People in retrogaming sites are just ridiculous.

[Wyrmlord]

I am having continuous disillusionment with these people. :D

How is it that games that were shit back then and are shit now suddenly become masterpieces in the eyes of these revisionists who think any game older than them is the Second Coming?

Let me give you some specific examples:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ishar_1_2

Positive ratings for one of the biggest mediocrities among old games out there, which has nothing going for it other than some fancy 2D graphics that look worse when you play it on its real resolution. It was terrible back when it was abandonware, and to think people would willingly pay money for that crap.

Look at all the games that get positive 4+ reviews on this site:
Messiah, Stonekeep, Spellforce, Stronghold, Combat Chess, In Cold Blood the videogame, Teenagent, Pro Pinball, MDK2, and so on. And I didn't even have to cherrypick, just a quick run through their catalogue shows you all you need to know.

But hey, it's always been like this. Top rated games of Abandonia:
Starflight
Albion
Moebius
Windwalker
Buck Rogers
Blood Omen
Moonstone
Betrayal At Krondor
Lands Of Lore
Ultima 6
Ultima 7
Wasteland
Buck Rogers 2
Anvil Of Dawn
Conan The Cimmerian
Eye Of The Beholder 2
Nethack

It's only a little less depressing than the Underdogs list.

A large number of people who visit these sites are not real gamers; they are just people who willingly believe that these games are somehow good, because they were "good for their time". People who stick to modern mainstream games are still better than them.

And they willingly herd behind the banter of "Modern games are shit!" and interestingly, system requirements end up being their main complaint. System requirements? If you were playing these games back then, you needed a good computer too. If you are playing these games simply because you don't understand hardware and do not want to upgrade, you are not exactly doing justice to either old games or new ones.

 

[kingcomrade]

I liked Stonekeep. It was kind of ridiculously balanced, though, you could get to the point where there was literally no way to win the next fight because you had low health and had already used all the healing items available to that point in the game.

 

[Chefe]

I liked Messiah, and MDK2 rocked on Dreamcast. Pro Pinball Big Race USA is one of the greatest games of all time. If you don't agree, you haven't played it, or you're Satan.

Ultima 6 and 7 are abandonware?

 

[WalterKinde]

i remember having to wrestle with win95 (creating a boot disc) or adjusting memory allocation in EMS play some of those games.
And we do look back on days gone by with rose colored glasses.
Example i ran Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 via dosbox yesterday and i couldnt believen how restrictive the interface was, i remembered having fun playing both these games but now on a monitor that did a higher resolution and being used to better interface controls and more viewing space for the environment that came in later games , underworld was really showing its age graphically , same with Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters, remember enjoying the hell out of those games and while true no modern space sim has come close to them in game play and adventure not even egosoft's X2 , X3 and X3 : Terran Conflict, the graphics do leave a lot to be desired.
I shudder to think what would happen if i reinstalled Crimson Skies and Star Lancer since i have already played Freelancer and the Crimson Skies sequel that made it to the xbawks.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I liked Stonekeep. It was kind of ridiculously balanced, though, you could get to the point where there was literally no way to win the next fight because you had low health and had already used all the healing items available to that point in the game.

Stonekeep is also the game where you beat enemies by throwing an axe at them from a distance, picking that axe up even though you are five feet away from it, and then throwing it again.

 

[kingcomrade]

Yeah, I remember doing that only with arrows.

 

[Qwinn]

Any list of old games that did -not- include Starflight among it's "best" should be mocked mercilessly.

In fact, Starflight II isn't on there. WTFBBQ!

Qwinn

 

[Zhuangzi]

Moonstone was good fun back in the day. Not sure if it can be called a classic though. Plus I can't get the fucker to work with dosbox.

 

[Yannos]

I feel like there is this gang of rabid GoG-supporters that automatically rate every game as high as possible. I don't know why but even if the user-reviews are low, the user-voted rating is almost never less than 4.5...

 

[Wyrmlord]

I feel like there is this gang of rabid GoG-supporters that automatically rate every game as high as possible. I don't know why but even if the user-reviews are low, the user-voted rating is almost never less than 4.5...

In all fairness, Lionheart has a 3.5 rating there.

 

[BearBomber]

What's wrong with Anvil of Dawn? I'm playing it right now and it seems pretty fun.

 

[Wyrmlord]

What's wrong with Anvil of Dawn? I'm playing it right now and it seems pretty fun.

OK, Anvil Of Dawn is actually quite good, I enjoyed it; but I just thought that more worthy games could have occupied the top spots in Abandonia.

Its combat system was neat; I kept a sword in one hand and an axe in another, and kept alternating between them, with one weapon giving speed, the other giving heavy attacks. Other than this, it was mostly just walking around, finding stones to put on pressure plates, opening doors, finding keys, using them on keyslots,.etc, all of which is fun, but simple.

I do like action RPGs, but once you have made a good character and equipped him well, it just comes to being a stilted action game where you fight one enemy at a time at a sluggish pace, and I feel I am better off playing a good shooter.

 

[Andhaira]

Anvil of dawn has some cool spell effects. :D

 

[jaylittle]

Lionheart should be rated at a -5. What a shitty game.

Is the OP calling out Moebius? Oh hell no. That game is a masterpiece. I suggest you play it some time. It's not exactly an RPG (more of an action hybrid), but boy is it fun! I should sit down and play through that one again.

As for retrogaming, give these people a break. Remember all of the games they play are essentially free (only an idiot is running around trying to buy all of the abandonware games out there), so cost isn't factored into a review of an abandonware game. On top of that, as a mostly-retrogamer myself you start to get hungry for more content after you've gone through all the top tier stuff you might be interested in that is out there. After that you tend to look in other directions for more games.

This has it's good side and it's bad side. The good side is that you may find kickass games that you would've never ever heard about before. The bad side is that you tend to do it through a pair of rose tinted glasses...

At least they aren't playing Oblivion!

 

[ghostdog]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd. Anyway, most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

 

[made]

Hello. The word we learn today is called "nostalgia":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia

Also, Moonstone is a fucking classic. There's a reason it's the only game WHDL doesn't let you play without registering.

 

[Luzur]

Albion
Moebius
Moonstone
Betrayal At Krondor
Lands Of Lore
Ultima 6
Ultima 7
Anvil Of Dawn
Eye Of The Beholder 2

ya know, those games are actually A-OK, so i dont see why you listed them as shit?

only an idiot is running around trying to buy all of the abandonware games out there

so game collectors as myself are idiots then? or did you mean those that buys games from like GoG?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Albion
Moebius
Moonstone
Betrayal At Krondor
Lands Of Lore
Ultima 6
Ultima 7
Anvil Of Dawn
Eye Of The Beholder 2

ya know, those games are actually A-OK, so i dont see why you listed them as shit?

No no no no, I love Betrayal At Krondor, the ones I thought were bad were the ones which I bolded.

Betrayal At Krondor is my absolute favourite computer roleplaying game.

Hello. The word we learn today is called "nostalgia"

What you need to realize is that most people visiting these abandonware sites are teenage kids, who are misled into thinking that crap like Albion is something they should appreciate.

There is no nostalgia, merely terrible taste.

Most people who played Stonekeep back when it was made knew it was a shitty game. Back when Cleve Blakemore had taste in games, he once made a Usenet post deriding Stonekeep as one of the most mediocre shallow games in the market.

 

[BearBomber]

What's wrong with Moonstone. I've played it some time ago and it was brilliant action game dark atmosphere and gore that didn't try to be funny. Battles were hard but funny, epsecialy fighting with the dragon. I think that it's one of the best action games I've played. I just don't know why is it listed as RPG.

 

[made]

I just don't know why is it listed as RPG.

It has stats and an inventory, durr.

 

[BethesdaLove]

jews niggers blablabla

 

[Zomg]

I've tapered off a bit but the main fun I've had with abandonware gaming was critical rather than inarticulate. I really enjoy(ed) Darklands and Daggerfall and King of Dragon Pass and so on because of the uniqueness of their design and their amazing ambition. They're interesting because of their context and legacy in gaming, not (just) that they're fun in and of themselves (in fact, they usually have really bad design and polish errors that mean you have to overlook big parts of them). There are also abandonware games that just do a design of their era smoothly and well - like EoB2 or Might and Magic IV/V - that are also worth playing simply for fun, and stand fine on their own.

I guess there are lots of genuinely mediocre abandonware games but my fifteen second download means I drop them before I've bothered to invest anything in them, so I'm not exactly going out of my way to take a shit on Buck Rogers 2 or whatever.

 

[Major_Boobage]

Lands Of Lore was fine man, sod off.

 

[Wyrmlord]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd. Anyway, most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

OK, for fun let's take an example.

Albion.

Albion has you start off with a single predetermined character on a spaceship. The first thing to do in this game is just "stroll" around the ship on a top down perspective. Now, the amount of interaction on this ship is limited opening and closing doors, putting mundane items like coffee mugs into your inventory, and talking to people. Now, talking here merely means perusing a list of topics that are listed down. As you keep talking, more topics start opening up. And it is used for no other purpose than mere exposition. Every person on the ship functions as a walking search engine/encyclopedia, who will you the exact same things that anyone else will tell you.

The only thing of relevance that you find out is that someone in the terminal died in an accident. Which is enough reason for you to take a look at the terminal area, but the door is guarded by security personnel, who will not let anyone in. Conveniently enough, in the next room, there is a ladder down to the shafts below. Here it shifts to first-person. This area is a series of sequences in which you open the door to one room while the closing the one behind with the press of a button. You keep doing it until you come into the terminal. There, you find a gun.

Hmm, so somebody may have murdered him. What do you do?! If you walk straight out, security will rebuke you for infilitrating, and then will let you go about your business. If you walk straight out with the gun, security will confiscate the gun, rebuke you for infilitrating, and again will let you go about your business. If you take the gun, go back out the shafts, and show the gun to all possible people in the ship, they all will fucking tell you, "You shouldn't be keeping a gun with you". For fuck's sake, a guy's head is blown off across a terminal, there is a gun underneath him, and nobody gives a shit. Whodunnit?! So guess how this quest is solved. You find a box in the shafts, put the gun inside.

500 XP, QUEST ACCOMPLISHED. What the fuck is this shit? A guy was murdered in the terminal room, and you solve the quest by hiding the evidence of the murder? Anyway, you'd think there is some resolution to this quest later on. Nope. You leave the ship and never come back to it again. Nor can you voluntarily stay on the ship. In fact, a loudspeaker will keep calling for you to come to the shuttle bay, and by the third calling, you are materialize on the shuttle bay.

What happens next is that you crash onto a planet with naked furry women with bouncy furry breasts, who live on treetops, take care of you, and teach you their language. And again, you find yourself in another setting with walking search engines, and nothing to do but to wander around talking to these walking search engines, and following instructions to meet the next NPC you need to talk to advance the game. And it goes on like this.

Even a game like Oblivion has far more to offer as gameplay. Atleast you create your character, and customise his abilities. Atleast, there is some active involvement in the game, like fighting whatever enemies you meet throughout the beginning and into the game's world. Atleast, there isn't a loudspeaker constantly telling you "GO TO THIS LOCATION OR WE WILL FORCEFULLY PUT YOU IN THERE". Atleast there is some ambition and incentive as you play, like having enough money to buy a good horse and getting good equipment and good spells. Atleast there is a game at all here.

No, there is no RPG worse than Albion, and it is a complete shocker that it is so highly rated.

 

[racofer]

How is it that games that were shit back then and are shit now suddenly become masterpieces in the eyes of these revisionists who think any game older than them is the Second Coming?

They are like the codex, only without any clue on what the fuck they're talking about.