Tips for old games that is no longer usable

summarize

• Modern consoles lack the split-screen effect seen in older games like Batman: Arkham Asylum.

• Older consoles used controller port switching as a gameplay mechanic. This is a feature that is no longer available.

• The game initially conceals a small game world. With fog to hide loading limitations This is a technique that is no longer relevant to the wider modern world.

The game has changed a lot over the years. Highly commanding graphics Millions of polygons and vertices are being blasted into our faces by machines more powerful than we ever thought possible in many ways. Gaming has come a long way since the early days of adventure, too. Ascii's art all the way to where we are today.

It's normal. But we also lost some things along the way. Smoke and reflections from early games Many cannot do this anymore. Many of these tricks were done to mask the limitations of the consoles of the time. Or become obsolete with the advancement of monitors and televisions? It's not an inherently bad thing. But it's interesting to see so many tricks in these games that no longer have the same effect.

8

Screen breaking effect

Before the advent of pixel-perfect TVs, 4K resolution, and plasma screens, we relied on large TVs that were filled with white noise when not tuned to a source. Most of the time, you wouldn't notice it. But what if one of the RCA connectors starts to come loose? You'll start to get distorted sound, cracked pictures, etc. Modern TVs don't have much of this. This makes one of Arkham Asylum's most famous effects a lot less impactful.

A far cry from Batman: Arkham Aslyum, you're chasing a Scarecrow when suddenly the screen starts cracking. with graphical objects starting to cover the screen You can still control Batman. This makes it look like your TV or console is malfunctioning. Instead, it is an intentional act of the game. But the parallels cannot be drawn with modern flat screens.

7

Controller port switching

Back in the days before the PS3, consoles were a much more tactile affair. The controller must be wired directly. All buttons are on the console. And there are countless wires to connect and connect. And although it's not very common But some games take advantage of many of these ports until the end of the game.

In the original MGS, there was a boss, Pyscho Mantis, who could read all of your inputs. So how do you intend to defeat him? You have to physically change the port your controller is plugged into. Master Collection does a commendable job of trying to recreate that time. But there's no way to fully simulate it with a wireless controller.

6

Fog to hide the small world

When I was a child playing games Every new game feels like a giant leap: 2D becomes 3D, sharp faces move, and so on. But with those giant leaps, make other parts A lot of the game's gameplay had to be hidden to cover up its flaws, something like GTA: San Andreas might have felt huge at the time. But get rid of that fog. And you can see the entire map from anywhere.

The GTA trilogy is a good example of this. where various ports The fog was successfully removed and showed how small the world was.

Silent Hill is another good example of this. Although the mist that shrouded the city is fondly remembered for its atmosphere, But it was used to conceal that the city was full of tiny lumps. only in front of you Consoles are too powerful right now and worlds are expected to be huge. Fog will not serve the same purpose if the world is already large.

5

Repeating characters for reflection

Reflection is one of the key controversies in gaming. From path-tracing reflection to ray-tracing to more common and less graphical subspace reflections. with modern ray tracing Although it is expensive But the reflection can make it look more natural and realistic.

Older games didn't have this luxury. and found a rather creative solution. Just repeat everything. Nothing reflects this better than the exact same thing. With details on the number of character models currently available Repeat sales will significantly reduce efficiency. This is a big reason why you don't see working mirrors in many games, new or old.

These days, everything is expressed in pixel-perfect form. This has been the format on PCs for decades. But it didn't become common on TVs until around 2010 with HD screens. Until then, CRTs dominated the home market. With outstanding appearance and refreshing effect. This is something to consider when creating a game.

In the present era This leads to some rather unfortunate problems. Ports of old games Looks rough and pixelated which for many People may have nostalgia for them that makes you think those games looked better, but on a CRT screen, they really did. The impact of these screens causes pixels to drop at the same time. Resulting in a softer visual effect, the PS1 Final Fantasy games clearly show what's happening with the pre-rendered backgrounds. When optimized for a pixel-perfect, high-resolution screen,

3

Pre-rendered backgrounds that look 3D

When games first started transitioning to 3D, it was difficult to make the entire environment 3D. The camera had to be changed to fit the camera and the movement. And overall it is less detailed in many ways. How to solve this problem? Pre-rendered background These people are already amazing artists. And they don't have to give up to create new 3D games.

The original Resident Evil and the GameCube remake specifically. It's an example of how amazing pre-rendered backgrounds can be to match any scene, and while they're not impossible to create right now, But depth rendering on pre-rendered backgrounds is much more difficult to deliver on modern systems.

2

Proprietary technology that just broke

Games created today are for the most part designed to be created on different systems. As much as possible, for this reason they use technology and systems that work anywhere. Instead of a proprietary one Overall, this is a good thing. By letting more people experience the game. Although sometimes it results in the game not reaching its full potential.

This is most evident in games that have been ported to modern consoles. As with the Prince of Persia trilogy, some games lose a lot of small details like lighting, sound, and graphical effects, and others, like Final Fantasy 8 Remastered, lose the ability to run at discrete frame rates. That's probably a big reason why Metal Gear Solid 4 has been so difficult to replicate and create a modern port.

1

Save file detection

This is currently impossible to do by any means, but the function and purpose of the system is completely different. With a lot of the early games, especially about creating memory cards. Many games have implemented the ability to detect saved data from other games and import that data. It gives you unique scenes and lots of different options.

However, games take so long to make right now, Dragon Age being a good example, with two supporting direct save file import, followed by Inquisition relying on online services, and Veilguard having to abandon it entirely. It is difficult to import save files when the distance between games is very long. And different systems may record information completely differently.