Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated? Games that, in theory, you would enjoy, but don’t because the controls, graphics, writing, or mechanics just don’t feel good anymore. Games that, compared to today, just don’t hold up to your standards.
I recently tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, and I realized that a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players. Not only that, but I imagine there was a lot of crossover between video games and board games back then, so maybe that language was used as well. I ended up downloading a manual and putting it on my second screen and I get it and played it, but it just wasn’t for me.
I also dropped Mirror’s Edge, but this time it was because of the graphics. It looks and feels great, but the graphics give me a headache. There is way too much bloom, and for some reason, there are some parts that look like the imaginary lens has been covered in Vaseline. This didn’t bother me before, but my eyes are not used to it anymore.
There are also games like the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games. The levels and controls feel great, but they don’t feel complete without those mechanics. It keeps me from enjoying the games as much as the others.
Please share yours!
At this stage, I am loath to go back to any game where the UI takes up half the screen. RTS games especially just used so much screen real estate back in the day, that couldn’t be scaled or hidden to get any back. Like playing your game through a letterbox surrounded by stickers.
I hate playing StarCraft because the UI is gigantic and you can’t zoom out far enough on the map. I’ve got massive, high-res monitors, but the game treats me like it’s still 640x480.
And really, more strategy/sim games need to support multi-monitor setups. Supreme Commander spoiled me, and more games should follow their example.
Start craft specifically, but I believe most RTS games in general, limited the visible map area to make sure all players in a multiplayer games were on equall footing. They didn’t want people with larger monitors or more powerful computers to have an advantage by being able to see more terrain and units than those with lower resolutions. Lack of zoom is usually down to network optimization where bandwidth was significantly limited in the dial-up days.
On multiplayer - fine. I played single-player and it was annoying as hell.
Sup Com FA was a pretty elegant UI, yeah. Very unobtrusive but combined with the split screens, multi screens and all the hotkeys it was so versatile. Probably a bitch to create though and not used by most players at the time.