Any unpopular opinions on certain games?

[VerbalPuke]

Side scrolling beat em' ups never get old. 

[Benji]

19 minutes ago, VerBlood Drive said:

Side scrolling beat em' ups never get old. 

That's one of those arcade style game genres I am amazed hasn't been picked up more since online co-op became a thing.

Arcade style games as a whole but with online multiplayer need to make a comeback.

[RPS]

I would say the vast majority of older games are not good, but I would argue most of them are by design. A lot of early console games were largely based upon arcade cabinets and arcade cabinets were purposefully difficult in order to get more quarters out of you. Usually there was a difficulty spike in the 2nd or 3rd levels. 

On the flip side, I would argue that a lot of games nowadays tend to be easier or at least too easy. I was playing Mario and Rabbids and I remember people complaining about how difficult the game is. I don't find the game very difficult. I've died a bunch, but that is part of the game. You die, you learn the lesson for the next battle and adapt. 

[Skummy]

The difference with something like Mario/Rabbids is that death isn't arbitrary any more. I think we discussed it in the Nintendo thread, about how Odyssey doesn't have "lives", but so much of our metric of the difficulty of a game is based on "dying" and how many lives you've got left - but that's just a hangover from the days when a life was money. A good game now can afford to have you lose a few times as you figure out how to solve a problem, rather than just throw more enemies at you, or some really cheap blind leap of faith or bad guy out of nowhere to kill you.

[Colly]

I think it's nowhere near as objective as "old games don't hold up". While I would barely touch a PS1 game now due to the horrible blocky grey graphics, there's a number of PS2 games I'll still regularly dig out (Burnout 3, SSX Tricky/3, PES 6), and I'll go beyond PS1 to the kind of PC and Amiga games Hammy mentioned (I still plug in Colonisation occasionally, I know it's not as good as Civ but I love the setting and the music). Obviously games now have more scope and scale due to having 100s of people working on them rather than 4, but for me if the feel of a game is right (my hands naturally spring back to the position to "charge" up a jump on SSX on saying that) then it will always be worth a go, unless it's been superceded a la Theme Park to Rollercoaster Tycoon. Ditto WWF No Mercy, that control method and countering was wonderful. 

[Benji]

47 minutes ago, RPS said:

I would say the vast majority of older games are not good, but I would argue most of them are by design. A lot of early console games were largely based upon arcade cabinets and arcade cabinets were purposefully difficult in order to get more quarters out of you. Usually there was a difficulty spike in the 2nd or 3rd levels. 

On the flip side, I would argue that a lot of games nowadays tend to be easier or at least too easy. I was playing Mario and Rabbids and I remember people complaining about how difficult the game is. I don't find the game very difficult. I've died a bunch, but that is part of the game. You die, you learn the lesson for the next battle and adapt. 

I think Witcher 3 is probably the most perfect difficulty level I have encountered. On Death March difficulty (the hardest) it's a challenge - not even just bosses, but every fight you can potentially die if you aren't careful. But at the same time nothing feels impossible, it just feels like you have to get timing, technique and tactics right and never once did I feel like I lost because of something being cheap (and I lost a lot). I had incredible fun with the fight gameplay on that game.

[MDK]

28 minutes ago, Colly said:

Ditto WWF No Mercy, that control method and countering was wonderful.

Marry me

[VerbalPuke]

So, where does the cut off begin for older games largely being bad? I think I would still like a lot of PS1 games, maybe a few sega games, and probably very little for NES. Would PS1 and N64 eras be the point we would say "hey, this shit holds up". 

Obviously, it depends on the person. But I think I'd still get enjoyment from a lot of my favorites on PS1, even a game like WWF Attitude. But from playing emulators a lot of Sega games weren't as cool as they seemed as a kid, and I can't think of any NES games I'd still play. 

[MDK]

22 minutes ago, VerBlood Drive said:

So, where does the cut off begin for older games largely being bad? I think I would still like a lot of PS1 games, maybe a few sega games, and probably very little for NES. Would PS1 and N64 eras be the point we would say "hey, this shit holds up". 

Obviously, it depends on the person. But I think I'd still get enjoyment from a lot of my favorites on PS1, even a game like WWF Attitude. But from playing emulators a lot of Sega games weren't as cool as they seemed as a kid, and I can't think of any NES games I'd still play. 

 I think it depends on the system and genre of game. RPG's, point-and-click, side-scroller's and strategy/simulation/4X games generally still hold up quite well. Sports, action and the like look like dog shit now.

[Bobfoc]

It's very, very hard to be unbiased about games holding up or not if you played them at length back in the day. A better gauge is usually how people who never played them feel about them when trying them for the first time. I, for instance, would suggest that Metal Gear Solid holds up, but that's because I loved it in 1998, play it every couple of years and know it back to front. With that in mind, I'm not a reliable judge.

Tomb Raider, on the other hand, is a game I only briefly tried in demo form. I gave it another go a few years ago with the experience of modern action-adventure games and thought it was horrendous. Someone else I know claims that it's still fantastic to this day, but he's a massive fan of the original games.

 

[Toe]

Here's my unpopular gaming opinion. 

Ken > Ryu. 

[Benji]

45 minutes ago, Toe said:

Here's my unpopular gaming opinion. 

Ken > Ryu. 

More importantly, Sagat > *

[VerbalPuke]

The best part of Tomb Raider was breaking Laura Crofts neck on purpose during the tutorial mode.

[King Ellis]

2 minutes ago, VerBlood Drive said:

The best part of Tomb Raider was breaking Laura Crofts neck on purpose during the tutorial mode.

Wait, there's stuff to do outside of swan diving from the second floor of her house?

[VerbalPuke]

39 minutes ago, King Michaellis Myers said:

Wait, there's stuff to do outside of swan diving from the second floor of her house?

Yeah, drowning in her pool is pretty popular. 

[Schlitzbrille]

2 hours ago, VerBlood Drive said:

Yeah, drowning in her pool is pretty popular. 

Glitching your way out of the manor is underrated.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Locking the butler in the walk-in freezer on TR2 was always a winner.

[Colly]

I think there is an extent to which a lot of PS1 games ended up almost as 3D tech demos for games that were to come. Tomb Raider was absolutely groundbreaking but it's all been done better since. Whereas I'd still play Speedball 2 now. Again it's a feel thing, I'm immediately imagining holding down the fire button to play a high pass. Muscle memory and that, yeah? 

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Speedball 2 was great. Often in those games what ia missing compared to now is the depth of leagues, or customisation, or playable teams or whatever that we're obsessed with now.

 

Back then you'd get something like 8 teams and one play option but the gameplay was amazing.

 

I remember the PC game Manchester United in Europe. All you did was play through the old format European Cup, UEFA or Cup Winners Cup as Man Utd...that was it. You could edit players names to be you and your mates though and that made it amazing at the time.

[Benji]

12 hours ago, Colly said:

Tomb Raider was absolutely groundbreaking but it's all been done better since

I love that the new Tomb Raider series was to the Uncharted series what Uncharted had been to the original Tomb Raider series.