I still have the 5.25 as well, but I constantly lose the CDs that I purchase. how odd.
Wow this thread went off track quickly. I would say Max Payne still holds up nicely after a few years.
– Xaroc
Homeworld has aged remarkably well, when it comes to improving with technology. I used to be able to bog down my old Athlon-800/GeForce 2 when too many ships/explosions/mines/missiles were on the screen. But it’s finally running silky smooth on my new system.
Have a feeling Homeworld 2 is going to exercise my system and probably require future tech to run everything on max detail with large fleets on the screen.
It’s no wonder the thread went off track quickly given that I was confused when I started it – I meant to ask about “future-friendly” games (scalability) but blurred it with “games that age well” (classics). So of course the thread has two minds now :-)
On the scalability tip: yes, I forgot Homeworld, that’s another good one. And now I almost wish I still had my copy of Max Payne – that’s the problem with game trading!
And to the person saying “more units doesn’t equal a better game” – yes, that’s true. But it certainly equals more spectacle and More Cool S**t On The Screen :D Which is part of what motivates me as a gamer, truth be told!
(of course right now I’m playing Torment which isn’t scalable at all, so it’s not like I’m closedminded…)
I may get pissed on for this, but I might say Ultima 9. When it first came out, it ran like crap. Now I can play it (with all the latest patches) on my P4 2.4 gig system and it runs generally very well. It may not be the most up to date game, but it still looks pretty good and it’s amazing to see just how many small details they managed to work in.
I’m a fan of Ultima 9, so don’t feel bad.
Glad to see another fan of U9, I thought that behind the technical problems was a pretty interesting game. On today’s systems with today’s graphics cards, the game can run well even with drawing distances cranked up.
I find myself going back to play Warhammer: Dark Omen every so often. Its fun to just start up and go to war without dealing with all the economy management. It looks horrible on XP though.
As for what gameplay still holds up, I’d go with Ultima 7, Darklands, Syndicate, and Civ 2 (which I prefer to 3)
Syndicate forever, I’m playing that right now :) Too bad sound doesn’t work on XP
You know, Syndicate just isn’t a game that would sell nowadays. It’s too different. People wouldn’t know what to think of it.
Disagree. Syndicate is timeless. The press-and-hold-to-carpet-a-courtyard-with-minigun-fire is a classic gameplay mechanic which in some sense popped up most recently in Crimsonland, and which will never die.
I think a redone Syndicate – stressing the same kind of light character development, probably some better AI, and exactly the same super-low-overhead click-to-destroy interface – could be quite popular. The big question is, how would you do it in 3D? And I bet that’s a solvable question.
Syndicate at heart is about four guys wielding absurdly powerful weaponry and causing mass damage. How can that not go over well? I mean, imagine if Rockstar took on Syndicate…
Grand Theft Syndicate???
You heard it here first ;)
Sure, as long as they let you see inside buildings for a change. :roll:
- Alan
I’d love to try this one out again (never played an Ultima before I bought that way, and it even ran okay on the PII400 system I had at the time… not great but acceptably. The bugs, however, still nuked it) but my CD media are hosed and I refuse to pay $30 for the U9/UO package which is all I can seem to find in stores today. Sigh.
As for games that still look pretty fuckin’ good today, Heretic II, one of the most underrated games ever, still looks kickass with everything cranked out the freakin’ wazoo on a modern system. EAW with a bunhca mods installed looks awesome, Starfleet Command II with the High-Res model mod pack is a thing of awesome beauty… these are why I don’t get rid of games much.
Tho’ there’s no computer on earth that can make my copy of Outpost look good… :(
No, Syndicate is too dark, serious and difficult. It’s also very, very different from most games people have played. Talk about action all you want, there’s a not-very-clear strategic element and most of the missions are like puzzles with just enough freedom to confuse, but not enough to allow unplanned ways to win.
Agreed on Heretic II and on the greatest combat flight sim ever made, EAW. I also want to mention Age of Sail II, which isn’t nearly as old as those two but nevertheless should have aged considerably by now. It hasn’t (except perhaps on the pre-battle interface screens, which don’t scale to hi-res like the rest of the game), and there’s no particular reason to think it won’t still stand up five years from now. What a beautiful, pure game it is.
Syndicate is pure genious, is it a sim? is it an action game? strategy? it’s hard to say. But whatever it is, I love it. There have been many clones and knock offs, none of wich have been successful or captured the essence of the origional. Origins crusader series (amungst others) was one of the most popular re-make styles. Unfortunatly by limiting the players control to a team of one, the game became purely an action game and lost a lot of it’s strategic elements.
Here’s a telling quote from the manual.
Peter Molyneux – Producer
“In Populous we simulated a whole world, in PowerMonger we simulated a country, but in Syndicate we are simulating a city. This is really hard to do because the more detail you put in the more problems you
have. For example, even seemingly easy things like people crossing roads had to be designed. In fact, the code that Sean produced for roads is huge.”
“In the design I wanted there to be a freedom for the game players to do anything they wanted, so it’s up to you. For example, you can shoot a tree and something will happen whether or not it’s of any relevance to
the game. Syndicate has more graphics, more sound and more design than all the previous Bullfrog games put together. I hope you enjoy it.”
I think this is what was lacking from a lot of the subsequent Syndicate clones. An actual detailed simulation. One could even argue that syndicate was in some ways a precursor to “the sims”, though it’s arguable weather Will Wright was ever influenced by syndicate or not.
I’ve often thought of re-doing syndicate, but after reading some of the developers quotesk, like the following…
Sean Cooper – Assistant Producer/Programmer
“Syndicate has taken me three years to write, but one of the reasons it has been so long is that we just kept adding new features. I hope you enjoy Syndicate. I certainly feel I put a part of myself in the game – you’ll
have to decide which part!”
… make me doubt weather I could really pull it off. :)
Giants has aged well as has Falcon 4
It’s also very, very different from most games people have played.
Actually, I played some games in the past years that reminded me of one of the major points I found to be great about Syndicate: the GTA series. While it might look like a totally different setting and genre, I personally see lots of similarities. I really liked the way how you could move around freely in huge, populated city areas. You could grab a car or get a train ride. If you were told to kill someone there were usually several approaches you could choose. Sniper him, blast whatever vehicle he is using or standing near with a rocket launcher, ‘convince’ (and equip) some other people to follow you and go for a mass killing, run over him with a car - and since it usually involved some sort of timed event it was up to you where you actually tried to launch an attack. Might sound odd, but to me it is definitely a striking aspect , which makes both games/series so enjoyable.
I just bought and installed Championship Manager 4 on my 512mb XP2000, the game features 90 odd divisions from 39 leagues, but suggests that I don’t attempt playing with more than 21 divisons on my PC.