"Aged well" when applied to video games is a retarded idiom, both because they cannot age and because it's completely subjective. How can something age well or poorly when nobody can agree on it?
There may not be a full consensus of opinion, but to say "nobody can agree on it" is obviously not accurate.
Lots of us agree on the quality of "aging" of lots of the games mentioned in this thread, so clearly what we're discussing is a perception and an experience shared by many.
It's not accurate if you just stick to NintendoAge. Travel around a bit and you'll quickly find "retro" gaming isn't for everyone. The vast majority of Steam, Xbone, PS4 and VR device users will tell you anything not running at 4K 60FPS has aged poorly immediately, which is again a completely retarded statement.
It doesn't matter to such people if it's good 2D, bad 2D, good 3D or bad 3D. If it's not the best, it sucks. It's not a fact, it's perception. "aged well/poorly" is still just that, a perception. My perception is that the vast majority of games are actually good, you just need to broaden your concept of what a "good" game is. GoldenEye 007 is a great game in the context of N64 shooters and its spiritual successors, those being Perfect Dark and the TimeSplitters games. In the context of 2016, GoldenEye 007 is still completely playable. The only thing that has changed since is yourself and your willingness to play older games, or lack thereof.
You guys may not remember, but there was a time when people thought the NES and other older 2D consoles had aged poorly. That was mostly back when 3D was very new up to the Gamecube era.
Let's hold on a second here... if I recall correctly you weren't old enough to have any opinion about this sort of thing "back when 3D was very new". (you were born in 1992, per the "younger than favorite console" thread)
So when the Gamecube was released you were actually around the same age some of us were when we got our first NES.
So basically, unless you're talking about some online discussion that you mined at a much later date, you are talking about opinions of a bunch of 6 - 9 year-olds if you're talking about discussion about the NES aging poorly if you're actually talking about opinions you heard "back when 3D was very new up to the gamecube".
I'm skeptical that you had the pulse on the opinions of "gamers in general" at that time, since the internet was still relatively young, and you were probably too young to participate online, anyway.
That said, considering your personal timeline, your defensiveness on this particular topic makes sense, because your childhood system would have been N64 during some very formative years.
It's not accurate if you just stick to NintendoAge. Travel around a bit and you'll quickly find "retro" gaming isn't for everyone. The vast majority of Steam, Xbone, PS4 and VR device users will tell you anything not running at 4K 60FPS has aged poorly immediately, which is again a completely retarded statement.
Bullshit. As clearly evidenced by the continued and prolific success of "retro" indie games on platforms such as Steam, and the online services of Xbox and PS.
"The vast majority" of gamers don't own a 4K monitor, and certainly don't own a video card that will push 4K at 60fps with any worthwhile settings in-game.
(though I would believe that the majority of gamers on those platforms would be happy to have such a capability, were money no object)
Given your stated opinions and preferences, I can't see any reason to believe that you would have an accurate pulse on what "the vast majority" of gamers think about this sort of thing.
Let's hold on a second here... if I recall correctly you weren't old enough to have any opinion about this sort of thing "back when 3D was very new". (you were born in 1992, per the "younger than favorite console" thread)
So when the Gamecube was released you were actually around the same age some of us were when we got our first NES.
So basically, unless you're talking about some online discussion that you mined at a much later date, you are talking about opinions of a bunch of 6 - 9 year-olds if you're talking about discussion about the NES aging poorly if you're actually talking about opinions you heard "back when 3D was very new up to the gamecube".
I'm skeptical that you had the pulse on the opinions of "gamers in general" at that time, since the internet was still relatively young, and you were probably too young to participate online, anyway.
That said, considering your personal timeline, your defensiveness on this particular topic makes sense, because your childhood system would have been N64 during some very formative years.
Sorry that we're shitting all over your childhood
This is the internet, of course you can mine old forum posts. NES wasn't always hip and popular. Even around here, people reminisce about the good old days of buying NES carts on the cheap at Funcoland. I wasn't old enough or lived near one of those, but I can read. Clearly, the NES went through a period of complete unpopularity. If it didn't, why were the carts so dirt cheap? Clearly, people used to think it had aged poorly. I fail to see how such an idiom can be taken seriously when aging well or poorly is entirely dependent on popular opinion, which is as fickle as wind and weather.
My childhood systems were the SNES and Sega compilations for Windows, it's the main reason I am so fond of older 2D systems (also why I'm a big fan of Shining Force, it was in Sega Smash Pack Vol 2 for Windows).
I only rarely played N64 when I was that young, I didn't get to own one until 2006, same time I bought an NES. In 2005 I got a Dreamcast. The first console I truly got to experience at launch was indeed the Gamecube. Ever since about 2006 I have drifted away from the new and stuck with the old and I am VERY happy, thank you very much.
Not that you would believe me, you'd rather just lump me in with all the other "kiddie" users on here...
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
Bullshit. As clearly evidenced by the continued and prolific success of "retro" indie games on platforms such as Steam, and the online services of Xbox and PS.
"The vast majority" of gamers don't own a 4K monitor, and certainly don't own a video card that will push 4K at 60fps with any worthwhile settings in-game.
(though I would believe that the majority of gamers on those platforms would be happy to have such a capability, were money no object)
Given your stated opinions and preferences, I can't see any reason to believe that you would have an accurate pulse on what "the vast majority" of gamers think about this sort of thing.
It's a hyperbolic statement... I didn't mean people LITERALLY only had 4K TVs and video cards capable of that with 60FPS. I meant they WANT that.
Who's the person taking things too literally here??
This is the internet, of course you can mine old forum posts. NES wasn't always hip and popular. Even around here, people reminisce about the good old days of buying NES carts on the cheap at Funcoland. I wasn't old enough or lived near one of those, but I can read. Clearly, the NES went through a period of complete unpopularity. If it didn't, why were the carts so dirt cheap? Clearly, people used to think it had aged poorly. I fail to see how such an idiom can be taken seriously when aging well or poorly is entirely dependent on popular opinion, which is as fickle as wind and weather.
My childhood systems were the SNES and Sega compilations for Windows, it's the main reason I am so fond of older 2D systems (also why I'm a big fan of Shining Force, it was in Sega Smash Pack Vol 2 for Windows).
I only rarely played N64 when I was that young, I didn't get to own one until 2006, same time I bought an NES. In 2005 I got a Dreamcast. The first console I truly got to experience at launch was indeed the Gamecube. Ever since about 2006 I have drifted away from the new and stuck with the old and I am VERY happy, thank you very much.
Not that you would believe me, you'd rather just lump me in with all the other "kiddie" users on here...
Just because somebody parted with their older games for something newer doesn't direclty mean they thought the games "aged poorly".
It just means they wanted to play some new games and needed the money.
(and that almost no game has "infinite replay value", so they may have overplayed what they had and wished for a change)
If there was no buyer interest in any of those games, then Funcoland wouldn't have been willing to take them.
I mean, let me add some personal context... a couple years ago when my daughter was born, I basically liquidated a big chunk of my collection.
Was that because I thought the games aged poorly? Fuck no.
It's because I recognized that I had other priorities, as an adult and a parent, and that it was worth recapturing some of the tied up capital for other purposes.
I don't bring up the age thing to lump you in with anybody. (and obviously you're no longer a "kiddie", since I'd hope that at 24 you're a grown-ass-man)
I simply bring it up to add context that you essentially have no memories of a time before 3D consoles, so I think your perspective on this discussion is somewhat skewed.
I knew full well what he meant by windmills, Don Quixote fights them which is a metaphor for fighting something completely pointless. I ignored it because it was frankly kind of offensive.
C'mon, that was not really offensive, and rather quite appropriate since the whole topic has something to do with litteral/figurative meanings. I mean, you're fighting against the use of an idiom, you have all the rights in the world to complain about it, but you're not going to change anythng about the properness of its use = windmills.
But, to draw conclusions like 'others are shallow' cause they don't see it like you do is just not fair. You ask others to open their mind about old video games and apply rigorous criterias based on the knowledge of their history and hardware evolution. That's a very sophisticated view on a media that can be enjoyed by anyone. Most will just talk about their personal experiences and will word them the way they feel, and if 'aged well or not' rings a bell for them, then you should try to interpret 'why' instead of assuming things like they're shallow.
I knew full well what he meant by windmills, Don Quixote fights them which is a metaphor for fighting something completely pointless. I ignored it because it was frankly kind of offensive.
C'mon, that was not really offensive, and rather quite appropriate since the whole topic has something to do with litteral/figurative meanings. I mean, you're fighting against the use of an idiom, you have all the rights in the world to complain about it, but you're not going to change anythng about the properness of its use = windmills.
But, to draw conclusions like 'others are shallow' cause they don't see it like you do is just not fair. You ask others to open their mind about old video games and apply rigorous criterias based on the knowledge of their history and hardware evolution. That's a very sophisticated view on a media that can be enjoyed by anyone. Most will just talk about their personal experiences and will word them the way they feel, and if 'aged well or not' rings a bell for them, then you should try to interpret 'why' instead of assuming things like they're shallow.
To add to this:
Guntz --
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
You don't have to like the the specific figure-of-speech that the rest of us are using to describe the phenomenon.
But if you can answer "yes" to either of those questions, that is what we're talking about.
(and the rest of us all seem to innately understand the selected figure-of-speech as an acceptable description, even if the application of it to specific games is variable and subjective)
The character models in Final Fantasy 7 aged quite poorly. A fine example of the meaning. The game may still be a decent game but it's hard to look at.
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
No to both. At most, my fond memory may be different from the actual game or movie. My lasting opinion never changes though. Any time I've returned to something after a long period of time, it's still largely like how I remember it. It will be good or bad like how it always had been.
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
No to both. At most, my fond memory may be different from the actual game or movie. My lasting opinion never changes though. Any time I've returned to something after a long period of time, it's still largely like how I remember it. It will be good or bad like how it always had been.
I find this incredibly hard to believe, especially when talking about revisiting something from childhood.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
I personally haven't had that experience -- I still enjoy pretty much all of the movies, music, and games I did as a kid. It's just that I like more things now, and that I may have additional perspective on the things I enjoyed as a kid. I literally can't think of a single thing I liked as a kid that I think is total crap now -- certainly not any music or games. (I guess the closest thing is Swordquest but that game was always meant to be played as part of a contest, not as a standalone experience, and I never liked it that much.)
I think some of the divide on this topic may come from people who feel like they're a completely different person from their childhood self, vs. people who feel that they're basically the same person and have a relatively unbroken narrative memory from childhood on. I'm in the second category, and I feel no sense of disconnection from my childhood tastes; I'm able to appreciate more things now, but not less able to enjoy old favorites.
I find this incredibly hard to believe, especially when talking about revisiting something from childhood.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
Your taste about something has NEVER changed?
Like bronzeshield said, I'm the sort of person who hasn't forgotten their childhood. Maybe I'm not a normal person, but I don't see anything wrong with that.
Forget it arch, he's too stubborn, or he's a robot. Grand Theft Auto III has not aged relatively worse than other games because none of the points we've driven home can be understood
I'll admit that I have a hard time relating to the "age well/poorly" thing, though if I'd grown up with early 3D games I might have a different perspective. But I dunno -- those early 1990s games with sub-10fps framerates were pretty near unplayable then, too, and those are the main games I think of when I think of that.
OTOH I do think we "age out" of certain kinds of games, based on our lifestyle and needs. I no longer am willing to put endless hours into a game, and certainly won't do so in order to chase some achievement, unlockable, or other unnecessary item. But then again I don't think I ever really was -- even as a teenager, I remember being disgusted when I realized the number of hours that would be involved in trying to get some obscure item drop in Final Fantasy II.
Forget it arch, he's too stubborn, or he's a robot. Grand Theft Auto III has not aged relatively worse than other games because none of the points we've driven home can be understood
Grand Theft Audo III, Vice City and San Andreas haven't aged, they were always terrible. I know, highly unpopular opinion, I'm used to it. The ONLY redeeming feature of those GTA games is their open-endedness which offered cheap fun that depended on your own imagination.
The problems arise as soon as you try to actually complete those games. I think poorly designed 3rd person action games of the modern age were actually popularized with GTA III. The control is super stiff, the missions are usually boring and any time you have to drive some exotic vehicle, it's always an exercise in pure frustration.
Sorry, GTA III cleaned up in sales and with critics when it came out. You can claim whatever you want, but I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt many 9 year olds such as yourself played it and thought it sucked.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
I personally haven't had that experience -- I still enjoy pretty much all of the movies, music, and games I did as a kid. It's just that I like more things now, and that I may have additional perspective on the things I enjoyed as a kid. I literally can't think of a single thing I liked as a kid that I think is total crap now -- certainly not any music or games. (I guess the closest thing is Swordquest but that game was always meant to be played as part of a contest, not as a standalone experience, and I never liked it that much.)
I think some of the divide on this topic may come from people who feel like they're a completely different person from their childhood self, vs. people who feel that they're basically the same person and have a relatively unbroken narrative memory from childhood on. I'm in the second category, and I feel no sense of disconnection from my childhood tastes; I'm able to appreciate more things now, but not less able to enjoy old favorites.
Did you never watch the Ewok movies when they came on ABC?
I don't know why you guys are equating this to "forgetting your childhood", though.
There are plenty of reasons for tastes to change.
When you are getting the rush of your first couple of yeas of excessive testosterone production, you are more willing to pursue truly gratuitous violence that just isn't as " fun" once your hormones hit a more sustainable level (or you are more used to feelings, or whatever).
Some of those ultra violent games may still be fun, and stand the test of time, but draw is different at 25 or 30 than it was at 12 or 14.
Other reasons can simply be exposure to better or more refined material.
(ie my example earlier of the truly clunky DW1 interface vs DW2 and later)
While in that example, I played the hell out of DW1 when I got it from the NP promo, once I had DW2 the original was tough to revisit because the clunkiness that I was initially forced to tolerate for lack of options suddenly had a basis for comparison that made it much more obviously bad.
None of this involves some kind of "broken narrative" of one's life, and frankly I think that is one of the strangest notions to arise in all the times we have had this discussion.
The main point has only a little to do with ''forgetting your childhood'', but since it is another way to delay any kind of surrender to the other party, it is now the point of discussion. I actually identify with a lot of things bronzeshield just added to the discussion, yet, I still totally get the 'age well or not' concept as a figure of speech, without taking it too seriously as well I'd say.
When you are getting the rush of your first couple of yeas of excessive testosterone production, you are more willing to pursue truly gratuitous violence that just isn't as " fun" once your hormones hit a more sustainable level (or you are more used to feelings, or whatever).
At that point in my life I was interested in something else
Sorry, GTA III cleaned up in sales and with critics when it came out. You can claim whatever you want, but I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt many 9 year olds such as yourself played it and thought it sucked.
The exact same thing can be said of Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo and numerous other ultra-popular yet quality-questionable series. What exactly is your point? Majority rule? You shouldn't ever base your person preferences on public perception.
When GTAIII and later Vice City were new, I mostly got to watch them in action, occasionally play in the sandbox environment. Yeah, it was revolutionary compared to what came before it. They were definitely cool. Years later when I was older, I got the chance to play GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas for real, I found out just how frustrating they are to seriously play. That's not an issue of aging well or poorly, the game was ALWAYS like that. What does my age or the age of the game have to do with that? That is my personal cognitive opinion after playing them.
Am I the only one here who hasn't gone completely insane?
Sorry, GTA III cleaned up in sales and with critics when it came out. You can claim whatever you want, but I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt many 9 year olds such as yourself played it and thought it sucked.
The exact same thing can be said of Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo and numerous other ultra-popular yet quality-questionable series. What exactly is your point? Majority rule? You shouldn't ever base your person preferences on public perception.
When GTAIII and later Vice City were new, I mostly got to watch them in action, occasionally play in the sandbox environment. Yeah, it was revolutionary compared to what came before it. They were definitely cool. Years later when I was older, I got the chance to play GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas for real, I found out just how frustrating they are to seriously play. That's not an issue of aging well or poorly, the game was ALWAYS like that. What does my age or the age of the game have to do with that? That is my personal cognitive opinion after playing them.
Am I the only one here who hasn't gone completely insane?
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
But that's not what we mean when we talk about a game "not aging well", is it? My own changing preferences and resources have nothing to do with whether a game is good or bad, or whether it still deserves respect and appreciation decades after it's come out. That's 100% on me, not the game.
I honestly can't think of a game to which I've had a radically different reaction when playing it after many years -- at least if I played it for more than 5 minutes in the first place. But I'm not usually taken by surprise when I experience any media item for the first time in a while, as long as I was reasonably attentive the first time around. I still feel like the same "me" that played Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was in elementary school, or who was excited by MKII when I was in high school -- or who, when I first played GoldenEye, was repulsed by the fact that you can shoot innocent parties (to my total surprise -- I thought I was 100% OK with game violence, but something about the added realism disturbed me, especially watching little kids play it).
It just seems strange to imagine that I would blame a game for my own changing tastes, or for the fact that it's never the same when you're 12 and have unlimited amounts of time to burn vs. when you're decades older. I could say the same thing about MMORPGs or long-winded RPGs now, but I just take the attitude that they're not meant for me. I'm more than happy to say that the fault is my own.
I guess I'm just not on board with most of the assumptions that seem to underpin the idea of media products "not aging well": most of the time, isn't it us where the problem lies? It makes me think of people's responses to the effects on Star Trek, or any pre-CGI science fiction, e.g.:
Stage 1 - you're a kid, you don't notice the effects and sets are cheap
Stage 2 - you're a teenager, you notice and make fun of them
Stage 3 - you're an adult, you notice and don't care - the fact that they're cheap/cheesy is immaterial to you, because focusing on the effects is missing the point (though there may be plenty of other valid reasons not to like it)
I consume tons of media that people would say "hasn't aged well" -- films from the 1930s, or music recorded prior to 1955, or TV from before the late 1980s. But for me, the qualities to which people object -- the technical limitations or changes in style -- just aren't on my radar as problems. It'd be like getting mad at a hamburger for not being a ham sandwich.
I should also note that I'm far more likely to play 3DO/Saturn/PS1/N64 (which seems to be the locus of this discussion) than anything that came afterward, and that I mostly bailed on mainstream gaming in the mid-1990s, so most of that library is fresh to me. The one exception is the N64, which I played a bit in the late 1990s -- but it gave me motion sickness then and still gives it to me now, so there's no real difference in my response.
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
You're right, the question being asked here is do the majority think those games are good/bad now instead of back when they were new, AKA have they aged well or poorly. My argument is that any who say they are bad now, clearly did not rationally perceive those games when they were new, otherwise they would have recognized they were just as bad back then as they think they are now.
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
You're right, the question being asked here is do the majority think those games are good/bad now instead of back when they were new, AKA have they aged well or poorly. My argument is that any who say they are bad now, clearly did not rationally perceive those games when they were new, otherwise they would have recognized they were just as bad back then as they think they are now.
Since rating the goodness or badness of games (or any art medium) is generally subjective, it is completely valid that something can be good, in its own time, and not be timeless to where it is perceived to be as good, at a later date.
The initial rating wasn't irrational. It was just of its time, using the basis of comparison that existed at that time.
Basically "timelessness" is the other term that means the same thing as the phrase you object so much to.
Some games are timeless, many are not.
Some games that are not timeless were thoroughly enjoyable in their own time because, for lack of options, gamers were willing to overlook the flaws.
Also, I think playing a game for the first time, outside of its own time is going to give you a different set of expectations than if yyou played it for the first time when it was new, anyway.
(For that matter, playing games for the first time with the benefit of unlimited access creates a fundamentally different set of circumstances for forming your opinion than having limited access where you simply had to make the best of it)
Also, I think playing a game for the first time, outside of its own time is going to give you a different set of expectations than if yyou played it for the first time when it was new, anyway.
This is basically the answer to the thread. Of course Super Mario 64 didnt age well compared to the stuff we have nowadays. But when I got my n64 in 1996 or whatever it was the craziest thing to just be able to go wherever you wanted and run around in circles.
Guntz misses the entire point of this thread every damn time
These are games we liked, that now arent as fun because we have experienced better and know more.
Impossible. Enjoyment of every game is on a straight line. You like Super Mario 64 as much now as you did in 1996. The code's the same and therefore hasn't literally aged therefore it must be true
Comments
"Aged well" when applied to video games is a retarded idiom, both because they cannot age and because it's completely subjective. How can something age well or poorly when nobody can agree on it?
There may not be a full consensus of opinion, but to say "nobody can agree on it" is obviously not accurate.
Lots of us agree on the quality of "aging" of lots of the games mentioned in this thread, so clearly what we're discussing is a perception and an experience shared by many.
It doesn't matter to such people if it's good 2D, bad 2D, good 3D or bad 3D. If it's not the best, it sucks. It's not a fact, it's perception. "aged well/poorly" is still just that, a perception. My perception is that the vast majority of games are actually good, you just need to broaden your concept of what a "good" game is. GoldenEye 007 is a great game in the context of N64 shooters and its spiritual successors, those being Perfect Dark and the TimeSplitters games. In the context of 2016, GoldenEye 007 is still completely playable. The only thing that has changed since is yourself and your willingness to play older games, or lack thereof.
You guys may not remember, but there was a time when people thought the NES and other older 2D consoles had aged poorly. That was mostly back when 3D was very new up to the Gamecube era.
Let's hold on a second here... if I recall correctly you weren't old enough to have any opinion about this sort of thing "back when 3D was very new". (you were born in 1992, per the "younger than favorite console" thread)
So when the Gamecube was released you were actually around the same age some of us were when we got our first NES.
So basically, unless you're talking about some online discussion that you mined at a much later date, you are talking about opinions of a bunch of 6 - 9 year-olds if you're talking about discussion about the NES aging poorly if you're actually talking about opinions you heard "back when 3D was very new up to the gamecube".
I'm skeptical that you had the pulse on the opinions of "gamers in general" at that time, since the internet was still relatively young, and you were probably too young to participate online, anyway.
That said, considering your personal timeline, your defensiveness on this particular topic makes sense, because your childhood system would have been N64 during some very formative years.
Sorry that we're shitting all over your childhood
It's not accurate if you just stick to NintendoAge. Travel around a bit and you'll quickly find "retro" gaming isn't for everyone. The vast majority of Steam, Xbone, PS4 and VR device users will tell you anything not running at 4K 60FPS has aged poorly immediately, which is again a completely retarded statement.
Bullshit. As clearly evidenced by the continued and prolific success of "retro" indie games on platforms such as Steam, and the online services of Xbox and PS.
"The vast majority" of gamers don't own a 4K monitor, and certainly don't own a video card that will push 4K at 60fps with any worthwhile settings in-game.
(though I would believe that the majority of gamers on those platforms would be happy to have such a capability, were money no object)
Given your stated opinions and preferences, I can't see any reason to believe that you would have an accurate pulse on what "the vast majority" of gamers think about this sort of thing.
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
Let's hold on a second here... if I recall correctly you weren't old enough to have any opinion about this sort of thing "back when 3D was very new". (you were born in 1992, per the "younger than favorite console" thread)
So when the Gamecube was released you were actually around the same age some of us were when we got our first NES.
So basically, unless you're talking about some online discussion that you mined at a much later date, you are talking about opinions of a bunch of 6 - 9 year-olds if you're talking about discussion about the NES aging poorly if you're actually talking about opinions you heard "back when 3D was very new up to the gamecube".
I'm skeptical that you had the pulse on the opinions of "gamers in general" at that time, since the internet was still relatively young, and you were probably too young to participate online, anyway.
That said, considering your personal timeline, your defensiveness on this particular topic makes sense, because your childhood system would have been N64 during some very formative years.
Sorry that we're shitting all over your childhood
This is the internet, of course you can mine old forum posts. NES wasn't always hip and popular. Even around here, people reminisce about the good old days of buying NES carts on the cheap at Funcoland. I wasn't old enough or lived near one of those, but I can read. Clearly, the NES went through a period of complete unpopularity. If it didn't, why were the carts so dirt cheap? Clearly, people used to think it had aged poorly. I fail to see how such an idiom can be taken seriously when aging well or poorly is entirely dependent on popular opinion, which is as fickle as wind and weather.
My childhood systems were the SNES and Sega compilations for Windows, it's the main reason I am so fond of older 2D systems (also why I'm a big fan of Shining Force, it was in Sega Smash Pack Vol 2 for Windows).
I only rarely played N64 when I was that young, I didn't get to own one until 2006, same time I bought an NES. In 2005 I got a Dreamcast. The first console I truly got to experience at launch was indeed the Gamecube. Ever since about 2006 I have drifted away from the new and stuck with the old and I am VERY happy, thank you very much.
Not that you would believe me, you'd rather just lump me in with all the other "kiddie" users on here...
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
Bullshit. As clearly evidenced by the continued and prolific success of "retro" indie games on platforms such as Steam, and the online services of Xbox and PS.
"The vast majority" of gamers don't own a 4K monitor, and certainly don't own a video card that will push 4K at 60fps with any worthwhile settings in-game.
(though I would believe that the majority of gamers on those platforms would be happy to have such a capability, were money no object)
Given your stated opinions and preferences, I can't see any reason to believe that you would have an accurate pulse on what "the vast majority" of gamers think about this sort of thing.
It's a hyperbolic statement... I didn't mean people LITERALLY only had 4K TVs and video cards capable of that with 60FPS. I meant they WANT that.
Who's the person taking things too literally here??
Originally posted by: Guntz
This is the internet, of course you can mine old forum posts. NES wasn't always hip and popular. Even around here, people reminisce about the good old days of buying NES carts on the cheap at Funcoland. I wasn't old enough or lived near one of those, but I can read. Clearly, the NES went through a period of complete unpopularity. If it didn't, why were the carts so dirt cheap? Clearly, people used to think it had aged poorly. I fail to see how such an idiom can be taken seriously when aging well or poorly is entirely dependent on popular opinion, which is as fickle as wind and weather.
My childhood systems were the SNES and Sega compilations for Windows, it's the main reason I am so fond of older 2D systems (also why I'm a big fan of Shining Force, it was in Sega Smash Pack Vol 2 for Windows).
I only rarely played N64 when I was that young, I didn't get to own one until 2006, same time I bought an NES. In 2005 I got a Dreamcast. The first console I truly got to experience at launch was indeed the Gamecube. Ever since about 2006 I have drifted away from the new and stuck with the old and I am VERY happy, thank you very much.
Not that you would believe me, you'd rather just lump me in with all the other "kiddie" users on here...
Just because somebody parted with their older games for something newer doesn't direclty mean they thought the games "aged poorly".
It just means they wanted to play some new games and needed the money.
(and that almost no game has "infinite replay value", so they may have overplayed what they had and wished for a change)
If there was no buyer interest in any of those games, then Funcoland wouldn't have been willing to take them.
I mean, let me add some personal context... a couple years ago when my daughter was born, I basically liquidated a big chunk of my collection.
Was that because I thought the games aged poorly? Fuck no.
It's because I recognized that I had other priorities, as an adult and a parent, and that it was worth recapturing some of the tied up capital for other purposes.
I don't bring up the age thing to lump you in with anybody. (and obviously you're no longer a "kiddie", since I'd hope that at 24 you're a grown-ass-man)
I simply bring it up to add context that you essentially have no memories of a time before 3D consoles, so I think your perspective on this discussion is somewhat skewed.
Originally posted by: Guntz
It's a hyperbolic statement... I didn't mean people LITERALLY only had 4K TVs and video cards capable of that with 60FPS. I meant they WANT that.
Who's the person taking things too literally here??
Hey now... I wasn't going to go out on a limb and assume that Drax the Destroyer was making a hyperbolic statement rather than a literal one.
Originally posted by: Guntz
I knew full well what he meant by windmills, Don Quixote fights them which is a metaphor for fighting something completely pointless. I ignored it because it was frankly kind of offensive.
C'mon, that was not really offensive, and rather quite appropriate since the whole topic has something to do with litteral/figurative meanings. I mean, you're fighting against the use of an idiom, you have all the rights in the world to complain about it, but you're not going to change anythng about the properness of its use = windmills.
But, to draw conclusions like 'others are shallow' cause they don't see it like you do is just not fair. You ask others to open their mind about old video games and apply rigorous criterias based on the knowledge of their history and hardware evolution. That's a very sophisticated view on a media that can be enjoyed by anyone. Most will just talk about their personal experiences and will word them the way they feel, and if 'aged well or not' rings a bell for them, then you should try to interpret 'why' instead of assuming things like they're shallow.
I knew full well what he meant by windmills, Don Quixote fights them which is a metaphor for fighting something completely pointless. I ignored it because it was frankly kind of offensive.
C'mon, that was not really offensive, and rather quite appropriate since the whole topic has something to do with litteral/figurative meanings. I mean, you're fighting against the use of an idiom, you have all the rights in the world to complain about it, but you're not going to change anythng about the properness of its use = windmills.
But, to draw conclusions like 'others are shallow' cause they don't see it like you do is just not fair. You ask others to open their mind about old video games and apply rigorous criterias based on the knowledge of their history and hardware evolution. That's a very sophisticated view on a media that can be enjoyed by anyone. Most will just talk about their personal experiences and will word them the way they feel, and if 'aged well or not' rings a bell for them, then you should try to interpret 'why' instead of assuming things like they're shallow.
To add to this:
Guntz --
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
You don't have to like the the specific figure-of-speech that the rest of us are using to describe the phenomenon.
But if you can answer "yes" to either of those questions, that is what we're talking about.
(and the rest of us all seem to innately understand the selected figure-of-speech as an acceptable description, even if the application of it to specific games is variable and subjective)
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
To add to this:
Guntz --
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
No to both. At most, my fond memory may be different from the actual game or movie. My lasting opinion never changes though. Any time I've returned to something after a long period of time, it's still largely like how I remember it. It will be good or bad like how it always had been.
Originally posted by: Guntz
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
To add to this:
Guntz --
a) has your opinion of any video game ever changed (better or worse), as you've looked back at it in later years with a more mature palate?
b) has your opinion of any movie ever changed (better or worse), as you've rewatched it and either noticed interesting nuances or flaws that you didn't see the first time?
No to both. At most, my fond memory may be different from the actual game or movie. My lasting opinion never changes though. Any time I've returned to something after a long period of time, it's still largely like how I remember it. It will be good or bad like how it always had been.
I find this incredibly hard to believe, especially when talking about revisiting something from childhood.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
Your taste about something has NEVER changed?
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
I personally haven't had that experience -- I still enjoy pretty much all of the movies, music, and games I did as a kid. It's just that I like more things now, and that I may have additional perspective on the things I enjoyed as a kid. I literally can't think of a single thing I liked as a kid that I think is total crap now -- certainly not any music or games. (I guess the closest thing is Swordquest but that game was always meant to be played as part of a contest, not as a standalone experience, and I never liked it that much.)
I think some of the divide on this topic may come from people who feel like they're a completely different person from their childhood self, vs. people who feel that they're basically the same person and have a relatively unbroken narrative memory from childhood on. I'm in the second category, and I feel no sense of disconnection from my childhood tastes; I'm able to appreciate more things now, but not less able to enjoy old favorites.
Originally posted by: arch_8ngel
I find this incredibly hard to believe, especially when talking about revisiting something from childhood.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
Your taste about something has NEVER changed?
Like bronzeshield said, I'm the sort of person who hasn't forgotten their childhood. Maybe I'm not a normal person, but I don't see anything wrong with that.
OTOH I do think we "age out" of certain kinds of games, based on our lifestyle and needs. I no longer am willing to put endless hours into a game, and certainly won't do so in order to chase some achievement, unlockable, or other unnecessary item. But then again I don't think I ever really was -- even as a teenager, I remember being disgusted when I realized the number of hours that would be involved in trying to get some obscure item drop in Final Fantasy II.
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
Forget it arch, he's too stubborn, or he's a robot. Grand Theft Auto III has not aged relatively worse than other games because none of the points we've driven home can be understood
Grand Theft Audo III, Vice City and San Andreas haven't aged, they were always terrible. I know, highly unpopular opinion, I'm used to it. The ONLY redeeming feature of those GTA games is their open-endedness which offered cheap fun that depended on your own imagination.
The problems arise as soon as you try to actually complete those games. I think poorly designed 3rd person action games of the modern age were actually popularized with GTA III. The control is super stiff, the missions are usually boring and any time you have to drive some exotic vehicle, it's always an exercise in pure frustration.
You seriously don't have any movies that you enjoyed as a young kid that you look at now and realize they are awful?
I personally haven't had that experience -- I still enjoy pretty much all of the movies, music, and games I did as a kid. It's just that I like more things now, and that I may have additional perspective on the things I enjoyed as a kid. I literally can't think of a single thing I liked as a kid that I think is total crap now -- certainly not any music or games. (I guess the closest thing is Swordquest but that game was always meant to be played as part of a contest, not as a standalone experience, and I never liked it that much.)
I think some of the divide on this topic may come from people who feel like they're a completely different person from their childhood self, vs. people who feel that they're basically the same person and have a relatively unbroken narrative memory from childhood on. I'm in the second category, and I feel no sense of disconnection from my childhood tastes; I'm able to appreciate more things now, but not less able to enjoy old favorites.
Did you never watch the Ewok movies when they came on ABC?
I don't know why you guys are equating this to "forgetting your childhood", though.
There are plenty of reasons for tastes to change.
When you are getting the rush of your first couple of yeas of excessive testosterone production, you are more willing to pursue truly gratuitous violence that just isn't as " fun" once your hormones hit a more sustainable level (or you are more used to feelings, or whatever).
Some of those ultra violent games may still be fun, and stand the test of time, but draw is different at 25 or 30 than it was at 12 or 14.
Other reasons can simply be exposure to better or more refined material.
(ie my example earlier of the truly clunky DW1 interface vs DW2 and later)
While in that example, I played the hell out of DW1 when I got it from the NP promo, once I had DW2 the original was tough to revisit because the clunkiness that I was initially forced to tolerate for lack of options suddenly had a basis for comparison that made it much more obviously bad.
None of this involves some kind of "broken narrative" of one's life, and frankly I think that is one of the strangest notions to arise in all the times we have had this discussion.
When you are getting the rush of your first couple of yeas of excessive testosterone production, you are more willing to pursue truly gratuitous violence that just isn't as " fun" once your hormones hit a more sustainable level (or you are more used to feelings, or whatever).
At that point in my life I was interested in something else
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
Sorry, GTA III cleaned up in sales and with critics when it came out. You can claim whatever you want, but I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt many 9 year olds such as yourself played it and thought it sucked.
The exact same thing can be said of Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo and numerous other ultra-popular yet quality-questionable series. What exactly is your point? Majority rule? You shouldn't ever base your person preferences on public perception.
When GTAIII and later Vice City were new, I mostly got to watch them in action, occasionally play in the sandbox environment. Yeah, it was revolutionary compared to what came before it. They were definitely cool. Years later when I was older, I got the chance to play GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas for real, I found out just how frustrating they are to seriously play. That's not an issue of aging well or poorly, the game was ALWAYS like that. What does my age or the age of the game have to do with that? That is my personal cognitive opinion after playing them.
Am I the only one here who hasn't gone completely insane?
Sorry, GTA III cleaned up in sales and with critics when it came out. You can claim whatever you want, but I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt many 9 year olds such as yourself played it and thought it sucked.
The exact same thing can be said of Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo and numerous other ultra-popular yet quality-questionable series. What exactly is your point? Majority rule? You shouldn't ever base your person preferences on public perception.
When GTAIII and later Vice City were new, I mostly got to watch them in action, occasionally play in the sandbox environment. Yeah, it was revolutionary compared to what came before it. They were definitely cool. Years later when I was older, I got the chance to play GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas for real, I found out just how frustrating they are to seriously play. That's not an issue of aging well or poorly, the game was ALWAYS like that. What does my age or the age of the game have to do with that? That is my personal cognitive opinion after playing them.
Am I the only one here who hasn't gone completely insane?
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
There are plenty of reasons for tastes to change.
But that's not what we mean when we talk about a game "not aging well", is it? My own changing preferences and resources have nothing to do with whether a game is good or bad, or whether it still deserves respect and appreciation decades after it's come out. That's 100% on me, not the game.
I honestly can't think of a game to which I've had a radically different reaction when playing it after many years -- at least if I played it for more than 5 minutes in the first place. But I'm not usually taken by surprise when I experience any media item for the first time in a while, as long as I was reasonably attentive the first time around. I still feel like the same "me" that played Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was in elementary school, or who was excited by MKII when I was in high school -- or who, when I first played GoldenEye, was repulsed by the fact that you can shoot innocent parties (to my total surprise -- I thought I was 100% OK with game violence, but something about the added realism disturbed me, especially watching little kids play it).
It just seems strange to imagine that I would blame a game for my own changing tastes, or for the fact that it's never the same when you're 12 and have unlimited amounts of time to burn vs. when you're decades older. I could say the same thing about MMORPGs or long-winded RPGs now, but I just take the attitude that they're not meant for me. I'm more than happy to say that the fault is my own.
I guess I'm just not on board with most of the assumptions that seem to underpin the idea of media products "not aging well": most of the time, isn't it us where the problem lies? It makes me think of people's responses to the effects on Star Trek, or any pre-CGI science fiction, e.g.:
Stage 1 - you're a kid, you don't notice the effects and sets are cheap
Stage 2 - you're a teenager, you notice and make fun of them
Stage 3 - you're an adult, you notice and don't care - the fact that they're cheap/cheesy is immaterial to you, because focusing on the effects is missing the point (though there may be plenty of other valid reasons not to like it)
I consume tons of media that people would say "hasn't aged well" -- films from the 1930s, or music recorded prior to 1955, or TV from before the late 1980s. But for me, the qualities to which people object -- the technical limitations or changes in style -- just aren't on my radar as problems. It'd be like getting mad at a hamburger for not being a ham sandwich.
I should also note that I'm far more likely to play 3DO/Saturn/PS1/N64 (which seems to be the locus of this discussion) than anything that came afterward, and that I mostly bailed on mainstream gaming in the mid-1990s, so most of that library is fresh to me. The one exception is the N64, which I played a bit in the late 1990s -- but it gave me motion sickness then and still gives it to me now, so there's no real difference in my response.
Originally posted by: MrWunderful
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
You're right, the question being asked here is do the majority think those games are good/bad now instead of back when they were new, AKA have they aged well or poorly. My argument is that any who say they are bad now, clearly did not rationally perceive those games when they were new, otherwise they would have recognized they were just as bad back then as they think they are now.
Its all just personal opinion. You said it yourself, "ultra popular".
If something is popular then that means the majority enjoys it correct? If you thought it sucks thats perfectly fine, but ask any sample of gamers that played the games when they came out and my guess is most will have enjoyed them. But either way its not the question being asked here.
You're right, the question being asked here is do the majority think those games are good/bad now instead of back when they were new, AKA have they aged well or poorly. My argument is that any who say they are bad now, clearly did not rationally perceive those games when they were new, otherwise they would have recognized they were just as bad back then as they think they are now.
Since rating the goodness or badness of games (or any art medium) is generally subjective, it is completely valid that something can be good, in its own time, and not be timeless to where it is perceived to be as good, at a later date.
The initial rating wasn't irrational. It was just of its time, using the basis of comparison that existed at that time.
Basically "timelessness" is the other term that means the same thing as the phrase you object so much to.
Some games are timeless, many are not.
Some games that are not timeless were thoroughly enjoyable in their own time because, for lack of options, gamers were willing to overlook the flaws.
Also, I think playing a game for the first time, outside of its own time is going to give you a different set of expectations than if yyou played it for the first time when it was new, anyway.
(For that matter, playing games for the first time with the benefit of unlimited access creates a fundamentally different set of circumstances for forming your opinion than having limited access where you simply had to make the best of it)
Also, I think playing a game for the first time, outside of its own time is going to give you a different set of expectations than if yyou played it for the first time when it was new, anyway.
This is basically the answer to the thread. Of course Super Mario 64 didnt age well compared to the stuff we have nowadays. But when I got my n64 in 1996 or whatever it was the craziest thing to just be able to go wherever you wanted and run around in circles.
These are games we liked, that now arent as fun because we have experienced better and know more.
Guntz misses the entire point of this thread every damn time
These are games we liked, that now arent as fun because we have experienced better and know more.
Impossible. Enjoyment of every game is on a straight line. You like Super Mario 64 as much now as you did in 1996. The code's the same and therefore hasn't literally aged therefore it must be true