Anime Your Unpopular Gaming Opinions

[Lemming42]

This means that you should never get stuck in the favorite genres of your formative years. Try to find new good things instead, though these will inevitably be something completely different.

I'm always suspicious of the idea of golden ages because my dad was one of those people who was utterly convinced that music "died" around 1975 and that literally everything afterwards was shit, and he'd dismiss all music made after that point without even listening to it. Trying to show him something resulted in him loudly talking over it after hearing the first three seconds and declaring it was worthless. This made him really fucking tedious and pretentious to deal with and I always thought he was a ridiculous dickhead over it, and in recent years he's come to agree and has been begging me to show him highlights from the four decades' worth of music he'd previously written off, which he's been really enjoying.

So I'm quite suspicious that the "golden age of gaming" for me just so happens to coincide with the era in which I was a child/adolescent, just as my dad's "golden age of music" did for him... things definitely went wrong in a lot of ways for most genres in the mid-2000s and devs seemed to put a lot less effort in, but in recent years gaming is mostly a lot of fun again.

 

[HappyDaddyWow!]

This means that you should never get stuck in the favorite genres of your formative years. Try to find new good things instead, though these will inevitably be something completely different.

I'm always suspicious of the idea of golden ages because my dad was one of those people who was utterly convinced that music "died" around 1975 and that literally everything afterwards was shit, and he'd dismiss all music made after that point without even listening to it. Trying to show him something resulted in him loudly talking over it after hearing the first three seconds and declaring it was worthless. This made him really fucking tedious and pretentious to deal with and I always thought he was a ridiculous dickhead over it, and in recent years he's come to agree and has been begging me to show him highlights from the four decades' worth of music he'd previously written off, which he's been really enjoying.

So I'm quite suspicious that the "golden age of gaming" for me just so happens to coincide with the era in which I was a child/adolescent, just as my dad's "golden age of music" did for him... things definitely went wrong in a lot of ways for most genres in the mid-2000s and devs seemed to put a lot less effort in, but in recent years gaming is mostly a lot of fun again.

There are definitely game genres that are practically dead though. For example, I'm a huge fan of survival horror games. Classic survival horror (think the first 3 resident evil games, silent hill, etc) is basically dead and likely never going to return in favor of more action-oriented horror games.

For a music comparison: if the only musical genre you listen to is disco, you can pretty safely avoid everything recent.

 

[antimeridian]

I don't like pre-rendered graphics.

Just curious, have you played the games on question on a CRT or on more modern screens? I think a lot of pre-rendered graphics just fall apart when not shown on their original resolution and display tech. You get issues with resolution mismatch, blurry scaling, seeing too much of the map at once etc.

If you did play them on a CRT, then carry on.

 

[Lemming42]

Indeed, I kept a CRT monitor for years after the shift to LCD just to check out how things looked on it (it's since completely broken, lol).

I think the only game with pre-rendered graphics I never gave a fair chance on original hardware was FF7 which I suppose was intended for CRT TV screens, the first time I played it in full was on a PC emulator on an LCD screen and it definitely looked unrepresentative, blurry as fuck with obvious seams everywhere.

 

[Iucounu]

This means that you should never get stuck in the favorite genres of your formative years. Try to find new good things instead, though these will inevitably be something completely different.

I'm always suspicious of the idea of golden ages because my dad was one of those people who was utterly convinced that music "died" around 1975 and that literally everything afterwards was shit, and he'd dismiss all music made after that point without even listening to it. Trying to show him something resulted in him loudly talking over it after hearing the first three seconds and declaring it was worthless. This made him really fucking tedious and pretentious to deal with and I always thought he was a ridiculous dickhead over it, and in recent years he's come to agree and has been begging me to show him highlights from the four decades' worth of music he'd previously written off, which he's been really enjoying.

So I'm quite suspicious that the "golden age of gaming" for me just so happens to coincide with the era in which I was a child/adolescent, just as my dad's "golden age of music" did for him... things definitely went wrong in a lot of ways for most genres in the mid-2000s and devs seemed to put a lot less effort in, but in recent years gaming is mostly a lot of fun again.

Saying music in general is dead is obviously a more radical statement than that a specific genre is. But even if music is dead, my advice still stands: do something else then than listen to new mediocre music. Perhaps play video games instead? And if video games are dead too, maybe go outside the house?

There are definitely game genres that are practically dead though. For example, I'm a huge fan of survival horror games. Classic survival horror (think the first 3 resident evil games, silent hill, etc) is basically dead and likely never going to return in favor of more action-oriented horror games.

For a music comparison: if the only musical genre you listen to is disco, you can pretty safely avoid everything recent.

I'm sure there can always be minor revivals of a genre, like someone making a great (but now retro) disco record, or a new great survival horror game. But such revival works will always be far apart, like echos of the original era, and they rarely add anything really new. Maybe a "genre" could be defined as the time period when imitators are imitating the innovators? If so, a genre "dies" once the imitator herd moves on to something else.

 

[Ash]

in recent years gaming is mostly a lot of fun again.

It is? Indie gaming yeah, and to a lesser extent some AA. The core of the industry is dead however and nobody with any sense would deny that.

This could perhaps be the golden age of indie gaming, we'll see. It's definitely better than any indie collective of the past, but the future remains to be seen. Who knows, maybe it will get even better.

Anyways, as for your father. Consider that music is one of the most subjective of all the arts, and that he was, as you specifically highlight, obviously very narrow-minded. Seems he liked one genre and refused to even listen to anything else.

Secondly, of course there would be golden ages of absolutely anything. The golden age of Ford, when they were producing new models of car and technology in vast quantities. The golden age of Jazz, when there were many quality artists; a big scene. The golden age of the British Empire, which is obviously NOT the shit state it is today.
As someone with broad experience, I am telling you: the golden age of gaming was very obviously late 80s - early/mid 00s. There's a degree of subjectivity involved (not really/a little), but more objective than anything. Take the following examples: games released in FULL, tested, polished, the complete vision. They weren't chopped up for microtransactions either. They weren't consistently made for the lowest common denominator.

Now that last one has a degree of subjectivity, or the lines are blurry: to the lowest common denominator, those games are great! Then you need to ask yourself what is valuable, an imbecile's standard of media engagement, or someone that can't find joy in what is literal braindead whack-a-mole. Lastly it is very important to make the distinction: there are simple and casual games that have plenty value, like say Tetris. That isn't trash. It's not for me, but it is objectively not bad. Everything it does (not much) has purpose and substance. Then there are those where you're pushing buttons but absolutely none of it has meaning, but maybe has flashy graphics or strong illusion that it is quality to the uninformed player, so it still sells to the unwashed masses. That doesn't cut it.

 

[Lemming42]

As someone with broad experience, I am telling you: the golden age of gaming was very obviously late 80s - early/mid 00s.

For me it starts around 1994; I still have trouble finding the appeal in a lot of 80s games. The amount of derivative stuff and cloned games was even worse than it was in the late 2000s, and especially in the mid-80s developers seemed to just rush broken copies of existing games out the door, especially on consoles - so much of the NES library is so bad that it's actually depressing. For DOS and Amiga I can only really think of about ten games from the entire 80s that I really enjoy.

Take the following examples: games released in FULL, tested, polished, the complete vision.

Agreed on microtransactions and DLC, which are a scourge on modern gaming, but I don't know if I'd say a lot of 90s games were fully tested and polished. The best ones were, of course, but a ton of lower-budget games just got rushed to completion, often with devs not even bothering to release patches. I can think of a lot of games from that era that front-load all the best stuff at the start and then totally go to pieces toward the end as the devs ran out of time and didn't bother with any QA on the later sections.

And that's not even touching on all the games that were just totally busted - I still remember getting "Space Bunnies Must Die!" on release and thinking "what the fuck is this", I don't think even the most audacious modern kickstarter dev would release something in that state.

Now that last one has a degree of subjectivity, or the lines are blurry: to the lowest common denominator, those games are great! Then you need to ask yourself what is valuable, an imbecile's standard of media engagement, or someone that can't find enjoy in what is literal braindead whack-a-mole. Lastly it is very important to make the distinction: there are simple and casual games that still have value on some level, like say Tetris. Then there are those where you're pushing buttons but absolutely none of it has meaning.

The market nowadays is so diverse that I wonder if there even is a common denominator; the only games that really seem to have mass market appeal in that sense are Call of Duty games, which have remained pretty constant in their design since 2005, Fortnite (the appeal of which still eludes me), Nintendo shit like Zelda/Mario, and of course FIFA. But otherwise, I wonder how much an archetypal "common denominator" really exists in a way that can be catered to.

It is? Indie gaming yeah, and to a lesser extent some AA. The core of the industry is dead however and nobody with any sense would deny that.

This is a good thing though, right? We're finally in an environment where smaller, more niche games can flourish without the need to cater for (what publishers assume to be) the tastes of the mass market. When I look over my list of favourite games from the past five years, there's a hugely varied amount of stuff on offer - roguelites like Slay the Spire and Fights in Tight Spaces, FPSes like Ion Fury and HROT, RPGs like BG3 and Wasteland 3, turn-based tactics games like Gears Tactics and Jagged Alliance 3, a couple of big blockbuster AAA games like AssCreed Odyssey, and then random shit like Huntdown and Dead in Vinland and Hades and Desperados 3.

As long as such a range of games can exist, and attain enough commercial success for the devs to keep making more*, then I think we're in a great position. Big AAA games are just an occasional distraction at this point, they don't define the medium in the way they used to.

*obvious joke here about how Mimimi went bust

 

[Ash]

This is a good thing though, right? We're finally in an environment where smaller, more niche games can flourish without the need to cater for (what publishers assume to be) the tastes of the mass market.

Certainly better than the gaming hellscape that was the late 2000s/early 10s. It's just a shame the core industry can no longer provide, as that is where most potential lies for obvious reasons. It is also tragic children are being preyed on to become addicted to playing the same repetitive mediocre game for years and having their important stages of mental development shot, and lastly tricked into becoming addicted to loot boxes. The implications of modern media (all kinds) on younger generations as they become key members of society is absolutely frightening to me. The worthless braindead unsubstantial media, the leftist extremism propaganda, the manipulative loot box gambling games...
And lastly I lament the death that was the absolute peak interactive art achieved in many cases in the past. They don't make em like that any more. They can't. e.g indies are held back by budget. They do an amazing job with what they have though.

 

[ds]

If it is any consolation, there is a spell later gained that can increase your speed to lightspeed levels. You should have stuck it out. Arx is a masterpiece (though flawed for sure).
Arx Libertatis mod also adds refinement/drawing assistance to the spellcasting, though I am not exactly sure how it does that and would like to know.

Arx Fatalis' rune recognition works by converting your mouse input (a sequence of points) to a series of directions (left, right, up, down, as well as 45 degree rotated diagonals of those). Then those directions are matched to runes using a fixed list of direction sequences for each rune. If whatever garbage you have drawn isn't in that list it doesn't get recognized. Or it might be assigned to a different rune.

Arx Libertatis optionally uses a different algorithm based on the $1 Unistroke Recognizer. This one is better than the original game's ad-hoc code for generating the series of directions from the mouse input. It also replaces the fixed list of alternate ways to draw each rune with a search for the best matching rune (within tolerance).

Note that both algorithms work in fundamentally the same way. It's still a stroke recognition algorithm (rather than e.g. a shape recognition algorithm) meaning the lengths of your lines (and the proportions between them) don't really matter too much but you need to make sure your lines are straight and as close to horizontal/vertical/±45° as possible and your corners are hard. The new algorithm is just a bit more forgiving and less arbitrary but it's very possible to get consistent results from the original algorithm if you are precise.

TL;DR: algorithms™

 

[BrainMuncher]

• All third person console games are rubbish
• If you think you like a third person game, it is in spite of the fact it's third person, not because of it. You would have liked it more if it wasn't third person.
• Non-modular games should not have character levels, it's counter-productive and stupid. The purpose of character levels is for enabling modular content. A fully designed-in-advance game with a mostly static world (most games) can can have much more sophisticated tracking of world state and character history than a primitive "character level" abstraction. Why are people still using pen and paper conventions with 4GHz CPUs? Would you try to calculate ray tracing with an abacus?
• "Widescreen" is a propaganda term successfully used to make the weak minded accept what is properly termed "shortscreen". Originally pushed by the TV and movie industries so that consumers could gobble their slop without black bars, games have suffered as a direct result of this marketing psyop. Verticality all but vanished, poor north-south visibility in top down games, fighting game characters jumping out of the top of the screen because it's too short, unused dead zones in the corners, and so on. I suspect it also helped confuse some into thinking games and video were the same medium leading to more cutscenes and a desire to be "cinematic". Imagine whatever pathetic shortscreen you are looking at right now with an extra 30% height, how much better and more usable it would be.

 

[Iucounu]

• All third person console games are rubbish
• If you think you like a third person game, it is in spite of the fact it's third person, not because of it. You would have liked it more if it wasn't third person.

Yes and yes. An exception might be melee fighting, where 3rd person gives you a better sense of depth and distance to the opponent.

• "Widescreen" is a propaganda term successfully used to make the weak minded accept what is properly termed "shortscreen". Originally pushed by the TV and movie industries so that consumers could gobble their slop without black bars, games have suffered as a direct result of this marketing psyop. Verticality all but vanished, poor north-south visibility in top down games, fighting game characters jumping out of the top of the screen because it's too short, unused dead zones in the corners, and so on. I suspect it also helped confuse some into thinking games and video were the same medium leading to more cutscenes and a desire to be "cinematic". Imagine whatever pathetic shortscreen you are looking at right now with an extra 30% height, how much better and more usable it would be.

This may depend on the kind of games you play. I'm considering getting a widescreen monitor, since it should give me both peripheral vision and a realistic FOV. On a non-wide screen I believe you have to choose between tunnel vision or a wideangle effect from the FOV setting.

 

[Ezekiel]

• All third person console games are rubbish
• If you think you like a third person game, it is in spite of the fact it's third person, not because of it. You would have liked it more if it wasn't third person.

First-person view is shit. Would NEVER make a game like that as a billionaire.





Me:

Wrong perspective/camera, probably woke, overused voice actor; wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Him:

First person perspective is fine. They've been making first person games for years, why should 200+ people stop what they are doing because you want yet another boring third person Indiana Jones game, of which there are already boatloads?

Me:

First-person perspective sucks ass because it's like controlling a walking tripod on tank treads with weapon always rigidly up and forward. Can only run forward, sideways running disabled in almost every first-person game, so can't see shit but what's ahead when running, whereas in third-person the character can run and you can look in any direction. No awareness of where your feet are in first-person, and although third-person does not have a sense of touch and real peripheral vision either, it makes up for that by letting you see around your character, including where their feet are. If Machinegames are too incompetent to do third-person, they should not have taken this IP. Screw them. We haven't had a big Indiana Jones game for many years; what are you talking about? New Tomb Raider sucks and Uncharted went for something different and is in the wrong time period for discovery of ancient cities.

Him:

As someone who is playing Alien Isolation and Resident Evil 7 right now that is a bold faced lie.

Unless you're still gaming on a 8" CRT from the 80s: how is this even a problem? FOV hasn't been a problem on 16:9 or 21:9 screens at all.

Nah you see less in a 3P game because you always have your character on screen.

You truly sound like a manbaby called Karen that just wants to whine and whine and talk shit about things he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Me:

Ripley in Alien: Isolation can only run forward. She can't look to the side while running, as if her head and eyes are in a vise. If she is holding a weapon or the scanner, her whole upper body turns as she looks around. It's extremely robotic. Resident Evil 7 is bad.

Lol, how does the aspect ratio of your screen fix this issue? You still are aware of too little, no matter how you slice it, because the camera is so zoomed in and you can't feel your body/legs. Kind of important in an action-adventure game where you are jumping and climbing platforms and fighting people hand to hand, like Indiana Jones.

Third-person clearly has more visibility, even if I use a game where the character takes up significant space, like MGS5. Look at how much closer the fence becomes.

With shoulder swapping, the character will never be in the way. But there is no way to fix the small field of view in a first person game or remove the big tool/weapon on the screen.

I promise they are standing in the same spot, but how can you be sure if you CAN'T FEEL/SEE HIS FREAKING LEGS.

Him:

You need to see his legs in order to feel like you're standing on the ground?

Brother, how do you even drive a car, do you exit the car every 5 seconds to see if the tires are still touching the ground?

Me:

Oh, I get it. You want invisible walls at precipices, for your character to never fall. Makes sense, with you preferring first-person where you can't see shit. If I was standing there, I could also tell the incline of the hill from how my feet are positioned. In real life, I can take a quick glance down without lowering my weapon. In third-person, you can see there anyway. First-person games can't do either.

Him:

There's a couple of games I play where you can look down and you can see your characters waist and legs: Alien Isolation, Battlefield V...

But I've been playing first person games since the 90s and I never had any problem with a floating body. First person perspective is fine and has been since forever.

Having a personal opinion on which you find more immersive: 1P or 3P or which you find subjectively better is fine.

But calling developers incompetent because they stick to what they know best is idiotic on a biblical level.

Me:

You understood nothing of what I said. Seeing your legs in Alien: Isolation and Battlefield V doesn't fix the issue at all, since you still have to look down, tilting the whole weapon/tool down with the vise between your upper body/arms and your head/eyes. You bump into walls as you move sideways and backwards and are only aware that there are walls because your character stops moving. In real life, you would feel it and could take quick glances separate of how your body and arms are oriented that would prevent you from bumping into the wall in the first place. Oh, and you could look there without stopping the run. Can't do that in the vast majority of first-person games where you can only run forward. In a third-person game, the camera moves farther up or to the side as you approach the wall or the wall becomes slightly invisible with the bottom or side edge clearly defined and you can look in that direction while continuing to run.

Him:

Show me one other person that has ever expressed these concerns and I'll know it's a genre issue and not a user issue.

Alternatively showcase a video demonstrating this issue in a first person game.

Because games like Mirror's Edge and Battlefield V have insane maneuverability and people love them for it.

Are they as good as third person games? Maybe not, but I never claimed they are. I will claim they are more immersive though, time and time again.

Me:

"More immersive," he says. Clearly not with all the ways I just explained in which the movement is robotic.

Why would I need to show you a video? Are you trying to tell me something about your reading comprehension? You've experienced all of what I talked about many times yourself.

I would rather play Mirror's Edge in third-person view, as long as the animations and camera were well done. You as Faith would have been able to look around as you ran.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I'm not sure how well this observation generalizes among other people, but I think the atmosphere of a game is determined primarily by its soundtrack rather than by its writing. If I remember how atmospheric some game was, I usually remember its soundtrack (i.e. Desu Ex, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Heroes of Might & Magic II / IV, or parts of Planescape: Torment) - but I don't necessarily remember the writing (maybe for the better - especially in the case of Dragonfall). On the other hand, I don't remember anything related to 'atmosphere' in games with mediocre soundtracks, like Knights of the Old Republic 2. And, if a game doesn't have any score, I practically ignore the ambiance of the world; for example, I didn't care at all about the world changing from Might & Magic Book One (where humanity was living underground, hiding from dragons and other vicious monsters) to Gates to Another World (where you genocide peaceful goblins, search for Elvis in dungeons, or are casually told meta-information by half the characters).

Interestingly, you've made me realize that writing actually is a part of a game's atmosphere. The soundtrack part is almost universally right even if people don't realize it. People can hear the silence of a game, it's something I've noticed whenever someone plays a game without music, and it usually shows up as a complaint unless said person just doesn't care for music to begin with. Although that said, while the soundtrack is a big part, it alone won't determine a game's atmosphere. This example is kind of cheating since it's reusing the soundtrack from a different game, but In the Pursuit of Greed is wildly considered to be a mediocre game with a flawless soundtrack, yet that soundtrack does absolutely nothing for the game's atmosphere.

This means that you should never get stuck in the favorite genres of your formative years. Try to find new good things instead, though these will inevitably be something completely different.

I'm always suspicious of the idea of golden ages because my dad was one of those people who was utterly convinced that music "died" around 1975 and that literally everything afterwards was shit, and he'd dismiss all music made after that point without even listening to it. Trying to show him something resulted in him loudly talking over it after hearing the first three seconds and declaring it was worthless. This made him really fucking tedious and pretentious to deal with and I always thought he was a ridiculous dickhead over it, and in recent years he's come to agree and has been begging me to show him highlights from the four decades' worth of music he'd previously written off, which he's been really enjoying.

So I'm quite suspicious that the "golden age of gaming" for me just so happens to coincide with the era in which I was a child/adolescent, just as my dad's "golden age of music" did for him... things definitely went wrong in a lot of ways for most genres in the mid-2000s and devs seemed to put a lot less effort in, but in recent years gaming is mostly a lot of fun again.

There are definitely game genres that are practically dead though. For example, I'm a huge fan of survival horror games. Classic survival horror (think the first 3 resident evil games, silent hill, etc) is basically dead and likely never going to return in favor of more action-oriented horror games.

For a music comparison: if the only musical genre you listen to is disco, you can pretty safely avoid everything recent.

Over the years genres have had ups and downs and it can be hard to tell if it'll ever improve, but sometimes trends reverse and we get marvelous things again. If you watched movies in the 1920s for the cinematography, you'd be absolutely pissed for a while, but things got better. On the other hand, you're probably not very happy if you want a new Arthurian romance. Over the years I've learned to accept that bad things can occasionally do things really well and good things can suck in some ways, and that's just life. If you liked art rock in the '70s, for instance, you'd be absolutely right that it was basically dead after the '70s. Bands seem unable to do the same kind of dynamism that they were capable of in the '70s, the modern need for everything to work in shitty phone speakers have absolutely screwed them over.

I think the problem here is that these days we're seeing a lot of downs at the same time. Movies, music and games do feel like they're on a massive downturn with no hope of the ship being righted. Indie games are improving and getting to the stage that it isn't a problem for them to be in 3D, which means the only limitation is developer talent. Genres which were dead for decades have returned, not as strong as ever, but they're alive. To use the survival horror example, things are getting better, sure, there's nothing as good as Alone in the Dark, Ecstatica or Resident Evil, but there are solid B-list titles around. Whenever I look at a list of upcoming games in a certain genre, I do actually see some nice titles coming up. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they don't, just like in the classic era. Maybe they have some good ideas, but they don't quite work the way they should, just as things should be. People forget that the masters did not start off making their masterpieces and had to mature into their eventual classics.

That said, unless you can't figure out 3D space and can't play flight and space combat games, or lack the patience for adventure and strategy games, you probably have enough games in your backlog to survive you however long it needs to. There are more games than you could play in a lifetime if you played one new one a day, and other mediums have far, far, far more interesting things in them than you could ever hope to enjoy. Having nothing new to you to play, watch, read or listen to is absolutely a you problem and a hell of your own making.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'm not sure how well this observation generalizes among other people, but I think the atmosphere of a game is determined primarily by its soundtrack rather than by its writing. If I remember how atmospheric some game was, I usually remember its soundtrack (i.e. Desu Ex, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Heroes of Might & Magic II / IV, or parts of Planescape: Torment) - but I don't necessarily remember the writing (maybe for the better - especially in the case of Dragonfall). On the other hand, I don't remember anything related to 'atmosphere' in games with mediocre soundtracks, like Knights of the Old Republic 2. And, if a game doesn't have any score, I practically ignore the ambiance of the world; for example, I didn't care at all about the world changing from Might & Magic Book One (where humanity was living underground, hiding from dragons and other vicious monsters) to Gates to Another World (where you genocide peaceful goblins, search for Elvis in dungeons, or are casually told meta-information by half the characters).

I had it pointed out to me I really value music in games. And many games like Jet Set Radio and Metal Gear Revengenace are heavily carried via their music. I would say music is number 2 behind gameplay in terms of what matters in games. Even if the music is mostly silent and sparing use of songs, it's still really important.

I would be top of the pack on most multiplayer games I played, back when I used to play them. It's not hard to dominate the average gamer lol. Just look at wastrels like Beans00.

I was trying not to get into it with you again because you're such a faggot but you're just asking for this.

I watched multiple videos on your youtube channel(s). In Fallout, Turok and your Deus Ex videos you're awful at playing the game. You can't aim unless you stand still and you can't strafe. So your game play consists of you moving towards a target, stopping to aim and then shooting. And this is a consistent thing throughout your videos. You would be bottom of any scoreboard because you're fucking terrible at FPS games.

Call of Duty 4 was fun if you only did multiplayer. However it was heavily dependent on getting a good map, and Infinity Ward for some reason didn't include the option to tag which maps you were interested in playing. Maybe they knew nobody would want to play Bloc.

Modern games don't even let you veto maps any more. Fucking disgusting.

Online multiplayer in all forms killed singleplayer gaming.

Aren't most of the big time multiplayer games from the last few years free to play, meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 made bank?

The big games are still charging for yearly releases but the battle royale genre is mostly free yea.

As gamers, the best days are behind us. We are all like fish in an evaporating pond, making due with the recycled sludge that remains... never again to have new water added.

I think this is heavily dependent on what genre of games you're into.

It's the same with all kinds of creative arts. This is because creative people by definition always found new genres, instead of just copying what already exists. During a genre's golden years plagiarists will still be busy copying the previous generation's best work; and once the plagiarists finally catch up, creative people have already moved on to make something new.

This means that you should never get stuck in the favorite genres of your formative years. Try to find new good things instead, though these will inevitably be something completely different.

This is becoming a problem because we're human centipeding computer games. Eating the shit that's already been shit twice before isn't a good idea. We need creators with real world experiences not memories of pokemon and WOW.

There are definitely game genres that are practically dead though. For example, I'm a huge fan of survival horror games. Classic survival horror (think the first 3 resident evil games, silent hill, etc) is basically dead and likely never going to return in favor of more action-oriented horror games.

You're in luck good sir! With the PSX revival we're seeing a lot of survival horror games in the old style come out. Hopefully it will replace the walking sim era (it won't..)

Saying music in general is dead is obviously a more radical statement than that a specific genre is. But even if music is dead, my advice still stands: do something else then than listen to new mediocre music. Perhaps play video games instead? And if video games are dead too, maybe go outside the house?

You should be going outside any way. Video games should be a hobby not a life style.

I try to find new music but anything modern is awful. I will.. legally acquire the top 100 songs released this month and find maybe 1 listenable song. I found it funny when I.. found the top 100 dance tracks they were all remixes of 90's songs akin to adding a drum beat to the original song. I know my pet genre is dead since the 2000s and the new wave of 'punk' musicians all want to be Johnny Rotten and sound like the Sex pistols did before they had proper recording equipment. It's painful how low quality their recordings are and it's intentional because 'real punk' often got recorded poorly as they had no other choice.

. Indie games are improving and getting to the stage that it isn't a problem for them to be in 3D,

I really hate how easy it is to make 3d games now. They're so much harder to make then 2D games and indie devs making awful 3D games is so frustrating. Looking up a genre and finding unity asset garbage all over everything.

 

[Silverfish]

I watched multiple videos on your youtube channel(s). In Fallout, Turok and your Deus Ex videos you're awful at playing the game. You can't aim unless you stand still and you can't strafe. So your game play consists of you moving towards a target, stopping to aim and then shooting. And this is a consistent thing throughout your videos. You would be bottom of any scoreboard because you're fucking terrible at FPS games.

Full auto spray and pray is the real way to play fps.

 

[taxalot]

Video games are a waste of time.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

 

[chzr]

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

but there's people and sun

Video games are a waste of time.

that's not unpopular opinion

 

[Ezekiel]

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

Shithole. Shithole everywhere.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

but there's people and sun

Video games are a waste of time.

that's not unpopular opinion

The suns good for you.

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

Shithole. Shithole everywhere.

We know you live in a shithole. All third world posters are so obvious.

 

[Ezekiel]

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

but there's people and sun

Video games are a waste of time.

that's not unpopular opinion

The suns good for you.

Video games are a waste of time.

I agree. It's summer, go outside

Shithole. Shithole everywhere.

We know you live in a shithole. All third world posters are so obvious.

Live in United States. But you're right. It is a third world shithole.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Live in United States. But you're right. It is a third world shithole.

Doesn't mean you're a white chad from European stock. US has a lot of smelly brown people pretending they're American too.

 

[Ezekiel]

That was pretty random. What an asshole.

 

[Itoh]

I don't really believe in the concept of 'decline'.

Video games are a young enough medium that there isn't much danger of large swathes of games being lost to time(yet). Emulation is easy enough that any halfway intelligent person will have access to almost every game every made. Whatever your tastes, there exist enough games to occupy you for decades, and the absolute number of worthwhile games goes up every year, even if the median game might be getting worse(or might not, I think it's arguable). When someone complains that "everything is shit now", I assume that they just have low agency and expect large companies to spoonfeed them with titles that are tailor-made to their preferences.