Good read with many points I agree with. Just stumbled across another great one on the bottom of the page. Pure hilarity http://www.cracked.com/article_17206_the-10-most-perverted-old-school-video-games.html
Xellos said:Good read with many points I agree with. Just stumbled across another great one on the bottom of the page. Pure hilarity http://www.cracked.com/article_17206_the-10-most-perverted-old-school-video-games.html
Well, before Fallout 3, the series wasn't exactly a very mainstream title. It sold well, but it was still a cRPG and not very everyone.brfritos said:Fallout not having a book expanding the universe baffles me even to this day.![]()
UniversalWolf said:It's much more about the games industry changing than older gamers changing. Back in the good old days computer games, like computers themselves, were hard to use and understand. Just look at their origin: the first computer games were designed by hardcore technology nerds -- not the pansy "I go to comic book conventions and think the new Doctor Who is awesome!" quasi-nerds of today, but mathematics and computer science graduate student nerds. Old computer games required inquisitiveness and a focused mind or you couldn't play them, which is why so many old games are considered "unplayable" by the new generation.
Everything today is easy as pie. You install the game and it runs. You put the game in your X-Box and it works (and if it doesn't you get all huffy and pissed off). Gaming is a bigger industry than it's ever been, because it's open to a larger audience than ever, and simply by virtue of the increased numbers, that audience is dumber than any audience that has ever played computer games before. It's been watered down as a consequence of its popularity. People don't want to play games they can't understand, so games have gotten dumber too. More flashy, to appeal to the "shiny object" fascination of a wider, more average audience, and more violent, for the same reason.
In short, I haven't left games -- games have left me. Most of them, anyway.
Autoduel76 said:UniversalWolf said:It's much more about the games industry changing than older gamers changing. Back in the good old days computer games, like computers themselves, were hard to use and understand. Just look at their origin: the first computer games were designed by hardcore technology nerds -- not the pansy "I go to comic book conventions and think the new Doctor Who is awesome!" quasi-nerds of today, but mathematics and computer science graduate student nerds. Old computer games required inquisitiveness and a focused mind or you couldn't play them, which is why so many old games are considered "unplayable" by the new generation.
Everything today is easy as pie. You install the game and it runs. You put the game in your X-Box and it works (and if it doesn't you get all huffy and pissed off). Gaming is a bigger industry than it's ever been, because it's open to a larger audience than ever, and simply by virtue of the increased numbers, that audience is dumber than any audience that has ever played computer games before. It's been watered down as a consequence of its popularity. People don't want to play games they can't understand, so games have gotten dumber too. More flashy, to appeal to the "shiny object" fascination of a wider, more average audience, and more violent, for the same reason.
In short, I haven't left games -- games have left me. Most of them, anyway.
Well there were always console and arcade games for people to use. For another thing the early decades of computer games did not require being a hi-tech geek to be able to get started at all. Hell, we are talking about pre-hard drive days, it was as simple as inserting a disk and turning the computer on. Sure if a game was big enough for multiple floppies it could get annoying, but "insert disc 2" was simple enough to accomplish for my grandmother
There was also always a large number of causal, simplistic games. The idea that every game was Wasteland or Wizardry is crazy. There were plenty of tic-tac-toe games back then as well, or pac-man, or asteroids or pinball clones.
Now that there are thousands of times as many games as there were back then, you can find games that run the gambit from the most simple to much more complex than we had back then.
Games have become much more mainstream and if that bothers you, so be it, but its not because there aren't games like we had 30 years ago. Sure, a blockbuster like Mass Effect might not be for you, and it might sell 1 million copies.
But the reality is that the game you are pining for from 30 years ago wasn't a million copy seller. It sold numbers more like in the tens of thousands. And if you look at those games that sell in the tens of thousands today (or are downloaded in the tens of thousands), you find the indie game scene with many of the same types of game principles.
Avernum, Eschelon, Dwarf Fortress, Project Zomboid, Ultimate Newcomer, Legend of Grimrock, etc. There's really no shortage.
The difference is that the gaming industry is bigger, more popular and there are more games out than every before. But "your games" really never left. You still have the same type of small operation "computer geek" developers making those games.
Hassknecht said:And I'm very happy that they don't contract random authors to write novels around the Fallout universe. Those books tend to be written by people not exactly familiar with the universe and end up being canon-raping piles of radioactive goo.
Hey, that's unfair! There was not any internet/online distribution 30 years ago and don't forget even the price of hardware and inflation of dollar:Autoduel76 said:But the reality is that the game you are pining for from 30 years ago wasn't a million copy seller. It sold numbers more like in the tens of thousands.
Arr0nax said:He's almost implying that Final Fantasy games weren't more intense naratively than what his children experience while free roaming an ambulance in GTA... on which I have to call bullshit.
Autoduel76 said:Why would you be comparing Final Fantasy to GTA Free Roam in the first place? I'd have to call bullshit on your analysis.
It doesn't take much knowledge of past videogames to debunk this. Game storylines haven't always been shitty.
I'd argue that microphones are the main source of the complaint. It sucks but prepubescent children have annoyingly high voices and many don't know how to use the mic to communicate properly, they're too chatty. The reason that CS and UT used to be fine was that they didn't always have microphones so everything was in text. The same is still true for games without voice support.Ausdoerrt said:On the multiplayer games though - I don't get annoyed by kids that can behave online (and they do exist, in significant numbers), and that's not really a problem. Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike weren't CoD MW2.
Not all trolls are children; in fact my experience has been that most trolls are adults.TorontRayne said:I make a world on Fortresscraft and armies of little kids try to destroy it. They are like little grieving, gremlins.
I believe the point was that the article is poorly written, containing inane arguments and points.aenemic said:so what those of you who disagree with his points are saying is that you're at the same mental state and mindset that you were when you first started playing games?