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Post by wyrdwad on Mar 20, 2017 2:48:09 GMT -5
E.T., Pac man and other lousy Atari 2600 games Oh, good call! I had both E.T. and Pac-Man for the 2600 back when I was really young, and I enjoyed them both quite a bit. Pac-Man in particular was a game I was shocked to hear get so much hate later in life, because the 2600 game... honestly was fine. It looked and sounded like ass, but it played just like Pac-Man, and that's really all I cared about as a kid. I was pretty used to the 2600 versions of games being watered-down ports of arcade titles, after all, and Pac-Man 2600 didn't feel any MORE watered-down than, say, Donkey Kong 2600 -- which I also enjoyed! I now know the 2600 was capable of more, since Ms. Pac-Man was much closer to the arcade version, but... at the time, I *didn't* know the 2600 was capable of more. I just kind of assumed that the game we got was the best they could do, and I both accepted that and appreciated it. As for E.T., I do recall it being frustrating as a kid, but I still liked it, and the weirdness of the gameplay didn't really bother me because... well, I had the manual, so I knew how to play it (you needed manuals back then!), and it wasn't any more convoluted than, say, Raiders of the Lost Ark. So to me, it just felt like... another game. A middle-of-the-road, decently fun 2600 adventure. -Tom
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Post by elektrolurch on Mar 20, 2017 3:01:42 GMT -5
Now, Super Pitfall... Super Pitfall is legit pretty terrible! But I still have a soft spot in my heart for it.) At first i somehow, for whatever reason, thought you were talking about the latter 16bit Pitfall that was also ported to PCs. That one I remember very fondly, but haven't played in like...20 years or so? Would be shocked to discover that it really was crap.. But yeah, being still young and impressionable when the "everything has to be 3D craze" happened in the mid 90ies, I pretty much played anything 3D that ran on our pc. Battle Arena Toshinden, when it came to PC? Awesome. All those crappy doom clones like depth dwellers, corridor 7 and so on? Loved them. And a shitload of crappy tomb raider clones with tank controls I don't even remember em all. Some may have some merit now, like Deathtrap Dungeon, but I still would not call them really "good games"...heck, the original Tomb Raider these days is very hard to get into. The only Tomb Raider inspired game from the early days I still enjoy is MDK.
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Post by eatersthemanfool on Mar 20, 2017 3:02:11 GMT -5
E.T., Pac man and other lousy Atari 2600 games Oh, good call! I had both E.T. and Pac-Man for the 2600 back when I was really young, and I enjoyed them both quite a bit. Pac-Man in particular was a game I was shocked to hear get so much hate later in life, because the 2600 game... honestly was fine. It looked and sounded like ass, but it played just like Pac-Man, and that's really all I cared about as a kid. I was pretty used to the 2600 versions of games being watered-down ports of arcade titles, after all, and Pac-Man 2600 didn't feel any MORE watered-down than, say, Donkey Kong 2600 -- which I also enjoyed! I now know the 2600 was capable of more, since Ms. Pac-Man was much closer to the arcade version, but... at the time, I *didn't* know the 2600 was capable of more. I just kind of assumed that the game we got was the best they could do, and I both accepted that and appreciated it. As for E.T., I do recall it being frustrating as a kid, but I still liked it, and the weirdness of the gameplay didn't really bother me because... well, I had the manual, so I knew how to play it (you needed manuals back then!), and it wasn't any more convoluted than, say, Raiders of the Lost Ark. So to me, it just felt like... another game. A middle-of-the-road, decently fun 2600 adventure. -Tom I had ET as a child and hated it, but then I didn't have the manual. (Didn't have manuals for a lot of our 2600 games.) Pac-Man was just fine though. I mean, yea it was shit, but it was our shit and we liked it. The port of Berserk was pretty damned good though.
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Post by Feynman on Mar 20, 2017 3:04:28 GMT -5
Honorable mentions go to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Super Mario Bros. 2, all of which are among my favorite games in their respective series. I say "honorable mentions" because none of these games are terrible, nor were any of them ever actually considered to BE terrible until the modern era. When these games were new, they were beloved classics, popular with pretty much everyone. It's only in our post-AVGN world that people have started to see them as clumsy or poorly designed experiences, forgetting just how cool and unique they were to us back in those days. Is the opinion that those games are awful actually common? because I loved the shit out of those games, and damn near everyone else I knew did too. And I still love those games. Castlevania 2 has aged the worst out of all of those by virtue of simply being ultra obtuse, but in the internet age that's less of an obstacle than ever before.
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Post by kaoru on Mar 20, 2017 3:21:50 GMT -5
I thought Mick & Mack: Global Gladiators to be the shit as a kid. Turns out it's a floaty mess when I tried it again as an adult.
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Post by wyrdwad on Mar 20, 2017 3:24:20 GMT -5
Is the opinion that those games are awful actually common? because I loved the shit out of those games, and damn near everyone else I knew did too. And I still love those games. Castlevania 2 has aged the worst out of all of those by virtue of simply being ultra obtuse, but in the internet age that's less of an obstacle than ever before. Castlevania 2 is the one that's most common to hate upon nowadays, though Zelda 2 also gets a lot of hate for not being what a "true Zelda" should be. Mario 2 is a bit of an oddity, because most people do seem to love it, but there are a growing number of hipster fans who hate it simply because it's "not a real Mario game." Which is stupid, but I figured it was worth addressing. As I said, though, yeah, all three of these games were quite beloved back in their day, and I think most gamers who are over the age of 30 still love them. Even Castlevania 2! ...Speaking of, another NES game that gets a lot of hate (especially after AVGN reviewed it), but which I legitimately liked as a kid (and still like today!), is Friday the 13th. And what's interesting is, even AVGN actually kinda likes it, as revealed in his recent "James and Mike Mondays" video where the two of them played it for a while. They both got overly confused by it, but appreciated how different it was from other games of the era -- and that's exactly why I like it, too. -Tom
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Post by GamerL on Mar 20, 2017 3:58:45 GMT -5
I want to like Castlevania 2 more than I do but well, while it's fun to just kinda putz around in, actually trying to get to the end is a pretty tedious affair and even though I've beaten Castlevania 1 and 3 several times each I've still never beaten 2.
It's got some good ideas, but the execution is flawed, while it's not a terrible game, all of James Rolfe's criticisms are valid and I'm not sure why there's this revisionist attempt to make the game seem better than it is.
Order of Ecclesia is a much better version of some of 2's ideas, like the town, in fact it's funny that the series ended* on a note of remixing some of the ideas from one of it's least respected entries.
**Yes I know about Lords of Shadow 1 and 2, but in my opinion since that was a reboot of the series with an all new continuity and every game prior to that was the same basic continuity all the way back to the NES original, Order of Ecclesia is in a way the end of the series.
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Post by wyrdwad on Mar 20, 2017 4:10:06 GMT -5
I still need to play Order of Ecclesia. Castlevania 2 is a game I've literally always enjoyed, though, and is the first Castlevania game I ever *did* beat (to this day, I've still never managed to beat NES Castlevania 1, even though I have beaten 2-4 and and MSX Castlevania 1). I just found it really fun to explore and... well, frankly, I like games with secrets hidden in them! I feel like a total badass when I find hidden stuff in games, which is part of why La-Mulana is one of my favorite games of all time at this point. Either way, Castlevania 2 is not without its flaws, sure, but those flaws are all things that I consider pretty negligible for personal enjoyment -- they're things that I legitimately don't mind at all, and in some cases even appreciate. -Tom
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Post by GamerL on Mar 20, 2017 4:16:31 GMT -5
I still need to play Order of Ecclesia. I've been meaning to replay Order of Ecclesia, it's been 8 years now and even longer for the other 2 DS entries. From what I remember I didn't enjoy it as much as the prior 2 DS entries but it wasn't a bad note for the series to end on at all.
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Post by elektrolurch on Mar 20, 2017 4:51:04 GMT -5
E.T., Pac man and other lousy Atari 2600 games Honestly..... I liked them back in the day and like em now. Pacman is not an exact port, sure. There are better ports, Ms.Pacman, Pacman Jr. etc BUT it is still perfectly playable and enjoyable for what it is. And as others have said, E.T., in the context of games like Indiana Jones, wasn't too out there.. I personally always don't really get why it is so popular to hate on the 2600 these days. The games still have a ton of charm...
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Post by Bumpyroad on Mar 20, 2017 4:55:03 GMT -5
Castlevania 2's core gameplay is as solid as in any other 8-bit Castlevanias,but other aspects of it,i tend to think, are a bit lacking(shallow mansions,annoying invisible traps,laughably easy bosses),that's why it has always been sitting on the edge of being good and/or bad imo.
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Post by spanky on Mar 20, 2017 8:10:56 GMT -5
If Castlevania II was a hair less inscrutable(slightly more obvious solutions to puzzles, NPCs that don't actively lie to you), I think it would be much more beloved. The core concept, gameplay, graphics and music are all great though.
The Zelda 2 hate is something I've never understood, I think by all metrics it's a great game. - I may be strawmanning like crazy here, but I feel like that attitude comes from a loud contingent of Zelda fans whose first Zelda game was Ocarina and think every game in the series should be exactly like that. Y'know, the same people that shat on Wind Waker's graphics and the ones who are actually complaining about BotW for daring to be a bit different. I think Ocarina is kinda overrated, Skyward Sword absolutely sucked and my favorite Zelda games are the ones that actively deviate from the formula (Majora's Mask, Breath of the Wild, Zelda 2), so maybe I'm not a tastemaker here.
As far as actual bad games that I enjoyed as a kid...the NES version of Rampage comes to mind. I played that sucker for HOURS.
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Post by Snake on Mar 20, 2017 11:02:42 GMT -5
I didn't realize so many people considered Castlevania 2 to be such a "bad" game. My only gripe with it is that the clues are horribly written, it was nigh impossible for a young kid to beat the whole thing without some kind of guide or hint. Order of Ecclesia is great, and probably one of the more challenging games out of the handheld series. You really got to figure out some kind of battle strategy with the bosses in Dracula's castle, instead of just powering through.
Golgo 13:Top Secret Episode. Fond memories of this game, but I wouldn't call this a "good" game. Pretty damn hard. Lots of deaths. It sucked that the world's greatest assassin is uncapable of kneeling and shooting. Saint Seiya, both Famicom games. Cheaply done, incredibly hard. But I still love them.
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Post by retr0gamer on Mar 20, 2017 12:22:26 GMT -5
My name is retr0gamer and I'm a Castlevania: The Adventure apologist. I still enjoy playing the game even though I understand why people hate it.
Played plenty of rubbish C64 games but none spring to mind.
I used to play an awful lot of Captain Planet in the NES. Not sure why as it's a crock of shit looking back at it.
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Post by The Great Klaid on Mar 20, 2017 13:13:16 GMT -5
Silhouette Mirage is the one that comes to mind. The US version of course. Because its not a terrible game on paper. But I still don't think its beatable as it is now in America
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