Yes – Old Games Really WERE terrible!
When I’m asked to list my favorite games, releases from the mid 1990’s frequently pop up. Final Fantasy VII or Link to the Past are popular choices. Sometimes I go with NHL Hockey ‘93, Sonic the Hedgehog or Altered Beast. What I rarely name are games from the past few years even though I have had some great game experiences.
Is there a time limit before a game can be ‘the best ever?’ It’s logical to wait until you get some historical perspective and distance yourself from recent release hype before making a final conclusion about a game, but I think it’s just that nostalgia clouds our judgment. I will argue that nostalgia causes us to massively over-value older games and the most recent generation of games are the best games of all time.
How do we define ‘best?’
I’m going to lose a lot of you right here. Many will probably say ‘you don’t understand the impact that DOOM had when it first came out. FIRST PERSON!’ Yes, innovation is to be valued, but this isn’t about the most groundbreaking or impactful game. It’s not about your most significant gaming moment. This is about the best game.
If somebody takes Halo, a game that is for the most part accepted to be ‘good’ except for some level design issues, copies it piece for piece, but changes the endlessly repetitive Library stages to something more interesting, it’s going to be a better game. The developer of the second game didn’t do most of the hard work; they just built upon an existing concept. If you break it down, this is all most games do, and there have actually been very few genre reinventing moments in the history of the industry.
It’s not just about graphics
Another reason people are going to criticize this argument is that they will think I’m a slave to good graphics. I completely agree that gameplay is more important than graphics. I’m not saying the newest games are the best because they look better. Sometimes it’s nice to have a good looking game, but Tetris is simple and will always be fun.
What is that? Gameplay? Looks terrible
I have to disagree that games from past generations (let’s say prior to 2000) had comparable gameplay. Games constantly use what was successful in the past and build on it. Even something as recent as Gears of War that really popularized the cover mechanic did not execute it as well as some subsequent games.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand probably isn’t remembered as fondly as Gears of War, but the cover mechanic was pretty much identical and therefore if you strip out all the innovation impact / nostalgia over Gears of War, there is really no difference.
Likewise, developers learn what works best with save points, game pacing and branching storylines and build on it. Saying ‘Everquest had raids therefore WoW is a poser game and can never be as good’ holds no water for me because nobody would argue that the raids in Everquest were better, they merely argue that quality = innovation.
You think Everquest raids are better than this? Taste the flames of Sulfuron!
Let’s take as an example the FPS genre. Certain experiments work and become design standards. Weapon loadout selections, recharging health, online experience and leveling, cooperative modes, medals etc. were all at one point new for an FPS and if you look at a game like Modern Warfare 2, they’ve all become standard.
It’s very likely that Modern Warfare 2 is going to be the best online FPS game of its style ever just because it can’t go wrong in the ways that some games have in the past. It is easy to learn from past mistakes. It might not have the same impact on the genre as did something like Counterstrike but that doesn’t mean Counterstrike when it was first released was a better game.
Your memory is deceiving you
While I think the above is easy to accept, sometimes it’s hard to realize just how much fondness for a game nostalgia can generate. Try giving a really old game to a young child who is discovering videogames for the first time. They aren’t going to see this as a retro game; they’re just going to see it as bad with multiple design mistakes not seen in modern games.
I think people intuitively learn that nostalgia is clouding their judgment. I know from experience that I frequently preemptively apologize about a great game from the past that I’m recommending. ‘Oh, you HAVE to play Half Life 2, just remember that physics manipulation was huge when it came out! Oh, and some of the pacing is off but remember how groundbreaking it was!’
There, there. I still love you, Half-Life 2. Don't listen to the new gamers
If it was really just about game quality, then the game could stand on its own. I’m trying to give whoever I’m recommending it to not just the game experience, but my experience with the game.
The next time you think a game out of the past is really the best game of all time – go back and play it a little. You might be surprised what you find.
I’m interested in your thoughts on the matter. Hit up the comments!
P.S. Even the advertisements you remember so fondly used to suck. So good it will make you blow chunks? Why doesn’t McDonalds use that tagline now?! Oh … right. Because it’s terrible.
I copletely agree.
I have for a long time held up Metal Gear Solid as one of the best games ever, but replaying the opening level in Metal Gear 4 amde me realise that it is in fact quite horrible.
Sure, it was good when it was new, but I’d never sit down and play it again.
I prefer to keep my nostalic memories of it intact!
On a side not; have you ever noticed that you seem to remember the graphics as way better than they actually were?
Because I do.
Absolutely! I remember the first time I saw the rendered cutscenes in Final Fantasy VII and I was thinking ‘oh my god, this is photorealism.’ Then when I go back and play now, it’s ridiculously bad, there are hundreds of games whose in-game graphics are massively superior even to the rendered videos.
I thought a similar thing about Ocarina of Time despite it being chunky and terrible when you go back and play it today.
I wonder if we’ll look back on Crysis and Uncharted 2 in ten years and think the same thing?
I expect that for the next several years at least, we’ll be able to look back and think “wow, this looked/played/felt better when I was younger.”
I think I know pretty much exactly what you mean referencing something like Half-Life 2. I didn’t come to it until almost five years after it was released, and not having much of a background, I had a hard time appreciating it on any level.
I may be stretching for a connection here, but I’m re-watching Burton’s Batman, and comparing it in my mind to Nolan’s more recent movies. While the special effects aren’t as fancy in some spots, I still think the older one is a good movie.
I really look forward to the time when I can look at a 5 or 10 year old game and be able to compare it against a newer one based almost entirely on the merits of the story, the cinematography and maybe a few gameplay choices instead of graphics and basic mechanics.