do new games suck or am I cynical?

While there are a fair number of rushed games that end up disappointing (Fallout 76 and Anthem being current examples), I think we're living in a golden age of good games.
It's easy to look back at the games from the 80's and 90's and get nostalgic. Hell, Nintendo has made a mint off it.
The games I used to love when I was younger were mostly short and repetitious. With a little finesse you could complete most 8 and 16 bit era games in a single sitting. Many had inflated difficulty because they were designed to get you to add more quarters. Either that or they had to be challenging in order to make their 1-2 mechanics have legs. Let's not forget that games were actually way more expensive back then. They were priced at the same $59 30 years ago.

In just the last year I've had a blast with games like Destiny 2, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Dark Souls 3, Tekken 7, Nioh, Far Cry 5, Dishonored 2, Resident Evil 7, Street Fighter 5, Devil May Cry 5, GTA5, and more. Those are just the AAA big budget titles, too. Even our disappointing new titles are still light years ahead of most of the stuff from 10+ years ago.

Lots of new games are more of the same, but then again...so were old games. Look no further than the run/jump/shoot games from the 80's and 90's. Look at the hundreds of me too FPS games that have been out there since Doom.
 
It could be that some of us are getting older and we have seen and played everything. Most triple A games become recycled yearly, and a ton of indie games are pure garbage.

I still enjoy the hobby, but the selection is mostly weak sauce.
 
I've definitely been playing more indie games the last few years just because they're something different. I spent a lot of time with the long dark from when it was still in early did development. Its come a long way and I enjoyed the campaign scenarios they made. I just wish they'd finish them off!
 
I'd say it's more that "New games with big marketing budgets suck". I think a lot of AAA devs have put profit before fun, so not only do they suck but they're in your face everywhere and you feel like you're surrounded by rehashed garbage.
If you want more genuine games you need to look at indies. You have to do your own digging for them, but there are TONES of good titles putting game play first.

Just ignore all the AAA fanfare (E3 etc). Less disappointment in your life, and when the rare AAA gem comes out, you'll hear about it from more reliable sources anyway. (y)

The failures of the AAA games can't be understated. They are recycled crap that was made to the lowest standard to try to hit the biggest market. The indie market has come up with some amazing stuff over the last few years though which has helped. The sad thing is series that I enjoyed on the last gen of consoles have been pushed into the ground. I really liked the first mirrors edge game, they made the second an open world pile of sh*t. The first two arkham games were good, assassins creed really went downhill to the point I don't even want to try the newer games. The first person shooter market has gotten bad(I'm not a fan of the battle royal games) and platformers have kinda gone away. I wanted to like a hat in time but it just wasn't good enough. It seemed to go down too as you got further along in the worlds.

I remember last year talking to a friend and saying that I could only think of two or three games that I was looking forward to in the coming like 6 months. It's been sad.

I will say its weird talking about recycled stuff as nintendo is still doing good changing it around. Mario Odyssey was really enjoyable.

I think one of the last things I really enjoyed was the spyro remake.
 
The sad thing is series that I enjoyed on the last gen of consoles have been pushed into the ground.

This was the hardest part for me, watching the very series' that defined gaming for me when I was growing up, be put through a grinder and mutilated for the sake of a quick buck. You become bitter and jaded, you learn not to fall in love with any franchise or studio.

I think Half-Life is the only one that died a hero.

Indie helps me forget, and still captures the spirit of creators free to do anything is the pursuit of fun and wonder. It also helps that you know better than to expect too much from small devs.
 
In my 40's here. I still game when I have the time and have found myself not caring much for many of the newer games. I grew up with Atari and then moved on to the NES and Sega, and even find myself going back to those occasionally to relive the "glory days" as a few others here have pointed out. The last console I bought was a PS3. I got into PC gaming with Unreal Tournament , and Delta Force which my friends and I would play over LAN, and that was a lot of fun.
 
32, and yea I had a lot of the above. Games that have recently grabbed my attention and kept me playing have been games like those that I played when I was ~5 years old, so that's 2D platformers that have really difficult enemies, things like Dead Cells and Hollow Knight, I 100% and poured hours into.
Since you didn't mention, if you haven't already played then Ori and the blind forest and Sundered are along the same vein (definitely easier than Hollow knight though).



If anyone can recommend a game with the same movement feel as Ori, that would be much appreciated.
 
Since you didn't mention, if you haven't already played then Ori and the blind forest and Sundered are along the same vein (definitely easier than Hollow knight though).



If anyone can recommend a game with the same movement feel as Ori, that would be much appreciated.

Sundered is one of my favorite modern games. Cut out classic games and it’s easily in my top ten. It starts a touch slow, but once you’re properly up and running it’s incredibly good.
 
Heh. I'm over fiddy. Grew up sticking quarters in arcade machines. Then Intellivision and Atari came out and we could do it at home. Yadda yadda.

Shooters have always been my mainstay. FPS preferred. To me most newer games offer nothing new by way of gameplay. At this point seems it has all been done before. Granted. We do have excellent graphics these days. Likes of which we could only dream of back in the 70s. Even so. Still find myself playing older titles on my retro 3dfx rig. Nostalgia I guess. And gameplay is paramount.
 
Idk, I think it's both. I'm 50, and most the games I'd compare today's titles too would be most the same stuff everyone else will bring up.

Lately the Industry (and by that I mean Publishers) thinks SP is dead and "Games as a Service" is the only thing worth investing into. I cannot express the about of bile I have for this trend. I remember finding a hidden room in Deus Ex and debating philosophy with a pet AI. Then there was that time I discussed alien racism and religion with the newly recruited members of my ship, the 'Normandy'... or skipped urinals across the map to plow over some knob trying to skewer me with super-heated rerod. Sure these are nostalgic moments, but how many recent games have left you with those lasting moments? The writing in most of today's stuff just feels like it was written by teenagers pretending to be adults, or adults trying desperately to sound like 'cool' teenagers. Most of it is shallow tripe. Last of Us was the last well written game in my memory.

In short I think a few trends have watered down what built this industry in the minds of most Gamers our age:

  1. Open World - I enjoy its exploration, but few open world games retain the sense of immersion and tight story of yesterday's more linear games. I still think this is a fun genre, but I've yet to play an open world game outside of Witcher 3 that didn't feel like I had to re-familiarize myself with the story each time I started the next story mission.
  2. Games as a Service - After Publishers saw the kind of money mobile games were making from people who couldn't stop themselves from spending thousands to gain or unlock some virtual gate or goodie, it was all over. Now "Mod Support" is a thing of the past, because no Publisher is going to allow some upstart to give away what they could charge us for. Story is a thing of the past, because that takes writers and actors and mocap and expensive things that they cannot put in a randomly generated loot boxes. Hell, just last week hordes of people were defending $8 skins (that were just recolors of skins already in the game) as being "fair priced" & "ethical" because apparently brain cells are in short supply now. I have to move on or I'm just going to go on a rant. Publishers have become evil manipulators instead of entrepreneurial enablers.
  3. Social Media - Everyone has an opinion, they are violently passionate about it, and feel it is their duty to harass, abuse, threaten and sue their way to what they want, often over a petty detail of an unreleased game they don't even have a fraction of the info about. Don't get me wrong, Social Media has been used in many good ways, but let's face it, most the target demographic does not have the maturity for it. Either way, few Devs feel they can be creative anymore. Even fewer Publishers will take the risk.
  4. We want everything for nothing - Most of the games I hold in fond memory would fit on an old single layer CD. Today's games are a 40+ Gig affairs. Our standards have raised, and so has the cost of making the exponentially more complex product to please us. This is no nimble little ship anymore, it is a colossal juggernaut with a morbidly obese fat man at the wheel.
 
This is more a question for those 30 or older. Its a matter of comparison and perspective.

I'm nearing 36 years old now. I still like PC gaming even though I don't get much time for it with a child in the home. I've been really struggling to find games I want to play. I find all newer ones look pretty but are boring and unappealing. OK witcher 3 was pretty cool. I'm having trouble thinking of more.

I usually play old games or some indie titles. Been enjoying into the breach lately.also been playing marathon from bungie in their old days. Used to have it as a kid but never beat it.

So....do games really suck that much now? I feel like its the same old garbage recycled into infinity.

But then I look at the past and we had some amazing games when 3d hardware was still new. I guess it was all new then. Even so, when I go back to play some of those old games they really do hold up despite the now archaic graphics.

I'm not the only one, I have several friends who say the same. Maybe we're just getting older and don't care anymore?

Not lookin for new titles right now, I gave up on that. Just my rant. Get off my lawn you damn kids. And take your pokemon with you.

No, actually, you are categorically correct. Modern games are worse in terms of UI design and gameplay compared to 2 decades ago.

This isn't subjective, it's objective, and is what always happens when a niche market borne out of passion runs into a mainstream audience.

Pick your art form it happens all the time.
 
35 here. This past weekend I played through Modern Warfare Remastered on PS4 since it was free to PSN+ members. I got sucked into it and beat the single player on Veteran and unlocked all the trophies over the course of a single day. It was probably the most fun I'd had in years in gaming. I can't think of any game released over the past 7-8 years that has given me that same feeling as this game from 2007. Ironically the success of this game was probably one of the first vanguards to the downfall of the AAA industry.
 
I think part of my problem is I really like games as an art form. I tend to prize atmosphere above anything else. BioShock was definitely one of my all time favourites. That and a high level of detail. Medal of modern duty doesn't quite cut it for me.
 
I think part of my problem is I really like games as an art form. I tend to prize atmosphere above anything else. BioShock was definitely one of my all time favourites. That and a high level of detail. Medal of modern duty doesn't quite cut it for me.

Atmosphere is extremely important to me. It's the reason I like Ultima VIII Pagan more than any other game in the series. I mean the others are great, and IV-VII are way more fleshed out, but VIII had atmosphere like no other. The music, dark setting, dark and powerful magic, oppressed people... It was amazing. (especially once they patched a few things) System Shock 1 & 2 take my top game slots. I also loved the first BioShock and Dead Space. I love games where you're isolated like Unreal (original) and alone in an alien place. (Unreal is up there with atmosphere too.) Audiovisual impact is very important when you think about atmosphere, but even without that (or when we've progressed since a good game) a really atmospheric game holds up well. More than the sum of its parts I suppose.
 
Atmosphere is extremely important to me. It's the reason I like Ultima VIII Pagan more than any other game in the series. I mean the others are great, and IV-VII are way more fleshed out, but VIII had atmosphere like no other. The music, dark setting, dark and powerful magic, oppressed people... It was amazing. (especially once they patched a few things) System Shock 1 & 2 take my top game slots. I also loved the first BioShock and Dead Space. I love games where you're isolated like Unreal (original) and alone in an alien place. (Unreal is up there with atmosphere too.) Audiovisual impact is very important when you think about atmosphere, but even without that (or when we've progressed since a good game) a really atmospheric game holds up well. More than the sum of its parts I suppose.

I think we have very similar tastes in games :) SS1 and 2 are right near the top of my list and dead space is up there too. Alien isolation was another great one.
 
Its too bad EA didn't understand that they could have just fed us new maps for BC2 for all these years.
 
I think we have very similar tastes in games :) SS1 and 2 are right near the top of my list and dead space is up there too. Alien isolation was another great one.

Alien Isolation is incredible! I actually need to go back and finish it. I made it really far into the game, but then got pulled away by something else that came out. The only thing I wished was that it had just a microgram of AlienS to it, and I actually had some weapons at my disposal. (effective ones, even if limited) Sure the Alien should still be ridiculous. You wouldn't want to lose that fear, but I'd love to dismantle the androids on occasion when hiding got tedious. :D That said, I thought the overall feeling was pretty spot-on.
 
Alien Isolation is incredible! I actually need to go back and finish it. I made it really far into the game, but then got pulled away by something else that came out. The only thing I wished was that it had just a microgram of AlienS to it, and I actually had some weapons at my disposal. (effective ones, even if limited) Sure the Alien should still be ridiculous. You wouldn't want to lose that fear, but I'd love to dismantle the androids on occasion when hiding got tedious. :D That said, I thought the overall feeling was pretty spot-on.

I've already played it through at least half a dozen times :)

The hardest mode is insane. No maps, motion detector is practically useless, and the androids make you their bitch.
 
Idk, I think it's both. I'm 50, and most the games I'd compare today's titles too would be most the same stuff everyone else will bring up.

Lately the Industry (and by that I mean Publishers) thinks SP is dead and "Games as a Service" is the only thing worth investing into. I cannot express the about of bile I have for this trend. I remember finding a hidden room in Deus Ex and debating philosophy with a pet AI. Then there was that time I discussed alien racism and religion with the newly recruited members of my ship, the 'Normandy'... or skipped urinals across the map to plow over some knob trying to skewer me with super-heated rerod. Sure these are nostalgic moments, but how many recent games have left you with those lasting moments? The writing in most of today's stuff just feels like it was written by teenagers pretending to be adults, or adults trying desperately to sound like 'cool' teenagers. Most of it is shallow tripe. Last of Us was the last well written game in my memory.

In short I think a few trends have watered down what built this industry in the minds of most Gamers our age:

  1. Open World - I enjoy its exploration, but few open world games retain the sense of immersion and tight story of yesterday's more linear games. I still think this is a fun genre, but I've yet to play an open world game outside of Witcher 3 that didn't feel like I had to re-familiarize myself with the story each time I started the next story mission.
  2. Games as a Service - After Publishers saw the kind of money mobile games were making from people who couldn't stop themselves from spending thousands to gain or unlock some virtual gate or goodie, it was all over. Now "Mod Support" is a thing of the past, because no Publisher is going to allow some upstart to give away what they could charge us for. Story is a thing of the past, because that takes writers and actors and mocap and expensive things that they cannot put in a randomly generated loot boxes. Hell, just last week hordes of people were defending $8 skins (that were just recolors of skins already in the game) as being "fair priced" & "ethical" because apparently brain cells are in short supply now. I have to move on or I'm just going to go on a rant. Publishers have become evil manipulators instead of entrepreneurial enablers.
  3. Social Media - Everyone has an opinion, they are violently passionate about it, and feel it is their duty to harass, abuse, threaten and sue their way to what they want, often over a petty detail of an unreleased game they don't even have a fraction of the info about. Don't get me wrong, Social Media has been used in many good ways, but let's face it, most the target demographic does not have the maturity for it. Either way, few Devs feel they can be creative anymore. Even fewer Publishers will take the risk.
  4. We want everything for nothing - Most of the games I hold in fond memory would fit on an old single layer CD. Today's games are a 40+ Gig affairs. Our standards have raised, and so has the cost of making the exponentially more complex product to please us. This is no nimble little ship anymore, it is a colossal juggernaut with a morbidly obese fat man at the wheel.

Thank you. I feel like there are a lot of people on this forum justifying their games or justifying publisher decisions that are bad as being totally fine and okay. FWIW, I was the guy losing my shit at people defending $8 skins and comparing it to buying a burger.

I definitely feel like quality in the overall gaming space has gone down. Make no mistake, there are still titles worth playing, but the large glut of games (gaming has never been better! We have so many more titles than ever before!) is garbage. AAA needs vision to be good. And corporations don't have it. So much so that they often kill the golden goose in order to make short term money. We've seen this with Kojima. We're seeing it with Bioware (over ME:A, and now Anthem). It's slowly happening to Blizzard as Activision gets rid of all the power brokers and Vision holders on the Blizzard side (including basically all the founders at this point). And talking about how many studios and properties EA killed would require a 20 page timeline.

All this to say, the mass corporatization of games has only been beneficial to the people making the money. Not to the studios or to the gamers, unless playing repetitive, same-y, trash is appealing. But to reiterate my earlier point, there are still titles that come out that are worth playing. Titles that actually have excellent design and are thought provoking. CD Projekt Red has been on this edge. I expect that Cyberpunk 2077 will put these nonsense corporations on blast. DX:HR was probably one of the best experiences in gaming I had in a long time (for a new title at the time). I'm really enjoying Civ VI (with expansions).
The console space has quite a few studios doing great things. Naughty Dog still has their freedom to create great titles. So does Rockstar. And Nintendo (although I know they are polarizing as some don't like Nintendo's way of doing things).

So if you're like me at all, you learn to be REALLY patient. Ignore all the hype. All the trash. Wait for reviews. And just sort of expect that you'll get a title worth playing every 1-2 years. And honestly at this point in my adult life, that's perfectly fine with me. I don't have time to play 20x 40 hour+ games a year anymore. I'm okay with waiting for the real and true, very solid, well told, well executed, single player games that are 15-40 hours.
 
Have you tried prey? They should rename it psychoshock TBH. They also made a roguelike version called mooncrash you'dl like. I went from ITB to Prey, I am old school too!
 
Games today are way better than the old days. Apex legends alone trumps all the old MP games of yesteryear including quake.
 
Why is this game hated so much? Same with fortnite.


...perhaps because some people think the game-play is simplistic and repetitive...?
I've looked at Fortnite on twitch and the concept, game-play and depth of it bores me within a minute or two.
But I fully admit I'm not really into most online multi-player games - for the same reasons. I'm naturally attracted to complexity and if I do play online FPS - I prefer things like Arma 3 or Argo (the latter being a free to play, simpler, squad based version or Arma 3).
...each to their own. I suspect - and I don't mean this in a negative or condescending tone - that games like Fortnite are aimed at a different age group to me (I'm 42).

I also think - to answer the OP, that given the popularity of gaming these days and the larger number of games available (speculation on my part, as I haven't done any form of analysis or maths on it) that it's a case of having to wade through larger volumes of shite to find the good content. I find the same thing with movies - and IMO with films, it's been the case throughout my whole life. There's plenty of good movies out there, but the volume of good films, in relation to the total volume is low. You need to wade through a lot of garbage to find the gems.

...so perhaps the volume the shite has increased, or the percentage of shite versus the total volume has been skewed over time... ?
 
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...perhaps because some people think the game-play is simplistic and repetitive...?
I've looked at Fortnite on twitch and the concept, game-play and depth of it bores me within a minute or two.
But I fully admit I'm not really into most online multi-player games - for the same reasons. I'm naturally attracted to complexity and if I do play online FPS - I prefer things like Arma 3 or Argo (the latter being a free to play, simpler, squad based version or Arma 3).
...each to their own. I suspect - and I don't mean this in a negative or condescending tone - that games like Fortnite are aimed at a different age group to me (I'm 42).

I also think - to answer the OP, that given the popularity of gaming these days and the larger number of games available (speculation on my part, as I haven't done any form of analysis or maths on it) that it's a case of having to wade through larger volumes of shite to find the good content. I find the same thing with movies - and IMO with films, it's been the case throughout my whole life. There's plenty of good movies out there, but the volume of good films, in relation to the total volume is low. You need to wade through a lot of garbage to find the gems.

...so perhaps the volume the shite has increased, or the percentage of shite versus the total volume has been skewed over time... ?
I understand, its not for everyone. I don't play it myself but I thought it was just easy to hate. Do you also dislike quake? I like arena matches a lot but they're very simplistic. I think BF2 is the best in multiplayer, or I haven't found a better one.
 
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I understand, its not for everyone. I don't play it myself but I thought it was just easy to hate. Do you also dislike quake? I like arena matches a lot but they're very simplistic. I think BF2 is the best in multiplayer, or I haven't found a better one.

... all good - I'm definitely an "each to their own" sort of person and I'm not going to judge other people for their tastes and preferences in games etc. I'm sure there are loads of things I like that other people can't stand.
re: Quake - not really online multiplayer. I was only really into traditional online FPS games around the Doom / Doom 2 era - which dates me a bit. Quake and Quake 2 both appealed to me with the single player side of things and I purchased the original Quake Arena when it came out, but soon got sick of it. I had a couple of friends, one in particular who was really good with competitive online matches and I played him a few times on LAN's and just got beaten repeatedly without mercy, but half of my problem was that I was kind of over that style of arena / death match style FPS gaming. He was a serious Quake player and had his setup fully customised and scripted, which I can't be bothered with, but trying to play someone on that level as a casual gamer is a waste of time really.
I guess in terms of FPS I tend towards either tactical shooters like the Arma series or FPS / RPG hybrids offline, as I prefer to be weasily and sneaky and play a different style of match than the arena style of shooters - which are more like Mad Max's Thunder-dome.
Arma 3 can be really fun if you end up in a tank or another vehicle with multiple people working together to charge around the battle field and shoot things up.
Another online game I own, but haven't spent much time in is Elite Dangerous and the part I'm most interested in trying out is co-operative multi-player in a ship with either randoms or friends.
STALKER 2 is the FPS I am looking forward to in the future - that's a style of game I love.
 
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Not many games are for everyone period.

For me personally, I play all my multiplayer either on my LAN, or on the couch. This means, Doom, Quake, Borderlands, Left for Dead, etc. when it comes to shooters. Those are what I grew up with (well, during that era of gaming until now). These new "battle royale" style games just seem to embody internet play and all that entails. I can't do it. Never could. If I'm playing multiplayer it has to be with friends or family, and with that requirement, we typically gravitate toward the types of games we always played, whether that's classic couch multiplayer, arcade games, fighting games, or modern couch-co-op games, or Doom, Quake, Borderlands, Unreal, etc. It's what we played in the formative heydays, it's what we play now.

I've given Fortnite a try because my son wanted me to play it with him. I really just plain didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed the aspect of playing with my son, but the game itself just did nothing for me. More power to the millions of people who enjoy these games, the CoDs, the Battlefields, and love to play with people on the internet. Totally cool with me. Just not my thing.

Despite my "get off my lawn" sounding post here, I enjoy games of all eras. The classics, my classics, modern games, indie games, AAA games, and everything in between. I just have my very specific genres, series, etc. within those.

I don't hate that these new styles of online shooter exist, but I don't enjoy them either.
 
I guess in terms of FPS I tend towards either tactical shooters like the Arma series or FPS / RPG hybrids offline, as I prefer to be weasily and sneaky and play a different style of match than the arena style of shooters - which are more like Mad Max's Thunder-dome.
Arma 3 can be really fun if you end up in a tank or another vehicle with multiple people working together to charge around the battle field and shoot things up.
Another online game I own, but haven't spent much time in is Elite Dangerous and the part I'm most interested in trying out is co-operative multi-player in a ship with either randoms or friends.
STALKER 2 is the FPS I am looking forward to in the future - that's a style of game I love.
You like system shock? You should try prey, its the best type of this I have played, better than SS2 aside from the loading times. Deus Ex HR was also really good, it was a lot easier and I didn't need a walk through, prey was harder if you like single player FPS. Have you also played rainbow 6 siege? That is the most devious FPS I ever tried.
 
You like system shock? You should try prey, its the best type of this I have played, better than SS2 aside from the loading times. Deus Ex HR was also really good, it was a lot easier and I didn't need a walk through, prey was harder if you like single player FPS. Have you also played rainbow 6 siege? That is the most devious FPS I ever tried.

Oh yeah - you're talking my language now :)
I really love all those games. System Shock was awesome - and was a bit of spin off from the Ultima Underworld games - same game engine and development team (Looking Glass). Ultima Underworld was probably the most influential 3D RPG of all time - in my opinion. That's the game that made me think "wow" the most - when I first saw it, when it came out. SS2 is really good, I think there's a remake coming out soon'ísh. Deus Ex - the original game was great in it's day too, but Deus Ex 2 was a crummy sequel. Deux Ex HR was pretty good too and I still need to finish Deus Ex Mankind Divided. Being brutally honest on the two modern Deus Ex games, they do feel a little bit simplified in comparison to the older games - there are things that jump out at you as clues on how to resolve things, which I think is a little bit of a cop out.
Rainbow Six Seige - I have had a look at it, but not much, as it's online focused and I wasn't sure it's worth my dollars, but the Rainbow Six series as a whole is really good - in my opinion. R6 Ravenshield is a favorite of mine from when it came out years ago. I love that style of game play where you can plan things out and try different approaches to finish a mission. I just think in a couple of the more recent games they succumbed to the mass market and made things more "accessible", which is usually code for dumbing things down to appeal to more casual players. I get it from a financial angle, but those games were pretty focused in the beginning and you had to really think about your tactics and plan things out. Swat 4 is another good example of that style - and that was really good too.
...so many good memories for me with those games.
I need to try Prey out as I've read and seen good things about it - thanks for the reminder. Funny that it's totally different to the original Prey game though (native american who gets sucked up by aliens - from memory). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game)


...I'd like to add as a random side note that the movie - "Battle Royale" that inspired a lot of other films and video games, is a great watch - in my opinion. It is subtitled, but it's a good, dark, satirical film, with plenty of action and humour. Just don't let kids under 18 watch it - as it's reasonably bloody.
 
...perhaps because some people think the game-play is simplistic and repetitive...?
I've looked at Fortnite on twitch and the concept, game-play and depth of it bores me within a minute or two.
But I fully admit I'm not really into most online multi-player games - for the same reasons. I'm naturally attracted to complexity and if I do play online FPS - I prefer things like Arma 3 or Argo (the latter being a free to play, simpler, squad based version or Arma 3).
...each to their own. I suspect - and I don't mean this in a negative or condescending tone - that games like Fortnite are aimed at a different age group to me (I'm 42).

I also think - to answer the OP, that given the popularity of gaming these days and the larger number of games available (speculation on my part, as I haven't done any form of analysis or maths on it) that it's a case of having to wade through larger volumes of shite to find the good content. I find the same thing with movies - and IMO with films, it's been the case throughout my whole life. There's plenty of good movies out there, but the volume of good films, in relation to the total volume is low. You need to wade through a lot of garbage to find the gems.

...so perhaps the volume the shite has increased, or the percentage of shite versus the total volume has been skewed over time... ?

There is nothing complex about Arma, it's just slow and clunky.
 
There is nothing complex about Arma, it's just slow and clunky.

....for something slow and clunky, it's impressive that the developer has spun it into a military training product used by multiple armies around the world - i.e. the virtual battle space series (same core game engine).
https://bisimulations.com/products/virtual-battlespace

...and again something slow and clunky seems to get decent reviews - even recently.
https://www.pcgamer.com/au/arma-3-review/



...so there's definitely an appeal to a core audience in both the gaming and military simulator spheres for slow and clunky games - but you can dislike it as much as I probably dislike your tastes in games.
Who knows - maybe we have an overlap somewhere, but personally I love slow and clunky Arma 3 :)
 
same feeling but, there are some exceptions. im 31 now and played games all my life prety much. i really love rpg's with a good story the most. witcher 3, horizon zero dawn, red dead 2, dragon age, mass effect. some i replayed countless times, esp. dragon age and mass effect, i got this thing where after 1-2 years i replay it :p must be 10th time i played mass effect 1 lol :p that game is just very special. in the downtime it goes with multiplayers like league, battlefield and wow. wow really gave me that high when i first started in late vanilla beginning of tbc. i guess league also, but now im just stuck playing rumble mid all the time cause it looks like it is the only thing i can play haha. but yeah, it's like growing up it is hard to recapture something like it. have a rather depressed aproach to most things these days :p most things are afterall the same thing just the wrapping is different. it probably is my subjective opinion but it sort of feels things are overly shifted towards multiplayers/micro transactions these days.
 
I turn 47 next month. I echo most of the sentiment on this thread...

Don't like Battle Royale games, tried them all. Back in the day they just called this...deathmatch.
Don't like all the open world games. I like a strong single player story and narrative. Running around the planet doing endless fetch quests sucks.

It makes me sad that now that I have pretty much unlimited budget to buy/play whatever I want... there are just so few games I get excited about.

Sure, graphics are incredible now. RDR2 looks fantastic. But you're going to spend 200 hours riding a horse. Nah. Spider man looks great. You're going to be swinging around the city doing silly quests forever.

Yeah yeah, get the damn kids off my lawn, I know.

I still play Civ V. Diablo 3 (but less and less now). XCOM2 (awesome game). But they're all refreshes of older stuff. The games I want don't exist. Where is a modern skinned X-Wing/Tie Fighter? Why can't Blizzard put out more Diablo content? Where is a modern Wing Commander (SC doesn't count until it releases, and I know it's going to just be open world/open space BS). Why do any of the modern games have to resort to loot box random draw BS.

I saw a comment about someone playing COD-MW (because free on PS+ this month). I've played that one on PC 4 times. Better than almost any of the sequels... although Infinite Warfare has it's moments (I don't know why people hate that one, it's not bad). COD-WW2 is so terrible I stopped playing it.

Oh and never mind that SIXTY FREAKING DOLLARS won't even get you a complete game nowadays. Takes them months to patch everything up after release. Then you have to pay for DLC experience. $100 seems the new norm. This is insane. I was buying (when I was buying, LOL) C64 games for $25-30 tops. And I played them for freaking ever.

I guess I just need to give it all up and take up golf. I'm sure that's an affordable pasttime, right? LOL

mini rant /ends

edit - we need to form a league/union/clan - Old Man Gamers Club. Or a support group might be better, lol. As long as the drinks are included in the dues, I'm in!
 
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....for something slow and clunky, it's impressive that the developer has spun it into a military training product used by multiple armies around the world - i.e. the virtual battle space series (same core game engine).
https://bisimulations.com/products/virtual-battlespace

...and again something slow and clunky seems to get decent reviews - even recently.
https://www.pcgamer.com/au/arma-3-review/



...so there's definitely an appeal to a core audience in both the gaming and military simulator spheres for slow and clunky games - but you can dislike it as much as I probably dislike your tastes in games.
Who knows - maybe we have an overlap somewhere, but personally I love slow and clunky Arma 3 :)


Just some background information for you, I have years of experience with arma 3 and even ran servers for it. It was good for 2013 but remains slow and clunky as an MP game.
 
Just some background information for you, I have years of experience with arma 3 and even ran servers for it. It was good for 2013 but remains slow and clunky as an MP game.

lol
Great - and as a comment for you - everything you have stated is subjective (feel free to re-read your comments) and unless you actually state something that's objective, your opinion is just that - an opinion.
How do your "years of experience with arma 3" or the fact that you have "ran servers" equate to your opinions being of more value or weight than anyone else's ?

I'm not being aggressive or antagonistic to you - just pointing out we're both expressing opinions. And other than stating you have claimed experience with the game and you've ran servers for it, you have actually stated nothing of any value to me in assessing your opinion.

How does your background compare to mine and why would I place value on your opinions ?
What do you know about me and my experience with Arma 3... ?

Do you get my point ?

Feel free to continue to dislike Arma 3 and I'll feel free to continue to like it as much as I see fit.
Happy gaming :)
 
I'm 32 with a bit of experience in game dev and I can say that newer AAA games GENERALLY suck. Assassins' creed and Call of duty, Far Cry, Battlefield and other big budget games nowadays have no soul or sense of wonder, and it's pretty easy (for me at least) to be able to look at how a game is advertised and tell IMMEDIATELY if it's going to be another 'meh' budget busting marketing fest or if it's going to be genuinely good.

The new Resident Evil games are quite good in my book, for a AAA game at least.
 
I'm 32 with a bit of experience in game dev and I can say that newer AAA games GENERALLY suck. Assassins' creed and Call of duty, Far Cry, Battlefield and other big budget games nowadays have no soul or sense of wonder, and it's pretty easy (for me at least) to be able to look at how a game is advertised and tell IMMEDIATELY if it's going to be another 'meh' budget busting marketing fest or if it's going to be genuinely good.

The new Resident Evil games are quite good in my book, for a AAA game at least.

Agreed. I pretty much instantly know what I’m looking for or trying to avoid with AAA. I’ll pretty much know if Ill like it right off the bat. The only time something might take me by surprise is in the indie world. However on that side the surprises are usually nice ones. Even there though I can typically spot things perhaps with a 1% margin of error. 42 here. Been around a bit :D
 
Oh BTW... one game I am actually sorta kinda jazzed about whenever it gets released... Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. They have said it will be $30ish and it has a strong Freelancer vibe. Google it, you don't need links but it will be on the Epic store when released. They said q1 but we'll see. I think small studios that put out smaller games like this are the only relief we're going to get.

edit - screw it, here's a link
https://rebel-galaxy.com/
 
Oh BTW... one game I am actually sorta kinda jazzed about whenever it gets released... Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. They have said it will be $30ish and it has a strong Freelancer vibe. Google it, you don't need links but it will be on the Epic store when released. They said q1 but we'll see. I think small studios that put out smaller games like this are the only relief we're going to get.

edit - screw it, here's a link
https://rebel-galaxy.com/


...it definitely seems to have a modern Privateer type vibe to it. Not sure if it's my sort of thing or not. I'll probably wait until it's out and read some in depth reviews, but at the least, it looks like a good blast em up space game.
If it's got a decent duration to it, in terms of the main campaign or story, then it's probably worth having a good look at.... thanks for the heads up.
 
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