Think you know the greatest game of all time? Think again — because these classics have aged like fine milk.
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00:00Think you know the greatest game of all time?
00:03Think again, because these classics have aged like fine milk.
00:07The early 3D era of gaming tends to be the worst victim of aging in the history of the
00:12medium.
00:13Early shooters have it especially rough, and GoldenEye 007 is a prime example.
00:18The 1997 game was a defining couch multiplayer game for a generation of players, and as recently
00:24as 2016, it was still being heralded by gaming publications as one of the best to ever exist.
00:31And while this may be the best James Bond video game, it isn't actually all that fun
00:35by today's standards.
00:37GoldenEye 007 may have been ahead of its time, but those controls don't feel good or natural
00:42anymore.
00:43The mission designers aged, too, and for a game that was known for its multiplayer, it
00:48is surprisingly poorly balanced.
00:50You know what we mean.
00:55That fact makes for a bit of charming nostalgia, but it does not make GoldenEye a game worth
00:59revisiting.
01:00And now that the line between console and PC games isn't quite as thick as it used to
01:05be, fans tend to agree that, even at the time, GoldenEye was inferior to its PC contemporaries.
01:12Unless you're curious about the history of the franchise, Grand Theft Auto III isn't
01:16really worth playing these days.
01:18Even diehard fans agree the early PS2 era of GTA doesn't quite hold up.
01:23Of course, the groundbreaking open world of GTA 3 changed the industry forever, but is
01:27being ahead of its time enough to justify playing through a 20-hour story?
01:32Obviously, open worlds have come a long way since GTA 3 in terms of both interactivity
01:37and fidelity, but it's unfair to compare this game to, say, Red Dead Redemption 2.
01:43That's no excuse, however, for how poorly the shooting and mission design has aged.
01:47The missions are simplistic and restrictive compared to modern sandbox games, especially
01:52those made by other studios.
01:54And then there's the writing.
01:55The mean-spirited satire of Grand Theft Auto was revolutionary for a time when games didn't
02:00have much to say.
02:02But was it ever good satire?
02:04Throw in a few iffy stereotypes, and you've got a game that's more likely to make you
02:08cringe than hoot with laughter.
02:11The crypt-crawling action-adventure series Tomb Raider has been one of the most influential
02:15franchises in gaming history.
02:17If you're going to start diving in now, though, you might not want to start at the very beginning.
02:21For one thing, the tank controls and platforming in 1996's Tomb Raider are unforgiving and
02:27incredibly demanding.
02:29Modern players used to the newer entries in the series are likely to find themselves constantly
02:33missing jumps and having to retry sections to the point of frustration.
02:37Unless you grew up playing this one, the gameplay is probably not going to click.
02:42Don't worry too much, though.
02:43This game has quite the legion of dedicated fans, and a number of mods and fixes have
02:47made the original PC version a lot more playable.
02:51So it's not totally impossible for you to enjoy a slice of gaming history.
02:56Speaking of Tomb Raider, who could forget its spiritual successor, Uncharted?
03:00These games attempted to capture the magic of Indiana Jones and largely succeeded in
03:04crafting a series of gorgeous, globetrotting adventures.
03:08"...Fortune and glory, kid.
03:10Fortune and glory."
03:14The first Uncharted was an impressive PS3 launch game, and its sequel, Uncharted 2 Among
03:19Thieves, racked up Game of the Year awards like nobody's business.
03:23In retrospect, however, this is a flawed and uneven masterpiece.
03:26The presentational elements of Uncharted 2 still hold up, the voice acting is phenomenal,
03:31and the characters are well-realized, if a bit shallow.
03:34Set-piece moments like the train sequence are still technically impressive a decade
03:38on too.
03:39However, playing Uncharted 2 is a real slog.
03:41The over-reliance on combat and bullet-sponge enemies make for a frustrating time.
03:46The platforming is less involved than even the original Tomb Raider, and the game is
03:50linear and repetitive.
03:52Some players might find it worth going through to enjoy the story, but Uncharted 2 definitely
03:56doesn't hold up as a gold standard of gaming anymore.
04:00The original Metroid is an old game, so of course it doesn't totally hold up to modern
04:04standards.
04:05But that's not to say it's not worth mentioning.
04:07If you revisit the NES library, you'll find that many of the system's classics are still
04:12great.
04:13The Legend of Zelda and the original Super Mario hold up surprisingly well, for example.
04:18Even difficult games such as Castlevania and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! are still fun thanks
04:22to modern tools like Switch Online's Rewind feature.
04:25But Nintendo's early attempt at an open, interconnected map is obtuse by today's standards.
04:31Play it today, and you'll find Metroid to be directionless and almost indecipherable.
04:36While the ideas were obviously solid enough to become the foundation of an entire sub-genre,
04:40the language of Metroidvanias had yet to be established in 1986.
04:44Nowadays, the game ranks low compared to the many incredible sequels it spawned.
04:49If you really want to go back to the beginning of the Metroid timeline, the excellent Zero
04:53Mission remake is a much better place to start.
04:56Arriving a year after Thief, The Dark Project, and a year before Deus Ex, System Shock 2
05:01was part of a wave of games that ushered immersive high-concept RPGs into popularity.
05:06The genre started to gain steam in the early 90s with the Ultima games, but the Thief and
05:11Shock series made huge strides in expanding the genre to a wider audience.
05:16Unfortunately, 1999's System Shock 2 hasn't quite held up.
05:20For one, System Shock 2 has a confusing tutorial segment up front that doesn't communicate
05:25the difference between classes or what the game is about in terms of exploration.
05:29This poor first impression is complemented by a game that drags in the story department,
05:34especially when the big twist only happens after about a third of the playtime.
05:39The original Max Payne was once heralded as an all-time great, taking the bullet-time
05:43mechanic from The Matrix and mashing it up with a film noir story.
05:49The result has sadly not aged very well, especially if you're playing the PS2 port.
05:54How much the gameplay has aged depends on who you talk to.
05:57Mechanically, Max Payne is still a solid shooter that has plenty of defenders, but even they
06:01agree that the game's strength is not its story.
06:04Playing it on Xbox today, it's clear to see that Remedy's lead writer, Sam Lake, was still
06:08very much figuring out his style.
06:11For a studio now known for games such as Control and Alan Wake, this is bound to be pretty
06:15disappointing.
06:16The story walks the line between parody and cliché, and often comes across as an overly
06:21edgy attempt to do something mature.
06:23Meanwhile, the comic-inspired cutscenes are full of misogynistic noir tropes, and the
06:28whole game is permeated with an uneven tone.
06:30Oh, and the two dream sequences where you have to carefully navigate invisible platforms?
06:35Yeah, those are still the worst.
06:37Once a paragon of open-world design, Ubisoft Open World has now become shorthand for overwhelming
06:42map icons and tiring repetition.
06:45A major player that established this formula was Assassin's Creed II, the sequel to the
06:50now-maligned original historical fiction murder simulator.
06:53Without this game, the franchise wouldn't have gone on to be one of Ubisoft's biggest,
06:57its design seeping into all the company's other projects.
07:00Looking back, however, was this really a good thing?
07:03Many fans agree that AC2 hasn't quite aged like fine wine.
07:06The uninvolved combat and prevalence of finicky sneaking missions make it frustrating by today's
07:12standard.
07:13Additionally, the once-praised revenge story feels generic compared to, say, Assassin's
07:17Creed Origins.
07:18And sure, Ezio was once a gaming icon, but he and the other characters don't have a whole
07:22lot of depth or nuance.
07:24Let's not forget that a big chunk of the story was yanked out and turned into DLC, so the
07:29game could ship on time, either.
07:31In retrospect, this was the beginning of a truly worrisome trend.
07:35Like Metroid, the original Resident Evil is a victim of a much more impressive remake.
07:40Still one of the best franchise's best games, 2002's retelling of the first Resident Evil
07:45story makes the original obsolete to anyone barring game historians and franchise completionists.
07:51In 1996, Resident Evil was a groundbreaking title that gave birth to a whole new genre.
07:57It also established the tank controls and fixed camera that would define this genre
08:01for the next decade and a half.
08:03But to many modern gamers, these same controls feel outdated.
08:07Some moments are still thrilling, but most of the scares don't work due to the dated
08:11visuals, and even tank control stans will admit the voice acting and translation of
08:15the script feel amateurish, despite grating us with such amazing lines as this.
08:21That was too close.
08:23You were almost a jiggle sandwich.
08:26This is far from the worst in the series, of course, but if you're curious about Resident
08:30Evil, then it might be worth considering playing some of the newer entries first.
08:36Let's be clear, Fallout 3 is a pretty darn good game, but 2008 was a long time ago.
08:41This entry in Bethesda's iconic post-apocalyptic RPG series is no longer worthy of its place
08:46in the Hall of Fame for a few very specific reasons.
08:50For starters, going back to Fallout 3 means returning to the drab wasteland of the late
08:542000s, an era where it wasn't seen as such a problem for games to have a mostly gray
08:59palette.
09:00As a result, Fallout 3 is visually dull, to say the least, and that dullness carries over
09:04to the game's shooting and storytelling.
09:06The side quests still stand out as some of the best in the genre, but the main storyline
09:10is unsatisfying and more or less acts as an excuse to explore the world.
09:15Nor does the game offer as many morally complex choices and branching paths as its successor,
09:19New Vegas.
09:21Bioshock deserves much of the praise that has been heaped upon it.
09:24It has an astoundingly good opening hour, and Rapture still oozes atmosphere, making
09:28it one of the most exciting destinations in all of gaming.
09:32However, people tend to forget that the original Bioshock is also overly long, and falls apart
09:37completely by the end of its runtime.
09:39You can trace the whole Our Games Art discourse back to the ambitious release of Bioshock
09:44in 2007, but truthfully, the story doesn't hold up.
09:48The big twist two-thirds of the way through the game was mighty impressive for the time,
09:53but it won't exactly blow your mind today.
09:55And it doesn't help that the final third builds to a disappointing boss fight, all while doubling
10:00down on the clunky combat and a weird emphasis on scrounging through every trash can for
10:04healing items and ammo.
10:06Yes, Bioshock is a masterwork of atmosphere and environmental storytelling, but this overly
10:12long and mechanically unsatisfying shooter has aged incredibly poorly.
10:17You might call it a masterpiece or even just the best Zelda game of all time, but time
10:21has been less forgiving to Ocarina of Time.
10:24Need proof?
10:25Pick up your N64, then give that controller to someone who plays games today and tell
10:29them to go wild.
10:31They won't last an hour.
10:32The truth is that Ocarina of Time was a revolutionary game for its era, and is still very much worth
10:37playing for that reason.
10:38After all, this game set the template for the next 25 years of action-adventure games,
10:43but that is the primary reason it doesn't hold up as one of the best games of all time.
10:47From its early attempts at a pseudo-open world to the infamous Z-targeting combat, the elements
10:52of Ocarina that defined its place in history have been copied and perfected in the decades
10:57since.
10:58Most of the dungeon design holds up, aside from the Water Temple and some other clunky
11:02spots, but the camera, especially in the original release, is a relic of a different age.
11:07Critically acclaimed modern masterpieces such as God of War and Dark Souls owe a lot to
11:11the first 3D Zelda, but our advice?
11:14Just play those games instead.
11:16Today, rankings of the series commonly place Breath of the Wild, A Link to the Past, and
11:20Majora's Mask above this N64 classic, and they're right to do so.