Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated?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!
Probably controversial but half life 2 for me. I got it very cheap on a sale after years of hearing how good it was. Just couldn’t get into it. Even worse, every time I felt nauseated after a couple of minutes.
I guess this is just an example of a “you had to be there” scenarios. I was there as a gamer at the time but had no funds to play all the games. I skipped on HL 2 and can’t get into it 20 years later.
Motion blur. My friend couldn’t play HL2 or Portal until I suggested he turn it off - he was getting crazy motion sickness and headaches after just a few minutes before that
Motion blur: taking a performance hit to make your games look like fuzzy ass.
Lens flare is up next.
Can we bump “let’s make it look like shit on purpose” chromatic aberration above that?
Putting in a lot of effort to make games look like the protagonist has camera lenses for eyes.
Real life doesn’t have motion blur, or chromatic aberration, or lens flares. Real life does have depth of field, but it moves with my eyes, not my right hand on the mouse.
Putting in a lot of effort to make games look like the protagonist has astigmatism.
I’m almost certain this is why so much blurring and flare was pushed as “realism” a couple generations ago. The devs and artists needed their eyes checked.
As someone that already has to deal with a somewhat blurry perception, I don’t want any more of that, ever.
I’ve heard it was to mimic films, which has actual lens flares. But I like this alternate “game devs had eye problems” narrative!
Real life absolutely has motion blur and flares. You’re just used to it
IS THAT WHAT IT WAS???
Dude I get SO SICK playing HL2. I played it with a puke bucket next to me so I could finish the game.
Nothing has fucked me up before or since as badly as HL2 did for motion sickness.
Could have been lol
Motion blur is disgusting in video games. It didn’t make me sick but I turned it off because…why would I want everything to look like musg
If you want to give it a go again, turn up the field of view and turn down head-bobbing if that’s an option (which I’m sure it is with the console at least). These are the things that give people motion sickness in FPSs usually.
Yeah maybe, thanks for the tip.
However, I do feel that, being the groundbreaking tech of that era from which all post games practically were derived, I won’t have the same “iconic” experience today as I would have had back then. I feel like I just have to live with the fact that I missed it.
That’s okay though. Maybe some games today will be the predecessors and iconic titles of times to come ;).
I posted on another comment about how HL2 just doesn’t stand up anymore because it was a game that’s at least 50% interesting because of the physics gimmicks, which we’ve seen thousands of times now, so I totally agree.
The more recent games iconic games that I don’t think have been surpassed yet are Dark Souls and Factorio. They’ve both spawned whole new genres, but I still think they’re the best examples of their genres.
Dark Souls combat has been done better since, but the total package I think is still better in that one. The world they created is nearly perfect, and no successor has even really attempted to recreate the experience of traveling through it.
Factorio copycats never try to do better than Factorio, just different. Satisfactory is cool, but being 3D significantly limits the factory building aspect, though it adds architecture design which is cool.
I’m sure there are others that I haven’t thought of or we don’t recognize yet.
I completely agree with Dark Souls! That was also the title I had in mind which did groundbreaking work and paved the way for so many games since.
Haven’t played Factorio so maybe that’s one I missed again lol.
I can relate
That era of PC gaming has a weird camera that takes a while for me to get used to. Not sure I can pinpoint what is different about it though