Games pacify me about the same today as they did in yesteryear, although I went through a slump in the mid 2000's and slipped into retro.

Oblivion awoke me from my retro slumber and there has been many good releases since. I just built a new quad core Sandy Bridge rig and awaiting a second GTX 460 to run in SLI. People are trying just as hard today t make killer games as they did back in the day, nevermind the corporate been counters.

Online activation of new games suck and keeps you from selling your titles. Might as well accept it though, it's not going away and more are embracing it everyday. At least if my house burns to the ground I still have all my Steam titles. Just cant beat that big box feeling in your hands though huh?

Maybe you just needing some new hardware, or most of all a new title to play. Here's a list of a few great "not retro" games, I figure will be retro cool in another 10 years. 😁
Oblivion
Heroes of Might and Magic V
Fallout 3 -OMG it's the bomb
Half life 2 and it's Episodes
King's Bounty: The Legend (the new one)
Puzzle Quest -I know, crazy isn't it.
Bioshock 1&2
Beyond Good & Evil
Anno 1701
Company of Heroes
and more but I'm done rambling....

Don't forget your root's, but the are still great games still being made today. And WTF is everyone going crazy over minecraft for, I mean forealz it's stoopid.

I used to spend hours playing Heroes of Might and Magic II back in middle school. Great game. Never played any newer versions though.

I went from a commodore 64 to a 486 DX4/100 - I remember downloading a shareware version of Radix (anyone remember that?) and playing it all weekend - that was like jumping ahead 5-6 years, at least.

Perhaps the games I plated the most were the original unreal and original half life.

Based on what I've heard about steam - I'm not sure I even want to mess with anything newer.

ncmark wrote:

Maybe it's just me - is computing as much fun as it used to be? Once upon a time you put a disk in your computer and ran an install program and it worked - the first time.

What the truck? No, that was back when you would spend a few hours rearranging your autoexec.bat and config.sys and writing snail-mail letters to the computer magazines when you ran out of ideas. 😜

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Gaming for me has become quite jaded these days... Years ago I used to buy games and literally couldn't wait to play them! But now i buy them, play them and i'm like 'meh'... I can't even be bothered to complete some games and still have quite a few that i've never even opened (bought them in sales etc...).

I think the problem really comes down to too much choice: even if you limit yourself to free, legally-available games, there are piles and piles of quality games out there. Fancy new stuff is coming out all the time, and so much of it disappears if you don't grab it right away.

I quite liked this TED talk about the paradox of choice:
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_th … _of_choice.html

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Gaming for me has become quite jaded these days... Years ago I used to buy games and literally couldn't wait to play them! But now i buy them, play them and i'm like 'meh'... I can't even be bothered to complete some games and still have quite a few that i've never even opened (bought them in sales etc...).

These days a game needs to be very different (original) and look very interesting to really catch my attention. The only new game i'm waiting for now is Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Thats normal, it comes with age 😜

We're not kids anymore (or at least, most of us here).

bushwack wrote:

Games pacify me about the same today as they did in yesteryear, although I went through a slump in the mid 2000's and slipped in […]
Show full quote

Games pacify me about the same today as they did in yesteryear, although I went through a slump in the mid 2000's and slipped into retro.

Oblivion awoke me from my retro slumber and there has been many good releases since. I just built a new quad core Sandy Bridge rig and awaiting a second GTX 460 to run in SLI. People are trying just as hard today t make killer games as they did back in the day, nevermind the corporate been counters.

Online activation of new games suck and keeps you from selling your titles. Might as well accept it though, it's not going away and more are embracing it everyday. At least if my house burns to the ground I still have all my Steam titles. Just cant beat that big box feeling in your hands though huh?

Maybe you just needing some new hardware, or most of all a new title to play. Here's a list of a few great "not retro" games, I figure will be retro cool in another 10 years. 😁
Oblivion
Heroes of Might and Magic V
Fallout 3 -OMG it's the bomb
Half life 2 and it's Episodes
King's Bounty: The Legend (the new one)
Puzzle Quest -I know, crazy isn't it.
Bioshock 1&2
Beyond Good & Evil
Anno 1701
Company of Heroes
and more but I'm done rambling....

Don't forget your root's, but the are still great games still being made today. And WTF is everyone going crazy over minecraft for, I mean forealz it's stoopid.

Don't forget AVP2 and BF2142 😉

Just go to Google Groups and find a thread with people whining about the end of gaming in say 1995. That gives some perspective on how pointless and misguided those kinds of thoughts are. 😉

Every year is the end of gaming. Lets celebrate!

swaaye wrote:

Just go to Google Groups and find a thread with people whining about the end of gaming in say 1995. That gives some perspective on how pointless and misguided those kinds of thoughts are. 😉

Every year is the end of gaming. Lets celebrate!

Pfffff....reminds me a bit about a friend of mine (he had just bought his brand new sparkling P1-75), he told me with confidence that VR glasses were the future of gaming 😜

And even today, whenever he starts talking that way again (like:Soon we will have holographic optical disks yada yada) I remind him of the VR glasses, and he starts to smile as he knows what I mean hehe! 😜

I don't really like those kinds of drama-queens 😜

Most recent PC games seem consolized these days with less settings but usually less patches which some do need.

Just yesterday I decided to install Half-Life 1 on my retro rig. Then had to find the 82MB 1.1.1.0 patch (this would of taken me 10hrs to get on 56k easy!) Then had to tweak it... find out my A3D issues since i've never used A3D. I still have some issues with crashing to desktop randomly. This is a pretty new install of win98se as well. official drivers installed for my Vooodoo 5 5500, Diamond monster MX300 and such.

So maybe its those retro goggles you guys are wearing. It can be a little less then as great as I remember those days being.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

But now i buy them, play them and i'm like 'meh'... I can't even be bothered to complete some games and still have quite a few that i've never even opened (bought them in sales etc...).

Having a "time out" from gaming, does help a lot.

Another thing I noticed, back in the days, I was hardly able to finish any of the games. I mean I was a kid with limited brain capacity and most games back in the day were very hard and unforgiving, especially on consoles.

A lot of people feel games are way too easy, but IMO life is hard and stressful enough. No need to have even more stress when you entertain yourself. So I admit, many modern games I play on easy, because I enjoy the story and mood more than the arcade bits. E.g. Stalker is all about the story and the vibe, but its also a super hard and very unforgiving game, even on easy.

There are trainers for such games. I also suck at RTS games, even on easy, games such as C&C are way to hard for me. So again, I have to use a trainer to finish them and see all the videos in the game.

I'm a big fan of games with an auto difficulty, that notice if you struggle and get easier and easier until you pass that section. IMO such a mode should be in every modern game, but there should still be a choice for those gamers who like it frustrating / challenging.

Therefore back in the day, I became a huge fan of point and click adventures, a great genre, which still receives new games to this day. Some recent adventure games inlude Lost Horizon, Runaway 3 and grey matter.

The thing with taking a time out really works. Don't play any games for a year or two, and something will come along that sparcs your interest.

Games such as Bioshock or Stalker, are quite unique and really impressed me. I was also very impressed with Bad Company 2. Whenever I play it, I'm amazed just how awesome gaming is these days.

I mean doom was awesome back in the day, but it just doesn't compare.

Some games can never be beaten though. I still play Total Annihilation to this day, it's a GREAT RTS!
Nothing like sending 30 bombers to bomb a target, and did I mention the explosions? 😁
And of course since it's a very old game, you can play on maps with ridiculous amounts of details and of vast sizes 😀
And hundreds of units, I remember my poor P2-350 having lots of trouble playing the standard maps.

And the best is, with a cd patch it's totally easy to install. When I want to put a full install of TA onto a computer, I just drag the whole directory to the hard drive...and ready to go!!
And it includes a custom mappack of more then 1000 multiplayer maps, all of good to excellent quality. Much better even then the original ones (I did toss out all the crappy maps first though...took me a good 3 weeks!).

I've played lots of RTS's, but to me TA remains the best (despite all it's quirks).

From time to time I find a game "catches" me and I'll be all over it for days, sometimes weeks. And theres a couple games I play from time to time, also online.

Offline games are fun as you can use cheats to save yourself from a lot of agonizing troubles. I like making a game as easy or as hard as I want to, and indeed I will also sometimes make a game easier just so I can see it through.
To me games are also kinda like interactive movies...I wanna let the story take me along and finally see the ending without having to see some scenes for 20 times 😜

The reason I stopped playing modern FPS games:

Tetrium wrote:

To me games are also kinda like interactive movies...I wanna let the story take me along and finally see the ending without having to see some scenes for 20 times 😜

True...

Some games, such as Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid, you can just watch the playthrough on YouTube. It's just like a movie 🤣

Pippy P. Poopypants wrote:

The reason I stopped playing modern FPS games: […]
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The reason I stopped playing modern FPS games:

That's only if you ignore the three STALKER games, Crysis, Far Cry, Red Faction Guerilla, Just Cause 1 and 2, GTA3/4 and even the RPGs-that-are-essentially-shooters like Oblivion and Fallout 3. I'm an open-world shooter fan and the best games like this have come out since 2004.

Currently I am looking forward to STALKER 2, Rage, and Skyrim. Probably others that I've forgotten too.

Anyway, old shooters were usually nonsensical mazes with key hunts. That's not superior gameplay even if it was fun at the time and still fun to go back to occasionally.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Some games, such as Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid, you can just watch the playthrough on YouTube. It's just like a movie 🤣

I actually like interactive movies, especially watching them on Youtube. 😁

I just bought a sci-fi FMV game that came out in 2010!
http://www.darkstar.gs/

I enjoyed the discussion, guys!!!!!!

Lots of great points in here, brings back memories that's for sure.

Dumbed down is my main beef. No one seems to want a plethora of controls any more like Mechwarrior 2, System Shock or Interstate '76.

Complexity is now seen strictly as frustration instead of challenge.

The 'Press A and something awesome happens' is far to prevalent forcing my game interest to wane.

Pippy, your chart left out the achievements.

Destroy wrote:

Lots of great points in here, brings back memories that's for sure. […]
Show full quote

Lots of great points in here, brings back memories that's for sure.

Dumbed down is my main beef. No one seems to want a plethora of controls any more like Mechwarrior 2, System Shock or Interstate '76.

Complexity is now seen strictly as frustration instead of challenge.

The 'Press A and something awesome happens' is far to prevalent forcing my game interest to wane.

There are plenty of complex games. I do miss scifi sims though. But we did get like 8 or so mech games in the end.

I can't stand System Shock's controls but the sequel was great. Bioshock was just too bizarre though. Miss the harder scifi.

Really you just need to look past the games selling to all the people who don't share our interests and frankly that is most people.

Btw check out this coming soon scifi RPG/fps.....
http://eye.streumon-studio.com/

swaaye wrote:

I just bought a sci-fi FMV game that came out in 2010!
http://www.darkstar.gs/

Hey that's awesome!

Anyone also find that they watch youtube playthroughs if they are stuck, instead of reading a walkthrough?

I was stuck in Alone in the Dark 2 and the walkthrough was quite vague. Seeing the video was a lot easier...

The amount of playthroughs on youtube is impressive. I especially like the ones with user comments, as long as they are serious and not "taking the piss".

GXL750 wrote:

Pippy, your chart left out the achievements.

God, that's one of the things I don't really like about modern day shooters -_-

When I play a shooter, I just want to frag stuff, not spend 8 more hours farming XP...I mean career points just so I can have ONE more unlock -_-

What I did like more about the old shooters is that all that made you different from the rest was your reputation. When they saw me logging in, they knew they could get in trouble (Not trying to be an a-hole here, but I'm pretty good with shooters, though the main focus for me is FUN, not trying to pwn people) simply because they saw my name.

Nowdays it's more about rewards and k/d ratio. You can't really do something messy without it messing up your stats, but oh well, I can live with it 😉