The C-E staff give their views on gaming's most important issues.

In last week's Roundtable many of us raved about Rare's Goldeneye, prompting one staff member to question its classic status. Which got me thinking...

Are old games really as good as we think they are?

Ash:

I think maybe we overhype old games a bit but with reasons, there were a fair few classics. We could go into the "ah the good old days when graphics didn't matter and it was about the game play" lecture but lets not.

The thing with old games is that they are becoming easier and easier to attain, you could get them off the internet, on your phone or on your Game Boy. This is partially what makes them so great, the ease of obtaining them.

It's fun to be nostalgic and this is what makes retro games so great. So we should all grab our Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles flasks, put on '99 Red Balloons' and settle down to some Pac Man. Wacka wacka.

Bas:

Are old games really as good as we think they are?

Of course it's impossible to entirely rule out some nostalgia, but I think most games were as good as we remember them. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean they hold up as well today.

It's a fact: some games just don't age as well as others. While Tetris is as playable today as it was fifteen years ago, many games have been outdated by improved concepts or technology.

In the last roundtable Matt (who didn't play GoldenEye when it came out) couldn't see the brilliance of 007's first N64 outing compared to today's Halo. While this may seem blasphemy to some, it's understandable: GoldenEye was groundbreaking in 1997, but now many games have learned from it � and improved on it. Halo outclasses it in many areas, so to someone playing GoldenEye without the pink glasses of nostalgia - and having experienced the Master Chief's grand adventure - it may not be more than an enjoyable shooter.

Another reason for games getting outdated is the rapidly improving technology. I still think StarFox 64 (Lylatwars) is a fantastic game, but while replaying it lately, I couldn't help being annoyed by the unsteady framerate. And don't even get me started on the original Starwing with its 12 heavily aliased polygons juddering towards you at five frames per second! Out of date technology is something that affects mainly early 3D games, so especially N64 and PSOne games just aren't as good to play as the used to be.

The industry noticed this and remakes of classic are becoming more common. Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid are some recent examples. So let's hope Nintendo gets it too and will put a remake of Super Mario 64 on the next Game Boy instead of porting a low-polygon, slow-framerate product that was once the best game ever.

Iun:

Rose tinted spectacles are wonderful aren't they? They make hard times seem like the good, bad things become better... and games become legends.

There are so many games that I remember from my youth that I thought were gems at the time: I won't go into a long rambling list, there are far too many, for years I believed them to be the best games I would ever play. Then along came a new generation that changed my opinion and made me reject my previous hard-line convictions as I bathed in the sweet-scented delights of new technology.

But some games -just some mind, not all, were classics when they were released and still remain classics today, no matter how many advances in play mechanics, graphics and sound have been made. Games from the Golden Age of Platforming, such as James Pond II: Robocod, Donkey Kong Country 2, Sonic the Hedgehog are brilliant examples of games that despite all the technology today, still play as well as any of the best and most addictive titles on the market.

Mario Kart 64 is head and shoulders STILL above any of the contemporary Kart games, Half Life, Unreal and Goldeneye are the defining first person shooters nearly 8 years after their creation.

Let's not forget Tetris, the game that sold the original Game Boy. Despite it's clunky and unnattractive look, the game has lost none of its addictive qualities that made it popular back in the early 90's.

While these games may be the exception rather than the rule, it goes a long way to saying that a true classic remains a classic throughout history, it transcends genres, trends and culture to stay popular, accesible and fresh to every new generation that sees it.

Jayseven:

The phrase that springs to mind is "The grass is always greener on the otherside"... Albeit the 'otherside' is games of yesteryear.

I think games these days have a hard life. With so many superb games already released there's more pressure for developers to produce something new and inspiring, something different which will captivate our imaginations. The trouble is that there's zillions of games out there that have already done nearly every concievable form of game which makes it that much harder for a new game to do the job.

For instance, sequels and remakes often get discredited or marked down because they are just that; the same game reworked to include a few bells and whistles, who cares if it is actually a better game? Sequels are often the same game engine and everything, just a bunch of new levels/characters/weapons/whatever stitched onto it, and because it's nothing groundbreaking critics claim that it's not as good as the original.

If you had released the second one FIRST then it would be deemed the better game -- well, that's obvious enough isn't it? Then why do we not declare it the better game when we compare them side to side? Because we take other factors into consideration -- How unique was the game at the time? Was it groundbreaking? Is the sequel/remake actually worth paying another �40 for? Things like this effect our perception of the game.

But of course, often games really were better back then. Some games are still yet to be bettered in terms of quality even by their own sequels. I look at the Final Fantasy series which, from my own experience and from what I have heard from friends, has not escalated in quality much at all since FF7, yet each new game in the series adds to the previous in terms of graphics, gameplay and just generally things to do.

Also my favourite game of all time, Blast Corps for the N64, has yet to have a similarly-styled game released since it came out, what, 8 years ago?

As gamers, we all have our favourite games. Fave games tend to be ones which we think end too early, so we wish it was longer or we wish that there was a sequel so we could have a similar experience. Often developers/producers hear our cries and release a sequel -- sequels which, unfortunately, tend to live in the shadows of their predecessors or dampen the name of the series. It's a tricky job for developers to answer the calls of the fans when they seem so ungrateful for your efforts, too. Look at Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. There are many critics - me included - who detest this game, who think that the things Nintendo have added to the game have ruined it. The thing is, if Nintendo hadn't added anything to the game and had just released the same game as before but with 20 new levels and 4 new racers then the fans would be dissapointed with Ninty's lack of ambition, and critics would have a field day slating it! Sure, I would be happy, but developers simply can't do that even if that's what gamers wanted in the first place!

We're a hard lot to please, really. Look at EA, they've announced a 'sequel' to Goldeneye. As we discussed in the last roundtable, we generally feel that EA are going to end up tainting the originals name but I can remember a time when we were begging for a sequel, and Rare did near-enough that by releasing Prefect Dark 64.. Yet there were still critics of that game, claiming it wasn't as pure as Goldeneye and not as groundbreaking, which was true, but! The game had all the extras that gamers were calling for and MORE so surely Perfect Dark is the better game?

Conor:

Coincidentally enough, I spent Friday night and Saturday afternoon playing two-player Goldeneye and Perfect Dark with my cousin, and duely played over the former's singleplayer during the course of the weekend. Are they as good as I thought they were? Damn straight they are.

I think a large part of our perception of a game is its context. If Nintendo released Mario 64 today, it would be scoffed at. But when it was originally released, everyone was blown away. When playing Goldeneye I could still appreciate the game's qualities, but didn't feel the thrill and excitement that made the game so memorable in the first place. This is so central to our perception of games, that arguably no game can be as good as we remember.

But a good game is always a good game, right? As my Goldeneye sessions testified; yes. Of course, some games are undeservedly called classics and over time build up a reputation as greater games than they actually are, until someone sits down and plays it. But these games are in the minority I feel. After all, a game isn't called classic for nothing.

So then, are old games as good as we claim they are?