Haven't read the thread in full but:
Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.
I don't think it's "categorical madness".
The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.
The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!
Yeah but coming from a guy that had to install/play Avowed to know of it was a good game or slop doesn't add a lot of weight to your posts in this thread.
You have to play it to have an informed opinion.
"The Seven Samurai fucking sucks because it's black and white". Childish.
This close and still can’t grasp the irony.
True, the real reason the Seven Samurai sucks is because of a lack of gunfights
Just watch the american version:
It missed all the points of the original.
Haven't read the thread in full but:
Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.
I don't think it's "categorical madness".
The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.
The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!
He was the one who made the comparison, that's why I brought it up.
Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?
The only argument you can make about Star Control versus Mass Effect is that it was more important and better when it came out. But now, that is a non-argument.
Games are interactive technology in its infancy. Design change, technology change. They couldn't do things in the past that they can do today. Things build on one another. It's more comparable to cars than books and paintings.
Design can change, of course, but change does not necessarily mean improvement, you get that right? Same thing with technology, do you think that just because a modern game can utilise more megabytes of RAM it is better than a game that ran on floppy disks?
And no, games are infinitely more comparable to an artform like film or music than a product.
The tools simply weren't there when Carmack made Catacombs, Doom was not possible. Quake was not possible. Technology opened up new avenues over time.
Again, so close and still not getting it. Do you think a modern UE5 slop is better than Doom or Quake just because it is more technologically advanced?
Old RPGs have random forced encounters. Early games were sticks that were shuffled across the screen to hit balls. The game design changed and developers learned from each other and made things better over time with new game designs as they got access to more tools.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you believe that progress was linear? That it continues to this day? Don’t you get that constraints birthed innovation, and with rapid innovation both in hardware and in software we got most of the masterpieces we have today, but that is by and large a thing of the past? When people say that old games were better it means exactly that, we got for example Thief or Deus Ex, but instead of "new game designs" being brought forth as developers "got access to more tools" we got slop instead. For a long time now, the game industry doesn't care and/or is incapable of making good games, easy profit - and in more recent years, pushing agendas - is the main driving force.
You seem to think that I am saying that no one can enjoy older games. You make things up. Of course you can enjoy older games, I do too, I discover old games all the time, but that doesn't mean you brush past anything that has become dated.
In reality there is a very small amount of things that can objectively be called inferior due to best practices/intuitiveness not yet been figured out. Again, which newer games do you think are more worthy of being included in a best of list like the Codex ones I linked previously instead of all these old games that this forum truly believes are better?
97% of people have shit taste, but you and the other 3% have great taste? by playing games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter?
- Yes, the RPGCodex regulars do have an immeasurably better taste than the masses, that’s one of the main outcomes of autists sperging about their niche hobby.
- Is "games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter" supposed to be a comment denigrating games by Sir-Tech, Origin, Interplay, Black Isle, SSI, Sierra, Westwood, NWC, LucasArts, MicroProse, Troika, Looking Glass? If so, you are posting in the wrong forum, faggot.
Change doesn't make it better, but in terms of games, more RAM back then would mean that more things become possible. Cars are also an art form. If games were comparable to music, you would have to envision a situation where the guitar started with one string, then it got two, then it got three. And as it got more strings, the possibility for the musician to craft more complex melodies arose.
UE5 and old hardware are different. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, technology changed so much that it gave game developers completely new avenues to create things. But it's not like that anymore, PS4 games are shockingly similar to PS5 games. But PS1 to PS2 was massive. And early PC upgrades and their iterations were gigantic.
I am not saying it was linear and that old stuff is automatically outdated, I am saying a lot of early games were made with game design and technology in its infancy. They made random encounters because they didn't know better, but after a few years, game design changed and we learned it was a poor way of doing it. It's like when Wolfenstein had mouse movement, and later games stopped doing that because it sucked. Early on, game design was very raw.
Let's face it, this is a forum of older guys who love their old games of their past. It's like talking to people who love darts and think the NFL is for uncultured swine. You guys know as much about games as a prostitute knows of class. Which is why I like this place, I love fucking idiots.
Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.
Mass Effect was shitty RPG that became shitty action game in the second installment and turned into shitty trilogy.
You playing all of them and loving them doesn't mean it is a good game.
It only means you have shitty taste.
Have you ever met Leviathan?
You are married to the past. Depth does not excuse poor gameplay. The reason why you put some of these games over newer ones is because you grew up with them.
It's like the opposite of zoomers who only play Madden and Fortnite, their concept of the past doesn't exist just as your concept of the current state of gaming doesn't exist. So you have to call people idiots to defend your view, just as the zoomers do.
No I'm not. I play modern games too and recognize the great ones there. It's just older ones often did it better.
A lot of these games I'd not even played before, so "you just grew up with them" is bollocks. I spoke to plenty of posters on here stating I was going to dig into the past libraries and play a lot for the first time. You're just doing that cope thing of having to make stuff up to find a way to fit your limited view.
Some examples of games which I played for the first time after 2017 which I now class as some of my favorites ever include...
- Hellfire
- DoDonPachi
- Alien Soldier (and I hated this at first. But, unlike you, I took people's advice and pushed through initial skill hurdles, rather than dismiss them in full without any real effort)
- Blackthorne
- Contra Hard Corps
- Langrisser 2
- Exile: Escape From The Pit
- Blades of Vengeance
...and there are plenty more too.
That doesn't mean I don't love modern games like Dark Souls series, Nioh, SMTV Vengence though. Unlike yourself and those games journos, I've a balanced appreciation of games, old & new.
I never said that playing older games today is bad or somehow wrong. I play older games as well. But we have biases towards the games we grow up playing. You seem to have developed tastes around older PC games, which is cool, but that means playing and discovering older games is fun for you. And that is perfectly fine, but you should be able to discern between what you like and what is good.
I fucking love Blast Corps on the N64, but it's not even within the top 1000 of all-time greats. It's not even top 30 on the N64. I know this because I don't let my bias take over my every opinion, like you do.
Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.
What are your top 3 new games from last year?
Like I said before, Star Control has almost endless 2-player replayability. It's up there with Chess, Tetris, Street Fighter 2 etc. The game's lasted me, my family and friends over 30 years worth of play. It's space-chess with action thrown in to boot. Mass Effect can't offer that, nowhere near. It's a play through once every 5-6 years game for one week a year.
By your logic Chess shouldn't be considered one of man's greatest entertainment inventions because it's old and Pokemon has flashier graphics.
Last year, Skald, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and then a toss up between Black Myth Wukong & Metaphor.
Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.
You can ask a Day Z kid and he will use the same exact argument as you, "I play it so much, so it's the best game ever, it has endless 2-player replayability".
"I play Sonic all day, it's the best game ever, everybody else has shit taste, everyone else is a fucking casual."
It's a nonsensical argument. It doesn't speak to the game. Your love for it is based on other factors than the game quality. The presentation, pacing, onboarding, and gameplay of Star Control are ancient and far behind the modern standard, and your bias looks past that. I do the same with many games as well, everyone does, but that doesn't mean you can't look at the game for what it is. It's like when people champion Sonic over Mario.
Chess doesn't have flashy visuals, it's a board game. And it has nothing in common with Star Control apart from that you can use strategy and that it has a solid ruleset. Tetris and Street Fighter function completely differently as well.
But it's not.
Star Control's gameplay is pure perfection. As I've already explained several times, it's space chess from a tactical angle. You have to find the right balance between ship types, credits, positioning, ship-combos, world types, and attack and defense strategies to succeed. It's simplified enough sure, but even still Mass Effect's got nothing like that, it's just a shooter with a few token RPG mechanics thrown in.
But then you've an actual shooter element in star Control anyway, which is better than Mass Effects anyway. Mass Effect's is run on a really simple rock-paper-scissors power system...whereas Star Controls rock-paper-scissor combat system is deeper, and contains more variables as each ship stacks up against the others in different ways, giving the tactical part of the game all types of possibilities and making the actual combat as much of a battle of wits as it is skill. It's fucking genius, the balance is supreme and makes for 2-player games that find a supreme synergy of planning, action, predictability and unpredictability.
You're just too casualized to see that, and think Mass Effects simplistic cover-shooter mechanics, which sees you have 60 odd hours of the same action but having to be drip-fed power increases to stay interested, as something special. It's only special if you are.
In fact, have you actually even played Star Control to anything more than a casual degree? I'm really beginning to think you're just standing your ground based on almost 0 experience of Star Control, and just casually looking at the graphics and probably some Youtube play. Your statements don't acknowledge any of the depth it has. Comparing it to Sonic is laughable.
Pure perfection? it's 2D sprites and menus. Do you even know what gameplay is?
Positioning? ship-combos? world types? I can describe any game like that. I can come up with 500 empty words like that to describe Superman 64 as well.
How anyone over 20 years old can sit on a forum and call bash everyone who doesn't play ping pong and 2D stick games as shit, and then say Flashback is better than God of War, is something I didn't think existed. It's almost impressive.
"It contains more variables as each ship stacks up against the others in different ways". Yes, because it's MS Paint doodles fighting each other on a black canvas. When things are that simple, you can add everything you want because you don't actually need to build a game around it. Funny, it took more time and effort to make the cover mechanic in Mass Effect than to make Star Control 2. And Mass Effect is not 60 hours.
All games with any sort of action have "planning, action, predictability, and unpredictability". You are just saying random words.
I played Star Control 2 several years ago, it's interesting as a historical piece, but ancient and crooked. Of course I am only on a "casual" level with it, but that doesn't mean anything. No game is designed to be enjoyed only by people who play a game for 30 years.
