For example I've seen people complain about Diablo 1's playabiity, but I think its aged marvelously and I prefer it to D2's design choices personally.
Finally, someone who gets it.
I maintain that Diablo 1 was the better designed game as evidenced by the fact that prioritizing bonuses to light radius on equipment was a very real thing.
C&C could be imbalanced but 2 games in particular were REALLY bad for this:
Tiberium sun, GDI if left alone too long, could be impossible to beat as Nod, concrete made tunneling impossible and Firestorm defence grid blocked ALL missiles while there was no blocking their Ion Cannon. It's why in multiplayer the players always rushed with infantry early in a game.
Red Alert 3, Allies fraction in general by ONE unit: Cryo copters, that unit just traumatised multiplayer veterans. It not only froze ANY unit making them extremely vulnerable but could shrink them to make them easy to crush with tanks. They actually got MORE op after the uprising dlc.
Hard to think of any others as while the AI was cheap, I was WORSE so would always bait then into hallways to funnel them against me or build my defenses right at their spawn point before they were scripted to attack me.
On the flip side, you have Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which lets me do shit that I've never seen replicated in any other game, ever, and I can control completely just using my keyboard.
Early games are all over the place, and I can forgive them for that.
If you're willing to give up several hundred hours worth to a game that likely ran in a dos prompt at one point, all I can say is... the Drones need you. They look up to you.
Also, don't get the expansion pack with the new factions. It's not really needed.
I’m replaying Metroid Prime and good grief is that game hampered by the GameCube controller. Some of the boss encounters are so infuriating because you just can’t freaking aim.
They did the best they could with the lock-on mechanic to work around it but you often lock onto the wrong enemy or one who is in a death animation. Not sure I am gonna finish tbh. The exploration is a lot of fun but the combat is just so bad.
There's a version of a wii emulator tuned specifically for the trilogy version (that had motion aim) to allow you to play the games with mouse and keyboard.
The Wii controls are far superior in the Prime Trilogy. Anyone who thinks that having to stop moving to aim up and down is somehow superior is a fucking moron.
It's always people who say "bbbbut the Wii controls aren't precise" and shit like that. As if the Gamecube controller was made for precision FPS games in the first place.
Thing is classics are good despite their faults.
Myth: The Fallen Lords is like that for me. The game is great in so many ways but is hard to replay.
Camera was crap, controls were rigid and there was a bit of lack of information in the UI.
But that game is great, just needs a bit of patching up. Nostalgia does play a role for me but I'm certain that with a bit of polish that game would rock today.
Other classics that are great but also full of issues:
Gothic 1, HOMM 2, BG 1,
If you haven't already you can check MandaloreGaming on youtube, he has some older game reviews and I tend to agree with most of his stuff.
Even just with movement. The good old stuff can be terrible, clunky, unresponsive and horrible to play after getting used to newer stuff. Bad graphics I can handle. But the movement and gunplay bad in the day were primitive to say the least.
To be fair with cheating RTS games, computing hardware wasn't at the point where the CPU player could make good decisions with the resources they have. If they did, you'd hate it because it would be even easier than how it already is.
The first Far Cry even has a bug when you run on modern systems that lets the AI see through walls. That was later patched out but I didn't learn of that until I was halfway through the game and yelling at it for being so tough and full of enemies shooting at me from inside their tents.
Counterstrike has random dispersion built into every weapon such that you can have the cross hairs on someone and every shot lands off target. I have hated Counterstrike since v1.5.1 because of this.
It has had problems with bullets hitting even when you have got the spray right on them because of they way it detects hits and people have claimed the randomness isn't so random now.
Re: Total Annihilation, the computer was more often a victim of that from me. You could manually have your rockets or plasma turrets attack any dot on your radar map, so I would destroy enemy bases without even seeing them.
I wanted to go back M2TW, but like you I find the empire management stuff to be a pain the ass. They massively improved that aspect in Empire and Napoleon.
Finally, someone who gets it.
I maintain that Diablo 1 was the better designed game as evidenced by the fact that prioritizing bonuses to light radius on equipment was a very real thing.
C&C could be imbalanced but 2 games in particular were REALLY bad for this:
Tiberium sun, GDI if left alone too long, could be impossible to beat as Nod, concrete made tunneling impossible and Firestorm defence grid blocked ALL missiles while there was no blocking their Ion Cannon. It's why in multiplayer the players always rushed with infantry early in a game.
Red Alert 3, Allies fraction in general by ONE unit: Cryo copters, that unit just traumatised multiplayer veterans. It not only froze ANY unit making them extremely vulnerable but could shrink them to make them easy to crush with tanks. They actually got MORE op after the uprising dlc.
Hard to think of any others as while the AI was cheap, I was WORSE so would always bait then into hallways to funnel them against me or build my defenses right at their spawn point before they were scripted to attack me.
On the flip side, you have Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which lets me do shit that I've never seen replicated in any other game, ever, and I can control completely just using my keyboard.
Early games are all over the place, and I can forgive them for that.
If you're willing to give up several hundred hours worth to a game that likely ran in a dos prompt at one point, all I can say is... the Drones need you. They look up to you.
Also, don't get the expansion pack with the new factions. It's not really needed.
Alien Crossfire. Yeah, just plain Alpha Centauri is better.
I’m replaying Metroid Prime and good grief is that game hampered by the GameCube controller. Some of the boss encounters are so infuriating because you just can’t freaking aim.
They did the best they could with the lock-on mechanic to work around it but you often lock onto the wrong enemy or one who is in a death animation. Not sure I am gonna finish tbh. The exploration is a lot of fun but the combat is just so bad.
There's a version of a wii emulator tuned specifically for the trilogy version (that had motion aim) to allow you to play the games with mouse and keyboard.
It's amazing.
The Wii controls are far superior in the Prime Trilogy. Anyone who thinks that having to stop moving to aim up and down is somehow superior is a fucking moron.
It's always people who say "bbbbut the Wii controls aren't precise" and shit like that. As if the Gamecube controller was made for precision FPS games in the first place.
Metroid simply doesn't translate to the 3D space at all in my opinion. I always detested their decision to attempt to turn it into a FPS.
Your opinion is wrong.
My experience with Metroid Prime says otherwise.
Thing is classics are good despite their faults. Myth: The Fallen Lords is like that for me. The game is great in so many ways but is hard to replay. Camera was crap, controls were rigid and there was a bit of lack of information in the UI. But that game is great, just needs a bit of patching up. Nostalgia does play a role for me but I'm certain that with a bit of polish that game would rock today.
Other classics that are great but also full of issues: Gothic 1, HOMM 2, BG 1,
If you haven't already you can check MandaloreGaming on youtube, he has some older game reviews and I tend to agree with most of his stuff.
The bosses in Street Fighter 2 didn't need to charge or even put in the motions for their attacks. That's why they could hit you so easily.
I miss Half Life Mods. We have these amazing game engines ready to be used today and no Specialists or Revolutionary War.
No you're right.
Even just with movement. The good old stuff can be terrible, clunky, unresponsive and horrible to play after getting used to newer stuff. Bad graphics I can handle. But the movement and gunplay bad in the day were primitive to say the least.
If you think game AIs were bad and cheated a lot back in the day, wait until all the game AIs are developed by Indian programmers making $20/hour.
Well at least it's historically accurate.
To be fair with cheating RTS games, computing hardware wasn't at the point where the CPU player could make good decisions with the resources they have. If they did, you'd hate it because it would be even easier than how it already is.
The first Far Cry even has a bug when you run on modern systems that lets the AI see through walls. That was later patched out but I didn't learn of that until I was halfway through the game and yelling at it for being so tough and full of enemies shooting at me from inside their tents.
the only AI that didn't make me feel like playing against Nostradamus' pupils while still being reasonably difficult was in F.E.A.R.
first Far Cry's AI doesn't even input read, it straight up cheats
Halo's enemy AI was really good for its time too
It has had problems with bullets hitting even when you have got the spray right on them because of they way it detects hits and people have claimed the randomness isn't so random now.
Re: Total Annihilation, the computer was more often a victim of that from me. You could manually have your rockets or plasma turrets attack any dot on your radar map, so I would destroy enemy bases without even seeing them.
I wanted to go back M2TW, but like you I find the empire management stuff to be a pain the ass. They massively improved that aspect in Empire and Napoleon.