Agreed: didn't listen to the doubters, I think it's still the best PC game ever, even now. The level design still rocks, the dialog is great, the items, skills, inventory management, richness of environments, and breadth of locations, it set a standard I don't think has been eclipsed (for better or worse). I think Dishonored has a liiitle bit of the same vibe but not really, as it has no prescient future oriented politics. But yeah, ignore the haters, it's the best ever.
While I don’t agree with the best ever chorus, I’d say it holds up decently well with mods. The HD mod makes the graphics acceptable, and I replayed it in 2023 or something and it was still great.
A better rendering-engine is a no-brainer—the original shadows tend to become olive-banded messes—but my experience with texture-pack mods isn't as good.
IIRC they tended to make the overall experience worse, with jarring inconsistencies of high-poly/high-res objects versus unmodified portions of the environment.
Plus nowadays "low res" is sometimes it's own art-style. :p
I disagree. The political undertones in the setting of a global pandemic hit even harder today than when the game released in 2000.
I especially loved the "conspiracy" talk about corporations consolidating their powers thanks to government-sponsored wage slavery and higher taxes to the individual vs companies. It's something that's even more relevant today, especially in this space of entrepreneurship.
For sure! I just meant that when it came out it was revolutionary and cutting edge, if you play it for the first time now you have to get past the outdated graphics and clunky gameplay to really appreciate it.
I think things are a product of their time, and you had to be there for the vast majority of it. The Matrix was a revolution when it came out, but now it just kind of looks the same as everything else (even dated), but that's because everything else copied it.
I understand your point, but for some reason there's some corner of my brain that's interested in litigating this if you'll bear with me. I definitely think the color of nostalgia is a real thing, and for me that imprinting shows up the most in still having an inexplicable affinity for '90s nu metal that I can't really reconcile with any notion of sophisticated taste.
But I think sometimes you see the opposite thing too, where a rewatch or re-listen is very disappointing, and undermines your impression that something is great. So it's clear that at least some of the time the nostalgia effect falls away. And I like to think staying power after repeated watchings can testify to "classic" status. But I think the reason I'm interested in drawing distinctions here is because I don't like the idea that Deus Ex, the greatest game of all time imo, can be pointed to to vindicate modern day conspiracy theorists, like they are the same thing.
In fact, the next time Warren Spector is interviewed I hope someone asks how he feels about his game being invoked in that way.
I think I made the wrong point when I wrote about nostalgia. I don't mean so much "you're remembering the work as better than it was", but more "you remember the zeitgeist that made the work great".
I watched Macgyuver (my favourite childhood show) recently, and it was terrible, twenty minutes of filler for one cool engineering scene, way worse than I remembered it. However, it's not the show that's changed, it's that I forgot what the 90s were like and how cool Macgyuver was in that zeitgeist.
Similarly, it's not that the Matrix isn't great, it's that, if you watched it in its era, you may remember how unlike anything else it was. You can't know how groundbreaking it was unless you remember that era, otherwise it's just one movie of many.
I can't speak to your later points as I don't know what Deus Ex is about or how it's used to vindicate conspiracy theorists, unfortunately.
