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What is it with the games these days - They are all cinematic, showy graphics and the like. I miss good old fashoned mouse and keyboard games. You know the type that you can spend countless hours on, taking them in your own time. They are usually very hard, require a strategy and have unlimited re-play potential. Your creative side also gets let loose. To be fair, LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 is fantastic, and I enjoy spending countless hours making excellent levels, but I have noticed in recent years this style of game is being abandoned. To give you an idea of the type of games I am on about, here's a few of the games I have really enjoyed over the years. No modern day game (Starcraft 2 excluded) has entertained me as much as these games have:

- SimCity (2000 and SC4 are the best examples)
- The Sims (The 1st one + it's add-on packs)
- Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2
- Age of Empires II and III
- Command and Conquer (Played to many, maybe Tiberian Sun is my fav. RIP Westwood Studios!)
- Starcraft 1 and 2 (Yeah, I know it's new)
- Theme Park (And Theme Park World)
- Traffic Giant

Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy these type of games, and can spend countless hours on them. Simcity 4 is 9 years old this year, but I still play it today. Cities XL 2011 may be the new city builder, but it doesn't even come close to the gameplay that SimCity offers. It's the same with some other sequel games in that list (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was a mess, but looked pretty for example).

For me, the late 90's and early 2000's were when this style of game was at it's best. Anyone think this style of game will make a comeback? I would like a new Simcity, or another theme Park builder. Heck, even take The Sims back to it's roots, as the new one is awful. What I am trying to say is that graphics don't make a good game, and game developers appear to be loosing focus a litle bit with a graphics first, gameplay seccond approach. I'm sure I am not the only one to think this.

To this day, the games I've probably spent the most total hours playing are the original Doom and Doom II.

DeadOfKnight wrote:

http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/

How did I miss that site??? Time to bust out the Mastercard...

just brew it! wrote:

To this day, the games I've probably spent the most total hours playing are the original Doom and Doom II.

Oh, totally agree. I enjoy FPS too, and lost a lot of hours to Doom, Half Life and Unreal Tournament over the years. Strategy, RPG and Sim / Management games are my personal favoutites though. I'm missing Homeworld 1 and 2 from that list too, so they deserve a mention.

I wanted to reminisce, and give Simcity 2000 and Sid Miers Railroad Tycoon 3 a re-play. Sadly, I've tried every way way possible to get both of them to install (Using original CD's I found in a clear-out!!!). W7's having none of it - I finally forced an install of SimCity despite a barrage of error messages, only to find it crashes W7 if you try to run the software, lol. I guess I was expecting to much when a game from 1995 meets 2009's latest operating system...

Just look at the system requirements for SimCity 2000:
- 486 33 MHz CPU
- 2MB RAM
- 20MB Hard Disk

Meeet my 3750Mhz quad core SimCity! No wonder it doesn't know what to do.

To eBay for a Win 95 machine me thinks - I've got a stack of oldies I want to go thru...

For the origonal simcity
http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php

Simcity 2000 might be playable in dos box if you had the dos version. You could always install an old OS into a VM on windows7 for these kinds of games.

I think the games we have the fondest memories of are the ones we started playing originally. These days I just can't find the time to sit through a game for 5 or 6 hours at a go. A lot of it has that 'been there, done that' feel, so it's hard for me to get into most games these days.

Good old games to the rescue. These guys rock!

A few other classic time sinks:

- X-Com 1, 2 and 3. Unbelievably fun time sinks! I don't know how many times I've finished each one.
- Wing Commander (all of them, but especially 3, 4, 5). Top of the cream for the sci-fi / space opera genre, with real actors (Mark Hamill!), orchestral score and over the top production values (highlight: WC4, which spanned 6 CDs in '95).
- Jedi Knight 1 and esp. 2. You just don't find level design like that anymore. You see a door? You can enter it, you just need to find the way. Jedi Knight 3 went with the Quake 3 engine which simply couldn't handle that and level design suffered as a result (fake doors, levels that look larger than they are).
- Freespace 2. The swan song of the space opera genre and great, great game.
- Descent 2. Hair raising, frantic action. Great multiplayer.
- Magic Carpet 1 and 2. Great gameplay, great graphics (even now!)
- Carmaggedon 1. I'm still surprised by the graphics and gameplay for this game.
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Humor, gameplay, graphics, 100% perfect! (This is available in GOG, buy it now!)
- Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. I never finished either game, but I must have sunk at least 100 hours in each. Just the exploration of the world is fun fun fun.
- Planescape: Torment. Maybe the most epic *and* touching storyline of all time. Tremendous amounts of character, witty and deep writing. The sheer amount of dialog in that game is unsurpassed (estimated 800000 words).

They just don't make games like these anymore. Strategy games are all about micromanagement, rushing and reflexes. Shooters are confined to small, claustrophobic levels. RPGs are increasingly dumbed down to appeal to a larger demographic (Mass Effect, I'm looking at you).

Where are the games that make you feel like you are a part of a living, breathing world that exists outside of your character?

Bah, I'm just ranting now. My solution: play indie games. There are real gems out there that most people haven't heard of.

I'm trying, but didn't really like AEO3 as much as 1/2. They took away some of the micromangement but added complexity. I just wish they would port AEO2 to a new engine so I could run at a resolution >1280x1024.

I need to look up that Traffic Game. Sounds like fun.

tfp wrote:

Simcity 2000 might be playable in dos box if you had the dos version. You could always install an old OS into a VM on windows7 for these kinds of games.

There's a DOS version on the CD, might give that a go as I don't know where i'll get Windows 95 from these days for a VM.

BlackStar wrote:

Good old games to the rescue. These guys rock!

...They just don't make games like these anymore...Where are the games that make you feel like you are a part of a living, breathing world that exists outside of your character?

I think what etilena says is probably right. We have fond memories of the originals for many games. The race was on all through the 90's to make CPU's hit 1Ghz, and then 2, windows was more complex and getting intelligent. Games were being made more complex, and AI was getting better. Because nothing existed to really compare it too (afterall, Windows and it's GUI was new in 1994), everything seamed just so much more exciting, as you had no idea what was coming next. There was true innovation back then in the games and hardware industry. Now it's all a bit seen it all before sadly.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I need to look up that Traffic Game. Sounds like fun.

It's cool - You can still buy it too. It's really addictive to get all the citizens on buses, trams and trains to keep traffic congestion to a minimum. It's not as old as Simcity 2000, my box says it's (C) 2001. It installed on W7 without any issues, it just runs a bit fast. It's also got locked resolutions, all 4:3 aspect ratio, so it looks a little odd on todays widescreen's at a much higer res. Might find out what can be done to correct that.

rcs2k4 wrote:

BlackStar wrote:

Good old games to the rescue. These guys rock!

...They just don't make games like these anymore...Where are the games that make you feel like you are a part of a living, breathing world that exists outside of your character?

I think what etilena says is probably right. We have fond memories of the originals for many games. The race was on all through the 90's to make CPU's hit 1Ghz, and then 2, windows was more complex and getting intelligent. Games were being made more complex, and AI was getting better. Because nothing existed to really compare it too (afterall, Windows and it's GUI was new in 1994), everything seamed just so much more exciting, as you had no idea what was coming next. There was true innovation back then in the games and hardware industry. Now it's all a bit seen it all before sadly.

I think the issue is that 'mainstream' game developers are rehashing the same old concepts time and time again. How many more Medal of Honors, Call of Dutys, Halos, Need for Speeds and World of Warcraft expansions do we really need to see? It's the same gameplay rehashed with slightly better graphics.

Contrast with the game list in my previous post. Every single game in that list offered something different - even the FPSs - and it's stuff that effectively disappeared from the gaming scene. Why has vertical gameplay disappeared? Fully deformable environments? Do space operas and complex RPGs(*) really not sell anymore?

It's not that Innovation doesn't exist - it's that it's no longer driven by the mainstream developers. Leave the mainstream market and you'll find gems like Limbo; MineCraft; World of Goo; Aquaria. In fact, I can't recall the last time I bought a non-indie, non-GoG title. The only mainstream game I actually played and enjoyed was Kirby's Epic Yarn: it's pure unadeltered fun built around a quirky concept.

Am I getting old? Maybe. Or maybe I'm just waiting for the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment.

(*) This is my pet peeve. Oblivion and Fallout 3 were dumbed down atrocities; The Witcher was okish; Dragon Age was terrible; Mass Effect doesn't deserve to be called an RPG. Why has this genre disappeared? Or space operas for that matter?

BlackStar wrote:

- Descent 2. Hair raising, frantic action. Great multiplayer.

Ooh yeah... that one is probably second only to Doom for me!

Nearly flunked out of college from playing the original Castle Wolfenstein. Man, was that a fun game back then. Skipped a lot of classes, and blew off a lot of homework to finally finish it.

Were those the good ol days, or bad ol days? I don't remember.

Last summer I picked up Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, expansion packs, and Icewind Dale 1 and 2. Been slowly working my way through 'em. I also just recently got back into Diablo 2 with a few friends and we've been eating it up. There's a huge backlog of games that, when they were released, I just knew I couldn't devote the time to, intending to get back to them later. Well, here I am: Later.

game developers appear to be loosing focus a litle bit with a graphics first, gameplay seccond approach. I'm sure I am not the only one to think this.

Eh. Rose-colored glasses. The era you refer to is an era in which complaints about "graphics graphics graphics" were rampant. The mid-to-late '90s had a lot of lousy games that were all hype and prettiness (Daikatana, anyone?) that are easy to forget about now because of... all the new games that are a lot of hype and prettiness. The focus on "teh betterzz graphixXx" has never went away, and I think it's important for gamers to realize that it's not just a recent phenomenon.

I think there's an element of rose-tinted memories going on here, and actually there's a much higher proportion of quality in today's games market than there was 10-15 years ago, if not quite as much variety. I used to sink more time into individual games back then, but probably because there were fewer really outstanding games available at any given time. Now I feel spoilt for choice. The mainstream games market has perhaps become too cautious and predictable, but the internet has given rise to a vibrant indy scene as well.

Having said all that, I really miss X-wing.

I still remember the day I went to the store and both diablo 2 and Icewind dale 1 had both come out. I had a hard decison to make but ended up getting both....that was by far the best several months of my life.

rcs2k4 wrote:

Strategy, RPG and Sim / Management games are my personal favoutites though. I'm missing Homeworld 1 and 2 from that list too, so they deserve a mention.

Basically, any RTS from Relic is amazing. I really wish they'd release a Homeworld 3; best RTS series ever. Really had to be creative to solve problems in all 3 dimensions.

Edit: After reading their Wikipedia, apparently they re-aquired the rights from Vivendi. So, I can still hope for Homeworld 3...as is, I'll stick with Company of Heroes. I'm not good at making maps for it, but it's still fun as hell.

actually there's a much higher proportion of quality in today's games market than there was 10-15 years ago

I disagree somewhat; the market today is different, with a greater focus on cinematic polish (think Modern Warfare). Budgets are higher, sales are larger, target audiences are broader. There's probably more "good games" because there's more games in general put out by large developers (which also means that there's more lousy games). Only time will tell which games are truly memorable, but I can tell you right now that I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still occasionally playing, say, God of War 3 in 5-10 years.

I miss the space fighter games of long ago, Descent, Freespace, Wing Commander, etc. Also, mechwarrior and its kind.

khands wrote:

I miss the space fighter games of long ago, Descent, Freespace, Wing Commander, etc. Also, mechwarrior and its kind.

TIE Fighter and X-Wing and X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter.

I miss games like Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate I and II. But I tried Dragon Age last year and couldn't get into it. So I have a feeling it's mostly nostalgia.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

I miss games like Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate I and II. But I tried Dragon Age last year and couldn't get into it. So I have a feeling it's mostly nostalgia.

Planscape took me 3 tries to get into it. Now I think it's one of the best games ever. Maybe Dragon's Age will be the same for you? I liked it very much but did have a hard time getting started with that one too.

So how can people talk about legacy games without mentioning Legacy of the Ancients! That game totally needs a remake (same game just modernized). I think I was a freshman in highschool when it came out and I still remember playing it so clearly. Same with Bards Tale III and Wasteland - I remember parts of those games like I played them yesterday.

Wasteland was amazing. I would love to have a game like it, or Fallout 1 or 2. The direction they went with Fallout 3, it's just not the same. 3D- I don't want it. I want isometric turn based. I don't want twitchy shooters posing as RPGs. I know I am in the minority on that.

Heck I would be fine with a tile game like Wasteland if the interface was as good and the story was engaging.

I miss Heroes Quest from Sierra and Ultima Underworld the most, ah the good old times...

TheEmrys wrote:

Betrayal at Krondor

Hehe, I still remember the hokey cinematic where the guard caught an arrow in his throat. Or was that the sequel?

More good old stuff:
The Magic Candle (sadly, the sequels sucked)
Lords of Midnight
Escape from Hell
Archon
Paganitzu (Alabama Smith!)
Leather Goddesses of Phobos (and Infocom text adventures in general)
Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon

great classic games

Xcom: ufo defense
Xcom: Terror from the deep
Baulders gate 1 and 2
NeverWinter Nights 1 and 2
Diablo 2
age of empires II
Command and conquer
Zork 1 2 and 3

I recently was wishing I had the old Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1 and 2 games for PC. Then I came across Darksiders and it has alot of the elements of those games. Ive beaten it at normal and am playing through again on Apocalyptic but taking my time and gathering all of the enhancements, last I played I had a total of 74 Hrs of game play. IMO it is very similar to LoK Soul Reaver games.

rose colored glasses? There were more than a few crappy games 10 years ago And there's good games now in plenty (although yeah, if you want 2D you're limited).

tfp wrote:

For the origonal simcity
http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php

Aaaaaand there goes my productivity !!

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I'm trying, but didn't really like AEO3 as much as 1/2. They took away some of the micromangement but added complexity. I just wish they would port AEO2 to a new engine so I could run at a resolution >1280x1024.

QFT