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What games can you not get into because they feel too outdated?

Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated? Games that, in theory, you would enjoy, but don’t because the controls, graphics, writing, or mechanics just don’t feel good anymore. Games that, compared to today, just don’t hold up to your standards.

I recently tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, and I realized that a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players. Not only that, but I imagine there was a lot of crossover between video games and board games back then, so maybe that language was used as well. I ended up downloading a manual and putting it on my second screen and I get it and played it, but it just wasn’t for me.

I also dropped Mirror’s Edge, but this time it was because of the graphics. It looks and feels great, but the graphics give me a headache. There is way too much bloom, and for some reason, there are some parts that look like the imaginary lens has been covered in Vaseline. This didn’t bother me before, but my eyes are not used to it anymore.

There are also games like the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games. The levels and controls feel great, but they don’t feel complete without those mechanics. It keeps me from enjoying the games as much as the others.

Please share yours!

Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah absolutely. I think with a lot of these older games that are considered to be the GOATs of their respective genres you’ll run into the same problem: They were so good, that the mechanics/ideas become the minimum requirement for all games thereafter. So, if you played the game on day 1, it was an innovative masterpiece the likes of which you’d never seen before. If you play it 10-15 years later after having played modern games in the same genre, it feels like the same old shit except without the 10-15 years of improvements.

For me personally, the game I’ll get crucified for not enjoying is Half Life 2. I played through the entire game. It was ok. I was pretty bored for most of it though. Shooters aren’t generally my thing for one, but even that aside the game was very milquetoast to me. I did a lot of reading up on the history of HL2 afterwards because I was astonished that I didn’t enjoy such a legendary game and I think I came to the conclusion that some new mechanics such as the cover system and story-driven nature of HL2 were what made it such a hit in 2004. But 15 years later those mechanics weren’t new and exciting to me and the story is decent but a far cry from amazing.

The other game that stands out to me is Assassin’s Creed 1. I couldn’t make it more than a few hours into that game. Just so boring and repetitive, the combat was boring, the collectables were boring, most mechanics didn’t actually seem to matter…I just hated the game lol. I do think it’s another example of later entries in the series/other games doing the same thing but better so going back to the OG just felt like a slog. But I really hated AC1 hahaha.

Cethin ,

A big part of HL2 was also the physics. No game did that before to the same extent, so it was novel and cool. The gravity gun was super unique and all the physics puzzles were new and cool.

I tried replaying it a few years back and had the same experience as you. Every physics puzzle felt boring and just stopped the flow of the game. The gravity gun is still fairly unique, but it has lost a lot of its charm. It’s just not the same experience as it was around the time it released.

limeaide OP ,

Reminds of me of when I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and was confused because I had heard great things about the soundtrack, but it was just a bunch of songs I had heard before.

About halfway through the movie I realized that it was an original soundtrack and it was so influential that it became a cliche. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a cliche, not because it followed a saturated trend, but because it itself was copied by everyone else.

AC1’s concept and maybe even story has held up, but you’re right that the later entries feel miles better.

canis_majoris ,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

Ezio or bust.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

For half life, try playing it in VR. completely new experience

Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

Do you mean Alyx? I actually do own that, but haven’t got around playing it yet.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Oh no the original half life 2. There is a VR mod for it that gives 6DOF with motion controls

Zoomboingding ,
@Zoomboingding@lemmy.world avatar

Half-Life 2 has suffered the fate of Seinfeld - the work was so monumental in its field that it revolutionized everything coming after it. Many of those iterations accomplished certain things better. Going back you think: what’s the big deal? Basically every game has physics, ragdoll enemies, novel gimmick weapons, and an action-packed cinematic feel.

stardust ,

AC1 had those same criticisms back then too. I played it back then and hate finished it and wasn’t going to check out the rest of the series but then the ending reveal hooked me. And AC2 addressed lot of the complaints.

NotJustForMe ,

Half Life 2 was mostly noted for the extreme technical advancements. Take a look at what a gaming pc looked like when it came out. It shouldn’t have been allowed to be so advanced.

Half Life 1 was the one with the gameplay advancements. I played both on release, and both times felt like I’ve just entered another multi-verse.

Far Cry 1 managed that, too.

None of them hold up today. They are still as great as they were back then, but the feeling is all gone. I’ve recently finished all of them again, just to check.

Psythik ,

Starfield

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Damn! Burn

timo_timboo_ ,

Pokémon, actually. Just a month ago I wanted to play Soul Silver. But man, it is tedious. There’s so much slow dialog, long animations, and little inconveniences everywhere (even in the menus). And I feel like you also have to grind to progress, which I absolutely hate in games (but maybe I also just didn’t play well enough, whatever). So yeah, quite disappointed with it since I remember the 3DS games being quite fun.

ryathal ,

Pokemon is better with game shark style cheats. It’s way more fun to have the option to get 100x more xp, and force Pokemon to appear rather than grind a 1% appearance rate. Pokémon even made TMs reusable eventually, but you need cheats for that in the early games.

NoneYa ,

The new games are still the same way.

Quit holding my fucking hand and let me play the damn game already.

“This is a Pokémon and this is how you battle…”

Motherfucker, I’ve been playing these games since I was 7.

It took me so long to keep sticking with Sword and I just couldn’t. I just wanted to hop into the world and catch some Pokémon, battle, and discover the world.

BillyTheSkidMark ,

I haven’t played since ORAS, but I think they’ll always have those tutorials cause they’re targeted at kids. Like I was playing the original at 10 and now my kids starting to get into Pokémon at 6.

I feel like they should allow an “adult” version though. Like no hand holding and harder.

It’s wild how little the most financially successful franchise of all time has innovated.

JokeDeity ,

I’ve always wanted there to be an option when you start a new Pokemon game that just lets you say “I’ve played Pokemon before let me get into it”, it really is a pain in the ass as an adult.

BillyTheSkidMark ,

Ironically another draw y for emulators over the two thing. Just speed up the boring bits 8x

otp ,

When Witcher 3 was winning all those awards, I wanted to give the original game a go.

Don’t. I imagine it’s nothing like Witcher 3. It aged terribly poorly.

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.

Ashtear ,

That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.

Lesrid ,

My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.

howrar ,

I remember playing the first game and getting stuck on the tutorial because I was mashing the left click button trying to swing my sword only to have Geralt hip thrust at the enemies.

But once you figure out how to swing the sword, the game’s actually pretty fun. One thing I particularly liked is that there’s an investigative storyline where you actually have to go and investigate and figure out the answer with the clues provided, and you can fail. I went into it thinking it would be like most modern games where you only get obviously correct or incorrect dialog options and angered everyone in the process.

otp ,

It did have some positive traits, but the gameplay just didn’t do it for me at all.

I did make it through the whole game, so I feel like I can hold that opinion, haha

ChaoticEntropy ,
@ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

Yeah, I don’t know how unpopular the opinion is, but the original Witcher didn’t strike me as a particularly good game. It was a… fine… I guess game, but with mature elements and tone that other games in the genre lacked. I slogged through it in preparation of playing Witcher 3.

metaballism ,

People didn’t like its mechanics even back when it launched. Personally, it’s still somehow my favorite even tho objectively it’s less fun to play and less polished than the other two. Something about its story and the atmosphere makes it more unique and genuine.

otp ,

It does have a great story!

FuryMaker ,

Quite a few, but more recently:

Neverwinter Nights. Even the Enhanced Edition.

Diablo.

Other older RPGs just start off too slow, but that isn’t necessarily age related, but by design.

Morrowind, but only because I’ve lost where I was up to in my saved game from 3-4 years ago, not so much because of the mechanics; they didn’t bother me too much.

Empricorn ,

If I was offered a million dollars if I could continue where I left off in Morrowind (major, minor, side, or goals)… Yeah, I’ll be in tomorrow, boss.

NotJustForMe ,

I’m a big Guild Wars 2 fan, though I don’t play that much anymore. Often in the game, Guild Wars 1 references, and stories told by players of how great it was, made me want to try it.

It still fully works, and can be played. But for me, it was a no-go. I could live with the graphics, and the environments were fine. Good music and sounds.

The interface killed it for me. Dozens of windows, shortcuts, clunky ways of doing things, the inventory. I couldn’t take it anymore after a few hours.

It’s not about disliking old interfaces. I basically live on the Linux-shell, and I still play xcom: ufo-defense. But the gw1 one is all over the place, like it hasn’t been planned but just happened by random people dropping into the studio and adding some stuff for the fun of it.

Come to think about it, it isn’t even about old games. I couldn’t play Xenonauts for the same reason. I suppose I just don’t enjoy clunky interfaces…

dolle ,

I got the PS1 anniversary edition which had Metal Gear Solid on it, and I don’t get how that game was ever as popular as it was. The handling is super janky, and the graphics is so dark that you basically cannot discern the environment and the enemy unless you stay still and watch for moving pixels.

RobertoOberto ,

Jank was the style at the time.

Therefore ,

!

yata ,

I don’t really understand what it is about HMMIII you don’t get. It is a relatively simple game concept, and the fundamentals has remained largely unchanged from iteration to iteration. I personally prefer III over most of the later ones exactly because of its simplicity (and none of those ugly 3D graphics).

For me what mostly antiquates a game is if it was primarily based on graphics which have been outdated, otherwise I don’t really have a problem even with much older games. But then again I also grew up playing games in the 80s, so I have been used to those my entire life. Some of the games which fascinated me on account of the complexity, like the early Ultima games (at least I and II), doesn’t exactly stand revisits, because they were very barebones compared to the later games in the franchise. Ultima V still holds up beautifully, simply because it is so complex behind those primitive graphics.

Twig ,
@Twig@sopuli.xyz avatar

I started getting used to Ultima V, then i left it for a few days and had no idea what I was doing when I tried getting back into it! Maybe I should try one of the easier ones, maybe VI or VII?

limeaide OP ,

HMM III was the first game I played in the turn based strategy genre. I had never played anything similar really, but I wanted to get into the genre and I decided to start with one a lot of people consider a classic.

My gaming knowledge started with the PS1 era playing games like crash bandicoot, THPS, and others like that. I didn’t get into PC gaming until around 2016 and now games I play are Death Stranding, DOOM 2016, Skyrim, BOTW, CSGO etc.

I’ve tried a wide variety of games besides those, and I truly didn’t know what the game was asking from me until I looked it up. Maybe the game gave me enough and I just didn’t connect the dots in my head. I’m not sure, but all I know is my experience which I struggled with

All I’m saying is that I’ve never met anyone who didn’t understand a game like DOOM or the classic Marios. There’s clearly a difference in language that isn’t as common in modern/more mainstream games. Not saying HMM III wasn’t mainstream during it’s time, but I’ve never heard anyone of my generation who has played it or heard of it

SurvivalMariner ,

It’s a strategy, it requires planning and thinking. Comparing to FPS is crazy. Pick up gun and shoot.

HoMM3 is quite simple. Get towns and upgrade them. Make monsters. Kill. Most stuff you can learn and figure out as you play. It was the first game of that type I played. I’m not great at it, but that’s more because it’s hard to master, but you can still play a reasonable game.

It’s worth persisting as its one of the best games made and people still play it decades later.

ryathal ,

Probably going to get some hate for these.

FFVII. The pc port was ass, controls were a pain on keyboard and there wasn’t great controller support. The graphics were really tough to ignore, and the combat felt like fighting the control scheme more than anything. I’ve played and liked many other titles in the series, but I couldn’t manage this one by the time I got to it. The experience was also so bad I have no interest in the remake/remaster.

Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated. Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game. Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items. Movement speed was tied to a skill, jumping is significantly faster, but also a skill. The leveling process is arcane and not adequately explained in game. The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing. Item storage was a pain because crates had weight limits, and merchants had pitiful amounts of gold to sell items.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Have you tried Tifa’s Bootleg? There are mods that can drastically improve the graphics

DadVolante ,
@DadVolante@sh.itjust.works avatar

Modded FF7 on PC ruined PS1 FF7 for me. Wonderful stuff. 7th Heaven is such a joy.

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated.

I played through it for the first time a few years ago, using the open-source OpenMW engine. It definitely isn’t graphically-competitive with modern games, but I was still able to enjoy it.

Here’s a current image:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUYr7JhNXg

Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game.

I feel like a lot of people enjoyed the game because they could break it in the late game.

Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items.

Yeah, though I don’t think that any Elder Scrolls or Fallout game has really had a truly balanced skill tree, though.

The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing.

Yeah, I have to say that automated quest tracking and note-taking is definitely something that I like about modern RPGs. Sometimes it starts to feel too much like “go to waypoint, do thing, repeat”, but I remember manually mapping dungeons with teleporters on graph paper in the D&D Gold Box games, and it was just arduous.

kayazere ,

I started a new play through of Morrowind after lasting playing it in the 2000s. I used OpenMW on my Steam Deck, it plays really well.

It was really refreshing how more immersive it is as you have to read the journal and use the map to figure out where to go for quests. I really enjoy not having a quest marker guiding you.

allcopsarebad ,

It bothers me how fucking monumental of an achievement Xenogears could have been, how incredible it still is, and how unbearably painful it is to try and play today.

It’s still one of the most wild sci-fi stories I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, [and I read a LOT], but even at the time it was a really clunky combat system and the controls can be absolutely maddening.

CalicoJack ,

I feel the same way about the modern games in the series. The combat feels like an MMO in the worst way, but the stories are interesting enough that I keep on trying to play them.

OpenPassageways ,

I heard good things about some of the earlier Star Wars games like Knights of the Old Republic and others… maybe Jedi Academy?

Struggled to get into them due to overall clunkiness and outdated menu stuff.

If someone could recommend a remake on Switch or Steam maybe with decent controller support? I might be convinced to give them another try…

Mandy ,

Super Mario 64, while i started with the nes i never really fully played the 64 title

I played it on stream some time ago but eventually stopped cause mario just felt so weighty and clunky to control. I tried 3 different controllers just in case it could have just been me, but unfortunately, i just didnt jive with it.

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

Same. I turned into a PlayStation gamer before I played Mario 64. It just seemed boring to me at that stage in my life. I’ve never completed it or played it for more than 30 minutes.

bufordt ,
@bufordt@sh.itjust.works avatar

Coming to it from Crash Bandicoot, there was just something off about how Mario 64 controlled.

KinglyWeevil ,

I tried to replay GoldenEye on switch and just couldn’t. The control scheme is just too dated and I can’t get past it.

Lojcs ,

Gta 5. Story progression is just awful. You play a mission, it ends and you’re forced to do open world activities instead of continuing the story. Then just when you’re getting into the groove in the open world you get a call to do a story mission and it turns out to be shooting imaginary aliens. The missions are too linear and short. Gunplay is weak. Also the characters feel like they were written for 10 year olds who think swear words are funny.

I’m hoping rdr2 is better

Perilous ,

I had to take a look at the date, because this feels like a 2018 comment…

JokeDeity , (edited )

In general I can play any game regardless of age, unless the controls are complete garbage and cannot be changed. Luckily on PC a ton of games can be modded for the better, but not always and it’s always down to controls feeling too off that I’ll drop something I’m otherwise interested in.

Reading the comments here hurts my soul, everyone hates all my favorite games. 🤣

TheBlue22 ,

Thief.

But I HAVE to try again! I want to write my bachelors about game design of stealth games and not analyzing Thief would be a crime against humanity

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

I let civvie11 play it and I lived thru him vicariously

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