Have games gotten better or worse when it comes to playability?

[Rafael Mestdag]

I remember spending a lot more time to figure out what to do in old games like Mafia 1 then I do in say, Mafia 3 or practically any modern game these days.

I miss that, and at the same time I have to admit that as games evolved with time and got easier to figure, they may have become more fun than those games back in the day which may have at times been way too difficult.

What is your take on this?

 

[loki1944]

I remember spending a lot more time to figure out what to do in old games like Mafia 1 then I do in say, Mafia 3 or practically any modern game these days.

I miss that, and at the same time I have to admit that as games evolved with time and got easier to figure, they may have become more fun than those games back in the day which may have at times been way too difficult.

What is your take on this?

Depends on the game; if the difficulty was merely obtuse for the sake of being obtuse; then that's just annoying. Very few games today match the amount of fun I had with games like Rebellion, Dark Forces I and II, Doom I and II, Quake, Quake II, Steel Panthers, Age of Rifles, East Front, Aces of the Deep, etc. In fact I find myself returning often to these games as a lot of current titles seem to be lacking in soul when it comes to gameplay. I think on the AAA side many, many games have become too streamlined and relatively devoid of critical thinking level complexity for the sake of a wide audience. A lot of Indie games (most) are straight trash. But a few in both categories still meet my expectations, which really haven't changed much. Matrix games has carried on the flame for the strategy side quite well since SSI and SSG disappeared. The audience today is different too; I think PC gamers in the 80s and 90s were a far different bunch than today. I think today, instant gratification is the numero uno carrot for games rather than the slow, challenging burn.

 

[Rafael Mestdag]

I remember spending a lot more time to figure out what to do in old games like Mafia 1 then I do in say, Mafia 3 or practically any modern game these days.

I miss that, and at the same time I have to admit that as games evolved with time and got easier to figure, they may have become more fun than those games back in the day which may have at times been way too difficult.

What is your take on this?

Depends on the game; if the difficulty was merely obtuse for the sake of being obtuse; then that's just annoying. Very few games today match the amount of fun I had with games like Rebellion, Dark Forces I and II, Doom I and II, Quake, Quake II, Steel Panthers, Age of Rifles, East Front, Aces of the Deep, etc. In fact I find myself returning often to these games as a lot of current titles seem to be lacking in soul when it comes to gameplay. I think on the AAA side many, many games have become too streamlined and relatively devoid of critical thinking level complexity for the sake of a wide audience. A lot of Indie games (most) are straight trash. But a few in both categories still meet my expectations, which really haven't changed much. Matrix games has carried on the flame for the strategy side quite well since SSI and SSG disappeared. The audience today is different too; I think PC gamers in the 80s and 90s were a far different bunch than today. I think today, instant gratification is the numero uno carrot for games rather than the slow, challenging burn.

Talking about old games still being better than most modern ones, we'll soon have to keep old PCs around in order to simply be able to run those old games. I can't see the old games we've mentioned here running on Windows 10 in a few years. Some of them already don't run anymore in Win10 and soon none of them will. It's a shame. But I guess people will find a way around it anyways.

Also, you're spot on about the gaming audience having changed and the gaming people of today definitely prefer to have a quick, easy fix every time they fire up any game these days. I for one, started playing pc games back in 1993 and never stopped, the games back then were quite different from games from the last 10 years or so. Being old school myself and despite the graphical and physical part having become a whole lot better, I guess modern games such as Mad Max(great graphics and physics!) simply don't float my boat the way those old games did anymore.

 

[loki1944]

I remember spending a lot more time to figure out what to do in old games like Mafia 1 then I do in say, Mafia 3 or practically any modern game these days.

I miss that, and at the same time I have to admit that as games evolved with time and got easier to figure, they may have become more fun than those games back in the day which may have at times been way too difficult.

What is your take on this?

Depends on the game; if the difficulty was merely obtuse for the sake of being obtuse; then that's just annoying. Very few games today match the amount of fun I had with games like Rebellion, Dark Forces I and II, Doom I and II, Quake, Quake II, Steel Panthers, Age of Rifles, East Front, Aces of the Deep, etc. In fact I find myself returning often to these games as a lot of current titles seem to be lacking in soul when it comes to gameplay. I think on the AAA side many, many games have become too streamlined and relatively devoid of critical thinking level complexity for the sake of a wide audience. A lot of Indie games (most) are straight trash. But a few in both categories still meet my expectations, which really haven't changed much. Matrix games has carried on the flame for the strategy side quite well since SSI and SSG disappeared. The audience today is different too; I think PC gamers in the 80s and 90s were a far different bunch than today. I think today, instant gratification is the numero uno carrot for games rather than the slow, challenging burn.

Talking about old games still being better than most modern ones, we'll soon have to keep old PCs around in order to simply be able to run those old games. I can't see the old games we've mentioned here running on Windows 10 in a few years. Some of them already don't run anymore in Win10 and soon none of them will. It's a shame. But I guess people will find a way around it anyways.

My main pc is Windows 7; I also have a Windows 98SE PC with a 6600GT for the mountain of games not on GoG. A few games I can get running on my W7 PC like Star Trek Bridge Commander and Steel Panthers, but most not so much without using dosbox. I feel like creativity peaked sometime since the mid-late 2000s as well in terms of innovative gameplay; I don't see anything that matches The Movies, for example. Or Myth I&II. Freelancer is unmatched to this day I would say, until Star Citizen is finished anyway. A lot of what is coming out today (if it isn't just shovelware/VR shovelware) has roots that make them feel repetitive as well; like the AC series; while they add things it still is similar to the original in its gameplay, or Call of Duty 1000 or whatever we are on, etc. That's another dimension to the problem, back in the day things were new and new ideas in gameplay were fairly frequent, but usually fairly great as well, since the target audience was a much narrower band; for pc gaming anyway. Really there just aren't that many amazing creative developers out there like Molyneux in his heyday and many of the companies who used to do well done games, like Bioware, have been swallowed up and are themselves in name only. What I wouldn't give for another Bullfrog or Lucasarts with the soul of the 90s combined with the technology of today.