Older Games With Better Features Than Modern Games

[Brian Boru]

Gameranx video where a few things caught my eye—each link below is from a diff time in the video, if you only want to dip in:

Next objective marker—Dead Space

Light play for stealth—Splinter Cell

Gravity gun—Half Life 2

Environment destruction—Red faction Guerrilla

'Swoop' dart in stealth—Thief 4

I prefer the round mini-map for Next objective marker—don't like the compass bars at top of screen—but Dead Space's is a neat idea.

I completely agree re the Light play for stealth, it brings an interesting mechanic into play for those who want big stealth. It's like disabling alarms in bases, a nice option which enhances tactical choice.

Was there a tactical element to the Environment destruction in Red faction Guerrilla, or was it just eye candy? Destroying bridges was an integral part of RTS 30 years ago, which had both strategic and tactical implications, but I don't recall seeing it affect gameplay in other genres. Crysis had a lot of destructible environment, but I can't recall it being of significance.

'Swoop' dart in stealth is nice indeed, I guess it's been replaced by misdirection and crouching more recently? Throw a rock and crouch across the road works.

How about you, what old features would you like to see more of?

 

[Pifanjr]

Next objective marker—Dead Space

I prefer the round mini-map for Next objective marker—don't like the compass bars at top of screen—but Dead Space's is a neat idea.

Skyrim had the Clairvoyance spell that basically did the same thing, but I never used it. I get that it's more immersive, but I prefer the convenience of knowing where I have to go without having to press a specific button. I also don't really have a preference of mini-map over compass, it just depends on the game. I do agree that quest markers shouldn't be too obtrusive though.

Was there a tactical element to the Environment destruction in Red faction Guerrilla, or was it just eye candy? Destroying bridges was an integral part of RTS 30 years ago, which had both strategic and tactical implications, but I don't recall seeing it affect gameplay in other genres. Crysis had a lot of destructible environment, but I can't recall it being of significance.

It was mostly eye candy, but being able to break any wall does affect the way you play the game of course.

'Swoop' dart in stealth—Thief 4

'Swoop' dart in stealth is nice indeed, I guess it's been replaced by misdirection and crouching more recently? Throw a rock and crouch across the road works.

Misdirection isn't new, so I don't think you could call it a replacement. In Dishonored, I think the replacement is the blink power. I don't think I've played a stealth game after Dishonored though, so I'm not sure what more recent games do.

How about you, what old features would you like to see more of?

The only one that comes to mind right now is the minions from Overlord. The only other game that does something similar as far as I know is Pikmin, but that's never been available on PC. I really liked having a little army under my control that I could put to work or directly control.

 

[mjs warlord]

The one thing that is an instant turn off for me is the number of key binds and multi keys binds some games require such as A then shift key + A.

Back in the days of spectrum and other games machines you could get a cardboard stencil to fit over a keyboard and write on it what each key did.

Some pc games have an outrageous number of key functions , i recently got construction simulator and the keybinds were just plain stupid. I did truck movement with arrow keys and scrolled down the keybinds list.
I discovered that anything you could drive needed a different set of keys . I tried to make my own keybind list but i got fed up of being told the keys i wanted to use were already assigned to something else.

I got a refund just before the 2 hours were up.

 

[Sarafan]

It's hard for me to mention particular titles (the list would be probably long), but I miss inventory systems from old RPGs, that were optimized solely for mouse and keyboard. I'm talking here about the era from the turn of the centuries. Starting from 2005 (more or less) the inventory systems were optimized primarily for gamepads, so they don't offer the benefits and features that allow to manipulate items (or character development) with 100% efficiency on mouse and keyboard.

 

[Zloth]

Next objective thing would be nice. When I get to a fork in the hallway, I can use that to see what path goes toward the next objective - then take the other path because that leads to treasure.

Light play could be fun but, at least the way the old Thief games did it, the guards just stood around while lights went out. I think they might go re-light them in Thief 2 but, seriously? Hmmm, that torch went out with a splash. And there's another. And another. I'm sure it's just coincidence, I'll go re-light one instead of calling for help. Ugh. If a game does it, it has to be done sanely.

Environment destruction: MORE!!!! And make them destroy with good physics, too. I want to see gyroscopic effects from spinning shrapnel!!

Swoop darting - I don't like the looks of that at all. If you move faster in somebody's field of vision, you're MORE likely to be spotted! Cyberpunk's camo armor to make you invisible made a lot more sense.

Other old(ish) stuff I would like to see: custom music. Games with radios would let you fill a folder with your own .mp3 files and use them as a station. Subnautica 2 was the last game that let me do that, and I would have to go back a lot further to find the next game that did. (Europa Unaversalis 4?) If you've got a story you're telling, yeah, do your own music. Radios, taking my turn in a 4X, and other such things, though? Let me do my own .MP3s!

 

[McStabStab]

A fantastic system/feature in the WB games Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War is the Nemesis system. I would love to see this implemented in other games, however it is patented so it will likely stay with WB games exclusively.

 

[Johnway]

Until Resident evil 6 came out, i would laugh at Resident evil series not having game mechanics to move whilst aiming mode. It was to maintain the tank controls and apparently add tension (although that latter excuse was bs).

I would point out that fade to black, a game back in 1996, allowed you to move whilst aiming even if it was basic it was still possible.

 

[Pifanjr]

Black & White's creature AI. As far as I'm aware there isn't a game that has anything like it, except maybe the Creatures series.

Apparently the guy who programmed the Black & White AI now works for DeepMind.
Meanwhile, the guy who programmed the Creatures AI lists his current occupation on LinkedIn as "Digital God" and seems to have been working on a new project since 2011, though it's unclear if it's still being developed.

 

[Sarafan]

Meanwhile, the guy who programmed the Creatures AI lists his current occupation on LinkedIn as "Digital God"

That's the future Matrix Architect! I'm sure!

 

[Pifanjr]

Another one came to mind: the custom hero creator of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2. I'm not aware of another RTS game that has something similar.

 

[Frindis]

The way you had to use hand motion in Arx Fatalis to cast your spells would have been cool to see more of.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LueGiUasvFk

 

[Zloth]

The way you had to use hand motion in Arx Fatalis to cast your spells would have been cool to see more of.

Could it work with the analog stick of a controller? I guess maybe... it will have to if we want to see the feature again. Even some PC gamers get upset now when you make them get out of bed to play a game.

 

[BartieMusa]

Bartie Musa - Super smash bros with 9 levels of CPU difficulty, they perfected AI years ago where modern games still struggle with it.

 

[Zloth]

Bartie Musa - Super smash bros with 9 levels of CPU difficulty, they perfected AI years ago where modern games still struggle with it.

Because it had 9 levels of difficulty? Some games have difficulty sliders, and sometimes let you control various aspects yourself, like number of enemies, hit points of enemies, how hard enemies hit, and so on. It's fairly rare, but it's out there. City of Heroes even has it, and that's an MMO!

Another thing CoH has (and, I believe, some other MMOs) is the ability to change the GUI. You can put your power tray in a line along the bottom, in a box in the lower right, smack dab in the middle of the screen, whatever you think is best. The same for all the other GUI elements for the main screen. (GUIs for character creation screens and the like were fixed.)