Games that Haven't aged well

Well, what would be first gen 3D? Genesis/SNES era? N64/Playstation/Saturn era? Personally, there are some older 3D games that age well. For example: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask both look great and still awe me even after TP and WW was released. The 3D N64 Pokemon games still look great for how much they had to cram into a ROM. Then again, most stuff from the N64 still has some charm in it that the GCN/Wii is trying to match.

 

1st gen 3D is Saturn/Playstation. I wouldn't count the Zelda games (1.5 gen). They haven't aged that horribly, but they've always been more about intriguing adventure than graphics.

 

Not to mention the schizophrenic art direction has gotten way out of hand as the years have gone by.

 

SNES had Starfox and the much awesomer Starfox 2. Also, we can't forget the horrendous Hard Drivin/Race Drivin and Virtua Racer games for the Genesis.

Where would the 32x fit in? It had some pretty excellent 3d games (even if most were flat-shaded with no textures)... but it certainly does not belong in the 32-bit category despite what Sega's marketing team wanted you to believe.

 

Well it came out during the 32 bit Era, has 32 bit CPUs so one would put it in the 32 bit era for that reason.

A lot of game are being picked because of their graphics which I think is a shame as most of the games still are very playable. I think Goldeneye is a great game, granted the graphics and frame rate are poor nowdays but the game play means it is still a great game. I still buy a lot of Playstation games and I hope the gameplay is there as I can look beyond the poor graphics.

A lot of 8 / 16 bit games have aged badly because there are games which are a lot better, for example a lot of C64 shoot em ups are fairly poor nowdays due to the rigid and generally slow game play compared to most 2D shooter of the 16 / 32 bit eras. A lot of platformers and beat em ups have also aged badly because the gameplay feels to rigid and restrictive. Double Dragon is fun for a few minutes but gets rather dull quickly because it's aged and the gameplay is too restrictive and dull.

 

Overclocking the N64 most certainly does boost the framerate 007 and PD get, as I recall it was basically the primary reason to OC the system. I'm sure if you googled around you'd be able to find some sources that say so. I never OCed anything but I don't see why the framerate wouldn't improve. The game already runs with a variable framerate so less intense scenes run much smoother than something action packed. If the cpu had more cycles (and I assume the graphics portion of the system would too) the game should be able to run smoother.

Either way with emulation you can make the game run smooth as you could ever want.

 

Mario Kart 64 - It was so awsome back when it came out, but going back to it now its apparent that their are alot of issues (rubber band AI, 4 courses total for battle mode, etc.)

Goldeneye - No duel analog, pitiful frame rate. does anymore need to be said?

 

Well if we've to classify the 3D I say its like this:

1st gen: Genesis, SegaCD, Snes, Jaguar and VirtualBoy

2nd gen: 3DO, 32X, Saturn, PSX and N64

3rd gen: Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube/Wii (they share the same hardware) and Xbox

4th gen: X360 and PS3.

I wouldnt create "middle generations" since honestly theres isnt that much of a difference. If we take the AA out of most N64 games they look exactly like Saturn and PSX games, or even worst in some cases, since the Fast3D microcode only allowed for 100k polys per second.

The 3DO and 32X can, in theory, pull some graphics that are at the same level that some early Saturn/PSX games, while none of the 1st could do that. Therefore those 2 belong with the 2nd gen.

The Dreamcast while some say fits more in between the 2nd and 3rd gen, is on the 3rd since some of the last AAA games to come out of that console where complex enough to belong in that gen.

 

Technically it goes before then as even the Famicom / NES (crowning glory being Elite), Master System and even the Atari 2600 had 3D games. Yes granted they are mainly wireframe but still they are 3D.

 

you must ask yourself "what's on the menu?".

The first consoles that widely supported 3d games were PSX/Saturn/N64 era =)

 

I think it requires a minimum of complexity to enter the ranks, thats why I left most of the 8bit consoles out of the list.

On a second thought I could've left the 16bit out too since theres not many real 3D titles on those...

 

Fast3D microcode?

 

The Fast3D was a SGI microcode that most developers used, but it could only render as much as 100k poly per sec, which is pretty low when compared to Saturn's 200k and PSX 300k.

Aparently it wasnt good for games so some developers (Factor 5, Rare) made their own.

There was another microcode called Turbo3D that allowed as much as 600k polys, but at low quality, so nintendo never let retail games to use it.

 

not low quality, it was innacurate and there werent any manuals for it by SGI or nintendo, and no way tools or a way to debug it easily.

 

Ah wow, I had no idea.

 

Factor 5 made that machine do all sorts of crazy stuff courtesy of custom microcode. Indiana Jones and Battle for Naboo are the best examples of it. Mainly the landscape engine, high resolution, and weather effects in Naboo, I believe. Weather mainly in Indiana (and high res all the time).

Perfect Dark woulda been one sweet game if it ran 30 fps solid at 640x480. That was the most disappointing part of it. Did you know you can play PD and maybe Goldeneye with two controllers? I have yet to try it myself, but saw the option in the controls menu.

 

It's off-topic a bit, but you can also do dual-pad controls in Pod Racer and Robotron for the 64.

 

you can play dual pad in Star Wars Episode 1 racer?

 

Yeah, one analogue stick for each thruster. Both games are tricky, though, it doesn't work as well as it should somehow. I think it's just kind of hard to hold a controller in each hand comfortably, you get cramp trying to play and hold each one still.

 

It looks like most people here are judging games based on graphics rather than gameplay value. I'd have to say what has aged most for a lot of games is the general size of the games and their gameplay. When you first buy a game it usually feels pretty new and huge, like there's a whole world to explore(Mario 64 and Sonic Adventure mainly come to mind). But now whenever I see either of these games they feel so small since I know it all already, and the gameplay feels so outdated and nothing I want to experience again. I mean back when they were released I at least felt like I could play them over and over again cuz I loved them back then. Now when I look at them I just feel like I want out since I get bored in an instant.

Meanwhile there's also alot of games that have really aged graphics but I can certainly play again since it may have been years and I can't remember it so much as I used to. I guess what I mainly feel here is it feels like the huger franchises which more people remember well, we've all already played them to death so when we see them again it's a "been there done that" attitude".

I don't know, that's just what it feels like to me