NTSC-RePlay 003: Modern Better Than Old

[Neon Ignition]

Another delve into the archives of old sees us tackle one of the more common discussions had on gaming boards. Modern gaming is a minefield of various monetisation methods, online patches and even in some places paid content being removed from player access altogether. Beneath all of that though still lies the fundamental bedrock of gameplay, the core experience that determines whether a player even wants to engage with a game or not. This is the cornerstone of our third thread where...

This isn't NTSC-UK... it's NTSC-RePlay

18 March 2003 and chosen_one666 was highlighting how the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube offered much more highly powered consoles than prior generations bringing better quality visuals. Nearly twenty years later and three generations of hardware on that is an even wider gulf than it was then. But, at a gameplay level:

Is the gameplay in todays games as good or better than those of the 8 Bit, 16 Bit, 32 Bit, 64 Bit etc eras?
Or are those old classics better at their core and if so why and how?

[QualityChimp]

Loving these threads, btw.

I think this ties in a bit with the longevity discussion.

I remember rinsing Shadow Dancer MD or Double Dragon GB, learning all the weaknesses in the characters and map.
I ended up playing Shadow Dancer with no shurikens on, to really push myself.

However, I'd also say this was also because of a lack of games and as a kid, you'd rinse those games because you had to.

There are always going to be a selection of retro games that still hold up even today.

I don't know how to say it exactly, but I don't exclusively play retro games because I know I'll have greater depth, cinematics, length and involvement in a newer game, whereas I know retro will give me that quick gaming fix.

[chopemon]

Good broad question that I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on soon but something came to mind immediately.

Modern games are certainly easier to just start playing than games of a similar type of the 32bit era. For example, I know I can stick on a JRPG or Resident Evil style game and know that it has very frequent autosaves whereas a PlayStation JRPG or action game may have an hour or two between save points. It makes it harder for me to get started on one of those because my life style will often mean I need to stop playing a game after an hour or two and the unknown spacing between save points gives me anxiety.

I own a copy of Parasite Eve 2 but will probably emulate it when I get to it because in PE1, there were huge gaps between save points.

So in that regard, modern games have better gameplay around save systems.

Edit: something else just occured to me.

There is a higher proportion of modern AAA action games that play worse than older action games because they try to go for cinematic animation during gameplay. Examples include The Last of Us, Witcher 3 and GTA5 where when you stop giving the player character movement input, they carry on walking for a step while they complete their animation. I worked on another game that did this and it is a desire for things to look realistic and cinematic. Some game directors hate games that look gamey with snappy animations. Some modern games like MGS5, EDF and Bloodborne are very gamey and snappy but I think more older games were like this in general. It is a weird comparison to make but Rondo of Blood plays better than TLOU because the character isn't driven by a cinematic animation system. So in general in this regard I think older games play better.

[dataDave]

PlatinumGames don't usually subscribe to that bull****, either.

[wakka]

It's an interesting question. One thing I would say is that the average quality of games across the board has, I think, risen a lot. When I was a kid I bought and played a lot of games that were straight up bad. Even if they were attached to big brands - in fact, especially if they were. Instantly two Star Wars games spring to mind - Yoda Stories on Gameboy, and Episode 1 on PS1.

Those games were straight up pieces of ****. Badly made, badly designed, rushed out cash-ins. And I think putting aside for a moment the very interesting finer points of gameplay and design that Chopemon raises above, we just don't tend to get games that are unplayable like that these days. They'd be eviscerated in the gaming press and on social media and rightly so.

So while the relative merits of the gameplay of the very best games of then and the very best games of now makes for a very interesting debate, to me there is definitely a case to be made that speaking in the broadest terms, games are generally better quality nowadays.

[Tobal]

Quality overall has increased but that is pretty much down to mainstream engines like unreal, id tech etc,etc doing the heavy lifting by having all those pretty textures, effects and physics ready go, but all that has done is made the bad games at least average, and i'd rather go play anything in the 8-bit up to the 360/PS3 catalogue or PC's 95-2010 era of games over another 3rd person action game heavy with cinsmatics and walking'n'talking or another boring ubisoft openworld checklist-fest. I'm just waiting for the next leap where we have A.I. that reacts to what the player is doing, getting 4k textured reruns of the farcry or gears formula with added grapple hook isn't it.

I'm rolling my eyes at the hype for the next Horizon Zero borefest and instead reliving a old PC/360 era game called hydrophobia on gamepass, an average game (3rd person shooter meets the Disaster series with procedural water) with some control jank and terrible voice acting but there so much to like about atmosphere they set up.

[Brad]

There’s good and bad now just as there was back in the day. The only difference is that there’s more good stuff to be had these days e.g. VR, ray tracing, haptic feedback but also more ways to absolutely **** the game up, micro transactions, unfinished games, NFTs FFS.

[Neon Ignition]

At a core level they're definitely better now. It feels like when games are disliked it's more commonly the case that it's for stuff that relates to things outside of the base gameplay experience. Could be the GAAS elements, bloated structure etc but in older games it was more simply a case of a game being bad or good

[Brad]

Agreed. More ways to interfere with the game these days.

[cutmymilk]

I love these threads too. I sometimes delve into some old threads myself. Could you post a link to the original threads?

[Neon Ignition]

Will do in future, they're sometimes very light on posts in the originals though

[Tobal]

The biggest knock against modern games is the live service, console only MP and digital only games with it's DLC lost to time when a service closes. 5 Years from now will i be able to play (if i wanted to) the main games i play right now like genshin impact and apex legends, probably not.. certainly not in there current version (Genshin already lost an entire map of topical islands and puzzles), we already had this with a mainstream titles Destiny and the 2nd game turning off content.