Turning 30 soon, reminiscing of the old days of gaming and more

[Shinobido Heart]

Pretty hard to believe that I'll be turning the big three-zero soon. Man, where has the time gone?... Oh! I remember!

It went towards hundreds of video games and multiple 100+ hour RPG's! Ah that brings me back, the good ol' days of gaming.

The time period when you didn't have to worry about micro-transactions. Yeah, I still haven't forgotten.

I've been pretty much a video gamer my whole life. It all started the moment I held the original Game Boy as a little kid, playing games like Kirby's Dreamland, Raging Fighter, and Yoshi's Cookie. Not long later I was playing games on the Nintendo like Super Mario Bros. 3, Contra, and Battletoads to name a few...and then the Super Nintendo came to say hello with its Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Battletoads and Double Dragon, and TMNT: Turtles in Time to name a few from there.

I got so absorbed into gaming that a time-skip happened.

I don't remember much after that other than I got taller...stronger...faster and maybe a little bit hairier but hey, I had the SEGA Game Gear, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, DS Lite, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and now the Nintendo Switch.

Ah, but how could I forget the Floppy Disk and CD-ROM era of PC gaming? Games like Quake, Wolfenstein, Last Knight of Camelot, PAC-MAN, Battlezone II, Oni, Speed Busters, Global Operations, etc etc...

That's a lot of consoles and games over the span of nearly 30 years!

I guess I do have to ask myself the question; "Do I regret spending so much money and time playing video games?".

Maybe a little bit...BUT!

I enjoyed my time trying out so many games, going on so many adventures, reading and playing the creations of hundreds if not thousands of people. Sometimes I just stare at my old collection of video games, and reminisce of the adventures I had in those games. Then I stop to wonder about how many people came together to make those games and where are they now? Are they still alive? Are they doing okay? Is the studio still around?

Making video games is really, really hard work and extremely time consuming. I've tried coding in C++ before using Microsoft Visual Studios and it is hard work. Especially when you don't know what the code does, and you need to write a comment on it. It blows my mind how anyone can understand this kind of mumbo-jumbo. Supposedly Java is much easier but I've never tried it. I'm not interested in coding anymore though. Very impressive to those that stuck with it, and can now speak code fluently.

With that said, I really miss the old days of gaming. I'm talking as early as the 1990's to the early 2000's. For me it was an era of great games, great ideas, and great adventures. Of course it wasn't all sugar and rainbows but in my opinion it was an era when social media wasn't as big as it is today, an era when people weren't so politically charged as they are now and things weren't as stressful as they are today. I mean really, I could probably hop on Reddit right now and find something depressing in 3 minutes or less.

It was also an era when I got those AOL discs in the mailbox. Good times indeed.

When I look at the current media landscape now, I can't help but be disgusted with how things have become. With the over saturation of subscription services and the broad list of micro-transactions. Games are still as great as ever, but with some added annoyances.

Anyway, I better stop myself here.

I'm pretty sure that if I keep writing, I'm gonna start writing a 10-page college essay on the introduction and negative effects of micro-transactions, DLC, Loot Boxes, Gacha, Season Passes, lay-offs, crunch time and men in business suits.

I tried my best to gather my thoughts so I could write something meaningful before I turn 30. I guess I went towards a bit of a rant at the end but hopefully I didn't offend anyone.

Thank you for your time for reading my thread and please share your thoughts. Feel free to AMA, or reminisce with me.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

I will turn 30 next year. Your post is making me feel like an old fart.

 

[A1an]

Wait until you reach 40!

I concur with what you have written, one thing I miss are games that just work straight out of the box on day one.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Exactly my situation, although I barely have time to game these days. And when I do, it's to play remakes lf my favorites (Nitro Fueled, Reignited).

I miss the simple green grass, blue sky era of polygonal gaming. Megaman Legends, Sonic Adventure, Jet Set Radio are my gaming DNA. Still enjoy the output today though!

 

[ClarkusDarkus]

VR gave me the passion for gaming again like i had during the ps1 era.

 

[Kieli]

I'm about your age. I'm less interested in the games themselves nowadays, and more interested in the industry and making of games.

 

[GranddadFreeman]

Get off my lawn youngin (turned 37 last monday)

Gaming was pretty alright back then. You would accidentally find favorite games because the hyped game was nowhere to be found. (Love you forever Legend of Dragoon)

When people found out how much we spent on them, it was a downward spiral. I hate the phrase "games as a service". I'll admit though, it's still pretty good, despite it seeming depressing everywhere. Not as good as the good ol days since nothing is as good as that but, still good. Find the right crowd and ignore everything else and continue to have fun. I'm sure you're realizing that your time is limited now. Why spend it worrying about if some nerd on a forum (including me) will hate you for playing something? Enjoy those fun games and HAPPY BIRTHDAY

 

[Trieu]

I know what you mean with old days, but my love got ignited again with the Souls games, God of War and Prey. I am still treating most games as a way to "isolate" myself. That is why I love big AAA single player story focused games with amazing immersive graphics and good voice actors.

 

[Kayotix]

Just turned 39, i sometimes miss the magic of walking into a toys r us or kaybee toys and seeing all of the games on a wall or the paper tags hanging there.....

The way I felt getting that new cartridge for my Nes or Snes..... Man..... :(

 

[gdt]

They were crunching and charging a lot more back in the old days.

 

[Shinobido Heart]

I will turn 30 next year. Your post is making me feel like an old fart.

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Haha, sorry about that.

Wait until you reach 40!

I concur with what you have written, one thing I miss are games that just work straight out of the box on day one.

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Yeah, I miss those days so much. These days, when I buy a game, I gotta check online first for patches/updates before I start playing a game. Some of those Day 1 updates can be ridiculous in size.

VR gave me the passion for gaming again like i had during the ps1 era.

Click to shrink...

Hello fellow VR user, I too use VR and I totally agree. When I tried VR for the first time some years ago it was like a breath of fresh air. I'm currently waiting on new VR games as I've played the ones I have a lot already. Looking forward to Boneworks and Nostos!

I know what you mean with old days, but my love got ignited again with the Souls games, God of War and Prey. I am still treating most games as a way to "isolate" myself. That is why I love big AAA single player story focused games with amazing immersive graphics and good voice actors.

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Yeah, there are definitely great games still being pushed out today. I still remember the first few weeks of Dark Souls 1 when it released. It was so good! It's just the games of today, you have to worry about micro-transactions and other things. :(

They were crunching and charging a lot more back in the old days.

Click to shrink...

Definitely, I wouldn't doubt the amount of crunch back then. Probably more crunch back then than now. As for the pricing in games, I actually don't remember games being more expensive back then. If anything, I remember quite a few games being 50 dollars and an upwards of 70 depending on the game. Of course the collectors editions would be more.

 

[Hella]

Gaming monetisation has become much more of a visible bummer as I've gotten older, but I don't actually believe it's been entirely bad. Games like Crusader Kings 2 or Warframe can only exist because of GaaS/F2P monetisation, and the industry is better for it. The diversification/proliferation of gaming has meant that niche titles can find a niche home now, instead of just dying out or morphing into something unrecognisable for the sake of profit.

I'd go so far as saying there's never been a better time to play video games.

 

[Deleted member 6215]

These "I'm getting so old" (still in my 20s) posts crack me up. Just for some perspective, you're still more than a decade away from "mid-life" and that's pretty damn young in my book.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Turning 30 does that to you. Showing my age here I had all of the systems you have, OP but I even had Commodore 64 (my first) and obscurities like Philips CDi.

I also can recall how BIG arcade games used to be, having been around it all in the 80s and 90s and late 2000s and those gems. That kind of gaming experience is unique within itself. I still remember beating Time Crisis 2 back in the day, on one credit and getting a crowd watching me. Same goes for Silent Scope.

And playing all of these arcade classics back in the day: House of the Dead 1 and 2, Virtua Cop 2, Konami's most obscure run 'n gun game Cowboys of Moo Mesa, 18 Wheeler, Daytona, Sunset Riders, Virtua Fighter 2, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Vampire Night... Good times.

Wait until you reach 40!

I concur with what you have written, one thing I miss are games that just work straight out of the box on day one.

Click to shrink...

A lot of Nintendo games are good for that still, thankfully. Fire Emblem: Three Houses being the most recent example.
It's really the top level AAA releases that normally require patches since the games are just so huge nowadays, I get what you mean though.

 

[8bit]

I'm Computer Space years old and had an Atari VCS and a Magnavox Odyssey, and had to load games from cassettes in the home computer era. Old is just a state of mind.

 

[JustinH]

Happy (pre-emptive) birthday, OP!

30 ain't bad, don't let it get to you...

My strongest memories of playing games (not earliest, but ones where I think back and go "that was a good time") were playing the Wing Commander games on PC (and later in WCII when the giant cat in the intro was talking!), getting lost in Wizardry 7 and not being sure whether or not I should attack this Umpani or T'Rang guard when they're just talking to me, and when I got my Sega Genesis.

I got a Sega Genesis for my birthday... must've been 91. I had no idea what this thing was supposed to be, and I'm pretty sure I was disappointed I didn't get Nintendo games. Then I hooked it up and played Sonic with the kids at my party and we were all flabbergasted. I'm sure we said "whoa" over and over again. It still blows my mind that there was a time when a game console could be out and I had no idea what it was let alone why I'd want it. (no, I ain't old either...)

 

[AshenOne]

Turning 30 next year as well.

From using an IBM 386 to an Intel i5 2500K Sandybridge processor

From using my trusty 80GB(as early as i remember) to using a 4TB HDD

From using 1.4k/b speed dial up internet to using a 20 MB Broadband DSL internet connection

From using floppy disks to using DVDs and USBs

From using my 8MB of vram internal video card to using a 4GB of vram dedicated 3d graphics processor

From having 32MB of RAM to having 8GB of RAM

Ofcourse along with the above stuff i used VCR to watch movies in cassette tapes and listened to songs via cassette tapes as well.

Its been quite the technological transition for me from when i was a young kid and to what iam now.

It feels pretty rare and unique to go through such a phase has to radically transformed in a matter of 20 years.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

If you're younger than the 16-bit console launches, you're not old.

Remembering the 16-bit console launches - 30 years later

30 years ago, July 1989. We're less than a month away from the launch of (two of) the 16-bit consoles in North America. What did you think about this time period, pre-launch and the early months of releases? Feel free to discuss the launch era of these systems for other regions, too. And even if...

www.resetera.com

 

[AcademicSaucer]

If you're younger than the 16-bit console launches, you're not old.

Remembering the 16-bit console launches - 30 years later

30 years ago, July 1989. We're less than a month away from the launch of (two of) the 16-bit consoles in North America. What did you think about this time period, pre-launch and the early months of releases? Feel free to discuss the launch era of these systems for other regions, too. And even if...

www.resetera.com

Click to shrink...

25 is the new 35

 

[Shinobido Heart]

These "I'm getting so old" (still in my 20s) posts crack me up. Just for some perspective, you're still more than a decade away from "mid-life" and that's pretty damn young in my book.

Click to shrink...

It's not so much my age, but how much the gaming landscape, or perhaps media in general has changed so fast.

Happy (pre-emptive) birthday, OP!

30 ain't bad, don't let it get to you...

My strongest memories of playing games (not earliest, but ones where I think back and go "that was a good time") were playing the Wing Commander games on PC (and later in WCII when the giant cat in the intro was talking!), getting lost in Wizardry 7 and not being sure whether or not I should attack this Umpani or T'Rang guard when they're just talking to me, and when I got my Sega Genesis.

I got a Sega Genesis for my birthday... must've been 91. I had no idea what this thing was supposed to be, and I'm pretty sure I was disappointed I didn't get Nintendo games. Then the I hooked it up and played Sonic with the kids at my party and we were all flabbergasted. I'm sure we said "whoa" over and over again. It still blows my mind that there was a time when a game console could be out and I had no idea what it was let alone why I'd want it. (no, I ain't old either...)

Click to shrink...

Hehe thanks, I actually turn 30 in September, but with all the work I do the days go by quick. I'll be 30 before you know it!

Turning 30 next year as well.

From using an IBM 386 to an Intel i5 2500K Sandibridge processor

From using my trusty 80GB(as early as i remember) to using a 4TB HDD

From using 1.4k/b speed dial up internet to using a 20 MB Broadband DSL internet connection

From using floppy disks to using DVDs and USBs

From using my 8MB of vram internal video card to using a 4GB of vram dedicated 3d graphics processor

From having 32MB of RAM to having 8GB of RAM

Ofcourse along with the above stuff i used VCR to watch movies in cassette tapes and listened to songs via cassette tapes as well.

Its been quite the technological transition for me from when i was a young kid and to what iam now.

It feels pretty rare and unique to go through such a phase has to radically transformed in a matter of 20 years.

Click to shrink...

You just reminded me of this old computer I had when I was little. It was a desktop and would only take Floppy Disks and the coloration of the whole thing was yellow. We had this dollar store nearby that sold Floppy Disks with demos of games for $1. It was pretty cool.

If you're younger than the 16-bit console launches, you're not old.

Remembering the 16-bit console launches - 30 years later

30 years ago, July 1989. We're less than a month away from the launch of (two of) the 16-bit consoles in North America. What did you think about this time period, pre-launch and the early months of releases? Feel free to discuss the launch era of these systems for other regions, too. And even if...

www.resetera.com

Click to shrink...

I'm not worried about my age, just with how fast media has changed so fast. I actually had some of these consoles though, but I don't remember much to talk about them.

 

[Sampson]

I've been posting on gaming forums now for almost 20 years. What's interesting to me is that you can see people slowly turn into old men yelling at the clouds. Seems to happen somewhere around late 20s/early 30s. It's fascinating. I remember when I first started posting on forums in the early 00s, there was this one board I posted on that had a pretty tight-knit community. This guy who was in his mid-30s at the time was convinced that the PS2/GCN era was the apex of graphics technology. That gaming had hits its peak and everything else would just be an incremental upgrade, if it came at all.

Hilarious in hindsight, but this sort of topic is no different. And I've seen these sorts of topics creep up more and more in the last five years or so. It's probably because the average sort of gamer who posts on these kind of forums is probably right around 30. This forum is actually pretty good about shooting that logic down, probably because there are many hardcore enthusiasts here that love the medium. It's really, really bad on various tech forums or others where gaming is only sort of ancillary to the overall discussion.

Gaming has never been better man, you're just getting old.

The suits and crunch time has always been around.

Micro transactions are today's equivalent of the 90s arcade games with unfair difficulty spikes. DLC, subscription services and patches are better than games loaded with game-breaking bugs or paying $80 for a used Chrono Trigger cartridge (which I did in 2001. At the time, it was the only way to play it. I don't think SNES emulators were even that great back then). There have never been so many great games and they are so easy to find/play.

 

[sn00zer]

I'm also turning 30 soon.

I think 'games getting worse' is more like you've played hundreds of games. Games were great when you were 12 and hadn't played hundreds of them. I was thinking about this when playing RE2. I really liked it, but it would have utterly blown me away if I hadn't played most of the RE series up to that point.

I think you start seeing the tricks more and more as you play more. Which could be why you aren't enjoying them as much. on the other hand you learn to appreciate the effort put into the tricks and thus grows your appreciation for the development of games.

I'm in the bucket where games are mostly better than they ever have been (most games getting an 8 or higher isn't review creep, they are just on average pretty good now) and the general quality of games is way higher than it was when I was a kid. I am not enjoying as many though since I have way more responsibilities and other commitments. I can't fully commit my time to playing a game as I could as a kid and a game now has to to do A LOT I haven't seen before to capture that old magic.

 

[Shinobido Heart]

I've been posting on gaming forums now for almost 20 years. What's interesting to me is that you can see people slowly turn into old men yelling at the clouds. Seems to happen somewhere around late 20s/early 30s. It's fascinating. I remember when I first started posting on forums in the early 00s, there was this one board I posted on that had a pretty tight-knit community. This guy who was in his mid-30s at the time was convinced that the PS2/GCN era was the apex of graphics technology. That gaming had hits its peak and everything else would just be an incremental upgrade, if it came at all.

Hilarious in hindsight, but this sort of topic is no different. And I've seen these sorts of topics creep up more and more in the last five years or so. It's probably because the average sort of gamer who posts on these kind of forums is probably right around 30. This forum is actually pretty good about shooting that logic down, probably because there are many hardcore enthusiasts here that love the medium. It's really, really bad on various tech forums or others where gaming is only sort of ancillary to the overall discussion.

Gaming has never been better man, you're just getting old.

The suits and crunch time has always been around.

Micro transactions are today's equivalent of the 90s arcade games with unfair difficulty spikes. DLC, subscription services and patches are better than games loaded with game-breaking bugs or paying $80 for a used Chrono Trigger cartridge (which I did in 2001. At the time, it was the only way to play it. I don't think SNES emulators were even that great back then). There have never been so many great games and they are so easy to find/play.

Click to shrink...

Hmm...does my thread really read like an ''old man yelling at cloud"? D:

I'll need to re-read what I wrote!

I don't consider myself old, I just wanted to take some time to reminisce.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

Hmm...does my thread really read like an ''old man yelling at cloud"? D:

I'll need to re-read what I wrote!

I don't consider myself old, I just wanted to take some time to reminisce.

Click to shrink...

There's nothing wrong with reminiscing. The industry moves so quickly that even a few years brings massive change to reflect on.

 

[monmagman]

30 huh......well,I'm 46 now and enjoy gaming more than ever.
It's easy to say things were better back in the day,and yea some modern trends with games are not great....mtx etc.
I think games today are pretty amazing overall though......can't wait for next gen!

 

[Asbsand]

When I look at the current media landscape now, I can't help but be disgusted with how things have become. With the over saturation of subscription services and the broad list of micro-transactions. Games are still as great as ever, but with some added annoyances.

Click to shrink...

I've developed a belief that anything that becomes too popular and mainstream eventually hits a point where it is ruined and cannot be salvaged. it can still do good things but the bullshit has taken over. It happened to music, it happened to cinema and now it has happened to games. once something is big enough it goes from being an entrepreneurs daydream that turned a profit and into being the landscape that attracts all the sharks, and the sharks will just build unceremoniously on the profitable soil and they can simply look in a book that detailed all the successes the entrepreneurs created and that's how we get more bullshit.

 

[Rogue Kiwi]

I'm starting to realise what previous generations went through with music. I don't know if it's me getting old or if it's actually games getting worse anymore. I despise the GaaS model but it seems kids love it. I hear teenagers talking about "getting back on the grind" when they get home, as if games are a job. I remember playing Halo 2/3 at their age and running home to play Halo, but it was more about the fun of playing with others and getting my skill level up (which didn't really mean anything) than grinding out levels and getting cosmetic items. Now it's putting in as much time or money as possible to chase skins. It doesn't seem to be about fun or even playing the game anymore, just chasing the next carrot.

 

[HockeyBird]

Time to put you in a retirement home OP where you and the rest of the elderly can play Super Smash Bros and Halo Combat Evolved while reruns of Friends plays in the background.

 

[RPTGB]

Thirty?!!
I hope you've finished your homework before playing any more video games on your Sony Megabox .
You young 'uns..it was all about azimuth screws, tape head alignment and C90 cassettes traded with the dodgy kids at school in my day.

 

[Shinobido Heart]

30 huh......well,I'm 46 now and enjoy gaming more than ever.
It's easy to say things were better back in the day,and yea some modern trends with games are not great....mtx etc.
I think games today are pretty amazing overall though......can't wait for next gen!

Click to shrink...

Yeah definitely, games are still great, if not better. It's the mtx that can be really annoying.

Time to put you in a retirement home OP where you and the rest of the elderly can play Super Smash Bros and Halo Combat Evolved while reruns of Friends plays in the background.

Click to shrink...

Uh, please don't. :(

Thirty?!!
I hope you've finished your homework before playing any more video games on your Sony Megabox .
You young 'uns..it was all about azimuth screws, tape head alignment and C90 cassettes traded with the dodgy kids at school in my day.

Click to shrink...

Yep, young age of 30. I'll be leaving my twenties soon and moving into the thirties. Just want to take some time to reminisce, a lot has changed so quickly.

 

[Masterspeed]

I'm 29 in a couple of months and one thing that gets me, is that kids will NEVER understand the hoops we needed to be alert with gaming.

News, Guides, Trailers or even playing online was so much different back then. Now everything is so simple for them.

 

[Shinobido Heart]

I'm 29 in a couple of months and one thing that gets me, is that kids will NEVER understand the hoops we needed to be alert with gaming.

News, Guides, Trailers or even playing online was so much different back then. Now everything is so simple for them.

Click to shrink...

I won't lie to you, I NEVER knew the PS2 could do online gaming. Apparently that socket in the back was for the network adapter, haha. It was when I read about Final Fantasy 11, that I knew what it was for.

 

[Masterspeed]

I won't lie to you, I NEVER knew the PS2 could do online gaming. Apparently that socket in the back was for the network adapter, haha. It was when I read about Final Fantasy 11, that I knew what it was for.

Click to shrink...

I liked the ps2 online but it was surprisingly so far behind the Dreamcast online. Still amazing though. The arrival of the Xbox made online a dream too.

 

[XxLeonV]

I won't lie to you, I NEVER knew the PS2 could do online gaming. Apparently that socket in the back was for the network adapter, haha. It was when I read about Final Fantasy 11, that I knew what it was for.

Click to shrink...

I used PS2 online for only two things....downloading additional camos in MGS3 and playing online in THPS3 lol. Playing online in THPS3 was horrible btw, especially since it allowed users to play on 56K.

 

[Wood Man]

30 was about the age were my gaming time took a drastic hit. I still play, but not like I did in my 20's.

 

[bulletyen]

I just turned 31 not that long ago. Congrats OP.

While I have fond memories of mind blowing experiences as a child, and those experiences will never be equaled due to being firsts for a wide eyed kid and how the game industry is no longer in an era of constant innovation but rather refinement, I'd say in the current era of gaming there is plenty to enjoy if you know where to look. I play solely singleplayer games and even as all the problems you note creep into all games I've found myself able to to ignore most of it.

My increasingly lack of time is perfectly balanced by the significantly slower releases of big games and lots of small ones to fill the gap these days. And I've accepted that games, like movies, have reached a point where genre conventions have been set, technological advances slowed, and much of what we play from here on out will be in the vein of what has come before. And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[OneBadMutha]

43 here. You don't know shit about the old days of gaming. Lol

Happy 30th!

 

[Shinobido Heart]

I just turned 31 not that long ago. Congrats OP.

While I have fond memories of mind blowing experiences as a child, and those experiences will never be equaled due to being firsts for a wide eyed kid and how the game industry is no longer in an era of constant innovation but rather refinement, I'd say in the current era of gaming there is plenty to enjoy if you know where to look. I play solely singleplayer games and even as all the problems you note creep into all games I've found myself able to to ignore most of it.

My increasingly lack of time is perfectly balanced by the significantly slower releases of big games and lots of small ones to fill the gap these days. And I've accepted that games, like movies, have reached a point where genre conventions have been set, technological advances slowed, and much of what we play from here on out will be in the vein of what has come before. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Click to shrink...

Hey, thank you!

Hmm, have you tried out VR?

43 here. You don't know shit about the old days of gaming. Lol

Happy 30th!

Click to shrink...

I appreciate the happy 30th, but the rest of it I don't know. You were around when the Intellivision and Game & Watch was out, correct? That was a time period a bit before my time. Your version of old gaming will differ from mine.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

I'll be 30 before the end of the month. Our parents decided to get the family a video game system for Christmas when I was 7, we rented (from Blockbuster!!) a SNES (Super Mario Kart) a Playstation (Gex and Madden), and N64 (Mario 64) over the course of a few weeks to see what was best for us. N64 won on the strength of Mario 64 and my father and I being too clueless to figure out you had to move the controller icon to the team you wanted to control in the team select screen, leading us to decide Madden on Playstation was 'boring' when we watched games play themselves unaware of our error.

 

[bulletyen]

Hey, thank you!
Hmm, have you tried out VR?

Click to shrink...

Yes, actually! I was in some arcade in China and they had a VR station set up with Vive? Oculus? One of those set up and I got to try some beat saber/sports mini games. Pretty novel experience, but I don't think that's the future. It's immersive, but almost too much so, for me anyway. I think to a degree it's good to be a slight bit detached from video games with a TV, not completely removed from the real world.

I don't think VR is the future. Or if it is, it'll have to connect straight to our brains like a lucid dream so we don't have to wiggle around physically. People play games to relax, vegetate, and move as little as possible. VR right now is not that. But in terms of genres & all that, I hope I'm wrong. I hope games keep evolving, and we're only stuck where we are because of a failure of imagination, a result of commercial limitations. After all:

...game designers in the past achieved so much with so little, and devs today have infinitely more to play with, that really anything should already be possible if the idea and the ambition is there.

 

[Glasfrut]

I'll be 30 before the end of the month. Our parents decided to get the family a video game system for Christmas when I was 7, we rented (from Blockbuster!!) a SNES (Super Mario Kart) a Playstation (Gex and Madden), and N64 (Mario 64) over the course of a few weeks to see what was best for us. N64 won on the strength of Mario 64 and my father and I being too clueless to figure out you had to move the controller icon to the team you wanted to control in the team select screen, leading us to decide Madden on Playstation was 'boring' when we watched games play themselves unaware of our error.

Click to shrink...

Isn't it funny how small things can change the direction of what your gaming life can look like?

We played a game of chance in my house to decide whether or not to buy an N64. I lost so we didn't get one. But that moment meant getting a PlayStation instead a few months later. One of my closest friends 7/8 years later was made simply because we had both played Tekken and Final Fantasy 7. Not sure how that friendship would look like had I not gotten that PlayStation.

 

[Deleted member 1659]

So for you old people, what was it like playing Xbox 360 for the first time?

 

[Deleted member 17210]

So for you old people, what was it like playing Xbox 360 for the first time?

Click to shrink...

Launch era was underwhelming. Games like Kameo and Call of Duty 2 seemed only slightly better looking than games for the original Xbox and weren't anything special for gameplay. Condemned was a cool game but I didn't play it until a bit later.

 

[Shadow of the Void]

I'm 39, and I've been playing games since I was old enough to pick up a controller. My father got me into video games, giving me an Intellivision as a hand-me-down an letting me play on his Commodore 64. I got an NES as a Christmas gift in 1988, and from then on out I was a Nintendo fan.

Personally, while I think the 8-bit & 16-bit eras were the best overall, I think the state of gaming has generally improved since the latter half of the 90s. While a lot of people get nostalgic over the Gen 5 consoles, I do not. While the PS1 & N64 produced some gems, games from that era not only have aged poorly, not many of them were even all that good back then. The Fifth Generation saw the industry attempt to transition almost fully to 3D, and it was a very, very rough transition. It was a generation plagued by terrible controls and (in third-person games) awful cameras, and let's be honest: most of those games didn't look good even back then. The "wow" factor of 3D graphics didn't wow me much. Personally, I think the situation was even worse on the PS1. The system didn't even have a controller with analog sticks until 1997, and as a result every game made before then was designed with D-pad controls in mind. That was... not optimal, to put it lightly. Also, the games just tended to look even uglier than on the N64 (though on the plus side the few remaining games with 2D sprite-based graphics were almost all on the PS1 but not the N64, and they usually looked fantastic). Nintendo and Rare seemed to have the best overall sense on how to make games that made the best of the third dimension, and Nintendo had the foresight to release the N64 with a controller that had an analog stick.

Over the next several generations, I think the industry as a whole got better and better at making 3D games. Not only did the games look more and more presentable and less of an eyesore, but they've tended to have better polish overall as developers got the hang of making 3D games, finding out the optimal controls (which also benefited from dual analog sticks becoming the standard starting in Gen 6), getting a better hang on making cameras that didn't fight the player, and just plain making games that were fun to play then and now. Also, the rise of online connectivity has meant that you can play multiplayer whenever you want without having to schedule a get-together with your friends, and also that games could easily receive content post-launch and be patched if some game-breaking bug somehow survives the testing process. That's not to say that there hasn't been plenty that's come along that's worth complaining about. More and more games have had shoehorned-in multiplayer, always-online titles like quasi-MMO "live service" titles and battle royales have become more common (which takes resources and manpower away from single-player experiences), many older developers and publishers have lost sight of what made them or their series popular, and digital distribution has become a vehicle for intrusive and often predatory monetization schemes. But in general, 3D games are more polished in terms of gameplay and definitely vastly easier on the eyes than they used to be.

 

[maximumzero]

One of the things I really miss about the 80s and 90s with videogames is how there were seemingly much fewer releases and you spent more time with each one exploring every nook and cranny, really getting your dollar's worth.

These days it almost feels like you need to finish a game at least once a week to keep up, and even then it's technically impossible.

 

[diablo900t]

One of the things I really miss about the 80s and 90s with videogames is how there were seemingly much fewer releases and you spent more time with each one exploring every nook and cranny, really getting your dollar's worth.

These days it almost feels like you need to finish a game at least once a week to keep up, and even then it's technically impossible.

Click to shrink...

For me, this is one of the biggest changes in the industry since I started playing games at age 6 in 1988. When I was a kid, there were maybe 4-5 major games that I'd purchase throughout the course of the year, or that I'd be able to have enough money for. I played Super Mario World and Mario 64 for months on end. Chrono Trigger I invested a ton of time in, and many games (Link's Awakening) I replayed. Now, I have to be selective about the games I play, and while I try and get to all of the major AAA titles that are of interest to me, many I don't finish (KH3), and I know I'm missing out on some amazing experiences just simply out of lack of time and other life priorities.

Right now, Fire Emblem has captured my attention, and I basically have to prioritize that over any other experiences until I finish it, otherwise I won't!

Happy almost 30 OP!

 

[ireadybreakfast]

I'm 37. Not as much nostalgic for the games (I have access almost all my old favorites), but definitely nostalgic for more time for games and playing with friends in the basement, sleeping in late then playing seemingly all day in the summer.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

For me, this is one of the biggest changes in the industry since I started playing games at age 6 in 1988. When I was a kid, there were maybe 4-5 major games that I'd purchase throughout the course of the year, or that I'd be able to have enough money for. I played Super Mario World and Mario 64 for months on end. Chrono Trigger I invested a ton of time in, and many games (Link's Awakening) I replayed. Now, I have to be selective about the games I play, and while I try and get to all of the major AAA titles that are of interest to me, many I don't finish (KH3), and I know I'm missing out on some amazing experiences just simply out of lack of time and other life priorities.

Right now, Fire Emblem has captured my attention, and I basically have to prioritize that over any other experiences until I finish it, otherwise I won't!

Happy almost 30 OP!

Click to shrink...

While nothing like the insane quantity of today, even in 1988 I found it hard to keep up. I had a C64/NES/SMS trio with a large network of borrowing games and lots of rental access, and frequented arcades, but there was so much to follow.