Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with handicap features, and also to find Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, you’d lose a number of hours exploring every nook and cranny finding them!

  • BargsimBoyz@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Games were definitely buggy and I honestly think people forget how much better the quality is nowadays.

    I also think there is something to it just being the 90s or so and not having much choice. If you only have one game to play then of course you’re going to replay it to death. If I have a steam library of 1000 games then I’m much less likely to.

    A lot of this is just nostalgia for the past and the environment as opposed to games being any better.

    • Omega@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      There’s also the SNL effect. Everyone remembers the great games like Mario. Nobody remembers World Games.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 years ago

        World Games was so good they made a spoof sequel of sorts called caveman games. A lot of people remember world games, it was a well received game. You had so many actually forgettable garbage games to choose from…

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 years ago

            But he says it wasn’t very fun and it was forgotten.

            He obviously didn’t forget it, and most people found it to be fun.

        • Omega@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          I have never heard anyone talk about that game, ever. But I remembered hating it as a kid. But social media wasn’t a thing back then. So I don’t know if it was talked about elsewhere.

          If that was a well received game, I guess it speaks volumes about the rest of the NES library.

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 years ago

            It’s because it wasn’t really a young kids game. It was aimed at a bit older of a crowd. They made a later version of it called caveman games that was geared more towards kids and it was a lot of fun, with mostly the same game mechanics.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I’m unfamiliar with that game. Was World Games buggy or just bad? The quality the OP referred to was bugs, not gameplay.

        Even the worst AAA game today has better game play than anything from 30 years ago. It’s the nature of extreme complexity that allowing players freedom makes complete debugging impossible.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 years ago

          Hehe. World Games was an Olympic event type of game for the NES and other systems back in the late 80’s.

          It was actually a well reviewed and enjoyed game, so I’m not sure why he decided to use it as an example when there were so many other actually bad games back then. It also caused a “spoof” game to be made on the NES called “Caveman games”, which did a similar game style, but set in caveman times with caveman events. I preferred caveman games as a kid, and still do. Racing against a friend on who can rub sticks together and blow on the smoke to make fire first is still a blast. So is beating the other guy with a caveman club. Good times.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I don’t agree with that first point at all. Games were not all that buggy, It was orders of magnitude better than it is now.

    • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I have 1000 games, but I still replay a bunch of them over and over, just at a less rapid pace.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    They didn’t need updates because they gave you the whole game, (usually) more-or-less bug-free, the first time!

    • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      That’s some survivorship bias shit right here. I can’t tell you how many shitty, buggy games I played in the days of early console and PC gaming. Even games that were revolutionary and objectively good games sometimes had game-breaking bugs, but often it was harder to find them without the internet.

      Plus, don’t you remember expansion packs? That was the original form of DLC.

  • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    You didn’t have to deal with random re-balancing changing your gameplay, spying and tracking embedded in everything, hackers ruining the game or targeting you, invasive DRM (consoles), being forced to update your system for an hour before you can play, being forced to sign up for bullshit accounts in order to play the game you just bought, games that have required updates the day they come out, your games disappearing forever because the publisher changed their mind and removed it from the store, game content being removed to sell as DLC instead, being pressured to link social media accounts, bigger companies buying the game and forcing you to use their services to play it, companies monitoring and recording player interactions, companies going under making it impossible to play the game you already bought…

    Holy shit. I never realized how bad modern gaming has gotten.

  • caut_R@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    The good thing was that games were complete and they didn‘t try to suck ever last penny out of you post-launch. Also, no updates meant they actually couldn‘t just ship them broken and fix later…

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        That happened like, 6 times.

        I can literally only think of a handful of games that had serious bugs.

        There was that ninja turtles game for nes with the impossible jump, there was enter the matrix for PS2/xbox that was completely not done. There were a few games that were poorly conceived in the first place like ET for Atari…

        But yeah, what else had serious bugs?