Harel55 wrote:
I really liked the old zelda games, in fact Majora's Mask was the first game I ever played (I couldn't even read and had to have my sister translate).

I have no idea what my first game was... it was either Lego Loco or one of the green army men games on the N64. Maybe even Super Mario 64, now that I think about it...

Nats that's a good question! Retro gaming, for me, is about playing games where the graphics couldn't be what you lean on for immersion and quality--instead story and gameplay were the driving mechanics that kept you coming back. While, modern gaming isn't vacant of these qualities, retro-gaming has a certain charm. Publishers also were less concerned because gaming was less commercial, and more of a niche market, thus creativity flourished. There was no ESRB rating to hit, no 'broader audience' that publishers pushed devs towards. Another factor is that every game is a collective artform ---coders, programers, graphic artists, concept artists, story writers, ect---and it is to simply valuing the art behind their creation, like one would value the substance in older films. The final drawing quality, is that these games were essentially part of my childhood and/or development into a human being, even if in a small way. As InflamesWeTrust stated, it takes you back. I guess I just love games, and the developers who create them lol.



Star Control + Total Annihilation good stuff!



Lords of Magic! I have that one too! I'd say the closest thing would be the Heroes of Might and Magic Series!



Another honorable mention that I don't really think of as an old game, makes me feel old when I see it on good old games, Neverwinter Nights. Wonderful soundtrack, so wonderful infact that the second used a great deal of it lol. I played that game into the ground. So much good content put out by the community, and some really great RP servers. So much fun had there.



Anarchy Online is another golden oldie. Still go back to it occasionally. Luckily, it hasn't been shelved yet. Haven't played anything in an mmo quite like my beloved Fixer; Runspeed buffs, burst damage, roots, and heal over time. Perfect guerrilla fighter!



I'd also like to mention City of Heroes, which unfortunately is closing down. Losing a good game is paramount to losing a friend. While most games never die, City is an mmo, and servers are going with it. RIP CoX.. My best to your wonderful community.

Rudest wrote:
Nats that's a good question! Retro gaming, for me, is about playing games where the graphics couldn't be what you lean on for immersion and quality--instead story and gameplay were the driving mechanics that kept you coming back. While, modern gaming isn't vacant of these qualities, retro-gaming has a certain charm. Publishers also were less concerned because gaming was less commercial, and more of a niche market, thus creativity flourished. There was no ESRB rating to hit, no 'broader audience' that publishers pushed devs towards.

Whereas this is true I do think most games have always come out with cutting edge graphics. When you look back at Wing Commander or X-Wing they were designed to make the best use of the available space and technology of the standard computers of that time. In fact I remember when Strike Commander came out no one could play it properly on their computers because it was ahead of its time which is why I didn't buy that one. So I think the graphics have always been everything that the devs could make of them Its just with modern games the graphics are so much more detailed that they take up considerably more time to produce which is why often in modern games the gameplay, immersion and story suffer.



You can see this even with ES - the devs have produced a slick interface and graphics but again immersion and gameplay has suffered because of the amount of time that has gone into other things. This is the reason why they need to release an expansion pack - to fill in the missing parts of the game they couldnt work on before.



And even the massive franchises like the Total War games never seem to get it completely right - in fact every game seems to come out very similarly to the last but with updated graphics and a new theme that is all that is new. Why they still haven't permanently employed that Darth mod bloke to produce a decent game for them, AI wise, I will never understand.



So I cans ee why retro gaming exists. I just wish I could see past the aged graphics myself but I cannot. And to be honest although the gameplay in the old games is usually very good there are usually other things wrong with them - for example old flight sims suffer terribly with the fidelity of the flight models - their planes feel like you are flying on rails compared to new sims. And with old strategy games the intelligence of the AI is usually very bad.



Honestly I cannot think of any very old computer game that I played like mad when I was younger that I would go back to again now. Even Falcon 4 with its new graphics package and high definition terrain etc which looks like a new game now - still has the old mechanics under the hood. I havent tried that because I played it to death years ago and could possibly face playing it again. I know its AI weaknesses, I know its shortcomings. I live for new experiences I always have. I never go back!

To each their own natz! As I've mentioned before---Everybody is entitled to play the way they want. You and I are no exception! <3

From time to time i go back to an oldie game. The ones that i remembered to have played recently are Jagged Alliance 2 (one of my favorites), Alpha Centauri and Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Lately i am trying to set up a multiplayer game of Neverwinter Nights 1 just need to get some more time

Sometimes, I'm really sickened by all those new cutting-edge technology games, who are in certain cases crap when it comes to gameplay. Or balancing. Or the integrity of the game code... That's why i always keep a handful of oldies installed: Dungeon Keeper 2, Imperium Galactica II, Theme Hospital (<3 ), Civ 2, Settlers 2, Homeworld (1&2), System Shock 2.



Some of you, who are younger, maybe don't know a couple of these series yet. Give them a try, they're all unique in some way in our little universe!

TaCCCo wrote:
Some of you, who are younger, maybe don't know a couple of these series yet. Give them a try, they're all unique in some way in our little universe!

Another problem with old games is that it's hard to find them unless you want to order them online from eBay or something, and for some reason I'm basically paranoid about ordering things to be shipped to my door. Steam has put some good oldie games up once in a while, but it's not nearly enough. Some devs have put up their old games as freeware (like the original Command and Conquer games) but not all. Games like Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, one of the best games of my life, are simply impossible to download, unless you trust torrents, which I don't.

That said, is there any way I can digitally purchase Master of Orion 2?

Fenrakk101 wrote:


That said, is there any way I can digitally purchase Master of Orion 2?

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_orion_1_2

For anyone, who wants to play some Theme Hospital and can't get their game working or only have access to the demo:



http://code.google.com/p/corsix-th/



It even has got Android-Support (and Linux and Mac).



And else: FreeCiv

nats wrote:
I will never understand retro gamers. Whats that all about?

For me retro gaming harks back to a period in gaming history when the landscape was pretty much an independent one. The technology was a burgeoning one and at the time it wasn’t able to produce photo-realistic representation of its subject matter thus it relied on story and game-play, and left your imagination to fill in the gaps.



Today my favourite games are almost all independently developed because as far as I can see only the indie devs do a ‘good enough’ job with the technology and mostly hold on to the old ethic of: game-play first. The PC is also the perfect platform for such developers, and e-distro tools like Steam give indie devs a route into the market like no other. The AAA developers have enormous customer bases to keep happy thus the games that they churn out may look super-sharp but they’re very often dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Indie devs take a concept and try to make the very most of it; however, the AAA devs tend to take a good concept and do the bare minimum with it (then milk it with day 1 DLC that should have been in the game to begin with – EA, I’m looking at you here).

Rudest wrote:
Another honorable mention that I don't really think of as an old game, makes me feel old when I see it on good old games, Neverwinter Nights. Wonderful soundtrack, so wonderful infact that the second used a great deal of it lol. I played that game into the ground. So much good content put out by the community, and some really great RP servers. So much fun had there.

NWN1 and NWN2 are still going with regard to being persistent world RP servers. I still play in one. In a way this is retro gaming of a kind in that it's clinging on to an old approach that is no longer receiving support from a developer.

That is interesting defekt. Perhaps I'll hit an rp server up, I really do miss the good times I had!

I really liked the old zelda games, in fact Majora's Mask was the first game I ever played (I couldn't even read and had to have my sister translate).

InFlamesWeTrust wrote:
heck I still miss being able to play YuGiOh cards because no one plays it any more.

http://www.duelingnetwork.com/

send me a PM if you want to play!

InFlamesWeTrust wrote:
Oh and just for the record Igncom CoD sucks and has brought down my favourite modern gen shooter game gears to a casual pile of poo. Just saying, devs are casualising their games to try and get at the CoD market and it annoys me.

To be honest, CoD doesn't suck. It's not the worst game ever or anything. The problem is that, with one-year intervals in the series, with two different developers, with little to no updating of the game engine, the game has really started to suffer. People have a very good point when they say they're releasing the same game every year - and that game hasn't exactly aged very well. I'm half-convinced people only like it because they're impatient and they don't want to wait years for a sequel, and they are seriously afraid of a game never having a sequel. Most of the people who I know that play agree that Black Ops was better than MW3, and that World at War was better than Black Ops. When the old games are better, why are the new games still making record sales? The game is no longer an attempt to make good games. I get a feeling Treyarch is at least trying, weakly, but in general the games are just lazy and rushed and they're not an attempt to change the game at all, they're just trying to cash in on a profitable franchise.

That said, I have to be fair: I'm permanently suspicious of CoD games, but at least the new one at least sounds like they're trying to add something new. Which is admirable, at this point.

The one game that has pride of place on every PC & Laptop I've owned for the last 7 years - Birthright: The Gorgons Alliance.



First game I ever played? Sonic on a Sega Megadrive

[QUOTEusername=Rudest;92052

BlackIsleStudios:

(Baldur'sGate,Planescape,Fallout,IcewindDale)

ItwouldhavetakenfartolongtolisteverygamebyBlackIsleIlove.Ifiguredthiswouldbefarmoresimple.ThisdeveloperwasthePre-EABiowareoftheirtime.Only,thatwouldbeanunderstatement,asIbelieveevenPre-EABiowarepalesincomparison.Everythingthisstudiotouchedwasgold.RPGsandimmaculatelyseductiveenthrallingstorytellingthatwouldforeverleaveanimpressiononme.Imissthisdedicationtostorytellingingaming.Ireallydo.Icangoonforeveronatangentaboutthesegames,butIwon't.AllIwillsayisthatIhighly---highly---recommendthem.YoucanbetyourlifethatoneormoreofthesegamesarealwaysonmycurrentPC.Ifyouhaven'texpereincedtheoriginalFalloutseriesorBaldur'sGatethenyou'renogamer."Boo!GofortheeyesBoo!"MostoftheseguysworkforObsidianthesedays.BrainFargohimselfiswithInExile.[/QUOTE]



Fully agree with you, BG2 is one of my all time favorite! In case you missed it, a remake of BG1 is coming soon, just google baldur's gate enhanced edition



Other game that I always go back to:

Star control 2

Shining Force 2

Phantasy Star 4





Honorable mention to Dune 2 and Xenosaga episode 1

Excellent titles there Ragdamar. I loved me some Shining Force II, but I loved turned based in general--reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics and the lesser known Tactics Ogre series.



Regarding the Dune Series, I loved Westwood's House Ordos, even though they aren't in the books they still fit so supremely into the setting.

Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor, Startopia, Simcity 4, Deus Ex and a bunch more. My NAS is almost filled up to the 2TB limit with backups of my old games that have either been lost to the strain of time, or which are about to.



These days I backup all of my games just in case of a nuclear war - I know for a fact I want to replay them in a few years time

Oh, I forgot how much I loved Heroes of Might and Magic III, best game ever. It's such a shame that the Heroes of Might and Magic series removed the original castles and replaced them in all games after III, but it's not like they could have made any improvements.

Since every thing up to PS2 i know run on an emulater on my desktop my list is a little harder to pick. But i have a few that will all ways stand out.



1. The legend of dragoon

2. Neverwinter

3. Baldur's Gate

4. Tales of series

5. Just about any thing Squaresoft made before becoming enix.



As you can see i favor RPGs.



First game that i remember was the duck hunting game on NES.



My pick for underrated is: Nexus the Jupiter Incident. I highly recommend it its on steam now i think. It was released in 04 and its graphics still beat some games today. The tactical game play is top notch as well and you cant beat the black sun engine.