Historical Revisionism in Video Game and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[PrK]

What makes cRPGs unique is, in my opinion, how overwhelmingly ugly and pointless they are. Without the alleged complexity of their dicenigger combat systems where is the justification in the work? Is there an aesthetically justified crpg? I played Fallout and like a lot that it has going on, but disagree with pretty much every serious point of praise in gamer culture on where its merit lies. It's the old CG imagery and concept art, and the kind of weird dusty 90s sci-fi aesthetics. Lumpy, ugly, retarded, sounding like a ripoff of certain aphex twin ambient works, the broad concepts which you can imbibe pretty much fine through the wiki or fallout bible as well as is presented in-game. I kind of like old Fallout in the same way I like Warhammer. I'm a secondary. It's a work justified by its secondary elements. I don't give a shit about the clicking, dice, builds, inventories, etc. The fact they're there and realised in some particular detail gives a nice weight and justification to elements of the world, an odd obtuse logic to be engaged with which compliments the mysterious eerie rust and dust over evil weird science premise.

I'll play Fallout because it feels like a roughly appropriate way to engage with and take in all of that. But all my life the dice, menus, inventories, all of that to engage with swords and elves buttfantasy genreshit struck me as terribly incongruous and weird. On top of the inherent unpleasantness of the aesthetic premises.

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

 

[Inec0rn]

didn't even read that part of the post, but yeah felt his posts said all that needed saying.

 

[Nutmeg]

Especially if you want the same gameplay in PAL territories, music having correct tempo or intelligent computer opponents.

But older games were indeed usually frame by frame (without a delta time param in their main loop) and music was adjusted by hand for PAL. They ran slower on PAL, unless the programmers localized the per frame speeds of objects etc.

 

[Nutmeg]

What makes cRPGs unique is, in my opinion, how overwhelmingly ugly and pointless they are. Without the alleged complexity of their dicenigger combat systems where is the justification in the work? Is there an aesthetically justified crpg? I played Fallout and like a lot that it has going on, but disagree with pretty much every serious point of praise in gamer culture on where its merit lies. It's the old CG imagery and concept art, and the kind of weird dusty 90s sci-fi aesthetics. Lumpy, ugly, retarded, sounding like a ripoff of certain aphex twin ambient works, the broad concepts which you can imbibe pretty much fine through the wiki or fallout bible as well as is presented in-game. I kind of like old Fallout in the same way I like Warhammer. I'm a secondary. It's a work justified by its secondary elements. I don't give a shit about the clicking, dice, builds, inventories, etc. The fact they're there and realised in some particular detail gives a nice weight and justification to elements of the world, an odd obtuse logic to be engaged with which compliments the mysterious eerie rust and dust over evil weird science premise.

I'll play Fallout because it feels like a roughly appropriate way to engage with and take in all of that. But all my life the dice, menus, inventories, all of that to engage with swords and elves buttfantasy genreshit struck me as terribly incongruous and weird. On top of the inherent unpleasantness of the aesthetic premises.

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

His point on naturalistic "black box" interaction is perfectly valid, but like anything else choosing to or not to do so is a design decision to meet some intended effect or other, there's nothing universal about it.

 

[GamerCat_]

The Legend of Zelda, it was successful as a collection and sequence of naturalistic problems, obstacles, and solutions

Shooting an arrow in the direction of a heavenly body millions of kilometers away to have it transform into a fire arrow is hardly naturalistic

It's not realistic, but the logic of it is very unconventional and out of left field. Something which demands novel organic consideration of everything around you. You aren't doing a stock video game action, you have to take this world seriously and try things within it. This kind of consideration is what I would call naturalistic. You don't progress by thinking "which video game input goes here". You get an original situation and the world all around you and your big set of potential inputs which aren't bound to context, you can try sending an arrow towards anything in the entire game world, along with all the other things you're carrying and every other possible action and interaction.

The Legend of Zelda felt very cerebral to me when I was young, and still kind of does. Adventure game problems solved with organic inputs (or approximations before botw, fire is not an inherent property before then, for example) rather than game challenges. Lots of things could be called more or less naturalistic in this vein, which doesn't bother me because I'm not the type of person to claim that exclusive branding of some term I just made up makes my favourite thing better than yours. Lots of games have naturalistic elements. Botw advanced them brilliantly in a series already known for reaching for them.

Thief has been brought up to me before as an example of a game which also runs on naturalistic logic. But it was probably one of you people because this guy was a stiff-minded autist who said that because things could catch fire in Thief breath of the wild doesn't matter, or something like that. He didn't impress me. But he was right to point out that botw does things western games do, or at least used to aspire to. One of my favourite games, UFO: Enemy Unknown, is also a great example. You can just try stuff and it will work. Maybe not well, but thoroughly modeled properties of world elements create very robust potential outcomes for original inputs.

Original inputs might be how I would frame this. Even if there's one right answer (like the arrow into the sun), in context it's a very original and interesting problem made rich by how much you could be doing and how freely the game encourages you to think to the point something like that seems worth trying.

Not even getting into the greater aesthetic elements of The Legend of Zelda, it was successful as a collection and sequence of naturalistic problems, obstacles, and solutions. Rather than feeling like any particular rigid form, a "shooter" where you keep clicking heads, "tactics" where it's always time to form up and take our turns, the way you engage with Zelda was super-open

These are no immersive sims

How about you tell me what that is before you tell me what it isn't.

and most solutions that would work in reality do nothing here outside of the single one chosen by the devs, at least for the pre-Breath of the Wild games.

YES THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING, THAT'S WHY botw WAS AMAZING. THEY FINALLY MADE IT ALL ROBUST ENOUGH TO NOT NEED THE CONTRIVED "PUZZLE" SCENARIOS. THE WHOLE WORLD IS NOW A PUZZLE. AND PEOPLE WITH RETARDED GAMERBRAIN SAID THE GAME NEEDS 'DUNGEONS' BECAUSE THEY ARE RETARDED NIGGERS. THE WHOLE GAME IS NOW A DUNGEON. A GIANT REACTIVE OPEN ENDED THING YOU CAN WORK AT AND OVERCOME.

And before that, the contrivances and conventions that emerged from those were still neat. Lighting torches by sending arrows through a flame into the waiting unlit torch, switches opening doors. This was all neat. And probably a more reactive even if stage-managed "reactive" experience than most "immersive sims". Deus Ex is cool because it's about how the Jews did 9/11. Not because I can exercise my 180IQ gamerbrain to look for the vent near the locked door.

If navigating the over-world presents any issues, it means you're not stocking up non-sliding and stamina potions properly.

And the overworld mostly isn't an issue, which I really like. I love walking in video games. And as for the tougher parts where it can be, I like the ways you can prepare. Clothes, food, potions, super well integrated into all the other stuff in the game. The Witcher 3 tried to make gearing up and preparing a big thing, sharpen your sword and collect buffs before a boss fight, but it's all awkward and tedious and fiddly. BotW made preparation such an organic, fun, well integrated aspect of the game. Collect things as you're walking, encouraging you to either seek specific biomes and resources or just pay attention to the world and move slower as you go through it, and regularly stop off to cook and brew things, very aesthetically wild or outdoors. Just awesome. It doesn't have to be hard. I just like how everything you can do rolls together so well.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I love walking in video games.

 

[Ash]

While I was trolling Nutmeg and making him go crazy with being an ignorant turd, I thought a bit more about the title of the thread "Historical Revisionism in Video Game and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race."

Historical revisionism of video games isn't really a disaster for the human race, because its such an ephemeral hobby with almost no bigger

I thought it was just supposed to be a cheeky title based on the Unabomber quote.

And yeah, there's a short-term memory problem but there's is still also a revisionism problem that is based on the opposite: people suddenly having a long memory when it comes time to make statements about what was going on over 35 years ago. The example I often use are the Zelda 2 memes. "It's a black sheep!", "it wasn't well received/popular". I'm old, I read all the magazines at the time, saw the monthly sales charts, watched all 2 video game shows that were around, talked games with a lot of people in and out of school. Hardly anyone or anywhere had a bad thing to say about the game. Maybe they didn't like it as much as the first one, which was understandable. In all the other regards it was a hit.

How about the famous " turn-based was only because of technical limitations" meme, which is mind boggingly dumb if you know anything about video game history. Weren't some of the earliest games, if not THE first one, running in real time? We had action-rpgs on console and real-time dungeon crawlers on computer at least as far back as the 80s.. OMGezus everything has been archaic(tm) and outdated(tm) this whole time!

Oh but I found my new favorite meme not more than 2 weeks ago. Guess what guys? The Ultima series was not influential and had no real impact and no one cared about it at the time. Updated my journal.

And none of that has anything to do with console war shit, as someone else claimed. It's revising history by claiming things were a certain way that weren't

Gaming history is under attack by:

a) newfags that simply lack any exposure whatsoever. Didn't actually play the OGs but read about them or watch brief footage and jump to conclusions. Not so much their fault when gaming history is not really celebrated and revered, nor even understood like it deserves to be, and the modern shite couldn't be any further removed from them.
b) oldfags that never were true gamers. Played on a limited set of platforms or genres, simply did not gain enough XP. And then they go on forums and talk nonsense.
c) Storyfaggots, dummies, casuals and other oddballs that simply don't get classic superior game design. To them, classic gameplay was "frustrating, confusing, needlessly complex" and they welcome the mass-dumbing down of games. In fact they need it for games to be considered art in their eyes, in the most backwards-ass retarded comprehension of the medium possible. Rarely was it ever the case that old games were anti-player, mostly only valid for specific examples like the user interface of SOME classic PC games, didn't effect console games at all (for the most part) or maybe very specific instances of game like Hexen or Castlevania Simon's Quest being a bit obtuse, which...they're not even great games anyway, shouldn't really be a talking point. A lot of 80s games were overly brutal but by the 90s a happy medium was achieved. Most of the time these people simply don't get it. The greater gameplay vision is merely in the way of them blasting some fools or experiencing story/atmosphere/interactive art. Just yesterday an online buddy of mine called Shadow Warrior (1997) level design "complicated for no reason, like most game's level design was back then". What in the actual fuck.

Both game devs and journalists also often fall under a, b or c, perpetuating the cycle of decline further.

A and B are somewhat forgivable and understandable. C however are like cockroaches infesting this glorious medium, and contributed greatly to its downfall. At least half of all gamers on discussion boards are C, likely more, and that includes half of this forum. Somehow they're too dumb to realise REAL gameplay ties into and enhances all other elements (story/atmosphere etc) and is also the core of 90% of all games (well, used to be). For that remaining 10% (walking sims, fake storyfag RPGs etc), those shouldn't even be considered games, but interactive experiences.

 

[Beastro]

What makes cRPGs unique is, in my opinion, how overwhelmingly ugly and pointless they are. Without the alleged complexity of their dicenigger combat systems where is the justification in the work? Is there an aesthetically justified crpg? I played Fallout and like a lot that it has going on, but disagree with pretty much every serious point of praise in gamer culture on where its merit lies. It's the old CG imagery and concept art, and the kind of weird dusty 90s sci-fi aesthetics. Lumpy, ugly, retarded, sounding like a ripoff of certain aphex twin ambient works, the broad concepts which you can imbibe pretty much fine through the wiki or fallout bible as well as is presented in-game. I kind of like old Fallout in the same way I like Warhammer. I'm a secondary. It's a work justified by its secondary elements. I don't give a shit about the clicking, dice, builds, inventories, etc. The fact they're there and realised in some particular detail gives a nice weight and justification to elements of the world, an odd obtuse logic to be engaged with which compliments the mysterious eerie rust and dust over evil weird science premise.

I'll play Fallout because it feels like a roughly appropriate way to engage with and take in all of that. But all my life the dice, menus, inventories, all of that to engage with swords and elves buttfantasy genreshit struck me as terribly incongruous and weird. On top of the inherent unpleasantness of the aesthetic premises.

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

Why would we do that?

This guy's hilarious. We make 30 second posts and he spends hours replying to them.

 

[Azdul]

Especially if you want the same gameplay in PAL territories, music having correct tempo or intelligent computer opponents.

But older games were indeed usually frame by frame (without a delta time param in their main loop) and music was adjusted by hand for PAL. They ran slower on PAL, unless the programmers localized the per frame speeds of objects etc.

And they've wasted ~ 3.3 ms of additional time they had per frame in PAL.

Sure, one giant loop was a good design for hardware from 1977:

but it was outdated already in 1979.

 

[Ash]

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

Gamercat is 100% category C. It's really interesting (and sad) that the mind here has zero appreciation for strategy, power-accrual, risk vs reward, discovery, player expression, conquest, experimentation, adrenaline, feats of skill, tense survival and other such concepts granted by proper gameplay, and how this all enhances secondary elements of a game (story, atmosphere, overall investment etc). Not that Fallout is the best example of all this at all but they've said similar things for other genres too. I strongly suspect this is the mind of a woman, they/them feminine man, or otherwise just a blind person? Whatever the case, cockroach infesting the medium.

 

[Modron]

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

Infinitron is grooming him.

Edit: To what end I don't know, maybe another weaponized lolcow like atlet.

 

[Mountain]

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

I'd say the criteria it's fair to judge the game on is the plot, which is obviously the focus above all else in Mass Effect games. ME3 has been criticised to hell and back since it came out, but ME2 offers a similarly bizarre story that's totally disjointed from the games preceding and succeeding it, and which is pretty awful on its own terms. You've probably already seen it but there's a very, very long retrospective on the whole series written by a guy called Shamus Young and even if you don't agree with everything he says (I definitely don't, and he overrates ME1 to an absurd degree IMO), the way he takes ME2 to task is pretty spot-on. You can read it here if you feel like spending hours on it: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28582

You can also judge the games on their reactivity, which was a selling point and even shows up on loading screens in ME2 ("be careful what you do, your choices will have big consequences in ME3!!!"). There's a discussion to be had there, but I don't think it's incorrect to say that your choices overwhelmingly do not actually matter in these games - there's a few very impressive bits of reactivity that stretch across all three games (the genophage cure mission in ME3 relies on things that you did in ME1, for example) but by and large the game straight up doesn't give a shit what you do, to the point where it'll do audacious stuff like give you an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Mordin stand-in for Mordin if he himself was killed.

Additionally I'd question the idea that ME2 fixed the gameplay; it plays more smoothly than ME1 but it's still a very simplistic cover shooter which loses all steam during the tutorial and just keeps getting more and more laboured from there as every mission turns into the same exact cover shooting hell. You could obviously argue that this was a deliberate move on BioWare's part because their aim was to make a blockbuster action game in which Shepard shoots a lot of people and is shot at by a lot of people, but then that opens the door to what I'd consider to be very reasonable criticisms about the incredibly low ambition that characterises the entire trilogy.

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.

I agree the comparison doesn't hold up as the games don't share much in common, but if the games were to be compared, I don't think Star Control being "good for its time" is the "only argument" you can make for it. It's got a range of systems that Mass Effect lacks, offers a far more non-linear experience, and arguably has a better grasp on what it wants to be in terms of writing and tone. Again, the comparison is apples to oranges so it doesn't really work but I'm not sure why you cosnider it to be so unreasonable for someone to play both games and come away thinking that SC2 was more impressive than ME. SC2 hasn't even really aged badly; it's still very accessible to play in a way that other games of the era aren't, and Mass Effect's accessibility comes as a result of being incredibly simplistic and straightforward, which a lot of people won't like.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work. Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing and a really cool take on the Fermi Paradox, which is enough to make an engaging story. Star Control 2 is just exposition, It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Third-person combat is anything but simple.

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Star Control 2 is a horrible-looking 2D systems-based game with barely any gameplay. It's absolutely not accessible, and apart from a few genius systems and rules, it's as simple of a game as you can get from the 90s.

Mass Effect has 400 gameplay mechanics that Star Control 2 lacks.

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.

This is pure deflection from you simply to show you haven't played the game enough to analyze is properly.

I knew you were setting up an escape argument. "You have to watch Solaris 300 times to get it". "You have to listen to a song 200 times to begin to like it". Nothing works like this, and certainly not video games.

Funnily, I probably played Star Control 2 more than 99% of the people on this board.

To be concrete, Star Control 2 doesn't have onboarding. It was made when player guidance was in its infancy. If the developers had the chance today, they would never make the same game.

As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those old games became hard to play.

It's the same thing with Star Control 2, the gameplay, the UI, the story, it's all based on a time when those things just started to come about.

Do you know why Mario Bros was so big for game design?

 

[Falksi]

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

I'd say the criteria it's fair to judge the game on is the plot, which is obviously the focus above all else in Mass Effect games. ME3 has been criticised to hell and back since it came out, but ME2 offers a similarly bizarre story that's totally disjointed from the games preceding and succeeding it, and which is pretty awful on its own terms. You've probably already seen it but there's a very, very long retrospective on the whole series written by a guy called Shamus Young and even if you don't agree with everything he says (I definitely don't, and he overrates ME1 to an absurd degree IMO), the way he takes ME2 to task is pretty spot-on. You can read it here if you feel like spending hours on it: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28582

You can also judge the games on their reactivity, which was a selling point and even shows up on loading screens in ME2 ("be careful what you do, your choices will have big consequences in ME3!!!"). There's a discussion to be had there, but I don't think it's incorrect to say that your choices overwhelmingly do not actually matter in these games - there's a few very impressive bits of reactivity that stretch across all three games (the genophage cure mission in ME3 relies on things that you did in ME1, for example) but by and large the game straight up doesn't give a shit what you do, to the point where it'll do audacious stuff like give you an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Mordin stand-in for Mordin if he himself was killed.

Additionally I'd question the idea that ME2 fixed the gameplay; it plays more smoothly than ME1 but it's still a very simplistic cover shooter which loses all steam during the tutorial and just keeps getting more and more laboured from there as every mission turns into the same exact cover shooting hell. You could obviously argue that this was a deliberate move on BioWare's part because their aim was to make a blockbuster action game in which Shepard shoots a lot of people and is shot at by a lot of people, but then that opens the door to what I'd consider to be very reasonable criticisms about the incredibly low ambition that characterises the entire trilogy.

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.

I agree the comparison doesn't hold up as the games don't share much in common, but if the games were to be compared, I don't think Star Control being "good for its time" is the "only argument" you can make for it. It's got a range of systems that Mass Effect lacks, offers a far more non-linear experience, and arguably has a better grasp on what it wants to be in terms of writing and tone. Again, the comparison is apples to oranges so it doesn't really work but I'm not sure why you cosnider it to be so unreasonable for someone to play both games and come away thinking that SC2 was more impressive than ME. SC2 hasn't even really aged badly; it's still very accessible to play in a way that other games of the era aren't, and Mass Effect's accessibility comes as a result of being incredibly simplistic and straightforward, which a lot of people won't like.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work. Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing and a really cool take on the Fermi Paradox, which is enough to make an engaging story. Star Control 2 is just exposition, It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Third-person combat is anything but simple.

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Star Control 2 is a horrible-looking 2D systems-based game with barely any gameplay. It's absolutely not accessible, and apart from a few genius systems and rules, it's as simple of a game as you can get from the 90s.

Mass Effect has 400 gameplay mechanics that Star Control 2 lacks.

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.

This is pure deflection from you simply to show you haven't played the game enough to analyze is properly.

I knew you were setting up an escape argument. "You have to watch Solaris 300 times to get it". "You have to listen to a song 200 times to begin to like it". Nothing works like this, and certainly not video games.

Funnily, I probably played Star Control 2 more than 99% of the people on this board.

To be concrete, Star Control 2 doesn't have onboarding. It was made when player guidance was in its infancy. If the developers had the chance today, they would never make the same game.

As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those games started to fall apart.

It's the same thing with Star Control 2, the gameplay, the UI, the story, it's all based on a time when those things were just started to come about.

Do you know why Mario Bros was so big for game design?

See, you're not even talking about Star Control, this is pure proof that you don't grasp things.

I've literally just spent several posts talking about the tactical battles of Star Control (planet capturing, positioning etc.) you've totally missed that but are also saying you that don't need to play it any more to recognize it lol. You literally haven't even recognized the game lol

Sorry chap, it's clear that I can keep explaining things to you, but I can't understand them for you.

 

[PrK]

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work.
...
As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those old games became hard to play.

Again! Are you trolling? Can you please explain in simple terms in what ways Mass Effect is better designed than Fallout or Arcanum? Why do you think it has better encounter design than Pool of Radiance?

It was made when player guidance was in its infancy.

It is called RTFM, maybe you should try it.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Did you just claim that c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon count? Putting aside the colossal absurdity of that statement, have you even heard of Alpha fucking Protocol?

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Just answer this please. In your own words, what is modern game design?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Two gigantic retards are too much for this thread

Hencefore, gaymercat and mountain shall fight for the right to remain the sole retard ITT, the other gets banished

 

[GamerCat_]

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

Gamercat is 100% category C. It's really interesting (and sad) that the mind here has zero appreciation for strategy, power-accrual, risk vs reward, discovery, player expression, conquest, experimentation, adrenaline, feats of skill, tense survival and other such concepts granted by proper gameplay, and how this all enhances secondary elements of a game (story, atmosphere, overall investment etc). Not that Fallout is the best example of all this at all but they've said similar things for other genres too. I strongly suspect this is the mind of a woman, they/them feminine man, or otherwise just a blind person? Whatever the case, cockroach infesting the medium.

You can still see what my favourite games are. I put the bag on the table, unlike the rest of you. Each one down with my own personal case for liking it rather than appeal to baseless group meme-speak. I believe the third listed game I put down was UFO. Which I would consider a leading example of all of the elements you listed as constituting "proper gameplay". If I can appreciate UFO so deeply these things probably aren't lost on me. You could go further and look up things I've said about it, or even things I'm saying in this thread about other games and see how I think, and recognise that "gameplay" is not lost on me. Far from it, I recognise "played" elements in games that other people don't and sometimes defend games on their "gameplay" in novel ways lost on others.

And to suggest I don't appreciate interplay between "gameplay" and other elements of video games, I'm attempting to do that for Fallout right now, and have probably taken that further in one short meandering post than this place has in its entire history. Let me sum up 20 years of 'dex insight in one sentence. "The hardcore crunchy mechanics (like a very full juicy dripping burger) add to the realism, which is hardcore. Corposloppas would never I understand. I am from the second world. I learned English from transsexuals, bald guys in triforce t-shirts, and mexicans."

How can I be an infestation if there's only one of me, and I'm so utterly recognisable. You all know me by now. But I don't know who the hell you are. You just blur into the general miasma of the 'dex in my mind. You are the swarm. You are the hive. I am an individual. A sigma male in the tradition of topdrunkee. An artfag.

Gaming history is under attack by:

a) newfags that simply lack any exposure whatsoever. Didn't actually play the OGs but read about them or watch brief footage and jump to conclusions. Not so much their fault when gaming history is not really celebrated and revered, nor even understood like it deserves to be, and the modern shite couldn't be any further removed from them.
b) oldfags that never were true gamers. Played on a limited set of platforms or genres, simply did not gain enough XP. And then they go on forums and talk nonsense.
c) Storyfaggots, dummies, casuals and other oddballs that simply don't get classic superior game design. To them, classic gameplay was "frustrating, confusing, needlessly complex" and they welcome the mass-dumbing down of games. In fact they need it for games to be considered art in their eyes, in the most backwards-ass retarded comprehension of the medium possible. Rarely was it ever the case that old games were anti-player, mostly only valid for specific examples like the user interface of SOME classic PC games, didn't effect console games at all (for the most part) or maybe very specific instances of game like Hexen or Castlevania Simon's Quest being a bit obtuse, which...they're not even great games anyway, shouldn't really be a talking point. A lot of 80s games were overly brutal but by the 90s a happy medium was achieved. Most of the time these people simply don't get it. The greater gameplay vision is merely in the way of them blasting some fools or experiencing story/atmosphere/interactive art. Just yesterday an online buddy of mine called Shadow Warrior (1997) level design "complicated for no reason, like most game's level design was back then". What in the actual fuck.

Both game devs and journalists also often fall under a, b or c, perpetuating the cycle of decline further.

A and B are somewhat forgivable and understandable. C however are like cockroaches infesting this glorious medium, and contributed greatly to its downfall. At least half of all gamers on discussion boards are C, likely more, and that includes half of this forum. Somehow they're too dumb to realise REAL gameplay ties into and enhances all other elements (story/atmosphere etc) and is also the core of 90% of all games (well, used to be). For that remaining 10% (walking sims, fake storyfag RPGs etc), those shouldn't even be considered games, but interactive experiences.

I see the trick you pull on yourself to make all of this work in your head. You like the idea of complexity because you like the idea of positively filtering people. But all experiences can filter two ways. If endlessly scaling complexity was ideal (one could make this case, as far as I know only Icycalm has actually tried because he's a philosopher and serious thinker, even if wrong) then any game which doesn't add more or at least meet the most advanced world simulation systems could only be considered a regression. And of course, for this judgement to work we have to consider "gameplay" to be primary and essential to the point nothing else really matters or is worth serious consideration. Which obviously feels wrong considering how much time we spend discussing everything else and that it's not what you guys ever praise or ask for.

If reduction of game elements can only make a game worse, does it not follow that everything that isn't a game is inferior media and even more unworthy of time? Think of how uncomplex movies are, I don't have to hit any buttons but play and I'll get to the credits. I can even pay for a ticket at the kinoplex and another guy will hit play for me. Does that count as a pay to win microtransaction?

Now you can say I'm being silly, but is there a way to do so that doesn't vindicate my way of seeing? You might be laughing to yourself now, saying of course there is. Prove it. Do it. You act sure of yourself. When's the last time you proved it? I never stop. Have you ever been mentally punched in the face? Funny thing about that, you need to do it yourself. Realise you don't actually know what you're talking about. I can only lead you to water.

The case for film, is also the case for cRPGs and why I would not simply obliterate all of them even though they aren't to my liking. The case is convention and tradition. That limitations taken as sets and shared across multiple works form creative traditions, continuities, and histories. And in these are unique opportunities, angles, ways of seeing and doing. cRPG might not be the best way to do anything (god forbid), but it is absolutely and undeniably a way of doing things.

Two options for those of you who believe that you had better "gameplay" rather than merely a style and form. One is that you can attempt to work out a science for objectively superior video game design, which would require defining the purpose of video games, explaining what best serves that end, and then explaining how we actually had that all along and it's Baldur's Gate. Second is you retreat before me and accept your place as enthusiasts for a style and form. Nothing wrong with that. I still watch films.

 

[PrK]

Why is this loony faggot not consigned to Prosperium already?

Infinitron is grooming him.

Edit: To what end I don't know, maybe another weaponized lolcow like atlet.

Deus Ex is cool because it's about how the Jews did 9/11.

Controlled opposition?

 

[Inec0rn]

couple of Catagory c's dirtying up the thread

I clocked a most of these games when I was like 6-10yo, no one had manuals because everything was physically shared on disk. We didn't have internet to read Starcon 2 specifically we had a photocopy of the star-map for the copy protection. Nu-gens suck at games, instant google best build / walkthrough etc, or worse demand games be dumbed down so you can't lose.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I would say something like 'well, you are SUPPOSED to have the manual', but then I realize I never read those. Makes you think.

 

[Lemming42]

Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing

Counterpoint: No they don't.

To give you a more serious answer:
Saying "the plot doesn't matter if the game design isn't there" is something you should tell to BioWare, because they didn't seem to realise it - they put a massive emphasis on plot (arguably a low-quality plot at that), to the point of repeatedly stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue and/or cutscenes, and yet the main mode of gameplay they wrapped that plot around was a very generic cover shooter. Virtually all missions play out the same way - you walk around and talk to people for a couple minutes, then no matter what you've done, you end up in a highly scripted and very lengthy cover shooter segment, which is followed by a bit more talking to cap it off.

Even fans of the series tend to agree that you're basically tolerating the cover shooter segments so you can get to the next story segment; if your position is "the plot is worthless without a strong game backing it up", that sounds like an argument against Mass Effect!

I can't express how boring talking about Mass Effect is though, I just thought it was baffling that your argument about modern games being superior to older ones in some ways - an argument I'd otherwise somewhat agree with - ended up with fucking Mass Effect as its centrepiece, one of the most amusingly shit games you could possibly choose to make that point.

It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

Are you telling me you couldn't write Mass Effect?

 

[Silverfish]

Are you telling me you couldn't write Mass Effect?

No, I'd tear my hair out in frustration having to write dreck like "robots have souls actually" or "allowing your enemy to talk you into killing yourself means you win somehow".

 

[Mountain]

Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing

Counterpoint: No they don't.

To give you a more serious answer:
Saying "the plot doesn't matter if the game design isn't there" is something you should tell to BioWare, because they didn't seem to realise it - they put a massive emphasis on plot (arguably a low-quality plot at that), to the point of repeatedly stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue and/or cutscenes, and yet the main mode of gameplay they wrapped that plot around was a very generic cover shooter. Virtually all missions play out the same way - you walk around and talk to people for a couple minutes, then no matter what you've done, you end up in a highly scripted and very lengthy cover shooter segment, which is followed by a bit more talking to cap it off.

Even fans of the series tend to agree that you're basically tolerating the cover shooter segments so you can get to the next story segment; if your position is "the plot is worthless without a strong game backing it up", that sounds like an argument against Mass Effect!

I can't express how boring talking about Mass Effect is though, I just thought it was baffling that your argument about modern games being superior to older ones in some ways - an argument I'd otherwise somewhat agree with - ended up with fucking Mass Effect as its centrepiece, one of the most amusingly shit games you could possibly choose to make that point.

It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

Are you telling me you couldn't write Mass Effect?

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here. If you think you can, you don't know dialogue writing.

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

The cover system is fine, the shooting and powers work well with it. What system do you expect? what cover system do you want? or do you want a FPS or turn-based? brothers in arms?

Again, the entire reason Mass Effect is brought up is because he was talking about how it's so much worse than Star Control 2, and how God of War sucks compared to Flashback. I was just pushing back on his insanity.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work.
...
As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those old games became hard to play.

Again! Are you trolling? Can you please explain in simple terms in what ways Mass Effect is better designed than Fallout or Arcanum? Why do you think it has better encounter design than Pool of Radiance?

It was made when player guidance was in its infancy.

It is called RTFM, maybe you should try it.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Did you just claim that c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon count? Putting aside the colossal absurdity of that statement, have you even heard of Alpha fucking Protocol?

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Just answer this please. In your own words, what is modern game design?

I fucking love Arcanum. But Fallout and Arcanum play like old stick figures moving around with extremely simple gameplay. It has poor pacing with long text trees. It's been too long for me to remember properly, but a lot of these older RPGs have completely botched difficulty builds, where you can truly fuck yourself if you don't build exactly the way you are "supposed" to. I am pretty sure Fallout was like that, don't remember with Arcanum. Most of these older games are only played by people who love them, so they don't get the criticism they would if more people played them. They play like old 2D games that appeal to people who like this very specific type of game. Most people get bored of this because of its slow gameplay and archaic design.

Reading the manual to learn a game is a poor excuse for poor design.

I did not claim c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon. I am saying choices in early 2D games are easier than in later 3D games. You guys are talking about depth, but depth in early RPGs is considerably different than in more complex games.

Modern game design is design that takes into account what has been learned from older games. Like using checkpoints where needed, avoiding long boring tutorials, using good art styles, pacing the game correctly, designing good difficulty, etc...

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

I'd say the criteria it's fair to judge the game on is the plot, which is obviously the focus above all else in Mass Effect games. ME3 has been criticised to hell and back since it came out, but ME2 offers a similarly bizarre story that's totally disjointed from the games preceding and succeeding it, and which is pretty awful on its own terms. You've probably already seen it but there's a very, very long retrospective on the whole series written by a guy called Shamus Young and even if you don't agree with everything he says (I definitely don't, and he overrates ME1 to an absurd degree IMO), the way he takes ME2 to task is pretty spot-on. You can read it here if you feel like spending hours on it: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28582

You can also judge the games on their reactivity, which was a selling point and even shows up on loading screens in ME2 ("be careful what you do, your choices will have big consequences in ME3!!!"). There's a discussion to be had there, but I don't think it's incorrect to say that your choices overwhelmingly do not actually matter in these games - there's a few very impressive bits of reactivity that stretch across all three games (the genophage cure mission in ME3 relies on things that you did in ME1, for example) but by and large the game straight up doesn't give a shit what you do, to the point where it'll do audacious stuff like give you an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Mordin stand-in for Mordin if he himself was killed.

Additionally I'd question the idea that ME2 fixed the gameplay; it plays more smoothly than ME1 but it's still a very simplistic cover shooter which loses all steam during the tutorial and just keeps getting more and more laboured from there as every mission turns into the same exact cover shooting hell. You could obviously argue that this was a deliberate move on BioWare's part because their aim was to make a blockbuster action game in which Shepard shoots a lot of people and is shot at by a lot of people, but then that opens the door to what I'd consider to be very reasonable criticisms about the incredibly low ambition that characterises the entire trilogy.

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.

I agree the comparison doesn't hold up as the games don't share much in common, but if the games were to be compared, I don't think Star Control being "good for its time" is the "only argument" you can make for it. It's got a range of systems that Mass Effect lacks, offers a far more non-linear experience, and arguably has a better grasp on what it wants to be in terms of writing and tone. Again, the comparison is apples to oranges so it doesn't really work but I'm not sure why you cosnider it to be so unreasonable for someone to play both games and come away thinking that SC2 was more impressive than ME. SC2 hasn't even really aged badly; it's still very accessible to play in a way that other games of the era aren't, and Mass Effect's accessibility comes as a result of being incredibly simplistic and straightforward, which a lot of people won't like.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work. Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing and a really cool take on the Fermi Paradox, which is enough to make an engaging story. Star Control 2 is just exposition, It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Third-person combat is anything but simple.

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Star Control 2 is a horrible-looking 2D systems-based game with barely any gameplay. It's absolutely not accessible, and apart from a few genius systems and rules, it's as simple of a game as you can get from the 90s.

Mass Effect has 400 gameplay mechanics that Star Control 2 lacks.

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.

This is pure deflection from you simply to show you haven't played the game enough to analyze is properly.

I knew you were setting up an escape argument. "You have to watch Solaris 300 times to get it". "You have to listen to a song 200 times to begin to like it". Nothing works like this, and certainly not video games.

Funnily, I probably played Star Control 2 more than 99% of the people on this board.

To be concrete, Star Control 2 doesn't have onboarding. It was made when player guidance was in its infancy. If the developers had the chance today, they would never make the same game.

As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those games started to fall apart.

It's the same thing with Star Control 2, the gameplay, the UI, the story, it's all based on a time when those things were just started to come about.

Do you know why Mario Bros was so big for game design?

See, you're not even talking about Star Control, this is pure proof that you don't grasp things.

I've literally just spent several posts talking about the tactical battles of Star Control (planet capturing, positioning etc.) you've totally missed that but are also saying you that don't need to play it any more to recognize it lol. You literally haven't even recognized the game lol

Sorry chap, it's clear that I can keep explaining things to you, but I can't understand them for you.

I said in the post that Star Control 2 lacks onboarding, UI, story, and gameplay. I swear some of the maps look like real vomit.

Positioning is literally adjusting the turn of a 2D sprite with your arrow keys. That's all the gameplay, it's like playing with crayons. Oddly, you don't mention the good parts of Star Control 2 and mention only the shit parts.

What a fuck is recognizing the game? do I need to play it for 30 years and hate all other games?

 

[Silverfish]

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here.

No, most of us could do better.

 

[Lemming42]

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here. If you think you can, you don't know dialogue writing.

You've got to be fucking with me here.

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

You said the story doesn't matter if the game design isn't there to support it, and I'm pointing out that in Mass Effect, the story (such as it is) and the game design are typically segregated from each other; the plot is thus presented as a huge and unavoidable feature of the experience, so it absolutely is fair to criticise the game as a whole based on the weakness of the writing.

Also, the bolded part is obviously not true but I'm not really sure you're being serious.

 

[Falksi]

Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing

Counterpoint: No they don't.

To give you a more serious answer:
Saying "the plot doesn't matter if the game design isn't there" is something you should tell to BioWare, because they didn't seem to realise it - they put a massive emphasis on plot (arguably a low-quality plot at that), to the point of repeatedly stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue and/or cutscenes, and yet the main mode of gameplay they wrapped that plot around was a very generic cover shooter. Virtually all missions play out the same way - you walk around and talk to people for a couple minutes, then no matter what you've done, you end up in a highly scripted and very lengthy cover shooter segment, which is followed by a bit more talking to cap it off.

Even fans of the series tend to agree that you're basically tolerating the cover shooter segments so you can get to the next story segment; if your position is "the plot is worthless without a strong game backing it up", that sounds like an argument against Mass Effect!

I can't express how boring talking about Mass Effect is though, I just thought it was baffling that your argument about modern games being superior to older ones in some ways - an argument I'd otherwise somewhat agree with - ended up with fucking Mass Effect as its centrepiece, one of the most amusingly shit games you could possibly choose to make that point.

It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

Are you telling me you couldn't write Mass Effect?

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here. If you think you can, you don't know dialogue writing.

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

The cover system is fine, the shooting and powers work well with it. What system do you expect? what cover system do you want? or do you want a FPS or turn-based? brothers in arms?

Again, the entire reason Mass Effect is brought up is because he was talking about how it's so much worse than Star Control 2, and how God of War sucks compared to Flashback. I was just pushing back on his insanity.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work.
...
As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those old games became hard to play.

Again! Are you trolling? Can you please explain in simple terms in what ways Mass Effect is better designed than Fallout or Arcanum? Why do you think it has better encounter design than Pool of Radiance?

It was made when player guidance was in its infancy.

It is called RTFM, maybe you should try it.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Did you just claim that c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon count? Putting aside the colossal absurdity of that statement, have you even heard of Alpha fucking Protocol?

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Just answer this please. In your own words, what is modern game design?

I fucking love Arcanum. But Fallout and Arcanum play like old stick figures moving around with extremely simple gameplay. It has poor pacing with long text trees. It's been too long for me to remember properly, but a lot of these older RPGs have completely botched difficulty builds, where you can truly fuck yourself if you don't build exactly the way you are "supposed" to. I am pretty sure Fallout was like that, don't remember with Arcanum. Most of these older games are only played by people who love them, so they don't get the criticism they would if more people played them. They play like old 2D games that appeal to people who like this very specific type of game. Most people get bored of this because of its slow gameplay and archaic design.

Reading the manual to learn a game is a poor excuse for poor design.

I did not claim c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon. I am saying choices in early 2D games are easier than in later 3D games. You guys are talking about depth, but depth in early RPGs is considerably different than in more complex games.

Modern game design is design that takes into account what has been learned from older games. Like using checkpoints where needed, avoiding long boring tutorials, using good art styles, pacing the game correctly, designing good difficulty, etc...

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

I'd say the criteria it's fair to judge the game on is the plot, which is obviously the focus above all else in Mass Effect games. ME3 has been criticised to hell and back since it came out, but ME2 offers a similarly bizarre story that's totally disjointed from the games preceding and succeeding it, and which is pretty awful on its own terms. You've probably already seen it but there's a very, very long retrospective on the whole series written by a guy called Shamus Young and even if you don't agree with everything he says (I definitely don't, and he overrates ME1 to an absurd degree IMO), the way he takes ME2 to task is pretty spot-on. You can read it here if you feel like spending hours on it: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28582

You can also judge the games on their reactivity, which was a selling point and even shows up on loading screens in ME2 ("be careful what you do, your choices will have big consequences in ME3!!!"). There's a discussion to be had there, but I don't think it's incorrect to say that your choices overwhelmingly do not actually matter in these games - there's a few very impressive bits of reactivity that stretch across all three games (the genophage cure mission in ME3 relies on things that you did in ME1, for example) but by and large the game straight up doesn't give a shit what you do, to the point where it'll do audacious stuff like give you an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Mordin stand-in for Mordin if he himself was killed.

Additionally I'd question the idea that ME2 fixed the gameplay; it plays more smoothly than ME1 but it's still a very simplistic cover shooter which loses all steam during the tutorial and just keeps getting more and more laboured from there as every mission turns into the same exact cover shooting hell. You could obviously argue that this was a deliberate move on BioWare's part because their aim was to make a blockbuster action game in which Shepard shoots a lot of people and is shot at by a lot of people, but then that opens the door to what I'd consider to be very reasonable criticisms about the incredibly low ambition that characterises the entire trilogy.

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.

I agree the comparison doesn't hold up as the games don't share much in common, but if the games were to be compared, I don't think Star Control being "good for its time" is the "only argument" you can make for it. It's got a range of systems that Mass Effect lacks, offers a far more non-linear experience, and arguably has a better grasp on what it wants to be in terms of writing and tone. Again, the comparison is apples to oranges so it doesn't really work but I'm not sure why you cosnider it to be so unreasonable for someone to play both games and come away thinking that SC2 was more impressive than ME. SC2 hasn't even really aged badly; it's still very accessible to play in a way that other games of the era aren't, and Mass Effect's accessibility comes as a result of being incredibly simplistic and straightforward, which a lot of people won't like.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work. Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing and a really cool take on the Fermi Paradox, which is enough to make an engaging story. Star Control 2 is just exposition, It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Third-person combat is anything but simple.

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Star Control 2 is a horrible-looking 2D systems-based game with barely any gameplay. It's absolutely not accessible, and apart from a few genius systems and rules, it's as simple of a game as you can get from the 90s.

Mass Effect has 400 gameplay mechanics that Star Control 2 lacks.

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.

This is pure deflection from you simply to show you haven't played the game enough to analyze is properly.

I knew you were setting up an escape argument. "You have to watch Solaris 300 times to get it". "You have to listen to a song 200 times to begin to like it". Nothing works like this, and certainly not video games.

Funnily, I probably played Star Control 2 more than 99% of the people on this board.

To be concrete, Star Control 2 doesn't have onboarding. It was made when player guidance was in its infancy. If the developers had the chance today, they would never make the same game.

As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those games started to fall apart.

It's the same thing with Star Control 2, the gameplay, the UI, the story, it's all based on a time when those things were just started to come about.

Do you know why Mario Bros was so big for game design?

See, you're not even talking about Star Control, this is pure proof that you don't grasp things.

I've literally just spent several posts talking about the tactical battles of Star Control (planet capturing, positioning etc.) you've totally missed that but are also saying you that don't need to play it any more to recognize it lol. You literally haven't even recognized the game lol

Sorry chap, it's clear that I can keep explaining things to you, but I can't understand them for you.

I said in the post that Star Control 2 lacks onboarding, UI, story, and gameplay. I swear some of the maps look like real vomit.

Positioning is literally adjusting the turn of a 2D sprite with your arrow keys. That's all the gameplay, it's like playing with crayons. Oddly, you don't mention the good parts of Star Control 2 and mention only the shit parts.

What a fuck is recognizing the game? do I need to play it for 30 years and hate all other games?

Fuck me, you retarded twat...YOU'RE NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE SAME GAME AS I AM.

You need to recognize which game you are talking about. Star Control (with the tactical chess-esq battles) is not Star Control 2.

Christ alive, talk about a way to display how dumb the average casualized Mass Effect worshipper is. You've literally proved here that the modern casual is unable to grasp games like Star Control properly because they are unable to grasp very basics in general. Thanks, I guess.