Bad experiences trying old or nostalgic games?

[Silentstorm]

I think we all have those here, those old retro games we used to like or we hear a lot about, that we decide to replay or finally play and then end up being dissapointed and wondering why you either liked the game to begin with or why it's so loved, so why not ask people here to share their experiences regarding that?

As for me, i recently decided to try the ZX Spectrum, it's a computer i never grew up with, but it was really big in Britain, was influential to many people, had a lot of games, and i saw it being mentioned in quite a few videos, so i thought, why the hell not?

I had also remembered it being mentioned a lot in the Retro Gamer magazine which makes sense since it's a british mag, and two games they constantly mention are Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, it's the favorite games of some of the writers, Spectrum fans love those, there were people who made multiplayer versions of them and there are communities dedicated to modding those games or making ones like it to the ZX Spectrum, for those games to be mentioned so much, there must be something to them!

So, i tried them, they were the first ZX Spectrum games i tried, and then i quickly found myself thinking why the hell the games were so popular.

Oh, don't get me wrong, they are creative, it's just that i find them slow, a bit clunky and really not that much fun, particularly when there are many platformer games i would rather play made since then and i found other Spectrum games having aged better.

I don't know, maybe there is something off about me, but i just can't get into Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy at all, i really don't find them all that fun.

 

[Bester]

I tried Darklands and Dark Sun and couldn't even understand how to play them. I wanted to, but I couldn't. That was a disappointment.

 

[Raapys]

I've mostly had the opposite experience, finding lots of decent or great games through abandonware sites or forums that I either didn't know about or couldn't get a copy of back in the day. Ultima Underworld, Alien Legacy, Darklands, F1 Manager, Fragile Allegiance, Imperialism, Elite, MoO1, etc.

There's certainly some annoyances involved though, usually related to UI.

 

[Neanderthal]

Jet Set were frustrating but satisfying when you beat a screen.

 

[majorsoccer]

Rome Total War and Medieval 2 Total War

battles are slow,boring and always play the same way: Pikemans in the frontline,archers in the back and cavalary in the flanks.
Ai is bad
Campaign Map lacks of any depth
full of historical inaccuracies
Buggy

I rather play Paradox games than those shitty total war games again.

 

[octavius]

I had a Speccy myself as a kid, but I don't think I ever played Manic Miner and JSW.
My favourite games were strategy games like Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenger, and action adventure/exploration games like Tir Na Nog, Dun Darach and Fairlight.

The main problem with playing old Speccy games now is that the controls are very clunky when using an emulator.
So I've found that I now enjoy old games like Wizadry 1-5 and Might&Magic 1-2 much more than the old Speccy games I played as a kid, even though those Speccy games were among the more ones. I still like the nice, clean look of old Speccy games, with much more vibrant colours than the drab, washed out graphics of the C64. But the controls are just too clunky for most games for me to do any Speccy retro gaming nowadays.

The Speccy era has a big nostalgia factor for me, though. But it seems that unlike the legions of console kiddies the old Speccy gamers have mostly moved on, and those that haven't are the one who had Manic Miner and JSW as their favourites.

 

[Silentstorm]

Yeah, that seems to be the case, also, i did notice the commands were weird, call me a modern gamer, but i wasn't expecting to use OPMQA keys and such for platformers and such, that just feels weird.

The games were colorful though, and with good coders and artists, the graphics were more cartoony or distinguishable than anything the Commodore 64 could do for a long time, hell, the NES itself has many games that fail at that as well when compared to many Speccy games.

It is an important computer, just not my favorite system at all, it still had some cool stuff though, that's for sure, though i think a lot of games would benefit from a remake or a remaster at this point.

It was just that the Willy games were quite a bit hyped and i ended up thinking they weren't that great at all, and yeah, i can kinda see Speccy gamers going away, even with some communities here and there, a big homebrew community and Retro Gamer being quite heavily into it, i found myself just not playing the games all that much, i ended up getting a few Spectrum games and then being all like "You know what, i think i have some PC games i would rather play".

It's not that the Spectrum is completely bad, but a lot of games aren't that fast, or have awkward controls, or don't have music or sound effects that are all that great while not having aged that well.

 

[luj1]

Daggerfall

 

[smaug]

Haven’t figured out DOSBox control scheme yet. So, Pool of Radience is currently an ass to play with my select button being “1”.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Yeah, that seems to be the case, also, i did notice the commands were weird, call me a modern gamer, but i wasn't expecting to use OPMQA keys and such for platformers and such, that just feels weird.

The games were colorful though, and with good coders and artists, the graphics were more cartoony or distinguishable than anything the Commodore 64 could do for a long time, hell, the NES itself has many games that fail at that as well when compared to many Speccy games.

It is an important computer, just not my favorite system at all, it still had some cool stuff though, that's for sure, though i think a lot of games would benefit from a remake or a remaster at this point.

It was just that the Willy games were quite a bit hyped and i ended up thinking they weren't that great at all, and yeah, i can kinda see Speccy gamers going away, even with some communities here and there, a big homebrew community and Retro Gamer being quite heavily into it, i found myself just not playing the games all that much, i ended up getting a few Spectrum games and then being all like "You know what, i think i have some PC games i would rather play".

It's not that the Spectrum is completely bad, but a lot of games aren't that fast, or have awkward controls, or don't have music or sound effects that are all that great while not having aged that well.

What a coincidence, I just had a run-in with a couple of retro games that I played back in the day, but today are kinda naff.

The first one is the 2001 PC remake of Jet Set Willy II, which is the expanded version of Jet Set Willy with extra screens and a higher endgame objective. The PC version has more options, better graphics, lots of music and hidden extras like variants on some screens (one early screen is regular 'Macaroni Ted', but visit it later and you get 'Macaroni Ted (Ibiza Remix)' with funky techno music). But at the end of the day it has the same basic problems as Jet Set Willy has: It's a stupidly hard game that requires careful planning and knowledge of the game just to stand a chance at beating it. My last playthrough ended because I managed to enter a screen from the wrong angle and couldn't escape from it. Manic Miner is much more lenient in this regard, you only need to git gud at it to succeed.

The reason the Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy (II) games are so hyped in regards to the Spectrum is that they were trailblazers (even though Manic Miner is just a take on Manic 2049'er on the Atari 400/800) and showed people what the Spectrum was truly capable of. They're coding milestones, especially Manic Miner which was the first Spectrum game to feature in-game music. Matthew Smith was way ahead of his time.

The other game is Fury of the Furries/Pac-In-Time, a platformer where you need to guide your furball/Pac-Man market displacement to the exit of each level. I'll cover that in more detail in the "What game are you currently wasting time on?"-thread.

The point is, you kinda have to know what you're getting into when it comes to truly old retro games. If you're familiar with the platform from childhood experience it will be easier, but for people unfamiliar with the platform there will be pains.

To give you some insight, let me share with you what Spectrum games I've come across that I recommend to curious players, because of their above-average quality:

Pssst! - A game where you're trying to make a plant grow by giving it nutrients and keeping the bugs away. I mostly name it for being somewhat unique and being a Spectrum exclusive.
Mined-Out - A variant on the old Minesweeper game that comes with Windows. You must guide a droid through a minefield to grab some goodies and reach the exit. The controls are pants, but the gameplay is solid.
Splat! - Guide a spider through a constantly shifting maze defined by the screen edges. Surprisingly addictive, but perhaps the Amstrad CPC version is more to your liking.
Highway Encounter/Alien Highway - A pair of isometric games where you control a bot/group of bots that must successfully push a Device across 30 screens of obstacles and enemies to do its job. Again, the Amstrad CPC versions may be better for you.
Head Over Heels - One of the best isometric games of the 1980s. The Spectrum was the original platform for the game, but if you want the best version you'll want the Amstrad CPC version, which has better graphics and sound.
Deathchase - Based on the speederbike scene from "Return of the Jedi", this surprisingly fast game has you control a bounty hunter trying to catch his mark. Watch out for the trees! Spectrum version is the original, but the Amstrad CPC version has better controls.

Hope this helps.

 

[cosmicray]

Ultima VII. Please do go on with a dismemberment.
The city was good enough to experience, but that combat was too quick to understand what was going on. Maybe it was because of emulation like someone mentioned here. I simply gave up after a while.

I feel that games with turn-based combat are less prone to become dated.

 

[Lemming42]

Almost any JRPG. More fun when you're 13 and the shitty stories seem deep to you, so you're willing to sit there for 10 hours doing absolutely nothing gameplay-wise as anime boys talk about Justice and Love to each other.

Anyone over the legal drinking age who dares to play a JRPG should do so on an emulator with a 1000% speed skip feature. Then hold it down whenever you get bored - endless badly-translated horseshit dialogue, an area with the same three battles over and over again, walking in circles on the world map to grind etc. Fairly soon, you will find out you have finished the game, for you held down the skip feature for the entire thing.

Good call on Total War, too. I remember being wowed by the tech at the time - you can zoom ALL THE WAY IN AND SEE THE SOLDIER'S FACES - but now even the greats like Rome and Medieval 2 just make you wish you were playing some kind of Paradox game instead. Total War is a game where you click on the towns until your army flag looks better than other people's, then you right click on those people and either command a boring battle that drags on forever while your advisor yells "OUR MORALE IS FLAGGING" and "OUR MORALE IS SUPREME" within a second of each other, or you get bored and click the auto-resolve feature which results in a lone peasant obliterating your army of over 1500 knights. Bullshit either way.

 

[Falksi]

I played Buck Rogers: Countdown to doomsday the other week.

As I was sat at my desk enjoying it the missus came in, stood behind me & started kissing & caressing my neck. Next thing you know I can feel someone elses head massaging my groin too. We've had threesomes before, so I assumed she'd got me a "treat" and a whore is under the desk plying her trade. So I pull my cock out and, as the missus is kissing and caressing me, she starts lapping away under the desk licking my cock.

Of course, I look under the desk to get an eye-full and it's actually the dog. Worst gaming sesh ever.

Can't ever play the game quite the same way again now.

 

[iZerw]

Haven’t figured out DOSBox control scheme yet. So, Pool of Radience is currently an ass to play with my select button being “1”.

https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Mapper

When you start the mapper (either with CTRL-F1 or -startmapper as a commandline argument to the DOSBox executable) you are presented with a virtual keyboard and a virtual joystick. These virtual devices correspond to the keys and events DOSBox will report to the DOS applications. If you click on a button with your mouse, you can see in the lower left corner with which event it is associated (EVENT) and to what events it is currently bound.

 

[a Goat]

I tried Darklands and Dark Sun and couldn't even understand how to play them. I wanted to, but I couldn't. That was a disappointment.

Darklands control scheme in combat is prosperous.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Darklands has pretty bad controls. I don't see the problem with Dark Sun. It's almost as easy to play it as the Infinity Engine games.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Worst part, by far, are sequel hookups and cliffhangers.
And then you get Drakan that does have a sequel but with different story that does the same crap

Anyway - old games can give you the same bad experience like modern games
Terrible UI, awful graphics, cliffhangers, crap story, slog gameplay etc. you name it. Sometimes it baffles me that a lot of people shit on old games yet play modern garbage without realize this hypocrise

 

[Funposter]

Pokemon Gold and Silver are total pieces of shit. Crystal is slightly better, but not by much. Even the remakes didn't bother to unfuck the level curve and other aspects, so you need to delve into the world of ROMhacks if you want it to be bearable.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ultima VII. Please do go on with a dismemberment.
The city was good enough to experience, but that combat was too quick to understand what was going on. Maybe it was because of emulation like someone mentioned here. I simply gave up after a while.

The combat is by far the worst point of the game (though that depends on whether you factor in getting it to run properly or not) and people have known about that for 25+ years now. I've also heard people bitch about the font (a fair argument) and how much reading there's in the game, but overall it's a solid game that needs considerable time invested by the player.

To give an idea about the combat: You can't control your party members once Combat mode is turned on, they'll just charge ahead full speed and try to smite whatever enemies are within range. But IIRC you can control whether the Avatar does the same or only responds to player input. Instead of whining about it, play to the strengths of the system. Give your party members the best gear, and play the Avatar as a healer/spellcaster. If you don't want your team rushing ahead, give them ranged weapons instead.

Though to be honest there are very few battles where the player party is at a disadvantage. Taking all of Ultima 7 into account there are perhaps 6-7 battles in total where you're in any danger of dying.

I've heard of people giving up on Ultima 7 because it was just too damn big. That's a different argument entirely.

I feel that games with turn-based combat are less prone to become dated.

This is somewhat true. Turn-based combat can't advance past a certain point, but on the other hand it's very hard for turn-based combat to regress to something truly terrible, like real-time combat often does with amazing ease. One can always rely on turn-based combat to get the job done, at least.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've also heard people bitch about the font (a fair argument) and how much reading there's in the game

Don't forget the perspective. That complaint is the most baffling to me.

 

[Silentstorm]

Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja, i remember playing this game when i was younger and liking it, i remember putting Mame like a decade ago and putting this game in it, recently replaying it though, i wonder why the hell i liked this game?

Aside from some meme lines, it's just a slow and boring platformer/beat'em up that is nowhere near as fun as i remember sadly.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

But on a related topic, I checked out a YouTube channel called Retro Core where a bloke takes an arcade game and compares it to the various home computer and console versions in a video series called "Battle of the Ports". I welcomed learning about this channel as I've been looking for a "all-in-one" spot that I could turn to for quick access to game versions depending upon their platform.

He's been at this for five years now and released 270+ videos, so I figured he would know what he's on about.

No. Oh no. That is not the case.

The first problem is the inherent bias in what he's doing: Comparing arcade games from around 1985-1992 to their respective home releases. As computers and consoles at the time could rarely have equal hardware to an arcade machine, this will always lead to the conversions being found inferior, and that should be kept in mind when rating them... but not here. Occasionally he covers a non-arcade game, but it's always a game from this time period so the hardware difference is always a factor, so the constant sneering, condescending attitude is prevalent in seemingly every single video.

The second problem is his own personal bias: Apparently he's a consolefag through and through and looks down upon every single home computer platform that ever existed. The biggest gripe he has with them? One-button joysticks. Granted, that can lead to problems with some conversions, but it's uncanny how he ignores the clever workarounds the home computer ports found to overcome that problem, and dodges any criticism aimed at him for it, blaming "home computer fanboys getting upset". I laughed out loud when he slammed the Chase H.Q. home computer versions because the controls were different to the arcade/console versions, particularly that the Turbo-button was always assigned to the Space Bar, which he then claimed he couldn't use because it was too far away from him when he was playing those versions.



Idiot doesn't know how to use a home computer, film at 11. Everyone who used a home computer in the late 80s/early 90s played with the keyboard within reach, because all the neat extra options (like accessing menus, loading and saving and such) were used via the keyboard anyway. And for him to play the games using only the keyboard was seemingly out of the question as well, it was joystick or GTFO.

Then there's the spelling... let's just say I've yet to come across a video of his where the spelling is 100% correct. We're talking basic stuff like pallett instead of pallette, it's instead of its and were instead of where.

In my neck of the woods, willful ignorance combined with severe internal bias, as well as a visible lack of basic knowledge (like spelling) culminates in a right twat that should never be in the business of making comparisons of anything. The videos serve a basic utilitarian function as footage of each of the versions is presented in a single video, but any input from the creator (be it spoken language or written text) found in those videos should be taken with a large pile of salt.

 

[Silentstorm]

Oh hell yeah, the videos are more for looking at the different ports and listen to the audio than his opinions, sadly, there isn't any other series like it that covered as many games or ports, at least, not that i can find.

And the keyboard complaint is odd, then again, i remember for years and years playing every game on the keyboard as a guy who never owned a console, in fact, my first controller ever was a Xbox One controller and that was mostly because i do enjoy some 2D games, twin-stick shooters and others that everyone said were much more playable in controllers than keyboards and...i still find myself playing quite a few times without said controller, not even the Dualshock 4 controller that was given to me, at most i only use them for twin-stick shooters or games that were horribly optimized for keyboard controls and don't let me change the keys.

Otherwise?

Well, pretty sure i played Micro Mages, a NES Homebrew game that also has a PC version(and a documentary where they talk about the game being in a really short size and how they fit everything in), entirely on keyboard and didn't really miss the controller, controllers are okay for some games, but a lot of the time, even when it comes to things like platformers, they are perfectly good and i don't understand people who hate playing with one, i don't know, maybe it's a side effect of being a PC gamer all my life and only using keyboard and mouse for a long time aside from some arcade games i played when i was younger?

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Ah a subject I can get into as retro gaming has been a lot on my mind lately and coincidentally the ZX Spectrum in particular. Well I do also play some C64 games and old console games next to it.

As for being disappointing of playing old games other people praise so much for being a classic on the platform or coming back to old games that you used to enjoy when you were younger only to realize that they aren't as good as you remember them to be. Well I have my own share of stories.

Most recent one is probably the classic Sonic the Hedgehog games. A while back when Sega had finally removed Dunevo from Sonic Mania I bought it and its Encore expansion as back in the 90s I was a major fan of the original games on the Sega 16 bit (IMO this series did not so "gracefully" transition to next generation of consoles when it went all 3D and became more story driven. It may be for kids but that doesn't excuse some of the gameplay or the terrible storylines)

This was an okay experience but it did give me the feeling that I wanted to play it all over again once I had finished it to explore the maps more fully.
So instead I decided to play Sonic 1, Sonic CD (remake on Steam and original), and one of the fan modified Sonic 3 and Knuckles games to see if I could revive my interest.

Well one definitely has not aged that well. I don't mind that most of the levels are more exploration focused than speed but it is just boring.
Sonic CD was never my favorite. When Mega CD came out I really wanted one to play Sonic CD (it must be so much better than the regular 16 bit games) but my parents refused to get me one. When I eventually played it on the PC I realized I had not missed out on much as I disliked a lot of the level design.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles, well it is still the same game as the one I played years ago so that is not the problem but I realized at this point what the main issue was; I have outgrown these games. Furthermore I don't have the patience any more to hone my skills to get the most out of them.
And for what? Sure I love exploring maps for secrets but now it kind of feels like I seek to kill time.
They will always remain classics for me and I prefer the 2D ones over any of the 3D titles but I am kind of beyond that part of my life.

Sorry for the long story, I wish I could have somewhat summarized it in a few sentences.


Regarding the ZX Spectrum.
I did not own one myself but my brother had one and I played such games as Jetpac (still worth a try or two, by the same people of Pssts!), a game with a diver which name escapes me, and other pirates ones.

Last year I started to look into emulators for old home computers such as the ZX Spectrum as I have been following the retro gaming scene on what new titles have been developed in the last ten/fifteen years.

I have been playing some of the newer games that seem interesting to me such as Rocky Memphis and the Legend of Atlantis and Steel Ranger for C64 and on the ZX Spectrum I have been playing Aliens Neoplasma (think Alien 3 on the Sega 16-bit scaled down somewhat), Dead Zone (combination of Operation Wolf and Space Invaders), and Survivisection (a sort of mouse controlled Chaos Engine)
I have been playing these games on the Spectaculator Emulator which I recommend for people who want to try out ZX Spectrum games but have no knowledge on how to use it.

Regarding Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, I played both on the MSX2 and even then I did not like them. I wasn't that good a gamer back then but I just found them boring and repetitive. These are games you really would have to have grown up with in order to still like them today.

A couple of fellow gamers with who I have talked about this subject were glad that games like Impossible Mission and the Nintendo and Sega consoles with Japanese made games came out (sadly the MSX2 barely got translated Japanese games which were much better than the Spectrum ports) because the gaming scene was almost overrun with Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy clones.

Personally if you want to check out older games for retro platforms I suggest in general to avoid the arcade ports and most of the simple arcade gameplay style games because these have often aged the worst. The more complex action- adventure and simulation types probably hold up a lot better.

I just stick to the newly made games for the C64 and ZX Spectrum when I am in the mood to play these.

 

[Silentstorm]

The thing is, i don't mind simple arcade games, they can be fun and addictive, it's just that, well, yeah, not all of them aged well or have been surpassed since, it's hard to remember to play some classic arcade games like Asteroids or Pac-Man when you have games like Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ available.

I do still like some like Bomb Jack, but others like Mr.Do are pretty meh nowadays, doesn't help that i can just, you know, put some more recent ones that are much faster paced or have more content while still being simple, i sure know that playing Centipede or Galaga nowadays doesn't make me play them for hours, yet something like Heiankyo Alien on Steam:

Is a game that is pretty much a maze game that looks simple yet i have put something like 14 hours of playtime on it and i don't mind playing again.

The problem with old score chasing games is that they were either too simple, not fast enough or just don't engage one as much as they used to, making it a lot easier to just focus on more modern examples like Heiankyo Alien above, or Geometry Wars or Hot Pink, granted, much like old score chasing games, a lot of modern examples are pretty forgettable after 5 minutes or aren't that good, guess some things never change.

By the way, i absolutely recommend Heiankyo Alien if one didn't notice, a lot better than it looks on screenshots, let's just say this game is so good that japanese players fell in love with it and it got so popular in Japan that it has had more than one arcade cabinet made of this game, it may not have been all that popular on the West, but hey, it's a game good enough to be turned into an actual arcade game, that has to count for something, right?