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[Richard Kain]

I like older games so much because the selection of older games is static. I have already culled through however many older games exist and picked out all of my favourites. They are sitting on my shelves right now.

With newer games, it is much harder to tell whether or not I'm going to like them. They are unknown quantities, not time-honoured classics. I pop an older game in, I know exactly what I'm getting, and to what degree I will enjoy it. Popping in new games is a crap-shoot. Could be great, could be terrible.

It's just a matter of the comfortable and familiar vs. the risky and unknown. Sooner or later I have to take the risk on newer titles in order to further expand my list of timeless classics. The new games of today are the potential old games of tomorrow.

[baconman]

Congrats, you're a cranky old fart now. 9.9

Liking older games is a good thing. It shows where we've come from, what's worked, what's worth sticking with. You can certainly find newer titles based on your tastes in older ones now though; because it's pretty obvious that most of us as a gamedev community - and even the AAA industry now - are taking what influence the classics have and trying to reimagine them.

It's kind of like how the Baroque period followed the Renaissance. But learning from that, we're also learning to continue building on these foundations, rather than just copying them outright. At least, I hope we're accomplishing that. If not, at least our clones are becoming every bit as fun as the classics were.

[Kyle Preston]

It's kind of like how the Baroque period followed the Renaissance. But learning from that, we're also learning to continue building on these foundations, rather than just copying them outright. At least, I hope we're accomplishing that. If not, at least our clones are becoming every bit as fun as the classics were.

I hope so too. As long as we keep being tasteful about it, I think we can find several positive ways of building onto the foundations laid down before us. Every game is a snapshot of the circumstances that made it, time, money, etc. Just making art with the tools available makes it 'original', even if it's just a clone. And there are so many good examples of newer games picking up the torch and building off of the old classics. 

[ZeHa]

My personal opinion: For me, a game has to be somehow "abstract" to qualify as a game. Most modern games are simply not that. They try to be ultra-realistic, but that doesn't fit for games, in my opinion. A game is a game, not reality. And this is the big issue why for me personally, old-school games are much more enjoyable than new games.

For example, in old games, you could immediately recognize interactive objects. Nowadays, there's so much garbage and props lying around, to make that "realistic" look, that you simply do not know which objects can be interacted with. Often, you also simply do not know which direction to go or simply look at, during scripted scenes or normal gameplay, and you feel lost in that huge 3D world. There is no clear focus on what to do, because it's not abstract enough.

Also, very often controls are not precise anymore. I remember playing Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil 5 (I think), you have to stand in the right angle to an enemy, and then a "Press X to smash his head with your foot" message appears, but if you're 2 pixels too far away, that won't happen. This is not a game for me. I prefer to play e.g. Mario, where I have the feeling that I control the hero exactly with my hands, and if I jump on an enemy, he will be dead, and if I miss, I know it was my own failure. Yes, everything looks blocky and unrealistic - but this abstractness is what makes the game playable for me.

To further prove my point, that this is really what I think and I'm not simply an old fart saying that all modern stuff is shit: For my opinion, there is an exception - racing games. No matter which racing game I played, I never had a problem with modern 3D graphics. Why? Because the focus is still there. You are a car, you are driving on a track, and you have to reach the finish line as fast as possible. This works in old games like Pole Position, but still works in Motorstorm 2 or Need for Speed Rivals. I even enjoy the good-looking graphics. Never bothered me. But now take a look at modern shooters, like Wolfenstein: The New Order. It's horrible in my opinion. You see thousands of objects, don't know which ones are important, people are running around you and telling you what you have to do, there are interactive cut scenes where you have to hope that you're looking into the right direction to even know what is now required to do in order to act out the scripted interactive-movie-like plot, etc etc, this is simply not a game for me. And if it was designed to be an interactive movie, I would rather have three questions displayed on the screen each time some decision has to be made, or play point-and-click adventure games like Day of the Tentacle, where you see good-looking 2D images from an artist-chosen perspective, also some kind of abstraction.

[jiitype]

For example, in old games, you could immediately recognize interactive objects. Nowadays, there's so much garbage and props lying around, to make that "realistic" look, that you simply do not know which objects can be interacted with. Often, you also simply do not know which direction to go or simply look at, during scripted scenes or normal gameplay, and you feel lost in that huge 3D world. There is no clear focus on what to do, because it's not abstract enough.

Can you say any examples of games that make you feel like that? I've never felt anything like that while playing a game.

[Alevice]

oh boy i have faced readability issues on older games even more so than in modern ones, just ask avgn

[ZeHa]

@ ugabuga: Basically every modern 3D shooter, I actually mentioned the new Wolfenstein in my post. I don't know if my point was understandable enough, what I mean is that obviously there has to be a lot of objects and props inside a room to make it seem "realistic". But only a handful of those objects are really interactive, the rest is just scenery. This is okay in a point-and-click adventure, but not in an action game, for my taste at least. Now add to this the fact that you have to follow some scripted path in order to make progress, and the described "unpreciseness" of the controls and those "Press X now to do this" messages that appear when you're in the correct spot, and you have the type of game that I simply do not like, because it's not a game for me, it's a reality simulation where I have to guess what the script might be.

For me, abstraction means simplification, and it's a basic element for games in my opinion.

[s0]

For example, in old games, you could immediately recognize interactive objects. Nowadays, there's so much garbage and props lying around, to make that "realistic" look, that you simply do not know which objects can be interacted with. Often, you also simply do not know which direction to go or simply look at, during scripted scenes or normal gameplay, and you feel lost in that huge 3D world. There is no clear focus on what to do, because it's not abstract enough.

Can you say any examples of games that make you feel like that? I've never felt anything like that while playing a game.

i don't actually agree with zeha's overall point but bioshock is a big offender. they literally had to "cheat" by making interactable objects glow. there's an option to disable it but you're going to spend a lot of time pixel hunting if you do.

[ZeHa]

Actually that's why I like Minecraft. It has in some way a very realistic landscape. But it's abstract and simplified. Everything is a block, this makes the gameplay even possible. I know lots of people who say Minecraft has bad graphics and everything is so blocky, how great it would be if it had "proper" graphics. But no, I believe that this is the reason why the game is so enjoyable. You can learn the gameplay within minutes, because it's such a simple principle to have just blocks that all have the same size and can be removed and put somewhere else, and yet it's such a huge world with lots of possibilities. If it was more realistic than that, with real stones and real wooden planks and so on, I'd be pretty sure it wouldn't be the hit that it became.

[ZeHa]

@ C.A. Silberstein: Yeah and stuff like that is what I don't like so much then, because it wants to be realistic at one hand, but on the other hand they have to build in glow effects and other workarounds. At some point, many games ditched medipacks, of course it's unrealistic to have medipacks lying around everywhere (especially in hell, or in lost Tomb Raider caverns or whatever), but the alternative is now to hide for 5 seconds behind a wall, and you're back at full health again. I prefer unrealistic medipacks.

---

Maybe as an illustration, a few screenshots:
http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2012/11/Call-Of-Duty-Black-Ops-II-overflow.jpg
http://media.gamerevolution.com/images/misc/Titanfall_E3_016.jpg
http://twojepc.pl/html/recenzja_doom_3_bfg_edition/d12/4.jpg

I admit that there's less stuff going on in screenshot 3 - but still, I think it's clear to see that the abstractness of old games makes it easier to focus on the game.

However, of course I'm not trying to convince anybody, I'm just trying to explain my opinion

[Sik]

I think the problem here is that people demanded more detailed graphics, and publishers took it to mean more realistic instead. Dunno, but I'd argue Sonic Generations would be a good example of what "more detailed" would actually be (the levels aren't even remotely realistic, but they're still extremely detailed)

[aamatniekss]

Older graphics all the way.. Best comparison where old graphics beats the new graphics I can think of is HOMM3 or HOMM2 vs any of the new 3D HOMM's.. Nothing beats the beautifully made sprites in those games..

[haimat]

I agree with those here who said that the "old school", more abstract gfx in the old days made you to imagine the game world in your head more than what happens with today's games.

But on top of that I also think this feeling (which I strongly share with the OP btw.) at least partly comes from the fact that in retrospect most past times where "better" than today. We seem to ignore the fact that past times also had negative parts and solely remember the good things. Seems to be a natural thing

[s0]

Older graphics all the way.. Best comparison where old graphics beats the new graphics I can think of is HOMM3 or HOMM2 vs any of the new 3D HOMM's.. Nothing beats the beautifully made sprites in those games..

warcraft art direction becoming the "baseline" for fantasy games is one the worst things to happen in videogames

[IndieRLGL]

Like with me, some if it may also just be less about graphics and more about nostalgia.  There are certain video games I have a habit of going back to play, like Megaman Legends, Super Mario RPG, the original Sim City.  I like the old music, the old look, and the memories these games bring me.  Playing them make me feel young again.