early 80's text-based game. It was in the back of my head as I played the first 10 minutes of it. And now that I accidently found out who the culprit is via a troll spoiler thread on Gamefaqs, I can tell you that the twist that was in the back of my head was confirmed. It's so obvious.

If you haven't played it yet by all means go ahead. But I think it'll become obvious for you as well once you dig into it. And LOL! @ the 5-year-old comment. I was thinking the same! It was done on an MSX Paint editor I bet, reminds me of the drawings we used to do on a PC back in pre-school.

Thanks for the info on Deja Vu, I'll give that a go instead. Looks and sounds much more interesting. Plus it's got sequels to complete if I think the first is worth completing.

[QUOTE="doubutsuteki"]

It is likely more akin of Deadline by Infocom - the first sleuthing adventure. I haven't found much motivation to get into Portopia myself (I've known about the english patch for a while), but the introduction, or rather the lack of one, doesn't hint at much beyond a routine exercise, the streamlined interface might or might not have been sufficient for what the game set out to do - of course, there weren't many options in converting the game to console, but that's a concern of mine, that something would've been left out in the conversion. And the images for the locations look like they were drawn by a 5-year old kid. :(

Have you played Deja Vu for the NES? If not, maybe that'd be a better place to start?

So technically unsophisticated, yet after all these years I find the soundtrack - exclusive to the NES-version - most memorable.

Aero5555

Well, I'm pretty much never gonna touch Portobia again. I read awhile back that one of its merits for the time was its twist ending, and ever since then I've been contemplating how a "twist" would be set up in an early 80's text-based game. It was in the back of my head as I played the first 10 minutes of it. And now that I accidently found out who the culprit is via a troll spoiler thread on Gamefaqs, I can tell you that the twist that was in the back of my head was confirmed. It's so obvious.

If you haven't played it yet by all means go ahead. But I think it'll become obvious for you as well once you dig into it. And LOL! @ the 5-year-old comment. I was thinking the same! It was done on an MSX Paint editor I bet, reminds me of the drawings we used to do on a PC back in pre-school.

Thanks for the info on Deja Vu, I'll give that a go instead. Looks and sounds much more interesting. Plus it's got sequels to complete if I think the first is worth completing.

I'll probably get to it sometime, but it isn't a priority. I wouldn't count on it being half as good as Deadline. I'd sooner replay Deadline, or play Deja Vu II, as I've never played it. The other two ICOM games - Shadowgate and Uninvited - aren't as good, IMO - too illogical.

Still none for me, it's all about how fun it is and how well-made the games are. I never beat Streets of Rage for the Genesis, and I'm still trying to this day.

It doesn't affect my enjoyment either.

It's stupid how some people think old games suck only because they're old and don't have realistic, HD graphics. They're like "Get with the times bro, nobody plays the N64 anymore!"

Old games are the best, games on the PS3 or 360 just can't compare to the classics. Games of the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation were the best, video games were a lot better back then.

I was watching Jon Tron one day and my roommated asked me what I was watching. I explained to him what Jon Tron does, he reviews old games and makes very funny videos. Then my roommate said "Who cares about old games?" :roll:

enjoyment: The age of a game has never been a factor in my enjoyment of a game.

Immersion: Unfortunetly I have never felt "immersed" in a pre-16bit game, however immersion and enjoyment are not one in the same for me so it isn't something I need to enjoy a game.