Spawning from last week’s question about movies and their use of intellectual properties comes a controversial thread on how we should view and criticise older games. Their graphics suck, the gameplay is elementary, story and characterization are practically non-existant, these games suck! At least that’s what some people think, other feel that we should look at them with a contextual view point of their time.
How should we look at old videogames?
The conversation came about in most part related to the classic game Doom, created in 1993 and widely considered to be the first massively popular First Person Shooter. I suppose it all started with Joshx0rfz comment:
Doom was a stupid game with no plot or character which is why it didn’t have a chance of making a decent movie. It wasn’t ruined by Hollywood, it was just a shoot’emup.
To which Original Sultan replied:
I will, however, maintain that Doom was a good game in its day. Many, many days ago.
What followed was a slew of comments about Videogames history, the popularization of a genre, and slanderous remakes about the noble Denise Richards (okay, she’s far from noble, who cares?). We could take the discussion back to what started it all and discuss these games in terms of the movies they have produced (or could potentially produce). Do classics like Super Mario Bros. completely lack character development in every sense? Could a good movie have been made were John Leguisamo left out of the picture? Can we really consider games like these to be horrible simply because we make prettier ones today? The penultimate question really comes down to: Is Doom a stupid game?
“How should we look at videogames?”
In context but with a realistic perspective. There is no need to elevate “classics” to an untouchable level of greatness.
“Is Doom a stupid game?”
To be turned into a movie, yes. Is it a fun game? Yes and it also has a multitude of other virtues. Does it have a stupid plot and no character development? Yes but the game does have character of its own.
The first game that comes to mind here, for me, is FF6. The reason why that game will never truly be obsolete is a function of its genre – the RPG’s main stat is Story. If that’s the case, what is the main attribute of the FPS? I don’t think it’s graphics, though they certainly play a large role. Multiplayer capability, perhaps?
Like them or hate them, there is no getting around this fact: the innovative games of the past serve as the building blocks and stepping stones for the games we enjoy today. That, in its own right, makes old games like “Doom” important in their own right. “Doom” and “Wolfenstein 3-D” essentially laid the ground work for the FPS genre, much like “Final Fantasy” laid the groundwork for compelling console RPG’s.
I’d rather play FF4 or FF6 than any that have come after it. 🙂 Those stories still hold up and make me want to play them. Same with any of the Super Mario Bros. games.
Some games were important as building blocks and fun at the time, and then there are those who have stood the test of time. And then there’s the crap that we liked at the time and probably shouldn’t have.
Ultimately, it depends on what you value in a game. If you’re looking for an experience with a compelling story, engaging characters and dialogue, DOOM is not a good game.
Outside of the context of those things, DOOM is a fine game that, in its heyday, was groundbreaking and extremely entertaining. Let’s face it, sometimes having compelling gameplay should be enough–I’d rather have an entertaining game with virtually no story or character development than a game where the character and plot seem tacked on or hackneyed, or one where gameplay was eschewed in favor of compelling plot. By keeping the story to a bare minimum and essentially removing character development from the picture, the authors of the game were able to focus more on creating entertaining gameplay.
Obviously, its gameplay and graphics have suffered over the years, and at this point in time nobody’s firing up DOOM to kill some Imps unless it’s for the nostalgia factor. But DOOM was a good game when it was released, and for several years after. It’s simply obsolete now.
Also, DOOM movie = bad idea. It was largely a vehicle for The Rock to use the F-word several times in a forced, contrived manner. The end’s video-game sequence was the only thing even somewhat cool about it.
I’m a bit out of the FPS loop these days–are there many new FPS games being released? How much emphasis do they place on plot and character development? Are they ground-breaking in any way, or are they generally rehashes of other games extant within the genre?
There have actually been quite a few better FPS’s in the last few years. The first ones that come to mind are Farcry, Prey, F.E.A.R., and the like. FEAR supposedly has a wonderful plot and is one of the few actual scary games out there.
Half-Life 2 really took the cake as far as I’m concerned, blowing everything out of the water on almost every level. If you haven’t played it and have a fairly up-to-date computer, go buy it!
I tend to refrain from removing story as a necessary element of any FPS, as the story in HL2 is essential to the fun of it, but then there are games like Serious Sam whos only purpose is to shoot things and the sheer hilarity of the game creates the fun. More recently, vehicles have become an integral part of any FPS that wants to be popular, especially in the multiplayer market.
I think we can all agree that Denise Richards is amongst the top echelon of worst actresses?
I would like to have a definitive answer to who first implemented the mouselook interface in a game. Because that first person experience, to me, is what facilitates everything else that I love about games, as FPS’s bring me closest to actually feeling like I am right there in the game. Halflife 2 in particular, never wrenching control of the camera from me.
Doom itself did lay claim to a first, IIRC, online deathmatch was born in user mods of doom.
As far as games in a historic sense, Doom was the first first-person game which I played that would elicit a “wow cool” from friends upon first sight, that wolfenstein and other predecessors wouldn’t. It wasn’t the first fun FPS, and It didn’t have any amazing leaps in tech, It just seemed to come out at the right time, with just the right mix of art and tech. I honestly would attirbute Doom’s popularity to it’s shareware distribution during the height of the computer show culture, as much as to it’s art and tech. I remember the days when it seemed like half the vendors at a show were showing off doom, if not on a monitor at least in piles of shareware for sale.
Love the new comment system, I never remembered my password before.
Here is a little wiki about mouselook (free look): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_look
Looks like Marathon (by Bungie) was one of the first to fully incorporate what we today consider “mouselook”, though the first PC game was apparently done by the guys down at Bethesda (some 11 years ago).
Marathon also had an interesting story
joshnumbersbad said: “Ultimately, it depends on what you value in a game.” I agree with you here, but I think the real issue in this discussion is even more basic than this.
What we really have here are 2 separate and distinct ways/standards of viewing/evaluating a game (or anything else, really). While certain people like to use one more often than the other (including me), I think we can agree that there is a time and a place for both of them.
The first method I shall dub the “Absolute” standard. This view takes a certain set of standards – graphics, character development, gameplay, etc – and compares each and every game Regardless of When the Game Came Out to this ‘absolute’ standard. Obviously, older games are at a disadvantage when using this standard.
The second method I shall dub the “Relative” standard. This view compares games to each other by looking at how Each Game Compared to Other Games From the Time Period in which it was Produced. This view ‘adjusts’ for future developments in games and allows older games a fair chance.
Now there’s advantages and disadvantages to each view. The absolute standard is easier to use and is well suited to showcasing the developments and progress in games over the years. The relative standard gives older games a better shot, but requires more effort to use and can make some newer games appear worse than older games even though the newer games might be better in every measurable category.
My personal belief is that there is a time and a place for both views and that one view is not more or less ‘realistic’ than another. I think they are both realistic and as long as both parties agree on the standard that is being used then much confusion can be avoided.
To answer the question, if I would apply the relative standard, I would say abosultely YES! Doom is a great game! But if I applied the absolute standard, then I would say NO, Doom is not a good game.
BUT, Even though I can recognize that there are 2 standards for viewing games, my personal preference is to use the relative standard in most instances. As others have said on the previous thread when we first got into this topic, viewing everything from an absolute, present day standard, can really devalue the past.
I don’t believe that older games have an ‘untouchable greatness’, quite the contrary! Any newer game that comes out has just as much chance to be revolutionary and really change the way games are played just like the older ‘classics’. I mean, using the relative standard, Final Fantasy 1 was a good game (some would say great), but Final Fantasy 6 and Final Fantasy 7 were really good! FF1 was one of many fun and time consuming RPGs for the Nintendo. It was good. FF6 and FF7 were basically the best RPGs money could buy in their respective days.
Let’s look at Doom once more. Doom was the first hugely successful FPS. It defined the genre more than any other game. But it’s not untouchable, even with the Relative standard. Now I’m no FPS expert, so I can’t venture forth here with absolute certainty, but I would say that Halo is really close if not better than Doom using the Relative standard. Halo was (and still is) one of the most popular FPS games especially in the console world (second only to Halo 2 in # of copies sold). It was made by Bungie (same folks who did Marathon) and therefore had an outstanding plot and fairly good character development (for a FPS, anyway). Its graphics were good and its gameplay was great – in fact it is one of the only console FPS to have really great controls. But it also had innovations, like having lots of vehicles and a carrying limit of 2 weapons. Plus it was filled with fun stuff like sticky grenades and those adorable Grunts.
Quoted directly from wikipedia: “Widely considered to be one of the best, and most influential, first-person shooters of all time, Halo’s acclaim rivals that of GoldenEye 007 and Half-Life. For example, Edge gave Halo a full score of ten out of ten, only the fourth such designation in the magazine’s 12-year history.” Even though Doom was one of the best, that doesn’t make it untouchable.
Wow, sorry for the long posts.
So by the relative standard Pong is the best game ever as before it there was nothing.
Wow, I’m actually surprised that you said that:
“1947 is believed to be the first year when a game was designed for playing on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). This very simple game was designed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann.”
“The system used eight vacuum tubes (four 6Q5 triodes and four 6V6 tetrodes) and simulated a missile being fired at a target, probably inspired by radar displays used during World War II. Several knobs allowed adjusting the curve and speed of the moving point representing the missile.”
Then there’s Tennis-for-Two from 1958. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two
Then in the 1960’s there were games like Spacewar!
Pong, as you know it, was released in 1972 with the Atari. Then Space Invaders came out in 1978. So yes, by that standard, they could be considered teh best games (not ever, but of their time) because they were really the only wide-spread games available. Consider them the “Game of the year” of the years that they came out, like Half Life and Deus Ex, they will always be acknowledged as good games.
(all of this can be referenced here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_and_video_games )
I think Bartoneus is right here. Pong and Space Invaders should be considered the best games of their era, just as Doom, Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid, etc, etc, are considered the best games of their eras.
Using the Relative standard, a case can be made, as joshx0rfz pointed out, that because there weren’t that many ‘real’ games before Pong that it would have to be considered the best ever. I think that argument is a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, Pong was extremely successful relative to other games of its day. On the other hand, there weren’t really that many other games to compete with. Think of it this way…finishing 1st in a Magic the Gathering tournament that only has 8 people is good, but finishing 3rd in a Magic the Gathering tournament that has 300 people is really much better.
Pong was a really good game in its day, but the level of competition in the gaming industry just wasn’t as great back then as it is now. A game that stands out above and beyond the highly competitive market of today’s gaming industry is remarkable, even if it isn’t so much more successful than every other game (like Pong was).
Like I said, the Relative standard can work both ways 🙂
…I think one of the narrative points in the less-than-mindbending tale of Doom is the first-person aspect; IE that YOU were the one running about, it put you in the game like hadn’t happened before, really (well wolfenstein but whatever) Granted that’s a naovel aspect, but in a way, that does kind of switch the perspective like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure™ Story lands you feeling for the protagonist in ways other books might not be able to. Once you’re into the game, it’s YOU getting shot at, getting clawed, not some avatar!