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Ask Slashdot: What Modern PC Games Would You Recommend For An Old School Gamer?
wjcofkc writes: The last time I was a serious gamer, I was playing Quake and Quake World. That type of first person shooter, with the qualities it offered in terms of physics, level layout, and community, produced for me some very fun times. I have long since fallen away from gaming entirely, but frequently look back to that era with great fondness. My question to the community is, are there any current games that recapture the spirit of the original Quake? Note: This is strictly for PC gaming as I do not own a console.
You'll never have that kind of fun again playing computer games, because you're not 19 anymore.
I know because I went ahead and played the games I played when I was young, and it's just not as fun anymore. Games haven't changed, I have.
NONE of those "retro inspired" games made today have any of the atmosphere of the games made in the golden age (up until the late 1990s). It's just a sad fact, but also quite natural if you think about it. If you truly like those old games, play them instead of new games that poorly try to imitate the old ones, but never succeed. No matter how many games you played back in the day, you will have many lifetimes worth of unplayed classics left to experience.
quake is still alive and well, especially quakeworld. you can get started at www.nquake.com which includes ezquake (though there are many clients to choose from now). quake champions is a newer alternative, but certainly doesn't have the same feel or gameplay. everyone is still hanging out on irc and discord (discord.quake.world)
Chess
then no.
Try EVE Online.
Quake old school? Sorry, but if you did not load the game from a cassette tape or better yet have to type it in yourself, you do not know what 'old school' really means.
There are a ton of FPS shooters out there. Pick one.
I'm in the same boat, played it all in the 90s and hadn't played anything since Half Life, until Portal 1 a couple years back. It was everything I wanted in a game, I played it for about two weeks an hour or so after work, between plays I couldn't wait going back to it. That's not terribly modern but there you go. Someday I will play Portal 2 too.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA6OOdV4Ve4
Serious Sam, Painkiller, Bulletstorm, Team Fortress 2 maybe... It sounds like you want a '90s style balls-to-the-wall shooter, no?
I am now 40 and bad news. I can't play anymore. My reflexes have remarkingly slowed down terribly. I am done before I see what is up. I get confused and pause on maps too for a good 1/6th of a second too. I am not really out of it like I am 80, but that one 1/6th of a second pause where I wonder where I am on the map and look around is enough for someone to run a rail in the back of my head.
I am not 23 anymore so I gave up on FPS. You can try but the young kids today will 0wn you as they have 200% faster reflexes
If you want to do something fun us old farts do MMOs like SWTOR (star wars the old republic) and or Elder scrolls online based on based on Skyrim. Man this is depressing
http://saveie6.com/
Team Fortress 2 is probably right up your alley.
Overwatch is a close second.
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Caveat: I'm an Overwatch fanboy so take this with a grain of salt, but it might work for you. There's a character for everyone and they interact well for the most part. If you liked rockets in Quake you might like Pharah, or if you want a dude with an assault rifle who recovers health on his own then Soldier 76 may suit you. Really good mix of team play, individual skill, and tactical considerations. Easy to get into.
Right now there's not really anything on the market for a 'middle of the road gaming PC'. Most people are either focusing on a high end gaming machine or they just go for consoles.
Most all the old ones can run under WINE, PlayOnLinux, and Crossover, or they have a modern, multi-platform game engine and hires textures. I'm getting my friend set up to play Quake using the Darkplaces engine for MS-Windows and with hi-res textures. As awesome as Quake seemed in 1996, it is even more awesome now. It is impressive that fans of these classic games have kept after them all these years. It seems that those games were just that good. Many are still available for purchase from vendors like GOG.com and Steam if you have misplaced your original CDs.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Both in beta and about as true to the originals as your going to find. I was a twitch gamer in the late nineties, though I'm no where near as quick as I once was I still enjoy getting my ass whipped on these ones from time to time. So far no rail gun in Quake though, which is a disappointment.
A Small list to consider.
1) Half-Life Series - probably the Source version of HL1 stuff is really nice and doesn't take much away from the experience.
2) Super Meat Boy - Hard Core Platforming
3) Binding of Isaac - Procedure-Generated Dungeon Crawler
4) Rocket League / Overwatch - Both good. DLCs totally just for show.
5) Torchlight II - a kinship with the Diablo I and II style.
6) Eldar Scrolls Skyrim / Fallout 4 - both have a lot of good content DLC and Mods giving you a great bang for your buck. These are 100+ hours games to complete normally add in mods and DLC and you'll be playing it off and on for years.
This is just going with a more broad slice for those who haven't played in a while and might want to pick something up to give it a go. Particular to FPS Arena style (verses Tactical Style) you have Overwatch and TF2 for Team based Arenas; OpenArena is very much like Q3 as it's build on a heavily modified version of it originally getting closer to something akin to UT2003. Unreal Series 2004 and 4 are both great games both slightly different but in that vein of Arena shooter but with the added rides you can use. Halo games the last time I checked (Halo 3) had pretty good multiplayer and tends to be on PC as well. If you want to Try something fast pace but Tactical you have things like the various Wave Enemy FPS games like Call of Duty Zombies. F.E.A.R was pretty fun when I used to play it but it's very dated now a days.
Mass effect, elder scrolls (morrowwind and skyrim mostly)
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
- If you want first person, Overwatch is a good choice
- If you played the original XCom back in the day the new ones are updated but faithful to the originals
- MOBAs can be fun too, Heroes of the Storm or League of Legends
I am not 22 anymore so my twitch gaming skills are as sharp, nor do I have the desire to put that kind of time into my gaming I once did. So games like CoD have little to no appeal. Overwatch is a lot more relaxed though with cartoon like weapons and while there are classes that require more skills and practice a lot of them are just darn fun to smash around with.
Here are some I've played and enjoyed from the past few years:
Mount & Blade: Warband
Crusader Kings 2
Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2 (has gone downhill somwhat recently, but still the best class-based FPS), other Orange Box games
FTL: Faster Than Light
Terraria
Factorio
Glittermitten Grove
Hotline Miami
Infinifactory
Portal 2
Postal 2
Prison Architect
The Serious Sam HD series
Subnautica
Overwatch - It's a relatively casual fun shooter, playable on a nongaming pc, and there's a balancing system so you are playing in games with people of roughly your skill level.
FTL - A cheap and fun Steam game, relateable to old-school sci-fi fans, a full game can be played through in 2-3 hours (or 20 minutes if you're a speedrunner). I have gotten over 100 hours of entertainment out of it, from my initial investment of $10 during a sale.
Eve Online --- you can try it for free
Fly a spaceship and choose what you do
gain isk (in game money) and be a pirate, space trucker, industrial giant, hard rock miner, moon & planet farmer, bounty hunter, space warrior
lots of fun, play, make friends...
it is NOT a test of reaction time, it's a test of planning, wisdom, tactics & strategy
I've had MORE fun playing games as a 46 year old with VR games than any other time. I bought a PSVR for my son's PS4 and I use it more than him. Farpoint with the AIM controller is awesome. Also check out the HTC Vive and Rift!
My big brother had a Zenith(?) TV set that had a button you could push to switch it to a game of Pong. The most basic, boring game ever. We were absolutely FASCINATED by it.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
actually the game is heavier than a vm running windows 10
nvm
old quake/ut99-veteran here and i'm having a blast lately playing paladins. :)
Ahh crap, I miss tread the question... NM.
You're obviously into FPS games. I don't play those like I used to, they mass produce them these days and though there's some good ones out there they've failed to lure me in as of late. Closest thing to an FPS that really lured me in recent years wise is Portal.
What has captured the spirit of a little later FPS's now considered classic, such as Unreal Tournament but isn't even an FPS is Awesomenauts. It's got the team play and cooperation mid-era FPS's and I love it.
I like platformers, my first system was an Atari 2600, but of course I adopted Mario as soon as I could. Giana Sisters games fit into that category well. I'm also playing A Boy and His Blob, a modern take on an NES game I had back in the day. The new one is sort of a kids game, but I'm really loving it. Super Meat Boy is an action platformer with very good yet unforgiving controls.
Something that scoops up the old space shooter genera then amplifies is into something awesome beyond all expectation is Beat Hazard. I have no idea how many hours I've spent on that between the Android and Linux versions.
If you liked Adventure games and Final Fantasy turn based strategies it's hard to beat South Park the Stick of Truth. Just don't play it when your kids are around.
The Torchlight games are a shoe-in for anyone who liked Diablo - actually made by the same creators.
They keep remaking and reimagining games of our era - you can usually find something to revisit.
If you really want something with old school herky-jerky make you sick to your stomach if you spend too much time on it games you can always try Goat Simulator. I have to limit my time on that one.
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If you're only looking for run-and-gun arena battles (deathmatch, capture-the-flag, domination, etc) just get Overwatch or some other equally recent and popular FPS that has a large player population.
If you want, or at least don't mind, a good single player/Co-op FPS (also has a few pvp arenas and the option to duel), I'd recommend the Borderlands series. Borderlands actually has a story, a lot of humor, and is a pretty good shooter series overall. There should still be enough active players to team up with as well.
As a person who also grew up in the same time, built my own PC's back then (I miss my AMD K6-2 and Athlon) and continues to causally game today (and continues to build my own pc's) the issue with gamming today is virtually all the games worth causally playing are designed to run on laptop hardware. League of legends, TF2, Overwatch, SC2, These are all games you can sit down at not have to worry about remembering were you were in the story since you last touched it a month ago and play for 30 min to an hr. (you really have more than 2 solid hrs to dedicate to gameing as a 40yo?)
Buy a $300 bare bones kit, stick a $300 video card in it and you'll have a gameing PC that will do 95% of what you want. (you'll spend another $1500 chasing that last 5%)
I am an old school gamer. The last time I got back into gaming after years of absence, someone mentioned farcry 2. I had wanted something like q2, MechWarrior, rb6, tribes, America's army, tf. When you get on servers with other games, old school or solid, it's the quality of gameplay not the game that makes the most difference. Anyway, if I got back into gameplay, other than flight Sims, I'd get that new farcry version set in the Midwest Montana.
Its free, has old school 3D graphics and is shitloads of fun for a 40+ year old, because the game offers so much freedom and doesn't depend on fast reflexes like Battlefield and COD for example do. Take a look here: https://soldnersecretwars.de/m...
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
This suggestion won't immediately address your nostalgia issue. But if you want to putter around a little more with games, and don't want to buy a console and stay exclusively PC, install the Steam app/client (its free).
Steam, from a business perspective, is a game management interface/platform. It makes money by acting like a software games store (its a middleman). But besides the client program being free, it can help you access/install free games (and you can google/reddit for lists of free games available through Steam). Every so often, an (oldish) "commercial" title is released for free. Even though I infrequently buy games software, I'm still building up a library of free (dated) games.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Modern FPS based on DP engine and tons of fun servers with modified game plays. http://www.xonotic.org/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I spent a good year on that game. Best FPS of it's day.
Like you, I was playing on the PC well before Wolf3d, Doom, Quake, etc came out. Most current modern games (like the current iterations of Doom, Overwatch, etc.) are too flashy and have too many different colors, landscape and building details, and distractions for me to be able to focus well on the hunt. I'd recommend TF2.Half-Life, HL2 (and episode 1 & 2) are good as well. Also Portal and Portal 2.All of them use older, more simple engines that won't support all of the flashy effects, and as a byproduct make it easier for me to understand what's going on around me. Plus, they work well and don't need cutting-edge PCs as well. Now get off my lawn!
The most recent iteration of Doom IMO captured all the things that made the original great. Arcade style fast paced action. Basic map navigation (find keys, unlock doors). Interesting bosses, it can be quite challenging, and best of all none of that hyper realistic stuff that seems to bog down modern games like weapon reloading, only being able to carry 1 big gun etc.
I highly recommend it.
I don't know if you're going to find anything these days that matches that experience. I think a number of suggestions by other posters are good. Half-Life (1 specifically) was a very good game, on a versatile engine that became used for multiple community efforts. The Half-Life mod Counter-Strike was very popular, and the derivative Counter-Strike : Global Offensive is currently popular. Team-Fortress 2 is another game with roots in a Half-Life mod. Portal and Portal 2 are must play first person...err... puzzlers, with gobs of community content. While nothing is particularly nostalgic about Portal, it is somewhat of a gamer staple. As an afterthought, Borderlands might be worth looking into as well. Lots of humor and generally just a good FPS experience overall.
Going through the comments so far, I took a look at Quake Champions. Just what I have been wanting. Now we will see how my own personal age factor affects the enjoy ability.
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If you want old time FPS fun without worrying about such details as what's plausible, try out Redneck Rampage, the expansion pack Redneck Rampage: Suckin' Grits on Route 66 and the sequel Redneck Rampage Rides Again! Lots of surrealistic violence at several different difficulty levels. Yes, the clipping's a tad careless so that if you kill somebody behind a barrier their arm might stick through, but for me, at least, that just adds to the charm. Written for DOS, it plays under Windows, or in DOSBox, and if you're running Linux, it works just fine under Wine.
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The kids are in to Overwatch for FPS these days, but if you've been out of PC gaming for a while you might want to check out Bioshock. Single player only, but even my wife was hooked after playing for 5 minutes.
(insert witty/esoteric/dumb quote here)
I'm in a similar situation. I'm 40, played heaps of games when younger but life has taken priority lately.
The last game I really, thoroughly, completely enjoyed was Horizon Zero Dawn. It's a PS4 exclusive, but if you have the funds, it's such an outstanding game. Really good storyline, amazing graphics, incredible world design and a likable protagonist. It's single-player, so you can take the game at your own pace and do as many or as few of the side quests on your way to completion.
If you want a good, fun first-person-shooter, keep a look out for Destiny 2 that's launching on PC soon. While it's multiplayer, there will be a single-player storyline as well. I'm often too anti-social to play multiplayer online games, but really enjoyed getting together with a few friends in Destiny.
For a FPS that doesn't has any storyline, but has some really fun balance between the characters and team combos, Overwatch is quick to pick up, fun to get into and has a surprising amount of depth in the gameplay.
Oh, and if you enjoyed Quake (and I'm assuming Doom and Wolfenstein before it) then there was a new version of Doom released last year. I played the demo but just didn't get into it.
Doom (2016) and Quake Champions are pretty close to their ancestors. Quake Champions even features a map which closely resembles the one in Quake 3.
Quake Champions is essentially the latest evolution of Quake 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_KGYyl5LwE
World championship at Quakecon this weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXrgM6QC9yk
FPS
Dragon Age (any) and Mass Effect 1-3 (skip Andromeda, buggy mess). Pilliars of Eternity, Tyranny and Divinity Original Sin. Torchlight I&II, The Adventures of Van Helsing. Street Fighter 4 (not 5), Injustice & Mortal Kombat 9/10. Ys, Xanadu Next or pretty much anything from Nihon Falcom. Sonic & Sega Racing Transformed (great game, lousy title). Cave Story, Momodora I-IV, Freedom Planet, Shadow Complex, Rayman Origins. Fire Pro Wrestling.
I'm mostly a "PC Console Gamer" to be fair. My bro's a strategy gamer and there's something of a renaissance going on if you've got the cash (the games are usually about $60-$100 if you buy the expansions, and you will buy the expansions). But I can't speak to those.
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Bioshock for sure. Deus Ex, masterful. Get the original, skip Invisible War, and continue with Human Revolution. Borderlands was a lot of fun. Half life, not nearly as inventive as I wished. Same with Crysis, and Halo. I tried Fallout 3 but couldn't get into it. No ammo anywhere and a vast world with few clues what to do. I hear Fallout New Vegas is a different story altogether so that's what I'm trying next. I did play Duke Nukem Forever all the way through, just because.
Yes, Half Life 2 is well worth it, because then you can enjoy the Concerned parody comic that much more. At least watch one of the playthroughs on YouTube if you can't be bothered to work the puzzles yourself.
Haven't played HL1 yet, still waiting for that fan-based remastered remake... is it ready yet?
I've never played it myself, but it's getting a lot of love on some video game podcasts I listen to. Some of the guys on Giant Bomb are old farts like you & I too.
I just confirmed, it can be played first or third person.
https://starcraft.com/en-us/
I tend to rant.
Play Overwatch, it's one of the most popular games out there right now for a reason. If you come from a Quake background, try Pharah, she's an Egyptian jetpacking rocketlaunching warrior.
If you're older and coming back in, you might have a mixed bag with the community. I usually play with a group of 30-somethings (including my wife) and have a great time, but if you play with randoms you might get some young kid on summer vacation with a mic and an attitude, just mute those folks.
Doom (2016) is a very much a modern interpretation of old school shooters like Quake - way more than other modern FPSs like CoD, BF, Halo, etc. It captured the over the top speed, action, fun factor, etc. perfectly and the changes they introduced fit perfectly. The new Wolfenstein is also quite good, but I enjoyed the new Doom more.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Similar to quake and qw: doom 4, team Fortress 2, Overwatch.
For some more real weapons game: BF4, BF 1, CSGO
If you are too old or to slow for those competitive games then go for some story FPS games like: Fallout 4, Skyrim, MGS4, Farcry 4
Away from FPS games, Starcraft 2 is a blast, LOL or its clones are cool, Kerbal Space Program is cool for nerds.
Very happy customer. Got Neverwinter Nights 1/2, Deus Ex 1/2, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 1/2 and they all run great. Probably ran me $50 for all that. I remember seeing plenty of FPS as well.
Ignore the guys who say it's you and you've grown out of it. The old games are as good as they ever were: DRM-free and no Internet connection required.
The spirit of the original Quake?
Devil Daggers.
Bridge Builder forever
The average age of a gamer in 2016 was 35. http://essentialfacts.theesa.c... . I realize that what constitutes a gamer can differ widely based on who you ask but what this assuredly says in that adults play lots of games.
In other words getting older does not equal too old for video games. Sure, your personal tastes have changed over time, mine have too. I have no use for pro sports anymore and I used to love that stuff when I was a kid. Some one starts rattling off team and player names at me now and my eyes just glaze over. (My favorite is when some one asks me if I caught "the game" last night. What the hell are you even talking about?) Do I think pro sports are childish and for kids? Of course not, tons of adults enjoy them. Pro sports just arent to my taste.
I still enjoy video games however and am well into being a responsible adult (although I have less time for them nowadays :( ). Don't confuse your own experience with everyone's reality.
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There are still servers out there, with active players. Old Farts Clan still runs one.
There are really good modern old-school games made by indie developers/studios. The Humble Bundle is a good way to start. Here is a somewhat outdated list of bundles. Many of those games can be bought on Steam too.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
I'd recommend Crusader Kings 2. It's not exactly turn based but its pretty close, and if you like the old strategy games you may like this.
Try Vendetta Online for a fun space FPS or if (like me) your reflexes aren't up to that, World of Tanks or World of Warships.
Growlor
Doom
Wolfenstein New Order
Bioshock Infinite
Borderlands 2
- Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) new and growing, huge upswell of support
- Team Fortress 2 (10 years old at this point but still popular. For the community aspect, look at community run mods and servers)
Nothing is gonna quite equal the glory days of Quake but there are options out there if you're looking for the community aspect.
Portal 1
Portal 2
Wolfenstein: New Order
GTA V
Witcher 3 specifically. Skyrim - make sure to check out mods - they are what brings me back every other year, Also: Kerbal Space Program - leaned more about orbital mechanics then I care to admit. Elite Dangerous (space sim for VR) - [or EVE - if you like spreadsheets].
if you're looking for an fps still, and are ok with multiplayer only, i highly recommend rainbow six siege. it's available for pc and gets regular updates (generally two new characters + new map every quarter -- both of which are free). characters are regularly tweaked to keep things balanced too. the destructible environments are very cool and could not possibly be further from a gimmick (i've played games with destructible environments before, but i've never seen one that gets it as right as this game does). it definitely supports a variety of play styles (as much as you can get in an fps at least). while games like quake, cod, overwatch, etc are all very heavily based on reflexes, in rainbow six siege, good strategy, teamwork, and/or clever use/combination of gadgets and the environment can often give you a significant advantage over someone with good reflexes alone. in fact, i'd go so far as to say that if you're generally relying on your reflexes alone in the game, you're probably doing something wrong. it's also unique from the other shooters in that characters aren't bullet sponges. headshot = instant death regardless of gun or distance. primary guns can kill in as little as 1-3 bullets. pistols really aren't that weak either; their downside is just that you only have iron sights for them, so aiming can be awkward. guns and other weapons have a good feel to them as well (recoil, etc).
as mentioned in the title, in case you missed it, it's free this weekend (https://rainbow6.ubisoft.com/siege/en-us/free-weekend/index.aspx)
ps. on defense, think twice before you reinforce things :) sometimes you actually want to open up the room (often on secure area you want to open something, and on bomb you want to open up the walls between the two bomb sites if you can because you'll need quick, easy access to both)
Black Mesa (the remake of HL1) is not complete yet, but what they have completed so far is very good and goes through most of the original HL1.
I too was a hardcore Doom, Quake and Quake Wars player, because well, they showcased the hardware I continued to upgrade. There was of course Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 because who didn't frag back then. Before that though, the games that excited me were Bard's Tale 1 and 3 and the wonder I felt in the simulated world of the Bard's Tale was the same kind of experience I took away from the first 200 hours I put into The Witcher 3 (which by the way was my first contact with the Witcher series).
So... TW3 Wild Hunt is the recommendation for an old school gamer like me, though it's not an FPS, which I'll note you didn't specify it needed to be FPS.
Good luck finding that elusive experience.
Red Faction was the most amazing game of that era. It still, to this day, has a huge community and I've seen new maps being made for it. Red Faction was the first game to let you alter your world. Pull out a rocket launcher and play through the wall, floor, ceiling, etc. As you change the environment, it's changed for the rest of the game. The gun selection was fantastic and the LAN play to this day is top notch. Graphics are good on a moderate video card or usable on even a laptop.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Welcome back you were expected. I have a 4 second video nobody liked 400K times, the demographics are incredible with that traffic. There are three spikes in ages 36, 55, and 61 when people come back to games.
As I've got older my lust for head to head competition in video games - and effort to become competitive - has diminished greatly.
I'm finding I enjoy single player games more now that have some real depth to yhier story or solid strategy. Witcher 3 and Stellaris are recent gems. Fallout 4 was fun exploration even if story was weak.
Here's a thread I started a couple of years ago for games that people remember beating:
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11328&hilit=beat
Serious Sam games are the best PC shooters for high speed FPS action, although perhaps more in the style of Doom II than Quake--Lots of big fights with lots of dudes against you.
Just wanted to second the recommendation for The Talos Principle. It will make you think about more than just solving its puzzles, and some of that may be what you need for the experience to be memorable as an adult. Portal and Portal 2 are also excellent.
cross platform and free. cant beat that with a stick.
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I refuse to sign
Seriously, used to rock a 45 ms ping in Quake back when most players were still on dialup. Boring compared to flying a FPV racing quad via goggles. Check out multicopter on reddit, you'll only use your computer for sim time and 3D printing upgrades.
Starseige Tribes is still going. Mech warrior online is a new take on an old classic. Counterstrike (various incarnations). Team Fortress 2 (or just TF2 to those who play it, it's probably the closest to Quake World).
The pinnacle of Quake 1 was Mega Team Fortress afaic. Just started playing Ballistic Overkill and I'm having a blast with it. Any game that doesn't need me to fire up wine, VirtualBox, or PlayOnLinux is even better in my book.
Naw, I disagree. The shooters tend to be marketed to high end rings only, but there are a lot of games I like that work on my system great. The gamergodz will diasgree but I am not playing in their silly world. Fallout 4 does not need a high end rig, neither does Skyrim, the new Thief reboot, Tomb Raider reboot, all worked great for me. I was not getting 100fps but 30 is good enough to enjoy games if you're not constantly twitching.
At a certain point your average PC with 8GB and a $100 graphics card became good enough. You no longer needed to upgrade to top end hardware just to play the latest fad. And the game makers like this because the market is so much larger if it's not restricted to only the elites. Don't get the largest resolution monitor you can because that will hurt the performance, and I think this is the primary reason why top end games keep wanting the bigger and badder gfx cards because they want that 4K video.
And don't play the latest games, they're all crap anyway. Play a 3 to 5 year old game instead, the prices will have dropped.
Daikatana! Spend hours being killed by strangely aggessive mosquitos. You can't leave without your buddy, Superfly!
Wing Commander.
Xwing VS TIE Fighter.
Quake is not an old-school game. Most first person shooters are just prettier versions of the same thing.
How about Sopwith Camel and Ancient Art of War? The later was the original tower defense game, only there was only one tower.
Our hobby has grown alot, and in many different directions, and so have you, and so has anyone who will answer you. Lately, gaming has also done something a great deal less common: it has united many different traditions into one modernity. I could show you something that I feel is a revival of the old ways. But my old ways aren't your old ways; four different kinds of console gamer still exist even though only three kinds of console still exist, and the PC is exponentially more riddled with tiny little zeitgeists that got amalgamated into what we have now. At this point if you're playing modern games, even the console/PC distinction only matters when somebody asks you what "retro" looks like.
My point is this: I could say that a game feels like Quake to me. But I probably didn't get out of it what you did. I only experienced Doom and Quake as shareware until long after they were already retro. I never got the slightest taste of what real multiplayer gaming is like until they put it on the N64, where you could have a whole four people and a ridiculous number of bots. And what if I did get the same thing out of it? Do you have any idea how many of my favorites from 20 years ago I've gone back to and couldn't stand? There was just so much the medium hadn't done yet, you know? I always wait tearful years for remakes of these things to see if the dev team can pull off that strange and rare magic of taking what I loved from the old days and genuinely improving it with what we've learned since then. Almost nobody does it right, because they think the important part is something I don't think is important, or maybe all they modernized is the graphics and the gameplay is still too old-school to be fun, or maybe they're trying to wedge in a stupid new business model, or maybe the idea just doesn't actually work and I come to discover I liked it because I was a stupid kid.
Home is a time, not a place. You can't play Quake again. I mean... you can. There are source ports of it. Loads of people play it all over the place. For all I know, even the community feels exactly like it used to. Won't you just rediscover why you left the first time? Maybe the reason you left is genuinely that you were too busy, and it'll work just as well as it ever did. So, it can't hurt to try. It probably won't work, though.
If it doesn't work... get Doom. The one made in 2016. It's called Doom. Yes, I know, that's confusing. I'm sorry. It's basically perfect at giving you the old feeling without being the old thing, to the point that it makes all my hemming and hawing look like bullshit. I don't know how they did it, nobody else has ever done it that well. Maybe they actually made a pact with the Devil?
Sorry if that was too long, I'm high on cough syrup.
In a lot of cases you just need to have a bit of a filter for things. Some of the more recent additions I'd personally recommend (by genre)....
Strategy:
XCOM 1 or 2; Best played with mods. (Lower end machines may struggle)
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance; In particular check out Forged Alliance forever, as It has a pretty decent community. (Lower end machines may struggle)
Stellaris - Build a space empire. Great modding support.
Rimworld - Indie game that's a lot like dwarf fortress(Which I also reccomend) , but set in a sci-fi age. Good mod support.
Offworld Trading Company
Sins of a solar empire
Factorio
Shooters and whatnot:
Overwatch - Quick, and casual. Works pretty alright on most machines.
MechWarrior Online - Anyone familiar with battletech may enjoy this, as they've made significant effort to keep things consistent with lore.
ARMA 3
PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds (Referred to as PubG quite frequently)
Racing games:
Trackmania - In general a great franchise, it does dip away from the traditional idea of a racing game though.
MMO's
In general, this category has lots of things going on, and may not be what you're looking for, unless you are looking for something to sink a lot of time into.
Planetside 2 - Decent, Relevent, and looks nice too. Its an MMO, so it takes some work to do some things. Its also best played with a group.
Elder Scrolls Online
EVE - Can be difficult to get into. (Can be made to run in wine)
Wurm -
Action/RPG's
Mass Effect(1-3) - I'm probably going to catch flack for this, but the whole franchise is pretty solid, best played in order to experience the full story.
Dragonage - Most of it is pretty good. Has highs and lows. Strong parallels with Lord of the Rings.
The Witcher (Whole franchise) - Personally, one of my favorites, Witcher 3 in Particular. One of the major ideas behind this game is the concepts of morality and lesser evils. Descisions made in this series feel impactful, and your descisions have effects driving into even the later games.
The Elderscrolls/Fallout Games - I know its bad to lump these together (As they do extend quite far back). In particular check out Fallout: New Vegas, and Skyrim(One of the best modding communities out there).
Subnautica - A very interesting game about crashlanding on a foreign ocean world, its mostly about surviving and exploration.
Minecraft - Worldbuilding sandbox, with a bit of survival thrown in. Mod support is excellent. Also... It runs on most operating systems.
Dont Starve
Portal 1 and Portal 2
Dark Souls (The Series) - Gritty, difficult and unforgiving. Great fun though, as its all the more rewarding for it.
Divinity (series)
Warframe
MOBA's
DOTA 2
League of Legends
A final note on actually grabbing games. In general nearly everything on this list is available on steam. Some of it is available in other places such as GOG or their own relevent sites. Some of these ARE free to play, but most are buy to play.
I haven't played it myself but it seems like a reboot of Quake 3 Arena. Video's reminded me of Q2 and three.
Starcraft Brood Wars, free download, play LAN or online. If you type /apm, you'll find your actions per minute are quite low.
Try trine 1 and 2
The closest modern experience you'll get to the wonder of playing a PC game for the first time, is Virtual Reality. It's intuitive, you don't have to have incredible reaction or coordination, and it's really awe-inspiring when you immerse yourself int the game enough that you forget you're wearing a headset.
I've been playing generals lately and been having a blast. Matches are short. Twitch reflexes are not required. Mechanics are easy to master.
http://generals.io/
Overwatch, Overwatch, Overwatch, Overwatch, and Overwatch.
I haven't played for 5 years, but I'm aware there are ton of games you can play that you'll be happy with.
I also started playing on 386, 486 PCs back in the 90s, doom being the first game that's more complex than text adventure and the likes.
Cinematic game examples:
Fahrenheit (2005), cinematic video game - awesome entertainment.
Walking Dead (2012), cinematic video game - brilliant
FPS examples:
Call of Duty 1, 2 single player missions; great
bunch of others that I can't remember, not being a FPS fan
RPG: ... too many to name...
Fallout 3,4
Dragon Age
Asassins Creed
Skyrim
Simulation/strategy:
Cities Skyline (it beats the crap out of anything simcity series had to offer, combined)
Tropico 4/5
Dozen of other ones. I unfortunately don't have time right not to play, but when I do ... I'll have 5 years of catching up to do...
P.S.
Gta 5.
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) could speak to your Quake heritage, but with a twist towards the Hunger Games.
It's almost as fun as Windows 3.1 Solitaire was.
(Yes, I know, don't ruin it)
Just get any preconfectioned gaming PC that fits your needs, preferably one that is quiet, small and relatively cheap. MSI and Acer have neat gaming PCs.
With a ready made system you won't have the hassle of fiddling with current hardware and most hardware today is perfectly sufficient for playing current games at 1080P with regular settings.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
https://github.com/BusFactor1I...
It's a Korn Shell script.
Check the readme above for a bit more of an explanation. It's fun. And really challenging, even though there's only 3 words and 3 bits to work with on the virtual machine, a 'Seed'. You combine the words together and see if the calculation computes correctly based on your assumption on a non-deterministic machine. It starts out easy, but it get's difficult quickly. Here's the start. Check the github for the rest: #!/bin/ksh DEBUG=t # expect - test your expectations # # BusFactor1 Inc. # 2017 # License: AGPL set +k tee () { echo -n "$1 " /usr/bin/tee $2
}
function tri {
# execute the next word if x is 1
x=$(
Listen to my music.
Great strategy game, lots of complexity and completely appropiate for an older gamer. Forget 5 and 6, tough... dumbified to shit.
Forget the triple A corporate shit.
Darkest Dungeon. If you like a turn based procedurally generated Lovecraft-esque very hard challenge.
But if you're looking old school, you only need a single game, possibly the best of the last 10 years: The Binding of Isaac. In fact you can play only that for years and still feels fresh and still discover new things.
Recently, I've been enjoying Toxikk; their tagline is "frag like it's 1999". My one complaint about its single player / campaign mode is that it seems like the difficulties can use some tweaking - enemies either thoroughly ignore your existence, or the next difficulty up, they'll become champion marksmen who never miss...but it's still fun, there is a free version, the only DLC is the paid version, and it supports LAN play if you roll that way.
Also supporting LAN play, and also costing $0, is Unreal Tournament. Epic Games has moved to a content store model as well as using it as a springboard for engine and dev tools licensing, so the game itself is free. It supports LAN play, the bots are pretty well balanced, and although the map selection is a bit sparse at the moment, they've been consistently adding them as the game has progressed. I've found it to be a bit faster paced than UT2004 or UT3, but about on par with Q3A. Both this and Toxikk greatly benefit from a half decent GPU. While you don't need quad TitanX cards to get a good framerate, I wouldn't recommend either on Intel GPUs.
From the FOSS department, Alien Swarm is half decent. It lacks the polish of the first two games, and there are relatively few players if you enjoy playing online against randos, but as far as open source games go, and at a cost of $0, I've been pretty happy with it.
If you're looking for something less twitchy-shooty, the first two Trine games are highly recommended. From indie studio Frozenbyte, these two games are gorgeously animated, have simple-yet-challenging game mechanics, aren't ridiculously long, and are generally enjoyable. While they lack solid replay value due to the puzzles lacking wide varieties of solutions, there's usually at least two and they regularly go on sale on Steam.
I'll echo other recommendations for Mass Effect as well; though it has its problem spots the characters are wonderful and the trilogy is thoroughly enjoyable and well worth the invested time. Every so often I'll pull up Civ 5; though I'm not very good at it, its complexity keeps my mind working. Batman: Arkham Asylum is also recommended, and if you haven't played Bioshock, it's well worth it. None of these games are 'new', and many haven't aged perfectly in terms of graphics or game mechanics, but the fact that they are still being recommended 5-10 years later shows that there are more than a few redeeming qualities for them.
When 'real life' doesn't keep me busy, there's no shortage of video games with which a fellow "late 90's / early 00's" fan can find enjoyment.
I'm 68 years old. I play computer games a lot. Started on minicomputers with adventure and star trek on text-based consoles in the 1970s. Never much of a twitch player, although I've made it on the leaderboard of snake.io a number of times. When graphics became a thing, enjoyed Myst then Riven, The longest Journey, etc. I find single player sandbox/story/quest/puzzle immersive games more enjoyable than the various MMO. Plus living on Social Security I have to be selective about pay to play., etc. MInecraft held my interest for several years, and I still fire it up now and then. Recently it has been Quern the Undying, Obduction, No Mans Sky (mixed feelings, btw) and recently Empyrion - an alpha release on Steam which is a lot of fun. Just keep playing!
Not an FPS, literally rocket science. Get it on Steam, runs on Linux. Love it.
Quake had many aspects, one of the appeals it had was being mod-friendly. Neverwinter Nights is a game you likely missed (2003 release that runs like mad on any modern hardware) and is highly mod-friendly. Hundreds of community made servers exist, all based on D&D rules (3e). All are welcome to join our server or use this information too help you find other servers - http://argentumregio.wikia.com...
NWN is available from gog.com (you need to go there and see some cool titles really).
Cretnious comment gets big score from usual slashdot dribblers...
Let me PROVE otherwise. One of the first massive movie box-office hits was a primitive black-n-white silent movie of dubious narrative and production values. The audience lapped it up, and enough money was made to launch an industry. 20 yeras later, and no-one wanted to see the film again- things had just moved on too far.
This has NOTHING to do with being '19' as the original dribbler claimed. It has to do with the concept of RELATIVE experiences. We lauded each stage of computer game development, from vector space war, to pong- thru space invaders, all the way to the Witcher 3 because at each stage what we had was amazing by the standards of the time. We weren't naive young fools.
Today, REAL FPS gamers (not the 'look at me' types) can still play Quake (which just had its biggest and most advanced level yet released a few days back) and enjoy it- but they are also aware of its shortcoming today. It runs like smoke at insane refresh rates, but the shooting mechanisms are now rather primitive. And the SCG 'blocky' environments, while unique, are at the same time rather limiting.
Dribblers like to 'hipster up' themselves by reminding us what they once used, but then gave up. Anyone give the time of the day to such bores are even more of a bore themselves.
Computer games have never been better or more diverse than today. The FREE engines that Unity, Unreal, Crytek provide allow even small poor teams to do amazing work (witness the hit of the year- Battlegrounds). While hipster half-wits say "it was better in my day", actual gamers are too busy gaming.
PS to answer the original question, let me first say "try not to frame it like a lame hipster". Games have evolved, but the fun using the games that work for you is just the same. Playerunknown Battlegrounds should be the 'go to' for the pure player vs player shooting experience. But if you need to be a graphics 'whore' shooter, then it should be battlefield or COD games. But the true gamer is open minded, and thus will try any game genre that is currently excelling. Every gamer should at leat give the open world masterpieces a try- like Skyrim and Witcher 3- because if you end up getting these games you will be truly blown away.
Shooters have the problem of a limited framework- better graphics tends to be less releveant. You missed Battlefield 2 and Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory- two astonishing examples of the team based shooters. Today isn't a golden age for shooters.
Only hipster dribblers and half-wits use mobile phones for anything BUT phone functions.
Most early PC games were utter jokes thrown together in a few months by a couple of kids. Doom and the 'build' engine (duke nukem 3d etc) raised the industry by creating reusable engine frameworks that could both take new data sets AND be incrementally improved. id ended up doing this while 3D Realms cynically cash grabbed, choosing to screw over the kid that created the 'build' engine.
For TRUE open world gamers, seeing titles like Fallout 4 and Witcher 3, and knowing how they evolved from free mods for the Quake engine is the most mind-blowing and exciting thing.
Quake came from the floating point division power of Intel's first Pentium CPU, allowing the perspective mapping algorithm to be approximated in software- but just over a year later 3DFX provided the first consumer graphic card that could do TRUE 3d perspective mapping in hardware.
I'd challenge anyone reading this to go look up the specs of today's Voodoo equivalent (3dFX card)- the 580 or 1060- and see how far the industry has come. I recall installing the first mod to add 'rain' to a quake level. And i never forget that as a watch rain slowly puddle on the ground in GTA V.
The origins of computer gaming were amazing, but as shallow as a puddle. We were lucky we didn't know better back then. Today computer games are truly amazing- not simply because they are novel. What would you say to a dribbler who tried to tell you the movie industry was over once people saw the old silent black-n-white short of a train approaching the screen- and that Star Wars is a waste of time in comparison? But that's what hipster dribble mea_culpa is saying about games.
'Old' folk like you (I'm older in years but otherwise younger than you where it matters) are so out-of-touch you fail to understand that the trend of online play is massive cheating using bot software that sees you and aims at you unfairly.
I didn't like online pvp shooters like quake 3 when much younger cos the real fanatics were so very very good. That wasn't down to 'reflexes' as lamers like to quote, but the fact that such games rewarded extreme practice- and I was simply too casual. But I played team shooters instead- horses for courses.
PS Battlegrounds has exploded because it a PSYCHOLOGICAL shooter. You choose your tactic and make it work for you. Reactions yes, but patience and strategy if you wish. Pure twitch shooters will always be owned by the 1%, and if you don't like that- avoid.
PS you can have fun playing twitch shooters if you ensure the other players are at the same level as yourself. I mean would you play casual 'soccer' if everyone else on the field was a pro? of course not.
Over the years there have been a handful of games that were of such quality (and often size of content) that subsequent games would compare unfavorably to them, and the genre would die out (at least for a time). Most of these games still hold up today, and are easily available from GOG.com without hassle.
RTS: Total Annihilation
Space-based shooter: Freespace 2
Robot-based combat: Mechwarrior 2
First person sneaker: Thief 2
4X Game: Master of Orion 2
Adventure game: Lucasarts Games (ie: Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango)
Strategy-RPG (at least on PC): Heroes of Might and Magic III
Tactical FPS: SWAT 4
First Person Survival horror: System Shock 2
theres people playing there, its easy to figure out which ones interest you as long as you know your own interests
for example, you seem to like arena shooters, well you should know exactly the characteristics of an arena shooter that you like. Just watch some gameplay and try to find something, if the current game of the moment is not something you like (the new quake champions is a turd) just figure out what were people playing a year ago (quake live) and you are set because people are going to be still there since the new one is a turd
it could not be easier
so go to steam, get quake live, and you are set
and if you want to get frustrated, go try the beta for quake champions, the game that its not overwatch (thank god) but it aint quake either
and if you want to get hypefrustrated, get the beta for unreal tournament and enjoy yet another netcode disaster
you could also try some non arena shooter, but those i warn you are PACKED FULL OF CHEATERS
Go on porn websites
I'm still playing Q3 on raspberry pi with the interns, and my skills haven't diminished any.
Playing on pc is even more unfair to controller users. :)
IMHO, The only current game worth playing is Doom; it's progression system is terrible, but there's a great single player, and Arcade mode is great.
All it really needs to succeed is for them to release a dedicated server, and real level making tools in the old style.
I want the old maps; TLTF and Morbias Station. :)
We still play Q2 and Unreal tournament on LAN, on PI and PC, lol.
Crysis 3 is pretty dead now, but it was fun as single player and multiplayer.
I still run a Duke Nukem Forever server some weekends; Red light district is still fun.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Ex-q3 pro here. I played q3 for about 12 years, compensating the rising loss of reflexes with strategy and knowledge for a time. Now i am 42 and i have moved on from Arena FPS. What really works for me now are Mech-Games. They are FPS, too, but the deliberate slowness and higher armour make the contest even more tactical and teambased, so that's my stable for old horses :)
If you stopped at Quake, then you probably missed out on Riven (stop there!). Modern games like Stanley Parable are fun but short lived. I've been playing Diablo 3 for close to 3 or 4 years now. Never gets old.
Want to really lose your nut? Hop into WoW for a few weeks. If you're an old-timey gamer and have yet to see WoW, it'll knock your socks off. Kids today take it for granted, but I'm a gamer since the early 80's (I recieved Zork I for christmas in 1982) and WoW was the game I dreamed about for decades.
I am in the same boat. Thank me later.
CS:GO is the current end all be all FPS like Quake was in its day.
Overwatch is good if you have friends to play with.
Quake Champions Beta just came out on steam.
Well. You mentioned Quake. I guess the first game to pop up would be DOOM (2016)
There's also Unreal Tournament, which has a new Free2Play version at the moment if you want multiplayer more.
However, I would recommend a few indie games.
Fez (2D-3D platformer that'll mindf*** your sense of space and direction)
Braid (Time-bending 2D platformer with quite cool story and aesthetics, essentially a puzzle game though)
Bastion, and Transistor (cool 2D actionRPG style games with good music and aesthetics)
Can I ask the exact same question as our poster -- I'm an old school person, long removed from early happy gaming years -- but with one extra criterion:: instant playability. Are there any modern games you can just sit down and play with and start to have fun with, without having to learn more than half an hour's worth of stuff? And without spending hours and hours learning and failing? And then leave a while, forget, return to, and not have to start over?
My iPhone has, in recent years, offered over-simple things, like Flight Control, Doodle Jump, Cut The Rope - but is there a middle ground, games you can pick up really quickly, that open out into larger, PC-scale worlds/games, with so few controls that you can learn quick, forget quick, and come back a month later and still have a clue/chance?
If you want to experience the old Doom games 'modernized', try playing them with the Doomsday Engine. Updated Lighting, 3D character modeling, sky, music, and sound. Hacx and Chexquest WADs too.. ( dengine.net )
I disagree with almost all the posts here. Graphics have improved, stories have gone both directions, but the overall fun and gameplay have been reduced in favor of a more "immersive" single player experience. The magic of the little bit older games was that factor of fun that kept going and going. It wasn't wonder. Games were focused more on the 15 minutes of fun stretched through an entire night with friends. That was also the era that really ran with multiplayer. Almost no games are multiplayer anymore. You may argue that all kinds of games are multiplayer now. They're not. Multiplayer games involve people on the same couch. Teams playing together, together. Not separate people playing in separate homes being a "team" because AI matchmaking said they are.
The OP is looking for something that doesn't exist anymore in games, because personal interaction isn't part of games anymore.
Those of you arguing with that are too young to know what you're talking about.
As an older-but-not-too-old gamer who can only hack SP FPS on slow mode, I've moved on to Don't Starve, a gothic horror/survival crafting roguelike. It's got the occasional thrill of FPS with a lot of down time spent on collection, planning, and exploring.
Seriously, it's a bit weird that folks are mentioning some non-FPS, but not Civ. No KoToR either?
I get my FPS kicks from CSS. Old school Italy kills in aps.
here something unique for all of you that will give you the lot of excited games. all the games are very interesting http://ninjagamesonlineplay.co...
I know it's not quite modern any more, but if you loved fragging people online with Quake, this is probably one of the best games you'll ever play.
If you're going to play a shooter play something more realistic.
Red orchestra 2/Rising storm
Rising storm 2
Verdun
Insurgency
Day of infamy
Also the people bitching about micro-transactions and DLC but then recommending Elite Dangerous. I really can't tell if you are stupid or just enjoy half a game. (To be fair what I did play of it was fun, needing to drop over one hundred bucks to unlock game functions made me return it.)
Stop. This is stupid. There are so many FPS shitfests out there, you can't load up Steam without an FPS smacking you on the penis. If you can't find something that fits your tastes, the problem is you. No need for stupid boring stories. "Hey, guys..once..I..I played video games. Are they still a thing?"
If you liked the original SNES Shadowrun [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(1993_video_game)] you can try the Shadowruns from Harebrained Studios - they are turn based RPGs in a cyberpunk setting.
The first one (Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man's Switch) is kinda "meh", after you have played the other two, but as a first game in the series it is OK.
The third one (Shadowrun Returns: Kong Kong) is good, although the story is a bit too slow-paced at times.
And, last but not least, the second instalment: Dragonfall. This is perfection. The story is great, the characters memorable, the setting awesome. Try to unravel a mystery related to a dead dragon, while navigating Berlin as the anarchistic Flux State... Man, that is some quality game. I can't recommend it enough! Here's a link: https://www.gog.com/game/shado...
I am in a similar age bracket, I started watching let's play and twitch streams as a method to check out a game I was interested in before buying it myself. That worked really well and let me get a feel for the gameplay that felt more honest than produced gameplay trailers. I used to be an FPS gamer but my skills started sucking and now I find I tend to enjoy watching twitch streams more than actually playing the games myself. The personality of the streamer makes the boring parts more entertaining...and the fun parts are entertaining by themselves. Playerunknown's Battle Grounds is a great example of this. In PUBG you drop into a map, scramble to loot weapons, then start trying to survive as the viable area of the map shrinks over time. The first few moments are action packed if multiple people start at the same place...but then there is a lull while everyone loots up that is perfect for a streamer to interact with chat and display some personality to liven up the boring bits...then when the area of the map gets small and every choice has more impact, the game becomes the interesting bit and holds your attention.
If you do end up playing the game yourself, streamers and videos of the gameplay are still a great discovery device and you might pick up some useful tips while deciding which game to snag. Good Luck.
I also played Quake quite a bit until I migrated to Unreal Tournament. As much as I hate the fact that UT is being redone with the same name as the original, it does seem to be recapturing a lot of the old feel with a modern game. It's still early alpha, but I've found it rather enjoyable so far. https://www.epicgames.com/unre...
Reminiscent of Flashback (Delphine Software)
Unfortunately, the vast majority of modern PC games are not a good fit for old school gamers. There were some very profound changes that took place in the 2000s that changed the nature of mainstream PC gaming. Back in the 80s and 90s, PC games were on average very sophisticated in terms of their gameplay. This was because not many people owned PCs, and even fewer played games on them. This audience was intelligent and demanded interesting and stimulating entertainment. Likewise, game developers of that time were small companies or individuals who genuinely loved the medium and worked in it to produce art.
In 2000s, both of those things changed. Everyone had PCs then, and the audience expanded to include all sorts of people, such as soccer moms, casual players, and so on. At the same time, games became cross-platform between PC and the consoles, so that the audience also included a lot of younger players. Whereas the old school PC audience might resemble a book club, the new one was essentially the general population.
Around the same time, games moved to 3D, partook in physics and voice-overs, and generally became significantly more expensive to make. This resulted in a shift from smaller enthusiast developers to large corporations running everything, such as EA, Activision, and Ubisoft.
The end result of both of these changes is that when you have corporations which are not interested in games per se at all, but only in making larger profits from them, and a mainstream audience with fairly low-brow tastes, games being produced will become significantly less sophisticated and interesting. You can see this in every genre. Shooters and action games that used to feature massive non-linear levels with interactive gameplay have devolved into linear cinematic corridor slogs. MMOs that used to experiment with social systems are now static themeparks. Single player RPGs that used to be complex and required significant player agency are now without fail states, and simply lead the player around with their quest compasses and on-rails gameplay.
Now, with the depressing history lesson over, all is not hopeless. Despite the overall decline of the industry, there are some excellent new titles, mostly from independent developers, but occasionally even from an outlying big company.
Witcher 3 - This single player RPG released in 2015 features many of the problems with modern games. It has a huge amount of cut-scenes, and the gameplay can often be too easy and non-interactive. Despite that, it is still an amazing game worthy of playing. The quality of writing, quests, lore, and characters is on a different level from most games, the world is huge and amazing, and on harder difficulty settings, even the combat system can be quite fun.
7 Days to Die - An early access title on Steam (meaning it's still technically in Alpha), this is an amazing game, and is probably the culmination of all the survival type games out there. It captures the best of games like Minecraft, Terraria, and many others, and then goes way beyond to create a sandbox that old school players can appreciate and play in for hundreds of hours.
Dwarf Fortress - This game has been in development since 2002, and will likely be in development for another 20 years of so. It is already the deepest, most complex game ever made. Do not let the ASCII nature of it deter you, there are graphical tilesets available, and one of the modders in the community is working on a 3D front-end in Unity. This game might at some point become the greatest one of them all. It aims to simulate the entirety of random fantasy worlds. Think of it like this, imagine your favorite fantasy book (let's say Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire), and when Dwarf Fortress is complete, it should be able to procedurally simulate any event in that book. Yeah...
As an aging computer nerd that grew up with a TRS Model 3 and IBM PC-XT... I'm going to recommend the Zork Anthology. It's around $6 US on Steam. It comes packages with a DOS emulator. It's blast from the past!
It's ostensibly a survival game (with the McGuffin goal of launching a rocket) where the focus is on automating the production of various items.
It has nearly universal acclaim from all player reviews on Steam, for a reason.
Also natively available for Linux.