Gaming Your Favourite Game Was Rubbish

Not sure you're on the money there old chap.

I don't think the main conclusion of the article was simply saying old games are rubbish, as you seem to be arguing against.

The main message, to me, was to just take nostalgic opinions of classic titles in perspective when comparing against similar modern titles.

The author's absolutely right that people tend to look back on favorites from the old days in a far more emotive way than objectively.

I can't remember how many times I've fired up an old favorite only to find myself getting bored quickly.

Our memories and feelings about things we experienced in the past are created at the time we experience them, and we tend to carry the same thoughts and feelings on, unchanged until said experience is revisited.

The problem is that during the time passed, we've also been exposed to years of incrimental advancements in every aspect of gaming from story, graphics, realism, story-delivery and so on, and can't help but compare old favorites with current expectations that have since developed.

I don't agree/understand with the arguments made about how Doom 3 is as good as Half Life 2, as this is a comparison of plots and how easy to grasp one is over the other; this is entirely subjective depending on the person experiencing it at the time.

One person can play Doom 3 and be enthralled by the story and delivery, another can play and find themselves predicting everything and getting bored. Vice Versa for Half Life 2.

We can argue that those who found it hard to follow the plot were just out of their usual comfort zone.

I personally found the plot and delivery on a whole different level than doom 3 (higher, that is) and had no worries getting it as it played out. The greater depth and need for the player to invest some energy in figuring out what was going on was half the fun. Reading the sometimes subtles clues and indicators to what was happening to fill gaps in knowledge really drew me in as a player, rather than the simple spoon-fed experience that, for me, was Doom 3.

The same argument applies to almost every example cited by the author in the article.

Deus Ex was the first game I remember playing where I could interact with the gameworld as I wanted. Sure the plot and story was largely linear, but how I went about the minutae of dealing with one moment to the next was my choice. For example, catching the attention of one of the big robot f***ers and leading them around the corner to a gang of guards was both an accident and jaw dropping at the time I encounterd it. This was after numerous attempts at stealthily crawling through that part. I'm not a natural stealth-type player.

As for Deus Ex IW, I don't ever remember such moments.

 

Bravo! BRAVO!!

Good article, Joe! thx for such refreshing read!

im too lazy to read all the comments here lol but damn, thats a good article. im not agreeing 100.00% to it, but its darn well beyond 95%.

 

On completing HL2 my first though was WTF was that about. I've had to go to websites to find out what had gone on between HL and HL2 and who the Combine were. It must be explained in the game somewhere for the websites to know, but I found it hard to know what was going on from playing through. Perhaps i should have payed more attention to the background noise and not fallen to sleep whilst talking to vortigaunts.

Although i havent played Doom3 to completion, from what i have played its more like stuff happens rather than a real plot. But as i say, i havent completed it so i'll lay off it a bit.

Not played Thief, but have played Thief2 and Deadly Shadows. T2 is one of the best games i've ever played, DS is pants, and nothing is going to change my mind on that.

 

Doom 3 better than Half Life 2............

Did i really just read that correctly, or have i just awoken in a parallel twilight zone of logic failure and journalistic nonsense.?


Bit Tech's credibility just went down a notch in my estimation....

Utter garbage.

 

Joe Martin, how dare you!

 

Doom 3 was utter **** whether you compare it to Half-Life or not.

Anyway, I'm nostalgic, especially for the Syndicate games. I'm still waiting for someone to do games like that again. It seems nowadays every single game is the cover-mode regenerating-health grey bland shooter thing. I'm guessing that the rumored Syndicate remake will be another one of those and an utter pile of poo but I'll give it a chance..

 

think games like doom and deus ex were groundbreaking.. that's why they are remembered

for me it was freelancer.. I still can't play a space game and not think- god the controls aren't as good.. remember all the dogfights

fps quake 2 is the same way.. I remember the double jumps they sadly took out of quake 3 so newbs didn't feel like flat footed freaks when joining a server.. certain things about your favorite games really can't be copied

 

look at ut2k4 to ut3
look at ss2 to bioshock
look at deus ex to IW
look at colin mcrae 04 to dirt 2

nostalgia has nothing to do with it, in trying to whore as much money from the masses devs and pubs are taking gaming backwards and making them simpler, whats wrong with learning the game to beat the game? its like replacing all chess pieces with pawns.

 

Very good article. I actually like the HL1 boss though - it was refreshingly different. The Doom3 boss could be killed by running around that crater in the ground and keeping shooting at it, and I find big devils with horns firing rockets at me way more ridiculous than giant gene manipulated babies with open skulls and a mechanical abdomen. If you look at it right, Nihilanth was a way more gruesome appearance than that ridiculous horned giant devil. I also find that the HL story leaves much more room for your own imagination than Doom. Doom 3's story is such a predictable and boring repetition of the same old crap. Doom 3's level design also was horribly boring - an endless sequence of small chambers and medium sized halls where you usually fight in the dark and hence see nothing (thank god for flashlight mods). And Deus Ex: Invisible War? It neither had a real beginning, nor a real end, and I always wondered what my purpose was in the game. It looked like the makers had started over ambituously and then had to cut down the game so that they could publish something playable before they were out of budget (or their publisher out of patience). Unfinished, I'd say.

 

I don't think Joe has lost the plot, I think this is a good article and a worthy topic.
Those of you who might feel butthurt about the sentiments in the article need to remember that what Joe is asserting is his journalistic opinion, his viewpoint as someone who has played games for years and makes a living out of presenting his opinion intelligently, not some canonical creed that we're expected to accept without discussion, it's a thought-provoking article for those of us who take this matter seriously.
Getting exasperated over the claim that Doom3 is better than HL2 or whatever is to miss the point and shows either you haven't read the article in full or you haven't read between the lines the way Joe seemingly wants you to do.

Case in point:

The idea isn't to take the article as a vehement statement of D3 > Hl2, IW > DX, BS > SS2, etc - It's an exercise in approaching the topic from that viewpoint for the sake of a fair approach, instead of standing on the nostalgia soapbox without question.
Standing in the shoes of the newer games, so to speak.

However, there are some points I'd like to raise in response to the article!
Beware, stupidly long post incoming - I'll try to format it in a way that isn't too much of a chore to read.

-------- General points --------

The people who complain about the lack of innovation aren't necessarily the same people who want more of the same. We're not all hypocritical whiners.
Nor do all of us blindly adore the games we harp on about (Deus Ex, SS2, PST, etc ) - Some of us, at least, are well aware of the flaws in those games, and I don't just mean the lack of graphical fidelity, developer experience or anything that can be attributed primarily to the age of the games.
Yes, SHODAN end fight, I'm looking at you. And you, Nihilanth. And you, NSF trooper who survives a bullet to the face on realistic difficulty before killing a nano-aug with a knife to the arm.

Both System Shock 2 and Deus Ex had graphics that were sub-par at the time of release, nevermind making comparisons to modern graphics.
- Yet, they had rudimentary physics systems that were almost unheard of at the time, despite being a buzzword in the game engines of today.
- They had deeply interactive game worlds (particularly Deus Ex) that lended hugely to their immersion, whether by listening to audio logs in System Shock 2, embarrassing yourself in the women's toilets in UNATCO, crushing hybrids with faulty elevators in the storage bays or moving explosive barrels & crates around the NSF base to set traps for the MJ12/UNATCO agents.
- They had complex stat-driven RPG gameplay that engaged well with the world around the player and gave huge scope for replayability via a combination of character skills/stats, augmentations, equipment and multiple routes through the game (in gameplay/combat terms, despite being funneled through the game in terms of plot advancement).

No surprise then, that both of those games have been lauded for years for their gameplay, atmosphere and engaging stories and their sub-par graphics have become little more than footnotes in the games' histories, as have many of the lesser flaws in both games such as some awkward/annoying combat mechanics (enemy damage in Deus Ex, spiders in SS2, etc) - And rightly so, since many of those flaws are ones of balance, ones that have been subsequently fixed by player-made modifications and which can be found in any new games, not even just the modern successors in question.

From my point of view, the difference is that the flaws I perceive in newer games far, far outweigh the flaws of the older games and as others have implied, are far less excusable.
This article goes into deeper issues than just gameplay flaws or annoyances though, and I respond to those below.

-------- Bioshock and the dumbing-down of games --------

This is an important point and I feel a distinction needs to be made here in terms of "who's to blame". The publishers for demanding more accessible games for the sake of money, the developers for acceding to the demands of publishers at the (possible) compromise of their artistic integrity, or the gamers who blithely accept (or even expect) it.
I fully accept that the gaming industry has shifted towards appealing to a wider audience and that 'gamers' aren't the insular nerds that people like myself grew up as. Refusing to acknowledge these facts just because I don't like it would be an act of delusion.
However, that doesn't mean I have to like it. The industry is cutthroat and people need to make their money, but watering down games into creations like BioShock to appeal to a wider audience is akin to the state of the pop music industry in my eyes.

To further that analogy: To me System Shock is Beethoven's 5th, System Shock 2 is a John Williams masterpiece and BioShock is a Britney Spears song.
The first was the product of genius, the second was the refinement of that genius and the third was a watering down of that original genius into something that appeals to the quickfire mass market who aren't interested in the creation from an enthusiast's point of view, who instead want some entertainment for a brief period of time before quickly moving on to something else.
I'm not trying to say that BioShock holds no appeal for gaming enthusiasts, for those of us who have experienced the quality and depth of previous creations; but what I am saying is that people like us are no longer the core audience and the game has been slimmed down to suit.

Is the game more immediately accessible? Yes
Does the game sell better? Yes
Does it entertain more people overall? Yes
Is it a better game for the publisher? Yes
Is it a better game for the enthusiast? I certainly don't think so.

I know plenty of people are going to disagree with me on that one and they have every right to - As I've said before, I am a gaming elitist and I'm proud of it. I make no apologies for that and it's an attitude I take with other media that I care about too.
Yes, it is my subjective opinion that Beethoven is better than Britney Spears and that System Shock 2 is better than BioShock, but then.. Whose music is studied more in the music departments of Universities and played by knowledgeable musicians, tradition aside, Beethoven or Britney Spears?

My core point with regards to all of that is that we enthusiasts (or elitists, if you prefer) have the choice of either accepting that this is the way things are these days for gaming, that we are doomed to nothing but a succession of dumbed-down console ports and rehashes of past classics; or we can stand up and be vocal about it, or even just speak with our wallets.
Yes, we are a minority, yes our cries are impotent and lost in the mass market of careless casuals who think nothing of dropping their €60 on games like Modern Warfare 2 or BioShock without understanding why those PC gaming elitists are up in arms about the game ("They should shut up and enjoy it, right?" ), but as I have said elsewhere on this topic - I would rather be impotently vocal and proudly elitist than passive and opinionless.

-------- Bioshock's story vs System Shock 2--------

I do take issue with this point, and not solely because I heard that question in Atlas' awful accent (which is only somewhat excusable in light of the plot twist involved), but also because to me that entire plot twist was nothing more than a rehash of the SHODAN/Polito twist from SS2.
I saw it coming in BioShock because like most of the best parts of BioShock, it was taken almost directly from its predecessor.
Thus, we come to the point of innovation versus 'more of the same'. As I mentioned above, not all of us demand constant innovation and completely new approaches to game design (I'd still love another Baldur's Gate game in the infinity engine, for instance), but a lazy rehash of an entire plot twist is stretching things, especially when so much of the rest of the game already feels like a watered-down clone of the predecessor.

By Contrast? So the plot of the System Shock series couldn't?
Just because a setting has been done before (Space station, spaceship) or a theme (AI gaining sentience, god complex, amnesiac protagonist) doesn't mean that the plot is inherently bad, nor that the execution of the plot is necessarily lacking.
Similarly, just because a setting is new (Art Deco city) doesn't mean it's inherently good or any more exciting beyond the fact that it's different to what we're used to. And again, BioShock's overarching plot bears enough similarities to that of System Shock that I deny it any credit for originality.
Ryan = SHODAN, Rapture = Citadel Station, Splicers = Crazed Androids/Mutants/Hybrids, Big Daddies = Rumblers.
Even the motivations of the game's combat opponents are similar (protection of their young, vulnerable charges; be they little sisters or baby parasites of The Many) - It's not that new in light of its predecessors.

I would argue that the stories of the many characters in the audio logs (such as Delacroix, Polito, Anatoly Korenchkin, Captain Diego and Tommy Suarez & his lover) of System Shock 2 combined with the strong antagonist form enough of a plot to compete with anything offered by BioShock and with as much originality as the newer game offers, regardless of the staple sci-fi setting and themes.
Few of the supporting characters in BioShock had anywhere near the engagement or depth of those in SS2, with Fontaine, Ryan & Tenenbaum being the notable exceptions and only because they were important characters in the main plot of the game, unlike many of the engaging characters in SS2 who merely set the scene and added to the backstory and atmosphere.

-------- Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2 --------

I find myself almost fully agreeing with the section on Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2. I always rather liked the plot and setting of Doom 3 (and I've always wanted to see SS2 remade in the Doom 3 engine with its lovely interactive screens in-game and the like), but at the same time, could the argument not be made that Half-Life's mystery and circumspect approach to storytelling form much of its appeal, similar to the way TV shows such as LOST have enthralled people?

I wouldn't say that either Doom 3 or HL has a better story (and I don't think the article tries to make that assertion, either), but I'm fully prepared to accept the vague, frustrating approach to storytelling that Valve use in HL because despite its annoyances, they've kept me interested since the first time I heard "Welcome to Black Mesa".

-------- Deus Ex and Invisible War --------

I'm of the belief that the gritty, almost contemporary aesthetics of Deus Ex are part of its appeal. It's decidedly futuristic, with its inclusion of plasma weaponry and nanotechnology, but all of this is in a world where only the government agencies have access to that stuff (aside from the odd PS20 found lying around) and everyone else is slumming around in a gritty noir-ish world, neither understanding nor appreciating the technologies that define the game's era.

On the point of the game's 'funneled story' despite being lauded as an open-ended game, I think this is one of the game's finest achievements.
The game manages to conjure an almost perfect illusion of freedom despite the funneling, an illusion that holds true even in subsequent playthroughs. It has just enough freedom to make the player feel like their choices have an impact on the game's direction and the world they're in, but enough 'funneling' to keep the game focused and not leave the player feeling bored and lost when their character is supposed to be engaged in urgent missions and a race against time to stop the conspirators.

Over time I've come to appreciate IW far more than I initially did, but the entire thing still feels like such a wasted opportunity, hampered by concessions to the multi-platform release (both in terms of technology and gameplay) and a dumbing-down of important gameplay elements.
My gripes with IW ar not with the characters, plot, world or level of freedom.
In fact, I love the darker, grittier and more Gibson-like cyberpunk world of IW as much as the more contemporary world of Deus Ex and I enjoy replaying IW for its Role-Playing elements when I do - My problems with IW have always rested squarely on the gameplay issues.

If IW had retained different ammo types, various realistic weapons, character skills and the slightly more complex augmentations of Deus Ex then it would have been an entirely worthy successor in my view, even with its slightly smaller and more claustrophobic level design that made it 'not feel like' a Deus Ex game to me.

If IW had retained the above features of Deus Ex and given the kind of world freedom of Deus Ex (in its funneled, 'envelopes of freedom' way), then it would have been not only a worthy successor, but maybe even a better game.

That's a big maybe. It'd take a lot to dethrone Deus Ex for me.

Also, this. The apparent abhorrence of complexity and the loss of appreciation for effort-and-reward in modern games is one of the worst paradigm shifts in games development of recent years, and it seems to be affecting everything from Bioshock to Crysis (2) to World of Warcraft.
Elitists like myself and Gunsmith would be far less abrasive towards modern games and casual gamers if their inclusion in the market hadn't diluted our passionate hobby into something geared towards simpletons and children.

-------- TL;DR, Conclusion --------

TL;DR: Yes, it's entirely possible to be blinded by nostalgia and many of us frequently are, but that doesn't invalidate the problems we have with newer games, especially when we are fully aware of and capable of acknowledging the flaws of our classic favourites.
Some of us are harsh in our criticism of new games like Bioshock who set out (or claim) to dethrone their predecessors that we are so passionate about, but just because we are passionate in our opinions does not mean we are ignorant of factors beyond "omg it's a console port!", nor does it mean we are always comparing modern games to classics through rose-tinted glasses.

This is an excellent article and while I disagree with plenty of points in it, I think it's fantastic to see this topic dealt with so intelligently and in a provocative, engaging way.
Major kudos, Joe.

 

Oi, repetetive and a one-trick pony, yes. Utter ****, certainly not. Or is this anti-nostalgia in action?

 

Now that's one hell of a FAT_TROLLING_ARTICLE, nice job, son

 

LOL!!!, did this guy just compare Doom3 to HL2???

 

I want to agree but also disagree with this article.

Not 4 days ago, did i buy FFVII on PSN... and I LOVE the game. Reasoning for me buying it, was that I have NEVER played a Final Fantasy franchise game, and I'm sort of waiting on FFXIII to get out, as it looks marvelous.

Yes, the gameplay is sort of outdated and I do get frustrated with the gameplay. It's not as streamlined as Dragon Age or any other games from '09... When you die, you die... And have to start all over again from last save point which were 1hour+++ ago...

I haven't played Deus Ex, but it's also on my "Play before I die"-list...

And for those who haven't seen this, please do. It might enlighten your very view on video games
Rasmus23

 

You can't forgive Valve for HL1's end-boss, yet you rated ME2 a 10?

I can't say more on that count without hurling out a big spoiler (and hurl is definitely the right verb)...but man, that's incredibly inconsistent. At least fighting the Nihilanth was difficult and required some sort of new technique, integrating use of the jumper platforms intermittently encountered previously with the method for fighting the smaller controllers. That's one place 'nostalgia' trumps: it used to be you had to think to figure out what to do. Some games did a better job of guiding you than others, but they expected you to put some sort of effort into it at least. Nowadays they point out the weak spots to us with nice highlighted outlines and big damage remaining progress bars so we don't have to think for ourselves. (Crysis, ME2, several others guilty of this...even Dead Space by comparison made the boss weak spots obvious in context of prior engagements but at least didn't insult us with a giant "shoot here STOOP1D!!" HUD outline.

I shouldn't even get started on the weak-sauce statement that Doom3 was better than HL1/HL2 because the story was 'simple'. Complex is not automatically better (am I the only one who thought Deus Ex actually kind of sucked? And while I really enjoyed both levels of story in AC1, the continuous exposition after each assassination got draining), but simplicity definitely does NOT equate to goodness unless you're aiming at kindergartners. HL1 pioneered the actual embedding of story exposition through scripted scenes in-engine as opposed to chapter-load movies or huge text boluses on monitors and the like to provide a back-story in 'easter egg' style, much of which stands up today. Those who just wanted the simplicity of playing the game and shooting things could ignore most of it if they wanted. Doom simply lacks any need to figure out what is going on, it may as well have been Serious Sam or Duke Nukem.

 

Very well written and expressed. I will say the same for Joe's article as well. It's been very interesting to read the article and all the comments, and as Zurechial said:

I completely agree.

When I first saw the title of the article I was really unsure what to expect, but after reading it I think I understand what Joe's trying to say. I LOVE Deus Ex, probably my favorite game of all time too, and I'm always going on about it to guys at work. I'm the only one at work who's played it I think, then again, I'm the only one at work who's elitist and proud. I actually just bought it for someone through steam for his birthday. He has to play it now, out of guilt, MWUHAHAHAHA. I just hope he enjoys it and give it a chance despite its outdated feel. It's in situations like this that I do worry a little about my nostalgia towards it, because I think what if he doesn't like it? Is it good to me because I played it when I was a kid at school along with a number of mates and we could talk about it? Or is it because I love games and just get too into them? Either way it doesn't matter, because since finding Bit-Tech, I know I AM NOT ALONE.

With regards to the flaws of Deus Ex, I have always been aware of its flaws, and while it's true that nostalgia makes me remember mostly the good, I don't have a problem with accepting that Deus Ex was not perfect. The most notable bug for me was when the AI would get stuck on corners and run on the spot. But I remember thinking LOL thats hilarious, and still do to this day. The thing with Deus Ex is, it's still an awesome game despite its flaws.

 

As much as I could agree with the majority of what was said I found myself headbanging my keyboard at the Doom 3 VS Half Life 2 argument.

Doom 3 to me was probably one of the biggest disappointments in gaming history, not due to the story, or its way ahead of its time resource hungry game engine, but due to the game itself, the level design was rubbish, the game play was rubbish, it was too dark to play unless you modded it(shotgun flashlight mod) and it was just linear with a mind dumbing shoot everything that moves strategy(even Serious Sam did that better), it was just bleh, from start to finish,glad I wont be playing it anytime soon again.


Doom 3 will have a better story simply because it was directed by a hollywood movie director,but that couldn't save it from the awful gameplay, if we souly rated games based on story line, why do movie to game conversions always end up failing,they should have a quite a big head start with a huge advantage plot base, but yet they still fail?

To prove a point can any one do a "blurb test" of the original Rayman,Quake1/2, or Beyond good Evil, Im sure nothing spectacular will come up, but that never mattered when we first played the game,the games where great.

 

Maybe you can spend less time on useless articles like this and 1) fix the spelling and grammar errors in your articles 2) Review major releases like Star Trek Online.

 

That is what I got from the article as well. Not that Doom 3 was better than Half-life 2 because it had a more concise plot, but that saying its worse for that reason is ignorant.

And personally I believe that it is not a zero sum situation when looking at games. For instance, there doesn't have to be a winner and a loser between two games in terms of peoples opinions of them. Just because you love the one doesn't mean you have to hate the other.

In simpler terms: Judge a game on its own merits. Don't dismiss a game just because it's not your favorite.

 

This article seems to exist purely to provoke people. It's broken games down into a series of bullet points to decide which is best and completely ignored the fact that while one game may win on the specific (and not particularly fair) criteria in the article, people like those games for one reason alone, they enjoyed playing them.

I don't prefer Half-life 2 to Doom 3 because of some misty water coloured memory or because I think it will make me look cultured, I preferred it because I enjoyed playing it more, that's why games exist. I wouldn't say Peggle had the best storyline but I bloody loved playing it. None of the criteria chosen in the article matter at all because they are all just the parts that add up to the sum - Did I enjoy it? It would be like rating the handling of a sports car by reviewing the suspension components individually and not driving the car.

This is going to fall prey to the circular logic that anyone who disagrees with this article is one of "those people" the article is talking about. Or that because it provoked responses It's a good article but even if its playing devils advocate it just feels like its trying too hard to be controversial.