Why do videogames age poorly? And five games that beat this trend

Check out the article:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5349-Wichita-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m5d15-Why-do-videogames-age-so-poorly-And-five-games-that-beat-this-trend

Do you agree with the games that chosen in the article? I think that videogames do tend to age a lot quicker than most think.

Yeah, that's about it really. The technical aspect has really improved, and even beyond that, games of today have been built up from the games of yesterday. We didn't just figure out how to place checkpoints right the first time, it took a whole bunch of failed games to get there. For example, Warcraft 2 was totally unbalanced when it came to multiplayer, but just the fact you could play it online was such a big deal, it didn't matter.

But to mention my personal favorite "timeless" game I would have to go with Yoshi's Island. Even today, that game looks fantastic, and because of how weird it was back then, no other games have taken that formula and improved upon it.

The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past is a game I consider timeless. It's an absolute masterpiece

Chrono Trigger is definitely a classic, but in no way does it look better than FFVII. BladesOfAthena

It depends on the age of the game and the genre. The innovations in that genre can date a game, but many of the good games are mostly timeless.muthsera666

I'm not going to lie I'm a graphics whore so older looking games shy me away from a purchase. However gameplay>graphics.

Some games regardless of how they look compared to other games just have a timeless feel. For example:

Starcraft

Diablo 2

Counter Strike

TF2(cell shading)

Warcraft 3

Beyond Good and Evil

Mario

ect

All these games are horrible looking, but they're so fun and have perfect gameplay. You can't stop playing them for most of the crap thats in the cream these days.

that list and the description was not accurate. super mario 3 is the monica belluci... lol. looks like this guy has some fantasies about the actress.

anyways i think donkey kong country age pretty well.

chrono trigger has better graphics than ff7??? ff7 has pre rendered background!!! its far more suprior in terms of graphics!!! what the hell is this guy smoking... making comments like that.

pacman and tetris are classics and i think doesnt belong to this list (or doesnt belong in this category). might as well include asteroid, galaga, bomberman etc.

that list and the description was not accurate. super mario 3 is the monica belluci... lol. looks like this guy has some fantasies about the actress.

anyways i think donkey kong country age pretty well.

chrono trigger has better graphics than ff7??? ff7 has pre rendered background!!! its far more suprior in terms of graphics!!! what the hell is this guy smoking... making comments like that.

pacman and tetris are classics and i think doesnt belong to this list (or doesnt belong in this category). might as well include asteroid, galaga, bomberman etc.

anbu-black-ops

I know right? I don't seem to remember Chrono Trigger (as great of a game it is) being praised for its graphics, however I do remember FFVII being heavily noted for its visuals, which arguably still looks good, in its own charming way. Personally, even to this day, I still get impressed by how great the summons look.

Beyond Good and Evil

All these games are horrible looking, but they're so fun and have perfect gameplay. You can't stop playing them for most of the crap thats in the cream these days.

Anthony01355

Beyond Good & Evil is horrible-looking? I thought the graphics were pretty good. Part of it may be the artistic direction in contrast to many of the realistically-directed graphics common in many games.

Of course, I'm only playing Xbox generation. So maybe my graphical evaluations are off.

Visual wise, 2D holds up better than 3D in general. And in 3D games that go for more 'realistic' graphics don't hold up as well. But games with a better art direction, cell shaded, etc usually hold up a whole lot better.

Gameplay wise, good games hold up with no problem. Bad games can't hold up what they never had. And average games hold up fine but usually are outshined by newer improved games in the genre. Good games are usually still outshing the newer competition though.

If video games seem to age poorly it's because the industry rapidly evolves faster than any other media industry. I mean, think about what games looked like just 10 years ago.

[QUOTE="anbu-black-ops"]

that list and the description was not accurate. super mario 3 is the monica belluci... lol. looks like this guy has some fantasies about the actress.

anyways i think donkey kong country age pretty well.

chrono trigger has better graphics than ff7??? ff7 has pre rendered background!!! its far more suprior in terms of graphics!!! what the hell is this guy smoking... making comments like that.

pacman and tetris are classics and i think doesnt belong to this list (or doesnt belong in this category). might as well include asteroid, galaga, bomberman etc.

BladesOfAthena

I know right? I don't seem to remember Chrono Trigger (as great of a game it is) being praised for its graphics, however I do remember FFVII being heavily noted for its visuals, which arguably still looks good, in its own charming way. Personally, even to this day, I still get impressed by how great the summons look.

I dunno man... I just played Chrono Trigger onmy DS, and it still looked great. I played Final Fantasy 7 for the fist time about 4 years ago, and all I could see was giant cube hands on pre-rendered backgrounds. Final Fantasy 7 shows its age in a much more obvious way, but yeah, it would be a bit of a stretch to call either game ugly.

I'd say games from the NES, Master System, Mega Drive, and SNES mostly aged well because the controls for the games have always been the same. D-Pad + face buttons, and that control scheme has never really been advanced on. Also, 2-D graphics are pretty much just cartoony graphics with little to no depth at all.

3-D games originally looked like complete crap compared to today's standards, and the controls have been changed pretty significantly. I mean it was D-Pad and buttons, but that didn't work. Then it was one analog, two analogs, extra buttons, motion control, touch screen, etc. What you are used to today for 3-D games is so much different than just a decade ago. Today though 2-D games still play the same exact way, and they look the same.

in terms of graphics, its all about art style. the more a game tries to look realistic, the worse it will age. a game like okami, on the other hand, will age much slower.

gameplay is harder to pin down. what people find "fun" can vary enough to throw off a lot of guesses. for instance, i dont think the 2d mario platformers have aged particularly well. im sure others (including the author of that article) would disagree.

my guess is something the author hinted at in the being of his article. a lot of how well a game ages is due to how far its genre has progressed over the years. jrpg's are a genre that hasnt progressed a ton. ff2 still plays pretty similar to dq8 and both are great games.

Visual wise, 2D holds up better than 3D in general. And in 3D games that go for more 'realistic' graphics don't hold up as well. But games with a better art direction, cell shaded, etc usually hold up a whole lot better.

Gameplay wise, good games hold up with no problem. Bad games can't hold up what they never had. And average games hold up fine but usually are outshined by newer improved games in the genre. Good games are usually still outshing the newer competition though.

YoBrandino

I disagree. There are 3D games that do hold up over time just as effectively as 2D. Games like Dead Or Alive 2 and 3, Silent Hill 3, Splinter Cell, Soul Calibur 3, and REMake are still considered impressive despite the advent of HD.

Don't know why people always tend to seperate art direction and realism as if they're 2 different things when realism is a type of art direction in itself.

in terms of graphics, its all about art style. the more a game tries to look realistic, the worse it will age. a game like okami, on the other hand, will age much slower.

LoG-Sacrament

That's really not true at all. REMake still looks great to this day.

I dunno man... I just played Chrono Trigger onmy DS, and it still looked great. I played Final Fantasy 7 for the fist time about 4 years ago, and all I could see was giant cube hands on pre-rendered backgrounds. Final Fantasy 7 shows its age in a much more obvious way, but yeah, it would be a bit of a stretch to call either game ugly.AtomicTangerine

That's because you're playing it on a tiny screen. Anything can look good when its shrinked down in size, but blow it up and the flaws become much more apparent.

As for FF7, I didn't think much of the giant cube hands because I was too preoccupied with looking at the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds to even notice. Some people do think the backgrounds make the characters look out of place but I think that it adds to its overall charm and visual appeal. Just about every place I've been to looks breathtaking in scope and beauty, from the industrial wastelands of Midgar to the plateaus of Cosmo Canyon. Every place has its own uniqueness and personality and the level of detail is incredible, whereas Chrono Trigger's backgrounds don't seem to have as much depth and color.

[QUOTE="YoBrandino"]

Visual wise, 2D holds up better than 3D in general. And in 3D games that go for more 'realistic' graphics don't hold up as well. But games with a better art direction, cell shaded, etc usually hold up a whole lot better.

Gameplay wise, good games hold up with no problem. Bad games can't hold up what they never had. And average games hold up fine but usually are outshined by newer improved games in the genre. Good games are usually still outshing the newer competition though.

I disagree. There are 3D games that do hold up over time just as effectively as 2D. Games like Dead Or Alive 2 and 3, Silent Hill 3, Splinter Cell, Soul Calibur 3, and REMake are still considered impressive despite the advent of HD.

Don't know why people always tend to seperate art direction and realism as if they're 2 different things when realism is a type of art direction in itself.

I can name a few games that I think aged pretty well

N64:

Pilot Wings 64

Super Mario 64

PS1:

FFVII

FFVIII

Chrono Cross

MGS1

Theres a few SNES games but cant remember them :3

the reason video games do not age well is because they're not meant to. Ideally, the point of a newly-released video game is to update the mechanics of an existing game (or to introduce new mechanics, yes, but that rarely happens), and if this is executed correctly (the game is technically sound, and the developer hasn't screwed up too badly), the old game is basically rendered obsolete. It is most obviously seen in sports and fighting games, but happens in every subgenreDrulx

[QUOTE="LoG-Sacrament"]

in terms of graphics, its all about art style. the more a game tries to look realistic, the worse it will age. a game like okami, on the other hand, will age much slower.

That's really not true at all. REMake still looks great to this day.

I dunno man... I just played Chrono Trigger onmy DS, and it still looked great. I played Final Fantasy 7 for the fist time about 4 years ago, and all I could see was giant cube hands on pre-rendered backgrounds. Final Fantasy 7 shows its age in a much more obvious way, but yeah, it would be a bit of a stretch to call either game ugly.AtomicTangerine

That's because you're playing it on a tiny screen. Anything can look good when its shrinked down in size, but blow it up and the flaws become much more apparent.

As for FF7, I didn't think much of the giant cube hands because I was too preoccupied with looking at the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds to even notice. Some people do think the backgrounds make the characters look out of place but I think that it adds to its overall charm and visual appeal. Just about every place I've been to looks breathtaking in scope and beauty, from the industrial wastelands of Midgar to the plateaus of Cosmo Canyon. Every place has its own uniqueness and personality and the level of detail is incredible, whereas Chrono Trigger's backgrounds don't seem to have as much depth and color.

I think a couple of choices on his list are odd. Namely, why choose one of the billions of street fighter 2 sequels instead of the original street fighter 2? And why choose Super Mario Brothers 3 instead of the original super mario brothers?UT_Wrestler

[QUOTE="BladesOfAthena"]

[QUOTE="YoBrandino"]

Visual wise, 2D holds up better than 3D in general. And in 3D games that go for more 'realistic' graphics don't hold up as well. But games with a better art direction, cell shaded, etc usually hold up a whole lot better.

Gameplay wise, good games hold up with no problem. Bad games can't hold up what they never had. And average games hold up fine but usually are outshined by newer improved games in the genre. Good games are usually still outshing the newer competition though.

stike22

I disagree. There are 3D games that do hold up over time just as effectively as 2D. Games like Dead Or Alive 2 and 3, Silent Hill 3, Splinter Cell, Soul Calibur 3, and REMake are still considered impressive despite the advent of HD.

Don't know why people always tend to seperate art direction and realism as if they're 2 different things when realism is a type of art direction in itself.

I wasn't saying realism wasn't an art direction, or that graphics and art direction are really seperate. I agree that some 3D games hold up very well, and I'm sure there can be some examples of 2D games that don't really. But in general, 2D holds up better usually. Also, certain art styles like cell shading usually hold up pretty darn good. Most expamples of games going for a realistic direction don't seem to hold up as well visually for me at least. Dosen't necessarily make them unplayable or any less great, but still.

And the evolution of controls plays into it too. Playing an older Resident Evil, or Alone in the Dark, can be very frustrating once you have gotten use to the more standard controls of today. The way you control your character more like a tank doesn't hold for me very well either.

The games that crumbled the hardest were the ones that took the first clumsey steps into 3D.

[QUOTE="BladesOfAthena"]Chrono Trigger is definitely a classic, but in no way does it look better than FFVII. stike22

Not really. Sprites have generally aged better than polygons. Which is why 2D games tend to still be fairly attractive while the games from the PS1, Saturn, 64 era look like utter crap.

Compare:

There's actually nothing wrong with the way Chronno Trigger looks. It's somewhat primitive looking, but still attractive. On the other hand, even for being a game that was considered to be jawdroppingly gorgeous at the time, FFVII is quite ugly. It's more visually advanced than Chrono Trigger, but IMO, it is much less pleasing to the eye. Nearly everything in FFVII lacks the clean, crisp look of Chronno Trigger's sprites.

Again, polygons from that PS1, Saturn, 64 era have aged incredibly badly.

I don't think games age poor at all there will always be ones that look better than others but if the game is good does it really matter?

Final fantasy (all of them)

Zelda (all of them..... except for Zelda 2 perhaps)

All Mario games!!

:)

When talking about games aging well I think it's easy to concentrate on the graphics side but good gameplay never ages and that's important. Which is why Tetris and Pacman still hold up no matter what they look like. I always sacrifice good graphics for good gameplay although playing a fun, good-looking game is very nice obviously.

[QUOTE="anbu-black-ops"]

that list and the description was not accurate. super mario 3 is the monica belluci... lol. looks like this guy has some fantasies about the actress.

anyways i think donkey kong country age pretty well.

chrono trigger has better graphics than ff7??? ff7 has pre rendered background!!! its far more suprior in terms of graphics!!! what the hell is this guy smoking... making comments like that.

pacman and tetris are classics and i think doesnt belong to this list (or doesnt belong in this category). might as well include asteroid, galaga, bomberman etc.

BladesOfAthena

I know right? I don't seem to remember Chrono Trigger (as great of a game it is) being praised for its graphics, however I do remember FFVII being heavily noted for its visuals, which arguably still looks good, in its own charming way. Personally, even to this day, I still get impressed by how great the summons look.

yeah but the characters in FF7 are all flat-shaded triangles. chrono trigger's sprites still retain fluid expression and character.

it all depends on what you mean by 'good-looking'. are we talking about aesthetic experience, technical detail, atmosphere, beauty? it's all so subjective.