Games that age well?

[Mark_Bussman]

I’ll get both slants of the thread with one answer, Freespace 2.

[John_Merva]

@Dan_MacDonald

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. :)

Syndicate almost singlehandedly got me into gaming. Came free with the PC. Possibly one of the greatest games ever made.

[anonymous_user]

Good choice Mark. Totally spaced that one, even though it sits on a shelf right over my computer.

[smr]

@Mark_Bussman

I’ll get both slants of the thread with one answer, Freespace 2.

Goddamned HELL yes. The pinnacle of space sim shooters (well, tied with Tie Fighter, but Freespace looks a hell of a lot better than that and the gameplay is almost as good, so…).

I finally bought a new joystick a while back and FS2 was the game (as always) that I loaded up to test it. It still looks gorgeous and even on a middling system of today (1.8ghz P4) with a decent card (GF4128MB), you can crank everything through the roof as well as AA and it just plays like butter and looks better, frankly, than half the games out there today.

[mtkafka]

The best thing about Freespace 2 was the sound and physics in it (plus the ship designs are the best). I love the sound of the hum of the ships in F2. Plus the combat just feels raw and meaty, while a game like Freelancer just felt… plain compared to Freespace 2. VOLITION SHOULD MAKE A SEQUEL!

etc

[Desslock]

@mtkafka

plain compared to Freespace 2. VOLITION SHOULD MAKE A SEQUEL!

Interplay owns the franchise. There’s no game I’d rather see a sequel to, however, if the same designers were involved (except maybe Star Control 2 with Ford/Reiche).

I’ve played through FS2 more than any other game - probably at least once a year since it’s release, including once after reviewing Freelancer. It’s pretty much a perfect game, in my opinion, and in hindsight easily justifies the highest rating I’ve ever given a game.

[Mark_Bussman]

Didn’t they conduct a poll on their website at some point asking which sequel people most wanted, Descent 4, Freespace 3, (and maybe some others)?

[Robert_Sharp]

Master of Magic ages better than any other game I have played. However, in general, console games age better because you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues, and you pretty much remember how they looked. For some reason, I always remember PC games as being prettier than they really were.