Do you assume that if a game is older, it has outdated gameplay?

So I whipped out Valkyria Chronicles yesterday, and boy was I surprised at how good it was for a game that came out in 2008 (just about 10 years ago sadly). I've been meaning to play it over the years but would keep brushing it off. And then at some time point I assumed that by now I may not enjoy the gameplay. Part of the reason why is because I was afraid the gameplay may be outdated. It's hard to find games whose gameplay is timeless. Do you agree, SW? Which games do you consider timeless?

No.

Nope, even most Atari 2600 games have mooaar game-play than Bore Poo movie games so, just sayin. :P

I actually see it the other way around. If it's a new game I assume the gameplay wasn't as much of a priority as the visuals or setting.

Outdated gameplay, no. Outdated graphics, yes.

Nah. DMC 3 still has better gameplay then 99% of games today

Depends on the game. Some have aged well some haven’t.

There's no such thing as outdated gameplay. Outdated sound and graphics? Sure. A good example of the latter is System Shock 2. I have the game on the netbook. But, every time I attempt to play it, I always end up switching to Quake 2.

This. Sadly.

@SolidGame_basic:

How bad could a game possibly play from '08? The gameplay is one of the things that haven't really improved since last gen.

Oldest game mechanic of them all is first person shooters. Most but not all play the same. The floating gun/hand on the screen with cross hairs bores me to death.

Games with turn-based mechanics are older.

Didn't know netbooks were still a thing ^^

Seeing and hearing System Shock 2 turns you off ?

I wanted to install some graphical mods to play SS2, but I haven't bothered as of yet because you'd have to install a hundred different model and texture mods.

Nope.

Hah c'mon now has gameplay really changed since like the 6th gen?

Depends on how old we're talking about and what genre's..... Resident Evil on PSOne with it's controls and mechanics hasn't aged well at all.

I whipped out mine the other day and wasn't surprised that after 45 years its still fun to play with.

Hell no, I still love playing games on my Atari 2600 more than all of the movie "games" that are so popular nowadays.

It's the opposite for me, I have more confidence in older games being more enjoyable to me than most modern games. The gameplay in older games tend to be addictive and simple to quickly pick-up-and-play yet incredibly challenging to master which is the way that I like my games to be. Nowadays, games are the opposite in that they tend to be impossible to just pick-up-and-play and immediately start having fun since I usually have to deal with a crappy 30+ minute tutorial or lots of cinematics that I don't care about and then after that the game usually presents no real challenge and ends up just feeling like a chore that I lose interest in completing.

lol

Perhaps, I need to replay it again because I had deleted my saves. I do recall liking the pacing of Quake 2 better.

Anyway, my Toshiba NB305-N600 dates back from 2010. But, it's still pretty snappy with MS Office once I deleted the Startup apps. A new $30 battery gives it 5 hours of use. It also does web browsing and Skype okay so long as I don't exceed 1024x600. I wouldn't give up a device that can run (one of my favorites) Quake 2 at 60 fps. ;)

Outdated is a relative term.

In my opinion, early 3D games didn't age well, but 2D pixelart ones did.

Many people defend that the great games from the past are better than what we have today, but that's not true at all. I have replayed many PS1 and PS2 games, and i honestly can't play them for more than a few minutes. 3D games are simply much more polished now!

Curiously, 2D games from 3rd and 4th generations are still as fun as i remember.

No. The only game in my life that I thought was "Outdated" was Dune 2.(That's because you can only select one unit at the time)

That would be a silly assumption to make.

@SolidGame_basic: Good gameplay will always be good gameplay. It's ok to dig into the past and play and replay games that will always deliver I do that every Tuesday. Games now are better suited for the requirements of now, you cannot take something played on analogue and expect it to compete but some games go well beyond and become milestones that are born into living legend. Zelda, Mario, Sonic, Snake, Samus, FF etc. just a few examples.

That's why you should play Dune 2000 instead. ;) It also plays fine in Windows 7 and Windows 10 to boot unlike Dune 2.

Dune 2000 is also another game that plays great on my netbook.

I strongly disagree. Still to this day, I prefer to play PS1 and PS2 games such as Symphony of the Night, Crash Team Racing, Metal Slug X, NFL Blitz, Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain, GTA: Vice City, Timesplitters 2, Resident Evil 4, and Katamari Damacy over all of the games on the PS4. In fact, my favorite game on the PS4 is just a remake of PS1 games (Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy).

I've actually never really played a game and felt it was outdated. Controls and graphics of course improve over time, but just enjoy the game for what it is.

Fair enough, that's your opinion.

I still love to play my old games, but from my experience games in general are much better now.

One reason I keep older games around and play them is because there is no current equivalent.

Some franchises get dumbed down for sure as they get sequelized, but there are also old games with ridiculously bad or outdated game-play (can't even sprint in old halo games, classic resident evil tank controls, etc).

I'd say game-play has certainly gotten better/smoother on average with time. Games getting "dumbed down" is somewhat of a separate issue. Sometimes it's for the best, actually. Though they often go too far...

The only correct answer.

I guess it depends on what you want out of a game. The things that I want out of a game such as gameplay taking priority over story, over-the-top fun taking priority over realism, gameplay that is simple to quickly pick-up-and-play yet challenging to master, and not having to deal with micro-transactions are unfortunately becoming more rare and therefore modern games are overall not as enjoyable to me as games from the past.

If things such as a heavy focus on cinematics/story, realism to the point of losing what makes games fun, long drawn-out tutorials that are a chore to go through, hand-holding, lack of challenge, and micro-transactions are considered "polish" then I guess I prefer my games to be unpolished.

No because games don't tend to improve on one another. More often than not, they don't. Sure games are slowly progressing as a whole, but there are plenty of games with mechanics that were better back then or that have never been iterated on.

And games contain so many elements. Outdated is just one of many ways for something to be bad. New games still get a lot of things wrong. Old games probably get more things wrong in general (depending on how old, the hardware they had to run on), but I would never count a game out because of its age.

@storm_of_swords: I want quality, diversity and polish. I buy as many indie games as AAAs, probably more, so as you can see tech graphics are the least of my priorities.

As for microtransactions and other greedy practices, it's as simple as not supporting them. People always pretend that EA, Ubisoft and Activision are all we have now, but honestly, avoiding everything good is 100% your fault. There are literally hundreds of great games available on current platforms, and if you pay attention to indies, you will find gem after gem.

The opposite can also be said. People always bring the same good games from past gens, and forget that there were so, so many bad games. And i don't mean bad because the campaign was 'only 8 hours long', or because 'the female character is ugly'. I mean full priced games with 20 minute campaigns, racing games with one car and two tracks, or even games impossible to finish due to serious glitches. And back then the 'infamous' patches weren't an option to save the day.

You didn't need any power ups?

NES and earlier: 99% Aged BAD.

SNES/Genesis: 99% Aged Good.

N64/PS1: 50/50% Most games have terrible cameras/controls.

PS2/Xbox/Camecube: 99% aged well. Only a handful have bad controls or camera that makes them borderline unplayable.

Wii: Unplayable Since day 1. Motion controls are pure garbage.

PS3/360 to now: Aged 100% Well.

Yes. Here's the thing, only a few classics are up to date. Most of the games, not so much. I remember playing Fighting Force and liking it. I decided to replay it recently on the PS3, and the controls were outdated. I had to use the D-pad instead of the analog stick. It was the worst thing ever, completely ruined the experience.

For me its turned around, i barely am interested in new games anymore all the same junk.

The other way around!!!

Yes, definitely.

No. Plenty of old games if anything actually offer some depth. The modern games may be more comfy in terms of controls; but are utterly mindless and shallow. Story driven drivel that is created by people who make their games as if they are ashamed of the fact that they work on games.

Nope. Age doesnt factor in. A good game is a good game.

Not at all. In fact I play older games quite often because of the challenge they offer with their simple yet smooth gameplay.

Modern games tend to leave a lot to be desired. For instance RDR is one of my favorite games but I recognize how shallow and repetitive it's core mechanics are.

Oh great this site allowed me to choose a username that exceeds the character limit and didn't even tell me. Nicely done.

And what in the hell is up with the reCAPCHA system? Had to do that like 4 times. Auspicious beginnings, to be sure.

I think that every generation has more bad games than great games. Were there plenty of bad games in the past? Sure, just like there are plenty of bad games nowadays as well, but I don't care about how many bad games there are since I just avoid playing them. I'm only concerned with the great games and there are very few games from the modern era that I think are as great as the best games from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generations. If I would make my top 100 games of all time list, the percentage of games from the last decade that would make the cut would be far smaller than the percentage from any of the prior 3 decades.

And you are being unfair when you say "20 minute campaigns". Most people are not going to be able to complete the truly great old school games in under 20 minutes on their first play through. If that was the case then people would have just rented the games, quickly beat them and then never actually buy them. Can a game like Castlevania be completed in under 20 minutes? I guess it can eventually after the gamer has played the game multiple times in order to get very skilled and truly master the game, but it's highly unlikely that anybody will be able to do that on their first play through. Most people are going to spend many hours trying to beat the game for the first time. And this is a good thing to me since I prefer very challenging short campaigns with high replayability over super long campaigns with so much boring filler content, long cinematics, and lack of challenge that I lose interest in the game before I complete it even once much less ever wanting to replay it.

As for the indies, I do pay attention to and appreciate the indies. Just this week, I was researching the best indies of 2017 to see if I missed out on any hidden gems, but I hate when people act like the indie scene is a suitable replacement for the type of gameplay that I loved from the past. There are many decent games from the indie scene, but I don't care much about games that are just decent; I'm looking for the truly amazing games that have a chance at making my top 100 of all time list and that is pretty rare to get from the indie scene due to their limited resources. Every once in a while, an amazing indie game like Cuphead or Rocket League will come out that can match the high quality of the classics from the past, but it doesn't happen often enough to say that the indie scene is a suitable replacement for the types of gameplay that I loved from the past. And even Cuphead probably would not have reached the high level of quality that it did without the extra funding that they received from Microsoft (I wish more big studios would do this). So, the indie scene with their lack of resources is not a suitable replacement; we still need AAA games, but I'm very disappointed with most AAA games nowadays for reasons that I mentioned earlier which leads to my overall dissatisfaction with modern gaming compared to retro gaming.

I think it just depends. Something like RE1, yeah. Some turn based and strategy titles, not at all.

LMAO so awesome bro!!!!

@storm_of_swords: I strongly disagree with most of your points.

4th generation is still my favourite, but i'm conscious that nostalgia has alot to do with that. Lots of free time, no responsibilities, and was lucky to own a Megadrive, Snes and Amiga 500.

The point is that i have replayed most of my favourite 16bit games and they are not that special anymore. That's because Axiom Verge, Dust an Elysian Tail, Shovel Knight, Inside, Helldivers, Rogue Legacy, Nex Machina, and dozens of other equally good games happened in between.

I recently replayed Another World, one of my favourite games of all time and a game i remembered being fairily long. Well, i just realised that its campaign lasts 15 minutes, and there's no extra modes or higher difficulty levels. Do you honestly think that a 15 minute game would pass at 60 dollars today? Our standards are much higher now, and most people don't realise that.

Ok, that may be an extreme example, but most games didn't last more than one hour (Castlevanias, Marios, Sonics, Streets of Rage, R-Type, Ghouls'n Ghosts, etc, etc). Go check, there are lots of playthrough on the net. They were challenging, but giving you 5 lives and 3 credits, forcing you play the game multiple times, is not necessarily a better solution to increase difficulty. That's all we used to have , so of course we loved it.

Like you said bad games still exist, but they are not 'everywhere'. Again, today people say that a game is bad because 'the campaign lasts only 8 hours and there's no multiplayer', or because 'the main character is ugly'.