Operation Flashpoint: cold war crisis / ARMA: Cold War Assault

The problem is a lot of the good mods that made the game better than it was have been lost or need older patches which people buying these download version won't be able to get. Modding information sites and information and tools will have gone or be unknown.

That labyrinth is definitely not suitable for our contemporary standards. I love the game, flawed as it is, but I wouldn't have any patience with this section if I didn't have a map; I actually use a map I made back in the 90s, lol.

You're probably thinking of the third one, which had a very annoying jungle maze. The second game is actually quite good, the best designed of the three.

I think Ultima VII has aged quite badly, unfortunately. I bought it on GOG a few years ago and tried to play it. I didn't play it 'back in the day', so I was approaching it without any nostalgia. I'm fine with old games in general and I think the graphics are fine. I also really liked the big open world, writing, dialogue and interactivity with the environment.

However, the thing that really sinks it for me is the combat. It is simply atrocious. It's basically real-time without pause, where you are controlling 4 characters at the same time. In such a situation, you are reliant on AI, but the AI absolutely stinks, to the extent that characters will walk into fires and just stand there, burning to death. It was so bad, I just couldn't carry on. It's like trying to play Diablo with 4 characters at once.

I know people say "Ultima VII isn't about the combat, it's about the story and open world ...", but for me, the combat is a big enough part of the game and is done badly enough that I just can't justify spending the amount of hours on the game that it would require. If there is a source port that improves the combat or makes it turn-based, I would give it another try, otherwise it's one that I will have to appreciate for 'historical value'.

---The 3 good---

Dune 2 (and 1 also actually)
Westwood made some really memorable games back in the day, like Eye of the Beholder and Dune 2. These games really are timeless and effortless to run even on modern computers, and they still play and look good even today.

Scorched Earth
The game that inspired Team17 and others; The Mother of All Games! This games graphics also holds up really well and the simple gamplay is fun to play with others. The amount and the creative side of weapons you have here is still unmatched in my mind.

GTA 1
Not much to say here really other than the gameplay and the graphics holds up pretty good.

(I'm breaking the rules and also mentioning Unreal for obvious reasons.)

It's interesting to observe that most games from the pre-era of really ugly 3D rendering still holds up really well, while games between 1996-2005 doesn't hold up that good, like Hexen 2 and Tomb Raider.

---The 3 Bad---

Witchaven II
Another "unique" game that came out of the Build Engine. Witchaven was never a hit success and while it's fun for a while (if one could get past the annoying setup) the controlls are infuriatingly slow and unresponive and the animation is poorly done. Used to love it because I was more forgiving (I guess) in those days but today... As PC Gamer put it:
"Where Duke [Nukem] takes players on a wickedly frantic and bloody ride, Witchaven II has you slogging, trundling, and hacking your way through dark levels and mindless enemies from start to finish, [...] If the controls weren’t so bad and the enemies so boneheaded, you might find Witchaven's sinister design a welcome change from the norm. But those little touches aren’t enough."

Pyrotechnica
From the company that also made Lemmings and GTA. In terms of early 3D visualization with polygons, this amazing but relatively unknown game blew my mind (before Descent), and I just loved the the minimalist geometric style of the levels. But, the game is a pain to play in an emulator; like many other games, it just runs too fast compared to what it did back in the day. Also, the game today seems like a poor-mans Descent.

Corridor 7
Another unique game that is more for younger minds. It used to be scary, especially the sound the aliens gave when they saw you, but it's just too boring for an adult mind.

I'd say almost all 3D games before the mid-2000s (inclucing all the ones the OP mentioned, good and bad), have aged badly graphics-wise, and the 3 that were mentioned as holding up today, I couldn't play without mods (although I did love SS2 and VtM:B with mods when I played them), graphical and otherwise.

As for games I feel still hold up today, none are coming easily to mind, but going through my completed collection on gog, I'd say Loom and the classic Colonization (might just be nostalgia concerning tha second one).
Someone complained about how the original Hitman doesn't hold up today, I personally felt it wasn't that great even back then, but I think Hitman 2, which improved upon it in every way, possibly does.

Ultima VIII is what landed me to GOG and I have to say I have completely given up the series and I watched some entertaining videos about it instead. I consider it a closed chapter for me as a player and I'd rather move on to other things. The graphics are pretty but I can't put up with its faults and bad writing. And I have stopped blaming myself as a player for old games problems. In the same way I have given up the Zork series. There's plenty of well-made indie titles out there waiting for me and I have access to hundreds of digital games, not just a few boxes like in the 90s.
I think Heretic has aged well, maybe the inventory and look around are better in a new engine as I don't want to direct my gaze around with the keyboard anymore. And Magic Carpet once direction arrows are assigned to WASD. I hope I'm not repeating myself. Old coin-ups and hard console games from the past are actually better to play now in an emulator, thanks to the instasaves. For example I had given up Heart of Darkness on the PS1 but I finally enjoyed it frustration free once I could save at my will. I don't understand remakes or remasters of these old titles when there still there is no instasave, like the Wonderboy ones. And Forsaken, that for me was ruined by the time limit and has retained it in the remaster. Shadowgate, why would I want a time (torches) limit in a point and click adventure? Also, everything that is an old console port has aged very badly and it's basically pointless sticking to the Windows version today if not for nostalgia.

When it comes to the Ultima series, I've found that I have more issues with the later games than the earlier games.

I really do like to replay Ultima 3 from time to time, as it has some nice characteristics that the later games lack:
* The class system is the most balanced in the series. (Why can't Utlima 4's Fighter use any decent ranged weapons?)
* You don't need reagents to cast spells; all you need is MP, which regenerates over time. (The introduction of reagents in Ultima 4 I consider to be one of the worst things to happen to the series, along with Ultima 7's switch to real-time combat.)
* Party size doesn't exceed 4, and enemy size never exceeds 8; this keeps battles at a reasonable length, unlike in 4 where they become unwieldy with larger parties (and 4 forces you to have all 8 characters if you want to beat the game).
* This is the only Ultima game to have 3 gender options; 8 and 9 have only 1, while the rest have 2.
(The game isn't without its flaws, like separate character inventories (fixed in 4, but then re-introduced in 6), the need for food (though at least 0 food isn't instant death), and the fact that the game doesn't display damage dealt and received (a very common issue with the series).)

It's also worth noting that it was a long time before I gave the PC version of Ultima 5 a try, mainly because I was scarred by the horrible NES version. (And by horrible, I mean kuso-level horrible; if this version were run at a GDQ, it would be run in the Awful Games block; I've compared it to games like ET and Big Rigs before.)

As for games that imo have aged well:

Morrowind: the game has been improved greatly from the original through many many mods and bugfixes. With increased view distance, shadows, higher-res textures, groundcover, etc. the game looks amazing and is extremely immersive. The Tamriel Rebuilt mod also adds an enormous amount of content that gives it huge replayability. One of my favorite games of all time and imo has probably aged better than it's successor, Oblivion (due to richer content, more interesting/creative world design).

Metal Gear Solid: I bought this on here and have been playing it, having never played it before. The game is truly incredible - they don't make 'em like this anymore. The graphics are dated, but the gameplay is slick and fun and the plot is probably one of the best I've ever seen in a game. Talk about unpredictable twists and turns all over the place. It's a must-play if you like story-driven games, with lots of cool, cinematic cut scenes. I'm currently fighting what is (I think) the end boss and I think I almost have it beat, he he :-)

I agree about Doom 2 and the original XCom having aged well too. Timeless classics with incredible gameplay, from a time when gameplay mattered above all else.

I tried Ultima IV and I think I actually prefer it to VII, since the combat is far better and more manageable. I thought the 'virtues' thing with IV seemed quite original and interesting too. I played it for a while but didn't finish it. I haven't tried III but might give it a go sometime.

I also tried Ultima I a while back, but got bored fairly quickly, as the gameplay loop seemed too 'simplistic'.

If I were in charge of a remake of this game, there is one little change I would make that would make the game more accessible without changing the gameplay:

* Whenever the player's attack collides with an enemy, but the RNG decides that the attack misses, the enemy would perform a blocking animation of some sort, and there would be a sound that's different from the sound of a successful hit. (This would occur even when the enemy attacked is something like a rat or cliff racer, or a ghost (in which case, if your weapon is incapable of damaging it, there'd be a different sound effect).)

Also, that game (and Oblivion) suffers from having an atrocious way of handling stat growth; I would change that. (I like having skills improve by use, but the difficulty of the task really should be factored in, and the increases to basic attributes when leveling up happens is handled very poorly.)

Personally, I don't find either of those things to be a big problem, or that they negatively affect my enjoyment of the game very much.

Regarding the combat, I know a lot of people dislike the dice-rolling, where it looks like you physically hit an opponent, but you don't. I guess I'm comfortable with the visuals just being an 'artists impression' of what is happening. But yes, having some sort of animation for when you 'swing and miss' might make it more accessible to newer gamers. Or even showing a log of the dice rolls, to make it clearer what is going on.

I like the way the combat works in Oblivion in some ways, although the fact that attacks always hit seems to put too much emphasis on the use of a shield. i.e. the only way you can not 'get hit' by a direct hit is to block it with a shield. My main beef with Oblivion though is the enemy level-scaling. I hate, hate, hate it! In fact, I would only play Oblivion again if I were to use a mod to change that.

About the leveling: I really like the way you improve skills through use, which makes a lot of sense. Although, it can lead to 'grinding' behavior in some cases, e.g. where you spend 15 minutes just jumping around to level up the jump skill. Yes, an improvement to the ability leveling might be nice. Something that would give the player a bit more to do on a level up.

What is your opinion of Ultima Underworld? Would you say it has aged better or worse than the regular Ultima series (assuming you have played it)?

As for the whole visual issue, I think the reason that you are OK with it is that you have played the game and are used to the game behaving that way. The problem comes when new players, those who have never played Morrowind before, keep missing because of the RNG and don't understand why they're missing; a blocking animation would give the players some feedback about what's going on (and would clearly differentiate it from the case where your attack didn't collide in the first place).

I do like skills improving through use (it's why I enjoy Wasteland 1 but don't want to try 2 or 3); it's some of the other mechanics that have issues. For example:
* At high skill, it's harder to increase the skill, but performing difficult tasks does not help you increase the skill faster, so skill increases become scarce later on.
* Failures don't reward skill experience, so many low level skills are difficult to raise. (Alternative approaches are seen in Dungeon Master, where a failure gives you reduced XP, and Wizardry 8, where a failure gives you *increased* skill XP.)
* Set-ups where there's synergy between races and classes, or between primary skills and specialization, are actually penalized with a lower level cap.
* The way stats increase at level up based on which skills increased during that level is rather lousy; it would be better if stat gains were independent of skill use, or if stat gains were independent of leveling. (Wizardry 8 is an example of the former; for the latter, you can look at games like Ultima 3 or any SaGa game where stats can increase (excluding original SaGa 3).)

As for Ultima Underworld, I have to give it a NaN rating, as I have not played the game and am not familiar with how the game plays.

(By the way, if you dislike level scaling, I would advice staying away from Final Fantasy 8.)

Wolfenstein 2d is from 1992 and still a blast

I don't know how and why, I switched the subject from Kyrandia to Lands of Lore. The second Kyrandia is the best one, but it has a disappointing and unpolished ending for me. And I still prefer Catacomb 3D (and the better with CGA graphics like I was used to) to Wolfenstein, that I didn't like even then. People celebrates Wolfenstein, but for me Catacomb was great fun and the start of it all, and the best until Doom/Heretic.