• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Old ass games which feel better than modern day games

RAIDEN1

Member
Most extreme sports and arcade sports games were better and more fun(and arguably reached their peak) during the PS2/Xbox/GC era, since currently only Ubisoft now makes them for consoles/PC.

Splashdown for PS2(Also looked really good)
maxresdefault.jpg


Outlaw Volleyball
hqdefault.jpg


Def Jam Vendetta 1 and 2:
AgileFatalAlaskajingle-size_restricted.gif




Nearly everything EA Big studios made:

SSX series
IllfatedSeparateEastsiberianlaika-size_restricted.gif



NBA Street Vol 1 and 2.

yaR1jk.gif


NFL Street Vol 1 and 2.

AaUa-S.gif



Honorable mentions Aggressive Inline, Jet Set Radio Series, Virtua Tennis, NHL Blitz, NFL Blitz series and NBA Jam/NBA Showtime.

What the hell happened to sports games?
I was thinking if splashdown was compatible with the 360....looks like it isn't..
 

Shifty

Member
dFczzZg.jpg


Still the best side scrolling shooter I've played.
I'm conflicted on this one. On the one hand, it feels sublime when you've played enough that precisely controlling the Force becomes muscle memory. So technical, with dynamic answers to all sorts of enemy setups, yet simple enough that you don't need to think.
On the other, the journey to that peak of mastery is utterly soul crushing and fraught with memorization due to the harsh checkpoint restarts and beefy ship hurtbox.

At the end of the day I guess nothing has done it better - nobody's really succeeded in ripping it off, and everything up to and including R-Type Final 2 keeps up the brutally unforgiving standard.
 
This is going to sound a bit extreme but anything 8/16 bits and arcade.

The good time when loadings were non-existent,
Tell that to people who had to deal with tape drives on our Commodores and Ataris. I know the UK guys had to deal with it more than us with the Spec. I went full Atari because they focused on cartridges which weren't as cheap but were sturdy and loaded fast which was worth it, I did that until the Disc Drives dropped in price and I saved up for one and never looked back and touched tape again.

I will never forget when Tandy put out this one expensive computer no one was buying, and through a big promotion, they charged $80 more for it's "advanced" tape drive compared to the lowest cost Disc Drive on the same shield, it was hysterical, I tried messing with the sales rep and he was just making stuff up trying to sell the Tape Drive. "unlike Disc it's double encrypted so your data is safe, and it takes less power so you save up to $800 a year on your power bill" bad salesmen, but could make a good PR rep.

And even if focusing on console 8-bits I've seen XEGS sold with tape drives, but I have no clue who would use tapes over cartridges, at least in the US.
 
Last edited:

Shifty

Member
Also, do remasters count?

Cause:


fUhpfVF.jpg
The horror! The horror!
I embrace it :messenger_smiling_horns:

A real hidden gem, though I think I love it more for the world structure, setting, poetic aspirations and character than how it feels to play.

And also how seriously Mike takes being the Shadow Man. Jaunty immediately undermining the legendary-beyond-reproach station of Deadwalker is absolute gold :messenger_tears_of_joy:

 

anthraticus

Banned
No doubt modern games looks and sound better, but any ancient games (same or different franchise, or same kind of game) that just felt better to play than modern games? It doesn't have to be from the same franchise (ie. old RPGs are better than modern RPGs because of.....).

16-bit EA NHL over modern EA Hockey
- That arcadey gameplay will always feel better than modern sports which have that floaty forced animation thing where it seems you dont have full control
Agree about modern sports games. The big problem with them is they want everything to be almost photo realistic in animations and presentation. So it makes the games feel too automated and not very responsive, controls wise. They aren’t twitch fun like sports actually are or like the older versions of the games were more like.

And braininess modern (AAA) RPGs that are pretty much on autopilot, where you're just going around following markers and directions obviously blow compared to classic cRPGs that you actually have to figure out and play....not just be led thru everything like a freakin dummy.

Entire genres that were great like SP tactical shooters don't even exist anymore....lol. So yea, a whole lot of shit.
 
Last edited:

Cryio

Member
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Double Agent (both versions) and FEAR 1 have such a grounded feeling. Like your character is truly connected to the environment and every game prop is physically there and accounted for. Especially the physics explosions in FEAR.
 

Shifty

Member
No one is asking about pad games.
No one is asking you anything. You quoted my post about controls in old pad games being better than the modern equivalent, can't blame me for expecting more than a cheap driveby 🤷‍♂️

Quake shit on all fps controls for years.
And still does because PC controls never changed, that's a given. It was also wack on console.

Peak Goldeneye movement is literally looking at the ground to move at your highest speed.
Rendering less stuff makes the game run faster for niche speedrun purposes, whoa. That has naff all to do with controls.
 

Kikorin

Member
Max Payne is still one of the king in TPS space, gunplay just works. Never find again a feeling like that and I replay it everytime I've an occasion.
 

Fools idol

Banned
No one posted Baldurs Gate 2 or Arcanum yet, so I'm posting Baldurs Gate 2 and Arcanum.

cRPG's had somewhat of a renaissance recently but in general they all just try to emulate the goat, BG2. So many thing were peaked, and obvious quality of life / graphical advances and modern mechanics aside, they are still a league ahead when it comes to story, gameplay and companions.

Diablo 2 also an honourable mention for cementing it's benchmark so deeply on the aRPG genre.
 

SenkiDala

Member
SSX 3 and SSX Tricky

Also, at least one-third of the Dreamcast's library.
I totally agree about the Dreamcast ! Most of the games whatever genre it is are an absolute joy to play. It’s just pure fun, you put the game and you play and the gameplay Is just awesome.
 
Tell that to people who had to deal with tape drives on our Commodores and Ataris. I know the UK guys had to deal with it more than us with the Spec. I went full Atari because they focused on cartridges which weren't as cheap but were sturdy and loaded fast which was worth it, I did that until the Disc Drives dropped in price and I saved up for one and never looked back and touched tape again.

I will never forget when Tandy put out this one expensive computer no one was buying, and through a big promotion, they charged $80 more for it's "advanced" tape drive compared to the lowest cost Disc Drive on the same shield, it was hysterical, I tried messing with the sales rep and he was just making stuff up trying to sell the Tape Drive. "unlike Disc it's double encrypted so your data is safe, and it takes less power so you save up to $800 a year on your power bill" bad salesmen, but could make a good PR rep.

And even if focusing on console 8-bits I've seen XEGS sold with tape drives, but I have no clue who would use tapes over cartridges, at least in the US.
Which computer?
 

Tunned

Member
NBA Street Vol.2 and 3. Currently playing them on the Steam Deck, and they hold up brilliantly, controls included. Best NBA games, ever.
 
Last edited:

darrylgorn

Member
The horror! The horror!
I embrace it :messenger_smiling_horns:

A real hidden gem, though I think I love it more for the world structure, setting, poetic aspirations and character than how it feels to play.

And also how seriously Mike takes being the Shadow Man. Jaunty immediately undermining the legendary-beyond-reproach station of Deadwalker is absolute gold :messenger_tears_of_joy:



Mikey and Gordon are still waiting..

efFEAny.jpg
 
Last edited:

TheGecko

Banned
No one is asking about pad games.

Quake shit on all fps controls for years.

Goldeneye can't even hold a candle to modern fps controls. Peak Goldeneye movement is literally looking at the ground to move at your highest speed.
How old are you by the way?
 
It’ll only get better. It’s a fantastic game tbh. I’m playing the remake and as a fan of the original it’s honestly absolutely terrible, the only things I like there over the original is the graphics and extra story. The core gameplay is nothing like the original, feels like playing a third person action game by a dev who hasn’t made those types of games before. The original has legit strategic combat, it can get awfully repetitive at times due to the random encounters but big fights are absolutely awesome. And once you get out on the open map you’ll see the beauty of that versus a more linear approach. Take your time and explore. Enjoy!

Once you’re done, if you have a chance you should go try Fantasian on Apple Arcade too. It’s not as good, not as finely tuned in direction and has some difficulty spike, but it’s still great and the FF7 origin shines through, it’s made by the same person - Hironobu Sakaguchi. Very unique visual style, the scenery is made up from photos from diorama models.
TsrLpwe.jpg
Fantasian is utterly amazing. If the frame rate could be more stable, and the game had a few more QOL improvements. If you put this on console, it would have likely won GoTY.
 

adamosmaki

Member
Depends on the genre. Rpgs survival games are better nowdays but shooters especially single player and rts games are nowhere near the variety and quality of 90s and early 00s. Where is my hexen, blood, shogo red alert etc etc?
 

salva

Member
Old Tom Clancy shooters
-Raven shield >>>> siege
-Original ghost recon >>>> wildlands/breakpoint

F.E.A.R, Half-Life, Soldier of Fortune, Battlefield 2....
 
Outrun 2 still curbstomps modern racing games.

It's unashamedly a video game before anything else, all about tight mechanics, exciting presentation, and throwing newton's second law of motion under the bus for the sake of fun.

Not once does it ask you to tune your shocks, balance your suspension, or upgrade your body kit in order to feel good. And it'll never gip you with intentionally bad rolls on a daily roulette spin.

iu
Exactly. Racing games feel like auto mechanic simulators now.
 

Fredrik

Member
Fantasian is utterly amazing. If the frame rate could be more stable, and the game had a few more QOL improvements. If you put this on console, it would have likely won GoTY.
In short we got the old school Final Fantasy they stopped making. I actually wanted to vote for it at the GOTY voting here but it wasn’t available in the list. It wasn’t my GOTY though but maybe around #7.

Some longer story cutscene segments felt rushed in a way by being drawings, it’s like they hadn’t had time to do a cutscene and used the storyboard concept art instead. And some boss fights were absolutely brutal, could take like an hour to finish.
But in the end I still loved it.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Quake. Feels better than any "controller only" shooter.
I second this and if Tesseract Tesseract were here, he'd do the same. The P.C. version is where I got started and must have played it 3 times back to back. I bought the N64 port in the late 90's and it just wasn't the same.

Legend of Zelda (the first) and A Link to the Past on SNES/Super Famicom never seems to get old. I see many modern games that have used that formula but they don't quite measure up.

Speaking of games that feel better than modern...what about those which keep getting ported from generation to generation like RE:4? The original Gamecube release of RE:4 to me is still hand's down the best they ever made of it. It's not super old (as I don't feel 2000's as something 'old' but maybe classic).
 

MiguelItUp

Member
All of the N64 Asmik & AKI wrestling games, No Mercy, WCW Vs NWO, Wrestlemania 2000, etc. I feel like there hasn't been a wrestling game since, that feels as good or better than that. I feel like it's a dragon that I'm still chasing.

All of those exaggerated arcade-y sports games like NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, Slugfest. Even the Street series.

FPS games. Too many to list. I think it's wild looking at the period where SO many FPS games had a LOT of content. A good/great campaign, some even with coop, then a full fledged multiplayer with various modes that the game shipped with. Just SO much content. I remember playing DOOM 2016 and being SO happy because it almost felt like a return to form with how much varied content there was in the game. But then DOOM Eternal felt like a step backward, though I still enjoyed it.
 
Top Bottom