Slashdot Mirror
Have I Lost My Gaming Mojo?
danabnormal writes "Increasingly I'm being frustrated in my attempts to find a game I want to play. In an effort to catch up, I've been using my bog standard Dell laptop to dig out treasures I have missed, such as American McGee's Alice, Grim Fandango and Syberia. I don't often get the time to play games, so I like to have the opportunity to dip in and out of a title without feeling like I'm losing something by not playing it for periods of time. But when I find a title I like, I make the time. Heavy Rain is the last game that gripped me, that truly engaged me and made me want to complete it in a single sitting. I'm tired of the GTA formulas, bored of CoDs and don't have the reaction time to think on my feet for AOE III. Is it about time I tossed in the controller and resigned myself to the fact that the games I want only come out once in a blue moon? Or have I just not found that one great title that will open me up to a brand new genre? Lords of Ultima is going OK at the moment — is there anything of that ilk I've missed? What are your thoughts? Do you stick to a particular genre? Are you finding it harder, as you get more mature, to find something you want to play?"
It's all kinds of fun. Kind of virtual lego with some friends. Mount and blade: Warband is fun a good bit different. I don't think I find it harder to like games, instead I suspect the new games are of poorer quality with a lot of dumbing down going on and the games being buggy and unfinished.
As a college aged kid I'm also finding it harder to enjoy video games as I used to.
It is something that can be grown out of, people change yadda yadda...
All I know is that I can't be mesmorized by a video game experience anymore as I could when I was younger.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
I've been playing Eve Online daily for 2 years now, and still haven't managed to complete it. Sandbox games are good like that.
In fact I don't think I've played anything else in that time, except to join the annual Nethack tournamement for old times' sake.
Have you checked out Auditorium? It just came out on the PlayStation store for PS3..
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
That's almost a good point, BadAnalogyGuy!
I find games with a human opponent are almost always more satisfying than against AI. The OP apparently isn't into multiplayer, why not?
It's like the crazy guy on the island said, man is the most dangerous game.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
when left4dead came out my freinds and i had MONTHS of fun just playing the campains. Then when we all got togeather and did the vs matches, we had MONTHS MORE fun, L4D2 is here and we are still having fun. I know i hear people whining and bitching about steam and the l4d games. but if you and people you like (eg freinds) play togeather, and can communicate well as a team (and im not talking about clans but friends) then your gaming exprence well be better, thus i give you .team work.
it makes games betters
I recently started playing SC2 after a long time of just playing EVE online or go.
Kinda suck at the multi-tasking and reaction time after so many years only training my strategical skills, but notice it improving little by little. So definitely would recommend trying out something that forces you to gain back some reaction skills.
- These characters were randomly selected.
As a student of game design, AAA console titles are generally designed to be conservative in gameplay and copy what's out there, polish it a bit, and sell it with new art. Now, that's not even close to being ALL of what's out there, but if GTA IV, CoD, and Mass Effect 2 aren't your cup of tea (and you do enjoy Heavy Rain) then the big-advertising-budget titles will likely never appeal to you in the way it sounds you want them to.
If you're willing to buy a game without a proven track record, look at the indie scene (Steam has a good starting selection) and some of the other great titles that have been passed over like Beyond Good and Evil or Psychonauts. They're usually more Grim Fandango or Alice than the bigger games, and you might like them more.
I am become
I was starting to think the same thing for a while, until I thought about it and realized that of all the games I "had to have" growing up, there were only 1 in 10 that truly captivated me.
Same rule applied in the arcades -- there were 1-2 games out of the entire shop that got my attention, the rest I played once or twice, and walked away.
Age does have something to do with it because we see the formula a game is based on and instantly realize "nothing new here" -- but I don't think its as much of a factor as you might think at first.
Good games have always been a rarity in a sea of mediocrity -- just like any other story telling or entertainment medium.
Cave Story immediately comes to mind. It's worth a look, if you're into old-school platformers.
Yes, because getting older means that you can't have fun.
The older that I get, the more I realise that maturity isn't about being stiff, serious and trying to appear "adult", it's about having fun doing what you enjoy without caring about what anyone else might think of it. I might have thought the way you did ten years ago, but gradually I just stopped caring about appearances.
The most engaging game I've played recently is Portal. Unique, and fresh. Looking forward to Portal 2. I've gotten back into Left 4 Dead 2 as mindless entertainment. That's my one FPS vice at the moment. I bought Starcraft II but have not gotten into it as much as I thought I would, RTS games don't seem to hold my interest very long. I really enjoyed GTA: Vice City and San Andreas, so I was surprised when I was completely turned off by Liberty City. I think that was a change in myself more than the game's format.
A little game off steam I enjoyed very much was Machinarium, a delightful puzzle game written entirely in flash that can be had for $5 or less. There are a few more games by the same creator in a similar vein.
I think when you get older, you want care free, relaxing entertainment that can be had in small chunks. No time-sucking MMORPs, ultra-brain intense strategy, etc. Even Diablo you can enjoy very much in small chunks. A dungeon quest here, a little plot advance there. Looking forward to Diablo III.
MMORPs seem to be more addicting social habits than games. Single player games tend to run more like interactive movies, which I guess is what I prefer these days.
At 34, I love playing games. The problem is that I have other responsibilities to adhere to and limited free time (if ever). No longer am I free to live with my parents and dick around in college. It's part of growing up. Who knows. Perhaps when I get old and retire I will have that free time again and start gaming like I did in my youth, minus the "twitch" genre such as FPSs. Who the hell knows what the technology will be then :)
Life is not for the lazy.
So, Poker Night at the Inventory then?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/31280/
...
There are lots of them available. The 2010 IF competition just finished, so there are a bunch of (free!) games of varying quality levels, genres, etc available.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Dude, chess is child's play. Real men play go.
Games are not so important for adults. The biggest use for games is learning how to learn fast. Maybe you have that down now and your subconsiously just not as interested.
Go make and raise some kids and let them learn some games. That is a fun, rewarding, and quite complex game. All stages of it.
The games industry is trying to get us into skinner boxes to maximize profit, rather than providing quality entertainment: IT is getting old, not just us.
You can't take the sky from me...
Sometimes, games drag for too long. You just get bored in between. I see you GTA4.
Please, do not try to find new genres. Have you tried a new genre in cinema these days? Dogma movies? Bollywood? The latest new genre I know of in video games has been the plastic guitar video games. Ok - I should also count motion controlled gimnastic "games".
FYI there is something called the indie scene, where you can see something fresh from time to time. World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, 'Splosion Man are nice games, easy to get into. Sure, they may not last 40 hours to you (50% of the gamers do not see the ending credits these days), but at least you will have a laugh.
Let me get back to my WH40k miniatures.
It's time to accept that the nearest you'll come to the thrill of a head shot, is a riveting game of cribbage with the ladies.
I'd ask you to be my bridge partner but it sounds like your reaction times are really sub par.
Be thankful for the cribbage nights. In another ten years when it takes all you can muster to punch A4 on the bingo card, you'll look back fondly on these times.
I still game daily. I am 34 and will never quit gaming on the PC. If you think you are going to get some completely new gameplay each game you buy, you are going to be disappointed. All I can say is if you are burned out try a different genre or better yet try some indie games vs. AAA titles. The indies may have some fresh blood for you if you are bored. I hear Minecraft is cool.... And of the thousands of game that have been release I can bet, you haven't tried half of them.... So get to trying out some games you never played, who knows you maybe missing something great!
I bought a PS3 recently thinking it would be nice to try some gaming in my down time. Despite a few attempts to sit down and enjoy them, no game has really caught my attention. I don't think it's a problem with the game titles. I don't think I found any of the games boring.. There was just nothing that made me want to dedicate my attention to them.
.etc. are all fun ways to spend your down time.
I guess a certain percentage of gamers grow out of it. Probably there's also a certain percentage of non-gamers who grow into it as well. That's life and if you're not into games anymore then who cares? Save your money / spend it elsewhere. Reading, traveling, eating out, gym/sports/other exercise
What's this I hear?
What wondrous thing?
Is this the Defcon klaxon's ring?
A flashing light...
Above the doooor! There's just one thing it could mean...
War!
Oh, what is it good for? (What is it good for?)
It's good for you, (Good for you!) It's good for me!
Ohh, War!
What is it good for? (What is it good for?) Oh, it strengthens the economy!
It shows the world that we've got stones! (We've got stones!)
And carriers... with fighter drones! (Vo doh dee oh!)
War! Oh, what is it good for? (What is it good for?)
It's good for you it's good for me!
(It's the cat's meow!)
(Vo doh dee oh!)
Heeeere we go!
(Hyah! Woo! Wooo-hoo! Yeah! Ohhh yeah!)
War!
Oh, what is it good for? (What is it good for?)
It's good for you! (Doo waka doo waka doo waka doo waka doo!) It's good for me!
Oh, war! Oh, what is it good for? (What is it good for?)
Ohhh, it strengthens the economy!
A lengthy battle's an incumbent's dream! (Ohhh ohhh ohhh ohhh!)
Because you can't change horses... In mid stream!
For bombs (Boom!)
And guns (Bang!)
And so much more (Napalm!)
We celebrate the joys of war war war!
For bombs and guns, and so much more...
We celebrate the joys of war!
From Sam & Max, Season 1, Episode 4 (a video game, you insensitive clod)
I really got into Borderlands... great base game, with three out of four great DLCs (the third one being the high point). Great game play, LOTS of replayability (I've been playing it non-stop for a year), and a wicked sense of humor. And multiplayer is a blast if you have any friends to play it with.
I also really liked the original Fallout 3. Fallout New Vegas isn't really grabbing me though.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
There are more people playing games, and thus more money to be made. There's still about as many good game designers, so there are a lot of really crappy games out there. It's just harder to find the gems.
League of Legends is quite a captivating game. Each game lasts usually around 30 minutes. There is a bit of a learning curve though. Once you get over that small hump, the game is a blast to play.
Are you finding it harder, as you get more mature, to find something you want to play?
I have no problem finding interesting games, but I do find it harder to put up with bad ones. The more frustrating thing is that a lot of the games coming to PC now are actually designed and tested for consoles, which results in (at best) stupid UI design, and (at worst) major instability.
Lately I've been finding competitive games to be more fun if it involves more than just personal skill, so I've been gravitating toward co-op multiplayer games. Here are two free games on Steam that are great:
I've also been going back to play Neverwinter Nights, which has so many good 3rd party modules that I could be kept busy for years. It has multiplayer too, if you can find friends to play it with.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had a good story and fantastic gameplay -- the spiritual successor to Jedi Academy.
Dark Void was fun but really short. The jet pack works for some great gameplay and the story is decent. If you can get it cheap, I highly recommend it. Also probably the best video game score I've ever heard, done by Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary.
Prototype is like GTA meets God of War -- most games start your character off weak at 1 and get you to 10 when you're 80% through the game. Prototype starts you at 11 and somehow keeps getting better, so you never feel short of awesome. The only game to let you glide down to a street, snatch someone up, and run up the side of a building to eat them like some sort of zombie king kong.
Borderlands is fun if you like to mix in a little RPG with your FPS. Get four friends and go at it. Requires some discipline to ensure you don't level past each-other when you don't play together.
I certainly don't play games the way that I used to -- I own and operate two businesses -- but I've managed to find many games to keep me playing an average of 10 hours per week, and it's fun.
Truth is, I dropped all of the games that simulate real work. Big surprise, I have a full-time job. It's unfortunatel because I really used to like the Master of Orion series, and number three was fantastic. But running a galactic empire easily plays 40 hours per week, and has you thinking about it all the time, and that's no longer entertainment for me.
But there are way more genres now than ever before, and some have evolved quite nicely. So here's what I've done.
Used to love the old Sierra adventure games. Now, it's the new Tales of Monkey Island -- the 5 episode thing from last year. Plays the same, but modern story and modern humour.
Never liked racing games. I bought a sports car last year. Played GRID. Had lots of fun. So much fun, that I took my car to a track -- Watkins Glen. Turns out that real-life race tracks are 100% reproduced in today's racing games. Right down to the advertisements. Really quite something. Felt awesome in the real thing in part because of the game thing.
Left4Dead, 1&2, do a great job as playing like a sports team. It's tough to organize a game of football in the park. Easy to organize a game of shooting zombies in steam. The tactics and communication work the same way, so it's fun in that way.
I'm looking forward to the new DeusEx in February. I loved the story in the first one.
In the end, the truth is that there are just so many many games these days, there's plainly going to me a huge number that you won't like. But you can bet that an industry that big is going to have something for you. It's just that big of an industry, and it's dedicated to giving you a good time. But you'll have to spend some time searching. Really. And if you're looking at anything first-person, you're going to have to get used to the modern-day controls of whatever platform you choose. They're different than they were ten years ago -- in every way.
But yeah, if you want to enjoy playing games, and you put in some effort to find those games, you will like them. Remember, some games take over 70 million dollars to create. I promise they do it all for you. But if you don't want to, then it'll be an acquired taste that you'll never acquire.
These days, I'm trying to acquire a taste for Scotch. Don't look up the game, I mean the drink. I've mixed in with amaretto -- something that I simply cannot live without (nor spell consistently) -- and Scotch is still tough to drink. But I want to like it, and I'm on my way. Last you it was french onion soup. This year, it's-a-gonna-be-Scotch.
I know exactly what you mean. I have a pretty busy life, I'm a parent now, I have my sports, my full-time job and my night-school. Always stuff to do. When I'm relaxing it's more and more with my family but I'm also a gamer, who sometimes, when the wife and son are not around, turns on the 360 to have an uncomplicated, immersive gaming experience.
And that's when the trouble begins. As of late I have found myself increasingly less (is that english?) engaged by most mainstream games. I thought about what had happened and I discovered that over the years (while thinking I had a broad gaming interest) my gaming interest had shrunk in scope and size. I can't be bothered anymore to play anything I don't want to play or thurougly enjoy to play. I used to be less complicated.
I have to charish my gaming needs, because it can actually deminish. The way to do that is to make it feel like work. Recently I played L4D2 which should be my kind of game (Zombies, FPS) but it dissapointed me very. (just my opinion, not starting a discussion about a particular game here). After that, I did't play for weeks because I 'did't feel like it'. I assure you, that never used to happen.
My advise to you is, and this has worked well for me: cherry-pick. This seems obvious but it isn't. Cherry-pick the hell out of it. This can mean that you need to invest into several consoles and a PC. These are the games that sparked my gaming mojo lately: Mass Effect2 (360), BioShock2 (360/PS3), Drake's Fortune2 (PS3), StarCraft II (PC).
Basically what I am saying is that there are allot of gems. Don't be afraid to invest in a console to get them. That's one time expendature. Never play a game because it's the next big thing but inform yourself well through site like gamerankings.com. If it scores 90%+ there and it has 30+ reviews, you can almost bet it's a good game. I love that site.
Real men... like Yukari Umezawa or Rui Neiwei? That's two women driving off the men's tees.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I stopped caring about games when the arcade graphics got "cartoony". I briefly regained interest with Quake, then went back into remission.
It was an addiction. It was probably unhealthy at times. I spend more time in the big blue room with the bright light now. I'm probably much better off.
Maturity? Embrace it.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Many older games are still extremely good, despite dated graphics and more difficult game play compared to modern creations. I suggest checking out adventuregamers.com if you like Grim Fandango, Syberia, etc: http://www.adventuregamers.com/reviews.php reviews -> all -> sort by ratings Most of the highly rated games are very nice indeed. Some can be difficult to find. Ebay/amaazon/etc may have some, gog.com or such may have others, or your friendly neighbourhood p2p archive probably have most of the rest. Telltale games and some other companies do create good modern adventure games as well. Playing together with others also makes it more fun. My wife and I usually play together, and old adventure games are our staple fare. Coop games can be good, but much more difficult to find. Some old RPG games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are good coop, as well as some more modern arcade games like shadowgrounds and alien swarm. Then there are the MMOs and regular multiplayer, but we have not found any that we both like yet. The good immersive games are few and far between, but looking through forums and fan sites can help find the true gems, whether it is an adventure game that carries you to another world for days, a simulator or fps that is good for a couple of hours, or an arcade that leeches 15min of focus every now and then. List the stuff you really liked then start searching using some of them as search terms.
As I've gotten older I notice myself picking games more for the story than the multiplayer aspect as I once did. I used to love gathering friends around a console to play Goldeneye or any number of popular games, but now I've began to realize most of these blockbuster games have the same basic premise where I know the outcome and the only selling point is "buy this game because everyone else will so you can play online together."
I now pick games on how well the gameplay is used to tell the story. The most recent game I played and I'm now playing through again because of the story is Fallout 3. It seems to me I could play through as several different personas and have a different outcome for the story. The game doesn't require lightning fast reflexes to just survive as the enemies are mostly used to advance the story. It should probably be noted I play most games on the easiest difficulty, unless it's a complete cakewalk, because I want the story to unfold and not get stuck in a spot with 5 bullets, a wrench, and a pack of wolves.
The games I enjoy most have usually been out for years - the most gripping strategy games I've ever played are SMAC (or Civ), Settlers (II - IV) (when I want less complexity) AoE II. On the roleplaying and adventure side, very little beats rogue-likes for depth, except maybe the Exile/Avernum series and Myst games. The only space-fighting sim I've ever really liked is Escape Velocity.
Oh, I know, but I was trying to be motivational. If I was replying to BadAnalogyGal, I would have said: "Real women play go."
Games seem more fun when you're supposed to be doing something else, like working. Even mine sweeper and solitaire were fun at work.
Other than that, if you want somnething good to play at home, try some classic console games: NES, SNES, .... Atari 2600 ..., Commodore, Amiga, Sega, etc. Emulators are OK, but they are more fun to play on the original hardware.
Ever tried Minecraft? Works fine for me ^^
You've just graduated to the biggest, and most challenging game of all... 'Outside'. I burnt out my 'gaming mojo' at the tender age of 18, testing my own Tetris clone. Then I started university and discovered women, music, and clubbing. Never got very far with the first, and I don't do much of the last any more 16 years later, but I never got my mojo back - nor wanted it. So much more to life out there than games. Am I alone in this aversion amongst tech-heads? It feels like I'm surrounded by the geek stereotype where I work.
Game studios have become corporations. Middle managers are the people who decide upon form of their games nowadays. They are run-of-the-mill, with little variation. Finding something new and refreshing from big studios is an exercise in futility. Just don't. Wait 5 years and nowadays' games that are fondly remembered then will be the ones worth playing.
Meanwhile, load up Steam Shop and click the "Indie" tab. Not all of these games are worthwhile. But about half of them is. That's where real innovation is nowadays. Where new brave concepts are explored. Sure about half of these concepts is failed. But still, considering the prices, you're better off financially buying 3 Indie games (and enjoying one) than buying one blockbuster (and finding it boring).
Look for games made in Russia. Some amazing artistic enterprises have been undertaken. Some extremely ambitious projects - very realistic flight simulators for example. Ignore flashy commercials for EA, Ubisoft, Activision. Go for the little-known stuff and you'll find where the good games are at.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I turned 66 last Saturday, and I'm still addicted to small games from years ago. Any Zelda older than Minish Cap was fine with me, especially OoT, and I went on a Castlevania tear for while. My favorite is still Star Ocean: Blue Sphere, which requires a modicum of Japanese and a GBC. I confess to playing the Professor Layton series more than once -- lost mojo is an advantage here, because I don't remember the solutions to some of the harder puzzles from two years ago and have to work them out again the hard way. I'm not a fan of most of the Final Fantasy franchise, but still replay 1, 2, 9 and 12. FF13 was an excrutiating disappointment, but in the last chapter there are only three bosses -- the first is easy, the second is either beyond my frayed reflexes or requires more levelling up (a colossal bore at this stage). My current game of choice is GTA Chinatown Wars, which is kind of a mini-mayhem doodle machine (you don't have to follow the main story line), and sort of fun if you rinse out your abused sense of morals once in a while. I don't know about "good" games -- seems a bit subjective to me. But I have no doubt one of the big franchises will uncork a great game again sometime soon. We seem to be living in a magical moment in the development of the Arts -- like Toulouse Lautrec, or Van Gogh, when the great souls are among us, unnoticed by the mainstream.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I hate it when people categorize video games as childish or immature. There are countless RTS games (and quite a few from other genres) that require a plethora of strategy and critical thinking. And how is 'go' so much better than chess? Just because computers can routinely beat chess champions and not go champions does not make it any less intellectually stimulating. In fact, 'go's impermeability to computerized victory is attributed more to a lack of computational power. Make a game small enough and min/max trees will make it impossible to win against the computer.
As to the OP's question, no, you are not losing your mojo. Yes, games may seem less novel over time, but what you're also experiencing is your inability to sift through all the crap and find a decent game. A good story with well executed game mechanics is always rare, but ignored when it is novel to you. It's sort of like movies losing appeal because of a crappy story and poor dialog/acting. You don't notice it as a child, but it eventually becomes more crucial to the enjoyment. It just feels like movies get crappier.
Help fight spam
From reading your question you seem to be in one of the same ruts that I was in previously with games. Personally I have found tons of great games on Steam lately from non-mainstream publishers. Also as I have gotten older it has become harder for me to appreciate mediocre games and instead I look for games that don't stick to the norms.
Some great examples that I can think of off the top of my head are as follows, and broken down by category:
Unless otherwise stated, these games are all available on Steam.
Strategy:
Braid
Machinarium
Worms Reloaded
Zen Bound 2
Adventure:
Darksiders
Lost Planet 1 and 2
Action:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Comes out Feb 2011)
Beat Hazard
Brink
Killing Floor
Smashball (Free!)
Trine
VVVVVV
League of Legends (www.leagueoflegends.com)
RPG:
Torchight
Freedom Force
Dragon Age Origins
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2
The Witcher 2: Assassins and Kings
DeathSpark
The Ball
Shank
Misc:
Garry's Mod
I hope this list helps you find some games that you can enjoy. Most all of them are more of a casual style that way you don't have to sit down to play it all at once, though you may be inclined to.
Install yourself a copy of World of Warcrack and welcome to my opium den.
And wait for a title worthy of your tastes.
I'm 27 and share the same opinion.
Most of my friends enjoy every single title they play on Xbox, PC or PS3. Every single blockbuster game that comes out, they buy it. A war game ? They dig it. I almost believe at times that there's something wrong with me for not enjoying most of these games. After all, IGN, Gamespot and Metacritic all give these games 8+ scores.
Well, I've never been a believer and never will be. I'm the kind of person who likes to experiment and judge after.
You see, I think overall, speculation has done the same thing to the gaming industry that it did to the economy. An 8 for a game today is most probably closer to a 6. A 10 is probably an 8 and a 12 simply doesn't exist. Inflation, anyone ? My other thought on this is also the fact that if you give a game a high rating, most people will buy it. Even if they don't like it, they will most probably say it was good because after spending some $60+ on something, nobody really wants to be ashamed of their purchase and admit they flushed $60 down the toilet. This is pure marketing people.
Now, keeping aside the business side of things, I think great games are still cooking and emerging. I think the reason why we feel there are less great titles being made is simply because there are more crappy games coming out than ever. The real problem lies within production. Following our economy's simple rules, any game that is bound to success will eventually fail into mass production. This process immediately kills any possible technological or intellectual breaktrhough since all resources are focused on production. It's a simple rule of thumb.
So if you want my opinion, be patient and wait for a good title. I don't think there's any gamer mojo involved, we simply need to wait for some great idea to be programmed into a game.
Heck, why not do it ourselves ?
Try civilization (IV is prob better than V and you can buy that by 10€), or some another turn-based strategy game. Other game witch addicted me is minecraft. I would encourage you to give a try for either one of them or both.
Eh Chess is okay, but doesn't have much depth. I prefer Shogi.
Overall in regards to gaming, most AAA titles out there these days are lackluster. They rely on graphics to drive the game, rather than the story. Which is sad, because when you didn't have graphics, you had to have story to drive the game.
Om, nomnomnom...
I really got hooked on plants vs zombies recently. It's fun and challenging, with excellent graphics and one of the best game music ever written. It's replayability is also very high. It's only $20, downloadable, with five activations. Excellent deal.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
try some "old" games you haven't yet finished. the lifespan of a game decides how timeless it really is.
in terms of gameplay, the games haven't really gone much further at all in the past decade, and graphics on artistic/functional level have stayed the same as well.
vampire the masquerade: bloodlines, morrowind, deus ex, X(and sequels) and so on, many of them have texture packs and mods available to make it a bit more fresh and also you can play them at high resolutions with antialiasing, modern look with many game studios is to just blur everything with fake focal blur(makes everything look like a cheap sitcom and not a movie.. if you catch my drift). you could even try ascending in nethack.
of course, you could look into making your own and replaying some old and new games with that in mind, you might be amazed with how little original thought or actual content variety some games that ship on two dvd's have. I've been playing mass effect 1 and 2 lately, they suck in many, many aspects(gameplay is VERY repetitive, controls were made worse in 2 etc etc), it's a bit boring when you can guess beforehand where/when enemies will be spawned(just noticing that they're spawned in waves to make it easier on the engine sucks enough, also there's no adventure in m.e, despite having a galaxy to explore, but whats the fun when the galaxy is smaller than your hometown.. and what fun is flying a space ship when it's just a menu. gameplaywise some bbs door games had as much galaxy exploring).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's just what happens when you grow up - Lego and Scalectrix just aren't as interesting any more either.
Years ago I had more spare time and was able to do things like get all the cheats on Goldeneye for the N64. These days I wouldn't have the time or the patience to do something like that. I hold no illusions about the past though as the games I play these days are far and away better than the games I used to play.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
Developers have always used graphics as a selling point for games and the stories were mostly non-existant back in the old days.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
In fact, 'go's impermeability to computerized victory is attributed more to a lack of computational power. Make a game small enough and min/max trees will make it impossible to win against the computer.
Absolutely not. A min/max tree as a primary method of strategy is a primitive brute force hack approach to game theory. We humans don't nearly rely as much on computational brute force because we simply don't have the capacity for it (mostly because our brain's short term memory has a very high write latency). The fact that one trick pony computer programs are quite successful in chess is the exact reason why I find it less stimulating: it mostly just requires a lot of 'looking ahead'. Go, on the other hand, requires a player to combine that skill with keen pattern recognition abilities and showcases how a combination of diverse skills ability enables a very long lurning curve (the difference between a high kyuu and a high dan in Go is truly a marvel). The go tree branches so quickly that no Moore's law in the foreseeable future is going to be of much help, without developing more intelligent AI / game theory, in particular (probabilistic) pattern recognition. So yes, the state of computer theory and the intellectual depth of a game are very much related, I believe.
...and you will love video games again. BTW, these are not the droids you are looking for...
(Despite the snark, I am still looking forward to Cata.)
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
I've been PC gaming for about 20 years, with a serious addiction for about 16 years (we all need a hobby). My life is much busier now with a wife, 6 kids, a dog, and several thousand servers to look after. I've canceled all the MMORPG subscriptions, what a money pit! Eve Online was the last hold out because I could still balance work/life/gaming. The best thing that has happened to my gaming experience since has been Valve's Steam. Collecting achievements gives you stuff to work toward. What has been most fun is accessing some of the many indie and smaller distributor titles available through Steam. They have multiple deals a week, and special deals around Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. Occasionally you can pick up multi-packs in the $5-$10 range. Buy a bunch in advance so when you get bored you have something new to try out. So far my collection is about 117 games, but I only keep 20-30 installed at a time.
A few fun suggestions:
- Tank Universal (Tron tanks, done right!)
- Galcon Fusion (try it in retro mode)
- Defense Grid (tower defense, done right)
- Altitude (multiplayer side scrolling air combat)
- Garry's Mod (awkward moments with co-workers)
- X3 (default is lame, add mods and it becomes fun)
- Multiwinia
This can be pretty challanging even in single player if you play as a one of the more difficult countries. I would however recommend starting out with one of the easier countries as the learning curve can be a bit steep. There's quite a few concepts to keep track of in the game and if you're unlucky you'll end up as a one province vassal to France or something the like. Once you get the hold of it you can start setting your goals higher and higher. Or just do crazy things like playing as Ming and explore your way to Euroupe with the goal of converting all the members of the Holy Roman Empire to confucianism :)
And it gets even better in multiplayer with a few friends, provided you can get them all together for a few hours of play each night.
Also, as someone posted above: EVE online.
Personally, my big mistake was treating gaming differently than my other recreational activities. I don't like Top 40s stations, sitcoms, Twilight or Harry Potter, and yet I never once considered the notion that I'd outgrown Music, TV, Movies and Books; but somehow because I wasn't getting into the new Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Left4Dead, I was starting to think that maybe gaming wasn't my thing anymore.
What I did to restore my enjoyment of gaming was that I stopped listening to paid-off over-hyped reviews, stopped buying games at release, and started looking towards indie developers first and foremost for my gaming needs. Sure, I'm not a "hardcore gamer" because I play things like Dominions 3 and Dwarf Fortress, and you won't see me talking Black Ops with the bros at parties; but I actually enjoy the time I spend gaming now because I found what I liked to play, sales numbers and media hype be damned.
There's nothing wrong with having tastes outside the mainstream. Play what's fun for you, not what's fun for other gamers.
It's a great game, and once you get past being a white belt the tactical aspects really come into a roll. You might look at it and think that there isn't much to it but it's actually very strategic and many times you have to use subterfuge to achieve your goal. For example I get the mount and I set things up so it looks like I'm going for a choke but I've made a mistake and slipped my arm under my opponents arm, as soon as he tries to bridge and escape *blam* I spin and put an arm bar on..tap..tap..tap.
As much as I love playing computer games (I'm still hooked on Empire at War, I just got Starcraft 2 and Force Unleashed II is my next acquisition) I must admit that I am really hooked on Ju Jitsu as a game. The best way I can describe it is physical chess, plus I stripped almost 15kg of fat off (my tummy is almost ripped!), sleep is so deep and there are other benefits. It's not for everyone and the training is hard but I end up playing computer games when I'm recovering from injury. Plus, I think the thinking skills in computer games translate really well to transitioning a new move in Ju Jitsu once you are physically capable of using them in your game.
I find I'm more selective about how I spend my time and a game has to be *really* good to get my attention. Sadly most games simply aren't worth the effort, but it's ok because everything balances out with the time I have available for games. Beside I just don't think I can sit still for that long any more, but the best time for games is when I have a bunch of friends around - that's when computer games are awesome - but still not as good as Ju Jitsu.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
sadly the gaming world is in the grip of FPSwhores right now, not many games made in other genres unless you wanna go play WOW all day.
i personally play an adult game wrapped in a kid like candy shell.
minecraft
think legos but you have to get the blocks yourself while trying to not get killed every 20 minutes when the sun goes down.
Ever since a buddy of mine gave me his old Logitech Momo force feedback wheel and a 3-month subscription to iRacing last xmas it is the ONLY thing I play now. The most real racing simulator there is, and I can't get enough of it. Every single other game I have has not been loaded even once since, literally. I'm beyond addicted to it now, hehe.
"fantastic gameplay" : err, it seems we didn't play the same game.
The license and the physic engine are indeed marvelous. But the camera system is a nightmare : it is alway pointing to the wrong direction and jedis are now ridiculously powerful, like some cheap manga when a single guy is able to break a whole planet.
The sequel (SW:TFU2) is worse because you can finish it in less than 6 hours (for 70$).
I would personally have talked about :
* RED DEAD REDEMPTION : GTA for grown up. The same as GTA but no more gangsta storyline but a good-old-west lonesome cowboy story.
* Assassin's Creed 2 : a strong story, a beautiful execution and a great gameplay
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
War, never been so much fun,
War, never been so much fun!
Go to your brother, kill him with your gun
Leave him lying in his uniform,
dying in the sun.
WAR.
(Also from a video game!)
Quake Live or Quake DeFRaG
My gaming days go back to the Atari console, but for years now I've spent more time reading about games than actually playing them. Minecraft grabbed my attention recently, however, and I've played it more than any other game in the last decade. The appeal lies in its open-ended nature (it's the first game to bring back the feeling I had whilst playing Elite as a teenager) and in the beauty of the landscapes it can create. It also scratches the same itch that Lego does, by giving you a few basic blocks with which to build whatever your imagination can conjure up (castles in the air quite often). It's only in alpha now, but multiplayer support is beginning to take real shape and every update brings new goodies.
Funny. I can think of several games that were released based on the amount of story, the game was built around.
Om, nomnomnom...
Took the words right out of my mouth, in game preference and in "mojo" as you called it. My advice: play the classics you missed! they're classics for a reason Try Gangsters. Steep learning curve but so so worth it.
And the poppy is also a flower.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I think the drive to "have a storyline" is what's killing games, by turning them into movies. What was the storyline of Asteroids or Pac-Man?
The problem with modern games is that the gameplay is exactly the same across many many titles. Most FPSs have pretty much the same gameplay. The breakout indie successes are almost always about gameplay, not storyline.
I found that as I got older my tastes got narrowed down to a subset of what they were. I don't tolerate crap music, games, TV or books as much as I used to. Before I still like the odd new thing but it has to be good.
I also find myself having to constantly remind myself that I used to be just as bad when I was younger rather than getting annoyed about the things the kids are enjoying.
... being in my late thirties and having been gaming since I was 15.
As far as I can tell, it's a mix of:
Because I actually like RPGs and like to explore "a large world" in games, at the moment I am providing for my gaming needs with MMORPGs, since they have huge amounts of content and a reasonable price. I stick with the no-grind-required ones, explore the content until I get bored and then move to another one. They tend to be fun even in just 1 or 2 hour sessions and are in fact great value for money.
At the moment it's WoW (huge world, nowhere as grindy now as 4 years ago, new expansion coming next month) and before that it was Lord of the Rings Online (now free to play, beautifull world, lots of story, adult mature players, highly recomended).
It's probably not so much that you've lost your "mojo" as your preferences have changed over the years. Also, you probably have less time to kill now than when you were younger.
You didn't specify how old you were when you were at your peak, but I'm guessing you were a heavy gamer in the late 90s or early 00s. You'll find a ton of games from that era from Good Old Games that ought to keep you busy for a while. There are lots of games there that I couldn't afford and/or my machine couldn't run decently back then. You could also try free retro-clones of your old favorites.
I agree with the other posters that you ought to try your hand at writing your own games, maybe surprise yourself in the process.
You should be modded troll for that one.
I'm in my mid 40's as of about a week ago. I still play games, single and multiplayer, and I still own the kiddies who think they are hot stuff. Getting older doesn't mean you can't have fun.
I'm finding that as I grow older, I need to find more family games, which can be played in your living room with your family -- if you're not too dorky to have one -- or just your partner. Being a full-time software engineer by day, student of computer science by night, the free time I have with wife and kid demands that I not be in front of a pc and instead in the lounge/bedroom. And obv, automatically the platform changes, and if you're going to play with your wife and kids, then the type of game changes too.
My wife has taken a fancy to God Of War, Tekken, but she doesn't much like Tomb Raider. So my choice in games has evolved to family games, or at least games that we both like. Also, to games that can be played while entertaining family/couple friends.
blog.idigitall.com
VVVVVV is one of the best and most challenging Indie games I've played in quite some time. It's a platformer/puzzle game with an absolutely fantastic chiptune soundtrack and striking C64-style visuals (some objects in the game are inspired by classic C64 games and demos).
Caveat: It can be very difficult... but if you're anything like me it'll sink its teeth into you and demand that you complete it.
Doing Things The Hard Way is an absolute fscker tho. :P
What's really missing from the games is depth. Part of this is because the more they try to out-do each other with fancy effects and eye-candy, the more it appears to be like a loud commercial rather than a nicely done presentation. But beyond that, games are now churned out like Hollywood does - all scripted, simplified, and by the numbers.
For instance, they take time to explain *everything* in such horrendous detail and have trainers and all sorts of idiot-hand-holding. Compare this to Baldur's Gate. You knew nothing, you had to learn it as you went, and there was a real sense of a story, precisely because they didn't tell you everything that was happening. Deus Ex? didn't tell you much of anything. Diablo didn't either. In fact, the "great" games were designed to be a good game first and never worried about trophies or making it so that some addle-headed eight year old could get 100% on it on their XBOX or PS3. They were "hard" because you had to think. And they didn't have guides and books available before the game itself came out, either.
Now, compare that to Mass Effect 2. I liked the game, but it was so much more simplified than it had to be. Even the Citadel level was a coupe of barely larger than room-sized areas and was designed so that even a moron couldn't get lost. Everything was possible to obtain as well as complete. Compared to the first game, it was a massive let-down. You never could get off-track with your missions. You never could get lost in a city. You never ran out of ammo. I mean, with that much space on the DVD, they actually *shrunk* the square footage of almost every level in the game.
Depth. Hardly any. Replay-ability? Nearly zero. It doesn't feel like we're entering a world so much as watching a made for TV movie. And, it's everything now. Assassin's Creed? I've played games from the 80s with more depth to the character interactions. Shoot, they couldn't even randomize the dialogs for the city missions. Just the same 4 or 5 canned scenarios. Would it have really killed them to spend another 5-10 hours to bring that up to 20 or 30 so we feel like it's a realistic mission? And, this gets worse as you get older. Eventually you want something that isn't mature because it has lots of sex and violence in it, but because it respects your intelligence enough to not treat you like a child while playing it.
From rubber-band AI to canned dialog to overblown effects and "trophies" for the most useless and inane things possible, it's no wonder people are so nostalgic for the days when gaming meant more than sitting through an 8 hour interactive movie on their screen.
I remember playing the Demo of Crysis and my gaming machine couldn't handle it at all back in 2007. Now that it's 2010 I purchased the game and still my machine can not handle the highest settings but I found the game one of the best first person shooters I've played in a long time.. It even beat F.E.A.R 1 & 2 when it came to the graphics & special effects. Interesting plot, if you crawl or walk with your gunsite up then the invisibility enables lots of stealth play or if you prefer you can just level everything (even cut down trees, houses) I still think that if you could play Crysis on all the highest settings it would beat any FPS that's been released this year and a few years back.. I can play everything at medium without much issue so it's not that bad. Currently playing the second one Crysis Warhead and not bad so far.
Manufactoria - http://pleasingfungus.com/
Best programming-related Flash game ever.
So what if you didn't stop playing games? I'm in my mid twenties and i've outgrown my interest for gaming. People change, maybe not everyone, but don't freak out if it happens to you. Just accept that you don't get a huge satisfaction out of it anymore and seek out new hobbys. Building model airplanes or whatever. Fun != Gaming. I used to trick myself to thinking I was still a gamer. But going from 3-4 hours per day to 0,5/1-hour a week i just had to realize that gaming wasn't fun anymore and stop forcing it. Does that mean i don't have fun any longer? No, it just means i find other things more amusing. Being social is one of those things.
Elite (1984) came with a novella in the box. I actually delayed playing the game till I'd read the novella because I figured I'd get more out of the experience. And I did.
The older you get more FarmVille you'll play
Who said anything about not having fun? What does that have to do with accepting how people change, and there's no point in trying to cling to something what evidently starts to pass; as the asking poster seems to do.
You shared with us how in this area such change loosely (your approach to gaming is the same as 3 decades ago?) applies to you...whoa, fascinating. So?
One that hath name thou can not otter
An AI might be predictable, but at least it's not a douchebag.
Heavy Rain is about as much a game as those old interactive laser disc games... or Dragon's Lair.
Are you sure you've actually played Heavy Rain as it doesn't sound like it. It's absolutely nothing like those old interactive laser disc games. Unless you want to claim the same about games like the original PC Alone in the Dark. If anything it's a successor to the point and click adventure games of old, but with a forking narrative and a bit of old school 3rd person horror thrown in.
I think you need to resign yourself to the fact that you're not so much a gamer, as you are simply a viewer. It's clear from your preferences that you prefer a far more passive medium than that which video games provide.
Now, I'm not much of a fast reaction time player either. I prefer to take my time and plan out my strategies. But a key element of any video game is the challenge and rising to meet it. Only through this can real player satisfaction be gained. Viewer satisfaction on the other hand can be provided by a fairly linear quasi-interactive experience.
For you, I would recommend a game like Uncharted 2. I recommend it to you for the exact reasons I didn't like it. It's a "gripping interactive experience", but an awful pudding of a game, which I think is really what you're looking for.
May the Maths Be with you!
Nah, I already played that game for a few hours. It's fun to pretend to solve it and become famous and win a million bucks and all, but in the end I had to stop when they showed a buffy rerun on the telly...
I've 45 and the game that I keep coming back to is LittleBigPlanet.
The game designers ingeniously included a level editor that is unlocked when you finish the game. They encourage you to build and publish your own levels and reward you for participating in the community. This has resulted in a rich online community of players and level builders so there's ALWAYS new content. The last time I turned it on, there were 3.3 MILLION user-published levels. 14,000 new levels had been published since the last time I played a few days earlier.
Are all of the levels great? Of course not. But there's a sophisticated rating system that makes it easy to find levels you will enjoy and level builders whose work you appreciate.
What I admire most about LBP is that in addition to creating a fun and compelling game, the game designers created an environment in which players can create their own games. The creativity out there is astounding and they made a game where players can make whatever they want and publish, get feedback, and refine.
Don't like what you find? Think you can do better? Fire up the editor and try your hand at it. Publish and get instant feedback and try again. I find it brings a whole new level of admiration and appreciation of my fellow gamers.
Curb your dogma.
Pac-Man begins in the winter of 2001, as New York City finishes experiencing the worst blizzard in the history of the city. The intro sequence shows Pac-Man, a renegade DEA agent and former NYPD officer, standing at the top of a skyscraper building as police units arrive. He then experiences a flashback from three years ago. Back in 1998, Pac-Man returned home to find that a trio of apparent junkies had broken into his house while high on a new designer drug called Valkyr.
My own personal favorites include Batman: Arkum Asylum - the story line and game play is first rate. BioShock, another very immersing FPS. Bioshock II was "give me some more of that" and also highly recommended (if you enjoy sometimes being kind of terrified). LotR online and D&D online are both free to play (so you can jump on for a couple days every 6 months and not feel like you are being screwed by the man because you payed 6 months subscription). World of goo is very nice as is Plants vs Zombies and even kingdom for keflings is a hoot for a builder game.
Now to the question of whether you have lost your mojo... it is easy to see the game for the math that it is - a simple counter (if I click in the right place enough times, "I win" - whatever that means in a virtual game). Once you understand a game, sometimes the senselessness can make even the idea of the playing seem rather like a waste of time and so you project that feeling onto other games thinking you have been there, done that. But it's not true. Batman is completely different from any other game I've played - and completely changed what I thought was possible. With the new input devices (I'm thinking kinect here) and new display capabilities (3-D is pretty wicked on games that program for it), I think there are games coming out that will make even that pale in comparison.
Get a huge hard disk. Enormous. 1.5Tb or something only costs as much as a game or two now.
Dig out all the old CD's of games that you used to play, buy them off Gog.com or Steam if you don't have them any more. Read all the iso's onto the disk and / or install the Steam/GOG games onto there.
Remember all the games / systems that you've ever played. Find emulators for them all.
Have everything set up so that you can run any of those games from a couple of clicks and no technical hassle (nothing kills a gaming session more than having to diagnose your PC in the middle of it). By the time you get here, you'll have remembered several games that you never completed but loved. You'll have got back into playing all sorts of older games. You'll remember hearing of their sequels / prequels and want to try them out. You'll have been exposed to numerous games on Steam / GOG.com that you find interesting, and also others for the systems you are emulating (even if that's only DOS).
I did this and it's great. No more cutting-edge PC required, just double-click and go. A quick game of Chaos on the Spectrum followed by learning how nice a game Comix Zone was on the Megadrive (bought it on Steam because it came with some other Megadrive games that I wanted for free), followed by a quick bash through a handful of indie games. Hell, I have 200 games on my Steam account now and most of those have been purchased since I did this.
Most importantly - stop buying those headline games until a year or so after release. Headline games are only good for "I got it first" arguments among kids. It takes a year or so to realise whether a game is actually any good or just another FPS and you could have saved your money.
Browse through the Steam store's less than £4 section. Some wonderful things in there and if you click through you can often get a whole series of games for the price of a single modern one. Don't buy *everything*, just buy yourself a couple of things that seem relevant. Demos are always good here. If it doesn't have a demo, wants a brand-new PC, or has some icky DRM attached to it - ignore it for a year until those problems go away. Suggestions from others for particular games are unlikely to inspire and most of those games are only purchased if you come back to it later and decide that *you* want it.
Just get back into the gaming mindset - don't spend forever on purchases, don't await hyped-out games, don't struggle to run the latest games, don't wait for the 10 minute intros to cut through. Just get into the game (even if that's a slow-paced adventure) at a double-click whenever you like. All that matters is the time on the game, not all the related gumph. And if you get frustrated with something, kick back to a game you last played when you were a kid at the touch of a button.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
bomb the us up set someone
I'd agree. A lot of the recent games I played pump you with fmv/cut scenes that to be honest half the time I can't even understand. I pick up a game and play it for 30 mins, and I've actually only 'played' for about 10, the rest has been watching 'story' and bad voice acting. Where are the games I can just play!?
I disagree. Ridiculously big budgets are killing games, just like they are killing movies and music. The more money there is on the line, the more pressure there is on the creators to go with a tried and tested formula, in the hope they can minimise the risk. In other words, the variety and creativity from the early days of computer gaming is being sucked out by the games industry.
If one wants to see something fresh, indie games are the way to go (World of Goo, Osmos, Amnesia, Minecraft). Adventure games from smaller European companies can also be quite good (The Longest Journey, Black Mirror... check out www.adventuregamers.com).
This is not to say that no worthwhile games are being published through the industry. The problem is, the non-clones usually remain obscure because they don't receive the advertising budgets of the clones.
My 2c.
"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11
E Proelio Veritas.
Indeed. I was in my local computer hardware retailer, browsing their new display areas, and got to put my hand on a Saitek X52 - a lovely, lovely controller. The X36 I have is like a stiff branch in comparison. This thing was as smooth as silk, even in the centre zone which is so critical for precision long distance shooting in the X-Wing games. It has the simple, intuitive, twist-the-stick rudder arrangement I loved in my MS Sidewinder 3D, but it still has the ludicrous proliferation of hats and switches that make the Saitek line great.
I was sorely tempted to buy it right there and then. Then I just walked away feeling a little sad. Because I've not got anything I really want to play on it, because I've played them all to death. Or they aren't very compatible with the OS I have installed.
What is it? Is it just that space combat sims aren't challenging enough for modern GPUs because they don't have enough polygons in them (all that empty space...) ? Or that they probably still don't work so well as internet games because they have more degrees of freedom than FPS games and it's thus harder to compensate for the lag? Or just that the market is too small, because everyone has a mouse, but not everyone has a joystick?
*Browses*
Damn, the "real" flight-sim controller market seems to be thriving though ; instrument panels, radio panels, ludicrously authentic force-sensing jet fighter control sticks, flight yokes.
I was getting through Syberia until I got to the room with the nerve gas. I just gave up. You start in the room, and then you have like 5 seconds until the gas kills you. A plain empty room with nothing but non-interactive, generic sci-fi wall adornments. And there's no way out. And you have limited lives and IIRC, you can't save either.
Fuck that.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Most people, as they get older, find it harder to get into new games, new music, new movies, new food, new sports, new friends, etc. Getting into new stuff takes effort, uninterrupted time, attention span, and a certain kind of ignorance that comes with youth and that lets you see warmed-over crap as exciting and fresh. You eventually reach an age at which it's hard to find anything that seems genuinely worth your excitement; you get jaded . It doesn't work that way for everyone in every arena, but that's generally how it goes.
I never said gaming was the only way to have fun. We go out, we socialize, we engage in various hobbies. I was replying to the troll.
As i have gotten older as a gamer (mid 40s) I have found myself moving aroud the different types of games to being settled into one game type (MMORPG) I find the use of PVP in games to be over done, so I aim at games with more of a community and more professions that don't make you sit there aiming at someone with a gun.
I also find myself playing games for a good 4+ years. I just finsihed playing Entropian Univese (6 years) after the devs got too greedy about money, and am now playing afterworld.ru, which is a Indi game about to go gold.
I recommend finding a niche and enjoying it.
Dad
Well you implied it. "I can still play games, therefore i can have fun".
It's not trolling to point out that gaming gets boring for a lot of us when we get older. Just because you didn't get tired of gaming doesn't mean that it's not true for a lot of us. So rather than forcing oneself to game, one should just except it and get on with life doing things one actually enjoy.
You are really serious with that tirade about opinions after your "you should be modded troll for your opinion I disagree with"? Really?
This has nothing to with denying whatever fun stuff you do. The TFS is basically "My hobby is passing away, how to keep it on life support?" Huh?... There's no point. Not if he can't find it himself.
When it comes to my interests I'm always saddened that there's lots of more to explore / know / experience in the area than I can possibly do in my lifetime, even if devoting whole of it to just that one area. The primary problem is letting go bits I'd like to know closer, but there's not enough time.
One that hath name thou can not otter
You might try out Sword of the Stars or Dragon Age (this was mentioned before).
The former one is particularly 'gripping' in MP, the later has awesome between-character dialoges.
("And now we have a dog, and Alister is still the stupidest member of the party")
Oh teh noes! The junkies killed Mrs Pacman.
I never said gaming was the only way to have fun. We go out, we socialize, we engage in various hobbies. I was feeding the troll.
t,ftfy
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
M.A.M.E is your friend!!! I have the XBOX (the old one, not the 360!) filled with all the classics, so I can play them once in a while. You don't need so much time or dedication to play a couple of (emulated) quaters on these games: Xain'd Sleena, TMNT, Slap Fight, Ghost 'N Goblins, Rally-X, Star Force, City Connection, and a very long etc. :)
Even my wife plays Pacman once in a while!
And playing TMNT/Sunset Riders/The Avengers with 3 more friends that share the memories of old days at the Arcade, in a 50" TV, is a priceless experience
Now, I'm getting a Pinball (a real one) to put on my home. I think The Who - The Pinball Wizard from Data East will be a nice one to have. And, by the way, I'm 32 years old, running three business... so I have little time for my passion of Arcades, but still got the mojo!!
-- Francisco Rivas C.
Hi There,
It seems you and I play similar games. Recently I found a combination of older games from gametap.com & gog.com and new sleepers from steam hits the sweet spot for locating good solid story driven games. Mind that some old ones (like the elder scrolls, might and magic or wizardry series) are not represented but there is a lot of new blood hidden away especially on steam.
Recently I've found Wizard101.com to be allot of fun and sans the usual mmorg drama. The buy is quite reasonable - about US$9.99 for the subscription (or they have a pay as you go plan that sounds complex but is less expensive then the monthly fee when taken over a whole year and bought while their sale is in effect).
Other sources I've used are:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/
http://www.freemmogamer.com/2008/09/best-free-mmos-list.html (yes this is an old list -- if the game is still working then it's not likely to be a fly by night operation).
You should know that pure story driven games are dying; if they don't include some serious fps or don't get very casual they are not likely to make it financially outside the indy crowd. Steam seems have a good representative of the newer games, but they are poorly marketed thus well hidden away in page 4-10 ^_^.
hth
Sam S.
Oh yeah. Great idea. Been hearing good things about that one.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Yes, I have this exact same experience. And even though there are some 'old gems' I still should try (Grim Fandango certainly being one of them), I also find that I've come to dislike certain games that I used to be quite fond of. For example all Sierra Online adventures, which seemed quite lengthy and rich in content at the time, now seem somewhat shallow and really short, even though I can appreciate the music or ambient sounds much more nowadays (or less, when I play a game with an awful soundtrack, such as Kings Quest V for that matter).
Currently, I only like games like HL2, L4D1 and 2, and some others. Civ 5 didn't manage to grab me yet, and all those fancy shooters don't seem interesting at all.
I think there are two reasons for this. One is that I used to marvel at the worlds in which I would be able to escape, but as I've grown older I've seen movies and read books which were much better in 'sucking me in', to the point that games' experiences just are too shallow to me. Even though games have one clear advantage over books, and that is the way in which a player can shape her/his own story.
The second reason is that several years ago, games seemed to become more and more advanced and pretty. Right now, the difference between a new game and one that has been out for, say, some years, just isn't big enough to get me all enthusiastic (admitted, I don't have the means to run such a game anyway). I used to marvel at all games reviews in the magazines; now, when I go to, say, GameSpot, chances are pretty much 50% that I'm bored to tears at what I see, no matter what graphics these games feature...
im 32 play games faithfully, i dont much like people, so outside a close circle of friends (also gamers) and my girlfriend i dont do much in the way of social interaction. gaming is my release, my job entails getting paid to get yelled at all day, and gaming keeps me from going postal :D there is a stigma around adulthood which gives the aire that one should just go all responsible and no fun loving clown... fuck that. I am a clown I am a 15yr old in a 32yr olds body and my family loves me for it (girlfriend and 3 kids). The perfect hybrid of responsibility and fun. My primary poison is COD i love first person shooters especially the squad mentality its just a good way to relax man. Some people go golfing some go to the gym... i choose to game. Oh I also collect transformers and have over 500 atm you can grow up and still keep the inner child alive is all im saying.
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
No, it's not you or your mojo, it's the games. They are getting better and better 3D graphics, and the gameplay is getting more and more boring. In many of the games, you can't really die anymore, you get arrows pointing where you need to go, and often if you just twitch fast, you win.
I really enjoy that game but I would only recommend it if you like Texas Hold'em and the characters represented in the game, otherwise you're not going to feel like you got your $5 worth.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Funny. I can think of several games that were released based on the amount of story, the game was built around.
Like what? And where they the exception or the norm?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
Im 35. for a long time i have been rather forcing myself to play games as a pastime. (there is nothing else to do every weeknight, is it) but recently im not even doing that, havent touched any games.
... we played all the legendary games that broke barriers at the time they came out. we also played A LOT of games.
maybe we grew up. but, more than that,i believe, we played too much games. we are the first gamer generation. i played my first computer game in 1982 on a zx spectrum at age 6-7 or so. then msx, then c64 then pc
you know, after a point it ends up like hollywood movies - if you have seen a lot, its like having seen all of them. they all resemble each other. you get bored, of the same pattern.
of course the extreme corporatization, industrialization of gaming didnt help. fifa xvIIIXImcMii, Flying Dragon XVIVII, rehashes, or, bastardizations of existing game types all for not risking losing one single penny for shareholders (fuck those bastards), made gaming a repetitive affair. even mass effect 2, i only played it for a few hours before forgetting it. polished 'same old'. dragon age. same old, but very polished. (and made harder so 'game time' will increase peh).
yeah, i think we played a little bit too much.
Read radical news here
This could be just how my brain works, but I figure if I'm 40 and I am still able to own kids in fast-paced multiplayer games, then this is actually a BAD thing because it means I've invested way too much time into the game when I should be doing other things with my life. Not to criticize you in any way, it's just a reason why I feel that sucking at such games as one gets older is nothing to be ashamed of at all. Means you've moved onto other, more important things.
I've been gaming since at least the late 80s and I find this a great time to be a gamer. There are more awesome game tat capture my attention then I have time. Just looking at my Steam account - over 200hours on Fallout NV. Probably even more on DAO with expansions. Civilization and Galciv are always awesome. Also play SC2 when I get the chance , DA2 and DNF are coming, it's a very exciting time!
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I have the same problem. I tried nearly all mmorpgs out there and in the end, I spend more time playing puzzle games.
:)
A good game to play is to start studying again, I like the thrill when you hand in the assignments etc.
Oblivion (as well as expansions). This game is truly deep and rich. Great voice acting, good plot, many concurrent plots, and a huge world to explore. If you have not played it, it is pretty cheap now, and highly recommended.
only if you accept having monster spawns just 50 meters out of the castle walls, and villages consisting of 4 houses in a game that sports a continual wide map realistic.
Read radical news here
GnuGo is the best free version IMO.
Sometimes hard to round up a good online game, though.
I have the same problem with FreeCiv.
"My name is GnuGo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die."
You need to play Katamari, any of them. The only downside is that it's available only for Sony systems, but I bet you can buy a used PS2, right? It's fun, easy to learn to play, crazy (If you like pot, holy shit!, you're in for a treat) and addictive. It's very different from everything. Go get it, go go go!
But do remember - Asteriods and Pac-man were a pair of games made when you had not many other choices, nor a concept of other choices. Being faced with these lonely options probably made them seem a lot more attractive. I'm sure I would have loved playing them back then, but now? Why would I? I have Assassin's Creed, and Combat Arms, and Halo.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
Then it seems to me you have an odd notion of what's primitive. Aren't the most intelligent (and arguably the least primitive) agents those who arrive at optimal decisions through the least amount of work and resources? In other words, adaptable efficient agents that avoid redundant steps. How well then does an agent based on a min/max algorithm fare if it can't even beat a human agent with less computational resources at a game of go?
Humans would never have evolved into intelligent beings if intelligence involved spending a lot of resources, as they would've been overrun by more energy efficient species.
There really are not to many RTS games that really require any sort of strategy. It all boils down to having units that can exploit a weakness in your opponents, and to choose a quantity or quality attack. RTS' are not more strategic than Counter-Strike.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
That's recently. In the old days, it was mainly story that sold games. Deus Ex. Half-Life. FEAR. Etc.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
More important things like buying a riding lawn mower to prune your suburban lawn? Getting older doesn't mean that you must sacrifice video games as an entertaining outlet. It's not so different than watching films or television. Actually, I find myself less and less interested in on-going television shows as I get older... I fall asleep during them. Watching television is such a passive experience, there's nothing to keep me interested.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Write your own game. Since you're bored with the current crop, you are less likely to reproduce them and might just come up with the next Angry Birds or Meat Boy concept.
I felt the same way you did not that long ago and now I've got a functioning prototype using the Unreal Development Kit. If you can image it, you can do it. Git 'r' dun!
I'm 31 and still play the original mario brothers games although lately I play more lost levels w/mario(too easy w/luigi) than anything, on the computer it's bejeweled blitz, reminds me of my tetris days and i'm number 1 every week amongst my friends, without spending a dime! you could also invest in an older system(game cube, dreamcast) and you can try out tons of games for $10 and under, although the really great ones are a bit more
I made the switch a few years ago. BGs are all about the gameplay. There's even a number of solo games. For a start try Agricola and Arkham Horror.
I am not sure what age has to do with it. I am 54 and still play computer games regularly.
My preference is for empire building games. The Civilization series has been a constant favorite. I am playing Civ5 now and really enjoying it. I am also a Masters of Orion fan. The Total War releases are some of the most involved strategic and tactical games I have played.
I am also quite fond of RPG type games. Neverwinter Nights being a good example of such.
Though, I have to say, I am occasionally hooked by a real time action game. The last one to really suck me in was Assassin's Creed. I have Assassin's Creed 2 sitting beside the PS3 waiting. Maybe I can carve out a block of time during this holly-daze season.
If I have friends over and we want to jump into some quick and easy game playing, there is always Tekken and similar combat games.
You're the one coming across like an asshole. Games are shitty these days, and that's just a fact.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I'm generally less interested in video games than I used to be. I have other demands on my time now: big ongoing projects (one of which has a deadline at the end of the month), a love life, a new city to explore, people to go hang out with... I'd really rather try and sit in front of the drawing board to get some art done than grind through another lengthy game that has the same narrative cliches and the same gameplay as every other game I've played in its genre.
It's harder and harder for someone to offer me a new experience. I've played more than enough shitty games in my life; I don't need to play more of them.
egypt urnash minimal art.
What was the game before Delta force again? You could create your own missions or play the ones that came with the game like single sniper/sneak missions or lead a whole group through battle. I loved that one and you could drive or fly anything you found on the battlefield (until it got destroyed). Missions go like: You start as part of a group and get your first trainings, then you have your first combat (the group leader tells you exactly what to do like "take cover" etc.), At some stage you have to drive a tank, then you lead a group of tanks .... in the end you get a helicopter :)
Leading the tanks squad was annoying, you had to schedule the refuel and rearm for every stupid tank commander. So I got a god mode cheat, grabbed all the anti tank weapons I could find and stormed the enemy on foot :D
No, more like you and your son rebuilding that Honda CB750 into a cafe racer. =)
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Great post. I, too, turned 40 this year. What I'm finding is that when I play with others that I know and love (or like - a lot - if love offends you), the game becomes much more enjoyable. Even for games that I've played before, when my kids get a hold of them, they are a ton of fun because it's great seeing them getting into them. If you don't have kids, the games I'd suggest are the ones developing characters.. like D&D. Dungeons and Dragons Online is good for this, and is especially fun when you can join up with someone you know and with the same character levels, dropping in and out much you do.
I think it's a normal function of "growing up" - certain hobbies or activities are more fulfilling than others, and as we age, priorities change, demands on our time change, and as a result, the less fulfilling activities lose their appeal. Ten years ago, I was into multiple hobbies - video gaming, astronomy, model rocketry, model railroading, to name a few. I tried to keep active in all of them, but with kids, a job, and just generally less "energy", it was too much. I no longer own any rockets, or participate in the hobby in any way. My telescopes sit forgotten in boxes in the basement closet. Piles of video games sit unplayed, except an occasional round of Civilization (rare). The railroading is where I spend my free time now, at home, at club events, shows, etc.. It provides everything I need, relaxation, a creative outlet, interaction with others, and it's fun.
I always go back to Team Fortress 2. Fun FPS. If you can stand to get ribbed a little you can be a middling player and still have fun if you pick a good community online.
The more frustrating thing is that a lot of the games coming to PC now are actually designed and tested for consoles [...] I've been gravitating toward co-op multiplayer games
I thought co-op multiplayer was better on a console because console games were more likely to support sharing a screen with player 2 who is using a gamepad.
Get four friends and go at it.
That's harder if you have to buy four copies of the game and dismantle four PCs to make a LAN party.
Forking narrative? It's a mystery game with 20 endings where the killer is always the same guy!
Fork that narrative!
The last game I had any real interest in was the Hitman series. While fairly linear in game play (one mission leads to another, and so on), the numerous different ways that you could complete the mission (go for a silent assassin kill, go gang busters and kill everything, or something in between). That variety is what kept me interested.
Most of the RPG type games I lost my interest extremely fast. The one notable exception was Evil Islands. This required to you do some planning when completing missions - if you tried to hack and slash everything, you would die. You would need to sneak, crawl, run, coordinate with other characters to complete a mission. Not your typical Hack-N-Slash game. I found it to be a refreshing change.
Otherwise, I enjoy good old Wolfenstien Enemy Territory for my FPS fix. It's a game I can pick up, play for a couple hours (or less) and be done with it. It's based on the old Return to Castle Wolfenstien, with mods out of the wazoo, and it's free.
I miss some of the good old text/graphic based adventure games from my Apple ][+ days. Every so often I will head over to www.virtualapple.org and play some of the classic games. Despite the lack of eye candy graphics, I find the game play to be far superior to most things that come out today. Fancy isn't always better.
I'm also in the same boat. My game mojo is on the decline also. Seems like there is nothing to stimulate it anymore. Everything seems to be the same old, same old. Quality game play seems to be a thing of the past.
I feel for you.
Cheers,
Xyst
I stopped caring about games when the arcade graphics got "cartoony".
Let me guess: you hated Celda too.
Something happened to the context of Chess too, essentially rather suddenly.
Back In The Day if you went to a bookstore, Chess was virtually the only competitive hobby that solidly rewarded studying, and the rating system was near-perfect (with certain blips like scholastic or isolated areas.) Before the internet, poor man's info feed was the bookstore, and I for one found it not possible to interact as an accepted peer in most other areas "off the street". Also, up until about 1995 chess had a "culture" with its past heroes, and its famous benchmarks, etc. It was a solid outlet that lasted pretty well.
Suddenly the real power of the internet took hold. At first it was like a "secret weapon" to train for Old School Chess, but somehow, being able to dig around in all kinds of other interactive activities took away the silent monopoly on accessibility that Chess once had. I have remarked that my time here on slashdot, if intelligently compiled, could form four college courses, aka intro classes on the topics covered well here.
(Basic computer security and exposing corporate tricks, the rise of Big Brother vs. politics, etc. )
Yet also, when we joke about not even reading TFA's, we're saying that we don't look toward our past heroic moments anymore. Without the lineage-culture mood, coinciding exactly with the rise of computers, Chess stopped being fun when it became just position crunching up to the point you hit your particular wall. (Typically 1800 aka "just below expert" is a well known barrier when the additional work now required exceeds the fun.)
But the last sad point is when you hit that wall, you know exactly who you can beat, and who will beat you. On a particular day it moves around a little, but the metagame is the same, and its effect on your local crew. Joe the Expert beats you, you beat everyone else. Go to a tourney and you can beat up to the 1600's, and the Sandbaggers who should be 1900 beat you, and you score 4/6, just enough not to win money.
On the net, you can collaboratively Do Stuff, and even if you plod along for years you can eventually add your little pocket of cultural contribution to something. Whippersnappers are fresher, so be it, your experience counts elsewhere as it grows, and ... Net Life intersecting with training real skills that can actually go towards a job is more fun overall than even the Grand Old Game.
Now a days, I use Chess only as a mental metric to test the shape of my sadly erratic nerves. There's some value with it as a study on force & initiative too. But as a grand pursuit, for me it has become a matter of RIP.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Eve Online and the Total War games offer a deep and varied challenge.
I don't know if it's I've lost my mojo or other things have come up. You know, when work/commute take up about 10 hrs a day and then you have to make/get dinner there isn't that much time. (Especially if you're like me and you developed migraines in your twenties like me. I can't game if I've got a migraine.) What I've found is I have an over/under of 10 hrs. If a game can keep me engaged for 10 hrs then I'll really get into it and complete it. If it doesn't then'll I'll forget about it. The last 2 games to do that for me were Batman:AA and Red Faction Guerilla.(AKA Grand Theft Martian.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Try Vendetta Online. Like you, I also enjoyed the first 2 MOO games. Like you mentioned, MOO3 was so much like work I can get paid for (planning, managing resources in tedious detail) I never got into it. I also enjoyed DiabloII (spent YEARS in game addiction mode on that one), HoMM and Might&Magic series. I also spent time with the Doom, Hexen and Heretic FPS' as well as the excellent RoTT (which I believe now has an Open Source Linux version.) For a while I dabbled in Everquest, Ultima Online and Earth&Beyond. In recent years I tried Guild Wars, Titan Quest and Hellgate London. However, I got really tired of booting Windows just to play games, so never tried Eve (the emulator didn't work and I wasn't in the mood to dink with it to make it run on my PC.) So I was poking around and ran into a VO link on a Linux gaming site. I've also tried some of the games in the $10 bargain bin at Walmart/Target/etc, but having to boot Windows to load them really takes away part of the enjoyment. Maybe some rich guy will resurrect Loki games someday, so we can have more choices on Linux again.
Sounds like me... exactly the same. 3 years ago I was gaming at least 3-4 hours a day, mostly AOE3 and LOTRO. Now? I'm getting married next year, volunteering on a national NPO, traveling for vacation at least 4 weeks a year, and having much more fun in general than when I was cooped up running raids and rush strategies.
I think the drive to "have a storyline" is what's killing games
i dont know about that. having a storyline is part of success factors but its only one ingredient.
one very recent proof is Heavy Rain, as stated by the OP, is a very engaging story and very movie like. but just that wouldnt have been enough. the controls were right, camera angles werent tedious, close to no bugs. all in all its a polished game and thats what makes or breaks a game.
What about WoW? across all the MMOs out there, those that were there before, those that are still here today, what makes them good or bad? Blizzard observed what makes a good MMO and concentrated on just that, its hard to spell out what it does that others dont, it does the same thing, just better, more polished.
BioWare. same thing. In the action rpg style, they're the masters.
i dont think its really fair to pitch Asteroids or Pac man in the lot beacuse they're from a very different era were it was just about getting more points or doing the same thing but faster!
I think the real recipe to a good game is taking a genre, observing what makes it interesting and capitalize on that. The experience of the maker in that genre will also play in the success or failure.
in my opinion its about going for a developer that knows its stuff in the genre, find the key players in the genre. thats how you're going to find really good games. And thats not to say they're the only ones, emerging genre like Minecraft are really great. But if its Insurance of Quality you want, stick to the leaders of the pack.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
i dont think its really fair to pitch Asteroids or Pac man in the lot beacuse they're from a very different era were it was just about getting more points or doing the same thing but faster!
Except people still like to play and watch games that involve "getting more points or doing the same thing but faster". Look at the annual Big Game of the American NFL, or the Olympic Games: it's a matter of doing the same thing, only harder, better, faster, stronger.
I used to make money playing games on the internet, funded 3 semesters of college on it.
I lost my gaming mojo some time ago, when I was winning all of the time I was 18-20 or so, then I took a break so that I could actually pass college.
When I play now, even though I am "good" as in "very good" when I play, the gulf between me and someone who is 14 and plays every night is vast. The 14 year olds that play competitively are far better.
In pub games I can generally win handily, in say Call Of Duty style games, or Unreal style. But when it comes to competitive players, and I mean the ones who might win money, I am very slow and out of "gaming" shape.
I don't know exactly when it happened, but it was some time between the release of Call of Duty 1 and Call of Duty 2 were my "real" life started to take priority over being good at games.
About the only game I am still "awesome" in is Mechwarrior Living Legends (a mod for Crysis) and that is mostly because the game I earned most of my money in back in the day were mechwarrior gaming tourneys, and I never lost my head for the style, as it relies more on carefully thinking about what you are doing, rather than twitch skills.
In a game like COD4, being well placed and well set up gets you only so far against someone who can spin around, shoot you in the head, and move on before you have finished killing their bouncing figure moving through the map.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I was seeing myself in this question. I'm pretty much done with most games - they seem to be remakes of the same old stuff. Then I ran across a rather refreshing game - Portal.
In the game, you have a single device (not really a weapon) - the portal gun. In effect, you can create two linked wormhole-like holes that teleport objects from one to another. You can also pick up objects. That's it. Simple.
In the game you find yourself in a bit of a puzzle - you enter a section and simply need to exit the section, but have obstacles to overcome, with nothing but the portal gun. It is a thinking mans game, and you can stop at any time.
You really should check out the video at Valve's web site, as my description does not do it justice. This is the most entertaining game I've played in years. It's old enough that system requirements are pretty low. Great fun.
Place nail here >+
If one wants to see something fresh, indie games are the way to go
Say I want to see something fresh, but I want to experience it with friends who are visiting my home. Indie games rarely come to consoles (apart from World of Goo when one of its developers was friends with the manager of a Starbucks), and other Slashdot users tell me there aren't enough gamers with home theater PCs to make a split- or otherwise shared-screen co-op mode on a PC game worth the development time=money to add. Now what do I do?
MMO's. I know that sounds dirty and people are going to be like "omg addiction" but really its all that's done it for me since I was about 16.
Ever since Ultima Online I have been completely ruined for single player games. They feel like sitting inside playing with a ball and cup vs playing a game of touch football with the neighborhood.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Considering you still show an interest in gaming, I would never say that you've lost your mojo. As new games come out, including repeats of each other, it sort of makes it difficult for the long-term gamers to adapt. I mean, Call of Duty, as great a game as it is, is certainly not a fresh experience unless you just haven't played it in quite some time. Call of Duty and Halo have reshaped FPSs on console so they are nowhere near the same as before... which makes it easier for younger, newer gamers to come into the picture and become good at it. Those same gamers though would most likely get reemed playing us at Counter-Strike though. ;) (For the most part). As far as wanting to go back and play old titles... it's just like when you go to a restaurant and order the same thing. Sure, you want to try something else, but do you want to waste the money on something you might not like? Or just buy what you know you will like?
I stay active as I can with gaming. I love all the old games I've played and enjoy a lot of new games. My suggestion to you would be to ask around, see what your friends like... play some demos, etc. Find a genre you like and check out other games in that genre (Obviously there's no game like Heavy Rain, haha). You said you didn't like AoE 3, so stay away from RTSs. And also stay away from sandbox games like GTA (Mafia, Just Cause, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption), etc. You should look into some of the newer style FPS hybrid genre games like Bioshock, Fallout, etc. Or even trying some of the newer RPGs like Mass Effect, Oblivion (few years old I know), etc. I would say... never give up on the gaming spirit. The fact that you asked Slashdot about this means you still show interest. Gaming for life!
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Amen my friend amen, I know what you mean. I played to many FPS I can't even look at one without being disgusted... I played soo many MMORPG I get nightmare about starting a toon at first level. I too dont have the time to master games like StarCraft, AoE and other RTS. I like racing game a lot because thats the game thats sooo easy to let go and then come back and know where you're at. I still like RPG (non MMO) since they are story driven but the latest Final Fantasy make me think about the old Mystic Quest on the SNES... easy as hell without a hint of challenge. So yeah I understand.. my latest game is not so much great but its fun, its indie so Im helping a fellow coder and its cheap enought. Hegemony, Philip of Macedone. Good game, could have been better but the game play is simple enough and its still a bit adictive. But I've been playing it for only 3 sessions so I know im at the begging so I cant tell you if it stays good in the long run.
As an older player (just about 30), I find that I have no taste anymore for blockbuster games. I don't want to play a $60 epic about some superhero rampaging around and killing every bad guy in sight. When I have a couple of nights free to mess around, I look at the inexpensive games on XBox Live (just bought Monkey Island: Special Edition for $5 on sale and need to try it), or even the XBox Indie section (just made legendary status in Carneyvale, enjoyed Soulcaster a while ago), or I want to download some small game off of Steam that my online friends recommend (Recettear was fun for the meta-conversations). I think some of that lost mojo might just be that we're tired of seeing the same old crap over and over again. It's a refreshing to just pick up something small and weave your way through it than to sit through some epic journey again.
(Then again, please don't ask me how many hours I've spent playing expert drums in Rock Band...)
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Are you finding it harder, as you get more mature, to find something you want to play?"
Actually, I found it hard to justify the expense and time investment of keeping up with games. I know people who buy every new console that comes out, with the requisite library of games. It's thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, and as I get older I find I'd rather do other things.
Dropping out of the gaming community has been curious... a lot of the stuff coming out now looks amazing graphically, but the play mechanics don't seem to have changed in the last five or ten years. From the outside it looks like the same three games being re-skinned and re-released over and over. And I really don't miss the frustration of DRM, buggy releases, the patch-it-later mentalities, and the ballad of shame and broken promises of games that get overhyped.
I have a lot of fond memories of my hardcore gaming days, and bear no ill will for the people who are still into it, but I feel happier for having left it behind. When the need for a gaming fix returns, I find just firing up GtA or Half-Life 2 scratches the itch as much as buying a new game.
So yeah, I guess I'm old and stuff.
It's not a big deal that you have a hard time finding games you like. There are more games around, games get more ad coverage than ever, and you're getting older.
Plus, if you really think about it, the games you go back to again and again are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the games you used to play, or was able to play, as a kid. There's always been a ton of cruft to sift through to find the gems; it's no different now, but it seems worse since your tastes have changed.
Just relax, keep gaming for fun, and you'll find the modern gems eventually. It's not a huge deal and a bit inevitable, really; you simply have less free time to sift through the muck now that you're older.
The first factor, which doesn't get all of us, is that as you grow older, there is a greater chance that first person shooters will make you motion sick. (I know about frame rates, but as you grow older, I'd argue that frame rates naturally increase as hardware gets cheaper.) I played Doom and Doom 2 for hours, but can't play a FPS for more than a few minutes these days without getting nauseous.
Second factor, let's face it, you just don't twitch as well in your forties as you did in your twenties. Compensation for that is life experience, better strategy and reasoning capabilities, but your reactions are going to be a touch slower.
Third factor: Unless you're a hopeless sociophobe, you probably have more interests outside gaming. This takes away from the long hours you spent in front of the screen, so naturally you're going to get a little rusty.
But in any case, games are just not that important. (Horrors!) They were useful when you were young and thought you had gobs of time to spare, but truthfully, you really didn't then and you have even less now.
That said, I'm marginally interested in the Alice and Mechwarrior reboots (if they ever come out), and Diablo III (ditto), because I used to play the originals a long time ago. I might even buy them. But the days of staying up to 3:00 AM on a weeknight trying to get to the next level are over.
That said, earlier this year I had to give my copy of Warcraft to my daughter and tell her to hide it from me.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I've found two new interest in games.
...if there was a forth style to catch my eye it would be lego. button mashing fun!
Ones that feel more like a movie. (the latest i played were; uncharted and batman arkham asylum) they are more engaging than movie, and usually have a good story line.
my number two go to are cheap downloads. they are fast fun and engaging... some addictive some are just a one time play thing some are puzzles... they are a great tie over till that next game but sometimes you find a Gem that is worth more than $10 - Monsters (by pixel junk), deathspank, castle crashers, echocrome, fat princess...)
for a third, little big planet.
dunno if anyone suggested this yet, but online racing is a great way to regain your gaming mojo. i'm a shooter-gamer and didn't really get into racing games except for the odd arcade game like need for speed, always thought sim's were too hard.. then about a year ago a friend introduced me to Race 07 and it's two add-ons GTR Evolution and the new Race On.. wow, talk about awesome gaming fun for an old guy! It's easy and quick to get into, the game is open ended so you can drive any car on any track without having to "level up" .. take as long as you like learning a new car/track while building your skills with other like-minded and mature drivers
Check out these racing communities..
http://www.racedepartment.com/
http://www.simhookup.com/
What! Do I look like a people person?
There are a lot of areas where having a story is important or lends to the game, the big trick is not to make the rest of the game SUCK.
RPG's - to me - seem to be dying because they *lack* a good plot. Look at the fairly recent Final Fantasy XIII... scanty uniforms, flashy effects, and otherwise very, very lame. The given plot could have had promise if they hadn't been too busy with their angsty teenage personas, super-duper-background-rendering, and big boobs. That series is not pretty much dead to me.
Most RTS's I've played don't need a storyline to be fun, but it can add to the game. For the most-part though I've always enjoyed multi-player RTS the most, so no story needed.
FPS often seem to be a drone of "same ol' same ol'", however I will add a few exemptions. Half Life 2 does an EXCELLENT job of integrating a story, and elements of a physics puzzler to the RTS. Doom3, which got bogged down in repetitive gameplay, actually had a semi-decent take on the story as well.
Gameplay counts, but don't discount the value of a good story. I'd certainly rather have a good story (AND gameplay) then more flashy explosions, laser FX, and females in tight lycra uniforms.
I think he had a valid point though. You can read it as trolling, or you can read it saying "tastes change with age".
I found that I have this problem too, I was slowly finding that most games don't really hold my attention anymore. I was a bit bummed out about this, since I used to be an avid (perhaps to avid) gamer, and found myself pondering whether games themselves got worse the older I got, or if I was just moving past them. Tons of things I loved in my youth are no longer satisfying, not just games. Books and movies I used to love seem rather shallow and stupid now as well.
Its just natural aging. You are not the same person you used to be, events have happened, and you have grown, so its silly to assume that your tastes will remain the same.
I used to really enjoy games like WoW, but slowly I realized that I wasn't having fun. It was work. It was work populated by the lowest common denominator who get great joy about using naughty words like "tits", and think that calling someone "gay" is the height of witty repartee . I don't have the time and patience I once had for it. I used to enjoy most FPS/deathmatch type games, and found that I don't anymore. They are mostly "stealth" games, where I get to spend 6 hours staring at the back of a cover wall, and none of them have really innovated on Quake3 or UT2003. I still manage to enjoy a decent western RPG (totally lost patience for the drama and cut scene heavy Japanese ones, if I wanted annoying drama and characters I would read a Jane Austin novel), Dragon Age was fun, until they started spawning $6000 worth of DLC. Most games are hindered by being mainly console ports though, and I have less patience for working against the design elements than I used to. I have broader experiences, and greater means than I did as a teen or in my early 20s, so I have more alternatives to turn to when games start being arbitrarily frustrating.
The last game to actually get me to obsess over it (meaning play it for 6 straight hours without realizing it) was Minecraft. The honeymoon is slightly over, since I realized there is really nothing much to do after a bit, and the thrill of discovery wears off.
But generally I play for 5 hours, and move on to other, non-gaming, projects. I'm currently plotting a collaborative novel, and it is a bit more appealing and enticing than playing Call of Duty 2001: The Bigactionexplosionbangbanggogoteamamerica Odyssey, as is many other fun projects I have around the house. Instead of trying to avoid being tea-bagged by 13 years olds with more free time than me, I can go out to the local pub with some friends, or read one of the 50 or so books in my "to read" pile. Sometimes going for a nice long hike is more fun... Sometimes studying things just for fun is... etc... Your horizons expand with age. There is no shame in finding your appeal in video games waning.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I gave up on games after I started to feel the treadmill effect of doing the same thing over and over. I pulled out the instrument I gave up for a decade and started actively entertaining myself rather than passively. This led me to home recording and then onto music production.
I've never been happier since I stopped consuming and started creating.
Hire me...
$5 worth (well, its now about $4.80AU, I love the currency conversion at the moment).
Crap, it cost me more than that for breakfast this morning.
I really love cheap steam games, you know all you need to do is play it for an hour to get your moneys worth, hell I have played PNatI more than I played some of the latest AAA titles.
...
This could be just how my brain works, but I figure if I'm 40 and I am still able to own kids in fast-paced multiplayer games, then this is actually a BAD thing because it means I've invested way too much time into the game when I should be doing other things with my life. Not to criticize you in any way, it's just a reason why I feel that sucking at such games as one gets older is nothing to be ashamed of at all. Means you've moved onto other, more important things.
No, being able to own those kiddies means his senses, reactions and eye-hand co-ordination are still good at 40. Maybe even great. Let's hope your next surgeon if you need one kicks ass at video games and that the guy behind you on the highway isn't thinking it's too bad his reactions have gone to heck and he can't see well enough to play games any more. Games are just a choice of outlet as someone said. Different things engage different people. That's what makes us individuals.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
The last game that I really dedicated time to was Resident Evil 4 (played on the GameCube).
It was just a good game, that even managed to scare me more than once.
Tried the previous RE and RE5, but they didn't do it for me.
Chess is fun, but it's more fun playing with a human. However, plenty of chess sites have interesting daily puzzles on them.
Another to consider is Vendetta Online, more like the original Elite than the more RPG-style Eve Online. A poster down below mentioned Portal as an original and challenging game. You can get some golden oldies at bargain bucket prices: Command and Conquer, Red Alert, and the myriad of civilisation building sims.
Alternatively, you could learn a new computer language and try writing your own operating system. It's just as fun.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
The industry is about making money and because of that they are making games that will net the the most cash in the short term vs games that are good.
Now clearly that is not the case across the board but it is true to such a degree that it does color what we older gamers, who have seen a lot of games, will deal with. I personally have a hard time dealing with any RTS that does not have the depth of RON at this point but that RTS's depth was pretty crazy deep and coupled with its failed sales there is the idea that nobody wants to buy something like that. (Nevermind the fact that one of the bigger reasons it failed with a lot of the RTS community was it's awful MP support when dealing with NATs at a time when everyone starting using a NAT.)
I don't want to sound like Yahtzee too much but there comes a point when it's like this game is good but it's so much like God of War but not really even as good that why should I bother even trying something new? I can just keep giving my $15 a month to Acti-Blizzard for my WoW sub and deal with the imperfections there that I know and have come to love vs something new that will just annoy me.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Yes, because getting older means that you can't have fun.
The older that I get, the more I realise that maturity isn't about being stiff, serious and trying to appear "adult", it's about having fun doing what you enjoy without caring about what anyone else might think of it. I might have thought the way you did ten years ago, but gradually I just stopped caring about appearances.
I wish I had mod points. I'll be 60 my next birthday and I love games. Never been any good at chess, admire folks who have the mind for it. I liked PnP D&D, would still play with a patient and reasonably civil group. Play some F2P mmos, loved DAO, can't wait for the next one. People are different; don't let anyone tell you how to act, whatever age you are.
I am really thankful to the author of this post for making this lovely and informative article live here for us. We really appreciate ur effort. A good writing style and information is certainly useful. For all readers continue to write such excellent articles. Keep up the good work. . . . http://www.optionpoppers.com/
I'm sorry, but we're a Triumph family. We try to stay away from that Jap stuff... My old VW Bug not withstanding. :P
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Youtube and look up Guild Wars 2 Manifesto. GW 2 out within the next year, no monthly fee, no ripoff company store. Been playing GW 1 for the last 5 1/2 years. Geek game, playable solo, rather a challenge; need to be able to read forums and the wikis. Excellent music, graphics rather like playing inside an oil painting. Lots of quests, missions. But beyond that even more to do if you are a self starter. Only game I play these days, whether I have a few minutes to spare or an evening. Guild Wars 2 will be a much different game from either GW 1 or WoW. Keep an ear open for GW 2 release info.
Chess is the way to go.
Chess is one way to go, but not the only way to Go. Many people arrive at Go directly without passing through Chess, or only making a tangential contact with chess.
And, of course, Chess has been solved by computers (for practicable meanings of "solved") ; Go hasn't (for comparable meanings of "solved", on boards bigger than 5x5). So given a few years study, it's credible for you to get to be able to beat the best of present-day Go programmes, but not the best of human players.
In the nearly 30 years that I've been playing Go, the best of the computer systems have advanced by around 15 grades of strength. If they continue to advance at that rate, then by around 2020, then the best of amateur players will struggle against the computers. The best professionals will succumb in around the 2030s.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It sounds like your tastes are just changing to more serious and thoughtful titles. You'd rather play an interactive story instead of a press-the-button-when-the-flashy-thing-blinks-game. Good thing for you is, it's right in the middle of a resurgence.
The relative success of Heavy Rain and Telltale's success with reviving the adventure game formula is bearing some really awesome fruit. Check out LA Noire by Rockstar - I think it'll be right up your alley. http://www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/agegate/ref/?redirect=
Also I hear great things about Red Dead Redemption and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Both are purported to have great stories to go with gameplay that's not quite so frantic.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
I disagree that having a story is bad, but I do agree that trying to emulate movies is often bad. Games are inherently interactive and can do things that movies cannot. I don't think developers should try to emulate movies. The western game industry is very fixated on recreating the "movie experience". The Japanese industry is less focused on this, which is one reason why most of the games I've been playing lately are Japanese (or western indie games).
That said, not all games need stories. Those without stories that are pure gameplay are "games" in the truest sense of the word. I really we need a new word for interactive entertainment that are mostly about adventures with storylines, etc--"game" is not really a very fitting word.
But yeah, the current batch of AAA western games hold no interest for me with a very few exceptions.
I could not agree more. Big budgets are the problem. Big budget games take no risks--they can't offend or annoy or frustrate or be to hard for anyone because they have to appeal to everyone to make money, with tens of millions sunk into their development.
Most of the games I've been playing lately are indie games, old games, and also Japanese games. The Japanese game industry is very focused on portable systems right now, for a variety of reasons, and games for the DS and PSP take a tiny fraction of the budget required for current-gen HD AAA games in the west, so they tend to do some original things or at least be more quirky and fun than the "super-epic movie experience" that big-budget western games strive for.
Both are pretty dull and should be automated. Real men develop algorithms to play them.
Stick Men
Great article it very informative have a nice day.Some great stuff im coming across here.I found so many interesting stuff in your poste specially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here! keep up the good work. http://www.optionpoppers.com/
It does seem that everybody is into this kind of stuff lately. Don’t really understand it though, but thanks for trying to explain it. Appreciate you shedding light into this matter. Keep it up http://www.optionpoppers.com/
Norm. Most games pre-00 were based more on story than graphics, unless the graphics were the selling point. I'd say that the hayday of stories being the driving point died out in oh 2001, 2002 or so, even after that there have been a few gems but they're few and far between. Because graphics became the cheaper(as adoption becomes greater), and easier way to drive sales. 8-9 years have seen explosive differences in the quality of graphics.
Om, nomnomnom...
Norm. Most games pre-00 were based more on story than graphics, unless the graphics were the selling point. I'd say that the hayday of stories being the driving point died out in oh 2001, 2002 or so, even after that there have been a few gems but they're few and far between. Because graphics became the cheaper(as adoption becomes greater), and easier way to drive sales. 8-9 years have seen explosive differences in the quality of graphics.
That's an incredible claim to make and one not reflected in reality at all. Unless you only looked at and played two games a year a game with a good story has always been the exception rather than the norm.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
When introducing yourself to Scotch (Even Single Malt) don't be afraid to add a bit of water to it. You actually allow more of the fragrance of the alcohol to diffuse as you dilute the drink, and so the flavor maintains very well, while reducing the pure alcohol burn which turns off many exploring drinkers.
The constant munching of pills...
Meta will eat itself
How are they killing games? The big budget games sell really well because people love them. There is a huge indie scene where you can find games that try different concepts. Every now and then the smaller titles become popular and a new genre is born. There are tons of great games out there. I don't really get why people are agreeing with you. SC2 had a big budget and is the best game I have ever played. Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age are great games. So what if it is just improving on a tried and true genre...only making minor improvements....they are still fun and well done. The people complaining on here just don't remember how bad gaming was 15 years ago because they were children and were able to put up with a lot of crap.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Especially funny how the poster you replied to also said, in a followup nearby, something close to "that's a discussion board, it's about discussion, so everybody can have an opinion" - after "I disagree / misunderstand your opinion, therefore you're a troll"...
Yes, we are not the same person we used to be; doesn't stop people from attaching undue importance to the myth of unbroken, monolithic "me" - while it's really easy to argue how our minds are closer to our peers than to ourselves in a very different stage of life (how split-brain patients generally appear almost unaffected provides nice controlled example; or, even better: there's a disorder, due to particularly localized brain trauma, which causes people to go blind seemingly without them realizing it). That's not even the worst of such myths - many more further along ("more of us is alive today than the total number of people who have ever lived" for example, while there's at least 100 billion dead homo sapiens already - about which we don't care about at all, as well as for virtually all of the living, as well as for our very recent ancestors ...but oh well, seeing oneself as central to the world is not only the most straightforward perspective, probably also aided in survival)
BTW...
Most games are hindered by being mainly console ports though, and I have less patience for working against the design elements than I used to.
That's also a bit of a myth. Not only "console games" have changed, too - the "console ports" are really hybrids on one hand, and a symptom of gaming being much more widespread on the other (funnily enough - that's what we wanted, when the world didn't understand our gaming 2 decades ago)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually, "kicks ass at video games" (implying also some regular and non-trivial time investment in the process) is something I definitely wouldn't want from my next surgeon, if I need one. You wouldn't too, if you knew how swamped many of them are with activities revolving around long term preparations to do their job and doing it. Many of the good ones, at least.
One that hath name thou can not otter