Old skool RPGs - Really that good or just nostalgia?

[spengos]

I'm a big fan of RPGs as I love their story, depth, complexity and immersive worlds. But, lately I seem to be constantly hunting for my next fix. It might be that i've never found my perfect game or that i've already found it but didn't give the game a chance. Maybe I've already seen the best of what gaming has to offer... In any case, one thing I really need to figure out is whether or not its worth investing the time in older RPGs.

I've only really been PC gaming for around 6 years. Before then it was consoles. So basically I completely missed the so called golden age of PC RPGs in the 90's and early 00's. I guess I was too busy playing Mario

When reading through the vast number of gaming forums and blog comments out there, it seems there's always people digging up the past and recommending others to play games like Baldur's Gate, Gothic, Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale... you get the idea.

So my question is why? What makes these games so great that people can recommend them above modern day RPGs like Oblivion, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Dragon Age, Fallout 3, etc, or even modern MMORPGs? Are the older RPGs really that good that their gameplay outweighs the graphics and presentation of the modern games, or is all this old skool lovin' just nostalgia and the people recommending these games do so based purely on distant fond memories?

I will admit that I do like nice graphics in a game and do sometimes struggle to see past dated graphics and presentation(even though i've been gaming for 20 years), but if the gameplay is good, the UI is logical and the controls are decent then i'll play it. But of the few old skool RPGs i've actually tried I couldn't play them for more than an hour as imo they were almost unplayable. Either the controls and UI were bad, game was too buggy, or I couldn't see past the blocky graphics. I guess it all boils down to the simple fact that I can't see how someone can sit there playing a game like Baldur's Gate when there's games like Oblivion and Dragon Age.

Should people playing these games for the first time be expected to look past such things and try to enjoy the game's finer features? Or is the ugly truth that if you didn't play these games when they were current then you just won't enjoy them?

 

[Nerusy]

Story drives a good RPG mostly and that doesn't get old. Also gameplay mechanics have not changed much and in my opinion developers would put more heart in older games, I don't like the new rpgs much.

 

[jasoncb]

Story drives a good RPG mostly and that doesn't get old. Also gameplay mechanics have not changed much and in my opinion developers would put more heart in older games, I don't like the new rpgs much.

Amen to that sister!

Get a copy of Deus Ex and you will realise how downhill games have gone in terms of storylines.

 

[dmcg]

I played baulders gate 2 for the first time last week and it instantly went in my top 5 games and I have played most modern rpg's witcher , dragon age etc it was more of a deeper story experience than modern rpg's

 

[Tombstone]

My opinion on your options..

"Really that good"

As others have mentioned a lot of effort went into the story lines and options in old school RPGs (and games of other genres), recently that story and player options (generally speaking) has gone out of the window in favour of flashy graphics, leaving a pretty looking but ultimately soulless game.

 

[HarryPainful]

The graphics on baldurs gate, torment, dues ex etc... were are awesome when they came out so the excuse of "they concentrated on story and not visuals" is rubbish.

These games had both.

 

[FoxEye]

Modern RPGs have tried to simplify too much. Take Dragon Age. The game lacks any of the complexity of DnD 2nd Ed, which Baldur's Gate was based on. It's not even as deep as IWD2, which is a "dungeon crawler" RPG, using 3rd ed rules.

I still think RPGs struggle with 3D as well. The camera gets in the way too often, and you're struggling to pan and zoom when you should be thinking about battle tactics.

Games such as Final Fantasy 7-10 had "2d" battles (rendered in 3D) so that you were never faffing with camera controls. NWN, Dragon Age, etc, don't do this, so you're being attacked by enemies off camera, or you're continually switching from 3rd to 1st to top-down ... nightmare.

Btw the 2d backgrounds in older RPGs were often very impressive. It's a shame they were all rendered in 640x480, but the artwork for BG/ BG2 was great. 3D has a hard time being "beautiful" or "artistic", because it's programmed/modelled, not drawn.

But my main beef as per my first paragraph is the diluting of game mechanics in modern games. It's like nobody wants to read the manual or have look up something in a table anymore

 

[Tombstone]

The graphics on baldurs gate, torment, dues ex etc... were are awesome when they came out so the excuse of "they concentrated on story and not visuals" is rubbish.

These games had both.

You can say its rubbish all you want, its just my opinion and therefore not valid or invalid so ner !

 

[Redman]

The only bad thing about Baldurs Gate 2, is that there isn't an option to erase my memory of it before I play it again. There's never been anything to match it in my opinion, although Planetscape Torment came close.


/edit: You must gather your party before venturing forth...

 

[Tombstone]

But my main beef as per my first paragraph is the diluting of game mechanics in modern games. It's like nobody wants to read the manual or have look up something in a table anymore

Yeah I suspect thats a financial thing, devs like to cater for the lowest denominator and get as many people playing a game as possible, as such they seem to dumb a lot of stuff down to appeal to a wider audience. I'd like to see more devs going back to a niche approach where , yes...sure things are more complicated but you get so much more depth in the game due to it.

It really comes down to something when The Bards Tale , which I first played in 1985 has got more complexity than many modern RPG titles 25 years later.

 

[melipone1]

I like RPG's that have multiple solutions to quests, and the really good ones don't just have a goodie, baddie, and neutral option. I find older games tend to have the sort of gameplay I like such as

Ways to solve quests other than just killing everything

Thought provoking or open ended story lines

Main quests that aren't forced on you like you're on rails

Being strong in one area might make you weak in another (not leveling everything like Bethesda games)

Forcing players to make choices, either dialogue, character, where you go next etc

Assuming the player can decide what to do without needing a huge compass pointing the way or quest info popups every few minutes telling you whats happened and what to do next etc. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are terrible for this imo. It spoils immersion

Believable environment without the game constantly reminding you that its a game..its like breaking the fourth wall in a film every few mins.

I don't like playing RPG's that are blatantly not made for RPG fans. Don't get me wrong I like all sorts of games, but a lot of the time now it seems companies are trying to blur the line between action and RPG game too much

So the best RPG's to me are Planescape Torment, Fallout 1/2 etc, but I do like Dragon Age and KOTOR, and Mass Effect wasn't too bad. Oblivion/Fallout 3 I can't get into

 

[Boozebeard]

The graphics on baldurs gate, torment, dues ex etc... were are awesome when they came out so the excuse of "they concentrated on story and not visuals" is rubbish.

These games had both.

Just because they were awesome for the time doesn't change the fact that it takes much much more time to create a character for a modern game then it did when all they had to work with was 1000 pollies and a single 512x512 texture.

 

[davewhite04]

/edit: You must gather your party before venturing forth...

lol this is the only annoying thing about the game! except for one fighter just being able to hit a monster in a door way, because the rest of your party can't get to it, this can be overcome using your brains though!

To the opening poster.

Baldurs Gate II, blows ALL recent RPGs out of the water, without a shadow of doubt. No crap camera angles, it is MASSIVE, and I mean massive, your party interaction using great voice acting is amazing(don't know how black isle did this, so much variation), nice music, everything can be controlled using just a mouse, great spell effects, simple and clear interface, very smooth, good inventory, great journal, good straight forward map, i actual love the graphics as they are all drawn and look more realistic then most if not all current day worlds and the story is brilliant. It runs like it was made for Windows 7 too.

Buy the Baldurs Gate II Collection (which includes 40+hours more gamplay with the expansion) and you will see and experience the final Baldurs gate story.

Note: I couldn't get into at first, but got in the mood and give it more than 2hours time, now I can't get it out of my mind.

In fact if I could cancel Fallout Vegas I would, because I won't be playing it for a while....

 

[jaws104]

The main reason modern day RPG's are poor in comparison is cause they're designed to be multi-platform, but it's also true RPG's nowadays are generally style over substance. It's far easier to promote a game with flashy graphics. Ultimately though it's the gaming community at fault for buying into it.

A good example is FIFA, for years it outsold PES despite being an inferior football game (recent incarnations excluded). It looked better and had a bigger marketing budget, consumers lapped it up.

I guess it all boils down to the simple fact that I can't see how someone can sit there playing a game like Baldur's Gate when there's games like Oblivion and Dragon Age.

That right there is what's killing pc gaming.

 

[Ice Rich]

It's not just nostalgia. I would say 95% of my gaming time is spent playing 'old' RPGs from around the golden late 90s early 00's era.
As said modern games are soulless and attempts to appeal to every kind of audience.

The classics have already been named but you should check out Arcanum too, that was a great game.

The mod scene has really helped out too, especially for Baldurs Gate. The planescape fixpack and widescreen UI mod is also very good.

 

[tom91x91]

is baldurs gate available for free download now?

 

[Ravenger]

The biggest issue with modern RPGs is the fad for complete voice acting. Now this is nice and immersive, but voice actors are expensive, so it limits how much dialogue you can have in a game. Most importantly, it prevents the developer easily updating and changing the story or dialogue because it costs big bucks to get the actors back in to re-record their lines.

It also makes it much more expensive to do expansions, because again you have to get the actors back. Ever wondered why Mass Effect and Dragon Age DLC don't have new dialogue for the companions? Too expensive to get the actors back to record them. That's why often DLC for modern role playing games will feature entirely new actors, rather than the existing cast.

Games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Morrowind and Planescape Torment have much richer and involving stories because it's so much easier and cheaper to write text that doesn't need voice actors, and which can be easily changed right up to the game goes gold, with translation passes for foreign languages as necessary (though this can be expensive too).

 

[davewhite04]

The biggest issue with modern RPGs is the fad for complete voice acting. Now this is nice and immersive, but voice actors are expensive, so it limits how much dialogue you can have in a game. Most importantly, it prevents the developer easily updating and changing the story or dialogue because it costs big bucks to get the actors back in to re-record their lines.

It also makes it much more expensive to do expansions, because again you have to get the actors back. Ever wondered why Mass Effect and Dragon Age DLC don't have new dialogue for the companions? Too expensive to get the actors back to record them. That's why often DLC for modern role playing games will feature entirely new actors, rather than the existing cast.

Games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Morrowind and Planescape Torment have much richer and involving stories because it's so much easier and cheaper to write text that doesn't need voice actors, and which can be easily changed right up to the game goes gold, with translation passes for foreign languages as necessary (though this can be expensive too).

I agree, but I would say that the voice work in Baldurs Gate has certainlt stood the test of time. It's clever how they did it too. For example if it's a long sentance, the voice will cover the first part of the text, the rest you read, and it works brilliantly.

Baldurs Gate II is not free, but cheap, like I said get the Baldurs Gate II collection. It takes up about 2.5GB of HDD space, which gives you some idea about the size of the game. Planscape Torment takes up about 500MB(I think a lot of the voicework might be read from the DVD though, and not installed), but is still a classic just a lot of text to read.

 

[Treebiter]

Technological progress has ironically hampered the post-infinity engine era games. The switch to 3D made the process of creating the gaming environment much harder. Collision, animation, walkmeshes etc all present their own particular problems. In contrast, the BG games were pre-rendered images onto which blocks of 'walk' and 'no-walk' were painted. After BG2, Black Isle were developing a new title called Torn. This never saw the light of day partly due to the financial collapse of Interplay. The devs revealed later however that the project wasn't panning out as they would hope, mostly due to the new 3D format and complications therein.

As Ravenger pointed out, the next hinderance was voice-acting. Storage space pre-dvd was not sufficient to allow full VO. Instead limited VO for narration or important scenes/characters would be all that was possible to include in a title. Pre-CD in the AD&D Silverbox era, even the amount of text you could feature in a game was limited. Instead you would be prompted to refer to a printed book that came wih the game and consult 'Journal entry from Mr X on page 65'. The upside of this was that the writers could go to town on the dialogue. In modern RPG's you're now limited by 1: The storage space required for the audio, and 2: The wage costs for the voice actors and as such, the amount of different voices actors available for a project. This latter point limits the amount of characters you can viably have in a game. This leads to scenarios like in Oblivion where everyone sounded the same.

This being said, I very much enjoyed ME and DA. However, I would prefer these 'action' RPGs to be a new genre meant to compliment the traditonal 2D text RPGs rather than replace them.

 

[Makhaira]

Deus Ex is still awesome, and I hope that Deus Ex 3 will recapture that (we'll just pretend that 2 was never made, it's for the best...).

No other RPG has captured me in the same way really, Bioshock and Fallout 3 were enjoyable for a single playthrough, but lacked a feeling of depth to me, despite the scale of their worlds.