What are some old games that are hard to revisit, because a more modern and superior version exists?
-
This will be controversial but Hitman blood money.
I have put hundreds of hours into the Hitman trilogy, but no matter what I can't get past the first guard of blood money, that is if I can get past the clunkynes to even get to him in the first place.
I would like to try it as I have heard a lot of good about it, big portion of the fan base think it is the best game ever, but no matter how many time I trow that god dame coin the guard refuses to move and I can't progress and that combined with general age and clunkynes of the controls don't make it an enjoyable experience to try.
In the trilogy and Absultion if I got stuck it was at least enjoyable trying to get around it, this is just frustrating.
I am an absolute die hard Hitman fan. I’ve played all of them. Replayed the whole series last year. Blood money was a better sandbox by far than the previous games. And it’s still a blast to go back and play just for the nostalgia and the vibes.
But the people who insist today that it’s better than the World of Assassination trilogy are smoking crack. Not only that, but in some ways Blood Money was a big downgrade from the previous games. Hitman 3 in its current state today incorporates all the best things about Blood Money, the games that came before it, the game came after it, while cutting out the negatives. -
I grew up playing King's Quest 5, 6, and 7. I was curious about the earlier ones and eventually found them on an abandonware site a while back and they didn't age very well. Turns out 5 was the first one that was all point and click based. Prior to that, they were text based and you needed to know the exact wording or alternatives that they had thought of or you couldn't do anything. I'm sure they were great games for their time but I just couldn't get into them.
More recently, I bought the collection on steam. I'm not sure how well someone who has never played them before would enjoy them, but I found 5 and 6 still stood up, despite being like 30 years old. Though it might also help that I could still remember a bunch of the puzzles, as they could be pretty unforgiving of mistakes. Save often because you could die at any moment, and hope you don't miss picking up an item you'll need later on or you might get eaten by a yeti or something.
God, I still remember struggling for hours, days because zmI didn't specifically type "Get out from boat", in Kings Quest II.
You'd think "Get out of boat" would suffice, but nooooo.
-
OG XCOM has a really rough learning curve for sure. It is easy to understand the fundamentals of but it takes a lot longer to get it well enough to really enjoy. Once you do learn it I feel like it is different enough from new XCOM that you can enjoy both. I love new and old xcoms a ton.
Old XCOM also likes to bend you over and fuck you over a lot. And that's the way we liked it!
-
Perfect Dark, on the other hand, totally still holds up today in my opinion, and there's a decompilation project that works great on PC and Steam Deck.
I love love love perfect dark. But it's uhhh it does not hold up. The campaign starts fairly strong and craters pretty quick. It really feels like they just weren't able to really... Finish the game when it came out.
Also, like GoldenEye, a huge component of Perfect Dark was multiplayer.
-
I recently finished playing Breath of the Wild and declared it as one of my favorite games ever played. I just started Tears of the Kingdom, and it feels like I may not go back to BOTW, which is crazy that I could consider it one the best experiences ever, and also feel like I may never play it again so shortly after beating it. TotK seems to have everything in BotW and more, with quality of life changes on top of it all.
Totk is.. more of an expansion/dlc than a sequel. Even the intro has near identical beats. The map is literally re used.
Fun game still.
-
I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I'd try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there's a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon's later entries since there's more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm don't seem as big, you don't have a way to know that you're tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn't seem as characteristic. It's a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
Call of Duty: World At War Zombies
Every map in WaW zombies has been re-released at least twice. WaW zombies is cool because of how simple and barebones it is, but holy fucking hell that game was not coded for any sort of melee combat. The zombie bodies are so damn large, according to their hit boxes. Try to run past them but brush up against their pinky? Guess you’re done. Also for some reason the co-op splitscreen is not split vertically, and it’s not split horizontally, each of the two players just gets a quarter of the screen in a tiny box. Who knows why.
I love it to death but it’s real hard to go back to it.
-
I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I'd try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there's a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon's later entries since there's more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm don't seem as big, you don't have a way to know that you're tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn't seem as characteristic. It's a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
007 games. But the N64 soundtrack was great.
-
Old XCOM also likes to bend you over and fuck you over a lot. And that's the way we liked it!
-
The IV and EV system in Gen II is the same as in Gen I.
The "mordern" EV and IV system that's being used today was introduced in Gen III with Ruby and Sapphire. -
I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I'd try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there's a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon's later entries since there's more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm don't seem as big, you don't have a way to know that you're tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn't seem as characteristic. It's a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
I can't even leave the starting room of the original System Shock. So glad the remake updated the controls.
I did manage to finish System Shock 2, but the "puzzles" are just RNG, so I'm hoping the remaster changes that and maybe even fixes the ending.
-
Goldeneye. Revolutionized the FPS genre at the time. Nigh unplayable now. Tried recently using both NSO and on an original N64, it just hasn't aged well when compared to something modern.
With the N64, it helps if you can hook it up to a TV from around that era too. Games like Goldeneye look terrible on a modern LCD. I had that experience myself - "Man, I know I'm used to modern games now, but I don't remember these games looking this shitty". Then I dragged out my old CRT and hooked it up, and instantly it was "Now this is how I remember these games looking like".
-
OK, maybe a slight twist, but Left 4 Dead absolutely sucks vs. Left 4 Dead 2. Want L4D? Fine. Play it inside L4D2 with better guns and zombies.
Oof, can not agree. I found the first one being much easier to palate, not having any of those sections where you have to collect a bunch of items into another item. Like fueling the car in the mall. Absolutely frustrating trash.
-
Do the original version of Doom and Doom 2 count? The relatively recent, re-released duology is objectively superior. Also, OpenRCT2 makes classic RCT and RCT2 feel incomplete at best, and outright horrible to play at worst.
re-released duology is objectively superior
do you mean the "doom 1 + doom 2" on steam? because if so, oh boy are you gonna love gzdoom
https://zdoom.org/downloads -
I grew up playing King's Quest 5, 6, and 7. I was curious about the earlier ones and eventually found them on an abandonware site a while back and they didn't age very well. Turns out 5 was the first one that was all point and click based. Prior to that, they were text based and you needed to know the exact wording or alternatives that they had thought of or you couldn't do anything. I'm sure they were great games for their time but I just couldn't get into them.
More recently, I bought the collection on steam. I'm not sure how well someone who has never played them before would enjoy them, but I found 5 and 6 still stood up, despite being like 30 years old. Though it might also help that I could still remember a bunch of the puzzles, as they could be pretty unforgiving of mistakes. Save often because you could die at any moment, and hope you don't miss picking up an item you'll need later on or you might get eaten by a yeti or something.
I cut my teeth on Space Quest 1 and Kings Quest 3. Not only was the very spefic vocabulary a pain but so many solutions were a dead end trap.
I remember in Space Quest if you typed use [item] it would give you a message about not being a simple 2 word game and tell you to say use [item] on [thing]. It required that format.
Then halfway through the game the solution to one puzzle is use glass. Not use glass on laser. I has figured out the puzzle right away but it took me days to get the right wording.
Those games have not aged well.
-
I actually really like OG Dooms just as much as the new ones. I didn't play either until just a few years ago so no nostalgia. They are very different and so I don't feel like they step on each other's toes too much.
I agree. Doom 1 and doom 2 are like exactly the same fun level as Doom Eternal, just in a different way.
Tbh I didn't like "Doom (2016)" that much. I'm sure when it came out it was amazing considering doom 3 was the most recent thing, but I played Doom Eternal first and compared to the FUN of eternal, it just doesn't stand up to the "rip that guy in half then latch on that demon with a flaming chain on my double barreled shotgun so I can use a Lazer balista to shoot that other demons head off while in midair to go chainsaw the flying meatballs eyesocket" -
Literally if you're playing on the original NES controllers made in a time before Nintendo understood the importance of erganomics. The corners dug into hands and even the buttons wore at fingers and I say that as someone who has naturally thick callouses.
Iirc, they didn't even have the satisfying button press mechanism most buttons have these days where the button resistance drops as you pass the threshold of a "press". And many games involved mashing or holding buttons. Like it was painful to watch my daughter try playing SMB and not just hold the B button to constantly run.
They were iconic but I prefer to see them than use them.
There is a lot of truth to this old commercial.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DpaCvoCn0 -
Old XCOM also likes to bend you over and fuck you over a lot. And that's the way we liked it!
Ah yes. Land Skyranger, open door, sectoid throws grenade into Skyranger. Evac with one survivor. Good times.
-
I can't even leave the starting room of the original System Shock. So glad the remake updated the controls.
I did manage to finish System Shock 2, but the "puzzles" are just RNG, so I'm hoping the remaster changes that and maybe even fixes the ending.
I just played the original System Shock and System Shock 2. Incredible games.
I saw the trailer for the remake for the first one and wanted one last memory before I get my mind blown.
-
OK, maybe a slight twist, but Left 4 Dead absolutely sucks vs. Left 4 Dead 2. Want L4D? Fine. Play it inside L4D2 with better guns and zombies.
There's something different between the two that I can't put my finger on. Like everything feels a lot more solid?
I personally have a lot more memories of L4D and it's cast of characters over L4D2.
-
I just played the original System Shock and System Shock 2. Incredible games.
I saw the trailer for the remake for the first one and wanted one last memory before I get my mind blown.
The remake for the first game is so actuate to the original, you can use the old walk though guides to beat it.
You could tell the ending was cut short for time with SS2. It would if they took some creative liberties to bring ti closer to what it was originally suppose to be.
