Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#11

Post by hugh3 »

sahillavingia wrote: post #5
zephyrfalcon wrote: post #3

Yes, many classic games are terrible by today's standards. Even those of us who are old enough to have played these games when they came out, and who thoroughly enjoyed them, now consider them unplayable (or close to it), simply because many games have come out since that are better in every possible way (graphics, sound, playability, UI, ...). All in all, it's just a matter of expectations, and how they change over…

I think we are on a path to reach an asymptote, so changes won't be as drastic (though that may just be narrow-mindedness).

Think about movies. The earliest movies were terrible; just technology demonstrations, but they wowed audiences at the time. By the 1920s you were starting to get some films which are still worth watching today as films rather than as historical curiosities (Metropolis, The General). By the 1940s, truly great films were being produced (Citizen Kane, Casablanca) and many would argue it's been basically a plateau ever since then... a few truly great films and a large number of quite good ones produced every decade since.

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#13

Post by joey_bananas »

bherms wrote: post #9

My favorite game of all time was made in 1998... 12 years later I still play it maybe once a year. Anyone else a big fan of Grim Fandango? I wish they would resurrect this game, or at least do an update to it like they did with Monkey Island.

Eagles on Pogo-sticks.

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#14

Post by leftnode »

bherms wrote: post #9

My favorite game of all time was made in 1998... 12 years later I still play it maybe once a year. Anyone else a big fan of Grim Fandango? I wish they would resurrect this game, or at least do an update to it like they did with Monkey Island.

Mine too: the original Deus Ex was one of, if not the, greatest games ever built and I still play it today.

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#17

Post by scott_s »

It all depends on what you consider a "classic" game. I can't play NES games anymore. But I still have fun with SNES games. I keep my SNES around to play games that I consider classic: Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Castlevania 4, Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6.

Also, if you like talking and reading about classic games, you should visit: http://www.gamespite.net

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#18

Post by tokipin »

one thing to recognize is that modern games generally have a lot of high-cost content. this is stuff that teams of 100+ people have to work on for 2+ years to make. so in that sense it would be really surprising if modern games didn't appear substantially better to us than in the past, when teams were tiny by comparison

Re: The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

#19

Post by jsrfded »

danilocampos wrote: post #2

Timeless classic games: - Super Mario 3 - Super Mario World - Mega Man X - Baldur's Gate Still 100% fun. Dunno how they manage it.

I got my apple 2 out of storage, and my 11 year old son got addicted to Apple Galaxian. Was one of my favorite games, I thought it was interesting that even though he played modern xbox and wii games he could get so wrapped up in a game that old. Comes down to solid game mechanics and playability I guess.
Post reply on HN