Those were the days

As the years go by i find myself yearning for the days of yore, where games were games and they were still fun. A Golden Age of gaming, I had the great honor of growing up during this time as i am sure many of you have had aswell. An age of fantastic adventure games (Quest for Glory, Kings Quest, Kyrandia, Leisure Suit Larry, ect) and mind blowing in depth role playing games (Baldures Gate, Ultima, Arcanum, Fall Out, Krondor, ect.) and of course the smashing slashers and shooters (Diablo, Doom, Quake, Blood, ect.)

It seems to me anymore that this age has come to an end and all thats left is what we have before us now and our memories. Such as we still hanging about old sites of even older games. I feel that these new games for their realistic graphics had given up something more meaningful. Thier soul, content and....well fun. I cant even get through a game anymore with out getting bored and bitter that i wasted money. fable 2? Bored in a week, Fall Out 3? i played it a few years earlyer with morrowind and oblivion. Final Fantasy 12? Why do all the characters look the same since 10 and wear less clothing?

Maybe its just me, maybe i am just getting to old for this kind of stuff. Maybe its my wife and two childern making me crazy. Or just maybe video games these days are really just that beat and all we have left is our old, scrached up disks and mods.

Am I the only one feeling this? Am I all alone?

 

I agree in the sense that it is much harder these days to find excellent games at a consistent level. I too get bored playing some games but mainly because they are so easy. For instant today I just finished Lord Of The Rings Conquest for PS3. I finished the game on 'easy' in about an hour and finished it on 'expert or "legendary" in about an hour and a half. Very dissapointed how low the difficulty level went up as it was meant to become harder.

 

I won't deny it, I haven't played many good new games over the last couple of years. (Standout successes being Folklore, the Atelier Iris games, Rogue Galaxy and Prince of Persia.) One thing I've noticed is that these good games are all stylised; instead of pushing the system to an ungodly limit they settle on a style that looks damn good and work on gameplay and plot instead. (Hells, Atelier Iris is very 2d cartoony but it works because it's goddamn BEAUTIFUL regardless, and the characters are some of the best personalities I've ever seen. ANY game which gets away with having a character say "So that's the ghost? Let's kick it's ethereal ass!" in Crispin Freeman's voice is epic.)

My main glitch with modern games comes down to the following three questions:

Where's my goddamn plot? Where's the bloody characterisation? Why do these 'cutting edge graphics' look like so much fetid dog shit? :x

It's not hard, gaming companies. Take some of that money from your ultra-realistic (read: fugly as hell) graphics engine and put it into some GODDAMN PLOT!!!! Gamers will forgive slightly lower-end graphics in the name of better overall game. Sheesh.

(Rant done)

 

*blink*
All right, damn it! Now I have to got get it.

Not that I'm trying to fight my way throught the six games I got for Christmas or anything! Seesh!

 

I know plenty of casual gamers who would quite happily accept a slight toning down of graphics in the name of a better overall game. (Actually, just yesterday I heard someone nine year old in EB bitching about how all the new games sucked - and that's the nice version of what he said - and were just an excuse for pretty graphics. I'm so very proud. *sniff*)

 

Yes, yes you do. eBay is about the only place that still has it these days, though. Just make sure you get Eternal Mana, that's the one he's in. Man, Crispin Freeman is just awesome. He was well cool in Rogue Galaxy too, I wanted to take Gale with me instead of Deego. (That would have been sooooo kick-arse. The guy has twin handguns and kicks you in the bollocks if you get too close. Such a bossfight.)

 

I mainly know him from Anime. At least those I'm forced to watch dubbed.
I didn't realize how much video game voice work he had done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_Freeman

 

I didn't know he was Alucard and Straight Cougar! Now he's even COOLER! And... Oh dear lord, he's Captain Tylor and Rude! *fangasm* Guan Yu, Nobunaga Oda, BC from Vandread, SETZER in KH2, Sigfried Schtauffen... Sweet christ he's Gann! *fangirl fangirl fangirl* I gotta get MotB working now, I just gotta!

I had no idea he was all those characters. I think I need to go game hunting.

 

That child would grow up to be the anti-Christ.

 

You forgot to mention Monkey Isle in the original post.

A recent game I really enjoyed was Tales of Symphonia 2 (which has gotten so many bad reviews - go figure). It had strong characters (some bad voice acting, but you can turn that off), a strong plot...but it was too damn short.

 

i am happy to hear that i am not the only person who feels this way about todays "games". its just not the same, lack of plot, boring characters and no real motivation/enemy. you just wounder about and gain levels.

 

I dont think it appealed to the "normal" gamer or thats what serria thought atleast. Shame really they had been at one point a powerhouse of the pc gaming and this game could have helped gotten them back on top if they had stuck with it.

 

Yes, we do need a pet around here to entertain us a little more.

 

When it comes to bitching about things, we at T-A excel. But yes, you'll find a majority of this forum to be in aggreeance with you on this particular topic.

 

Dead Space is particularly good demonstration of my GRRR ARGH rant earlier in this thread.

Plot? Was there a plot in this mush beyond 'you're fucked'? I doubt it.

The main character was a faceless voiceless prick, so I was hardly sad when he got red-shirted at the end. On the contrary, I cheered.

Advanced graphics engine, shitty looking game. This game was just downright fugly. 'U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi' ugly. Apart from a couple of surprisingly balletic zero gravity set pieces, this entire game was a festering pile of decomposing horse shit.

Don't even start me on the Halo 'phenonemon'.