Question What old games hold their own against modern games

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Well, i guess the fact that there are remasters is a testament of their longivity. Specifically it seems to be RTS games like C&C, AOE2, Starcraft and the like. But a personal fav is probably World in Conflict. Not many people play it, but its been one of the few i absolutely enjoyed.

Besides that? Doom 2. Always this game. I usually spend an hour or 2 on my weekends playing the many various doom wads that come out. The game + Modding community has been going strong for over 25 years (if i recall correctly). Probably the one game i've played since i was a kid to Adult.
 
@Rolfil Company of Heroes is a good call, I really loved the BFBC2 multiplayer back then, only online shooter I actually bothered to play enough to get decent at, but I havent played it in years! @Johnway I think Starcrafts' style has aged better then C&C. I bought the remaster and while the nostalgia took me a ways it feels very old mechanically. At least the campaign anyway, I only moonlight in the odd RTS game so thats just my opinion.

I've been playing a bit of the first Dead Space, I still very much rate it as a game. Theres some weird physics jank related to framerate but otherwise it runs surprisingly well vanilla too. The first Bioshock also holds up very well IMO from the ones I've dipped into reasonably recently.
 
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  • Mass Effect 2 - Graphics
  • Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: Point and click game (to mention just one of MANY good ones)
  • Pinball Fantasies - One of the best pinball games ever made
  • Worms Armageddon - Most funny turn-based game
  • Morrowind: Best all-time exploration game, Lusty Argonian Maid!, You can jump over the bloody map!
  • Doom - Fps, come one!
  • Doom 2 - Best shotgun ever! (honorable mention to the shotgun in Killzone and the BL3 shotgun that plays Doom 2 music)
  • Blade Runner - Sci-Fi, music, enhance ability (Honorable mention to Cyberpunk 2077),
  • Gabriel Knight: Beast Within - Top gothic interactive horror game.
  • Phantasmagoria - Most brutal game ever. Makes Manhunt look like Kindergarten.
  • Colin McRae Rally 2.0 - Best rally game ever made
  • Max Payne - Max Payne, Buletttttiiiime, honorable mention F.E.A.R
  • Half-Life - Gravity Gun for multipurpose.
  • System Shock 2 - Best audio tapes scattered around
  • Cannon Fodder: Best War track
  • Amnesia The Dark Descent - the scariest game I have not yet played fully through
  • Doctor Mario - Best game to play while being sick
  • Ultima VII: The Black Gate - Best inventory ever made
  • Arkanoid - Best "blockbreaker!
  • Larry - Larry, smell & giddity bathtub
The list goes on and on....
 
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A lot of games that still hold up well that were released over 10 years ago have been updated for years after, or are still being updated. For example, Team Fortress 2, Civilization V, Victoria 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Minecraft, Angband and Dwarf Fortress. And while it came out in November of 2011, Skyrim has kept up very well too, but a lot of that is from DLC and updates (and mods) as well.

As for games that came out before 2011 that haven't been updated a ton since then, I do have to agree with Company of Heroes as well, especially considering I was asked to join a game just a few hours ago.

Portal also comes to mind (and Portal 2 was released April 2011).

Left 4 Dead 2 is a game I can see myself jumping back into at any time. It seems to have gotten updates until 2013, though it got a community made update in 2020 apparently.

Black & White is still amazing in my opinion. Especially the Creature AI is as advanced as I would expect from any modern day game, maybe even more so.

Sacred: Gold is another game I would jump back into without hesitation, though I'm not sure how much of that is pure nostalgia.

Heroes of Might and Magic III is still the best game out of the series in my opinion.

All the Monkey Island games are still absolutely amazing.

The Rollercoaster Tycoon series are timeless as well in my opinion.

These are all the games I could think of/find that I would still recommend to people today. I should stop looking at lists of old games now and go to sleep.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
This is actually kind of a hard question. The original XCom was pretty good but there's no way I can recommend it over the modern XComs or even Xenonauts. The Baldur's Gate series was great but I would send a new gamer toward Divinity:OS series first, then to BG if they loved D:OS. But I guess it only has to hold its own, not still be the best example of its entire genre. OK...

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (heavily modded). Graphics are somewhat dated but the music and atmosphere aren't. On the minus side, it's pricey for one of these old games.

X3: Terran Conflict. Great rags-to-space-empire game with lots of mods possible but doesn't really require many to be fun. Only patient gamers need apply.

Civilization 4 with all DLC. I liked Civ 5 a little better but only with all the DLC, some of which is too new to be included.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. Sweet force powers and light saber combat are great but only these two games also give you HK-47, one of the greatest NPCs of all time.

Just Cause 2: have fun blowing lots of stuff up!

Sword of the Stars 1: still one of the best 4X games when it comes to actual battles but its new enough that you can't just make a Stack of Doom to blow everything away.

Sacrifice: kind of an RTS game but you're playing a wizard leading a bunch of monsters. There aren't many games like this one, modern or not.

P.S. You realize that Skyrim is less than a year away from "old?" ;)
 
This is actually kind of a hard question. The original XCom was pretty good but there's no way I can recommend it over the modern XComs or even Xenonauts. The Baldur's Gate series was great but I would send a new gamer toward Divinity:OS series first, then to BG if they loved D:OS. But I guess it only has to hold its own, not still be the best example of its entire genre. OK...

I had this problem as well. There's a lot of old games that I really loved, but that I wouldn't recommend over newer games in the same series/genre.

Just Cause : have fun blowing lots of stuff up!

What makes Just Cause 2 better than 3 or 4?
 
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Simply: the list is endless. I play 90's en 00's game on a daily basis. So many good games came out 20-30 years ago, and a lot of them stil stand. Eg: in december I finished the campaign of Dogfight and M1 Tank Platoon. If it wasn't for a stupid bug on archive.org, I would have finished Red Baron. Those games look like pixelated messes, but they didn't loose a lot of their magic.
Oh yeah: I keep Commander Keen and Carmageddon on my smartphone and start them whenever I'm bored.

I know: a lot of gamers might find old games a chore to play, but I love to go back to those classics. It's not an effort at all.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
What makes Just Cause 2 better than 3 or 4?
2 and 3 both have their strengths. 2's story was a lot more fun for me and it isn't so covered in DLC. 3 has its challenges that compare your stats against Steam friends' stats and better graphics, though all the DLC stuff can instantly make you stupidly powerful if you let it and the story isn't nearly as charming as 2's.
 
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While these games may not hold up to todays graphical standards, for me, these are some of the older games (pre 2011) that I still love to play:

Gothic 3
Oblivion & Morrowind (Skyrim just missed being released in 2012)
Mass Effect 1 & 2, and all dlc
Dragon Age 1 & 2, and all dlc
Sacred 2 (vastly underrated CRPG)
Half Life 2 & Episodes
Deus Ex (really showing it's age, but still the best Deus Ex game)
Fallout New Vegas

There are other old games I play, like BG1 & 2, but those have remastered versions that are more recent and play much better on newer machines.
 
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Yea, what everyone else here has listed already lol. Id rather play older fighting games pre 2011 than most modern ones. I like the new ones but old school Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter/Killer Instinct/Soul Calibur etc. are just as fun to play as their newer counterparts.


Sacred 2 (vastly underrated CRPG)

100% agree! Though i first played this on the xbox but still a really good ARPG. They absolutely murdered this series with Sacred 3.


2 and 3 both have their strengths. 2's story was a lot more fun for me and it isn't so covered in DLC. 3 has its challenges that compare your stats against Steam friends' stats and better graphics, though all the DLC stuff can instantly make you stupidly powerful if you let it and the story isn't nearly as charming as 2's.

Just Cause 2 is def. the highlight of the series. 3 and 4 were fun, but it seemed to me that you have the most freedom with causing the most memorable explosions with 2 out of all of em. 3 and 4 had some repetitiveness as far as that was concerned and, along with the story, didnt feel as great of an entry as JC 2. I mean the leap from JC to JC 2 was huge.
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
... there is just something so epic about BG.
IF you played it when it came out, that's definitely true. Just like how folks who had watched a bunch of 70's science fiction before Star Wars can go on and on about the opening scene with the Star Destroyer.

For new players coming in, though? BG starts out crazy-slow, the iso-view is a bit sad, and having to rest to get your spells back is really annoying. Minsc, however, is still THE most fun NPC I've ever seen in any game! There's plenty of other good interactions with your companions, too, and the over all story is a good one. So I would say it holds its own and would certainly send people that have already enjoyed a more modern iso-RPG toward it, but there's no way I could call it as the top of its genre.
 
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I couldn't get into Sacred 2. It just didn't feel like the Sacred I had come to know and love.

Sacred 3 is an abomination that should not be mentioned ever again.

I think the 3rd generation Pokemon games still hold up well, but I haven't played any of the later games, so I'm not sure how they compare.
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
@Zloth, resting is a key part of dnd. I realize that newer games don't do it but if you played dnd, that is really a key part of the game and how spells work in the older rules.
Yes, it was, and it was ridiculous in there as well. "Phew, that was a tough fight! Sounds like there's even more monsters in the next room, too. Let's pitch a tent right here and rest for eight hours." There was MUCH eye rolling over that.

Besides you can have like 70 spells, games today if you have 10 you can use that is a lot, heck you probably can have way more by the time you reach level 20, if you weren't swapping spells mages would of been even more OP than they already are.
Oh, you've got lots of spells all right. How many do you actually USE, though? For a mage, you're probably looking at magic missiles or possibly stinking cloud as first level spells. Second level is web. Third level has more interesting options but you're level 6 by that time. A lot of the spells in AD&D are more useful for roleplaying situations but Baldur's Gate is heavily weighted toward combat, which leaves spells like clairvoyance as pretty pointless.

So i must ask what would you say is a better RPG? I have a few on my list to play that i bought, Tyranny, both pillars and both Divnity's. I'm not sure if i'll grab the tides of what ever.. I know it's sorta planescape 2. But despite how many times i tired to play it and enjoy it i just never did. I made it about maybe 2-4 hours in about 4-5 times and just gave up. the game never clicked, i didn't like the lead, nor the floating head. I dunno i guess i just didn't get it.
Planescape was great! Probably about the equal of Baldur's Gate 2. Planescape has a lot more interesting ideas, BG2 has a lot more content. I got through Torment: Tides of Numera (sp?) but wasn't very impressed.

I would put Divinity: Original Sin 2 above the BGs. It's got better graphics, a story that's just as interesting, and combat that's more interesting. The teleport pyramids are a wonderful idea, too. (P.S. There's more than two Divinities! Divine Divinity is more like Diablo. Divinity 2 is an action RPG.)

Witcher 3 beats the tar out of all of the above. Combat isn't as good but the graphics, the music, and most of all the stories leave the other games in the dust.

On a side note, neverwinter nights 2 i thought was also great, but still not as good as BG. My next play though will be on the BG remaster, i wanna replay it on my 55 inch tv :)
I think it was better than BG 1 but not BG 2. You need to play the Mask of the Betrayer DLC to finish the story!
 
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OsaX Nymloth

Community Contributor
I am replaying Fallout 2 for the N-th time and I regularly come back to Infinity Engine games every 1-2 years. For me these titles are timeless and will remain as such. But for new players unwilling to look past the dated graphics, they may be just some "boomer stuff" old people tend to brag about.

StarCraft II was released in 2010 - and is still the top and possibly best big RTS on the market with it's esport scene still kicking. And there's nothing that even comes close to it. I tried to get into SpellForce 3 (it has f2p multiplayer mode) and it's totally not what I am looking for in a competitive RTS.

Heroes of Might & Magic III are immortal as well, no point in even trying to discuss this.

From games I didn't see mentioned here:
- Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. To this day no one apparently even tried recreating that style of RTS, where player can't control units and can just give more or less vague orders like "go there" or "kill that thing pretty please I will pay you 100 gold". And the game still holds, because the gameplay is just sooo good. And the music! And the lector! The audio in general is sweet. Graphic wise I still prefer it to Majesty 2's boring and soulless 3D.
- Doom 3. I know I know, Doom II is better and all. But still considering what the game was supposed to be, it still holds quite well. Played the BFG edition in the last few years and the shadow-lightning system still looks pretty good - back then it was jaw-dropping. Gameplay is fun, even if the game drags a bit towards the end.
- GTA IV - some people disliked it for reasons, but I still like Niko's story and misadventures.
 
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MaddMann

A nerd that found his place
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Where is the love for Total Annihilation?!

When I think of my childhood the games I still want to play again and again are:
Wing Commander (All of them are fantastic, but Privateer was my real jam)
Total Annihilation
Command and Conquer, pretty much all of them until the genre essentially died with Generals.
Dune 2000
SWAT 1 &2
Call of Duty United Offensive (this is IMO, the best call of duty there ever was)
Battlefield 2 (I had well over 1000 hours in this game)
Sim City
Civ 2 (my personal favorite of the series)
Sid Meyers Gettysburg
Pretty much every Lucas Arts game, especially Full Throttle and Curse of Monkey Island
X-wing
Tie Figheter
X-Wing vs Tie Fighter
Alien vs Predator
 
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Where is the love for Total Annihilation?!

When I think of my childhood the games I still want to play again and again are:
Wing Commander (All of them are fantastic, but Privateer was my real jam)
Total Annihilation
Command and Conquer, pretty much all of them until the genre essentially died with Generals.
Dune 2000
SWAT 1 &2
Call of Duty United Offensive (this is IMO, the best call of duty there ever was)
Battlefield 2 (I had well over 1000 hours in this game)
Sim City
Civ 2 (my personal favorite of the series)
Sid Meyers Gettysburg
Pretty much every Lucas Arts game, especially Full Throttle and Curse of Monkey Island
X-wing
Tie Figheter
X-Wing vs Tie Fighter
Alien vs Predator

While there are many games that I still play, I wouldn't recommend them for new players, because I know that they don't hold up all that well to newer games. For example, I think Battlefield 2, Sim City and Civ 2 just wouldn't be interesting for most people who didn't grow up with them.

Also, Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars is one of two RTS games where I actually completed the single player campaign.
 
Yeah. We, old guys :D, usually play those games because we loved them in the 90's. When most of us were kids or teenagers. You can not give a pixelated game, like X-Wing, to a new generation gamer. Why would you? It's hard, it's a visual disaster, it has midi...it would be a punishment. But it still is a classic...for us. When I play like Dark Forces (1 or 2), I still think it's absolutely playable. I prefer them with some visual mods, but even the original games are a joy to play. Even in 2021. Not only because I've played them 25 years ago, but because they have elements that are harder to find in modern games. Just look at the leveldesign in Jedi Outcast or Dark Forces 2: it's packed with puzzles, mazes, secrets,...multiple pathways in general. Not too many games share that today. Other games just ceased to exist in some way: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander..., The new X-Wing Squadrons isn't really like the old X-Wing games: it has a fixed battlefield, it's just a simple and straightforward shooter. You can not compare it to a classic like X-Wing Alliance. Yes, there is No Man's Sky and Elite. But if you're looking in to a specific universe, things might be hard. The same with the RTS genre. Older gamers, in some way, are sometimes obliged to step back in time.
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
It's why i hate sorcerers in the game, way to limited.
Wait, what?? There's no sorcs in Baldur's Gate or AD&D v1! They showed up in later editions. Remove chaos?? They must have been messing with things in EE. The spoiler mentions a 10d6 cap on fireball, too, which definitely wasn't in AD&D v1. (Believe me, pouring out 26d6 is QUITE satisfying! "Everybody give me all your d6s!")
 
RTS

Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and SupCom 2
SC2 is different, but undeservedly panned imo when compared to Forged Alliance—if SC2 had a different name many would think it quite good.
SC series is regarded as the successor to Total Annihilation, one of the classics of the RTS golden age. It as that same 'everything is huge, build thousands' vibe, and one key UI element I'm so disappointed never took off—support for a second monitor.

Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour
My fav C&C and most-wished-for remaster, GZH still stands up each year I dip into it. While I love most of the other C&Cs, I wouldn't recommend them to a new RTS player today.

TBS

Civilization 4 and 5
Anyone struggling with an addiction problem, I recommend finding Civ players who still have a job and a marriage—truly they have found the answer to life, the universe…

I still play both each year, and they definitely hold up. The epic scale, epic sound tracks, epic gameplay, epic game length… The degree of choice is what makes them timeless for me, rather than just pinnacles in their decade.
9 difficulty levels
World map, continents map, islands map, mountains map, lakes map…
Different map every restart
Play against 1 or 21, choose your opponents
Always war, never war, maybe war
Start in 4,000BC or 1,500AD or…
Win by military, science, culture, diplomacy, religion

FPS

Crysis and Crysis Warhead
The only old shooters I definitely half-replay at least once a year. Made by the same devs who made the original Far Cry, it's another seminal work in the dev of the open-world sub-genre I love.
CW is a standalone expansion. I only play the first half of each, since the intro of aliens at halfway ruins it for me, same as the trigens ruined the second half of Far Cry.

Subject of the long-running 'can it run Crysis' PC meme, it still looks beautiful today. Gameplay is more linear than Far Cry 3+ and the world isn't as open, but it has the open world 'feel'. Highlight is the nanosuit, which gives you short-term superpowers—speed, strength, armor, and invisibility.

Just Cause 2
See various others' posts above—it's just fun, still is today :)

Half Life 2
There are some great scenes in HL2—Ravenholm, the canal, the bridge—which I can still picture clearly well over a decade after playing. I dipped in 2-3 years ago and gameplay & presentation hold up well, but it's not my kind of shooter anymore, too closed & linear.

Far Cry 2
My least favorite of the series, but many people's favorite. I tried it again a couple of years ago, and it holds up just fine—if the gameplay wasn't so annoying for me, it would be an annual revisit.

Set in Africa, has great fire—the burning kind—mechanic, and lots of realism like getting sick and deteriorating weapons. A definite challenge.

Puzzle

Portal
Often classed as a shooter, Portal is much more a puzzle game imo. Simple premse: shoot a hole in a wall—or floor or ceiling—then another hole in a different location, walk into one brings you out the other. Very inventive puzzles, and of course all the time being taunted by the hilariously sarcastic GLaDOS AI. Uniquely brilliant.

World Of Goo
Fancy plopping blobs of goo around the place? Thought so, who doesn't? Use the sticky guys to build various structures—often wobbly bridges—to overcome environmental obstacles like cliffs & chasms. Uniquely brilliant.

SpaceChem
From the guy who's game InfiniMiner inspired Minecraft, this is an assembly and manipulation game—so likely to appeal to engineers, coders etc. If that's your bent, SpaceChem is a superb example of the genre.

Casual

Royal Envoy
What I love most about replaying RE and the 3 later follow-ons is that I still find a new strategy for some levels. Definitely my #1 casual game series from the hundreds I own.

You build and/or repair structures—mainly houses, also sawmills, markets, banks etc—to achieve the level's goals. Each level is one screen only, and it can get quite clicky at times if you're trying to get a 3 stars score.

The first one is probably the hardest of the series, but they're all superbly designed timeless games. This is a rare occasion where I recommend the dearer Collector's Edition, which has ~50% extra levels. Of course, try the 1-hour demo first!
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
You're right, Sorc is in there For Baldur's Gate 2. I just started the game up to check. Where did they get that from!? They've got Barbarian in there, too. Were those in Unearthed Arcana? Sheesh, it was waay too long ago to remember but they definitely weren't in the original AD&D. Oh! Yeah, class kits! These aren't going off the version of AD&D I thought they were.

Sorc is not in BG1. They may have put them in again with Enhanced Edition, though.
 
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