schru
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,132
The technicalities involved in setting up some of the older games and the sometimes awkward interfaces (though this is not infrequently a mistaken impression) can be fairly easily overcome through just a bit of will and concentration. I usually feel overwhelmed by these at first, but I also know that if I overcome that feeling, these things turn out not to be that bothersome at all.
The streamlining and new design trends in interfaces and menus since simultaneous multi-platform releases began to be the preponderant approach haven't resulted in more convenient and smooth experience either as the requirements consoles tend to impose on these things make for highly annoying and tiresome solutions. It's much more preferable to have some idiosyncrasies tailored for specific games and experimental gameplay from back when certain solutions hadn't yet become standard, than to have to deal with the layered, oversized, and cumbrous menus, inventories, and other panels, knowing that they're a compromise imposed in preference to actually improving things in a way that'd be natural for the PC.
As for graphics, first of all it's often important to configure things correctly so that the graphics look the way they were supposed to, which is not always the case when playing on newer systems. And it's simply a fact that older games looked better on C.R.T.s, which can be remedied with special shaders to some extent. Old visuals themselves can look very nice so long as they're taken on their own terms, as the way artists worked around technical limitations usually resulted in interesting visual styles rather than graphics that were simply deficient and awaiting more processing power. Take Doom, Quake, Unreal, or Silent Hill—granted, they're all well above the average, and while there are things that weren't possible to do at such low resolutions, they're all exceedingly good looking and very often superior in visual design when it comes to its gameplay function.
The progress in animation is also a very questionable thing. There are lots of examples of awkward and insufficient quality of animation coupled with highly-detailed graphics, while older, simpler visuals created an abstract feeling where simple animations could convey everything that was necessary in a perfectly satisfactory way. On the other hand, even if technical skill isn't wanting, aiming for highly-detailed realistic graphics leads to difficulties and constraints that become difficult to overcome due to the amount of work required or sheer complexity of the task if the set of movements isn't limited; but then, even if the limitation is intentionally imposed, there can be a palpable disconnect between the superficial realism and the limited array of how things actually interact in the game world.
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I knew of the game before, but I started playing Morrowind only relatively recently and I've enjoyed it immensely. The inventory and character screens could be better, but I don't think the later titles were in any way a straightforward improvement, but rather replaced certain insufficiencies with much more annoying console design. The visuals are actually very nice, though it helps to apply a C.R.T. shader. The movement is quite fine; adding realistic sway and some limitations can have its merits in certain types of games, but the older style of static camera with very precise control over the movement is in itself constitutive of a certain gameplay approach that accords very well with the nature of 3-D environments that don't work as mere decoration, no matter where you try to go, and that approach should be preserved and refined. The combat actually felt more convincing, in the way of an abstraction, than what Bethesda did in the later games and Fallout 3, where the more elaborate animations feel like cheap and superfluous decoration (because they're not going to be as good as in specialized, skill-based games anyway). It was fun in a survival kind of way until my character became too powerful.
Before that, I played Arena, which was simplistic and its interface some ways awkward, but the atmosphere and dungeon design were genuinely memorable. Daggerfall was manageable, though repetitive. Battlespire was an actual chore to play, but still worth it for the atmosphere and certain unusual features. Redguard was a fun action-adventure game.
Other games I played long after their original release and which I thought were either too ‘primitive’ or would be difficult to control, but then found them to be some of the best games ever: Doom (best shooter ever), System Shock (plays better without the mouse mod), Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and the other Build shooters, Deus Ex (my initial impression was that it was ugly and awkward, and I didn't see what was supposed to be good about it).
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All this isn't to say that new games are universally bad, as I think the conditions have gradually started improving and at least diversifying since the trend-setting sway of Xbox 360 and PS3 started waning and digital distribution expanded the independent sector. Nevertheless, it seems like the nineties were a much better period in terms of each platform having its own niche and focus, with dedicated developers and publishers, its being a time of fast increasing technological possibilities that had not yet been squandered on superficialities or lead to work-load problems, the pop culture influencing the games still being a bit more authentic and possessed of some interesting ‘edge’, and the people making the games, at least the ones that are remembered, were more resourceful (considering the lack of standardization and the various creative solutions) and brought in skills and knowledge from other spheres of life, training, or education, before being a game developer became more accessible and turned into its own self-referential field without the benefit of experience and influence from outside.
