Tildes Pop-Up Game Event: Ludonostalgia!
Pop-Up Event: Ludonostalgia!
Task: Replay an old, favorite game that you haven't played in a long, long time. Tell us about how your playthrough now compares to your memories of the game.
Time Period: This weekend! (November 10-14)
Update: Ludonostalgia is extending its hours through November 21st!
Uh, what is this exactly?
Its me, kfwyre, trying out yet another post type on Tildes and seeing how it goes.
In the past I've done a "Backlog Burner" event that was a full month. It was a lot to commit to, and it ended up feeling like it lost steam -- too long for its own good.
I still like the root of that idea though -- people playing games with a specific purpose or focus. Something like a "Book Club" for games, but with a common theme instead of a common title, so people are free to choose what they personally like.
Thus, a "Pop-Up": a quick, short event that identifies a common focus that people can participate in together and doesn't require too much commitment. Basically, something unexpectedly fun to do for a week or a weekend.
If this kind of thing takes, I'd love to see it happen in other communities: ~movies, ~anime, ~music, etc. I'd also love it if other people did their own "pop-ups" on a whim, rather than it being seen as something that's "mine" to post.
That's jumping the gun a bit though -- this one is a sort of test to see if this sort of thing even has any legs in the first place.
Oh, and "Ludonostalgia" is a made up pretentious word -- because every good Pop-Up needs an iconic name.
My Ludonostalgia entree: System Shock 2
SS2 is probably one of the only games in my life that achieved what I would call a "perfect playthrough". I don't mean "perfect" in the sense that I did everything right (lol, I definitely did NOT) but perfect in that the actual experience of playing it was as perfect as it could possibly be.
When I was much younger and living under my parents' roof, they didn't like me playing violent video games (except for DOOM which got a pass because I told my extremely Christian parents that I was killing demons (which was true)). They also didn't like the then-fledgling hobby of piracy that the early internet enabled -- downloading things for free felt wrong to them! So, when I pirated System Shock 2 to play what, at the time, was considered one of the greatest games of all time, I knew that I had to make sure they didn't catch wind of the idea that I was playing a 1) violent and 2) pirated video game.
Thus, I would wait until they went to sleep, turn off all the lights, pop headphones into my family computer, and dive into what was the most anxiety-inducing, frightening, yet somehow deeply compelling gaming experience of my life. The anxiety was palpable, which I normally wouldn't like, but the game itself was so gripping that I wanted to keep coming back to it. The audiologs, the incredible atmosphere and level design, the RPG elements (unheard of for an FPS at that time): SS2 was ahead of its time, and the nature of my clandestine playthrough meant that all of its unsettling qualities were as potent as they could possibly be.
Oh, and did I mention that my brother also had a sleepwalking habit? Yeah, imagine me being deeply on edge while secretly playing this terrifying horror game filled with humanoid-like zombies, only to be interrupted in real life by my sleepwalking brother coming up behind me in the exact manner of a humanoid zombie. That really happened one night. I'm pretty sure I screamed.
Anyway, part of me has always wanted to preserve the perfection of that initial playthrough. To this day SS2 sits on a pedestal in my mind that few other games can even approach. It was perfect. I love the game for that perfection. I know that it isn't actually perfect, but my playthrough made it perfect to me.
On the other hand, I'm so curious to dive back into the game with modern eyes and see what it looks like from a modern perspective. I want to revisit that perfection. I want to evaluate it from a distance, but I also want to relive even a portion of it. Even 10% of perfection is still amazing.
Thus, SS2 became my Ludonostalgia pick. Will it have the same thrills as last time? Probably not. But will it allow me to experience part of those thrills by proxy? Very probably.
I got it running relatively easy. The "native" Linux release is actually just the Windows version with an older Wine wrapper, so I forced the most recent Proton on the Windows version through Steam and it works swimmingly. I was tempted to try and mod the game, but that would go against my want to revisit my original playthrough, so I'm playing vanilla with two exceptions. One: I changed the FOV from 90 to 105 so I don't get motion sickness, and two: I dropped the weapon degradation rate by 50% because I remember hating that I could fire like, a single bullet before my weapon decided to become terrible.
I'll reply to this comment with thoughts as I go, but for now, the Von Braun is waiting for me.
I never played the DOOM series but I know exactly what you mean about applying the theme of spiritual warfare to make things more palatable for hardcore christian parents!!!
Update:
In keeping with everyone else's predictions for the event, I did not finish System Shock 2.
According to Steam, I put in about 9 hours. According to the in-game timer, I put in about 6. The difference in time has two reasons:
I don't even feel bad about it. I understand that it completely goes against the design of the game, but also the game is so hostile to the player by modern standards that you can easily get yourself into what's basically an irrecoverable state. I'm not about to risk that, even if it means my gameplay would be highwire-tense the entire way through.
This is not a criticism of the game, by any means. The game is wonderfully antagonistic in that old-school survival horror way. Resources are very hard to come by, so you're excited to get even a single bullet or med hypo. You'll never have enough cyber modules to build your character in the way that you want, and even with BrawnBoost implants you'll never have enough inventory space. The game puts you on a deliberate starvation diet of resources, and it does so incredibly well.
Playing it now, I'm amazed at how ahead of its time it was. Back when I originally played it, I definitely had a sense that it was unlike anything I'd ever played before, but I didn't really have a good context into which to put that information. Now I have better hindsight, and I'm impressed in a completely different way. The RPG elements in building your character and the scavenging for scarce resources within an FPS were part of what made Fallout 3 such a hit in 2008, but SS2 did almost the same thing a full nine years earlier.
I'm also impressed with how well it holds up by modern standards. Yes, it's got that old-school punishing aspect to it, and yes, the graphics aren't nearly as frightening or immersive as they once were (the hybrids that terrified me as a kid look almost comical now). But there's also so much about the game that still works. The animation on the androids is still unsettling as they jerkily beeline for you. The slow unfolding of the plot through mostly well-acted audiologs is engaging and satisfying. The relative freedom for handling different situations (e.g. hacking, shooting, avoiding) still works, although it's a bit more illusory than I remember it being.
I'll give shoutouts in particular to the sound design. The score is excellent and sets the mood perfectly. The processing on the voices remains spooky and uncomfortable today. The enemies all have distinct voicelines and sound, and replaying it now helps me appreciate something in particular about it being a horror game: it is almost entirely atmospheric horror. There are relatively few jumpscares, and the ones that do take place are never of the "suddenly there's a face in front of your screen" or "suddenly something jumps out of the darkness at you" type. In fact, you actually hear enemies before you encounter them. Each one seems to have a sort of radius in which you can hear their distinctive sound, even through walls, which helps you anticipate an encounter with them. This serves to both give you choice in how you handle them, as well as ramp up the tension -- because you're always short on bullets and med hypos, it's often beneficial to try and work around the enemies rather than engage them if you can. Or, if you can't, use your foreknowledge to engage them as strategically as possible.
Also, sometimes you can hear them but you don't know where they are. You know they're nearby, but you're unable to locate them. That's unsettling.
This ties into another aspect that I really like: I can see everything in the game.
I cannot stress how much I like this. I don't play a lot of horror games in general, but I feel like a lot of modern ones rely on large amounts of darkness. Also I was about to make a DOOM 3 reference only to check its release date and find out it came out in 2004, so you probably shouldn't trust my opinion on what constitutes "modern" anything. Wandering around with only a flashlight is certainly tense and makes for very frightening situations, but it's also hugely bothersome and I don't enjoy it. SS2 dodges this by making everything relatively well lit. There are some darker areas, but these are individual spots in rooms rather than entire levels or floors. This might change later in the game (I'm maybe halfway through it?), but thus far it's been satisfying. The game isn't so much outright scary as it is creepy and unnerving.
It's very hard to not have the game colored by my nostalgia, but I feel like the game still has stuff to offer to new players today. I think if, instead of looking at it for what it was -- a bygone mega-title -- you instead falsely headcanon the game as a darling indie game that came out a few years back, it would help smooth over some of the game's rough edges and help its great parts really shine.
I'm thoroughly enjoying my playthrough and will continue (even if the event is technically "over").
Oh my god that's hilarious. There've been jokes about this, but I guess it could work.
Entry: Knights of the Old Republic 1 (KOTOR 1)
Acquisition
A sibling purchased the title and it must have been some years after it was first released, because it wasn't the official original and was produced by one of those mass publishers as a 'PC essential'. They probably got it because it was 'Star Wars' and cheap. It was never played and sat collecting dust for a while. Eventually my other sibling and I installed it on a whim one day, we knew nothing about the game. Today I'd never play a game without proper research and consideration!
First impressions
The game opens with a short level that doubles as a tutorial. Today it would be trivial but back then it was a real challenge and very satisfying to clear. I'd never played DnD style combat and with very basic gear it was painfully slow, my character being pretty much useless. After encountering smoke the PC crashed but luckily after lowering all settings I was able to get through the level.
Soon after the game properly starts we discovered a terrible bug that caused the game to freeze for up to 5 minutes at a time and then jump to a future point in time to catch up with the latest command. This bug was confined to specific areas of the game (always the same ones) and was a total nightmare. We never solved it and had to get around it by being extremely patient and trying to avoid all combat (which sometimes was impossible). As a result we couldn't do all quests or explore all areas of the game. Luckily this happened for around 5-10% of the game. Playing the game 10 years later, I'd still hold my breath when entering those areas, as if expecting disaster.
General observations
I first played this game when I was a child, so my methods and ideas were quite different.
That's all I can think of for now. KOTOR 1 remains one of my all-time favourite games, although I like KOTOR 2 better. It's not easy to judge as I'm sure there is an element of nostalgia that distorts things, but it the series still has a strong cult following today (e.g. a very active reddit community) and I haven't played an RPG like it for a very long time. A remake has been announced but it appears to be plagued by development difficulties and drama, and is not due until 2025.
Apparently some of you don't drop a game after only 3-5 hours (how tho?) so it's come to my attention that a single weekend might be too short of a timespan for this Pop-Up.
I talked to my staff, and they've agreed to keep Ludonostalgia open until November 21st, giving patrons a whole extra week to enjoy the experience.
Tbh I will also drop the vast majority of video games after the first few hours unless it’s got some really good grips on me. Most games don’t get there because they use the exact same gameplay loop for the entire game without mixing it up or it has a story that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
How old? Is 5 or 6 years old enough? I've been thinking about going back to shadow of Mordor. If not, what about Skyrim I haven't played that in 10 years. I'll probably only be able to put in 2 or 3 hours because I really want to 0lay the new god of war.
Your call! The theme is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.
If you're interested in Skyrim and looking for something a little different, you can install the Requiem mod which is a total gameplay overhaul which sets objective levels for NPCs (so that everything in the world doesn't level with you) and substantially increases the difficulty of the game. This completely changes the feel of the game, and makes the first 20 levels painful but also rewarding. Combine with a small set of hardcore survival mods and the world feels much more immersive. For example, with Frostbite, all of the Northern snowy areas are quite challenging and you have to be strategic about your adventuring. With the campfire mod you can roam around and pitch tents in the middle of nowhere. A needs mod can be tailored so that you can set how demanding it is to satisfy hunger and thirst. It's pretty fun but as you enter mid and late game you start to become too powerful, which lessens the experience.
I think you meant to reply to @pocketry. Pinging them here so they don’t miss your comment.
Ooh, I'm definitely in! I dug out my old N64 during the early days of the pandemic and never got around to replaying GoldenEye. (I mostly stuck with multiplayer games and reran the Zelda series). Single player on that used to be my JAM! I'll be giving that a go this weekend. Great idea!
I would love to hear what you think of GoldenEye today vs when you originally played it.
I wasn't particularly good at it, but I spent hours playing GoldenEye and I freaking loved it --- at the time.
Great idea! I'll probably pick up from where I left off with Final Fantasy 6 pixel remaster. I was at the story fork and had just met Celes I believe. See if I can put in an hour or two this weekend.
Thoughts on Final Fantasy 6, the Phantom Forest and Phantom Train.
As an adult the thing that struck me was, "this location is tiny!" Sure enough, it was 50 minutes on the in-game clock start-to-finish. If I'd been speedrunning it, I could see it taking under 15. Contrast with modern AAA JRPG sensibilities where the sequence would be 2 hours long; FF7 Remake's train graveyard comes to mind, naturally.
I had conflicting opinions on this. On the one hand, it felt almost too short: How could they waste this setting and this music? I wanted some more fun stuff to do on the train. There were a couple very short yet memorable moments, but I've been spoiled to expect more.
On the other hand, it was refreshing to be left wanting more. A tenet of entertainment too often neglected. Stepping back, I realized the entire 6 hours of game time to that point were all rapid-fire bursts of new characters and locations and story tidbits. Whereas with a modern JRPG, you'd still be running sidequests in the first hub town at the 6 hour mark. If you're lucky to be past the prologue!
The other thing that stood out was at the end of the Phantom Train sequence. I was having a good time, suplexed the meme boss, and now wondering, "Okay that was fun, but um, what was the point of that entire area? So random. Mysterious, and kind of funny, and there was awesome catchy music, but huh?" Then the game answered me with a 20-second cutscene I had totally forgotten about.
I could see how as a kid, this cutscene was not that interesting, maybe an "oh, that happened, let's move on, gimme more funny stuff." As an adult though, everything came together in those 20 seconds. That hour of gameplay in this strange setting was leading up to this. I'm trying not to oversell it here, but I honestly thought it was masterful scenario direction. First the mysterious, eerie forest, and the strange train area: the combination of setting and tone was simultaneously a lead-up to, and a misdirection from the next story beat.
Spoiler: End of Phantom Train
Sabin, Cyan, and Shadow disembark. Whereas all the NPCs on the train had been cartoonish white-robed ghosts, now we instead see regular human figures entering the platform gate. Once aboard, the train does not wait, and immediately lurches into motion again. Cyan suddenly recognizes two of the new passengers. His wife and son. While Cyan was away, they died, and are now being taken to the afterlife by train.There's no time for a dialogue. The train is already halfway past the platform. Cyan gives chase and calls their names. They each offer their last words as the train pulls out of sight. Thank you for our life together, my love! / Don't worry about mom, I'll protect her!
Really glad to revisit this classic game. I can appreciate it on a different level today.
I also have no time to play games, but I wonder if it would be still possible to participate, by sharing the same experience, albeit that it hasn't occurred over the specific time period for this event? I've already played some games as an adult that I hadn't played since I was a child, so could still chip in. Thoughts?
That’s fine by me!
This is honestly too hard of an ask for most games. They just take too much time.
But the good news is that I am currently replaying an old favorite and finished replaying another old favorite not too long ago. The twist, though, is that they are both enhanced remakes.
The one I am playing right now is Yu-No, which I have already talked about at length. I’m finally going through the games epilogue, and I am at the point where I am traveling the Raffelo desert for a second time.
I do have two more observations to make since the last time I talked about it. The first one is about censorship. Pretty much every release of this game has been censored, removing all the sex scenes. Because the translation patch I played originally was supposed to be a definitive edition, it had all of that added back in. I’m rather disappointed to say that playing this game with the sex scenes removed actually makes it seem far less mature than the original. It’s hard to describe, but basically it makes all of the immature sexy bits seem extra immature and objectifying. And the fact that I am now going into the more problematic and controversial parts of the game makes me wonder what exactly is in store for me.
The other thing I have noticed is that the structure of the game itself seems like it might be an artistic expression in and of itself. The fact that you are stuck on the same track for the prologue and epilogue but are free to make whatever decisions you want in between the two just kind of feels like what my life has been like. My childhood was decided for me, my adulthood feels like I am on an automated track, and it sometimes does feel like the one or two years before I graduated high school was the only time I could have made meaningful choices about where my life was going to go.
The game I replayed before going on to Yu-No was Chrono Cross, via the Radical Dreamers Edition. I also talked about it before. But to put a long story short the game was kind of broken when compared to the original. Attempts to enhance the experience all backfired in spectacular ways. You play as nice sharp 3D models superimposed into worlds composed of vasoline thanks to an extremely poor job of upscaling the low resolution backgrounds. It took me out of the experience the whole time and that really hurt because the game is one of the best of all time.
Burnout: Point of Impact
(Notes: I am playing the EU GameCube version via emulation. I'm using Dolphin on a pretty old laptop. I'm using an Xbox360 controller. I've left the graphics as the default Dolphin options, apart from "force 4:3".)
The Burnout series is like comfort food for me. I've spent a lot of time playing the various games, across different platforms, over the years. I was sad to see the games get discontinued in favour of Need for Speed. Paradise's open world was great to just drive around (not so great if you wanted to complete the game though), and the games have enough variety to keep you interested in the different iterations of the game.
I picked Point of Impact because it's the second in the series. I felt this means I can avoid the teething troubles of the first game, while still looking at an early version of the game.
Initial impressions
There's a lot of forced loading screen content with various tech logos. There's a lot of button pushing. There's a lot of "push "a" to continue", "push "a" to load" etc.
The initial car line up is not inspiring - the starter cars are all pretty ugly.
I don't know what I was expecting an emulated GameCube game to look like, but this looks quite nice. Not nearly as boxy as I thought it would be. The filters and renders (I'm unsure of the correct terms!) appear pretty simple. Lots of stuff is very shiny. It's all a bit I like that you can see the road - you'd think this is a crucial element of any racing game, but it's surprising how many games of the time got it wrong. There are problems of not know when you can tap scenery or other cars or not - sometimes you'll glance off them, sometimes it's insta-crash. (Even the same bit of scenery on different laps can do this, you'll slide off it first time, you'll crash second time).
The game gives you some basic tutorial levels in the form of driving tests. You have to complete these to open up the rest of the game. And this is a theme - a lot of the early game is locked up behind races.
Early game feels pretty easy. My hands are currently fucked because of chemotherapy neuropathy, and I'm not by any measure any good at games, but I'm getting mostly golds, some silvers, without much effort.
So far, it doesn't look as bad as I was expecting; handling is a bit odd and they certainly polished that up over time; the races are a bit long and uneventful - racing in the later games feels more fun. Here crashes are inevitable, but not fun. Interaction with other cars is limited to racing - there's no smashing them off the road (at least, not yet). There's certainly a solid game here, and you can see origins of the better later games.
--- pausing here, but I'll come back later---
So, back again. Burnout is an arcade racer. It's odd that a lot of the content is locked up behind Gran Prix races. Some of these are pretty long - 15 minutes or so. I am still very early in the game, but I'm doing okay. I'm winning all the races, with golds. I'm not so good at the other events - there's a "pursuit mode" where you have to hit another car 10 times and I suck at that.
Last time I tried emulation I downloaded a dedicated distro, and that's a bad idea if you just want to dip your toe in because they're not massively user-friendly (although they are powerful and very customisable). This time I downloaded Dolphin, and it just works. And seeing how well this game runs on this old machine makes me think that I should have a go with a bunch of GameCube games.
I've unlocked a few cars and some more tracks. I'm having a blast. I can see why this isn't my favourite game in the series though.
Final thoughts: I enjoyed Point of Impact so much I've decided to try to see whether I can get the other games in the series working on an old PC I bought. I know Burnout Paradise works, and I'm enjoying just smashing through that again.
Point of Impact isn't a perfect game, and it's not nearly the best game in the series, but it's a fun arcade racer of its time.
Sadly I probably won't have the time this weekend, but you've inspired me:
Play through XIII Classic. I pirated that game back in my broke college student days and it was just an utterly fantasic experience, and is one of my biggest regrets not purchasing.
I'm gonna try to go through on the Steam Deck, which will actually be higher res than I played on originally.
Man... I... I just can't.
I have a trove of favorite games that I can't go back and play because I know I'll get lost in them and spend countless hours playing instead of burning through backlog. Games with hundreds if not 1,000+ hours of time spent, greatly enjoyed, but I know once I re-install I'm screwed. Plus mods...
I love this idea @kfwyre, looking forward to seeing what others play. I'm just the wrong one to participate right now.