If your enjoyment of a game has changed, it means you have changed, not the game.
Why do you guys have to make fun of me? Why is this so hard to admit?
No, games in general have changed and improved vs some games of the past.
Of course we have changed. We know more now. We know what games are capable of and primitive control isnt the only option. Why is this so hard for you to admit?
You arent applying the Original Topic Correctly in your mind. Your trying to change the argument to something else which isnt the point.
No, games in general have changed and improved vs some games of the past.
New games are changed compared to old ones, yes.
Old games have changed since they were released, no.
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
Um no im pretty damn sure i loved mario kart 64, and still to this day its still playable, but they have made infinitely better mario karts . The 64 version is rather blamd track wise and after playing mk8 , graphicslly its just harder to play now. It hasnt aged well today vs modern games.
Has nothing to do with me "not really liking it" in the 90s. Thats ridiculous. Same thing with smash bros, goldeneye. Starfox has such smooth controls it has aged pretty well.
I loved all these games. To say i just think i did or pretended to , to try and make some point you have valid, is absurd. You are in the minority here guntz. You always will be becsuse you are trying to tell people they didnt really like some of their childhood favorite games.
Things chsnge guntz. Games got better control and graphically. We didnt know bettet. Its ok to just go ahead and admit defeat here and drop this ridiculous pedestal you are on
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
The fact you need someone being too dumb to know himself to explain your point is questionnable. Maybe you're simply not getting what he's trying to say?
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
...also I should point out I did go back and beat and unlock everything for Perfect Dark again recently... on 360. Probably because I could actually see what was going on and I had a controller and controller scheme that was worth a shit
Something that is quite important too is that recognizing in a way or another that an aspect of a game 'aged poorly' doesn't mean you no longer like the game, and it doesn't make it automatically a bad game. You seem to be lumping things in one camp or the other (good games vs bad games), while it is not necessarily what's being talk about.
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
According To guntz, we are all just too stupid to know what games we liked as kids and what games we still enjoy now. We just tricked ourselves as children. Those 100s of hours on the n64 clearing all cups, collecting every item on fetch quest 64 playformers, beating all the coin challenges and whizz pig on diddy kong racing. Yeah we just thought we liked those games.
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 watch Barney or Sesame Street as a kid? Do you still like them enough to spend hours watching them?
Using those as an example, I get what Guntz is trying to say about how it's us who change. A later generation of kids can enjoy Sesame Street even after you've grown out of it, but that isn't true for everything.
What if Sesame Street was thoroughly out-of-date, like a bit teaching how to use a rotary phone followed by a song about how to use the right water fountain (racial segregation)? Yes, the show is still the same, but the show would no longer have the relevance or applicability it once had due to a shift in society. Defending the show's applicability to modern kids just because society changed would be silly. The same thing applies to antiquated ideas and mechanics in videogames.
Did you watch Barney or Sesame Street as a kid? Do you still like them enough to spend hours watching them?
Barney came after my childhood, but do I still like Sesame Street enough to spend hours watching it? Hell yes! Maybe not all at once, but old Sesame Street stuff is absolutely one of my personal touchstones, especially things like this:
Or this:
I love Sesame Street's pre-Elmo years, and over and over again I go back and watch it and have renewed appreciation for how brave, funky, and smart it was. Same with Mister Rogers, to a lesser extent -- getting older has, if anything, given me an even more profound respect for his work and the integrity of his worldview. Like many teenagers, I made fun of him in an attempt to be cool -- but the truth is that we were the ones who were lame, not him.
I think it's certainly true that, in a show directed at kids, a lesson meant to teach can become outdated or irrelevant. But that's more a question of its utility -- in other words, the way in which something is useful -- and I don't know that it makes sense to approach video games with that set of values.
To me, this is more analogous to music. Modern technology can summon resources that infinitely exceed what Bach, Mozart, et al. could do, and music has developed techniques and genres of which they never dreamed. Yet their music hasn't been superseded -- it's not as if Beethoven "refuted" Mozart, any more than a flower "refutes" a bud.
I think I just approach games with a different attitude than many folks do. I don't really care all that much about being entertained, or about whether or not a game is "good". I'm more interested in trying to figure each game out on its own terms, the way I would approach a work of literature or art. And I don't really believe in the notion of "progress" in art as improvement, but merely as an expansion of possibilities; quality is an entirely different metric, and the history of music shows that quality is a series of ups and downs, not a continuous upward trajectory.
Of course if a game is available in multiple versions, and one of those versions makes improvements to the gameplay, graphics, or sound, I'm likely to appreciate the updates. But then again, I've found on many occasions that I didn't prefer the newer or more technologically modern version, so I'm always suspicious of such claims.
I just keep coming back to the fact that I can't really think of a media product I've consumed that "hasn't aged well". In every case, the problem is me and my changing needs, not the media, so why would I use a phrase that attributes the fault to the product instead of where it belongs -- myself?
(In fact, I've repeatedly had the experience of checking out things from my childhood that I assumed would disappoint me -- and instead discovering, hey, this really is awesome! Besides the Sesame Street stuff, which has reliably come through, there was an obscure TV show from the early 1980s that made a big impression on me as a kid even though I could barely remember any details, but it always stuck with me somehow. When I finally tracked down the handful of episodes that were broadcast, it more than exceeded my expectations.)
If it means defending the history of the greatest entertainment medium of all time, I will fight those windmills.
Time is little more than a human construct, video games are either good or bad forever, time does not change that.
I agree with you, but people's views of them DO change over time. As a very young kid I thought 10-yard Fight was awesome, but that's only because I didn't know any better.
I personally think Goldeneye 64 is boring, even on release it didn't really do anything for me. I had already played the PC FPS staples like Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D, etc to death by the time it came out and it was nothing special to me at all. A mediocre game that was very popular for a console crowd that was new to the genre and didn't know any better. Same shit with Halo a generation later. Some people just aren't willing to take off the rose colored glasses and be objective though.
I agree with you even though I like GE. The only reasons I might not find it as enjoyable today is like what you said about 10 Yard Fight; I simply didn't understand the game's limitations and exploits when I was younger - That, and the the fact I've beat the game to a pulp.
About MK and other games, while some things have 'held up', I still remember being bored of the game pretty quick and finding it very slow paced back in the day. Hell, all I did was play 'test your might' most of the time, which is still hilarious to this day in my opinon. I dunno, once the novelty of the fatalities wore off, the game didn't have much to offer. MK II on the other hand...
Anyway, at this point people are basically just arguing in circles about their opinions of games (subjective) and how we remember them (also subjective).
I never liked Golden Eye, still dont.
There is a difference between games that are dated and just being bad.
I think the point pegboy was getting across was that Goldeneye was never good, just took people a while to notice, which is equivalent to saying it hasn't aged well. Also you already said you agreed with him
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
...also I should point out I did go back and beat and unlock everything for Perfect Dark again recently... on 360. Probably because I could actually see what was going on and I had a controller and controller scheme that was worth a shit
Originally posted by: guillavoie
Something that is quite important too is that recognizing in a way or another that an aspect of a game 'aged poorly' doesn't mean you no longer like the game, and it doesn't make it automatically a bad game. You seem to be lumping things in one camp or the other (good games vs bad games), while it is not necessarily what's being talk about.
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
Originally posted by: quest4nes
According To guntz, we are all just too stupid to know what games we liked as kids and what games we still enjoy now. We just tricked ourselves as children. Those 100s of hours on the n64 clearing all cups, collecting every item on fetch quest 64 playformers, beating all the coin challenges and whizz pig on diddy kong racing. Yeah we just thought we liked those games.
Just smh
There is only one constant here, YOU changed, not the games you used to play. That's all I'm trying to say.
I am one of the ones who think saying a game didn't age well is bullshit. To me, as I hear it used, it's basically people whining about graphics. I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional. The Goldeneye argument for me doesn't play just because you think Call of Duty has improved on the N64 controls. If that's how you feel then every console shooter hasn't aged well versus a PC shooter that uses mouse and keys.
I am one of the ones who think saying a game didn't age well is bullshit. To me, as I hear it used, it's basically people whining about graphics. I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional. The Goldeneye argument for me doesn't play just because you think Call of Duty has improved on the N64 controls. If that's how you feel then every console shooter hasn't aged well versus a PC shooter that uses mouse and keys.
The part that really gets me is NOBODY realizes or remembers GoldenEye 007 DOES have at least two different "dual-stick" control methods. There's Solitaire 1.2 which uses the D-pad and Analog Stick on the N64 controller, an extremely close facimile to the traditional PC keyboard and mouse. There's also the 2.x control methods which allow you to use two controllers for true dual analog stick play, if you really must walk slowly every once and a while. I don't know about the rest of you, but I run everywhere in GoldenEye 007 and every other FPS game.
On top of that, every single N64 shooter I've tried offers D-Pad and Analog Stick play in some way or another. Perfect Dark, the Turok games, Rainbow Six, Armorines, 007 The World is Not Enough... They all support it. Turok 1 is the most curious, both preceeding GoldenEye 007 and being the first N64 FPS game ever released, offers D-Pad and Analog Stick, called "Left-Hand Mode".
I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional.
Controls could still be functional, but if a better scheme comes along, you would be hard pressed to find anyone wanting to keep the older, inferior version. We may have put up with the old scheme when it was all the tech allowed or was what the designer could come up with at the time. But that doesn't mean we still want it.
The example often cited is Goldeneye N64. It's still functional, you can still play it, but few do anymore because there are simply better options. It's not the game's fault or the designers or Rare. Everyone acknowledges that it was groundbreaking in its day, but its day has passed. It's just what happens to some things. "Hasn't aged well," "Feels dated," all are saying the same thing. Obsolescence.
That's a subjective opinion. Haven't we had people here on NintendoAge say they can't play FPS games with dual analog sticks? They grew too accustomed to the Analog Stick + Buttons / Dreamcast controller method? I think that would be true left-hand mode, as you aim with your left hand.
I'll always be a die hard GoldenEye / Perfect Dark / TimeSplitters fan, original releases only please. Those really were the best mix of arcade-style and realism.
I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional.
Controls could still be functional, but if a better scheme comes along, you would be hard pressed to find anyone wanting to keep the older, inferior version. We may have put up with the old scheme when it was all the tech allowed or was what the designer could come up with at the time. But that doesn't mean we still want it.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
Btw goldeneye controls just fine. When I get old buddies together we enjoy some crap out of the facility with proximity mines
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
...also I should point out I did go back and beat and unlock everything for Perfect Dark again recently... on 360. Probably because I could actually see what was going on and I had a controller and controller scheme that was worth a shit
Originally posted by: guillavoie
Something that is quite important too is that recognizing in a way or another that an aspect of a game 'aged poorly' doesn't mean you no longer like the game, and it doesn't make it automatically a bad game. You seem to be lumping things in one camp or the other (good games vs bad games), while it is not necessarily what's being talk about.
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
Originally posted by: quest4nes
According To guntz, we are all just too stupid to know what games we liked as kids and what games we still enjoy now. We just tricked ourselves as children. Those 100s of hours on the n64 clearing all cups, collecting every item on fetch quest 64 playformers, beating all the coin challenges and whizz pig on diddy kong racing. Yeah we just thought we liked those games.
Just smh
There is only one constant here, YOU changed, not the games you used to play. That's all I'm trying to say.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
I would argue they're not necessarily "better", they just added more to a more expansive game that needed more than A and B. SMB 1 and 3 didnt' really need anything more than a standard NES controller. SMW needed an SNES controller, but, again, more expansive game.
A FPS like GoldenEye is not as far removed from newer FPS, but innovations in controls made (for most people) the newer games more appealing. It's not GoldenEye's fault, they had to work with what they had at the time.
I get that people still play GoldenEye and are fine with how it controls (as I said, it's still functional.) Those people in the minority. It's not anything wrong, it's just how it is.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
And it's not shitting on a game to call it "dated" "hasn't aged well" or "it's a product of its time." We're recognizing the changes that have come since.
The Ford Model T got America motoring and introduced innovations in mass production. It's in museums and car shows. But no one wants one as a daily driver anymore. A Model T is too limited today. We've improved the car. We can still appreciate what it did.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
And it's not shitting on a game to call it "dated" "hasn't aged well" or "it's a product of its time." We're recognizing the changes that have come since.
The Ford Model T got America motoring and introduced innovations in mass production. It's in museums and car shows. But no one wants one as a daily driver anymore. A Model T is too limited today. We've improved the car. We can still appreciate what it did.
fjord
Well said. I agree when making the statement that a game hasn't aged well or dated isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is usally referee as such when talking about a game you once enjoyed but have trouble going back to it for reasons like controls, graphics or whatever.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
I would argue they're not necessarily "better", they just added more to a more expansive game that needed more than A and B. SMB 1 and 3 didnt' really need anything more than a standard NES controller. SMW needed an SNES controller, but, again, more expansive game.
A FPS like GoldenEye is not as far removed from newer FPS, but innovations in controls made (for most people) the newer games more appealing. It's not GoldenEye's fault, they had to work with what they had at the time.
I get that people still play GoldenEye and are fine with how it controls (as I said, it's still functional.) Those people in the minority. It's not anything wrong, it's just how it is.
I'm not sure how what you've said fits into context. I don't disagree that that new iterations can be an improvement (to think otherwise is silly). I'm just saying that the new "improved" versions don't detract from the appeal of the older models. To judge an old school game you need to judge it almost in isolation. A game either was or it wasn't good.
Comments
Why do you guys have to make fun of me? Why is this so hard to admit?
If your enjoyment of a game has changed, it means you have changed, not the game.
Why do you guys have to make fun of me? Why is this so hard to admit?
No, games in general have changed and improved vs some games of the past.
Of course we have changed. We know more now. We know what games are capable of and primitive control isnt the only option. Why is this so hard for you to admit?
You arent applying the Original Topic Correctly in your mind. Your trying to change the argument to something else which isnt the point.
Originally posted by: quest4nes
No, games in general have changed and improved vs some games of the past.
New games are changed compared to old ones, yes.
Old games have changed since they were released, no.
Originally posted by: Guntz
Originally posted by: quest4nes
No, games in general have changed and improved vs some games of the past.
New games are changed compared to old ones, yes.
Old games have changed since they were released, no.
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
Originally posted by: quest4nes
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
Has nothing to do with me "not really liking it" in the 90s. Thats ridiculous. Same thing with smash bros, goldeneye. Starfox has such smooth controls it has aged pretty well.
I loved all these games. To say i just think i did or pretended to , to try and make some point you have valid, is absurd. You are in the minority here guntz. You always will be becsuse you are trying to tell people they didnt really like some of their childhood favorite games.
Things chsnge guntz. Games got better control and graphically. We didnt know bettet. Its ok to just go ahead and admit defeat here and drop this ridiculous pedestal you are on
Originally posted by: Guntz
Originally posted by: quest4nes
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
The fact you need someone being too dumb to know himself to explain your point is questionnable. Maybe you're simply not getting what he's trying to say?
yes but the perspective changes since you dont know what games are like in the future. For the love of god guts, get that through your head. Quit pretending you knew at the time that certain games that were everyones favorites werent good and looked bad because somehow you knew in the future what controls and graphics would be like. Like you had some frame of reference.I just call bullshit. Sorry man.
I never said anything about knowing future games, that's ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is if years later you came to think X game is bad or has "aged poorly", you should just admit you never honestly liked the game in the first place. By that, I mean you were blinded by hype and first impressions. It's like falling for a fad, only to realize later it was lame.
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
Just smh
/Thread.
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 watch Barney or Sesame Street as a kid? Do you still like them enough to spend hours watching them?
Using those as an example, I get what Guntz is trying to say about how it's us who change. A later generation of kids can enjoy Sesame Street even after you've grown out of it, but that isn't true for everything.
What if Sesame Street was thoroughly out-of-date, like a bit teaching how to use a rotary phone followed by a song about how to use the right water fountain (racial segregation)? Yes, the show is still the same, but the show would no longer have the relevance or applicability it once had due to a shift in society. Defending the show's applicability to modern kids just because society changed would be silly. The same thing applies to antiquated ideas and mechanics in videogames.
Did you watch Barney or Sesame Street as a kid? Do you still like them enough to spend hours watching them?
Barney came after my childhood, but do I still like Sesame Street enough to spend hours watching it? Hell yes! Maybe not all at once, but old Sesame Street stuff is absolutely one of my personal touchstones, especially things like this:
Or this:
I love Sesame Street's pre-Elmo years, and over and over again I go back and watch it and have renewed appreciation for how brave, funky, and smart it was. Same with Mister Rogers, to a lesser extent -- getting older has, if anything, given me an even more profound respect for his work and the integrity of his worldview. Like many teenagers, I made fun of him in an attempt to be cool -- but the truth is that we were the ones who were lame, not him.
I think it's certainly true that, in a show directed at kids, a lesson meant to teach can become outdated or irrelevant. But that's more a question of its utility -- in other words, the way in which something is useful -- and I don't know that it makes sense to approach video games with that set of values.
To me, this is more analogous to music. Modern technology can summon resources that infinitely exceed what Bach, Mozart, et al. could do, and music has developed techniques and genres of which they never dreamed. Yet their music hasn't been superseded -- it's not as if Beethoven "refuted" Mozart, any more than a flower "refutes" a bud.
I think I just approach games with a different attitude than many folks do. I don't really care all that much about being entertained, or about whether or not a game is "good". I'm more interested in trying to figure each game out on its own terms, the way I would approach a work of literature or art. And I don't really believe in the notion of "progress" in art as improvement, but merely as an expansion of possibilities; quality is an entirely different metric, and the history of music shows that quality is a series of ups and downs, not a continuous upward trajectory.
Of course if a game is available in multiple versions, and one of those versions makes improvements to the gameplay, graphics, or sound, I'm likely to appreciate the updates. But then again, I've found on many occasions that I didn't prefer the newer or more technologically modern version, so I'm always suspicious of such claims.
I just keep coming back to the fact that I can't really think of a media product I've consumed that "hasn't aged well". In every case, the problem is me and my changing needs, not the media, so why would I use a phrase that attributes the fault to the product instead of where it belongs -- myself?
(In fact, I've repeatedly had the experience of checking out things from my childhood that I assumed would disappoint me -- and instead discovering, hey, this really is awesome! Besides the Sesame Street stuff, which has reliably come through, there was an obscure TV show from the early 1980s that made a big impression on me as a kid even though I could barely remember any details, but it always stuck with me somehow. When I finally tracked down the handful of episodes that were broadcast, it more than exceeded my expectations.)
If it means defending the history of the greatest entertainment medium of all time, I will fight those windmills.
Time is little more than a human construct, video games are either good or bad forever, time does not change that.
I agree with you, but people's views of them DO change over time. As a very young kid I thought 10-yard Fight was awesome, but that's only because I didn't know any better.
I personally think Goldeneye 64 is boring, even on release it didn't really do anything for me. I had already played the PC FPS staples like Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D, etc to death by the time it came out and it was nothing special to me at all. A mediocre game that was very popular for a console crowd that was new to the genre and didn't know any better. Same shit with Halo a generation later. Some people just aren't willing to take off the rose colored glasses and be objective though.
I agree with you even though I like GE. The only reasons I might not find it as enjoyable today is like what you said about 10 Yard Fight; I simply didn't understand the game's limitations and exploits when I was younger - That, and the the fact I've beat the game to a pulp.
About MK and other games, while some things have 'held up', I still remember being bored of the game pretty quick and finding it very slow paced back in the day. Hell, all I did was play 'test your might' most of the time, which is still hilarious to this day in my opinon. I dunno, once the novelty of the fatalities wore off, the game didn't have much to offer. MK II on the other hand...
Anyway, at this point people are basically just arguing in circles about their opinions of games (subjective) and how we remember them (also subjective).
I never liked Golden Eye, still dont.
There is a difference between games that are dated and just being bad.
I think the point pegboy was getting across was that Goldeneye was never good, just took people a while to notice, which is equivalent to saying it hasn't aged well. Also you already said you agreed with him
I still do, Golden Eye sucks.
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
Originally posted by: Brock Landers
...also I should point out I did go back and beat and unlock everything for Perfect Dark again recently... on 360. Probably because I could actually see what was going on and I had a controller and controller scheme that was worth a shit
Originally posted by: guillavoie
Something that is quite important too is that recognizing in a way or another that an aspect of a game 'aged poorly' doesn't mean you no longer like the game, and it doesn't make it automatically a bad game. You seem to be lumping things in one camp or the other (good games vs bad games), while it is not necessarily what's being talk about.
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
Originally posted by: quest4nes
According To guntz, we are all just too stupid to know what games we liked as kids and what games we still enjoy now. We just tricked ourselves as children. Those 100s of hours on the n64 clearing all cups, collecting every item on fetch quest 64 playformers, beating all the coin challenges and whizz pig on diddy kong racing. Yeah we just thought we liked those games.
Just smh
There is only one constant here, YOU changed, not the games you used to play. That's all I'm trying to say.
Sesame Street
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show is absolutely horrendous now. The live action segments are OK, but the main portion, the cartoon, is cringeworthy.
Originally posted by: hammerfestus
I am one of the ones who think saying a game didn't age well is bullshit. To me, as I hear it used, it's basically people whining about graphics. I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional. The Goldeneye argument for me doesn't play just because you think Call of Duty has improved on the N64 controls. If that's how you feel then every console shooter hasn't aged well versus a PC shooter that uses mouse and keys.
The part that really gets me is NOBODY realizes or remembers GoldenEye 007 DOES have at least two different "dual-stick" control methods. There's Solitaire 1.2 which uses the D-pad and Analog Stick on the N64 controller, an extremely close facimile to the traditional PC keyboard and mouse. There's also the 2.x control methods which allow you to use two controllers for true dual analog stick play, if you really must walk slowly every once and a while. I don't know about the rest of you, but I run everywhere in GoldenEye 007 and every other FPS game.
On top of that, every single N64 shooter I've tried offers D-Pad and Analog Stick play in some way or another. Perfect Dark, the Turok games, Rainbow Six, Armorines, 007 The World is Not Enough... They all support it. Turok 1 is the most curious, both preceeding GoldenEye 007 and being the first N64 FPS game ever released, offers D-Pad and Analog Stick, called "Left-Hand Mode".
I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional.
Controls could still be functional, but if a better scheme comes along, you would be hard pressed to find anyone wanting to keep the older, inferior version. We may have put up with the old scheme when it was all the tech allowed or was what the designer could come up with at the time. But that doesn't mean we still want it.
The example often cited is Goldeneye N64. It's still functional, you can still play it, but few do anymore because there are simply better options. It's not the game's fault or the designers or Rare. Everyone acknowledges that it was groundbreaking in its day, but its day has passed. It's just what happens to some things. "Hasn't aged well," "Feels dated," all are saying the same thing. Obsolescence.
I still do, Golden Eye sucks.
Agreed. And I actually grew up playing N64. I'd pop in Doom 64 over Goldeneye anyday
I think the argument about controls is crap because if the controls were functional once upon a time, they are still just as functional.
Controls could still be functional, but if a better scheme comes along, you would be hard pressed to find anyone wanting to keep the older, inferior version. We may have put up with the old scheme when it was all the tech allowed or was what the designer could come up with at the time. But that doesn't mean we still want it.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
Btw goldeneye controls just fine. When I get old buddies together we enjoy some crap out of the facility with proximity mines
I played Goldeneye until I beat every single level, and unlocked every single cheat. That may of taken me an entire year.
I played GTA III without any outside help and spent tens of hours trying to find every hidden package (I got to 97)
You couldn't pay me to do either of those things again. But I probably will go and unlock every medal on expert (again) in Star Fox 64 3D. In fact the idea of that excites me
Now, did I secretly hate Goldeneye and GTA III, making me some sort of masochist who was lying to myself about having all that fun. Or did those games just age worse than SF64?
...also I should point out I did go back and beat and unlock everything for Perfect Dark again recently... on 360. Probably because I could actually see what was going on and I had a controller and controller scheme that was worth a shit
Something that is quite important too is that recognizing in a way or another that an aspect of a game 'aged poorly' doesn't mean you no longer like the game, and it doesn't make it automatically a bad game. You seem to be lumping things in one camp or the other (good games vs bad games), while it is not necessarily what's being talk about.
Since I ever said it in a thread somewhere, yes, I think some aspects of Goldeneye007 have 'aged poorly', and I'm not even an adept of the genre. Still, I personally love the game and still enjoy playing it very much. But, I'm not surprised by others reaction to the game, like Brock that played the shit out of the game, but that won't come back to it today.
I don't need to explain his opinion by saying he's shallow or that he tricked himself in loving the game in the past, I get exactly why he said what he said.
According To guntz, we are all just too stupid to know what games we liked as kids and what games we still enjoy now. We just tricked ourselves as children. Those 100s of hours on the n64 clearing all cups, collecting every item on fetch quest 64 playformers, beating all the coin challenges and whizz pig on diddy kong racing. Yeah we just thought we liked those games.
Just smh
There is only one constant here, YOU changed, not the games you used to play. That's all I'm trying to say.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
I would argue they're not necessarily "better", they just added more to a more expansive game that needed more than A and B. SMB 1 and 3 didnt' really need anything more than a standard NES controller. SMW needed an SNES controller, but, again, more expansive game.
A FPS like GoldenEye is not as far removed from newer FPS, but innovations in controls made (for most people) the newer games more appealing. It's not GoldenEye's fault, they had to work with what they had at the time.
I get that people still play GoldenEye and are fine with how it controls (as I said, it's still functional.) Those people in the minority. It's not anything wrong, it's just how it is.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
And it's not shitting on a game to call it "dated" "hasn't aged well" or "it's a product of its time." We're recognizing the changes that have come since.
The Ford Model T got America motoring and introduced innovations in mass production. It's in museums and car shows. But no one wants one as a daily driver anymore. A Model T is too limited today. We've improved the car. We can still appreciate what it did.
And how are you not understanding that no-one is claiming the code itself literally changed? Its an idiom. Seriously, this has been repeated over and over again.
And it's not shitting on a game to call it "dated" "hasn't aged well" or "it's a product of its time." We're recognizing the changes that have come since.
The Ford Model T got America motoring and introduced innovations in mass production. It's in museums and car shows. But no one wants one as a daily driver anymore. A Model T is too limited today. We've improved the car. We can still appreciate what it did.
fjord
Well said. I agree when making the statement that a game hasn't aged well or dated isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is usally referee as such when talking about a game you once enjoyed but have trouble going back to it for reasons like controls, graphics or whatever.
The controls on the wii new Super Mario bros was way better than SMB3 or the original SMB. Does that mean we should discard those games as inferior? Sometimes things are more than the sum of their parts.
I would argue they're not necessarily "better", they just added more to a more expansive game that needed more than A and B. SMB 1 and 3 didnt' really need anything more than a standard NES controller. SMW needed an SNES controller, but, again, more expansive game.
A FPS like GoldenEye is not as far removed from newer FPS, but innovations in controls made (for most people) the newer games more appealing. It's not GoldenEye's fault, they had to work with what they had at the time.
I get that people still play GoldenEye and are fine with how it controls (as I said, it's still functional.) Those people in the minority. It's not anything wrong, it's just how it is.
I'm not sure how what you've said fits into context. I don't disagree that that new iterations can be an improvement (to think otherwise is silly). I'm just saying that the new "improved" versions don't detract from the appeal of the older models. To judge an old school game you need to judge it almost in isolation. A game either was or it wasn't good.