I was thinking about how games age today and these five words are an easy way to sum up the concept. Basically, this argument is sometimes used to object to someone's opinion that a particular game is not as good as it is often praised to be. The game in question is normally old and was highly influential at the time of its release. The crux of the argument is that the person did not play the game at the time of its release when it was still new and impressive for its time, therefore said person wouldn't be able to fully appreciate it and thus, their opinion sucks. The question is: is this really a valid argument? Does a game "not hold up" simply because it's old and has been outdone, or is it because it just inherently was not as great as it is often made out to be?
A good example would be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: possibly the most highly praised game of all time. Of course, with all that hype behind it, it would be expected that someone playing the game today would feel a little underwhelmed by the experience. Certain aspects that would've have been big news at the time, such as Hyrule Field, have undoubtedly aged poorly. This person would probably already have a basic outline of what to expect purely from being in "gaming circles", such as already knowing the real identity of Sheik. Of course, the core gameplay is still something that he would be experiencing for the first time. Now let's say he beats game and, for arguments sake, let's say he even played the game on original hardware. If this person were to say he thought the game was "pretty good", could we pin that lousy reception to the circumstance and time in which he played the game, or could we say that the game simply was not good enough to knock his socks off? Obviously, there are many things that influence one's enjoyment with a game such as their taste and such, but certain corners must be cut and points ignored in this hypothetical scenario.
For me personally, I don't think Half-Life 2 is all that good. I found it be alright, in fact I certainly enjoyed parts of it, but far from "The best PC game evah made". Now, I might think to myself that maybe I missed out on the "true" experience because I played it many years after the fact, but, at the same time, I've enjoyed games from around the same time and even older more so than I did Half-Life 2. This is what makes me think that games don't "age" worse than others because their tech is outdated, but rather because th
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