One of the more well-worn arguments that pops up on this site from time to time is the question of whether games 'age'. True to my obsessive-compulsively indecisive nature my stance in somewhere in the middle; bad game design is bad game design no matter when the game came out, but decades of evolution and learning from past mistakes mean that older games can feel badly-designed or amateurish in ways that modern games rarely do.

Robocod is a classic example of 'old game' design, with its slippery controls, lack of mercy invincibility, odd hit detection and plentiful 'gotcha' moments. Yet it has a certain charm to it, feeling like it was just as much a game for the programmers as it is for the player. Why are there dozens upon dozens of different types of collectibles - is it really just for the lols? Is that a giant teddy bear with spikes on its ass? Did the devs realize that some powerups carry over between sublevels and can be used to trivialize or even bypass entire levels?

Yes, yes, and it doesn't really matter. Despite it's many warts, I found Robocod to be very playable. Maybe it's because it hearkens back to a time when what constituted 'good design' had yet to be codified and you never really knew what to expect from a game. Or maybe I just like dad puns.