Arcade games were it for me from the late seventies until about 1985 when I lost interest. Video game consoles weren't something we could possible have afforded back then, so I never had one. I didn't play any games at all until 2001; then I saw my neighbor playing Jane's W-2 Fighters, and I knew that I had to upgrade my PC to be able to play it. Then I played that and other flight sims until I got bored with them in about2008 or so. Now I'm discovering all of the other games that came out while I spent night after night being a virtual pilot on Il2 Stormovik for years.

I find myself been attracted to simulators in my old age, Farming Simulator 2013, 2019 and Euro Trucking Simulator 2 are my "new games"
The next newest game I own is GTA SA from 2004

Euro Truck Sim is the only game I don't own a physical copy of. I don't like the idea of not having an offline copy of my software which is one thing that puts me off buying newer games.

I never "graduated" from 3d Shooters that required you to look up/down. So Duke 3d was the last 3D shooter I really got into, I did play Quake 3 against bots but wasn't very good and didn't really feel like a proper 1 player game.
I also prefer playing solo, (excluding the occasional LAN game with a friend, not some random somewhere int he world) so when games became more online focused, I lost interest.
I'm also actively trying to resist newer games as already have plenty of games I haven't finished. eg I got GTA V for free few years ago but told myself I'm not allowed to start it until I finish SA.

Going back is also hard.
My first 3d shooter was Doom and happily replay, but I struggle with Wolf3d
Same with RTS's, I started with C&C and Warcraft, but Dune2 is a grind.
Most dos games in general while I have good memories, it's the Win9x era I end up spending the most of my gaming hours.

i like some games from all eras, i think the only ones that i don't really get into are ones that require you to be online. i never liked game where you have to command a squad in real time, but enjoyed the same when done as a turn based type game

chinny22 wrote on 2025-01-06, 05:09:

Going back is also hard.
My first 3d shooter was Doom and happily replay, but I struggle with Wolf3d

Oh that feeling was *immediate* when I first played Doom having wolfed prior. I haven't done any full wolf playthroughs since 1993. Just being a pioneer in the genre is what carried Wolf3D than anything else, I don't remember much about episode 2-6's layouts...

leileilol wrote on 2025-01-06, 14:20:

chinny22 wrote on 2025-01-06, 05:09:

Going back is also hard.
My first 3d shooter was Doom and happily replay, but I struggle with Wolf3d

Oh that feeling was *immediate* when I first played Doom having wolfed prior. I haven't done any full wolf playthroughs since 1993. Just being a pioneer in the genre is what carried Wolf3D than anything else, I don't remember much about episode 2-6's layouts...

with 3d in particular one thing with earlier games that i can't do now is "explore", other than some secret areas wolf, doom etc don't have much environment to interact with directly, its more to look at. Bins, glass and pool tables in duke3d were pretty good though.

Somewhere around 1998-2008 environments looked good and supplied a degree of interactivity that felt 'in line' with the graphics, think half-life, deus ex, far cry up to fallout3

after that the graphics often looked even more realistic - but the interactivity, though sometimes more than previous, started to feel lacking. as i've said before, kind of over-promising and under-delivering

in the 90's i was ok with the limitations, just accepted them. later i thought them "ok" but as time went on i found it difficult to say in the game if i could move things around on a desk but a grenade would only knock a few things off leaving fragile stuff intact, breaks the realism the graphics apparently were promising

another minor point - after a while many games start feeling more like a spreadsheet - do x and y to increase/decrease a and b, you can feel the calculations eventually - rpgs, rts and so on in particular but fps and so on too

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-01-05, 22:31:

UCyborg wrote on 2025-01-05, 21:08:

Late 90s to mid 2010s is most familiar to me. Didn't significantly stray from that timeframe. My brother used to have black-white Game Boy many years ago, the original one, I played some stuff on it when I was a child, but those memories have mostly faded. Older games are probably too old for me.

I relate to remark regarding distractions brought with graphical fidelity, all the moving grass and shadows in Battlefield 3!

Exactly the same time frame as mine. Although I must add games like Roblox and Minecraft never really interested me, probably because I wanted to see progress displayed in game rather than what I am doing, which added as a challenge.

Might have something to do with growing up in that timeframe. I'm not most open minded about various genres, it's been mostly shooters, action adventures, horror, and racing. Also skipped Roblox and Minecraft. I like having clear objectives.