The grumpy old man of PC gaming.

[Archmage]

Meh... I get bored of just about any game I play:

HL2: boring as hell
HL: boring
Bioshock: boring
Mass Effect: boring
Crysis: In awe of graphics, but still boring...
Assassin's Creed: boring...
COD4: boring

Counter-Strike Source: OK... I actually play this from time to time
WoW: I've been TRYING to play it... requires too much of a time-investment though. I'm scared of WAR and AOC for the same reason.

UT3: I enjoyed the free weekend deal for about 20 minutes. Maybe I should have purchased it for $12. I'll consider this later.

DOW2: I enjoyed the beta for a short period...almost enough to buy the retail game. However I decided I'd wait until they added more content.

SO there you have it. Every game bores me. This has been happening for YEARS now. Console games are especially bad because they're made for noobs.

Gaming has gone the way of music and movies...drat...mostly for profit. If I made a game... profits wouldn't be the primary goal

 

[Spare-Flair]

I feel the same way. Part of it is that I am maturing as a gamer. Part of it is how crappy games are being made because they are directed at the masses and the lowest common denominator of gaming who don't know any better.

I demand more and I want new experiences. Not just sequels of sequels of more mindless shooters that should have died years ago but now are getting even worse due to consolification.

I remember Origin's slogan: We Create Worlds.

I haven't experienced a world in gaming that I actually want to be in for a very long time. My dream game would be an updated Blade Runner game. First person but you hardly ever fire a gun. You do detective work in a dystopian mega city filled with millions of people miles up in buildings in the sky.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

*snip*

I haven't experienced a world in gaming that I actually want to be in for a very long time. My dream game would be an updated Blade Runner game. First person but you hardly ever fire a gun. You do detective work in a dystopian mega city filled with millions of people miles up in buildings in the sky.

But since you're not constantly capping replicants it wouldn't sell to the masses. Or how about you're the replicant having to fight and run for your life?

 

[ZzBloopzZ]

Frost, I would be pissed to with that kick ass system you have and all the money that went into it to find that theres no games you are really enjoying. :c(

I just got back into gaming few months ago since 2003. I have crap load of games yet I am having more fun with older games. I actually just beat NOLF1 few hours ago... was fun as hell and really unique. About to play NOLF2 soon. :c)

I agree with the L4D thing. It's fun and I have lots of cool friends that have it, but I always join a crappy server.

I had lots of fun with COD4 SP and COD5 Co-op with friends. But both games you can beat in 3-4 hours each. I normally don't play games more then once/twice.

 

[LordBritish]

You are not a Grumpy Old Gamer until you've played this below:

Hhhahahha, I laugh at you youngsters who complain about being jaded

BRB, gotta put on my spacesuit.

 

[Droc]

Multiplayer is the only thing that seems to keep me interested.

that seems to be a common saving grace for tiring gamers.

But to be honest, MP is one of the things that has turned me off the most. Elitism and ethugs cant just play games anymore, its all way over competitive and turns into a task instead of a stress relief.

MP with friends is great, but work and kids really make MP with friends a pipe dream. My biddies and I all got L4D so we could recover from this gaming recession, but after a week we simply cant all meet anymore due to schedule issues. Regular servers just dont cut it.

Im with ya OP, i think I just sit at my PC out of habit.

 

[ben chi(f4)]

I'm going to be 30 in July.

L4D just seems like a mindless - diabloesque - empty your gun without having to focus on aiming.

Can't we just bring back CS 1.3 and call it a day?

A day when I would take my computer over to my brother's house and LAN with his two other room mates and frag around servers all day and night? I miss my jumping deagles. =[

 

[Netrat33]

I'm sick of "sick of gaming" threads

All anyone ever bitches about is 3D graphics. I loved old dos games and would like a return to sprite based gaming. Be "original" with a complaining about gaming thread! 3D and more "immersion" bullshit ruined gaming of "the old" days if anything. FP Bladerunner? Fuck that! Bladerunner was awesome as is and still is. Why? The freaking game was written well and good voice acting. Every freakin game has to go 3D because the masses (THIS THREAD). Was there really anything wrong with Fallout 1 and 2 that demanded it to be in 3D? I think you'd find more people liked the orignals than the 3D version. Why aren't they bitching about the graphics of the first 2?

OH boohoo some tech-nerd out there points out FOV isn't what you wanted so you get a some false placebo. You'd NEVER know MOST of the time unless someone points it out.

All you bitching about modern games. No one is stopping you from STAYING IN THE PAST AND PLAYING YOUR OLD GAMES. I play my old games too but I play games for one reason: FUN. I don't care what they look like. I go back and play many classics I never played before because they are good games. But they are ugly. Oh right! I'm having fun.

 

[blizzle]

OH boohoo some tech-nerd out there points out FOV isn't what you wanted so you get a some false placebo. You'd NEVER know MOST of the time unless someone points it out.

I agree with you about graphics but when I get headaches from a terrible FOV I have the right to bitch. Games with proper FOV I can play for hours with no issues. When playing games like Bioshock with a terrible console FOV I get nauseous after 30 minutes and that's BS.

 

[demingo]

I'm 25 and I think I agree.

Games just aren't what they used to be. To many knock offs, to many attempts to make the same game from everyone.

I remember games being just more interesting back then. Halflife is a great example. Too many shooters today just drop you in with good graphics, a big gun, and tell you to shoot. That gets old. I remember the intro to HL as other people mentioned was amazing. It drew me in. I had no problem with the fact that I didn't shoot a gun for a while. However I get the feeling the younger generation of gamers would simply shut it off right away. The Gears of War crowd. I think Gears along with Halo are 2 of the most overrated games to be created. I fired up Halo and quickly realized the gameplay was boring and the graphics dated. By the time Halo was released Half-Life had completely changed how shooters can be played. Halo features incredibly boring gameplay (singleplayer) and the multiplayer wasnt much better. Gears of War is the same. Sure it looks downright beautiful, but cmon, there is no gameplay. I played through about half of it. Run, Cover, Shoot, Cover, Shoot, Repeat for hours. It got very boring quickly.

As much as it is repeated, consoles are killing quality games. Games need to be dumbed down for the short attention span of console gamers. Resident Evil is a great example. I loved the series. Sure the controls were a pain, and combat was awkward. But thats what made it great, it was about survival not racking up a body count. Ammo was very limited, it was tough to fight, your job wasnt to destroy everything like Rambo, it was simply to live. I played RE5 about halfway through again. It's just another boring shooter with zombies. Absolutely nothing special. I realized that the series has gone down the tubes when I didn't need to worry about conserving ammo or surviving. I could simply mow down every enemy as ammo was plentiful (and dropped by enemies... another gripe I wont get into) and if I ever got into trouble my partner would come and rescue me. Also to make it seem even more like a crappy FPS, the game is very much onrails. You no longer have a massive mansion or explore every room of, or a large police department. It seems like once you walk past something its in the past. I miss the feel of exploring a large place, looking everywhere for secrets. I miss the ink ribbon save system. Chapters do a really good job of just taking you out of an immersive enviroment and it cheapens it for me. Sorry for the rant on RE5 but RE was my favorite series so I have a lot of detail on how modern games are being dumbed down for console gamers with short attention spans.

Not to say that there aren't some gems either. I thought GTA4 was amazing. I always loved the GTA open world style and I think 4 was the best entry in the series. Street Fighter 4 is also a gem. Great gameplay, I feel like its the 90s all over again.

/end old man rant

 

[damonposey]

You are not a Grumpy Old Gamer until you've played this below:

Hhhahahha, I laugh at you youngsters who complain about being jaded

BRB, gotta put on my spacesuit.

since tabula rasa went under, I'm hoping richard garriot will return to the ultima series eventually.

 

[pothb]

Didn't they fire him though? It's not like he quit of his own volition.

 

[WhiteTiger_]

This probably has been said before, sorry I didn't read all of the posts.
I think maybe gaming has become boring for us because we have played for so many years and so many games that it really has to be an innovative and very well made game to be interesting for us.
But sadly and tough luck for us gaming has become mainstream, meaning the games are being launched disregarding us "experienced gamers". Just look at the crappie games that are being launched for the Wii (i wish they would launch some decent games to take advantage of the wiimote).

But I don't give up I keep searching for PC and Wii games that I might like.

 

[p3sty]

Im old and grumpy but it still doesnt change the fact that games nowadays suck it [H]@rd.

 

[spicey]

since tabula rasa went under, I'm hoping richard garriot will return to the ultima series eventually.

I hope so, but the intellectual rights may belong elsewhere though...? I love the Ultima games, U7 The Serpent Isle is still one of my all time favourites

 

[spicey]

I think maybe gaming has become boring for us because we have played for so many years and so many games that it really has to be an innovative and very well made game to be interesting for us.

Very true.

Thinking of a game that bucked the trend, perhaps Portal. That felt original and fresh. World of Goo is another - simple and innovative. Mirror's Edge and Dead Space really grabbed my attention aswell, anything new and original is invariably fun for me.

 

[stevedave]

I have most my eggs in one basket and it is Diablo 3. I doubt it will be better than D2 considering if that game hand another expan set with 1920x1200 resolution is will probably sell like crazy; but if it come at least close to D2 my PC gaming will be saved for a over a year.

 

[spicey]

HL2: boring as hell
HL: boring
Bioshock: boring
Mass Effect: boring
Crysis: In awe of graphics, but still boring...
Assassin's Creed: boring...
COD4: boring

I would suggest a new hobby if all of these bore you!

 

[Frostex]

Apologies in advance for crit by wall of text etc

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.

It seems like it used to be less about money than it is today, today a development studio will tar the PC with the console brush to simply make more money, rather than seperating out development and getting the same game made for multiple platforms.

A game like Thief back in the day was very much tailored towards the game style of those who like that niche, and it really is a niche, few people have time for stealth like that. But they didn't dumb down the game in order to expand it's likey target audience, it was made that was because for those who like it, it's a fantastic game.

People who own consoles and not gaming PC's don't see this problem, it's not obvious to them, but what happens if we generate a kind of equivelent situation for them. Lets say games on mobile devices (phones and portables) gets very popular, and develoers decide to make the next halo game multiplatform on PC's, consoles and mobiles because it's a bigger audience. But they're only going to make 1 copy that fits all...so most the constraints of a mobile phone are brought to the console...how would that make halo fans feel?

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.

I actually emailed them about this years ago, it was quake1 for the most part but certain components were used from the later revisons which was part of the quake II engine. It was pretty heavily modified in any case it doesn't matter too much.

Not exactly on topic here, but sorta....

...It was thrown in my face the other day just how "OLD" I actually have become....

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

...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

hehe, it goes both ways though, they may not know what back to the future is, but give it a few years and you'll be finding yourself asking youngsters how to program your new fangled phone or mini optical disc recorder or something strange like that. THEN you'll feel old

Frost, I would be pissed to with that kick ass system you have and all the money that went into it to find that theres no games you are really enjoying. :c(

Well I use my PC for much more than gaming, I do all my work on it, anything creative I do is on the PC, I dont own a TV so it's a substitute for that as well.

But besides that, I do enjoy modern games enough to want to keep gaming as a hobby, it's just depressing that a lot of these issues need not occur, or could be fairly easily fixed, if the time was taken to deliver a quality product, and some games get it bang on right, just very rarely. I think the last game I was impressed with World In Conflict, I find it very hard to find faults with that game, it's a true PC game through and through.

I agree with the L4D thing. It's fun and I have lots of cool friends that have it, but I always join a crappy server.

Again this need not be, I understand that online gaming to most console users is probably something they need newb wrapped like everything else, so a system designed to find them a server which will provide them a good experience is probably better than them picking one themselfs and doing it badly...

But why should PC gamers have that restraint? We know how to pick servers from a master list which suit us and our style of play.

I'm sick of "sick of gaming" threads

All anyone ever bitches about is 3D graphics. I loved old dos games and would like a return to sprite based gaming. Be "original" with a complaining about gaming thread! 3D and more "immersion" bullshit ruined gaming of "the old" days if anything. FP Bladerunner? Fuck that! Bladerunner was awesome as is and still is. Why? The freaking game was written well and good voice acting. Every freakin game has to go 3D because the masses (THIS THREAD). Was there really anything wrong with Fallout 1 and 2 that demanded it to be in 3D? I think you'd find more people liked the orignals than the 3D version. Why aren't they bitching about the graphics of the first 2?

Graphics arent the be all and end all of gaming, I'm happy to play games with simple graphics if the gameplay is good. And for the record i would have preffered the fallout games to stay isometic, FO3 was alright as it turns out, it stood well on its own merits but didn't feel like a true fallout game somehow.

OH boohoo some tech-nerd out there points out FOV isn't what you wanted so you get a some false placebo. You'd NEVER know MOST of the time unless someone points it out.

I notice it immediately, its highly unnatural and actually makes playing the game very unconfortable, it makes some people feel sick which is understandable because it creates a divide between the point of control and point of view, like you're walking around zoomed through a sniper scope constantly.

All you bitching about modern games. No one is stopping you from STAYING IN THE PAST AND PLAYING YOUR OLD GAMES. I play my old games too but I play games for one reason: FUN. I don't care what they look like. I go back and play many classics I never played before because they are good games. But they are ugly. Oh right! I'm having fun.

I do play old games through again, but this is not a good reason to lower the quality of modern games.

This probably has been said before, sorry I didn't read all of the posts.
I think maybe gaming has become boring for us because we have played for so many years and so many games that it really has to be an innovative and very well made game to be interesting for us.

Nah, I still fundamentally enjoy gaming, it's just hard to get enthisastic about a game which is full of loads of little flaws that degrade the playing experience. I love games like Bioshock but the problems with it nipped at my heels for the entire length of the game, it spoilt the experience which was still reasonably good but fell short of being a masterpiece for utterly retarded reasons like the devs dont know how to impliment widescreen correctly (despite fans confirming with devs before the games release on the forums that it would be done correctly), and other stupid things like forced mouse acceleration which cause mouse movements to feel very unnatural.

What takes the piss is that this stuff isnt hard to fix for the most part, the bioshock team made a good attempt to keep the game suitable for the PC auience but missed some fundamental issues that any true old school gamer would pick up in 2 seconds flat.

The fans had to finish the game for them and create tools to fix the FoV, do the widescreen correctly etc, it's just sad that sort of thing needs to be done.

 

[Neurofreeze]

I agree on the FoV bullshit. Valve was fucking retarded for implementing that. On their own pages they even say that FoV techniques are using in iMAX theaters and that's why they have curved/dome screens, yet they apply the same technique to a flat monitor. Hmm....

I'm not a giant fan of HL2. It just needlessly drawn itself out and had poor pacing/flow. At many points it couldn't even decide whether it wanted to be a vehicle section or a puzzle/switch section. Breaking up a vehicle section every half minute to dismount, kill a few bad guys, flip a switch/seasaw (or something to that effect), and remount really breaks the flow of the game. That happened so many times it was ridiculous.

For being heralded so many times as the best game ever, I couldn't ever get myself to play it for more than an hour at a time. I've spent longer sessions than that on Bejeweled.

L4D is alright, but content-light. People complain SOOOO much about anyone who says the next content patch is a ripoff because it doesn't really give us new maps for campaign. Well news flash: it's not a free patch. There is NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE GAMING WORLD who bought L4D thinking, "This is it, I just paid $30-50 (depending on how good your deal was) for this game and nothing else." No, that's bullshit. Everyone bought the game knowing that Valve would deliver two things:
1) Multiplayer servers (which range from shitty to decent, all of them using a shitty match finder)
2) Content patches.

Let me put it this way, if Valve, this time last year, announced that they were going to release L4D at $50 MSRP and explicitly stated, "There will never, ever be any content patches for this game and there are only four maps," no one would buy it. Everyone bought it with the understanding they would get ample amounts of content later. So yes, it is perfectly valid to complain that the next content patch is not enough.

But yes, I miss the days when I bought a game and it was a full game. The developer couldn't simply offload development for post-release patches. When I bought Starcraft, it was Starcraft. I wasn't waiting for patch 1.01.

There are plenty of good games though, past and present. There are just a lot of bad trends with an increasingly larger market.

 

[phide]

A game like Thief back in the day was very much tailored towards the game style of those who like that niche, and it really is a niche, few people have time for stealth like that. But they didn't dumb down the game in order to expand it's likey target audience, it was made that was because for those who like it, it's a fantastic game.

What's really interesting about Thief is that it isn't a fundamentally complex game from an input and gameplay perspective. The controls themselves are only slightly more complex than Quake and Half-Life, but everything can still be accomplished intuitively (especially in Thief 2, where the control scheme was cleaned up to an enormous extent). The gameplay itself is also very straightforward: no really complex or crazy mechanics to be seen. For its time, it threw in various new elements that made it seem much more complex than other first-person games at the time, but there certainly wasn't any kind of steep learning curve.

Thief really demonstrates how thin the dividing line can be between an excellent PC game and a merely passable one like BioShock, at least to some gamers. If you could take BioShock and clean up a dozen or so seemingly minor issues, you'd have yourself an amazing little game. Certainly one deserving to stand next to the timeless first-person classics like Thief, Quake and even Doom. Instead, the game's released in a partially-aborted state and dropped off 2K's post-purchase support radar almost immediately after its release, leaving us to essentially fend for ourselves. We got only a single patch that was little more than a slap in the face some six months or so afterward and nothing else after that.

If that's how developers and publishers view games -- not as art pieces but merely as products that can be released and then simply forgotten about -- that's when I give up on PC gaming. I'm pretty much there now, just clinging on to my old PC in the hopes that, eventually, someone is going to release something really incredible. It's just doubtful at this point that it's ever going to happen.

 

[Neurofreeze]

I would suggest a new hobby if all of these bore you!

Naw, I suggest he just try something that's not 1st/3rd person shooter. Mass Effect is a start but it's still heavily hybrid 3rd person shooter.

Try some RTS, or racing, or 4X. There's plenty of stuff out there. RTS is making a comeback big with DoW2 and Empire:TW these days.

I see this all the time. People are all, "OMG PC GAMING DEAD I FIND ALL GAMES BORING" yet you see in their list:

FPS
FPS SEQUEL
CLONE FPS
CLONE FPS SEQUEL
CLONE FPS SEQUEL II
FPS
FPS SEQUEL II
FPS WITH GIMMICK
...ad infinitum.

And people wonder why they're bored.

 

[v0rtic3s-x]

Honestly, and unfortunately, I'd have to agree with most of these posts.

At the age of 35, and after so many, many years of gaming, I'm finally finding myself feeling unfulfilled by most of what's released.

I, too, want and need something a more expansive, creative and immersive, something with a powerful aesthetic all around, which even in the FPS genre is indeed possible.

Games are indeed an art form, and possibly one of the biggest, as they're akin to films, yet being interactive. Visuals, music, a plot (usually to some degree), camera angles, yet with the additional element of allowing the viewer to control and interact with the entire scenario.

Considering this, developers need to start putting more effort into creating more engrossing games, and perhaps taking more time with the process, because when you are taking basically every element of art and combining it into one medium, it's a lot of different facets on which to focus.

They need to take the time to make each one the best it can be, and not just focus on one or two aspects, and leave the rest to be "thrown together" at the end of the process.

Honestly, even games that are just "blow-shit-up" titles, can be highly enjoyable to me still, if the right aesthetic is there, but I think it says something that there really aren't any titles that can make that feel cathartic and visceral.

But even those types of titles are simply for mindless enjoyment and, in general, I find myself becoming increasingly irritated at that lack of depth and aesthetic to most games being released. It doesn't even have to be an overly-complex system of gameplay, but at least add a bit more meaningful interactivity, which is more than possible, that doesn't insult the intelligence of the gamer, and that adds to the overall aesthetic.

- More destructible environments, as would be in real life.
If I empty a few clips from my SiG .40 or .45 into the walls or my car, there's going to be destruction. I want to see the same in a game.

- Multiple paths to take in a game, also connected to destructible environments.
In real life, which games more and more attempt to mimic the elements of, there is almost always multiple paths you could take to reach any given point. It's more than feasible to create an environment that, while doesn't have to be totally "open-world", could still offer more choices in terms of path variations.

- General interactivity needs to be increased.
Not just pressing buttons to open doors. How about a welding torch to weld doors shut, blow a hole through the wall behind you, while what ever/whom ever is chasing you, has to break through the door to catch you? Just one of countless possibilities, especially with today's technology, even with AI intelligence at reacting to certain situations.

- General interactivity, mixed with more realism in terms of ammo, health etc.
Following the example above, create situations where you have to think fast and utilize the environment, because you're limited on ammo and how many weapons you can carry, such as in real life. So, you're put in a situation of having to weld doors shut, knock over things in hallways to block and slow enemy progression etc. because you're not carrying five different guns with a ton of ammo.

Such situations would certainly make for a more tense and realistic experience.

- More atmosphere, hands-down.
I don't know about anyone else here, but I'm very big on atmosphere. Whether you're in a dreadful, zombie-infested town, or a futuristic alien environment, I want to actually feel that I'm in there, in that situation, time and place. More focus needs to be put on creating more palpable atmospheres.

Some games have done some of these things, to degrees, but there's just such a lack of creativity these days, I've not really seen anything done exactly the ways I'm explaining and have in my head. All of these things would lend a level of immersion and depth to games that is sorely needed, because it's just becoming the "same old" over and over again.

I still go back and play HL2, due to the fact that, while very much a corridor shooter without many options, the aesthetic and atmospheres of HL2 are phenomenal. Every level of the game, from lighting to soundscapes and music, give the game an incredible atmosphere, and while the "puzzles" and gameplay are simple and straight-forward, it's the palpable aesthetic, creative and immersive level design and general atmosphere that always keeps me coming back. Of course, I can only continue playing HL2 for so long, and need something a little more in-depth in terms of gameplay as well.

Anyway... that's my "rant" on the subject, and I hope that for the sake of those such as myself and the many others who've responded in similar fashion here, that developers start focusing more on creativity than appealing to what they feel might sell more, due to appealing to the general "A.D.D. masses" who cant focus for more than two seconds, or put themselves deeply into something that offers any semblance of depth, either in atmosphere and/or general aesthetic and creativity.

I tell you, I'm greatly looking forward to Wolfenstein. It's an FPS, but it truly seems that there's an incredible attention to detail being put into the game, and it's chock-full of creativity and atmosphere, with (hopefully, what seems like) engrossing story telling in the mix. I think it's going to be an excellent and highly enjoyable experience. I hope.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

*snip*

The developer couldn't simply offload development for post-release patches. When I bought Starcraft, it was Starcraft. I wasn't waiting for patch 1.01.

There are plenty of good games though, past and present. There are just a lot of bad trends with an increasingly larger market.

I remember those days too, where patches were to fix minor bugs or add 3D acceleration support. And a game usually lasted longer than 8-10 hours. Although around the late 90's there was a trend beginning with releasing games often times with serious bugs, only for developers to fix (sometimes much) later, with gamers providing free beta-testing. Sadly, that's become the norm today.

Hurry up and release to start raking in cash now, then fix later.

 

[GHarris]

Excellent thread, it has really struck a chord with me. I think that if only developers had more autonomy to create games they themselves were very proud of, rather than being pressured to do everything with a view to maximum profitability, then perhaps there wouldn't be as much of a problem.

 

[p3sty]

I miss the Mechwarrior series

 

[Spare-Flair]

But since you're not constantly capping replicants it wouldn't sell to the masses. Or how about you're the replicant having to fight and run for your life?

Screw the masses, I hate games where you are just shooting things every 10 seconds. It's doable if you look at Assasin's Creed. Cities full of people and you don't really fight that often unless you cross paths with some guards (which you can also sneak around). Now you make it an adventure game instead of stupid running on rooftops and doing the same 3 minigames over and over again.

 

[CruisD64]

I wish classic adventure games would become popular again. The days of quest for glory and space quest were the best. Games today have lost alot of substance.

 

[SmokeRngs]

I agree that a lot of games seem to have become unsatisfying to a large extent. I left gaming for a rather long time for multiple reasons but with the occasional purchase of a game I thought might be interesting. In the last year, I've picked up more games than I had in the previous five years combined. Practically none of these games were brand new releases partially because I didn't see many brand new releases that piqued my interest and the older games were a lot cheaper.

In the last few months a couple of games I picked up were Mass Effect and Jade Empire. I have played through Mass Effect three times and Jade Empire twice. I really enjoyed these games because of the story they had. A true story driven game with a well written story keeps my interest. Sure, both games had some annoyances but they were easily overlooked. One thing both of these games have in common is Bioware. Bioware games almost always have a great storyline that is put together very well.

A couple other games I have really enjoyed are KOTOR 1 and 2. There were a lot of bugs and story holes in KOTOR 2 and it wasn't done by Bioware but it was still an interesting game. KOTOR 1 was great although I really wish it had had more content. I did not want to stop playing the game.

I also snagged Bioshock on Steam for $5 right after Christmas. The controls were horrible due to having consolitis. The game itself definitely wasn't bad. It had good graphics and atmosphere but the story I thought was rather thin and lacking. It's a decent game but did fall short of the mark. If it had been a PC game rather than a console port, I think a lot of problems would not have appeared.

About this time last year I bought World in Conflict on someone's recommendation. I'm damn glad I took that recommendation as it is a great game. I've played through it several times and am thinking about playing it again. I love the storyline, think the graphics and effects are well done and find the fighting to be challenging. I also bought C&C 3 around the same time and I still haven't finished that game. It seems too much of a mindless playing annoyance to me.

An "old" game I always loved was Betrayal at Krondor. I played the hell out of that game back in the "olden days". Again, it was a character and story driven game.

I have no problem with mindless shooting games and enjoy some of them on occasion. I have no problem with online gaming and have logged more hours than I can count on RTCW, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and to a lesser extent, Quake Wars. FPSes are about the only games I'll play online. I'll stick to my RPGs as single player games and RTSes I prefer to play on a LAN if I'm playing against someone. These just seem to be the preferences I've grown accustomed to but also have something to do with real life. A single player game I can play for five minutes or twelve hours if I want. However, I rarely have time to play twelve hours. My schedule and commitments don't allow me to jump into something online on a whim where I might have to play for a few hours to finish.

I think much of the gaming industry has fallen into the trap where they try to put something for everyone into most games. It creates a general game that a larger number of people like but totally ignores the games that not as many people might like but the ones that do absolutely love it. Just look at the Final Fantasy games. That's a huge legacy that almost everyone knows about but the first game wasn't made to appeal to everyone. It was made to appeal to a certain group of people and took off from there. Games which catered to a certain segment of people used to be the norm. Many game companies made their names and fortunes doing this and yet it's something you don't see much of anymore. You also don't see many of these companies around anymore and it seems mostly because the companies stopped doing what made them what they were and instead started doing something generic.

 

[Nettwerk]

I wish classic adventure games would become popular again. The days of quest for glory and space quest were the best. Games today have lost alot of substance.

Yea the days right before the internet.. walk into a SOFTWARE store and see a new sierra game you never heard about but you new it was gonna be good.

 

[redman223]

I agree with what someone said earlier about how most of these posts are complaints about 1st and 3rd person shooters and arcadey "sim" games. I suggest going back and playing some of the old school classics again, as another person mentioned earlier, you can get most of them at gog.com for like six dollars. I found out today that there is an entire community dedicated to Freespace 2, and that they have updated the graphics a little bit, and did an entire conversion of the first game and its expansion. Not only that but there are dozens of extra campaigns available, and other total conversions out there, like one based on Babylon 5, and another based on Wing Commander. Youtube it, its called the Freespace Open Source Project, or something like that. If you hated Freespace, then never mind, though I have heard that the MechWarrior games will work in Vista if you use the virtual machine or whatever its called and install Win98SE on there. So don't focus on multi-platform titles, focus your playing time on gaming experiences that you can only get on the PC.

So all is not lost yet, and I really do believe that the PC will make a comeback, especially as the performance per dollar increases, and it goes up with each die shrink. The 4750 is going to be a killer at under $100. Imagine when $500 laptops come with a graphics chips like that standard. It probably wont happen for awhile, but I say give it 2-3 years and onboard graphics will not be shitty like they usually are today (Intel). Then people might start to question Microsoft and Sony as to why they are paying $60 for a console game that they can buy for their laptops (hooked up to the tv via HDMI) for $40 or less, or why they should pay $600 for the next console when their laptops play everything out there already...(basically we need to kill the Intel graphics division).

 

[Blackstone]

I once went to a friend's place and he had the XBOX or PS2 port of the original Half-Life. I saw it in his game collection and I said something like "man isn't Half-Life a great game"? Well turns out he couldn't figure his way out of the first sequence where you get to the chamber where everything goes wrong. He couldn't find his way to the test chamber and gave up.

So you should be grateful you were resourceful enough to make it to test chamber and even experience half-life. Not everyone did.

 

[dkev]

I've played a lot of games in my life (I'll be 40 this year) There aren't many out now a days that impress me. I avoid games that the publishers and the media rave over their graphics. Time and time again those games almost always disappoint. Lately I've been hitting the discounted titles. Sense I'm all growed up, I don't have a lot of disposable income like I did when I was a kid so I'm a whole lot more picky about games. I got a good year out of COD4 and I'm still playin it. I loved Bioshock. Something about playing it on a 52" plasma makes me all fuzzy inside. I have both Oblivion and Fallout 3 for the 360 but after an hour I was board. Haven't played em since. Liked the lunch box and the bobble head that came with Fallout 3 though.

 

[ZzBloopzZ]

I miss the feel of exploring a large place, looking everywhere for secrets.

You should play the old game, if not played before No One Lives Forever. I just beat it for the first time the other night and it was soo fun and refreshing. Ran smooth in Vista x64 however I could not play in my native resolution. :c(

About to play NOLF2 next and I hear it's even better! Also, I agree with you on GOW. I just completed it last night with a friend in co-op. We started it back in November 08 and just finished it. We kept stopping because some parts were so boring or just retarded. Also, you could tell it was designed for a console... it felt so limited and glitchy. We also would get physically stuck in certain parts and would have to restart the mission.

 

[Ruiner]

old guy??!!! I played Wizardry on the apple IIe and mapped EVERY FREAKIN level on science graph paper...

TILTOWAIT

 

[jstnomega]

See, this is what happens whn accountants run everything.

They've ruined Hollywood.

They've ruined the recorded music industry.

They've destroyed Detroit.

Slowly but surely, they're killing vidieo gaming.

meh

 

[Godmachine]

Not sure why you guys are so bored with current games , I'm 28 and love the current crop we have to choose from. Its funny when people bring up old games .. so many of you have forgotten how crappy some of them were and how a few of them you had that really were fun , most of the games we all love from the past had a span of years inbetween ...well what about what you played during those spans of time?

Of course you don't remember because they don't stick in your mind like true classics .. I mean there are alot more games out currently per year than I'm sure in the past.I really don't regret any of the games I bought last year (around 20) and all of them have done there job and kept me entertained. I think if anything I miss the excitement of having a hobby that wasn't accepted by the general public like gaming is now , it use to be that gaming was kind of a outsiders obession .. the real hard core would line up early at a local Toy's R Us and buy that wonderful new copy of Super Metroid even though it might have made you feel alittle dorky .. you didn't care and that felt pretty awesome honestly.

Now every friggin game at Gamestop has its own release at midnight crap ..or some gay party to go with it. Its not special at all anymore and now its more like a business than a hobby , its all numbers to the souless drones that run Gamestop and its all about getting every 8 year old to buy the latest pokemon short of murdering there parents for the cash day of release. I miss getting togather with my friends to play some SF2 on our SNES tournament style .. it felt really damn awesome to win that baby 3 times in a row (champ ).

Anyway I deviate , I do miss some the days of ole when I think about how corporations really dominate this industry as a whole now and its alot less about the passion and alot more about the green. However I do think there are plenty of gems out there if you are willing to look and these gems are just as wonderful and original as anything that came out years ago.

 

[BDV]

Ah Fullthrotle and Space Quest 5, along with Starcraft, Civ 2, Moo2 and UFO series were the peak of the genre for me.

The older I get the less games I play =\

 

[illuminate]

I agree with the OP 100%. I havent played completely through a game, nor gotten really involved in one since i used to play Black Hawk Down Multiplayer. That game, for me, was what the OP described. For some single player action - Medal Of Honor: Allied Assult.

*sigh* I miss those days... miss them a lot.

 

[QuickS]

I can understand the OP's complaint about TF2 and L4D but there are still plenty of amazing FPS'ers that are some what new that he forgot to mention that are amazing and are unlike most of the A.D.D. FPS'ers out there right now. Games like STALKER, Fallout 3, and CSS are all amazing and are true to their pc gaming roots and I think that you should give them a try.