Gaming Now and 20 Years Ago

Anonymous Coward writes "A cool comparison of video games from the same genre, the only difference is about 20 years of technical development. The Bard's tale vs World of Warcraft is really funny."

Deeper level comparision

[Mattygfunk1]

While the screenshots are nice, if you compared other metrics like customer satisfaction and average hours of game play per gamer, how would they stack up?

My bet would be they are a lot closer than this graphics comparision which was purely a technology problem.

Re:Pre-rendered shot?

[Runesabre]

If only there was as easy a way to measure game playability as these is to measure graphic differences.

This, I believe, hits at the root as to why we get so many multi-million dollar me-too efforts from big companies. The decision makers don't play games yet they are they ones that make the decisions on what gets created and published and what doesn't. These people don't understand gameplay because they haven't lived gaming; they have no connection with it. But they can see better graphics in the 5 minutes they spend in a board meeting skimming over game proposals.

Re:No, they are not ...

[Not Invented Here]

Even if they are done by the game engine, they aren't camera angles you actually use when playing the game. Take a look at the PGR shot, and ask yourself, "Could I really drive looking at my car from down there?"

I may be old-fashioned, but I prefer to play racing games with the camera looking forwards, and maybe with the speedo visible somewhere on the screen. Those wishing to take screen shots of racing games should read this useful guide. [ukresistance.co.uk]

Re:Deeper level comparision

[solarbob]

I still think the old games had more playability (and though there are still gems like GTA) but newer games to me just seem to be more eye candy than anything else

Re:"Short article" is right

[ClamIAm]

I don't think that games have changed all that much. Sure, we have programmable-shader 3D HD++ graphics, but the core gameplay of many genres has pretty much stagnated.

In genres like racing or sports (say football), there isn't much difference between Pole Position and Gran Turismo 4, or between Tecmo Bowl and the latest Madden. The "precision" may have gotten better, allowing more options or more accurate simulations of things like play calling or physics, but they're mostly the same games (save the fact that they're now 10 times as complex).

The higher parts of the gaming food chain (established genres and conventions) have been killing off lower species (innovation, weird stuff) for years, and it's weakening the gene pool. To take on the established species, you must either do it by force or by creating a species that disrupts the natural order.

These two strategies are being employed as we speak. Sony and Microsoft think that by building bigger tanks, the sheer power will be able to crush competing tech and create a higher barrier to entry. Nintendo, on the other hand, is quietly crafting experimental anti-tank gear. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Old Nintendo vs new Microsoft...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one noticing that the article mainly (only?) compares crappy old Nintendo graphics with shiny new XBox graphics.

They could just as well have compared some of the 1986 4-coloured PC games with new Gamecube games. Heck - even comparing old PC games with other games from the same era, would make the PC look silly! :-D

Re:Deeper level comparision

[Rebyk]

It is like comparing a book and a movie telling the same story. Some people always prefer books because they force you to use your imagination. The same applies to old games. However, sometimes the makers of a movie or a game have a better imagination than you do or they can visualize something better. I admit that some, perhaps even most, new movies and games are just eye candy or special effects but sometimes they really make you feel something that was not possible 20 years ago, and that is just the visual part. Don't forget the sounds.

And then there's the nostalgy. If you played some game as a kid, you can't play a new game 20 years later and have the same feelings because _you_ are not a kid anymore. That has nothing to do with the quality or playability of the game. It is very hard to be objective in this matter.

Re:"Short article" is right

[Beolach]

I disagree. There's been a number of other advances besides graphics in games, even in genres like racing or sports. I remember an old American football game where the only interaction the player had was selecting what play would be used each down. The player selected the play & then watched is it either succeeded or failed based on what play the opponent had selected, with some random variations thrown in. That's very different than the level of control a player of a current American football game has. Physics and AI are also on completely different levels now than they were 20 years ago.

Now, those are all aspects of the underlying game engine, which is somewhat seperate from the overall game design. Advances in the various aspects of game engines creates more possibilities for the game design, but fulfilling the increased potential does require innovation on the part of the game designer; and it's by no means guaranteed that the designer will do so. But regardless of whether they fully realize their potential, does not change the fact that the game engine, and hence the game as a whole, is different than games 20 years ago. Innovation or the lack thereof in game design is in many ways a seperate issue than changes in the game engine. As graphics is only one part of the game engine, I'd like to have seen a more in-depth article that included more comparisons of other aspects of game engines between 20 years ago and today, in addition to the side-by-side screenies in the article.

You get what you ask for

[el_womble]

I started gaming with the Spectrum 48k. Apart from the 15 minute load times the thing that stuck out the most in my memory was the desire for the flash screen the apeared halfway through game load was the actual ingame graphics.

When I finally got my grubby little paws on a NES my wish was granted, and then I started to wish that the games I were playing were more 'realistic'. At the time I played beginner Games Worksop games like Hero Quest and Dungeon Bowl. What I wanted was a game were I could actually be in the 'dungeon' and walk around it like my characters in the game could. I upgraded my PC to a 486 SX20, installed Wolfenstein 3D and then I wanted it to have better graphics.

There were side wishes: I want to be able to shoot someone with a genuine fake gun: duck shoot. I want to be able play golf with a genuine fake club, I want to play racing games with a genuine fake steering wheel.

My current wishes include: play jedi knight with a real lightsaber (revoluntion?) and I want a truely immersive environment - just like the matrix. Do I expect the games to be any better? No not really.

Its not the games that are to blame for the increasingly bland gaming landscape its the market. We understand that emmersive 3D environments are expensive, so we're prepared to handover $60 per game, but we are also defensive about handing over that ammount of cash if we don't know we're going to like it.

Re:Deeper level comparision

[KDR_11k]

Either way those screenshots aren't gameplay shots (because you can't play a game with such a perspective). I'd have preferred had they chosen comparable situations in the games and depicted those instead so there's actually something to compare.

Games vs Reality

[grumbel]

A third column showing how said game would actually look in reality would have been nice. Especially with videos it often becomes pretty obvious that todays games aren't a lot closer to reality then those games 20 years ago, sure they look pretier today, but animation, physics and 'flexibility' of the environment don't even get close to how complex reality is. Animation is also often very primitive since motion captured sequences don't blend together all that well, making everything look robotic. Physics are still missing from many games, especially when it comes to objects that aren't the main focus of the game (ie. a car might have a (often lame) damage model, but the environment is far to often indestructable). And the player is also limited to a few predefined actions in very many games, so that the key differences between games today and games of the past is made by the more buttons we have on the controller, not by the rest of the game.

Re:The Bard's Tale...

[Bagheera]

And here I was so proud of myself for finally completing Adventure on the PDP11.

Kids . . .

Seriously though. When guys our age started playing computer games, they were all text based. The earliest graphics games were such a leap visually it was like night and day. The graphics now are like watching a movie.

Gotta wonder what it'll be like in another 20 years.

But what about the ultimate retro game....

[Kaptain_Korolev]

Tweaking your autoexec.bat and config.sys so that you had enough of the first base 640k of RAM to actually get any games to run on your power beast 486. That's were the fun really was!

Himem.sys and emm386.exe, I had nearly forgotten all about you guys, ahhhh those were the days.

For those who want more of this jovial tweakfest go here [kisser.net.au]

Re:For all you retro farts

[phpWebber]

I'm 35 and I agree with you. So many people are going to come in claiming how great the gameplay was long ago. It wasn't. That was just all you had. I loved Basketball for Atari but I'm sorry NBA Street is better than NBA Jam is better than Arch Rivals is better than Double Dribble is better than Intellivision Basketball.

Are you telling me you'd rather play Night Driver over Burnout?
Adventure over Baldur's Gate or Elder Scrolls?
Combat over Battlefield 2?
Star Trek (the ascii grid version) over Wing Commander?
Mule over Civilization? (ok maybe Mule is bad example. That game rocked)
There was a reason you only needed one button on your joystick. The games just weren't that deep.

Older gamers, learn to accept you just aren't as good at video games as you were 20 years ago. Drop the "no gameplay" excuse.

Re:Deeper level comparision

[CSMastermind]

Actually you know what that tells me? We had all the same games 20 years ago.......when will we get a new genre?

You could beat 'em!

[smithcl8]

I liked the old games because without using cheat codes or digging for info (maps, how-tos, etc.) you could still beat the games in a reasonable amount of time. I see too many people going to Blockbuster, renting a game, using all of the cheats, beating the game, and taking it back the next day. However, if you actually attempt to beat it on your own, without the cheats, they are way too difficult. The developers need to reach a nice middle ground, where it's challenging enough to remain fun, but not impossible either. Games like Mario Bros (at least the 1, 2, and 3,) Dragon Warrior, and Ninja Gaiden could be beat without consulting a gigantic book of tricks. Some of us aren't interested in playing online, getting pummelled by people who play all the time, or making a video game feel like real work. I just want them to be fun. Sonic, Mario, and Metroid games are the best for me. And that's not just because I'm "old."

Re:rogue

[billcopc]

One big thing we didn't have "back in the day" was ever-increasingly violent games. Now don't get me wrong, there's a curious satisfaction in pumping a flying zombie doctor with a dozen rockets and blowing his guts all over the room, but I feel it has cheapened our entertainment. I remember when the first Carmageddon was released, part racing game, part pedestrian squishing game. If you look at the game from an objective standpoint, both parts sucked, but the game was a hit because it's inevitable for human animals to fantasize at one time or another, what it would be like to run people over with a car, or ram other drivers off the road. Okay, maybe I have a homicidal mind but I think about it every day when driving around my big crazy city full of imbeciles. Perhaps the only reason I haven't hit anyone yet, is that I don't want to scratch my car ;)

I also got kicks out of the Medal of Honor series, and Soldier of Fortune.. standard-fare military FPS, but the fact that it was a realistic fantasy; being set in WW2, or a rogue mercenary like a trigger-happy James Bond. It's easier to sink into character playing those games, than it is to believe the environment of Quake or Doom where you're quashing zombies and six-legged hell demons.

This leaves at least two types of games: puzzles and arcade-style games. Puzzles like Tetris, Hexic, Bejeweled etc, all are purely abstract mental jogs that don't give a rats ass about realism, they're just scientifically sterile applications of game design theory. There is no world to escape to, nobody to shoot, it's just you and the flashy geometric interface. The simpler the better, so that anyone can pick it up and play; the mantra is "Easy to play, hard to master". Those games have remained mostly unchanged since the dawn of computing, except for sharper graphics and sound effects. They're still every bit as fun as their 20-year old ancestors.

Arcade games are a special bunch, they're the conceptual sibling of puzzles, except you use your brain less and your hands more. They're equally designed for mass appeal with a low or progressive difficulty scale. Think Dig-Dug, Galaga, Pac-Man.. they often have a minor puzzle element that separates experts from casual players. Sometimes it's just a satisfying button mash like Contra or MegaMan, because the ape in all of us likes to push buttons that make things go.

It doesn't always have to do with imagination. Often it's just about giving the player what they want at the primal level, with minimal fuss. Give me shiny things that make fun sounds, give me generous positive feedback when I achieve a small goal, give me a funny colorful game world that brings me back to my saturday morning childhood before I ever knew about politics, money or STD's. We knew what "fun" was back then.

The real scary thing revealed here...

[fishizzle]

The real scary thing here is that all the best games from the mid-eighties were released for a Nintendo system, whereas all the best games released today are for a Microsoft system. :O ... Of course this has a lot to do with the fact that Microsoft is the only company that has a next-gen console on the market right now, but still.

Too bad they can't easily compare the emotions felt by the end-user the first time they got their hands on such a system back in the 80's to now.

Re:rogue

[Sique]

First: I was not talking about Mario Bros. (I am not very into jump&run anyway).

Second: Diablo and Diablo II are from a map point of view, from a level point of view, from a scoring point of view and from the equipment point of view very similar to nethack, and it would be actually quite simple to generate a Diablo level from a nethack level (Just add graphics for the chars. I am wondering if someone ever thought of generating a Diablo like GUI for the original nethack :) )

Third: I was playing and programming MMORPGs when no one called them that way (they were called MUD, MUSH, MOO, MUSE or whatever at that point in time, and that was already the third generation of MMORPGs), and I have left that world without looking back too often. Actually I played only one completely, and I found it more fun to program them and expand them than to actually play them. I know we had a lot of players who thought different, who were asking us for new features, for new quests, for new landscapes or new guilds all the time to increase size and depth of the game. So I understand your point of view, but I won't generalize it.