# Back in my day we didn't have X but did have Y. Gaming edition.



## RedoLane (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my days, there were some people like me who slowly appreciated a little of every video game genre.
Nowadays that amount of people is slowly, but dramatically decreasing. the pattern repeats itself in other media.
I don't wanna be rude to anyone with different taste, but i was educated to try something, rather than judge it from a distance.
Yes, i tried a few horror games(despite being quite mentally weak with those), I even tried strategy games, despite reeeeeally disliking the genre, but that's better than looking for excuses to run away.
It's hard nowadays, when my nephew sticks to Third-Person Battle Royale games like Fortnite, after i tried to bring him interest over so many interesting games over the years.

Also in my opinion, video game motion experiences will be seen as common as dirt in the future. we got the foundation, and game companies keep improving it to no end.
even controllers got motion(gyro controls, but still counts), so without even thinking about it, a lot of video games will have some sort of motion gimmick that would be universally accessible.
The most hard part about it is acceptance. I want to believe it's gonna happen, but considering there are people who are against motion controls, it's gonna be pretty hard to achieve.


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## Kubas_inko (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.


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## NoNAND (Sep 23, 2019)

@FAST6191 tell me, was this inspired by the EOF thread?


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## anhminh (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day there is nothing called "backlog" because we only have few game to play for very long long time because that shit ain't cheap. We don't luxury to choose which game we got either, just put whatever chinese bootleg nes cartrige we got on and play. It was fun go in completely blind without knowing what the heck because no one know English either. Chinese seller seem to know this so the bootleg game rarely have any dialog at all. Cheat like Konami code or how to use Shoryuken seem to be knew by everyone but no one know where they learn it from. Either way, game was so hard and no save point so we rarely finish anything anyway.

Nowadays game are way too easy to access that people don't even bother to play what they had buy. The selection are massive so we keep picking and can't decided which to play. And even after pick which seem to be perfect game, you play it for 5 minutes while keep thinking maybe there is better one to play and drop it, never to return. My 10 years old me would keep playing it though because I know there isn't anything better than that. I know a lots of English now but dialog is still a bother to read so unless the story is good, I would prefer to skip it now too. It seem it didn't bother me that much to manual skip dialog when I don't understand it, now I understand it and it bother me that if I had missing something. It weird that I don't mind cheat code back then but modding game now seem ruin the experience for me, maybe because game today are too easy that cheat isn't needed anymore. But then game company come up with micro-transaction and now game are unreasonable hard without cheating with credit card. Even though game are easy now with auto save and everything, I still rarely finish any game either, weird.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 23, 2019)

RedoLane said:


> Back in my days, there were some people like me who slowly appreciated a little of every video game genre.
> Nowadays that amount of people is slowly, but dramatically decreasing. the pattern repeats itself in other media.
> I don't wanna be rude to anyone with different taste, but i was educated to try something, rather than judge it from a distance.
> Yes, i tried a few horror games(despite being quite mentally weak with those), I even tried strategy games, despite reeeeeally disliking the genre, but that's better than looking for excuses to run away.
> ...



Were there really genres back when? Today what some write off as arcade I would not categorise together -- space invaders, missle command, root beer tapper, toobin', donkey kong, 1942 and pac man are all rather different games.

RTS games... I can't really compare the likes of Dune, Cannon Fodder, Populous and Syndicate to each other, never mind what is the present successor to the likes of Homeworld. 

But I will skip the genre is weak concept thing (if nothing else we did it before) as I take your meaning. You see similar discussions with music and sports (though I have seen less attachment to the word sportsfan, indeed I don't know if it has ever been seriously uttered outside of a sitcom). Don't know if I have any particular observations here as far as how rare or common it is -- if I just follow the fads then minecraft begat five nights at freddies begat those survive in a forest games begat undertale begat... and they are all quite different. I am probably supposed to ponder limited play choices (if the average person has 7 friends they might go round another's house to see, each with 10 games for a given system and likely some considerable overlap in those then that is probably fewer games than I have rotting away on a USB thumb drive that I wanted to transfer between machines one day), lack of internet (though magazines were fairly all encompassing) and the general state of gaming at those points in time in this. I suppose I have experienced a bit of pushback on my fondness for puzzle games, which is made doubly amusing when a minigame within a bigger game is a weak implementation of a puzzle game (think hacking minigame or straight up "card game" within a fantasy themed game) and some of the same people note their liking such things.


As for motion controls then something I would like to see. If we are all likely to end up with 7.1 headphones or something in the future then combine that with head tracking. Right now steps behind me I can spin my head a bit for and attribute it to headphones but if it is tracked and mapped accordingly... could be good there.
As for the against motion controls set then I tend to see that more as a function of precision, or the lack of thereof. Stick someone's hand in a glove that can mimic textures, possibly do weight, do resistance and still track motions smaller than those for mice, joypads and controllers today and you are left with people that enjoy the abstraction or don't want simulation all the time (though if you can "generate" a controller then all bets are off). Stick to having to do imprecise waggle motions for minigames and that will not go away any time soon.



NoNAND said:


> @FAST6191 tell me, was this inspired by the EOF thread?


It really was a request in a hacking section that saw a "how times have changed" moment for me. I wrote it down then and decided to spin it up into a thread today.



Kubas_inko said:


> Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.


How high was your tower in free play mode?


Edit


anhminh said:


> Back in my day there is nothing called "backlog" because we only have few game to play for very long long time because that shit ain't cheap. We don't luxury to choose which game we got either, just put whatever chinese bootleg nes cartrige we got on and play. It was fun go in completely blind without knowing what the heck because no one know English either. Chinese seller seem to know this so the bootleg game rarely have any dialog at all. Cheat like Konami code or how to use Shoryuken seem to be knew by everyone but no one know where they learn it from. Either way, game was so hard and no save point so we rarely finish anything anyway.
> 
> Nowadays game are way too easy to access that people don't even bother to play what they had buy. The selection are massive so we keep picking and can't decided which to play. And even after pick which seem to be perfect game, you play it for 5 minutes while keep thinking maybe there is better one to play and drop it, never to return. My 10 years old me would keep playing it though because I know there isn't anything better than that. I know a lots of English now but dialog is still a bother to read so unless the story is good, I would prefer to skip it now too. It seem it didn't bother me that much to manual skip dialog when I don't understand it, now I understand it and it bother me that if I had missing something. It weird that I don't mind cheat code back then but modding game now seem ruin the experience for me, maybe because game today are too easy that cheat isn't needed anymore. But then game company come up with micro-transaction and now game are unreasonable hard without cheating with credit card. Even though game are easy now with auto save and everything, I still rarely finish any game either, weird.



I had a backlog back when. Late 8 bit/early 16 bit era (possibly to the dawn of the PS1) I was buying gym bags full of C64 and whatnot tapes from people that considered them worthless. While I made it through most there are probably still those in my box of things (assuming they still work) which I have not played. My friends with pirated* Amiga games also found themselves somewhat spoiled for choice, not entirely sure whether we saw early versions of pirate syndrome/choice paralysis as there was always Cannon Fodder, Zool, Lemmings, Simulcra or [insert rest of the list of hit Amiga games].

*not a trick statement as I did see a real game or two a few times.


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## DANTENDO (Sep 23, 2019)

Kubas_inko said:


> Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.


Most bizarre comment I've ever read only knowing one game


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## RedoLane (Sep 23, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Were there really genres back when? Today what some write off as arcade I would not categorise together -- space invaders, missle command, root beer tapper, toobin', donkey kong, 1942 and pac man are all rather different games.
> 
> RTS games... I can't really compare the likes of Dune, Cannon Fodder, Populous and Syndicate to each other, never mind what is the present successor to the likes of Homeworld.
> 
> But I will skip the genre is weak concept thing (if nothing else we did it before) *as I take your meaning*. You see similar discussions with music and sports (though I have seen less attachment to the word sportsfan, indeed I don't know if it has ever been seriously uttered outside of a sitcom). Don't know if I have any particular observations here as far as how rare or common it is -- if I just follow the fads then minecraft begat five nights at freddies begat those survive in a forest games begat undertale begat... and they are all quite different. I am probably supposed to ponder limited play choices (if the average person has 7 friends they might go round another's house to see, each with 10 games for a given system and likely some considerable overlap in those then that is probably fewer games than I have rotting away on a USB thumb drive that I wanted to transfer between machines one day), lack of internet (though magazines were fairly all encompassing) and the general state of gaming at those points in time in this. I suppose I have experienced a bit of pushback on my fondness for puzzle games, which is made doubly amusing when a minigame within a bigger game is a weak implementation of a puzzle game (think hacking minigame or straight up "card game" within a fantasy themed game) and some of the same people note their liking such things.



I did not imply anything regarding that "genre is weak concept". I only spoke about the amount of interest people have for them.
And yes, surprise surprise, video game genres were a thing back in my days! (for the record, i was born in the 90s. i'm not that old lol)
Not liking a genre doesn't make it weak, but it's a loss of opportunity. the only exception is if i know that certain person is weak against elements in certain genres(like unrealistic gore), i wouldn't suggest that person to try games that have those.
My problem is that people have no interest on game genres they didn't even try. they focus on the burger, rather than the bun and sauce which covers it.
That's why when game franchises try their dip on other genres, it's making me curious if people would try them just because it has character X or character Y in it, or maybe because it's a multi-genre which doesn't neglect the classic foundation.
Basically what i'm saying is that i see a lot of people who lock themselves on one or two genres, and when a series shifts into another genre, they complain without even giving it a try.
Just recently, the Yakuza series did just that...but that's not a good example, since people who complained, actually played at least a few RPGs in their life.


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## The Catboy (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!


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## DANTENDO (Sep 23, 2019)

Lilith Valentine said:


> Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!


Back in those days games were only few hours long


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## Silent_Gunner (Sep 23, 2019)

*Things that used to be standard back in the day that will stay:*

*Having some form of progression to reach the end of the game.

*Things from back in the day that are disappearing or have disappeared:*

*Games being guaranteed to be functional without Day 1 patches at launch unless you get the newly packaged Not-GOTY edition after all of the DLC has been released.

*Local multiplayer support on the same TV. While I understand this isn't always easy, it's disheartening to buy a game that says it's two players, come home, and find out it meant that you need a LAN cable, two of the same system, two copies of said game, or that said multiplayer is online only.

*"Arcade-style" OSTs. Think Castlevania, Contra, Streets of Rage, Sonic, Super Mario, etc.. Nowadays, it seems like every big AAA game has mostly atmospheric music. While this is fine (and even preferable in some cases like with survival-horror games), it also makes me wish I could have music playing in the game that makes me bop my head and look forward to coming to a new area. Bloodstained, being a Not-Castlevania game, did this for me, even if the music itself just didn't quite reach the highs of Castlevania at its best IMO. The Yakuza games also have mostly this high energy OST style as well.

*Here's where it could get...controversial. Being able to go into a game without having wonder if the game has been tampered with. It kind of crosses over with my first point in this category, but this has more to do with trends in developers trying to throw politics into your face when the game in question doesn't really revolve around it. For example, if the RE2Make had some BS about making the police chief a gun-loving monster who says that he's gonna Make Raccoon City Great Again as some sort of subtle jab at conservatives, it would be dumb considering that it's a game who's story is set in 1998 and here you have a police chief that references a slogan that was made 16 years after the fact and would ruin the period piece that the remake was. Outside of some twists and turns, the RE series' plot revolves around characters trying to survive situations caused by corrupt corporations that have had parts in various events in the series. It's never been anything dumb like, "This is why we need to overthrow the burgeouise and let the government do this or that." If anything, if the _masterpiece _of a game that is Resident Evil 6 is anything to go by, corporations are often in bed with government officials and really, corruption is to blame. In comparison, that's a theme that's more universal and transcends all of the identity political BS that goes around these days. Like, I get that people feel like they're disadvantaged about this or that because they're X and/or Y thing, but just because we get a hypothetical game where we get to play as Marvin Branagh (RIP his role in RE 1.5) surviving the events of RE2 just because "muh diversity" doesn't speak to anybody on any level deeper than the surface. The game came out the way it did in 1998 due to a lot of issues in development and Marvin Branagh being subject to dying first in Leon's scenario (which might not even be technically accurate if you consider LeonB as opposed to Leon [2nd] and that Mike Haggar-look-a-like) had more to do with writing decisions that came about when the devs at Capcom decided to bring a more professional writer to help salvage the mess that, to sum up what Kamiya and Mikami said about RE 1.5, wasn't worth following through to a finished project (laboratory aside, because if you've played the MZD build, it's essentially the same area as in the final game, but with some different layouts, designs, and a couple of extra rooms pertaining to how some people theorize RE1.5 would have played out based on what they pieced together). It's not some conspiracy by some evil white supremacists that they decided to off Marvin the way he did just so you can accuse some game of being whatever -ist/-ism you can try to form something masquerading as an argument.

The fact that I have to do a write-up about the above just goes to show how bad it's got with some games and the content being brought over here. Many have said the player deaths (as in, when you get your face smashed in by Mr. X) looked like they were censored the way they were handled, and hey, it wouldn't surprise me. Some of the deaths in the original Resident Evil 2 may not look like much on the PS1, but can you imagine some of that shit in RE2Make had they not wussed out because Japan, ironically enough, is more sensitive about violence and more steamy content being shown in games not the equivalent of AO nowadays compared to the 80's and 90's? And it's not just Resident Evil. Catherine, with the Full Body remake, from what I understand (this is where I would need some context as I never played the original and traded in my PS4 Slim the other day and some other stuff so I could get the Switch with the _drastically_ longer battery life), a new romantic path was added where a woman who transitions to a man is convinced out of it, some time travel occurs (or something?), and they're still a woman sexually and...genderly. (hey, it's a word on Urban Dictionary, at least!) If the story had ended there, and the game's original vision was left intact for the US localization, that would have been fine with me. After all, if you are against censorship of violence, profanity, and everything else that's already going down a slippery slope to 1984's Ingsoc in America, then you should be all for someone across from the world saying whatever they want, right? (you know, as long as it doesn't incite violence, which I'm _pretty _confident this game wasn't doing) But then, REEEEEEEEsetERA had to stick their nose into business involving a game they were never gonna buy in the first place. Ultimately, just the wording of some conversations was changed from what I've read that mean the same thing.

I guess I could just ignore all of this and not type out the two paragraphs above. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Unfortunately, my time is limited these days, and playing video games isn't as high on my priority list as paying off my student loans and then moving out after that so I can finally be truly free in my personal life when I'm not working. Maybe, when I can do that, when I achieve more goals in real life, I might sit down and start playing some more games as opposed to right now. If I can find a reason to not have to buy a game and either save that money here or there, or to do this or that, you better damn well believe I will do that, especially considering how much time I spend at my job every week feeling like I am doing the same thing over and over again.

*But, anyways, as for things that will stay from the modern gaming industry, well...
*
*Microtransactions. Call them surprise mechanics, call it horse armor, call it scamming, at this point, this is something that's here to stay, government legislation by the EU notwithstanding. This and its sibling DLC are going to be around as long as people keep buying season passes that make games cost twice or triple the amount when you bring multiple season passes into the picture. You can complain all you want, but it's not going away anytime soon based on the people I see at retail!

*Services becoming a bigger part of gaming whether we like it or not. If anything, I'm surprised that it took Street Fighter 5 as long as it did to become FTP given how much of both of the above it has. I can just see, in a future where streaming somehow becomes practical where you have multiple fighting game services competing with each other. You have the Street Fighter service, the Guilty Gear service, the Mortal Kombat service, the Tekken service, all being monthly payments you opt into or you don't get to play the newest, constantly updated version of all of these games that have sequel numbers that Halloween and Friday the 13th wishes they had!


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## FAST6191 (Sep 23, 2019)

RedoLane said:


> I did not imply anything regarding that "genre is weak concept". I only spoke about the amount of interest people have for them.
> And yes, surprise surprise, video game genres were a thing back in my days! (for the record, i was born in the 90s. i'm not that old lol)
> Not liking a genre doesn't make it weak, but it's a loss of opportunity. the only exception is if i know that certain person is weak against elements in certain genres(like unrealistic gore), i wouldn't suggest that person to try games that have those.
> My problem is that people have no interest on game genres they didn't even try. they focus on the burger, rather than the bun and sauce which covers it.
> ...




It was more that genre as a concept/word is fairly pointless from where I sit as it pertains to games, which then makes discussions surrounding it tricky. What is Deus Ex? FPS. What is Call of Duty? FPS. What is Portal 2? Probably still FPS as I am still using a gun in a 3d space, having to have good timing and precise movement. What is Vanquish? Actually that might be a third person shooter but really what is the difference between that and some of the more modern COD titles with their fancy movement (other than Vanquish being a solid game that I would play again)? This does not even get into the Japanese and Western (which I would argue breaks down again as the Americans all seem to want to remake Dungeons and Dragons but Europe seems to opt for old school storytelling) RPG thing. Speaking of action games then what on earth is "action-adventure"?
But above that if I must use the word genre and hope it means something then I would happily +1 a statement of "there are no weak genres, only weak games".


Slightly off topic have you met a person that is troubled by unrealistic gore but not by more realistic stuff? Nothing bothers me these days (got over my dislike of skin grafts) but I have met a few that will watch the fountains of blood stuff but skew into more grounded crime or war dramas and they are nowhere to be seen.

As far as genre changes then I see less people bothered by a franchise going into it. The main exception being if the mainline story (that might be expanded upon in a sequel in the established gameplay style) is continued by a radical shift that then leaves people in the lurch. Granted I am not aware of any that did that in recent times -- all those Telltale games tending to be side stories, back stories and retellings of existing stories. Most people didn't care about the Halo RTS other than it being a bad example of the gameplay style (though doing real time strategy with lots of units is hard on a controller), and as its events did not matter for future mainline Halo games then yeah.
I am sure there are some that make a jump for a bit more world building, back story or the like, and I am sure the devs pick it not only for that but to have some worldbuilding already done (I know you are supposed to make games people can play coming in cold but yeah).

All that said I have not particularly seen an epidemic of the kids of today stagnating in one gameplay style. I probably don't move in your circles though, and it is a thing seen in other forms of entertainment.

Edit. Seems I am going to be playing catch up here with comments.


Lilith Valentine said:


> Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!


PC games have been doing the release and patch approach for quite a while, and plenty of them got far between initial release and the eventual gold bundle with all the expansion packs (DLC for our younger viewers). Also the bug fixes, restoration and retranslation sections of any given ROM hacking site will probably be having a good giggle at that one.
That said devs have definitely be abusing the early access or whatever they are calling alpha releases these days, and possibly putting a bit less work into Q&A than they should (coding complexity means I can be slightly more forgiving than a straight 8 levels and few mechanics that radically upset anything NES game, but probably not by as much as seem to go in for).



Silent_Gunner said:


> *Things from back in the day that are disappearing or have disappeared:*
> 
> *"Arcade-style" OSTs. Think Castlevania, Contra, Streets of Rage, Sonic, Super Mario, etc.. Nowadays, it seems like every big AAA game has mostly atmospheric music. While this is fine (and even preferable in some cases like with survival-horror games), it also makes me wish I could have music playing in the game that makes me bop my head and look forward to coming to a new area. Bloodstained, being a Not-Castlevania game, did this for me, even if the music itself just didn't quite reach the highs of Castlevania at its best IMO. The Yakuza games also have mostly this high energy OST style as well.
> 
> ...



On soundtracks. Personally I am thankful the placeholder music that seems to be troubling films these days has not reared its head. As far as orchestral tracks vs nice easily whistled tunes from days of old then as nice as the orchestral stuff is I don't necessarily disagree and could stand to hear more.

The original Resident Evil 2 chief was implied as being none too nice a guy in the original version I played (the line I remember being whatever "happened" was dismissed as the only evidence was circumstantial*) way back when but I would have to see the change and any greater context that might be afforded before making a call there. That said I have seen plenty of examples of what you speak so you might just have picked a harder to sell example. Being a pedant I should also note that the slogan was actually the 1980 Reagan slogan too. Whether the example needed to be updated is a different matter. Someone will probably realise before long that the whiners don't buy the games, they just whine on easy to reach places of the internet. I am quite enjoying the fans vs "professional" review score fun and games of late though -- I thought the American vs European split was fun (Alpha Protocol is a good example of that concept) but this even better. I can only hope the sorts of things that gave us Rambo film reviews explode when the new COD finally hits (they seem to be laying the groundwork nicely) as that will be hilarious.

*I am not inclined to read too much into Resident Evil writing (see your post for a bit more there) but this was one of those optional text pickups. Context being a lower ranking officer was suspicious about the chief and I think it was umbrella (who possibly stocked the pond with their own fish -- nice to have a fall guy already in place and all that) who then sent back a dossier on the chief being involved/accused of something heinous as a younger guy but the case being dropped due to it all being circumstantial. While I expect that out of a long form crime drama it is possibly more credit than I care to give old school Resident Evil 2 though.

As far as microtransactions then I don't see them as all that different to coin operated arcades. I already mentioned DLC and expansion packs, though I would certainly agree things take the piss somewhat (I play a nice fully leaded copy of Battlefield 4, mainly as it was cheap to begin with and we got the DLC for free at later points, however the numbers of maps in that I would have expected to see in the base game -- compare to the PS1 through late PS2 era stuff and what you got there, sure some where not as tightly tuned but it is but one reason I still look to Perfect Dark for inspiration or reference as to what things can be).

On services then while such things paint a somewhat bleak future that will probably be wash pushes modding and open source to the fore. Or if you prefer then despite all the paid streaming services today they probably all still look at youtube and think "ooh" (and despite now being forced to use bookmarks basically all the time I still do very well there for myself).


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## Jiehfeng (Sep 23, 2019)

I'm not sure what I was reading in the OP, like the voice acting part, are you saying people should be happy voice acting exists in the game if at all, never mind if it is good or not?

With all the improvements and features that have been brought to gaming, I think it should be expected that whatever is good will be either prevalent in games or improved upon. Whatever was better before should be brought back yes (like completing a game, which is mentioned here multiple times already), but what is better now should be expected to also be brought back again and again until improvement comes. Quality is everything.


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## Alexander1970 (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my Days

- a Game had the size of ~32 KB
- a Game was played for months
- a Game game had no bugs (except the self-programmed ones.... )
- a Game did not need updates
- you were looking forward to a Loading Screen ... because you "knew" it was about to start
- a Game of four with a single joystick was entertaining and fun

Thank you.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 23, 2019)

Jiehfeng said:


> I'm not sure what I was reading in the OP, like the voice acting part, are you saying people should be happy voice acting exists in the game if at all, never mind if it is good or not?
> 
> With all the improvements and features that have been brought to gaming, I think it should be expected that whatever is good will be either prevalent in games or improved upon. Whatever was better before should be brought back yes (like completing a game, which is mentioned here multiple times already), but what is better now should be expected to also be brought back again and again until improvement comes. Quality is everything.


Someone made a thread in a hacking section asking for voice acting to be expanded to rest of the game (only the main story was voiced it seems). I then thought back to when I was not an old man and digitised voice was only something you would expect to see in ridiculously expensive studio equipment, and even when it finally did start creeping into games it was rather minor and even then rather extravagant. To have arrived a point today where a lowly mid tier console game, or even a handheld, might be expected to have full voice acting like it is no big thing to my mind marked a massive shift in just how much has changed in a relatively short amount of time -- Sonic the Hedgehog was 1991 and Jurassic Park was 1993 (might as well be the same day for all it matters). A film today compares reasonably to the former (though nowadays someone could possibly recreate Jurassic Park with a indy film or even low budget film budget), music and books of the era even more so but games are quite radically different.
This difference and the casualness of the request, which from a technical perspective was not misplaced like many such requests (though if we can't generate voices then it is a bit of a bigger ask), made me pause. Or if you prefer we have seen ROM hacks bring people together to voice act a GBA game -- see Golden Sun Voice acting experiment) and what the line was trying to say is nobody particularly notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure (classic successes are ignored, failures are not thing) or famous person doing it (or even better failing at it).

As far as completing games then I have pondered this before (most recently I imagine in discussions about scores and reviews). I usually consider most such endings rather arbitrary (even more so as by default I tweak games to be more to my liking) and as such unnecessary. My usual examples being I never finished Crysis' story as I kept falling through the level on the final boss, so didn't and watched a video instead (did I finish the game? I had done it all before then). For Skyrim I explored most of the map and had possibly 80 hours into it, but never did the story mission to make it to the point where I earn a single shout... what goes here? If I did the story in a GTA game and did not mess around did I have anything like a normal experience here?


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## Jiehfeng (Sep 23, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Someone made a thread in a hacking section asking for voice acting to be expanded to rest of the game (only the main story was voiced it seems). I then thought back to when I was not an old man and digitised voice was only something you would expect to see in ridiculously expensive studio equipment, and even when it finally did start creeping into games it was rather minor and even then rather extravagant. To have arrived a point today where a lowly mid tier console game, or even a handheld, might be expected to have full voice acting like it is no big thing to my mind marked a massive shift in just how much has changed in a relatively short amount of time -- Sonic the Hedgehog was 1991 and Jurassic Park was 1993 (might as well be the same day for all it matters). A film today compares reasonably to the former (though nowadays someone could possibly recreate Jurassic Park with a indy film or even low budget film budget), music and books of the era even more so but games are quite radically different.
> This difference and the casualness of the request, which from a technical perspective was not misplaced like many such requests (though if we can't generate voices then it is a bit of a bigger ask), made me pause. Or if you prefer we have seen ROM hacks bring people together to voice act a GBA game -- see Golden Sun Voice acting experiment) and what the line was trying to say is nobody particularly notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure (classic successes are ignored, failures are not thing) or famous person doing it (or even better failing at it).
> 
> As far as completing games then I have pondered this before (most recently I imagine in discussions about scores and reviews). I usually consider most such endings rather arbitrary (even more so as by default I tweak games to be more to my liking) and as such unnecessary. My usual examples being I never finished Crysis' story as I kept falling through the level on the final boss, so didn't and watched a video instead (did I finish the game? I had done it all before then). For Skyrim I explored most of the map and had possibly 80 hours into it, but never did the story mission to make it to the point where I earn a single shout... what goes here? If I did the story in a GTA game and did not mess around did I have anything like a normal experience here?



Well when it comes to a handheld game, asking for complete voice acting's only two issues is the amount of voices to be recorded, and the filesize. It's definitely doable, and these days not a big thing to ask compared to what people complain about most of the time.

To say nobody at all notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure is wrong though, you just haven't seen it yet I assume. When Ace Attorney 5 came out, it brought voice acting and cutscenes with it, and it was very much noted by almost everyone and was commended, same way with the Professor Layton games. These are just examples that quickly came to mind.


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## gamesquest1 (Sep 23, 2019)

back in my day we had mysteries and rumours spun out of the most obscure things in a game, such as the text on the star statue in mario 64, or a random badly translated bit of text calling something by the wrong name leading to rumours of that ever elusive secret level with stupid "complete the game 63 times within 2 hours 22 minutes to reach it" rumours that for some reason as a kid i would say most of us kinda fell for at one point or another, even if we said, that's BS, then sneakily tried to achieve just for the sake of it once we got home

now most games "mysteries" are either gleaned from engineered mysteries purposefully put into a game for the sole purpose of being a "mystery" or a troll to wind people up, or from people hacking the game contents and finding unused maps/textures, but as a result of the second scenario many "mysteries" are buried before you can even finish saying "hmmm what's through that door i cant reach"....plus with the internet even if you don't have the ability to hack your game for no clip mods or flying cheats you will almost certainly find a youtube video quickly putting your curiosity to bed virtually on the day of release for pretty much any game released

I guess i just think its kinda sad kids won't have those kinds of experiences of mystery outside of the purposefully crafted and engineered mysteries designed to be rolled out slowly in updates

so I guess I'm complaining that we now have answers to those stupid dumb questions/theories we would have back before the internet / reliable info was so easy to access


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## dekuleon (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day, expasion packs released 1 year after the original game and they came with a new campaign that was totally worth buying.
I grew up playing PC Games, since I was little, 3 years old, in 1995.


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## Subtle Demise (Sep 23, 2019)

DANTENDO said:


> Back in those days games were only few hours long


That's not an excuse. There were also far far less people involved with much more linited technology and turnaround times were a few months to a year max. Nowadays half the work is already done on the programming side of things and there are hundreds of people working on it for well over 5 years and they still never actually reach a "finished" state, even after release.


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## Dr.Hacknik (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my days, I grew up on PS1 and N64 games, then transitioned to my first console (for myself) which was a Wii. Which I played the shit out of, and even introduced me to my first online experience/s. I usually played story based games, or some Sonic game; as I was and still am a big Sonic fan at heart. 

My best and most precious memories of my childhood pertain from the Wii. Both Wii and GameCube games alike. 
If I were to put an hour amount of how much I have spent on my Wii over the course of 12yrs, I'd say roughly 6-8k hrs.
That includes two different Wii's, as my initial experience was on a family members for a while, then I had my own in 2010.


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## retrofan_k (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day, nobody acted like a spoilt brat or complained over the slightest thing when buying a gaming console and software.  

You just got on with it and appreciated what was given and on offer at the time whether it was good or bad.


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## RedoLane (Sep 23, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Slightly off topic have you met a person that is troubled by unrealistic gore but not by more realistic stuff? Nothing bothers me these days (got over my dislike of skin grafts) but I have met a few that will watch the fountains of blood stuff but skew into more grounded crime or war dramas and they are nowhere to be seen.



All a matter of graphic violence, and how visually appealing it is. it also how it relates to the situation.
i didn't meet people which you described, only the other way around. heck, i'm that kind of guy too.
it's actually not off topic at all, because according to many polls and reports, more people(including kids) can handle graphic violence(as well as unrealistic gore) in video games way better than people did in the 90s!
That could be many reasons to it. Personally I think it's because the lack of creativity when it comes to gore. a decade ago, it was mostly about "shoot that guy, snap his neck. blood comes out, what a tiny mess.", or bosses that bursts tons of blood after being defeated. it was gore-ish on a cinematic appeal, not in terms of gameplay, so people got used to it.
HOWEVER, in the 90s, games with an acceptable level of gore were very uncommon, so when people found out these games, it was like a first experience for them.
Mine by the way, was Doom. the most obvious example for a game in the 90s. you shoot demons, you see corpses, hellish environment, a truly christian game...but i was a dumb kid back then, yet there were content(specifically in Doom 2) that terrified me to death, and it took me YEARS just to handle it without being disgusted or feeling uncomfortable.
Fortunately, in the current decade, developers finally got the liberty to be creative AND have it being recognized under funding platforms or even through gaming events!
It's great because they investigate what could twist things in peoples' brains, and some games nail it! In fact, one of those just came out: Blasphemous, a dark catholic/christian/apocalyptic Metroidvania game.
It's one of the only games which look troubling to me more than what the cheer violence i used to see in real life or realistic shows.
So in a way, these kind of experiences from the past could repeat themselves, but as i mentioned enough times, it's all a matter of interest.



FAST6191 said:


> It was more that genre as a concept/word is fairly pointless from where I sit as it pertains to games, which then makes discussions surrounding it tricky. What is Deus Ex? FPS. What is Call of Duty? FPS. What is Portal 2? Probably still FPS as I am still using a gun in a 3d space, having to have good timing and precise movement. What is Vanquish? Actually that might be a third person shooter but really what is the difference between that and some of the more modern COD titles with their fancy movement (other than Vanquish being a solid game that I would play again)? This does not even get into the Japanese and Western (which I would argue breaks down again as the Americans all seem to want to remake Dungeons and Dragons but Europe seems to opt for old school storytelling) RPG thing. Speaking of action games then what on earth is "action-adventure"?
> But above that if I must use the word genre and hope it means something then I would happily +1 a statement of "there are no weak genres, only weak games".



Genre as a concept isn't pointless, because it helps people who love certain elements, look for new games they haven't heard before that share these elements. If i'm in a mood for platformers but feel like i played literally everything the world can offer, just looking up the genre on Steam helps me find out platformers that i either forgot they existed, or have something to look forward to.
If a person loves how a Puzzle game works, it means he loves that specific game. But I know people who claimed that genre X is worse than genre Y, when they didn't even play a single game that belongs to genre X.
Defining genres have nothing to do with it, because in my opinion, only experienced people can define "gameplay" genres, but everyone can easily define genres of context. Let's say hypothetically that i never played an RPG game. could i tell how that specific RPG game works just by watching it(assuming there's no tutorial)? no. But if that RPG game was also a Fantasy game, i could easily tell it's a Fantasy game just from it's context.
my problem with a unfair amount of people, is that they mix up gameplay with game content. I don't like Fortnite because of it's visual appeal(taunts and dances, you know) and publishing, not because it's a Battle Royale game(and to be honest, it's a pretty good BR game on it's foundation). I like PUBG because it's a great Battle Royale game, but the world and locations feel too generic.
Notice how i specifically mentioned 2 different opinions in both examples. What I see nowadays is that people won't give a try to any Battle Royale game because they hate Fortnite(blaming it for the BR craze or something). Like, seriously? it's not like every Battle Royale game is like Fortnite. heck, that game wasn't the first one to dip into that element.
That's what irritating me, when people hate on a genre without even giving it a try, being childish and immature for one game just because it isn't visually appealing to them.
"No, i won't play *insert BR game here* because it's just like Fortnite. they're all the same".

If i was a young adult in the 90s, i highly doubt i would hear that kind of opinion regarding games under specific genres.


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## raxadian (Sep 23, 2019)

Ice Climber(s) was supposed to be a co-op game. In practice it is much easier if you just make the other player die. In fact playing it in a coperative way is quite hard.

The first game I actually played co-op successfully was playing Descent, my cousin did the driving while I did the shooting and so we did both things faster.

And my experiences with online gaming have been terrible to the point I don't think is worth it.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 23, 2019)

RedoLane said:


> Genre as a concept isn't pointless, because it helps people who love certain elements, look for new games they haven't heard before that share these elements. If i'm in a mood for platformers but feel like i played literally everything the world can offer, just looking up the genre on Steam helps me find out platformers that i either forgot they existed, or have something to look forward to.
> If a person loves how a Puzzle game works, it means he loves that specific game. But I know people who claimed that genre X is worse than genre Y, when they didn't even play a single game that belongs to genre X.
> Defining genres have nothing to do with it, because in my opinion, only experienced people can define "gameplay" genres, but everyone can easily define genres of context. Let's say hypothetically that i never played an RPG game. could i tell how that specific RPG game works just by watching it(assuming there's no tutorial)? no. But if that RPG game was also a Fantasy game, i could easily tell it's a Fantasy game just from it's context.
> my problem with a unfair amount of people, is that they mix up gameplay with game content. I don't like Fortnite because of it's visual appeal(taunts and dances, you know) and publishing, not because it's a Battle Royale game(and to be honest, it's a pretty good BR game on it's foundation). I like PUBG because it's a great Battle Royale game, but the world and locations feel too generic.
> ...



So you are expanding and refining a concept beyond the traditional fps, third person shooter, shmup (never mind they used to be called shooters, and just like the two before are often categorised by camera style -- vertical vs horizontal), fighting game, real time strategy, turn based strategy, action games, RPG, flight sim, driving sim, maybe arcade racer, possibly space sim, point and click, text adventure, platformer, puzzle and .... and starting to contemplate mechanics, the nature of play and more besides to categorise the games.
This would be where I argue the discussion has to go to make it useful -- I have other problems with things here but board games some time back started categorising them according to the mechanics they featured ( https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgamemechanic ). Furthermore various Steam tags, and more interestingly some of Netflix's hidden tags ( https://bgr.com/2018/12/18/best-netflix-series-top-10-secret-categories/ , some of which almost resemble some of the odd terms you see in IMDB listings) allowed you to escape the confines.

As for the 90s (which did include the N64) then you must have missed the perception of Nintendo during that time. OMG (I think that was in by then) Nintendo is the kiddy company (though it did lead to my personal of N sissy 4)

On all the same. Endlessly repeated online multiplayer against strangers that you will likely never bond with (so full https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory in action)? They are all the same in that regard.


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## PerfectB (Sep 23, 2019)

I'll admit I didn't have time to analyze these posts in detail since I'm on a work break; I normally enjoy reading through the different perspectives these types of posts invoke. Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I'll throw it in:

I sometimes wonder what 'classic gaming' will look like in the future. I am currently what you would consider a classic game fan..I own modern systems of course but I have a lot of older hardware and games. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 physical titles, though the most obscure hardware I own is maybe some NEC stuff. I'm an electrical engineer, so I can usually pick stuff up for cheaper than normal since I perform my own repairs.

Anyway, my broader point is that these games are on cartridges, CDs, DVDs, etc and still exist physically. Supposing all is operating correctly, when I insert a game like Mario 3 into my NES, the program loads and I can access all content. There is no concern about any type of licensing or copyrights and there is no decentralized or server side content. 

What about games that get delisted from online marketplaces due to licensing and have no physical release? There are always cracked versions available, but that requires faith in the cracker not distributing malware, or requires a modified console to play. What about games that are primarily online experiences? When the servers go down, fans make their own (Phantasy Star Online, for example). But those games still require somebody to host content, and some require other players present to enjoy. Battlefield 1942 was a good game, but will you ever be able to experience a full 64 player match in the future? PC games can easily be pointed to a custom server, consoles less so. The experience of World or Warcraft may be lost to time 30 years from now, as the requisite elements to enjoy it are niche or no longer exist. Nevermind that proprietary server-side content cannot be saved or even acquired sometimes. 

But in 2019, games from 1989 can still be fully enjoyed, self contained on a ROM chip in their entirety. Though my argument falls short given that BS Satellaview games survived long after their original server side broadcast and have been made playable today via emulation or flashcarts. Hard to say how it will pan out


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## RedoLane (Sep 23, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> As for the 90s (which did include the N64) then you must have missed the perception of Nintendo during that time. OMG (I think that was in by then) Nintendo is the kiddy company (though it did lead to my personal of N sissy 4)



This has nothing to do with what i said. Did people back then wouldn't play other platformers because they don't like Super Mario 64? that's what i meant. It would make more sense if they said "I don't play other platformers on the N64 because Super Mario 64 is the only good platformer on that console", which is a completely different topic btw.
My entire point throughout this discussion is that unlike in the 90s, people nowadays reject entire genres of gaming because they *saw* one game they didn't like, found out other games join the wagon, and they just hate on it, without even trying any of those!
So from what i believe, they don't hate the genre from it's gameplay aspect, but hate it because by mere coincidence, the most popular one isn't *visually* appealing to them.
For the sake of argument, i'm referring to genres that revolve in gameplay alone, and not genres that revolve in the game's content and/or context.
All these tags on Steam that refer to anything but gameplay elements are still genres, but because games have become richer and massive in the amount of different elements they can use, it's hard to define a single, main genre that the game fits in. In that case, I refer to them simply as "Multi-genre games" or choose between 2-3 elements that are the most remarkable and obvious, such as "First-Person Sci-Fi Puzzle game"(AKA Portal). 
That's at least what I think. other people could argue otherwise. I don't think people in the 90s were busy discussing and defining game genres correctly. The internet wasn't even universally accessible around that time.


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## IssMare (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day we didn't have 3D but did have Super Mario Bros. 3. 
A game was rated by its ability to entertain us, not how long it was. Graphics didn't matter as much, offline same screen 2 player was a thing.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 23, 2019)

RedoLane said:


> This has nothing to do with what i said. Did people back then wouldn't play other platformers because they don't like Super Mario 64? that's what i meant. It would make more sense if they said "I don't play other platformers on the N64 because Super Mario 64 is the only good platformer on that console", which is a completely different topic btw.
> My entire point throughout this discussion is that unlike in the 90s, people nowadays reject entire genres of gaming because they *saw* one game they didn't like, found out other games join the wagon, and they just hate on it, without even trying any of those!
> So from what i believe, they don't hate the genre from it's gameplay aspect, but hate it because by mere coincidence, the most popular one isn't *visually* appealing to them.
> For the sake of argument, i'm referring to genres that revolve in gameplay alone, and not genres that revolve in the game's content and/or context.
> ...



I would say it follows just fine -- met several people that would refuse to play Perfect Dark, Turok or Goldeneye on the N64 with us because it was a kiddy console having seen Mario 64 and they presumed it was all that (several of which later went on to play pokemon but we are not laughing at double standards right now).

"but because games have become richer and massive in the amount of different elements they can use"
Have they? System Shock (1994) would likely go up against anything today in terms of complexity and most likely win (some might call it needless complexity and some builds will struggle without cheats to get anywhere but if all you have is good choices...). The choice of actions available in the average roguelike would likely put anything done by Bioware or the Witcher guys to shame.

So more terms = more genres. So now we either have an overloaded term or one that means vastly different things to different people.



PerfectB said:


> I'll admit I didn't have time to analyze these posts in detail since I'm on a work break; I normally enjoy reading through the different perspectives these types of posts invoke. Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I'll throw it in:
> 
> I sometimes wonder what 'classic gaming' will look like in the future. I am currently what you would consider a classic game fan..I own modern systems of course but I have a lot of older hardware and games. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 physical titles, though the most obscure hardware I own is maybe some NEC stuff. I'm an electrical engineer, so I can usually pick stuff up for cheaper than normal since I perform my own repairs.
> 
> ...



Oh no not more competition for the broken but fixable if you know how consoles.

On things being saved then the SNES did however lose its xband efforts (if you are not familiar then addon which was basically a combo of a modem and a ROM intercept style game genie, paid service, stored ROM hacks in battery backed RAM for those games that did not have baked in support).

I did once see a talk from an artist that purposely made pieces that will degrade (possibly to nothing) in a matter of months, and you do of course have the famous shredder


Others contemplated what goes for ARGs where you hunt around the internet (or real life) for clues.

All that said you would not be the only one to have concerns over the, often pointless, nature of some DRM that not only stops servers (though I will say in terms of percentages the Wii and DS server reconstructions are the best out there which might trouble the consoles less so line). I might write it off the same way that I will write things off as the skill caps trend towards "only sub 25 year olds that won the genetic lottery and have endless time will do well here" mean top level play in a lot of games is now rather beyond my reach.


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## DobaMuffin (Sep 23, 2019)

Honestly, I miss the days when I was younger. Growing up on GameCube, Xbox, and PS2, there were limited selection of games in the house due to the fact that my parents rarely ever bought new games once we got a small collection (might have been too young to remember that though).

Me and my brother would play through the games we were allowed to, and we'd replay the ones we liked the most. I would also watch my dad play the violent games I was not allowed to play, or I'd watch him play games on his pc. I'd also watch my mom play her games on the xbox.

The best day was when my mom said that me and my brother could play all the violent games in the house. That gave us a slightly bigger library of games to play.  

If I look back at the games I used to play, I still enjoy them. A good portion of them are more enjoyable to me than the new games being released. I particularly enjoyed the ps2 games as they has some pretty nice exclusives. 

I was never one to complain about the content of a game in the sense of what the game's engine could accomplish. If I complained about a game it was because I really didn't like it. 

Now I look at the new games being released, and while they are enjoyable, I am not happy with the direction a lot of them are going. Split screen multiplayer was always a favourite of mine, and it's getting slightly harder to find. I don't particularly like the whole expensive dlc thing going on. The Addition of micro transactions that add gameplay elements beyond just cosmetics, kill the mood for those few games I would be willing to play online. One of the big issues I have with the way things are going is that everything is starting to become digital only. I love collecting physical boxes. 

While I accept where things are going, and I am excited for some aspects, the way things are going in general don't leave me wanting to play anything particularly new except for select titles.

If this doesn't fit in with the purpose of this post, I blame me going off about something I care about. For all of those who have made it to here, I thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say.

Sincerely,
DobaMuffin


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## mattytrog (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day, everyone was a programmer, which, for me, was more fun than playing the games.

Copying tapes... Tapes were GREAT! High-speed-dubbing woes andwriting down tape counter numbers aplenty.

Going into your retailer and "programming"...


```
10 CLS
20 PRINT "All dixons staff are wankers"
30 GOTO 20

run
```


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## DANTENDO (Sep 23, 2019)

DobaMuffin said:


> . I love collecting physical boxes.


Yep I would pay an extra fiver for a game if we could hav commodore amiga style boxes again


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## DobaMuffin (Sep 23, 2019)

DANTENDO said:


> Yep I would pay an extra fiver for a game if we could hav commodore amiga style boxes again



Boxed games with flashy art are the best. Love buying PC game boxes when I can.


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## OncRN (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day, it took years to discover all the tricks/secrets in a game- and most of the time you couldn't find all of them.  Nowadays, you can go online and read all about them before you even get your first play.  Even today I'm coming across info about games I played in my youth, things I never knew about.

Not saying it's a bad thing, but there are pros and cons.  On the down side, it does take some of the mystery and accomplishment out of the games.  On the plus side, it beats burning every single bush in Legend of Zelda to find a hidden item. Especially w/ the blue candle.


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## mattytrog (Sep 23, 2019)

DANTENDO said:


> Yep I would pay an extra fiver for a game if we could hav commodore amiga style boxes again



I used to like the games when they came out "on budget" - ie Hit Squad cassette inlays.

After a while, once the game had been out for a while it would come out "on budget" and you could pick it up cheap.

EG the dizzy games...


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## andyhappypants (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day we didn’t have all this 3D lark, I did have and still own a neogeo aes and later a consolised MVS so life was good 

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



mattytrog said:


> I used to like the games when they came out "on budget" - ie Hit Squad cassette inlays.
> 
> After a while, once the game had been out for a while it would come out "on budget" and you could pick it up cheap.
> 
> EG the dizzy games...


I remember those days also! And the free games on the covers of Magazines


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## bahamut920 (Sep 23, 2019)

Lilith Valentine said:


> Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!


Here's a secret; no they didn't. Game-breaking bugs are becoming more commonplace as a result of tighter deadlines, more cooks in the kitchen, and games being exponentially more complex pieces of code than in decades past, but there are websites to catalogue all the things left out of games and all the bugs left in, and modern games don't hold the monopoly on entries. You might be surprised to learn that some of your favorite classic games were "unfinished"; Final Fantasy VI had the infamous Sketch Glitch (which had potential save-eating and possibly even cartridge-destroying properties), and a stat (Evasion) that just plain didn't work; Final Fantasy VII also had a stat (Magic Defense) that plain didn't work, and the localization for both it and FF Tactics could have used more editing. Secret of Mana has a bug that lets you get back into Potos by changing characters repeatedly, but then you can't get out. Don't even get me started on what a mess the original Pokemon games were, and we outside Japan got the _improved_ versions! I can go on, but I won't. If any of these bugs ever got fixed, it was either in unmarked cartridge revisions (FF6 had a "1.1" release that fixed the Sketch Glitch), or in a "Director's Cut" or other special edition, either of which required you to shell out the price of the game again. In an ideal world, every video game would release after being thoroughly QA tested and every bug was squashed (although exploiting bugs can be fun sometimes, and certainly make for interesting speedruns). We don't live in that world, and never have, so every time a developer releases a patch for the bugs in their games, I personally am grateful.



IssMare said:


> Back in my day we didn't have 3D but did have Super Mario Bros. 3.
> A game was rated by its ability to entertain us, not how long it was. Graphics didn't matter as much, offline same screen 2 player was a thing.


Games having length as a selling point is also nothing new. I certainly remember some games, mostly JRPGs, advertising how long they were back in the early-mid '90's.  Another silly selling point for some games (especially on the SNES or PSX) was the size of the ROM chips on the cartridge or the number of discs in the case.

I miss manuals, and the extras that would sometimes come with physical games, even though I've largely given up buying physical games due to the clutter.


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## OncRN (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day, when you bought a game, you OWNED that game.  If you wanted to loan it to a friend, you handed it to them, and it worked on their console.  If you wanted to sell/trade it, no one could tell you no, and the game became the sole property of the individual who had it in their possession.


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## Deleted User (Sep 23, 2019)

Back in my day we didn't have bad Nintendo games but we did have good Nintendo games.


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## TVL (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day we didn't have X and we didn't have Y... only A and B.


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## CeeDee (Sep 24, 2019)

back in my day gamers didn't fucking _whine _so much about minute shit like pride flags in games, different launchers, minor outfit changes, and shit like that. they just _played the game_ and were _happy with it_.


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## slaphappygamer (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day....we didn’t have patches and bug fixes for games. WE DID have complete games released. Seriously devs, no need to rush to release a game.


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## banjo2 (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day, you got one save file. Sure, a lot of games had profiles, but not all.

I shared our GameCube with my 5 siblings at the time... Good luck finishing Super Mario Sunshine on your own. We would have to either wait until someone else finished playing for good (and we were like, 6 to 14 years old, so everyone was sentimental with their data), or share profiles, which is what we normally did, even on games like Animal Crossing.

Playing on the Switch feels weird, having individual profiles outside of the game. Smash had one "profile" in all of the previous games (maybe not 4, never played it), so when one of us unlocked something, we all did. Now, it's "hooray for me".


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## Something whatever (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day~ no one knew what the game you were buying was about you just got it based on the box art and  details back of the box....it sucked but hey I got to play  somes gems.


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## Light_Strategist (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day, games were relatively short but difficult enough to keep you coming back. Either because you failed before or you appreciated the challenge. Nowadays, there's games designed to be absurdedly difficult or laughably easy with no inbetween. So we get caught in the process of playing something that doesn't feel like it's tailored to us... or at least... that's how I see it.




banjo2 said:


> Smash had one "profile" in all of the previous games (maybe not 4, never played it).



I feel I should know this but I honestly don't remember.
I think it was shared like Brawl's and Melee's were. I can't remember off the top of my head though because I haven't been on it for AGES... and my disc doesn't seem to like working anymore...


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## Taleweaver (Sep 24, 2019)

Phew... This could be a LONG list. From the top of my head :

* we didn't have in game tutorials but had written manuals
* there were no user reviews bitching about stupid things (1) but there were completely biased /bribed professional reviews
* long and unskippable cutscenes using text screens (2) are now mostly skippable/shortened
* graphics didn't take an entire department to make, so side quests and easter eggs were more common
* there was hype for games that didn't fit a very specific genre of games
* humor in games was more prevalent and deep
* games made for adults weren't censored for kids
* there were no save games every two minutes. Heck... Sometimes there was no way of saving
* there was no always online drm... But there was obnoxious 'flip to page x line y  and type word z to continue' 


(1) yesterday I saw someone downvoting a windows only steam game because he couldn't get it to run on Linux through proton
(2)ahem... Links awakening has you avoiding touching rocks before the second dungeon


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## FAST6191 (Sep 24, 2019)

slaphappygamer said:


> Back in my day....we didn’t have patches and bug fixes for games. WE DID have complete games released. Seriously devs, no need to rush to release a game.


If the gaming market is pretty saturated and thus you are limited in launch window (don't be going up against the new COD in the run to Christmas with your might as well be COD but having a fraction of the budget and it showing title) and as a whole people are pretty forgiving of a lot then I don't know that is the right plan. There are plenty of examples of business and open source software launching in a pretty sorry state but the core functionality is there and able to spin up while the rest catches up.

Not to mention there is something to be said to kicking your game out to a million almost random people and them all putting 3 or 4 hours of "testing" into a piece of code. One day AI might be able to equal such a feat (that thing I think it was Valve has for generating screenshots automatically after a fashion) but that might be for a little while.

This is not to say I wouldn't like fully formed games right off the hop but but to a claim of "not necessary" there are things that could stand against that.



TVL said:


> Back in my day we didn't have X and we didn't have Y... only A and B.


To be a pedant I have to note that Asteroids had 4 buttons, though two of those did substitute for a stick. Not to mention 4 button game and watch titles.


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## bjaxx87 (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day you played a game, cherished it and would go back to it even years later. Nowadays you play a game, cherish it, buy and play the enhanced/definitive edition a few years later (or sooner) and have that nagging feeling about wasted money and an useless inferior version in your collection (which you feel too deeply for to sell it).

--

Also back in my day you wouldn't care so much for which game was released in the current month. You didn't have that late-to-the-party feeling when playing and enjoying a 2 year old game. Also you didn't have a less complete experience because some services already were shut down (the Dream World in Pokémon Black/White comes to mind which was shut down 3 years after release of the games).


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## Akira (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my days, we don’t care about fps this and fps that, good graphics this bad graphics that. We are just as happy whatever games we get on our famicom(yes just famicom, and gameboy after my cousin gave me his)


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## DANTENDO (Sep 24, 2019)

Akira said:


> Back in my days, we don’t care about fps this and fps that, good graphics this bad graphics that. We are just as happy whatever games we get on our famicom(yes just famicom, and gameboy after my cousin gave me his)


Yes we did we wanted arcade quality graphics - wel we did in the megadrive snes era


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## JakobAir (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my day we had a GBAtemp logo that looked like a character from the "Codename: Kids Next Door" cartoon, not the sleek logo we have now.


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## CharlesHoy (Sep 24, 2019)

Back in my days if a game ran out of storage space we’d just pop another disc in


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## slaphappygamer (Sep 24, 2019)

BIMD, there were not as many acronyms. 
There were full sentences!


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## FAST6191 (Sep 24, 2019)

slaphappygamer said:


> BIMD, there were not as many acronyms.
> There were full sentences!


Does that mean comparing my 16 bit blast processing to your emotion engine? Both could be used to deliver arcade quality games. That said by the time the emotion engine came to rule the roost it also meant we did not have as much machine code, and even better might have exceeded a palette of 16 million, though ironically the sprite counts and mode 7 probably aged better (do we even have to contemplate the superFX?). Sadly we never came to know what Giga Power would produce us. Mind you all that would be obviated by the synergistic processing elements of the emotion engine's successor. While the 64 bit efforts from the Jaguar in what was otherwise termed the 16 bit era then we do have to stop to consider the 128 bits of the Dreamcast, though the "reality chip" of main thing people thing of when they think 64 bit console... actually I will return to aged badly.



Taleweaver said:


> Phew... This could be a LONG list. From the top of my head :
> a
> * we didn't have in game tutorials but had written manuals



Relevant at this point
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/cf2/cf2.htm


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## actualkoifish (Sep 25, 2019)

I have a strange perspective for most I think. Started with Mario and Sonic in early 90s, pretty much from when I could hold a controller. Progressed with Nintendo stuff until the Wii finally made me realize that one company alone couldn't reasonably provide for my gaming needs (especially after that one apocryphal E3 showing, I think it was 2008?). 

It is notable though that in the mid-2000's, I went from playing mostly gamecube to playing mostly NES. I had never owned one before, and it fascinated me. Even as the Wii came around, and then later as I moved onto 360, PS3, and PSP, playing NES games was still a main part of my gaming in the 2000's (was even the main reason I hacked my PSP, played a lot of NES games on bus rides and car trips). Since 2012-2013 I haven't played new games much at all. Most of what I play i stuff that's been out for a few decades. For example, I'm getting back into various N64 and Dreamcast games currently, mostly ones I didn't play back in their day. Same is true for PS2 and Wonderswan, both things I never had back in their day, and the Game Boy is getting a lot of love too for its 30th trip 'round the sun. In fact, beyond my switch (which I don't play much), my 3DS and Vita, and my Wii U (guess I'm a nintendo fan until I die , my newest console is still my PS3, which I mostly use to watch 4:3 TV shows on my tube TV. So I guess you could say I am unusual for the average player these days.

I can't believe how everybody pays an internet tax these days. Microsoft, then Sony, now even Nintendo are scamming you for their network services. I think it's ridiculous, just as ridiculous as the people who used to pay 15/month for MMOs (but at least the MMOs make it obvious that you're paying for the servers to run). It's more damning to me when Sony and Nintendo both started free, and then went behind paywalls since they saw how warm and cozy microsoft was with all of their xbox live money. I tend to suspect that the only people happy with paying an internet tax are the people who don't pay for their internet at all, or more pointedly, someone older in the house pays for it for them 

I expect in the future that not only will saving be expected, but absolute preservation of progress will happen as a matter of fact. Meaning, in the same way that if you are reading on a kindle and then put it away to sleep, you wake up the next morning and the kindle turns back on to the same page, people will come to expect games to simply always remember exactly where you are and what you were doing, and to be able to pick you up immediately. Saving everywhere was good, but in my mind it will turn into universal save states for these games. The game will remember everything, exactly where you were, your status, it will take away enemies in the area so you don't die (not that death is a problem, you'll just go right back to where you were anyway), and quest logs and markers on your screen will tell you exactly where to go and what to do. Essentially, games will by and large be thought-free entertainment! This will be to the delight of "reviewers", who will continue to fail at even the most brainless of modern game "challenges", because they feel that every game should be beatable using the PS3's blu-ray remote.

I think the above paragraph is more of a personal lashing out at current status than anything else if I'm being honest. What continues to surprise me is actually the output of smaller developers. I feel like there are a number of independents that are making projects which big companies could only dream of, games possible because the independents are free to do as they wish while the big companies are just mules being led by investor's riding crop down the short-sighted economic pit of despair. I expect that while the stuff you see at E3 will continue to get the big press attention, it's the small devs that you will actually want to follow for good new games.

On that note, I think it's interesting to see the death of journalism and how it has affected games. In this case, it's astounding because in my childhood, there were many times that rather than have a game system to play, I'd have a new game magazine to read. Or perhaps you just got a new game, so you're reading the manual as you wait to get home to play it. Neither of those really exist anymore. In the case of the mags (or rather web pages nowadays), I'd say at this point good riddance, the people writing as a salary job aren't worth the bandwidth they take up. Feels more like they wanted to write about movies and didn't cut it there, so rags like IGN or Kotaku swooped in to pick up hollywood's sloppy seconds (see also: the current devs at naughty dog).

In professional journalism, you are seeing newspapers fire their best writers because they can't afford to pay them anymore. Those writers are starting to go freelance, using the internet and twitter to reach people. I assume they obtain money through alternative channels, such as patreon or some other arrangement. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens for games too. Surely people don't still trust game site reviews, do they? I would have to expect that players are just looking for footage online to see what a game looks/plays like and are then making a decision. Even a streamer is probably a better source of product info, since they don't have any explicit financial ties telling them to rate the game highly. I would like to see game writing go fully to the freelance world, where the best writers prove their worth and take their money from those who recognize they are worth it, rather than continuing the sorry state of game website writing. 

I think streaming is still pretty strange. I watch some streams, but they are only ones where 1) the person doesn't show their face as a major point of the video 2) the game is the only thing being shown 3) they don't talk over the game constantly, only when relevant or when commentating on something 4) they play obscure games (old or new) and are a good way to find out about them. What I don't get is the ones who produce videos where it's more about the streamer's personality than it is the actual game. I guess that's part of the death of television too, you need your new entertainment outlets, and streamers are like a modern day variety show host. Besides, kids and teens today aren't waiting until 8PM on a specific n for the new premiere of a new episode of their favorite TV show, they are just getting the new upload online. That's something I think younger people will be confused by (unless sports hold onto TV for a few more decades), how exactly did people "watch TV" when you didn't have the entire season available for streaming immediately? How did you actually wait a week for the next episode? I expect (maybe the future kids being born right now rather than the current kids/teens) to ask questions like that.

The strangest thing I ever had someone tell me is that they didn't "get" 2D games. It was a few years ago, and they were a high-schooler with a gaming PC and a no-doubt overflowing steam library. The thought was just strange to me, I asked him to explain, and it sounds like he just couldn't take game worlds seriously or even bother to get involved with them if they weren't 3D-rendered. Given that 2D remained relevant through the mid-late 2000's (surviving there on handhelds) and that 3D was in my childhood a big new thing, it's hard to reckon with a comment like that. I imagine that the last 10-15 years of independent 2D games were not made with him in mind!

As for current tech, I don't think VR is going away, but I don't think it's going to explode either. Some games will be made in VR, and most games won't. The main thing I see with it is that it should become cheaper and better technology, it just won't matter that much as the basic experience is pretty much there.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the oculus quest, and I'm looking forward to more mobile 6DOF VR systems coming out. I don't see VR being much more than a sideshow though. Even if we all get AR glasses that let us project screens into virtual space of a room, we won't be playing VR games with them much, we'll just be putting flat games on massive floating "screens" projected over our field of view. 

Also, maybe my Nintendo fandom is showing again, but I would like to see Nintendo take a second crack at a VR system. Labo VR was a nice dip of their toes into the water, and they also had "Mario Kart VR GP" for a limited time in Shinjuku VR. A mobile 6DOF headset built off of switch technology would be pretty cool. I also think that if any company could make VR even somewhat mainstream, it would be Nintendo.


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## Flaya (Sep 25, 2019)

I enjoy every genre. And as I get older, I've come to love indie games more than triple A's.

Now, my first game and console was Pong, simple as that. It kept me euphoric for a very long time. I'm still looking for a "new" one.


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## Captain_N (Sep 26, 2019)

back in the day a game had to work. you cant patch a snes retail cart. When you bought a game you got all of it. Oh and best of all you got to keep it. Non of this you can only use it if you have an internet connection shit.


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