Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated?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!
This is a weird one for me because it often depends on whether I paid for the game. I got the first Fallout game for free (from GOG or something), and when I inevitably became confused by the UI and objective I ended up giving up on it. If I’d bought the game (either today or back when it came out) I definitely would have invested a lot more time into it, and got past that initial hump. Back when PC games came on disc with an instruction guide, reading that was part of the experience. There’s definitely a awkward period around the early 2000s when games were becoming way more complex, but before in-game tutorials were regularly a thing. I find it hard to go back to a lot of those games.
Likewise I played the first hour of Resident Evil HD on my PS4 (free with PS+) and never had the motivation to get into it. After paying for it in a Humble Bundle, I played through the whole thing on Steam and loved it! The fact that I’d paid for it was able to outweigh the fact that the game was quite outdated. I guess I felt like I wanted to get my money’s worth.
Any game from 2005-ish onwards feels ‘modern’ enough that I don’t usually have this problem.
There are still games that require a lot of reading documentation to be playable. Come to think of it, some of my favorite games are like that, like Dwarf Fortress or the like.
Yes that’s true! I find that games like that have their own sort of niche, in which players usually know quite a lot about the game (from watching others play it online) before jumping in. And there’s an expectation that they’ll refer to the wiki regularly. These kind of games can’t have a tutorial that covers everything, because there’s way too much to cover.
That’s interesting, I kinda get the wanting to get your moneys worth out of it. I am a little surprised that even though I only played Fallout 1 and 2 a few years ago for the first time (not old enough to have played them at release) I really liked both of them. I thought the story was really solid. Much simpler than F3 or New Vegas, but still very good.
That’s interesting. I either refund them if I struggle a little too much on tutorials, or just leave it in the backlog for later (aka most likely never).
I should try doing that more though because they’re classics for a reason and maybe there’s still fun I can get out of them.