Your Favorite Obsolete Game Mechanic?

[rieguy]

I've recently  played through all the old Resident Evil games(RE1 remake, re2, re3, re0), Haunting Grounds, and FF8.  I really like the fixed camera and (in RE games) the tank controls! The games feel more cinematic because the camera is pulled back from the characters.  I was born in the early 90's so these games are all nostalgic for me though, and these controls are arguably only useful because of early 90's/2000s hardware limitations. 

 

Anyone else have a gameplay mechanic that is almost entirely useless with modern technology, but they still really like?

[FauxFurry]

Obsolete is all a matter of perspective, is it not? After all, a genre of game could be defined by a mechanic which is considered obsolete to some as 2-D fighting game makers learned much to their consternation back in the 1990s from harsh professional reviews denouncing them for not making the move to polygonal graphics and movement in a 3-D plane.

After a brief period of attempting behind-the-back/over-the-shoulder third person perspective fighting games such as Ehrgeiz- God Bless the Ring, fighting games developers settled on a compromise of movement along a 2-D plane for general maneuvering with an option for dodging along the Z-Axis or a full return to 2-D movement regardless of whether they use sprites or polygonal character models. 

 

In my case, I will say, 6-player co-op, something used only in a small smattering of old arcade games and a few indie games here and there. 

 

[landess]

Rolling real dice - analogue, not digital. Even modern computer games 'could' if they wanted, take input from the player of a number between 2 and 12 (or others #'s if using classic D&D dice). Las Vegas and other gambling places now use digital games, but know people still enjoy the older games where a computer isn't involved.

 

Most every game has ways to cheat even if a program isn't 'trusting' of the player using it. People usually find games aren't fun if they continuously cheat and rolling dice is something organic which many games used before people started letting 'RNG' run the show.

 

Many games developed from the use of six-sided die as well. Yahtzee, Blitz, etc. There is just something about dice which survived centuries and I don't think a computer program can scratch that same itch.

 

I guess one could say it's the old "Analogue vs Digital" comparison rearing it's ugly head once again. Like those silly people buying music albums  and others supporting the argument of the eye can only see XX number of frames per second so why is faster so important? As people we are living in a time unique in all of human history. Will we survive? "C'mon lucky seven!"

[FauxFurry]

21 hours ago, landess said:

Rolling real dice - analogue, not digital. Even modern computer games 'could' if they wanted, take input from the player of a number between 2 and 12 (or others #'s if using classic D&D dice). Las Vegas and other gambling places now use digital games, but know people still enjoy the older games where a computer isn't involved.

 

Most every game has ways to cheat even if a program isn't 'trusting' of the player using it. People usually find games aren't fun if they continuously cheat and rolling dice is something organic which many games used before people started letting 'RNG' run the show.

 

Many games developed from the use of six-sided die as well. Yahtzee, Blitz, etc. There is just something about dice which survived centuries and I don't think a computer program can scratch that same itch.

 

I guess one could say it's the old "Analogue vs Digital" comparison rearing it's ugly head once again. Like those silly people buying music albums  and others supporting the argument of the eye can only see XX number of frames per second so why is faster so important? As people we are living in a time unique in all of human history. Will we survive? "C'mon lucky seven!"

Considering the fact that scanners and that technology's gamified application in the form of Amiibos and QR code games exist, I could see a compromise between analogue and digital dice rolls being rolling a physical die or a pair of dice on top of a scanning device (or just recording the things on a web camera) so that one could still make use of the genuine article when playing either computer RPGs or 'alongside' other people at a significant distance.