Knights of the Old Republic II is still pretty good looking. Actually the first isn’t half bad if you pick a decent resolution. (I don’t even bother with the widescreen ‘hack’ for it.)
I just can’t face the combat in Anachronox again. The rest of the game is fantastic though.
Yeah, I can’t argue with that. The combat’s really dull - does playing it on easy remedy that? It’s just that the world and story are absolutely worth experiencing. I wish Tom Hall had the chance to make another singleplayer game again.
The Thief games (1 and 2), first and foremost. I always have these loaded on any PC I’m using.
Deus Ex.
Realms Of The Haunting.
The graphics may be dated on all of those, but the pure atmosphere is bliss.
And thanks to whoever posted Ghost Recon up there. I’d forgotten about that one over the years, but really need to get that going again. Had a blast with it back in the day.
I agree MrTibbs. Anachronox was great…except for the gameplay…if that makes any sense.
Classics still worth playing.
X-Wing and TIE Fighter (or XvT or X-wing Alliance )
Homeworld
Wing Commander: Privateer, III and IV.
Myth
Dungeon Keeper I, II ah hell…everything Bullfrog made really. They all hold up. I still have no idea what Magic Carpet is about…great stoner game tho.
Giant Citizen Kabuto multiplayer.
Doom, Doom II, Final Doom - use the Brutal MOD and they are like a new game again.
Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle.
Unreal Tournament I
Quake , Quake II.
Half Life
Carmageddon II (I is good too, but II is more fleshed out.)
Well, those are still the ones installed or on a thumb drive around here…
Forgot one…it got me though the worst project I ever worked on: Robotron 2084
I just bought the MMX Legacy Deluxe, and while waiting for MMX to download played some MMVI… I’m now 10+ hours more into VI than X! So now I have an itch to play ALL the MM games from 1-9 before I play 10. Yeah probably wont happen, but MM and HoMM are mainstays for me…maybe NWC classics are more replays for me than the old Sir Tech stuff (except maybe JA). And obviously the late 90s LG games. And I seem to play alot of lithtech games too… Nolf, Blood etc etc. And of ‘recent’ I always go back to FNV… so damn great.
I’m only going to consider personal 5-star favorites that I’ve played in the last six years, so at least I can vouch for them.
What great games overcome their dated appearance and are still a great play today?
I thought about different ways to approach this. I think it comes down to a judgment call between accessibility (graphics and interface), game value, and a lack of modern counterparts. The first one lowers the barrier of entry, and the latter two make it worth the effort.
The highest tier maximizes all three criteria. The only games I’ve played that do so are Doom and FreeSpace 2. Their experiences exceed almost all modern games. Thanks to their source ports, they still look quite nice. And they both stand atop their respective subgenres 15-20 years later.
Below that you need to put some effort into it. Maybe the graphics are dated (but serviceable) or the interface is clunky. I still think Combat Mission and Jagged Alliance 2 are worth that effort. Their modern counterparts aren’t good enough.
I don’t know whether I want to recommend anything below that. I spent the last 6 years looking for old classics that I missed. I could already tell that I missed my chance to truly enjoy some of them. I think that judgment call has continued to shift as the years go by. The biggest game changer was probably moving from a CRT to an LCD. Even with modern source ports, some games don’t look right on LCD monitors. Do you scale them or display the tiny sprites 1:1? I can’t find a happy medium with Infinity Engine games, for example. You can do it, but it will take some effort. So we can all list our favorite games and pretend like they’re worth it to someone. Realistically, I’m confident the games above provide a great chance at success.
It’s probably more instructive and conducive to discussion to list old classics that aren’t worth going back to. Any game prior to 2000-ish that you’ve played in the last five years (for the first time, or replaying it) that you had to put out to pasture. I think I’m done with X-Com, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex. I’m leaving Fallout 2 in my back pocket, but I’m worried about it.
The original XCOM with a mod that fixes some bugs. Still the best.
1830 Railroads & Robber Barons (simtex)
Spaceward Ho!
Chaos Overlords
It’s definitely an acquired taste. When I retried Ghost Recon a few years back it did take a couple of tries before I again got used to not seeing a gun in front of me, but once I started playing proper I completely forgot about it again. Given a choice I’d prefer gun-in-view, but it’s not nearly enough to outweigh the other qualities of the game. In terms of tactical shooters it’s still a benchmark game, especially for single player and co-op. There’s a whole community of players waiting for a worthy replacement for Ghost Recon.
I might have thrown the original Rainbow Six games (especially the Rogue Spear sequel) in the mix, but it’s so many years since I’ve played it I can’t promise it’ll hold up as well.
Oh yes. Well, I haven’t played SWAT 3 in years but I’ll take your word for it. SWAT 4 I’ve played recently. Still great. The Stetchkov Syndicate expansion is a must though for the added game features like custom co-op missions.
You misspelled Sacrifice.
-Tom
Yuss. Would kill for remake of this.
Jagged Alliance 2 never gets old. Plenty of mods that breathe new life into it too.
:thumbsup:
I spent ages modding the hell out of Morrowind (very sensitively I might add) and after all that time ended up finding the combat dull, the dialogue dull, the dialogue system dull, and the interface a bit too crusty and cumbersome. Sure, the world still looked lovely, and the music was gorgeous, but the whole thing just felt like a real trudge to me, despite my best efforts to stick at it.
Tom, I tried playing Sacrifice last year (for the first time) and couldn’t bear it. Sorry, I really wanted to love it, honest!
You raise some great points Tim and I admire your restraint and careful consideration. It’s a bit of nebulous question! But I can certainly agree on Doom.
My suggestions would probably be Planescape: Torment, System Shock 2 and UFO: Enemy Defence simply by virtue that I played them (properly) for the first time in the last 10 years (or less) and was blown away by them. Your mileage may vary of course.
I’ve been playing Rebellion’s 1999 Aliens versus Predator again recently and that seems to have aged very well thanks to its old-school simplicity and challenge, its speed and surprisingly muscular engine (destroyable coloured dynamic lighting, volumetric deformable water pools, decent physics (flares float and move around on top of the water depending on the waves you make in it, they even pick up on your motion tracker), deformable 3D explosions, explodable enemy models comprised of limbs, aliens whos animation alter depending on how they’re shot at and where, gunfire/blood/acid/fire decals and particle effects, levels with alternating enemy positions).
Completely agree.
AvP and AvP II. Also the Thief games for sure. I’ve played through them an insane number of times. There are some mods which help with the graphics.
MOO 2
MOM
Dungeon Keeper GOTY
X-COM
X-COM: Apocalypse (yeah, that’s right) I have an old laptop that I keep alive just to play this game
X-Wing/TIE Fighter
Jumpgate Classic (yay!)
Homeworld
Missionforce Cyberstorm
Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri
Final Fantasy Tactics
They have been slowly working on one.