The grumpy old man of PC gaming.

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Frostex

2[H]4U
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Apr 29, 2008
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I appear to have become a grumpy old man, impossible to be satisfied with anything the PC has had to offer recently. I find myself logged into steam, stareing at a reasonably large list of games, unable to come to a decision of what to play.

And not because I've burnt out playing too many games, it's been happening more and more recently, unable to build up enough enthusiasm to even launch the game and attempt to play, just left wishing games were like they used to be, back in the good old days.

"Hrmp!" I think to myself as I look at TF2, not like in the old days where the game seemed to be team based but allowed for some individual flair, where all the characters (except for the pyro ;) ) were useful, and not every character had to be brilliant in combat to balance out the experience.

Well I could play L4D I consider, but everytime I play the game I can't ever seem to get a smoothly pinging server that doesn't have CPU lag, I give up attempting to play this game before I've even started. Whatever happened to picking your own server? Back in the old days we could pick our own server...I was great at picking my own server, nailed it every time...sigh

Maybe play some singleplayer? Maybe some Bioshock, that was a good game, enjoyed it quite a bit the first run through...oh but wait, the mouse acceleration made the feeling of the game awkward from start to finish...the tiny FoV mixed with the broken widescreen made the experience feel unnatural and even more awkward

Not like it used to be...back in the old days, when you turned your mouse and the viewpoint turned to match, and didn't glide about, where you could feel the tight responsiveness of the game...where FoVs were set to something reasonable...when we didn't evne have to worry about what an FoV was because it was just done right every time without having to worry about some rubbish 60 degree vomit enducing viewpoint.

Back when you applied AA and it worked, where you didnt fiddle for hours on end with sound issues, back when menus systems were built to be navigated by mice and not analogue sticks and A/B buttons...when gameplay had some depth and complexity. The time when you didn't have to worry about how many times you'd installed the game through fear of running out of installs.

When HUDS were minimal and tight, they scaled well with your resoltion and didn't flash up indicators in your face to tell you about the grenade near your feet, because we could all see there was a grenade at our feet and we had the ability to move away from it of our own accord....where there was some risk vs reward in the action you fought in, and health didnt automatically regenerate for you...ahh those times...those times when we could save our game whenever we god damn felt like it because quicksave is awesome and allows us to navigate areas of the game which we felt were too tricky for us, and we didn't want to play the same area through 20 times...I miss those times...back when you didn't need to create an online account just to save your game.

Back in the day...when you launched a game and it ran, it didn't take you to login screen 1 of 3 which you had to sign in, then further sign in again and then sign in again for the 3rd time, you went straight to the menu...you could skip the opening videos because no one wants to see that shit for the 4000th time.

Yeah, I feel like just an old man now, out of place in the current generation of games, saddened to see the quality, crisp, sharp, in foucs, well balanced, responsive games of old...slowly flushed down the toilet.

Am I just a cranky old sod who expects too much, or does anyone else feel more like this every day?
 
I don't think any of those concerns have to do with being old. Diminishing quality and features brings everyone down.

Personally I find myself turning on my computer and not even playing a game. Either I don't feel I have the time to devote to a game, or sometimes its too late in the evening and I am too tired to get into it. And to be quite honest I haven't even bought a game that I was that enthused about since Mass Effect.

Although I am pinning my hopes on Arma 2, Dragon Age and to a lesser extent OPF2 and Americas Army 3.
 
I kinda feel like an 'old man'. Years ago I couldn't wait to get home when I knew a game I bought arrived. Then I'd play it for 10+ hours every day (assuming it was a good game). Nowadays, I might buy a bunch of games that I may never even open. Maybe it's because I have spending money now and therefore can buy more than just the must-have titles. Perhaps it really is the games nowadays that I'm no longer enthusiastic about. Or maybe it's a sign that I'm starting to finally grow up (the horror!).

Of course, grumbling about the good ol' days of PC gaming automatically qualifies us as grumpy old PC gamers. Guess we'll just have to down a few glasses of prune juice and roll with the times.
 
I'm not old, no...only 25 soon to be 26, but it makes me feel like an old man, thinking back to the days when stamps were only 2p and people knew how to make things correctly.

That and the enthusiasm being drained from me leaves me feeling like I have to energy for games anymore, I do have plenty of time and energy for games I just can't get excited about a decent experience like I used to, maybe its the old rose tinted glasses effect...who knows :/
 
Frostex said:
Well I could play L4D I consider, but everytime I play the game I can't ever seem to get a smoothly pinging server that doesn't have CPU lag, I give up attempting to play this game before I've even started. Whatever happened to picking your own server? Back in the old days we could pick our own server...I was great at picking my own server, nailed it every time...sigh
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What do you mean? You can't pick what server you want to play on in L4D? (honest question, I don't have it)
 
Nope...the server browser was removed (although can be still accessed through command line, most servers refuse people browsing servers this way)

Instead it assigns you a server based on what gametype you've picked and who else is also looking for one, takes me about 5 attempts to find a good one on average, that can often be more though, especially when it was first released.
 
old guy??!!! I played Wizardry on the apple IIe and mapped EVERY FREAKIN level on science graph paper..you HAD to use your imagination 'back in the day'..It was fun and thrilling (it was a new hobby after all and it WAS cutting edge stuff...but I don't want to go back

i'll will gladly tolerate all the 'problems' today..imho, they don't fully utilize the power of the modern machines. AI is severly lacking..put more R & D money into AI..forget the graphics..they're damn good as it is.
 
I'm also 25. I find all of the new FPS style games to be a big bore. I guess it has something to do with the fact that you can only innovate so much when it comes to running and aiming. RTS's are getting to be a bit of the same. It is sometimes fun to play one just for a bit of variety but they all feel like they are from the same boiler plate.

I don't remember the old days being easy playing though. I remember fighting with drivers that didn't want to install. Spending days trying to figure out how to enable extended memory so I could play Blood. Games so hard you couldn't beat them without a walk through or guide (Kings Quest anyone?) Trying to make my crappy little 333 with 64mb of RAM play diablo II without lag. Etc... Things seem much easier now days and more "user friendly"... but more more brain dead and same ol same ol. Only fun games I've played lately were fallout 3, GTA4, Heroes 5, Kings Bounty, and RA3 (hadn't played an RTS in years)
 
I'm only 19 and I notice this as well. Crappy console ports, bleh.

Solution: LAN it up with others that like the same 'old school' games you do.
 
Well sometimes the old days were tough, drivers and battling with extended memory was never fun, It's not as if modern day gaming is all bad, It just seems to have lost it's edge.

I feel as though I might as well have bought a console over the last few years, PC games have just been sucked dry of quality and been injected with mainstream consolitis.
 
Frostex said:
I feel as though I might as well have bought a console over the last few years, PC games have just been sucked dry of quality and been injected with mainstream consolitis.
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That'll be the day I stop gaming. At that point I'd rather throw the money towards golf, guns and ammunition.
 
Frostex said:
I feel as though I might as well have bought a console over the last few years, PC games have just been sucked dry of quality and been injected with mainstream consolitis.
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The only thing consoles dont deal with is DRM. Everything else the OP mentioned, is there as well. And worse, since you cant customize, like the PC. This generation of gaming in general has been tainted like this, its pretty irritating.

For the record, since NES, this is the first generation where I have had ZERO interest in purchasing any of the consoles offered. I had a 360 for 3 months, then returned it. Not worth it IMO. I have a Wii, but doesnt get played much, since my TV does 480p like shit. I guess thats still a little fun, but oh well.

This generation has completely lost it. Games used to be games. Now they are productions. Its all money money money. Nobody cares about games anymore, its all about money. (like movies) Anything good is incredibly few and far in between. /end rant
 
I think your FoV issues might go away if you go back to 4:3 CRT monitor, I love my 21" crt monitor and will be screwed if it dies!

As for games, go look for some of the gems you missed!!! I was just reading about some of the underground/unappreciated games of old over at bit-tech.net, some abandonware now, games to try like: The Dark Eye, Bad day on the midway, Realm of the Haunting, Beyond Good and Evil, The neverhood. More unique titles. Another I just got off steam is "The Path" which looks good.

Link to article: best games you've never played

I have tons of back catalogue games to play, but yet still buy newer games and play them at a later time (especially when I see a deal going on!)

I think its just many people get overwhelmed by option of too many games to play and want to play them all at once. I know I get that feeling, just take your time of 1 to 2 games at a time, switch between them, beat them, move on.
 
Definetly feel like an old man...

but you know what, Stardock still puts out 'old school' games of sorts, so not all is lost.
And the Sam&Max new games are old schoolish
 
I think that enthusiats are just a tough crowd. I think that there are a lot of good games out there and overall I like the games that come out but then I'm not nearly a big time gamer. I buy a lot more games than I play and most don't grab my attention but at the same time I just like good basic games. I love FEAR2. I think Mirror's Edge is cool. Loved Crysis. CoD 4/W@W. Don't care much for L4D. Far Cry 2 was a bust. But I'm finding at least one game a month to play and that's all I have time for anyway.
 
I'm only 18 and also feeling like old school player. Of course I don't want to say that nowadays games are not good that's not but I feel that gaming in the past was fun, today it is a lifestyle, it's a profession. Many players can't even to play game without to having Logitech G15, Razer mouse, steelpad, monitor with higher than 2ms response because they will deal 50% less headshots in last round, which will result that they will be not inclued in Top 15 table.
I remember in the 90s-2000s break through, at home I had slow computer with dial-up connection which was for gaming unusable. Many of players spent thousands of hours in nearby internet cafes which offered much better equipment. But still the gaming was fun. I came there and played Counter-Strike 1.0, Quake 3, Half-Life DM on computer with 40 FPS rendering speed, 17" CRT monitor and ball mouse. And it provided to players more fun than playing on 30 inch widescreen with keypad and mouse which is shooting instead of you, because there was no nerds, no dumb kinds who said all the time "you fucking n00b" "your h4xor" "cheater" "you lame, i have better mouse and binds" and they are the worst players in session. No one wanted to destroy computer because he got killed and he was not a last man standing on clan-war or he missed the loot on rolling. Stats and who was pro were not important as today are. Game interfaces were simple and forced players to think during playing.

I'm not seeing problem in this but you are right, those accounts and verifications are annoying that's true. I'm playing WoW and im typing password 100 times per day. So I think you played games to have fun not to be pro and it fades from you these days. But I think it's not that big problem. Maybe you can try to search other computer interests or maybe not computer-related work or hobbies.

It was old good times and even computers are still the same, their technologies and performance were very improved.
You don't need to fear that your download on 9600 dial-up will be killed at 99% and diskettete formatted because you returned home with light rail or trolleybus :D .
 
just gaming funk happens to the best of us. I went like 3 months without playing a game and I didn't even notice until my wife said what do you want to do and I naturally said stay home and play some games in which I notice I am not playing anything and ran out and bought like 3 games.
 
I still enjoy the new games that come out but I haven't been BLOWN AWAY by anything in a while.

Half-Life - The immersion...my god the immersion. I remember the whole intro train ride just thinking to myself "this is just awesome". You totally felt like you were there. Once CS/TF/DoD and the rest of the mod scene took off I didn't know anyone with a computer that wasn't playing something on the HL engine.

Dark Forces (Jedi Knight 2 especially) - STAR WARS FPS?! Yes please. I played and beat every dark forces several times over. I'd love for a good sequel to come out instead of KOTOR and the awful Force Unleashed games (I know people love KOTOR but turn based just doesn't do it for me).

MOH:AA - Does anyone remember the Omaha beach map? That game is what made WW2 gaming the go-to setting for countless other titles.

Hidden and Dangerous - Panned by critics for its bugginess. This game launched my love of realistic/tactical games and was set in WW2 (of which I was a buff as a kid, before it was the gaming rage). I literally spent hours watching patrols through binoculars waiting for the perfect moment to move or take my shot.

I could go on and on raving about the games of yesteryear...Part of me thinks I don't feel like that way about modern games since I can't dedicate time to them like I used to. Between work, girlfriend, friends and family I get ~8-10 hours a week if I'm lucky playing a game. Granted I wouldn't trade any of that for games (except work but money is sweet).

Like someone above me said, if you're down on modern games go back and revisit a classic or two...they're still good. I played AVP2 again over the winter holiday break and loved every second of it.
 
{EB}NuTSymPToM{EB} said:
Half-Life - The immersion...my god the immersion. I remember the whole intro train ride just thinking to myself "this is just awesome". You totally felt like you were there. Once CS/TF/DoD and the rest of the mod scene took off I didn't know anyone with a computer that wasn't playing something on the HL engine.
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Half-Life was based off a modified Quake engine, as where some or the star-wars games you mentioned, still HL was a great game, got it installed on steam.

Between work, girlfriend, friends and family I get ~8-10 hours a week if I'm lucky playing a game. Granted I wouldn't trade any of that for games (except work but money is sweet).
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I hear that, also hobbies like cars kills gaming time :sigh:
 
I know the HL1 engine wasn't entirely Valve's work...I just refer to it as it's own engine because HL1 was the only prerequisite purchase for hundreds of great mods.

CS, DoD, TF (I know other TF's existed too), Firearms, Frontline Force, Natural Selection, They Hunger, Ricochet, Opera...so many good ones.

You really don't see that anymore. People stick to the vanilla or very basic mods (Hardcore mode for CoD4 comes to mind) and move on to the next best thing when it shows up. I haven't seen a big mod blow up in a long time except for Oblivion and STALKER mods.
 
I recently got blown away by "Men of War" which was just released. Another one of the best games you've never played probably... I was big into CoH, but always felt it was missing something, MoW delivers. Tons of unconventional gameplay elements that actually make it the first title that I've really enjoyed in a long time (Probably since the release of Sins). As for FPS games, they're still something I play at LANs, but I really have a hard time playing the mainstream ones these days. CS:S, TF2, COD4... I don't really play any of them anymore and have no desire to. I'd rather fire up SS2 again and I'm finding more and more quality titles released by unheard of developers.
 
I think the last time I had a good laugh playing games was when I was seventeen or eighteen or something, and by that point they'd become so exhausted that I could only do so by finding ways to entertain myself with my friends, like aggravating Germans on CS or something, finding matches and sneakily putting noclip on so that people would run into a room after us and we'd have vanished through a wall or something.

The apathy's been with me for at least a year, nothing's really made me feel strongly enough about to to launch it rather than just sit browsing the same few sites over and over since when BF2 was fresh. The last time I actually had a good time on a game was last night, just me and three other friends a drunken mess on an Assault Only server, laughing our tits off at each other running off the roof. Big gap before that. L4D kept us happy for a bit but it's hard to stay pleased with a Valve game considering their propensity for releasing something that's good fun and then fucking around with and mutilating it within months - not that L4D ever had a great lifespan anyway.
 
I think everyone has just gotten use to the way computing is now. It hasn't really changed (methodically) in the last ten or so years, with the introduction of 3d graphics. You still just use a keyboard and mouse. There's only so much fun you can have before you get used to it plain and simply. When the technology has a major change again ten years ater people will be saying the same thing.

..Back in 2010 Games were so much better than they are now.. They felt so much more immerse..etc.

I think it also has to do with relating the fun with those games to a simpler time.. no I'm not kidding...seriously...no homo
 
Frostex said:
Am I just a cranky old sod who expects too much, or does anyone else feel more like this every day?
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You, and I, are too old for games.
We have grown out of it. Our expectations are high, and can't be met by today's games anymore. The games of old weren't really much better, they just seem better looking back at them, but if you were to load up any of them in some virtual machine that can run them, you would find an equal amount of flaws in those games.

Move on, do something else (perhaps more productive) with your time. You won't find much joy in gaming anymore. This isn't a PC gaming issue, it's a gaming issue althogehter. I had bought a PS3, and the issues there are the same.
 
Thuleman said:
You, and I, are too old for games.
We have grown out of it. Our expectations are high, and can't be met by today's games anymore. The games of old weren't really much better, they just seem better looking back at them, but if you were to load up any of them in some virtual machine that can run them, you would find an equal amount of flaws in those games.

Move on, do something else (perhaps more productive) with your time. You won't find much joy in gaming anymore. This isn't a PC gaming issue, it's a gaming issue althogehter. I had bought a PS3, and the issues there are the same.
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i completely disagree, i enjoy some of the newer games, but the thing that made gaming so fun was the simplicity of it, taking a skewed approach to solve certain problems, i played through kings quest VI and that was a BLAST, they have their flaws, but they're well designed and fun games, i'll take day of the tentacle any day over call of duty.
 
i was burnt out after the ut2k4 online community died here in New Zealand and Australia. CoD 4 held my attention for a bit, so did tf2. But man, now i am addicted like heroin to fallout 3. Best game in a looong time
 
Ah the good 'ole days... they're always better than they really were.

I think the problem is not that the games have changed, but your expectations have changed. It's part of growing up. There's a reason you don't play with Legos anymore, and it's the same reason video games have lost some of their "wow". Pretty soon you'll start thinking having a wife and kids is actually a good idea! :p
 
I'm the exaxct same guy.

Older games were elegant and smooth, felt light, total focus on fun. No disillusional idea that gamers want super graphics and nothing else. Newer games are bloated, buggy, uninspiring, the same old. There are exceptions though but those exceptions are usually independant games; Audiosurf, Peggle.

I play a browsergame copy of Bomberman with a friend in hot seat and I feel like a 5 year old with a big grin on my face. It's so much fun even after all these years. I think I'm very much drawn to simplicity, smoothness, elegance, artistic value. If none of those values are in the high seat I don't give a crap how advanced the 3D graphic effects are.
 
Funny thing happened when I bought my new card which finally have the horsepower for some AA, and i found out that FEAR, Rainbow 6 Vegas, UT3 all couldn't enable any AA.
 
Thanks for the interesing replies, I guess I'm not totally alone

I guess what it boils down to is that consoles have essentially taken over, games have become mainstream and so most games are made to appeal to the masses. Console ports have always typically been bad and thats fair enough because we're taking a game thats designed for the console and forcing it onto the PC and I could deal with that because we could simply discard it as a pile of crap and think nothing more of it.

But now we're in the murky waters of multiplatform developed games which bring a great deal of the console constraints to the PC in slightly more subtle ways, and it just lowers the tone of the whole game.

What really rubs it in is that a lot of the problems could be avoided, should the developers sit down and make a list of these things and take steps to correct them, next time I play an FPS with mouse acceleration forced on, or a stupid 70 degree FoV I'm going to rip out my hair!
 
I concur with everything the OP said.

Maybe I am just old also, maybe I am cranky, and maybe the world is flat.

The gaming industry has gone the way of the movie industry.
Everything has to be a takeoff of something else, or an IP nowadays.
And even with millions and millions of dollars thrown at them, with movie industry talent, they still suck.
Why?
Because there is no innovation anymore.

Oh yeah, and consolitis has ruined many a game.
Not to mention ALL of the console games run on the same engine, or use the exact same textures that every other game uses, making them feel even MORE like the same rehash of everything else.

Sigh.
 
Dave3d said:
I concur with everything the OP said.

Maybe I am just old also, maybe I am cranky, and maybe the world is flat.

The gaming industry has gone the way of the movie industry.
Everything has to be a takeoff of something else, or an IP nowadays.
And even with millions and millions of dollars thrown at them, with movie industry talent, they still suck.
Why?
Because there is no innovation anymore.

Oh yeah, and consolitis has ruined many a game.
Not to mention ALL of the console games run on the same engine, or use the exact same textures that every other game uses, making them feel even MORE like the same rehash of everything else.

Sigh.
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Buy this man a drink. Or three. Let's face it, consoles are going to be the most popular this generation, why? Because of the hysteria surrounding piracy on the PC. All the major pubs for PC DRM their games to the gills nowadays, being worse than Windows with limiting the number of installs, and SecuROM not working with or causing problems with many of the PCs out there. And can still be cracked within a day-or-three. Even long-time PC developer Epic Games has pretty much abandoned PC development in favor of PS3 and XBox 360 citing comments from Tim Sweeny and Cliff Blezinski, biting the very hand that fed them over the years making them the studio that they are today.

DRM just doesn't work because it's software and that can always be circumvented. With consoles, you have to modify your console with a "mod-chip" and risk getting your console bricked by Microsoft or Sony. You have a larger install base, a higher game price ($10), and a much larger ROI, especially with a game costing millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars and 2-4 years to make. Unfortunately that is reality and these studios are businesses out to make the most money they can. And the consoles are where all the money is at these days.

So really, with production costs going through the roof, who are you going to cater to? The masses? Or the few that can afford PCs equipped with cutting edge hardware; where piracy is rampant, and the install base is a fraction of what is on consoles because of the fact that the cost of entry is prohibitively expensive for most? Especially during these hard times.

Sad to say, but I don't think PC gaming will be the same again for a while until either consoles fall way behind PCs again like they did until the mid-to-late 90's, around the time of the 3D-acceleration revolution. When consoles caught up during the 16-bit generation they were the platform of choice of most developers, as they are arguably now with DX10 and Vista having a very small install base compared to XP, which is limited to DX9 just like the consoles. Also, the industry needs to get wise about this mess with DRM and find a better way so that publishers can feel better about PC releases and piracy, and consumers feel like they still have their fair-use rights (backups, re-selling/trading) and not be treated as criminals encouraging would-be customers to pirate a game simply because of invasive DRM that causes far more problems than it supposedly solves. Not to mention when the economy turns around more people can afford to drop $1-2K on PC hardware every year or two certainly won't hurt either.
 
Your life would be happier and more satisfying if you stopped comparing everything to Half-Life. Like if I sat down to dinner every night and compared it to the best steak house in town I would just go crazy and blow my brains out.
 
Acer_Sheep said:
Half-Life and all mods based on it use modified Quake 2 engine.
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Actually it never included anything off the Quake II engine. The engine was based off the original Quake engine, albeit heavily modified by Valve themselves. Which is what eventually Source was built off of.
 
Not exactly on topic here, but sorta....

Im 35....shame, yeah, I know. Grumpy? Hell yeah, as is my right to be IMO. Kids....yeah, got 2 of em. Married? Yueap, that too. 2 jobs? FUK U OBAMA....err umm.....did I mention I was grumpy too?

It was thrown in my face the other day just how "OLD" I actually have become....My 2nd job, working with know-it-all teens (that phrase used to urk me like nothing else....now I fully understand it). I was having a chat with the boss man and we were talkin about good ol movies from the past. This teenager overhears our conversation as we were talkin about the movie Back to the Future. The teens comment was...."Mannnn, how old are you guys?" We both looked at eachother and laughed then asked him, "when were you born?" He replied "1992". OMG!!!! I was like.....dude, your parents were humping eachother at the same time I was graduating high school...thats how old I am. He mentioned he had just seen Back to the Future just the other day, but didnt understand half the things in it that were supposed to be funny.

I thought about it a moment, then asked "When M.J. Fox was at the scientist guys house trying to prove he was from the future, the scientist asked him who was president in 1985." Fox of course says "Ronald Reagan".....and then the scientist replies "ha....THE ACTOR???"

I then asked this TEEN....Did that make sense to you? I mean, was it funny? His reply was "No. I didnt get it, was that supposed to be funny?" Then I asked him if he even knew who Ronald Reagan was. His answer to me was "Im not sure really". The bossman and I just looked at eachother shaking our heads in amazement. I replied that R.R. was the President of the US of A back then and back in the old old days, was an actor in movies when there was no such thing as color tv. This teenager looked at me like I was nuts. He actually thought I was trying to trick him or something.

Nothing makes you feel more OLD than asking a TODAYS teenager some common sense questions that were elementary to you growing up.

Its weird when you stop to think about it, that these KIDS will never know a life without the internet, MP3's and games that make Pac-Man and Donkey Kong look like ancient relics.

I for one, am GLAD to have been a part of the OLD gaming industry and culture that was hanging out at the mall at the arcade. Its something that todays know-it-all's will never appreciate. Their loss and THAT makes me feel younger........somehow :)
 
I tried playing Half Life 2 and f'd my brain. I get simulator/motion sickness and just can't play a lot of games. The only game i'm looking forward to that I will actually be able to play is Diablo III. Screw all of this 1st/3rd person crap that's taking over every game, I want some damn isometric games!

edit: I wanted to test out my new system and was able to play the Crysis demo without my head too f'd up, Half Life II seems really jerky.
 
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