this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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[–] can@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Combat Evolved came out 23 years ago. That's older than Super Mario Bros. was when the Wii launched.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Shiiit... By 2 years. 3 if you go by the Japanese release.

[–] irish_link@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I want to downvote you but I cant.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago
[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

I am very upset with you right now.

[–] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What's the game to the left of Halo? It's the only one I can't make out.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I want to say that's Tetris.

Here's a clearer image:

[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago

No, it's clearly St Basil's Cathedral, not a video game!

Its representing Captain Bible, obviously

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

It is without a doubt Tetris

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Looks like a Russian palace, maybe Tetris?

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

talk about feeling old... does Tetris no longer include this image?

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Not really as much anymore

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 143 points 2 days ago (10 children)

Original Halo was released in 2001, 23 years ago.

Super Mario Bros was released in 1985, 39 years ago.

There is less time between the release of the first SMB and Halo than Halo and the present day, 16 years...

[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Crazy to know that Cleopatra was born closer to the creation of Halo: Combat Evolved than to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 91 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (10 children)

It's interesting how much technology has slowed down. Back in the 80s and 90s a 5 year old game looked horribly outdated. Now we're getting close to some 20 year old games still looking pretty decent.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 63 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Technology has slowed down, but there's also diminishing returns for what you can do with a game's graphics etc.

  • The original Halo ran at 480p on the Xbox. 4K UHD has 27 times the number of pixels as that. The resolution increase from the NES to Halo was about 5.35 times.
  • Games nowadays on PCs are often capable of running smoothly into the hundreds of frames per second, but of course for example the difference between 21 and 30 FPS is more noticeable than the one between 231 and 240 FPS. (Looking at you, OoT)
  • Render distances are much larger with less obvious compromise on LoD.
  • Stuff like ray-tracing is of some graphical benefit but is hugely computationally taxing, and there's nothing you can do about that. It's just more diminishing returns.
  • Physics engines are much more complex.
  • At some point, a limiting factor just becomes art direction and budget. You can have all the fancy techniques you want, but you still need to make detailed textures, animations, etc.
  • The amount of polygons starts to hit a ceiling too where the model is basically continuous to the human eye, so adding more polys might only help very subtly.
  • Color depth is basically a solved problem now too compared to going from the NES to the Xbox.

You can think of sampling audio. If I have a bit depth of 1, and I upgrade that to 16, it's going to sound a hell of a lot more like an improvement than if I were to upgrade from 48 to 64.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think something worth noting about older games too is that they didn't try and deal with many of their limitations head on. In fact many actually took advantage of their limitations to give the feeling of doing more than they actually were. For example, pixel perfect verus crt. Many 8 bit and 16 bit games were designed specifically for televisions and monitors that would create the effect of having more complexity than they were actually capable of. Other things like clever layout designs in games to limit draw distance, or bringing that in as a functional aspect of the game.

The technical limitations seem largely resolved by current technology, where previously things were made to look and feel better than the hardware allowed through clever planning and engineering.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Oh, absolutely this. I think the YouTube channel GameHut is a great example of the lengths devs went to to get things working. In Ratchet & Clank 3, Insomniac borrowed memory from the PS2's second controller port to use for other things during single-player (PS2 devs did so much crazy shit that within the PCSX2 project, we often joke about how they "huffed glue"). The channel Retro Game Mechanics explained and the book "Racing the Beam" have great explanations for the lengths Atari devs had to go to just to do anything interesting with the system. Even into the seventh generation of consoles, the Hedgehog Engine had precomputed light sources as textures to trick your brain.

[–] weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Heeeyyy buddy, wass up didn't expect to find you around here! And yeah. Rachet also has some ass backward stuff with The way it tries to force 60 FPS all the time which Ironically made it run worse in PCSX2 for the longest time till more accurate timings for the EE were found.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Oh shit, hey Beard. I didn't expect to see you here either. For that matter I didn't think anyone else surrounding the project used Lemmy. Cool to know I'm not alone.

[–] weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Hell yeah! I think Kam might be around here somewhere but not a hundred percent on that. Ofc, Rachet is a good example. But we all know the real insanity is Marvel Nemesis xD

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s interesting how much technology has slowed down.

We haven't slowed down. We simply aren't noticing the degrees of progress, because they're increasingly below our scale of discernment. Going from 8-bit to 64-bit is more visually arresting than 1024-bit to 4096-bit. Moving the rendered horizon back another inch is less noticeable each time you do it, while requiring r^2 more processing power to process all those extra assets.

No we’re getting close to some 20 year old games still looking pretty decent.

The classic games look good because the art is polished and the direction is skilled. Go back and watch the original Star Wars movie and its going to be more visually acute than the latest Zack Snyder film. Not because movie graphics haven't improved in 40 years, but because Lucas was very good at his job while Synder isn't.

But then compare Avatar: The Way of Water to Tron. Huge improvements, in large part because Tron was trying to get outside the bounds of what was technically possible long before it was practical, while Avatar is taking computer generated graphics to their limit at a much later stage in their development.

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[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Same with movies. LOTR is almost 25 years old and still looks great.

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

halo is retro for a 25 year old

[–] wowwoweowza@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Space Invaders, Asteroid, Pong, Adventure… these are retro

Nah, Space War is retro.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (6 children)

You think you're old? I was playing Bungie games when they were only on Mac.

[–] JustADrone@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I still miss the atomic hand grenade…

Frog blast the vent core!

[–] Donut@leminal.space 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Back then, Halo felt like running 26.219 miles

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[–] CentauriBeau@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

I played Atari 2600 back when it was the console to have. I didn’t see a pixel that wasn’t square until I was a man. You think you know old gaming. I was born into it, molded by it, and it made me what I am today; an old man with back pain.

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[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 39 points 2 days ago (3 children)

There's only 4 years between FF7 and Halo

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[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I stumbled across this today and still don't believe it

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago

At least they used the correct armor.

It irks me when they use the armor from Halo 2 or the remastered game to represent Combat Evolved.

[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I heard he's a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

He afraids of 343's writing

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[–] xylogx@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It stings at first, but once you realize you can now play all of the classics on emulators it helps take the pain away.

[–] Montagge@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nintendo would like to know your location

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[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, it does. They gave Half-Life's spot to that crappy game.

[–] hydroxycotton@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I thought the halo ce was generally very well received. Is the hate for it a lemmy generation thing?

I've been playing for the first time a while back. It's neat, but I think the primary reason people love it so much is that it's the first popular console FPS that didn't control horribly and split screen co-op. On it's own it's just a decent shooter that no longer feels special.

[–] bigboig@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Alotta half-life and older shooter fans blame the modern console shooter style on halo.

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