Old games that are better than newer ones!

[Fearless]

I still think the Doom games of old are just as good if not better than 95% of all the first person shooters out in the past 7-9 years. What other games easily kick newer games butts?

[strassy]

by and large, old games are better than new games. i could give you a list with hundreds of games on it if you like...

[retroman]

By far the best football game ever, for me anyway. Super Tecmo Bowl 3 Final Edition for the SNES, or the first Super Tecmo Bowl for the NES

[tcv]

By far the best football game ever, for me anyway. Super Tecmo Bowl 3 Final Edition for the SNES, or the first Super Tecmo Bowl for the NES

Atari Football was even better than some football games. Guided passes! Yeah, that could've helped the Pats, but, alas...

[DigitalSpace]

I could spend quite some time typing up a list of games for a response, but I'll just name one: Super Metroid.

[p_b]

Pong beats Virtua Tennis!!!

Seriously, Bubble Bobble is pretty much perfection to me.
The Super Mario platformers have never really been done better on modern systems as well.

[spoon]

I dunno I think NSMB is pretty damn good. Best Nintendo platformer since Mario 64.

I would side with old games. Games of yesteryear were designed to eat your quarters or be damn hard. Todays games are a bit different.

[CartCollector]

The reasons old games seem better are:

-People have had more time to sort out the good from the bad, and also to find cult classics (Earthbound and Chrono Trigger weren't originally popular, but are very popular now),

-On this forum, those who play old games can remember when the system they are on was state-of-the-art, and feel nostalgic when playing them, and

-After the fourth or fifth sequel, most series can't keep up the original quality that they had. Mega Man readily comes to mind. Also Tony Hawk.

There. Now get angry at me for raining on your parade.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[Press_Start]

That's like naming all the great and underrated games from all previous systems, at least for me.

What really makes a game stand the test of time lies in one aspect: GAMEPLAY!

[Graham Mitchell]

I still think the Doom games of old are just as good if not better than 95% of all the first person shooters out in the past 7-9 years. What other games easily kick newer games butts?

I was playing Doom last weekend. It's still pretty fun if you haven't played it for awhile. Nice Ambience.

But in the same weekend I also played Bioshock and Call of Duty 4, and it's impossible for me to say with a straight face that I don't see progress. See, because the genre is so technology dependent, FPS is one of very few types of games where I feel they've actually gotten better over the years. I'm not that into them, and it's only the 360/Wii era of them that I've ever really spent a lot of time with, but I think Doom's Achille's heel is the fact that the z-coordinate in game space is purely artifactual. You can never look directly above or below you, and you'll notice that buildings can never be multitiered--for any x- and y-coordinated there is a designated z-coordinate, and you can't move within the z-axis. That's why there's no jumping.

I'm sure this was a technical limitation more than anything else, and as soon as Quake came out they eliminated that problem, thus making Quake a better game in my opinion. Quake also has a cooler environment than Doom, better sound effects and a pretty phenomenal soundtrack (by Trent Reznor of all people!).

So, for me, Doom is important in the history of FPS because it brought them to the forefront of popular attention, but it was eclipsed relatively quickly.

[calthaer]

I would generally say that a lot of action games, fighting games, and real-time-strategy games have gotten better over time.

But there are some cases - especially when it comes to games with real depth - that games have not gotten better over time. I have not seen another RPG since Ultima VII that has that sort of world that is really, truly vibrant and interactive. I was reading the other day about this game "Alternate Reality: The City," and couldn't believe some of the features that game had in it - and some of the features that were planned for the sequels - that have never been realized in any other games since. Seems to me that a lot of the smaller, risk-taking game devs in the West especially have been bought out or quit the industry.

On the other hand I would say that Gears of War is definitely better than Unreal 2 or something. It's just not better than the original Unreal...

[Eternal Champion]

I still think the Doom games of old are just as good if not better than 95% of all the first person shooters out in the past 7-9 years. What other games easily kick newer games butts?

The old Dooms still kick butt, that's true. Actually I'll take Quake I over most FPS any day.
Now, then:
Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - one of my favorite FPS and is still the best Star Wars game.
Thief : The Dark Project and Thief II, System Shock 2
Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion)

[Streetball 21]

I'd say Tecmo NBA Basketball is one of the best b-ball games. You can add Baseball Stars as one of the best baseball games as well.

[smokehouse]

Just being a member of this forum basically proves tat I believe most old games are better than current ones...

Don't get me wrong, there are some really good modern games but I just prefer older ones for various reasons...

Metroid, Castlevania, Mega Man, Contra, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Sonic, Zelda...I could go on and on about what games I feel are better than their modern counterparts...

[MeTmKnice]

I would have to say that even tho newer games have great graphics and all, Most older games actually had substance and were challenging.

[Bloodreign]

I prefer older games myself, they keep me hooked on them, they are harder, don't have hours of cinema scenes, didn't need voice acting, and were generally quite solid. Not to mention I grew up playing them, so they hol a special place in my heart.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

I remember being really pissed off at Tomb Raider on the PS- because there were so many Goddamn buttons you have to hold down to do insanely precise jumps and such. It would really get my dick in a knot, if I was close to completing a stage... only to miss a ledge by an inch and fall to my death. I never finished those games because of the endless frustration. That said, I've had to look up instructions for several 2600 games because of their complexity. Starmaster, I'm looking at you.

[RJ]

I gave up on new games awhile back & have gone almost strictly retro. Recently I got back into Final DOOM (PS), & got Tatio Legends & NES Mendel Palace.

I was watching a newer X-Play show where they previewed a new Bourne Identity game, & Morgan Webb talked to a producer/someone associated w/ the game who explained why "this game is so different than the ones out there now."

They showed gameplay graphics & scenes- ducking & shooting, & fighting. Boy, havent seen THAT anywhere before.

I'll stick to my oldies, thank you very much.

[theMot]

I dont know how you can think old shooters like Doom are better than something like Bioshock or Gears. I think your going the rose coloured glass's route x 3 + 10 lol

You have to face the facts that things have progressed and in a much better way, superior graphics and sound do add tremendously to a game.

I think the real debate here is - are 2D games better than 3D ones... Take Zelda for example i think LTTP was pretty much the high point of the series, im not a fan of all 3D ones, the same can be said for Mario and Metroid. Thats why people look back on the SNES, GENESIS, NEO-GEO days with such fondness because that was the zenith of 2D gaming. 95% of everything went polygon after that.