Games from last gen that haven't aged well?

6th gen was the longest generation and because of this, a lot of developers had been using the same engines, or rushing out products when those engines became way more affordable for cash-in games. Another consequence is games that were top of the line the first few years of last gen, are now mostly, but not all, terrible to go back to.

From N3, to Haze, to Halo 3, to Oblivion, To Twilight princess, To Mad World, To Heavy Rain, To Doom 3, to GT5, to Fable 2, to pretty much most the Sonic games, to pretty much most the Megaman games. It's a pretty long list of games that have not ages well.

Which games do you think haven't aged well.

Mass Effect

Most Sony exclusives. And Halo and Gears of War.

Last gen was 7th. I think fps and open world iterated and improved fastest, so early ones look pretty dire. Compare GTAV to Saints row 1, or Far Cry 4 to Perfect Dark Zero or Resistance 1. Thats essentially a generation gap imo.

PDZ and FM2 but to be fair, FM2 was crap compared to 3&4 so. :P

I never thought Twilight Princess was aged poorly. Graphically, yes (technically, it had terribad textures right from the get go), but the game itself, I don't know.

I think the game that aged poorly has to be GTA4. Not saying it was a good game to start with, but yeah. Oblivion was shit from the start.

Not a believer in anything aging poorly, visually sure, but gameplay wise? Nah, reality is some of those games were never that good to begin with ala Mass Effect, Uncharted, Halo 3, etc.

I have no idea how people can be getting "gameplay" instead of visually after the Op. But no, this is about graphics.

I went to replay through the mass effect trilogy for a second time and didn't get throught ME1.

does not age well in gameplay aspect at all.

Oblivion did not age well at all. Even with visual mods it still looks terrible today. GTA IV didn't age so gracefully either.

Sure you said Mario 64 'doesn't hold up' today. If that's the case, and what you just posted is the case, then Mario 64 was never good to begin with. Interesting.

Some of it's level design? Sure a lot of it doesn't hold up today, it was getting passes for looking pretty at the time, and if it was judged on the merits of coming out of the Snes era when we had all these classic platformers, then yeah I'm saying that Mario 64 and a lot of the n64's games that got massive free passes for their technical achievements (Ocarina of Time being the biggest one for that) would have received more criticism than they actually got.

Do I think Mario 64 is still a great game? Yeah mechanically it's still top notch, the level variety is still mostly great, lot of content, and by the end of it you will be tested on your handle of said mechanics. But things like the camera isn't all that smooth at times, that was always there. Things like the levels have some pretty ordinary/bland design with 90 degree angles, that was always the case. Things like that one sky level where if you fall, you go back to the beginning of the castle? that shit was always there. You get what I'm saying? It's one thing when a game becomes a victim of its own success and everyone iterates on it, it's another when people were glossing over a short coming.

Admittedly this is mostly after replaying it recently. But, for the most part now I would go to bat for that game.

In the case of ME which I posted. That game ran poorly, that game had atrocious gunplay the day it launched, that game was always was shallow, that plotline and universe was built on a variety of scifi cliches that are easily noticeable if you so much as have a brief knowledge of other scifi films or books, that game's level design was pretty freakin bad for a tps even in 2007. To me that game didn't age, it always sucked. It just got apologized for.

Grand Theft Auto IV

The major accomplishments of this game tend to lay on the technical side, namely how Liberty City is crafed and feels so organic. With those technical feats now bested and beyond, there's no real hook to the game anymore aside from something fundamentally clunky and structurally unsound. Not to mention the half-baked dating games, which just kinda suck. Niko's arc remains the one thing fascinating about GTA4 but it's not enough to wade through all the trouble to experience it.

The Ballad of Gay Tony, despite being in the same realm doesn't suffer from the same issues. The story is fun and varied enough to play to this day, and it's an interesting buffer between the mistakes Rockstar learned from making GTA4 and prototyping ideas which would making their way onto the fifth game.

It's almost like Grand Theft Auto 4 was always a pretty shitty game, amirite? : >

I much as I hate to admit it, I agree. I still love the game, but the wonky, slugish controls, horrible inventory, and "only sometimes works" cover system makes an otherwise great game a slog to play through. That and it looks like ass.

Resistance 1.

Some PS2 games look better

that depends how much you like bowling

Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim--basically every Bethesda game.

• COD: Modern Warfare
• Max Payne 3
• TES 4: Oblivion
• Dragon Age 2

The first one that immediately springs to mind is Oblivion. The creepy mannequin people is the main reason I can't play it anymore. Though I did appreciate that if you were a Vampire sunlight actually hurts you (unlike Skyrim vampires).

The jump in just graphics alone to Skyrim in the same gen was just mind boggling.

Oblivion is the poster boy for this.

Mass Effect 1 and Oblivion.

Yeah I can get behind those criticisms. They were very much experimenting with 3D level design and they had room for improvement sure. And yes, mechanically I feel Mario 64 is still the best platformer out there. But Mario Sunshine is proof that mechanics alone does not make a great game. Though I personally love the shit out of that game and am not ashamed of it.

Mario 64 is a victim of the Galaxy series eclipsing it at almost every level. But that doesn't mean 64 is outmoded. And that cloud level where you fall back to the beginning isn't really a flaw. It's just a detail they added. Guess it could get annoying after failing a good few times.

Mass Effect was never my thing in the first place so I won't comment. Not remotely excited for 4. Though I appreciate people think it's the shit and stuff. Especially the second one which I haven't played. But I played a bit of 3 and was bored shitless. I'm contemplating playing 2 due to how much better it apparently is.

No, I can believe things age poorly. Even within a gen, Gears is a huge difference from Gears 2 or 3. Halo and ODST almost look like previous gen games compared to Reach and Halo 4. I didn't get my 360 until a couple of years after my PS3, and I played a few of those games in reverse order... and when I went back to the originals I was like... damn this is unplayable.

I love bowling. So yeah, GTA 4 was one of the greatest games ever made.

I'd say the early games from 2004-2006 that used alot of bump mapping and not so much detail on the textures. ie Doom3,Fear, etc

@Captainqwark10:
Dragon Age Origins... my god the graphics on that game are cringe worthy in spots (but the gameplay makes up for it).

OblivionHaze
Quake4
Mass Effect 1 (but the rpg elements are better in me1 than 2. Never played me3 though so can't say there..)

Uncharted 1 and Heavenly Sword from the beginning of Gen 7 still look amazing though.

Resistance and Killzone

I mean, console FPS have always been clunky by design, and the older they are the worse. But there's something just wrong with those 2 games in particular.

The DS3 is just plain horrible for first person shooters. So when one has to be made exclusively for it............yeah

Visually: anything that used a gray/brown colour palette and tried to go for a realistic aesthetic at the same time. So Call of Duty, Gears, Resistance, etc...

Depends which Killzone and Resistance. Killzone 2 and Resistance 3 are good games through and through.

Heavenly Sword, Halo 3, Gears of War 1, Resistance: Fall of Man, Alan Wake, Twilight Princess..

-inFAMOUS 1

-Red Dead Redemption

-Batman Arkham Asylum (because of Arkham City)

-God of War 3 was dated upon release

-The uncharted franchise will age really poorly in the future

Modern FPS such as the COD games and many other fps that copy from it. I really find them outdated. In fact dare I say that older fps aged better then shooters today. And also games with mostly cut scenes aka movie games such as Max Payne 3 which I hated. That game aged bad compared to Max Payne 1 and 2 which were way better games in my opinion. Hell it aged bad the moment I played it.

@jg4xchamp: I'm glad that you think that about Mass Effect. I played it a few years back (think I was in high school) and was not impressed. It was KOTOR with more swearing and sex with too loose gameplay. I didn't see anything especially great about the world building, either. Pretty standard as far as WRPGs go. I don't agree it was a bad game (I enjoyed myself for the most part) but I do agree that hot damn is it littered with flaws.

Also, on topic, GTAV. Because it's not really a good game. Not compared to other open world games.

Yeah visuals, but actual core game design, as in how the game plays, as in the things that actually matter about a game are legit timeless when done effectively. Gears of War's campaign can look fugly all it wants in comparison to 2 and 3, it's better paced than 2 and 3 as a whole, and nowhere near as boring as 3. 2 I can at least get the argument that people prefer the better enemy variety. Halo's campaigns suck, but I do distinctly remember the Halo community going to bat for Halo 3 over Halo Reach and Halo 4 for multiplayer, another example graphics aren't everything.

More to the point the term unplayable is completely off base to boot.

Bottom line: this thread is a glorified "this game was overrated" thread, because every failure that game had was there on fucking launch day.

Oblivion? The shit combat, the poor dungeons, the level scaling, the sheer dumbing down of so many elements from Morrowind that wasn't all positive, etc. It was a bad RPG that got glossed over because it looked pretty. Technical shit always ages, but the truly best games ever tend to age gracefully because they were great where it mattered. Even good games, Gears of War from 06 looks like butt, but it's a totally enjoyable shooter still, to this day. Likewise Alan Wake didn't age, it's just as average now as it was when it launched. It's not like the repetition is shit you couldn't notice in 2010, it's not like you couldn't notice the bad lip synching, it's not like you couldn't realize how limp dick it is to end a game on a fucking boss fight with a Tornado.

That's my beef.

MGS4 and GT4 both looked like crap before the PS4 and XBone were even announced.

There are plenty but im picking on those two since they are both 10/10s, you would think they would have hold up better.

???????????

Ok hold on there buddy....

Infamous 1 looked like crap since day one and every one said it had the worse graphics out of all PS3 exclusive. If a game never looked great to begin with, why would any one expect it to age well?

IDK whats so wrong with RDR, even for today's standards.

God of War 3?????????????????? are you fucking kidding me? that shit was amazing looking and still is, the **** are you on?

Please explain how Uncharted will age poorly? I honestly cant see it.

@Captainqwark10: I'm going to disagree with Halo 3 on your list. It is easily the best of the series. Halo Reach had some pretty obvious design flaws, and graphically speaking the gray filter over everything really brought the visuals down imo.

@Nengo_Flow

RDR looks very pixelated.

It's not just about the visuals. I went with games that I can no longer enjoy playing from a gameplay perspective. Most of these I used to enjoy, but find I cannot revisit them.

God of war has a very dated formula that's reminiscent of very restrictive NES titles. Most games have moved beyond a very strict beginning to end formula that has no means of revisiting chapters and has no scoring system whatsoever. After 3 iterations you'd think they'd add some kind of reason to play the game beyond the bare minimum. It's still a solid enough game, but its extremely outclassed at this point.

Uncharted is a series that mostly gains praise from visual presentation. It's not going to stay pretty forever. It sure as hell won't be remembered for the gameplay.

I don't think so. In fact, they play so differently I don't even know if it is worth comparing them. Mario 64 really pushed 3D platforming. It strived for something inherently difficult. Galaxy, even though it is a 3D game, is much slower and has a more restrictive 2d level design.

I won't claim the Mario 64 cam as perfect, far from it, but the camera options actually help out quite a bit. Try switching to the second(Laikitu) option for the R button.

Nintendo did things right with that N64 analog stick. For 3d games a circular gate is not as effective. Nintendo need to bring that back and restock the gamecube adaptor and start bringing out old console style controllers.

One that really stuck out to me was Gears of War 1. I reinstalled it on my PC and was taken aback by how clunky it controlled. It left me thinking "I played this? And liked it?"

Do you have the Xbox 360 or PC version? The PC version has an amazing visual overhaul mod. It doesn't help the game's stability or gameplay, but at least it looks prettier.

+100

I still play games such as PONG..I dont have eyes made of glass nor do i dry hump my screen over graphics..so..having said that..the original splinter cell,halo ce,resident evil,mario 64,nes zelda,atari 2600 combat,all look incredible to me..as does cod2,kameo,kill zone 2,ssx,..to me new games look ok but nothing head turning from last gen so far.

Doom 3 is the gen with Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.

I say it holds up well considering that and it's age.

Really?

Eh... I'm not sure I entirely agree. It's like watching old movies from the 1920's, technical limitations of the era, invention of new mechanics, and contemporary ideology tint the experience in a new light.

At the same time I can definitely agree that some games do withstand the erosion of time more than others.

It looks ok to me.

Witcher 2 looks incredibly dated on ultra 1440p on PC it just looks weirdly dated. The character models look fantastic still but the environments are dark and kind of wooden I made a thread about it and people disagree because it's basically a PC game and anyone who dares to say any PC game doesn't look amazing in high res needs to be shot because that's how stupid PC gamers are.

Looks fine to me.

It was the best looking game at the time of it's release.

Maybe you had ubersampling disabled while still having sharpening enabled which makes the game look really bad.

Only reason to keep sharpening enabled is when you have Ubersampling enabled.