MyGaming's Tarryn van der Byl writes: "Remember when Unreal was just, like, totally the most unreal thing you’d ever seen, ever? That was almost fifteen years ago, and graphics technology has improved somewhat since then."
"The award-winning "System Shock remake", based on the iconic 1994 sci-fi action game, has today received its highly anticipated version 1.2 PC content update — adding an expanded ending, a new female hacker protagonist and dozens of gameplay enhancements." - Nightdive Studios and PLAION.
How do composers make the iconic music tracks from games that we love? And just what makes them so memorable?
"PLAION and Nightdive Studios are today very happy and proud to announce that the award-winning "System Shock remake", based on the iconic 1994 sci-fi action game is coming to consoles on 21 May 2024, featuring an expanded ending, a new female hacker protagonist and more!" - Jonas Ek, TGG.
And yet I'd still choose System Shock 2, Half-Life and Deus Ex over most current gen games.
So graphics are the only thing you should measure when it comes to determining if a game has "aged terribly?" I don't know about you, but System Shock 2, Half-Life, Deus Ex, and a handful of those games still play phenomenally. If you can't look past the graphics to see how amazing a lot of the games are your list actually are, then you need to take a step back and rethink what truly makes a game great.
Uh Final Fantasy VII anyone?
Just about every one of those games looks great to me when considering the time it was made. 'Dated' would be something you look back on and think, 'wow, how did we ever think there was anything good about this?' whereas most of those screenshots made me think, 'wow, it's quite impressive what they could do with such primitive hardware'.
The graphics may be a little hard on the eyes at first, but the gameplay is still great. I don't think these have 'aged horribly'. Graphically, sure, but gameplay wise? Nope, and in the end that is what truly matters.
It's just proof that graphics don't make the game.