After years of being mostly a retro gamer I finally was able to but together a Ryzen system and try out various games from Steam like Witcher 3,
Control, Star Wars BF2 and etc. To be honest I probably wasted my money as I struggle to play or enjoy any of them. The graphics are nice and
all but I can't get my head around some of the controls and struggle with "ok what to do next" kind of issues. It's probably my age as I'm one
of the older folks on this forum and don't have the patience.

On the flip side I enjoy the heck out of playing the different mods for dos games like Eduke32, BloodGDX, Raze and etc. Spend of lot of my
money on GOG as I get a kick out of playing these older games on a modern PC.

I don't like the hand holding that modern games have. The "click this button when enemy x does 'this' attack"
I takes me out of the real time experience for some reason.

it is much the same reason that I can't stand turn based combat games. I just don't enjoy them.
I find it to be an abstraction to the "in control of the moment" feeling that real time games have.
I know that puts me in the minority, but it is what it is.

Also I'm older and just can't dedicate the time to get invested in a game the way that I used to.
Work, chores, children and family and just life in general takes up all of my time. And that is fine, I wouldn't have it any other way.

buckeye wrote on 2022-11-17, 14:49:

After years of being mostly a retro gamer I finally was able to but together a Ryzen system and try out various games from Steam […]
Show full quote

After years of being mostly a retro gamer I finally was able to but together a Ryzen system and try out various games from Steam like Witcher 3,
Control, Star Wars BF2 and etc. To be honest I probably wasted my money as I struggle to play or enjoy any of them. The graphics are nice and
all but I can't get my head around some of the controls and struggle with "ok what to do next" kind of issues. It's probably my age as I'm one
of the older folks on this forum and don't have the patience.

On the flip side I enjoy the heck out of playing the different mods for dos games like Eduke32, BloodGDX, Raze and etc. Spend of lot of my
money on GOG as I get a kick out of playing these older games on a modern PC.

I play mainly older games, so I can get away with a 10 year old system. But, I'd love to play some of the newer flight sims. I can't justify buying a new computer just to play a couple of games. Emulating consoles like the PS2 might be another way of justifying a new computer, but I've heard mixed opinions over the current state of playing those game on a PC.

I hear PS2 emulation is easy these days even on a halfway decent modern PC. PS3 emulation is still demanding and there are still games with issues.

swaaye wrote on 2022-11-16, 22:10:

Maybe you are overwhelmed by the fact that there is actually an incredibly wide range of gaming options today. And sure there is no shortage of low quality shovelware or indie projects that just ran out of money. On Steam it's fairly easy to identify those with the user reviews I think.

I am mostly a player of indie games and VR these days. I feel like those are the most exciting and experimental areas.

I am willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that there may be some areas of renascence in modern gaming. But it is 95% invisible to me. The discoverability problem is so huge.

There has always been shovelware, as another poster pointed out. There also used to be a gaming press that you could mostly trust to weed most of that out. This for the most part no longer exists. The press as any sort of filter for bullshit, or stamp of quality, is utterly broken.

For a while, Total Biscuit did a pretty fantastic job of taking up the torch of actually informing consumers about the games that were coming out. He died, and frankly I've seen no one else take it as seriously as he did. It's all this weird grey area of influencers, let's players, and corporate shills. I'm pretty sure the youtube algorithm has shifted away from making the type of content TB used to do viable. Almost the entire crew around him does streaming now instead of Youtube. And games that are good for streaming are not necessarily games that are fun to play or good.

Ok, so there are Steam reviews you say? But with Games as a Service, whether it be the Destiny model or the perpetually in development Early Access model, how do you even know if the review you are reading is applicable anymore? You might get a general sentiment that people like or dislike a game, or that it's gotten better or worse over time. But how can you really gauge if, at this snapshot in time, the game is for you?

Hell, once upon a time there were demos for games. I'd get a CD every month with tons of them. Those more or less vanished. They've been replaced by "free to play" games as a service. So either I cannot try a game before I buy it, or the game has been purpose built around hijacking my dopamine gland, and then making me jones for a fix so bad when they tapper off the rewards that I get my wallet out for another hit.

Namrok wrote on 2022-11-17, 20:04:

Ok, so there are Steam reviews you say? But with Games as a Service, whether it be the Destiny model or the perpetually in development Early Access model, how do you even know if the review you are reading is applicable anymore? You might get a general sentiment that people like or dislike a game, or that it's gotten better or worse over time. But how can you really gauge if, at this snapshot in time, the game is for you?

The Steam reviews are especially bad, as they lead to inflated scores. First of all, you only have the option to recommend or not recommend a game. A strong recommendation is weighted the same as a recommendation for a borderline game. Most people will leave a recommendation for a barely passable 6/10 game. A lot of reviewers are also just trying to be funny, so bad games get a lot of recommendations in joke reviews.

Steam would really benefit from having a separate review system for people who played the game and those that couldn't get it to run. A lot of games get poor reviews that they don't deserve because some users didn't read the requirements. For me, I'm only interested in reviews from people who played the game because I can refund it if it doesn't work. It would still be nice to know if there are compatibility issues, but I'd rather that be separate.

I've also found that many of the retrogame reviews aren't helpful. Some really good old games only have a few reviews, including a few that come from people who obviously aren't into retrogames. If it's not a popular classic like X-COM, having a few reviews from the wrong target audience can really impact the score unfairly imo.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-16, 22:56:

When it comes to games worse over time,

We just forget all the junk and remember the good stuff.

No not really, as a kid you just made due with most crappy games.

The issue today is a lack of gameplay innovations. Many 1st party games have the same 3D control elements and the same grind and goal progression systems.

Risk in design isn’t really a thing when games cost millions to release.

I prefer crisp twitch style controls that are easy to understand, a few games (mostly low tier) have that.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-17, 06:25:

It's not just the lack of the sense of novelty, but that do temper the excitement even for good modern games. But ►mainstream◄ games in general do get objectively worse in ways.

What is a mainstream game though? Are we talking about games that are popular? Games from specific publishers? Games with big budgets?

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2022-11-17, 04:49:

However, I don't think that's the entire story. There have been a lot of changes in game design over the years, and you can argue that some of them have been for the worst. I doubt anyone would argue that carving up your game into multiple pieces in order to sell DLC at day 1 is an improvement. Same goes for free2play games that are actually pay2win.

I agree that some contemporary business practices and associated design aren't great. I would add company hosted servers to that list as well.

But not all games follow that formula. Many games are still released that don't rely on DLCs or freemium business models.

Subjectively, I think that the quality of writing has gone down over time in many ways. While the writing quality for the average game has always been poor throughout the years, I think the best writing from today doesn't meet the best writing from the past. Personally, I haven't experienced anything in a modern game like the story in Deus Ex , Half-Life, or System Shock games.

How are you defining writing? Half Life is not a game I would consider having good writing. It was innovative for pacing and level design, it's a decidedly B-movie story and minimal dialog.

Ditto with Deus Ex. It was innovative for freedom of choice and multiple approaches to puzzle solving. I don't really remember much of the story or dialog beyond that, TBH.

When I think of games with good writing, I think games either with really good dialog or interesting and memorable stories. LucasArts games, Portal / Portal 2, Stanley Parable all stand out for me as games with great dialog. Whereas a game like SOMA stands out for its story.

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-11-17, 23:24:

The issue today is a lack of gameplay innovations. Many 1st party games have the same 3D control elements and the same grind and goal progression systems.

This is imho just a consequence of gaming as a medium still being developed through the 70s, 80s and 90s. A lot of innovation of the time was driven by changing technology.

Meanwhile today, while we've increases in storage capacities, processor speeds and GPU power, the underlying technologies are still more or less the same. IMHO, that somewhat stagnates the ability to have truly innovative change in game design.

Where I do see possibilities is through VR. Though modern VR is still an emerging tech and will likely be a ways off before it hits the mainstream.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-18, 00:15:

This is imho just a consequence of gaming as a medium still being developed through the 70s, 80s and 90s. A lot of innovation of the time was driven by changing technology.

Meanwhile today, while we've increases in storage capacities, processor speeds and GPU power, the underlying technologies are still more or less the same. IMHO, that somewhat stagnates the ability to have truly innovative change in game design.

Where I do see possibilities is through VR. Though modern VR is still an emerging tech and will likely be a ways off before it hits the mainstream.

I don't think that hardware has been the limiting factor. With faster computers, developers have mainly focused on improved graphics, while other areas remain underexplored. AI is a big one. Most shooters have pretty basic AI and the NPCs don't coordinate or plan much. I think that game publishers have the idea that good AI wouldn't be appreciated as much as good graphics.

Destructible environments are another, as most games don't even include basic destruction, let alone having it as a major feature. One of my favorite games is Red Faction Guerilla. It was pretty average as a shooter and the story was nothing special. However, having destructible environments made it one of the most fun games I've ever played.

Interestingly, my biggest pet peeve with VR is that too devs try to squeeze popular genres into VR rather than making games that complement the hardware. I would rather play an FPS on my PC than play one on my Oculus Quest with the teleport mechanics. I've had a lot of fun with games that are made with the technology in mind. VR boxing is an experience that you can't get elsewhere. I think strategy games are underexplored in VR. VR is perfect for strategy games that could be played similar to boardgames.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-17, 18:53:

I hear PS2 emulation is easy these days even on a halfway decent modern PC. PS3 emulation is still demanding and there are still games with issues.

Yes PS3 emulation is very demanding, wouldn't bother unless you have a very stout cpu/gpu. My Ryzen 3700x/Geforce 3070 system only manages
55 fps on most games.

buckeye wrote on 2022-11-18, 15:26:

My Ryzen 3700x/Geforce 3070 system only manages 55 fps on most games.

Only? That's pretty darn tootin' (always wanted to say that) good. I love me some hover racing and the PS3 (and later, XBOX 360) had one of my favorites, Fatal Inertia. I may have to look into this since my long gone PS3 died eons ago from Blu-rayitis.

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-11-17, 23:24:

172E6F78-DD81-4369-B87D-0BE6CA789D25.jpeg […]
Show full quote

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-16, 22:56:

When it comes to games worse over time,

We just forget all the junk and remember the good stuff.

172E6F78-DD81-4369-B87D-0BE6CA789D25.jpeg

No not really, as a kid you just made due with most crappy games.

The issue today is a lack of gameplay innovations. Many 1st party games have the same 3D control elements and the same grind and goal progression systems.

Risk in design isn’t really a thing when games cost millions to release.

I prefer crisp twitch style controls that are easy to understand, a few games (mostly low tier) have that.

Back 20 years ago, almost every game had a different style in controls and/or game features. Now almost every game has merged it's features and almost nothing is different.

I think games are generally better today, if you see to the general gamer. But for us (former) enthusiasts it's just kind of bland if you look at big titles.

Gamers used to be a small sub culture, and there was a constant evolution making the more interesting. Games were not that perfect and thee was an acceptance to this.

I'd like to take a game like Gothic (1) as an example, it was a somewhat early 3d open world game, graphics was already a bit aged but the fact that you could see a long distance really gave it a sense of immersion that at least for me was new and exciting. It was a buggy mess that made it barely playable though, but I was ok with that.

Given the expensive nature and increasing requirements of the genre of games open world games are huge investment projects for companies, so these games tend to be low risk and to be directed to a large amount of games. Low risk equals same sh1t like the last similar game but with better graphics or things like that. Gaming is not the product of and from only enthusiasts any more, it's big bussiness. This is normal for any new business concept, it becomes boring and lazy.

I agree with most writers here that the hope should be on small development studios too but I don't think the AAA titles will be very interesting ever again.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-17, 18:53:

PS3 emulation is still demanding and there are still games with issues.

But is that really a problem? PS3 Super Slims are very reliable and cheap, you can easily get one.
And they're very moddable, so you don't even have to buy the games. Stick a 2TB drive in there, fill it up and you'll have enough games for a lifetime.

But to the topic at hand: There's a lot of trash out there. The problem is, that there are many more games in general than back in the 90s so it's hard to get a picture of what is trash and what isn't.
I also tend to completely ignore Multiplayer games because a lot of them just want to sell their damn lootboxes.

If you're playing on mobile devices, there is an excellent "No Bullshit" games list here:
https://nobsgames.stavros.io/

As for PC games, I have subscribed to a local gaming magazine here in Germany, called "GameStar" which curates the games for me, so I don't have to work through any Steam lists.
Currently I'm playing "Submerged: Hidden Depths" and I think it's an excellent indie title with a lot of love put into it.

tl;dr: Games are still as exciting for me as back in the day, there are just A LOT MORE and thus, a lot more that are bad.

schmatzler wrote on 2022-11-24, 12:33:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-17, 18:53:

PS3 emulation is still demanding and there are still games with issues.

But is that really a problem? PS3 Super Slims are very reliable and cheap, you can easily get one.
And they're very moddable, so you don't even have to buy the games. Stick a 2TB drive in there, fill it up and you'll have enough games for a lifetime.

I thought about mentioning that, but decided against it. Emulation at this point is not about accessibility. PS2 is also cheap and accessible. At least where I live I can usually get full sets below $50. PS3 is a little more expensive, working ones in good condition usually go for around $80.

schmatzler wrote on 2022-11-24, 12:33:

tl;dr: Games are still as exciting for me as back in the day, there are just A LOT MORE and thus, a lot more that are bad.

a good summary 😀

gerry wrote on 2022-11-24, 16:51:

schmatzler wrote on 2022-11-24, 12:33:

tl;dr: Games are still as exciting for me as back in the day, there are just A LOT MORE and thus, a lot more that are bad.

a good summary 😀

Or better, there is no AAAness in them.

schmatzler wrote on 2022-11-24, 12:33:

If you're playing on mobile devices, there is an excellent "No Bullshit" games list here:
https://nobsgames.stavros.io/

I remember getting my first tablet and being excited to play games on it. Apart from a few strategy and board games, I didn't end up finding much that interested. I haven't bought a mobile game in years and don't feel like I'm missing out. Every now and then, I'll open Google Play to see if there's anything interesting, but I haven't found anything that piques my interest in a long time.