Old games that wipe the floor with modern ones

Tagaziel

Party Escort Bot
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Messages
4,085
Reaction score
23
So, I've been browsing through my collection lately and decided to replay a few games. Funnily enough, they're more playable than many modern games.

So, which games do you replay oft enough, not out of nostalgia, but pure enjoyment?

Mine so far:

Syndicate

Back when Molyneux was still a genius, he gave birth to Bullfrog. And Bullfrog gave birth to Syndicate. A low-level tactical game, it's set in the dark, cyberpunk future, where the titular syndicates fight for global domination, using every asset and tactic at its disposal.

The graphics of the menus look dated by today's standards, but in-game they're crisp and smooth. Unless (for some reason) you loathe pixel art. Then shame on you.

Gameplay is pretty simple and the AI about as complex as a Midwest hillbilly. But this is the strength - the game boils down to pure, unmitigated combat, with the occassional persuadetron job. Some missions are pathetically easy if you know how to maneuver and abuse your agent's Int/Per/Adr levels properly in conjunction with the minigun. Some are hard.

Like the Atlantic Accelerator, which makes Ninja Gaiden's hardest mode look like kindergarten. Outnumbered several times, you start on an open platform, almost instantly pelted by rockets, explosives, miniguns, enemy agents and the kitchen sink.

There's no better example of a suicide mission, believe me.

Theme Hospital

A seemingly innocuous tycoon, TH is set apart by its brilliant graphics (2D 640x480 TH beats most 2009 1600x1200 games due to its fantastic art direction) and incredibly addictive gameplay.

As the title suggest, you are the manager of a hospital. The game's presented with an uniquely British sense of humour, but under that hilarious exterior it's a seriously challenging sim, where creating a well working money making hospital takes a lot of time and patience.

Crap, need to play moar TH. BRB
 
*Barnz or someone similar*


OH SYSTEM SHACK 2 BEATS BIOSHACK SO BAD IT SUCKS HAVE U EVER PLAYED SYSTEM SHACK I BET YOU HAVENT YOU CASUAL
 
I would have the say Heart of Darkness. It's on the same level as Abes Odyssey but without the steep difficulty curve. The art direction really pulls you into the game and builds a great atmosphere of isolation. Well, until the tribal parts, but that's for the kids.

It's been far too long since I've played it.
 
*Barnz or someone similar*


OH SYSTEM SHACK 2 BEATS BIOSHACK SO BAD IT SUCKS HAVE U EVER PLAYED SYSTEM SHACK I BET YOU HAVENT YOU CASUAL

System Shock 2 was one of the most counterintuitive games I've ever played. Bioshock is much less confusing.
 
I could play RollerCoaster Tycoon forever still....
 
I could play RollerCoaster Tycoon forever still....

You didn't mention Starcraft? I'm not proud.

Other than that, Planescape: Torment, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 are my favorites.
 
I often find myself replaying Darklands, the great open-ended RPG from Microprose, set in medieval Germany.

And any of the X-Com 'trilogy' games, X-Com <3
 
I would have the say Heart of Darkness. It's on the same level as Abes Odyssey but without the steep difficulty curve. The art direction really pulls you into the game and builds a great atmosphere of isolation. Well, until the tribal parts, but that's for the kids.

It's been far too long since I've played it.

HOLY SHIT.

I just got raped by a large amount of nostalgia. That game was the shit.
 
I still adore Theme Hospital too, one of my favourite old time games. The gameplay is indeed still highly addictive and fun. There was a thread near new year about this open source project to play TH on Windows 7 to roll back the years.
 
I would have the say Heart of Darkness. It's on the same level as Abes Odyssey but without the steep difficulty curve. The art direction really pulls you into the game and builds a great atmosphere of isolation. Well, until the tribal parts, but that's for the kids.

It's been far too long since I've played it.
FUUUUUCK YEEEEEAAAAH.
 
Baldurs gate
Half-life and expansion packs
Unreal
Dungeon keeper 2
Diablo

Classics
 
Oh and SimCity2000 > every sim game after (4 was ok, but not nearly as amazing).
 
Theme Hospital was great fun, but I'm really not sure it 'wipes the floor' with anything. Sure, it has a kind of ingenious spark to the concept, but the actual 'campaign' was one of gaming's lowest points. All that endless early-level rebuilding just to be rationed out a new machine (if you're lucky) or maybe just a new ornament for one of the rooms. Halo owes us nothing whilst Theme Hospital is in town.

I'm sure I'll pick up some hardcore points for claiming that Turn-Based Strategy peaked with Alpha Centauri, but I'll freely admit I don't know what the hell I'm on about.

Not convinced anyone ever truly outdid Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament for the ultimate multiplayer twitch-shooter experience (I could never choose between the two anyway). Not to say efforts like Unreal Tournament '2' weren't good games in their own right, they just lacked a certain effortless awesome that both those titles nailed.

edit: Someone recently said that there are now five more Settlers games than there ever needed to be. I'm pretty sure that Ubisoft's controversially daft DRM exists because they had to brainstorm how on earth they were going to continue the trend any further downwards.
 
Tie Fighter
The Six Degrees of Freedom genre
Ballmenmod
The Duke Nukem 2d sidescrollers
Battletoads (seriously not that hard after you get through the speederbike level... ok yes its incredibly hard, but once you get through that point, you are just pushed to beat it)

Not so old, but Sacrifice. Never been another game like it, and holy crap did I make love to every part of that game until it was broken on my desk.
 
Total Annihilation.
Age of Wonders. Played this to death and still do.
Pharaoh. Other builders in the series are good but I liked Pharaoh best.
Dark Reign.
 
Many great games have already been listed before my post. Most of which I was lucky enough to have played. Many of which I had forgotten about, but still had packed away in storage. Within the past year, I played some of each of the following:

1) Nox
2) Dungeon Siege + LOA
3) Diablo: Hellfire
4) Ultima: Underworld
5) Lands of Lore 3

-MRG
 
Age of Empires 2 > every RTS up to CoH v1.0.

Give Rise of Nations a try.


GoldenEye 64
There is no better console shooter. I don't care what you say.


Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3
I pretend that 4 and 5 don't exist and that Dead Space is the spiritual successor.
 
Ecco the Dolphin totally redefined the dolphin platform genre.
 
I would have the say Heart of Darkness. It's on the same level as Abes Odyssey but without the steep difficulty curve. The art direction really pulls you into the game and builds a great atmosphere of isolation. Well, until the tribal parts, but that's for the kids.

It's been far too long since I've played it.

I remember the first time I Played that. Friends computer was too shitty, so he gave it to me. I played the SHIT out of it. I believe I even beat it, somehow. I bet if I tried now, though, I'd fail so hard at the start.

@Tav - Everybody knows StarCraft. I don't want to be redundant.
 
From my start menu (missing Blacksite: Area 51 Crysis/Warhead, and some others that haven't been ported to Win7 yet, but the oldies are on there).
 
So many good games in this thread :D

X-Com and Deus Ex for sure, dont make them like that anymore...
 
Medal of Honor Allied Assault and the Spearhead expansion. They were simple. There were no "perks," no rankings, no dogs, no kill streaks, no death streaks, no leveling up, no iron sights, no one-button grenade throwing, and no regenerating health. It was just good round-based, objective, team deathmatch, or plain deathmatch gameplay. Clan matches were always a blast and so were bolt-action rifles only servers. Eventually, you got good enough with a bolt-action rifle that you could use it effectively against people who were using MGs and SMGs in team deathmatch. Great fun. I miss playing it in its heyday. It also had a really satisfying "tick" sound when you got a kill and it would say "You killed so-and-so" in the top left corner of the screen.

Also, the original Ghost Recon for PC. One shot and you're dead. No health packs.
 
Descent and Battlezone are still very fun. I played AoE2 with friends a few times over the past several years but haven't gone back to singleplayer much, even though it was my favorite RTS. Probably more of a time issue than lack of fun.

I tend to go back to Blood every few years, although I have to go through a short period of readjustment since I'm not used to running around that fast and the copious amounts of bright red constantly flying all over the place. I still think the train and carnival levels are awesome.
 
Baldur's Gate series.

Specifically Baldur's Gate 2.

Beats Diablo any day...Ohhhhhhhhhhh! Splittin' the forum.
 
TOTAL ANNIHILATION

Also, the original Ghost Recon for PC. One shot and you're dead. No health packs.
Seems your memory is playing tricks on you, old champ!

It was quite possible to survive one shot in Ghost Recon, be it single-player or multiplayer. But anything after that and your chances decrease drastically.
 
Back
Top