The problem is most modern games are just soulless generic corporate trash where as most retro games were made by passionate developers who knew how to make fun and unique games.
I don't think it's "modern games" that are like this, but it's DEFINITELY the AAA side of it. From the sixth gen to now (and probably onward into the future), people have always said "modern games suck and are soulless while older games were better". Every. Single. Time. But the truth of the matter is that publishers and developers that prided themselves and their games way too much on being a cash grab, on banking on trends of the time, focusing solely on realism are the actual problem. Further, those games would go on to generally be forgotten while the rest of that era of gaming (the part that had creativity, that MADE trends rather than chased them, and were doing it for the fun, love, and art of the medium) would be seen with reverence and fondness as the years go by. It's only that the soulless, generic, corporate trash has become much more apparent due to AAA gaming's push to take center stage, louder and "prouder" than ever before. Don't trick yourself into thinking it's "modern games" on the whole. Look beyond the AAA half, and you'll find some real gems that will likely be loved fondly for years to come.
Another problem would be that most modern games try to look as realistic as possible whereas retro games have varying styles of realism which are more eyecatching and not as boring as everything looking the same because it's realistic. Real life is beautiful, the nature is beautiful, but when I play a game I would like to see that beauty in another style. Whether it's pixel art, cartoony, or Semi-realism, I just want something different.
That's so true. There's a long time since i last enjoyed playing one of those ultra realistic games. AAA is to become way too generic, where everyone tries to follow the standard AAA formula of combat, graphics, characters etc. Very ironic
@nazca-_-8061 do u know how many types of game there are? How many diff art styles they are in games they are people like you need to give your head a wobble absoule ridiculous statement
so true. and nowadays there seem to exist only 2-3 game engines that are being used for 99% of all AAA games. back in the 90s and early 2000s this was totaly different. each gaming studio had its own engine and thus nearly every AAA game had its own distinctive look.
Man, as an older gamer it's really fucking sad that we've got to a point where you younger guys are saying just being able to buy a game, have it be complete and with no monetary bullshit is a special experience. Having grown up on the PS1, onto the PS2/Xbox and then through the rest of the generations it's been really disheartening to see what the mainstream game industry has done to itself over the last decade.
@@Cinemaphile7783I had an amstrad cpc 464 in late 80s, back then to play a game you had to load a cassette tape and wait half an hour, now in 2024, you have to wait sometimes 4,5 hours for a game to download before playing it, even if u buy ps5 disc 😂😂, so yh you are right the 90s was best era for gaming ps1 days especially
@@Cinemaphile7783For me it was late 90s (Fallout1,Daggerfall,Neverhood,Grim Fandango, BaldursGate1,PlanescapeTorment) and also ca 2000-2005 (DeusEx,SanAndreas,ArxFatalis, Morrowind,Gothic1&2,..) and many more that I won't pop out of my head now, but in general about 80% games back then you got your hands on, were either fun/addictive or at least had some unique mechanics that kept you playing despite that some other aspect might have been off. In modern games it feels like the fun factor that would make you want to continue, is missing - and even the interesting mechanics are copied over, there are rarely any new unique mechanics I came across. For instance immersive sim genre that first DeusEx made pathway for, is a dead genre nowadays.
I didnt grew up with the Wii Ps3 and Xbox 360 era since i was born too late that cannot experience them nowadays because of the fear of damaging the games from disc scratching, console not working, controller breaking, and lets not mention the disc rot.
I mean... Pretty much any game worth your while is not AAA. If anything there are more games then there ever were, its just they are less ways to know about them, ironically so(i mean it being an informational age and all). Any type of media promoting them just gets burried in the white noise that is "mainstream gaming". Just find yourself some more streamlined blogs, youtubers,subreddits,rss feeds,whatever that cater to your tastes with real people behind them, and you will get a lot of games that will interest you! Don't let corporate bs strip you of your hobby
You are completely on the money here. 90s/00s games had such an immersive, dreamlike style. They worked on release. There seemed to be nothing insincere about them - they were designed to be an experience.
I still play Morrowind and Vampire Bloodlines and it's funny how the old jank actually gave them SOVL. The sound design and atmosphere games of that era had is still unmatched.
Nothing insincere. I believe everything is biblical. A spiritual war of good and evil. In this regard things were better back then. Greed is a sin. And also just the notion of how society had more respect for things back then, from customer service, to games etc
@@ChristainMechaThere is so much simple and tangible words you can use to describe the industry and art as a whole that doesn’t require leaping straight into the celestial, but do your thing
@@greatbigeyeball Hey he's got a point though. He's just saying that it's proof that sins do exist, and they are punished eventually. At least that's what I understood from his comment. 😁 Greed is definitely one of the things that destroyed the industry.
Even Rockstar. I specifically remember they said first and foremost they make sure their game is fun... then I play the Cayo Peeico heist and realized that it's designed first and foremost to waste players time to try to push them towards shark cards.
Youre not alone. As a 27 year old. 2015-2016 is when games fully died. I also dont play games past that year. I just pick up single player games from the past anymore.
It struck me when replaying Soul Reaver 1 and Psychonauts 1. You start, the world already feels massive and it has presence. You start finding collectables, and it feels like you're in for another slog-fest of ten bajillion collectables that barely factor into anything, a massive world you'll maybe see 30% of and could never navigate without quest markers, and you'll make like 1% of progress per day at most. But then, you progress so damn fast. Everything you collect has some meaning and it's actually collected relatively quickly with reasonable exploration. It feels manageable, and progress isn't just a number.
Sometimes you dont know youre in a golden age until it ends, xbox/ps2/gamecube to 360/ps3 was a goldenage that is never coming back. So many quality games made
Love how you put Soul Reaver here, pretty excited to pick up the touch up that's coming out in a few weeks - soon as I saw it's all the original voice actors (especially Tony Jay) I was sold.
Here from the future.... it's wonderful. I am going to play the crap out of it this weekend. I've missed it so much. I have it on PS1 and Dreamcast, but I don't have any of those plugged in at the moment. Having it on Steam effing rules now..... However, I do have the whole Legacy of Kain collection on PC, but it's kind of hard to get Soul Reaver running right on modern hardware.
And this is why I've been collecting for my ps3 and psp and have an anbernic handheld. With a few small exceptions, nothing in the modern era is satisfying anymore. The magic is gone. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. I've tested it. Games LITERALLY aren't made how they were back then. And it's all part of the plan. You'll own nothing and be happy. You'll pay for stuff they can take away from you and be happy. You'll play creatively bankrupt games and you'll like it. It's horrible.
Bloodstained you felt the love (for modern games, like the only one), but then again, that's because Koji Igarashi felt the same sentiment, that modern day games suck. As for those who complained about people putting their pets into Bloodstained itself - who cares? They paid hard earned money to support the game, and the dev listened to the customer and honored their wishes - the disembodied dog head was legit (personally I would have done my bloodhound, and have his drool inflict the poison effect).
VR gaming is a true modern. I do play a few games on pc like Dota 2 and Apex Legend because those are unique but I spend more of my hard earned cash with vr games
Yep. I live by my own now, but I occasionally visit my parents house. They still have my OG Xbox standing there, and I give it a go for the nostalgia but whenever I do, I always have a blast. I put in my favorite Xbox game, PGR2, the disc into the drive, the game instantly starts. I am met with a short but sweet intro cutscene, a cool but super functional menu and I can just play instantly and have a great time. No mircotransactions, no advertisement, no checking for updates, no server issues, no filler content. The game just works, and it's a blast to play. This is how gaming used to be, and it's not nostalgia.
Legacy Of Kain = The best Vampire Videogame Saga with Kain and Raziel ever created!!! I love this series!!! Buy this game!!!! One of the best experience I have ever made!!!!
It must absolutely suck to feel like this about gaming :( I’ve been gaming for 40 years and 2024 is one of the best years I can remember, it’s been an absolutely fantastic year.
Older games didn’t treat players like idiots by holding their hand every step of the way. Moreover, they were generally aimed at an older audience than today’s target demographic. Nowadays, games are practically "auto-play" experiences where you just click, and the game tells you what to do, where to go, and how to do it. If it’s too hard, the "lemmings" start complaining, a patch gets released, and the game is made easier - examples being the Diablo 3 and 4 series vs 1 and 2.
You clearly don’t play enough games. Elden ring? Returnal? A shit ton of indie games? Gaming has never been better and I’m 37. I think people just can’t move on from the past. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. I’ve never enjoyed gaming more than I have now. So many great games every year. Maybe that’s the problem is there are too many.
Younger gamers love this "old games were better" trope because it sounds cool, "oldschool". Many of you people really don't know how it was back then. As a 44 old player I roll my eyes when I see something like this video and these comments.
@@JHGgaga I never said that games used to be better. As a 40-year-old, next time I’ll think three times before writing anything about games from over 20 years ago. I’ll wait until I’m 50. Then it’ll be safe.
Modern times are too mediocres. Its not only for videogames , music it is completely mediocre, movies are shit. There is no New ideas, everything is a remake or a continuation. And the remakes are bullshit like The Crow. Alien Romulus, completely aclaimed, but the movie is mediocre, the cast is awful, they have no emotions, the cgi is garbage. Everything is mediocre now!!!!
It is the same with books too. I have a Kindle and Kindle unlimited, because I love to read as well as game, the gym etc. I checked my good reads and I have only finished 30% of the books I have started to read this year. 😵 They are full of the author's weird hang ups. Seriously I was reading this one urban fantasy novel, can't remember what it was called now. There was a whole paragraph during a car chase, about how it's toxic masculinity fault the shitty feminist Ghostbusters film didn't do well. I was gob smacked. I highlighted it and took a pic and sent it to my friends. We were all laughing at how awful it was. The sad thing is, I was enjoying the story, then this just ruined it for me, took me out of the tension. I stopped reading it and left a negative review. You took me out of my escapism to complain about shit no one cares about. I have given up trying to find new fantasy novels. Reading the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E Feist again. I highly recommend it.
One man on Russian UA-cam said that our current time and generation is doomed to nostalgia. He said we live it time without a face. I'm almost 30. That dude was right.
It's hard to find the gems todays as every market is oversaturated with generic 💩. Unless we show another where the gems are, we might never discover them. A gem in gaming would be Deep Rock Galactic and as for a gem in music i just post something you can search here to find a nice metal band that was shown to friends: "States of mind shape shifting".
You said it perfectly, and that's basically why I hardly play games anymore: "...I'm not really enjoying the game I'm actually playing. Maybe you're bored or you have nothing better to do..." I'm 43 years old, I'm a busy teacher, I'm a homeowner, I'm a husband and parent - I **ALWAYS** have something better to do. So if a game isn't absolutely blowing my mind, I'm going to put it down and do something more important. I do still love games, but there is just so much mediocrity now. You have something so effortlessly joyful like Astro Bot or Hi-Fi Rush, and that truly pulls me in. But so many other games just feel like WORK, and I just can't deal with that. I have too much REAL work that I'd rather get done than have my game feel like a "task" to complete. I don't want my video games to become a lifestyle or need a work ethic for it, I want an escape.
My switch has done this for me because theirs no achievements so I’m actually enjoying the game’s like I once did, because those games are actually fun to play
@@aaronthomas6183 I agree with this! I do like the fact that Switch games really don't have achievements unless the game has them built in themselves. On PS, I have exactly zero platinum trophies and I'm in no rush to change that.
My “fave”part of modern tv is with many shows it now takes a while season to tell a story worse than when in the 80s you could cover it in a two parter and have stronger character work. So many shows and films feel stretched thin cos no one knows anymore how to do it with brevity and keep all the important parts.
Yepp even shows and movies are polished look amazing but they just feel like fast food not something memorable like i dunno anything back in the late 90's and 2000's
It's in part being lobbied to be this way. It's not entirely organic. It's a plant, pardon the pun. They've clearly incentivised a certain "type " gets the jobs at big devs. No way that's fluke across many different dev teams. Also getting money for implementing DEI. Wukong Devs were being offered millions to have outside involvement of that kind. Then they crybullied when they refused. Gross people behind this. Twitter likes to name them lately. 😉
The bigger problem I have with modern games is how bloated they can be. They just add so much unnecessary crap (side quests for example) to pad out the play time. The 2 Final Fantasy Remake games are a good example of this.
Open world filler has killed gaming a lot. It makes games feel like a job or Busy work . I miss tightly designed more linear games that didn’t have pointless busy work.
@@Cerbera82 Same. I played the hell out of Far Cry 3, I really enjoyed it. So I got FC4 when they came out but it was just too much of the same stuff again so I sold it without finishing it.
@@teeem7493 not everyone can do open world right I'd say only morrowind oblivion elden ring do those well. I don't like the open world dynamics we have of climb tower so you can unlock the map alongside 140 stupid side quest of fetching stuff with no purpose except padding. I miss the oblivion days when I found there's an arena and became a gladiator or I meet with some vampire hunters that you can join to then learn they are vampires or the village where an evil god tasks you of making two families kill each other by killing one of them and planting evidence of the other family doing it. Having the beggars be the eyes and ears of the thieves guild need. The world felt alive even if it looks dated and combat didn't aged that well. Then skyrim streamlined everything and now we have starfield ... Dark souls 1 has the perfect mix of openness and linearity that interconnection should be studied on history books. It is my belief though that the problem isn't a specific genre rather the greed of companies milking said genres. If triple a games start milking platformers like astro bot giving us 70 of those in ten years everyone will talk how platformers is everything wrong with the gaming industry. We need people that wanna makes games they wanna play rather than games that they wanna sell
I thought you were going to say it, but you didn't. To me the reason is because old school games you 'played' - they were games. Games that could be enjoyed in little spurts to break up your day. Modern games you 'game' - they are life replacers. They expect you to take every spare minute out of every day, forever, to progress or compete or experience what they want you to experience. They want to be your life. I made a similar comment in a vid awhile back talking about old school arcades. Arcades wanted an hour of your afternoon and the change out of your pocket. Modern games want your life and all your money and all your social time.
@@Quartv2 gaming companies seem to have 'the amount of content' as a major priority or they get backlash. They don't get I would rather have 25 min of intriguing content I spent 3 days on than 500 hrs of content. I don't want a replacement life thanks. | want a small reprieve in the afternoon, after work, from the one I have
@@Quartv2 easier to answer twice than edit the original. .. and I would also prefer a poorly drawn facsimile of the real world in my reprieve than a picture perfect, replacement reality that 100 devs worked on for 10 years to look as real as possible. Because again, I don't want a replacement reality thanks.
I stopped playing modern games because it started to feel like a chore or second job to make sure i logged in every day, did whatever the daily/weekly thing was to get that limited edition unlock, it's when they started forcing me to play in a certain way that i lost most enjoyment. Like in battlefield 5 some of the criteria to unlock weapons in that game was absurd. Even some single player games do stuff like this now. I don't even touch Ubisoft games now because of this reason.
it''s because the people making games nowadays hate gamers and gaming. they do it only for a paycheck and to push a certain agenda. it is no longer art.
Well no. All the game devs are passionate about art and love their work because it's special and has meaning. If you want someone to be angry at it's the executives of big brands that stomp down ideas and scope and money for more "palatable" experience. The passion there and never left, but if you're only looking at big corporate decisions you'll always be disappointed.
@klaudiso that is not true at all. most devs nowadays are obsessed with pushing their nasty political agendas. they don't even care if their games look good and are appealing to the people buying them. I have seen many instances where the so called "executives" and "suits" are the ones telling the devs to make less politically driven divisive slop, but the devs refuse to listen and break all kinds of rules to push their narratives. Look at naughty dog, how they disable comments and get disliked to oblivion. But they don't care, Neil has admitted he wants to piss off the majority of gamers. Same goes with most devs nowadays like the creators of Veilguard, or the creator of perfect dark saying gamers were a mistake because we refuse their slop and agenda. They sell their soul for a few bucks, regardless if it ruins the legacy of their games. Utterly disgusting.
Modern gaming: un-fun busy work you do for the privilege of spending money on another thing you dont need because the game itself isnt fun. It's absolutely insane what I was just disallowed from posting in someone's thread. No insults at all. AAA companies be out here preventing you from saying what the problem actually is. No joke.
Ok Boomer... You think Soul Reaver 2, Gothic, PoP Warrior Within, Rayman 3, Dragon Age Origins, NFS Underground, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires 3 are without soul? What game from 90s is better than this? Superman 64? Bubsy? Extreme Paintbrawl? Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero? Or maybe Home Alone?
@@zetset8098 Relax man whatsup with you bro, casually forgetting about the rise of 3D gaming? Doom, Quake, Mario 64, Final Fantasy 7, Half Life, Chrono Trigger, Sonic, Resident Evil, Donkey Kong, Star Craft, Ocarina of Time, Metroid, Castlevania, Goldeneye, Metal Gear. I can go on for ages. It was a different time, u weren't there and it shows. Early 2000s were good in their own right, just different. Stop the boomer bullshit..
I get you. I've been there too for a while. This year my favorite stuff was old titles I'd never played before. Id suggest going into the indie scene. There's a lot of creativity and games made by people who actually care. Throw on slay the spire and never look back.
1. The walking simulator affect. The amount of cutscenes nowadays is insane 2. The random pointless tasks. In an attempt to increase the perceived immersion they have you doing random pointless tasks that have nothing to do with game progression 3. The endless scavenger hunt. I'm really getting tired of this being used so universally as if there is no other form of gameplay 4. Micro transactions and patching. These go hand in hand. They don't just patch the bugs, they also patch the things that were fun that the developers feel "breaks the game" as if that wasn't an element of gaming that we used to love
Number one started with Kojima not walking simulators. We were complaining about the cutscenes back in MGS1. And that’s my second favorite game. And then he turned around and added even more in 2. Almost to a ludicrous extent. Just to spite everyone who complained lol.
In my experience, and I do work retail, while there has been a few sales of the PS5 pro, people are buying it, the disc drive add on, and the metal vertical stand for it and are paying nearly a 1000 dollars and doing it happily. Back when the PS3 released, and keep in mind, the PS3 at launch was essentially two consoles, people lost their minds at the 699 price point. Now you get a console that can't even play physical games and people pay for it without so much as a word
I thought I was just getting lazier with gaming lol, until I noticed how excited I was to play Mr. Run & Jump for ATARI 2600 & Secret of Mana 2nd hand for SNES recently. (It certainly proves that graphics don't make a game!) While there are certainly some great modern games, I just often find the retro scene more immediately gratifying. Modern games often lack interactivity feeling so "scripted" & "on rails," (as well as the long load times & frustrating trophy hunting etc!)
I can remember when i used to play older games like Abes Oddysee, Soul Reaver, and some games from the late 2000s like Little Big Planet, Transformers Fall of Cybertron, Real Steel, and more recently in 2017-2018 i played indie games like Undertale and Deltarune. I got into Dark souls trilogy and Elden ring too. And its only been since 2021 i played Titanfall 2. And let me tell you, the best way of knowing a game was good is how replayable it was. Now, most of these games have dated graphics, some have dated mechanics, and some lack the fast paced play styles you see with most modern games. But what i appreciated was that they were fun, exploring something new, or expanding on something that was dine before. Undertale was inspired by Earthbound games, and even sampled sound effects from the games, and it used save files as a way to tell a story that's pretty good, with nice narratives and themes you dont realise until afterwards. Titanfall took FPS games and gave you the option to have a robot buddy or to be the giant robot, and the experience feels wicked when you're playing a strong force, and even better when you're a nimble pilot soaring across the walls. Little Big Planet was only a platformer, but it offered you so much creative potential. Costumes, materials, machines, mechanisms, sound effects, this was taken up a notch in LBP2 and 3, that people in the community could even recreate popular games. It had a fun story, but it was always about the creativity. Real Steel, while not exactly the nost impressive game with its dated graphics, was the only fighter game i really enjoyed. You could customize your robots, and you could even destroy arms or heads, and it offered a lot of parts and attack moves for you to play around with. Sure theres better fighter games, but this one i enjoyed because i felt i had control with the fighter i wanted, and the impacts always felt heavy. Now, theres many games out there I'd like to play, but point I'm making is, these games are pretty dated now, but the experience they offered was something for fun. Characters you could love, game mechanics you could exploit, worlds you could be drawn to, and communities that you could be part of in a welcoming environment. Most modern games just don't offer that experience. Its hyper realisic graphics with TLOU/ God of War 4 style story telling with none of the substance, with quirky millenial characters you can't stand, and just game mechanics you've already seen before. It's to be expected, not every game can be the star in the awards, but there's even some indie games out there that offer much more with a $2000 budget than most AAA games offer with a $50,000 budget. Its not always about the passion behind the project, but it's the experience from it you get
There is a point in life where you realise that the thing you grew up with and loved is no longer made for you. There are still great games being made, just not in the AAA scene. Been going back to older games recently myself and whilst I'd say they are more complete on release but there is a lot of stiffness and jank that wouldn't be accepted in current times.
Gaming isn’t turning bad, what’s bad is allowing a lot of small developers push out low quality games and over saturating the market. It creates the illusion of bad games, and if you constantly pick the wrong ones, then you’ll be making videos like this and crying about it..
Same thing happened to me. I switched to retro games and bought a couple of arcades. I’m having so much fun playing the old games like Defender, centipede, etc.
Eh, i litteraly just pick what i decide to play. Be it modern games , older games, indies, triple A. I enjoyed GoW, Doom 2016 and so forth, while playing celeste, hollow knight, trails of cold steel, bucky o hare on NES etc.etc. While also enjoying weird VR stuff like Euro truck simulator 2. It has become the very best time to be a gamer, even if nothing new ever gets released, their is more then enough games that already exist to keep you going untill you die. I do enjoy older games more or older style games, but theirs so many insane indies that are worth the money.
I agree 100% that Games were just better back on the PS2. I think it has a lot to do with hardware, how games were made, and how much money was put into the industry. You are definitely on to something with this video. Keep it up!
The PS2 back catalogue is great. It has games from every genre. Even ones that no longer exist. Every modern game is the same. Same politics, same agenda. Same gameplay loops. Generic characters...its just boring.
@@AtmonTheExectioner I agree with man. Hey if you are up for it I have a video series where I talk to gamers about games, and I would like to have you on talking about this topic. If that sounds like something you want to do just hit me up on my socials.
@@AtmonTheExectioner Agreed. Another important aspect was that you had a diversity of takes within the same genres and in house developed game engines, allowing specific and sometimes unique experiences to be had. I loved how MGS, Thief, and Splinter Cell played very differently from each other despite all being Stealth games. Same thing goes for Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Siren in the Survival Horror genre. Then more and more games started using the exact same couple engines and control schemes, so that no matter what every Third Person game felt the same independently from genre, with the same palette of possible actions and limitations.
@@Zeburaman2005 For sure, each game felt like it's own thing. Like Xenosaga. It told the story it wanted to in the way it wanted to in that first game. Nothing else was like that at the time. Ridge Racer was its own distinct arcade racer too. You had V-Rally and a whole lot of other arcade racers, but not anything that was Ridge Racer.. It's like...before you had these big investment firms come in gaming was this big smorgasbord of titles, each trying something new and putting their own unique take on a genre. You had devs coming up with all these wacky ideas like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Worms...modern day those devs feel like instead of coming up with a character and concept that's actual fun...they are too scared of being branded as children and now they want to make serious games that rival cinema. These products come off as cookie cutter tryhard. Soul Reaver took videogames to a writing peak, no other game has beaten it yet. Metal Gear came close, but still in my opinion never quite got there. Insomniac used to be king of the mascot platformer...now its just stuck trying to make "serious" Spider-Man games....the amount of PS2 era platformers getting remastered recently, you don't want to take another crack at that genre? Get ahead of the curve? A lot of remasters are nostalgia bait for sure...but also (and I see this in my nephew), I introduce him to a GEX or Soul Reaver, Dino Crisis 2, Bloody Roar or Silent Bomber...he is amazed by these games (graphics aside) and asks why we don't get games like this anymore.
100% correct! When i was a kid growing up in the 90s, going to blockbuster renting a game and playing it all weekend, even if it was not good, I still enjoyed the time!!! I got Gamepass and had it for a few years, and i was totally overwhelmed and would just go back to playing Destiny, elders scroll, or some classic retro game like Sega collection! So this video is spot on!!!
I blame unreal engine and literally every studio using it. Remember the good old days when there were over 100 game engines studios were working with. It gets boring when every game looks the same.
OG competent and passionate devs with a lot of skill got replaced by lazy millennial/zoomer devs that only want to checkmark and generate game automatically it's a joke they are only there for a paycheck not to create amazing games that they would love to play.
Video games have gone the same way as music. 60's-70's classic rock will always be the best we ever had. Video games will never be better than 90's-2010.
I agree about the music comparisons. Where people fight and claim there era was the best and new music is trash. Same rose tinted biased glasses when it’s always been an evolution. So yes video games can be better. Or at least different. Same as with music.
Soul Reaver Remastered reminds me why I love video games in general. It is a precious game. The atmosphere is sublime. The gameplay is easy, but addicting and you get to enjoy a world that still is surprising could be done in the PS1, but with a lot of quality of life improvements. I really recommend it ❤
I have the same feelings playing modern Tomb Raider games. There's simply too much going on. The inventory upgrades are not that bad as they add something to gamplay as time goes by but the number of hidden secrets and supply crates plus the bushes that you strip for twigs... It takes away the joy of exploration. I constantly enter the survival instinct mode to make sure that I'm not missing out on any secrets or resources. It's like pausing the game at every corner to ANALYZE the area. I remember playing Indiana Jones and Infernal Machine years ago and that game, if only a bit remastered, would be superior to anything that's coming out now. Soul Reaver? A masterpiece of storytelling and action. I wish I'd forgotten the plot and locations so I could relive the experience of playing its long awaited remaster.
That’s exactly how I’ve approached gaming the past year. Ive bought barely any new games this year but when I do I won’t touch it for weeks, knowing it’s probably broken or just not working as intended.
I disagree, video games are just as good as ever. I think you're most likely burned out on video games. I'd recommend not playing anything for a very long time. Instead play real games like board games for example. And do sports. Those things are equally rewarding. Maybe in 5-10 years you'll have regained your interest in video games.
Yup. Patches, updates, balance changes…THEN you have to click through 4 loading screens to get to the main menu, then you have to make sure you are signed in online. Then you can finally play.😅
Games are split into 2 categories now. Either are pay to win or tasks simulator, sometimes are both. Either of those could work if they did it in a balanced way but no, either do too many tasks on a huge map or pay to win
I’m glad someone said it. I’m tired of the new slop games that come out. A year or 2 ago I got rid of my PS4 cause I work a lot but also the fact anything new that comes out isn’t fun. Like you said it’s either micro transactions, dlc, season passes or online. Nothing works day one, there’s always a double digit gigabyte patch. My $300 switch plays most of my old favorite games and even the worst Nintendo slop rarely has day one patches and almost never micro transactions or DLC. Not to mention whatever modern slop, walking simulator, preachy slop I’m expected to pay $70 for which takes up 120 GB.
Yeah I agree. I grew up playing video games. Like, from NES, SNES and Megadrive, all the way up to an Xbox Series S (is the latest console I got), but I haven't been playing a whole lot of games in recent years. This past year, I've played Dragon's Dogma 2 and Mortal Kombat 11, and then I started downloading old games, like Alice: Madness Returns and more recently Soul Reaver. I mean, throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, you'd play one game after another, and all of my friends were into gaming. One of our buddies used to burn discs and just distribute them; there were so many games that we were playing. One dude had the N64, and one guy had a Dreamcast, and we had Playstations, PSPs, PS2s, Xboxes, PCs, etc. Super Mario All Stars, Donkey Kong Country 1&2, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario Kart, U.N. Squadron, Super R-Type, Star Fox, Street Racer, F-Zero, Mortal Kombat 1-3, Primal Rage, Killer Instinct 1&2, Doomsday Warrior, World Heroes, Street Fighter 2, SF2 Turbo, Super SF2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Jurassic Park, Joe and Mac, Turtles in Time, Turtles Tournament Fighters, Brawl Brothers, Castlevania 4, Secret of Mana, Gargoyles, Aladdin, Hercules, Smash Tennis... That's just some of what I can remember, and that's all just from the SNES days. Doom, Duke Nukem, Twisted Metal, Interstate '76, Tomb Raider, Myth: the Fallen Lords, Netstorm: Islands at War, etc. on PC. Battle Arena Toshinden, Time Crisis, Wipeout, Colin McRae Rally, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Bloody Roar, Rival Schools, Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, Def Jam Fight for NY, Metal Gear Solid, Abe's Oddysee, Shadow of the Colossus, Tekken games .. I mean, I could add paragraphs of Playstation 1 & 2 games alone. Whether it's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007, 1080 Snowboarding, Wrestlemania 2000, for the Nintendo 64, or Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast or Xbox 360's Tenchu Z; those were the gaming years. Plenty of fun and good games being released all the time. Between me and the boys, we played countless games, and always had a blast doing so. Perhaps as one gets older, that passion for playing games kinda goes away, but I can still enjoy a good video game, even now; even though I don't have as much time anymore to play. But you're right; games nowadays lack a fun factor that older games used to have. It's why I went back to replaying some of those nostalgic games. Hell, during the Corona lockdowns I dusted the old PS2 off and replayed Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven and Fatal Shadows, and had more fun doing that than playing current triple-A games.
You spoke to me when you said "spoiled by choice" and how there is no depth. I paid £1000 in total for a BC PS3 along with 50 original Ps1 and Ps2 games and have never felt so much love again for gaming. Best choice I've made.
Yeah I have been playing all the silent hills from PS2, Fatal Frame 1 2 3, Hunting Ground, the older GTA games with , Even have a ps1 emulator that im playing with RE 1 2 3 and Silent hill 1 Metal Gear Solid 1and its been a blast so far. Golden age of gaming for sure Im also playing the DMC hd collection and the Manhunt games there is so much to choose from
Bro totally agree, I can't stop playing the thing, so much fun.. And everything you said I was in tears because it's so accurate.. I legit stare at games for half hour.. Just subbed..
I remember that feeling of being tired of something i suppose to love. And i just lost it somewhere in soul reaver dilogy. It was best 30 hours since last year. Modern games are exhausting and easy to get. Old times were magical. Old games are truly adventures and actually games. Ps2 era is home for my gamer soul, so praise the emulators.
lots of games are bugged on launch, but usually with online games the reason they don’t work on launch is because on day one the servers are going to have the largest amount of concurrent players the game will ever have, so they usually don’t shell out a massive extra ton of money to support the extra server stress that’ll die off in a few days
Holy crap 2:40 monologue. imagine when we just popped a disc in. No UPDATES, no BATTLEPASS, no EARLY ACCESS, no BUGS, no BROKEN LAUNCH, no NVIDIA GAME DRIVERS, no INTERNET NEEDED, no PSN ACCOUNT $$$, no MICROSOFT FUCKERY, no OPTIMIZING SETTINGS, no LIVE SERVICE ONLY GAMES, etc etc etc
You pretty much described my experience: Open PS Store, scroll for a bit and just turn off my PS5. For the last 2 years i've only been playing old games consistently. Like, really old. Diablo 2, Castlevania, Old School Doom and Quake. If wasnt for those, id quit games completely at this point. I will occasionally do a run of one of the Souls games (the last games that actually got me) and finished a playthrough of Darkest Dungeon recently (after months), but its the oldschool games that get me to spend a weekend playing nonstop. The old games were so much creative and had so much more fun packed in them, i dont even care about new releases specially AAAs
Totally agree, I spend most of my gaming time on emulators now, I occasionally dip into new games but I still have to wait a year after they release so they've been patched a bunch etc but even then the sheer size and time commitment they take makes it seem if it's really worth it!
ps1 era games was the best. abe odysee, abe exodus, resident evil 1 2 3, heart of darkness, spyro, crash bandicoot, tekken 3, tomb raider 1 2 3 , MediEVIL, Rayman 1 2.gaming was golden back then
To be honest, it never happened to me. I'm usually very cautious on what games I buy/play, so I don't really get bored with them. Sometimes I even want to replay them after months of having finish them, like Kingdom Come Deliverance or The Witcher I.
I don't play AAA games anymore either; I play either older games or new, indie / limited budget games. For example, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which was directed by the guy who led the "Aria of sorrow" castlevania games. It has some DLC but it's totally optional and the base game is one that you just pop in and play, it's finished, it's not buggy, it's a good gothic metroidvania game. I like to support smaller devs in general, with the outliers being SE (I play FFXIV which while not perfect it's not scummy) and Spike Chunsoft (massive Danganronpa fan) and maybe Atlus and their persona games. Again, finished, polished games.
I heavily relate to what you say. Due to boredom from modern video games I've been stuck in playing souls games and survivor horror games (selected topics from both). But recently I rediscovered a game called Alice: Madness Returns and I've been enjoying that game to utmost level. The majority of old games (pre 2015) were excellent, and no wonder many gamers are rediscovering these niche topics and abandoning modern AAA garbage.
I stopped finding games fun after red dead redemption 2, then I began going backwards again and honestly remember why I had enjoyment spending time on those games.
As someone who grew up during the 8-bit home computer / console era UFO 50 has been a very positive sign for me. It looks like that we still can create games like back in the good old days (and actually even better than that) if just want! The collection is mainly experimentation on simple and easy to pick game play concepts with new and unexpected twists. This is what I value and feel like investing my few spare moments I can allocate for gaming, not getting mixed up in overly complicated schemes scientifically engineered to inconvenience you in order to extract every last penny and time you have.
It is not that we have grown and changed, it's just that older games were better. I have played Diablo 1 for the first time recently (something that's been a long time coming) and I am completely addicted, a feeling I thought a had lost for games ever since I was a kid. Games have lost their magic, their spark. If you ask me I can't tell you what it is, but it's missing in modern games. Got a PC recently, now I'm discovering the games I missed as a kid, all those 90's classics. Feels bad to know where we are...
I am 100% with you on this. New games are too polished / too coorperal. They are made to make money not to show a cool story or experience art. DLCs, Battlepasses and unfinished games at launch are also my biggest pet pieves. At the same time just the fact that we all got older and have no more time to just endulge in a game for a whole day as we used to when we were in school unfortunately makes them feel like we are "wasting time".
I think the internet and social media flooding you with opinions and over sensationalized critiques have turned me off to a lot of games. It’s less of a one on one experience now. Some of the mystery has been taken away as well
i agree modern gaming is not exciting for me anymore i still play my old games the most recent games that got me actually excited for are Marvel Rivals which looks good plus its free and Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver Remastered i never played it back then when i saw the trailer it got me excited it looked really interesting it will be my first time playing it also it has good price not like the AAA games
The only games I'm currently playing are The Legend of Dragoon, Alundra, and Galerians, all classic PS1 titles. While there are some decent new games available now, especially among indie titles like Sifu, Blasphemous II, Anno Mutationem, and Fear and Hunger, most modern AAA games are heavily influenced by DEI and lack creativity and soul. Even if they are somewhat entertaining, I just can't get excited playing them. It's also emotionally disheartening to see how each of my favorite game franchises has somehow fallen into a state of decline.
Anno Mutationem is really good. It's an unpopular opinion but I enjoy Genshin Impact. I have over 26 characters leveled up to where I have all kinds of team comps for combat. Also, the world exploration on that game in my opinion is fine cuz it has some of the beautiful world design that I've seen in gaming.
I always find these vids funny cause its usually some dude who's from a older generation complaining about how games used to be better even tho the same quality and quantity are released today gaming has changed yes but good games consistently release Y'all just don't play them. No offence but gaming might not be bad your love for it though is
I hate that “maybe I should play something else” feeling. But when I finally find that game that enraptures me, it’s such an amazing feeling.. like the first time playing NieR or Earthbound where you don’t want to put it down or do anything else but play the game. But then comes that feeling when you finish it…. Like what’s next
That's why modern games like Stardew Valley or Hypercharge: Unboxed are so appealing because they give off an old school vibe of quality and they ooze with passion. There's no micro transactions and you just launch the game and can play it in a matter of moments. I got rid of my PS5 after a couple of months because the games that are on it are also available on my PS4 Pro and there's little to no good exclusives.
Steam Deck solved a lot of these problems for me. It's a consolized PC with an OS design to just.. work! Almost anything you want to do, you can do it, usually with push-button ease. The kinds of experiential self-contained games we used to have on PS1-PS3 are still flowing out at a rapid pace from indie and small studios with great prices and sales on Steam. Nearly every day I see some game I've never heard of before that makes me say, "Wow, what a cool idea!" And all of my humongous retro game backlog that's sitting on my shelves, I can play them on Steam Deck, too! AAA gaming is broken, but if you focus on the good parts of the industry, there's really never been a better time to be a gamer.
Well, as a child and teenager, I didn't had the money to constantly buy new games. This "overwhelmed by choice" is for a big part also caused by not being limited by money anymore. But I'm also starting to get away from the "I started this game, so I should stick with it for at least a while". Just today I played 2 RPGs that tried to emulate classics from the 90's and failed in doing so. I dropped them and won't get back to them. I feel many indie devs, who are trying to copy the classics, do not understand what made said classics great. So it's not just big titles that fail. In general I feel that indie games have the same problems as big production titles, only that there are far more of them. Many simply try to copy whatever is hot right now. Best example are all these Vampire Survivor like games. And don't get me started on this fad of card battle / deck builder combat system games...
Modern AAA games cost so much to make, and the development cycle is so long that publishers release buggy games that need patches so they can start to recoup their cost. This is why simplicity is key. Some of the best games are made by small teams on a budget.
Videos like this are nice to come across because it makes me feel like I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've felt this was about gaming since the PS4 era though it was already starting to creep in during the PS3 era for me as well So many modern games just don't really grab my attention much at all and part of the reason is exactly what you said which is how it's practically a gamble on whether the game will work. So many games these days come with glitches and problems that don't get screened out before release because developers think "So what? We can just patch it later" and sure that's a solution but games are expensive as hell already and if you're going to be paying $70-$80+ on a game, you better be getting your money's worth, not a rushed out product. Another reason for me personally is I've always been more of a lone gamer type so all these co-op games that are all the rage in recent years really don't interest me at all and the fact that most of them rely on battle passes, lootboxes, micro-transactions, and are just money sinks through and through, it's such a big turn off. My brother is the opposite of me where he loves these games and I get shocked every time he tells me when he buys the next battle pass for the games he's juggling (Overwatch, Destiny, Final Fantasy 14, and Marvel Rivals). More power to people who like that but I just could never, no thank you. I just prefer a single player experience playing through a story which is why I much prefer older games. There's nothing more daunting a thought then a game that has no end to it. But finally, another person shared this and I agree with it a lot and that is how so many games try to look as realistic as possible, I personally loathe it. Real life is fine and all but when I'm playing a game, I like to see imagination and creativity. I think this is why I love the PS2 / Xbox / Gamecube era of consoles because it was that perfect middle ground of seeing improvement of the PS1 / N64 graphics but not overly detailed neither and they still looked like video games, you know not realistic with that uncanny valley effect and I personally love that. It's why I don't mind hopping onto Ebay and buying obscure PS2 and/or PS1 games that I missed out on and can still have fun with them. The last game I bought was a game called Primal and sure the game had a bit of a janky combat system but I still had fun with it because the story was great, the world was immersive, and it just felt like the game was "complete", it was pretty great lol. Needless to say, I do think modern gaming is just the pits at this time. This is not to say that there aren't any good or interesting games out now, there are and this is especially true in the Indie game scene which really is a renaissance back to the PS1-PS2 era of gaming as you see so many different kinds of games being made that have that have that artistic spark that you saw back in those days. But aside from that, yeah the modern gaming scene is just not "it" anymore.
Man I was literally just telling one of my buddy’s this yesterday. I’v been having so much fun playing old ps1 and n64 games that new games just don’t get me excited anymore. Emulation has been my friend in this regard
Older games were designed like movies, where it’s something you experience, you enjoy, and then you finish it. The money grab has made a lot of modern games too bloated and want to keep you around to keep spending, not only diluting the enjoyment of the game itself but constantly breaking your immersion by reaching for your wallet. All these modern gacha and Hoyo-verse games make me sad. It just feels shallow and soulless. I just want good stories man.
I just thank the lord that I was able to grow up in an era where gaming was great, innovative and everything was new, what I hate the most about today, is that it’s nothing but downgraded remakes/remasters, and the sad part is, the people want more.
Remember DeusEx - the very first one on PC? You loaded that up and went at it like an FPS of the time and got brutally punished for it. You’d have to use your brain - realize it was an rpg and the sooner you realized the only thing it had it common with an FPS was its perspective. You’d play it, go along with it on a path as it would play out and you’d end somewhere as a result of your choices and then sit back and think “Christ that was brilliant!” And little did you know there were other ways to go in that game until you talked to some other nerds which followed a different path and got a completely different experience, immediately you went back and had another go at it and it would be like you played a different game. You had no idea there were different ways to go about it and it was awesome. I remembered that experience when I much later bought deusEx for my Xbox back then, and I got watered down experience, where every freaking time there was a choice to make, it was obvious there was another way to go - the game would prompt you in a much more “are you sure you want to do that?, because you can also do this instead?” And all of the choices were totally pointless, because in the end you would have a chance right at the very end of the game to go one of 3 ways, and the game would litterally autosave RIGHT BEFORE you would have to choose the a certain way to end the game… Meaning any gameplay and story choices before that was kinda pointless as you’d have the ability to right at the end choose a completely different ending anyway. I felt like I earned a participation trophy at the end of it. Fallout 4 did the same thing - right up till the very end you could kinda quickly change your path from railroad, to institute, brotherhood or minutemen - and play 1 of four endings. You could play all factions almost equally all the way up to the end, making consequences of choice kinda moot. All new games do that… and I kinda pisses me off. With one exception I can think of. Wasteland 2 Right of the bat in that game you get to choose if you save the ag center or the other one which I don’t remember. But it’s either or - and the rest of game you need to live with that choice - can’t have it both ways - hard fact of life - and it is brilliant! Game developers need to put the bubble wrap back in the drawer and punish the player for the choices made if they insist on making storytelling into something that feels natural. Like it was in fallout 1 and 2. Learn, and learn fast, or get frustrated quickly and prepare yourself to make choices to survive that doesn’t necessarily make you the good guy! Hardcore - but brilliant!
I feel this so much! It's why I've been mainly sticking with indie games since 2011! I also can't stand the longer stories they put in games these days with so much filler!
I love playing games so much, is that 80% of my time of not more, goes into editing and irl work. We are are in retro genesis phase of the triple A studios, so place your bets on the indie developers. Old games like Soul Reaver had a charm. Modern games feel like they don't have a soul nor a charm.
I agree with everything, and I also hate this "Ray Tracing" era, as if it makes huge difference having reflections perfected for the cost of a huge processment power. I miss the times where you could see significant graphic changes when you buy new hardware, this ray tracing bs never convinced me. It's crazy to think that having a working MIRROR in a game requires so much power, why can't they just be creative and find a better solution like they did in old games?
The problem is most modern games are just soulless generic corporate trash where as most retro games were made by passionate developers who knew how to make fun and unique games.
I don't think it's "modern games" that are like this, but it's DEFINITELY the AAA side of it. From the sixth gen to now (and probably onward into the future), people have always said "modern games suck and are soulless while older games were better". Every. Single. Time. But the truth of the matter is that publishers and developers that prided themselves and their games way too much on being a cash grab, on banking on trends of the time, focusing solely on realism are the actual problem. Further, those games would go on to generally be forgotten while the rest of that era of gaming (the part that had creativity, that MADE trends rather than chased them, and were doing it for the fun, love, and art of the medium) would be seen with reverence and fondness as the years go by. It's only that the soulless, generic, corporate trash has become much more apparent due to AAA gaming's push to take center stage, louder and "prouder" than ever before.
Don't trick yourself into thinking it's "modern games" on the whole. Look beyond the AAA half, and you'll find some real gems that will likely be loved fondly for years to come.
You hit the nail on the head, I’ve played this game so many times I wore out the disc.
Yup, modern indie is an absolutely wonderfun world of art.
Because indie doesn't have a corporate culture that chokes out its magic.
exactly
Couldn't agree more , apart from rare studio like Rebellion, yet they concentrate on one IP.
Another problem would be that most modern games try to look as realistic as possible whereas retro games have varying styles of realism which are more eyecatching and not as boring as everything looking the same because it's realistic.
Real life is beautiful, the nature is beautiful, but when I play a game I would like to see that beauty in another style. Whether it's pixel art, cartoony, or Semi-realism, I just want something different.
That's so true. There's a long time since i last enjoyed playing one of those ultra realistic games.
AAA is to become way too generic, where everyone tries to follow the standard AAA formula of combat, graphics, characters etc. Very ironic
@nazca-_-8061 do u know how many types of game there are? How many diff art styles they are in games they are people like you need to give your head a wobble absoule ridiculous statement
THIS!
so true. and nowadays there seem to exist only 2-3 game engines that are being used for 99% of all AAA games. back in the 90s and early 2000s this was totaly different. each gaming studio had its own engine and thus nearly every AAA game had its own distinctive look.
AAA more like B tier
Man, as an older gamer it's really fucking sad that we've got to a point where you younger guys are saying just being able to buy a game, have it be complete and with no monetary bullshit is a special experience.
Having grown up on the PS1, onto the PS2/Xbox and then through the rest of the generations it's been really disheartening to see what the mainstream game industry has done to itself over the last decade.
Well said. The 90's was the golden age of gaming.
@@Cinemaphile7783I had an amstrad cpc 464 in late 80s, back then to play a game you had to load a cassette tape and wait half an hour, now in 2024, you have to wait sometimes 4,5 hours for a game to download before playing it, even if u buy ps5 disc 😂😂, so yh you are right the 90s was best era for gaming ps1 days especially
@@Cinemaphile7783For me it was late 90s (Fallout1,Daggerfall,Neverhood,Grim Fandango, BaldursGate1,PlanescapeTorment) and also ca 2000-2005 (DeusEx,SanAndreas,ArxFatalis, Morrowind,Gothic1&2,..) and many more that I won't pop out of my head now, but in general about 80% games back then you got your hands on, were either fun/addictive or at least had some unique mechanics that kept you playing despite that some other aspect might have been off. In modern games it feels like the fun factor that would make you want to continue, is missing - and even the interesting mechanics are copied over, there are rarely any new unique mechanics I came across. For instance immersive sim genre that first DeusEx made pathway for, is a dead genre nowadays.
I didnt grew up with the Wii Ps3 and Xbox 360 era since i was born too late that cannot experience them nowadays because of the fear of damaging the games from disc scratching, console not working, controller breaking, and lets not mention the disc rot.
I mean... Pretty much any game worth your while is not AAA. If anything there are more games then there ever were, its just they are less ways to know about them, ironically so(i mean it being an informational age and all). Any type of media promoting them just gets burried in the white noise that is "mainstream gaming".
Just find yourself some more streamlined blogs, youtubers,subreddits,rss feeds,whatever that cater to your tastes with real people behind them, and you will get a lot of games that will interest you! Don't let corporate bs strip you of your hobby
You are completely on the money here. 90s/00s games had such an immersive, dreamlike style. They worked on release. There seemed to be nothing insincere about them - they were designed to be an experience.
I still play Morrowind and Vampire Bloodlines and it's funny how the old jank actually gave them SOVL. The sound design and atmosphere games of that era had is still unmatched.
Nothing insincere. I believe everything is biblical. A spiritual war of good and evil. In this regard things were better back then. Greed is a sin. And also just the notion of how society had more respect for things back then, from customer service, to games etc
@@ChristainMechaThere is so much simple and tangible words you can use to describe the industry and art as a whole that doesn’t require leaping straight into the celestial, but do your thing
@@greatbigeyeball Hey he's got a point though. He's just saying that it's proof that sins do exist, and they are punished eventually. At least that's what I understood from his comment. 😁 Greed is definitely one of the things that destroyed the industry.
@@greatbigeyeball You are one of those that get mad everytime something related to God is mentioned lol
For big publishers, it's not about fun anymore, it's 'How can I squeeze as much money out of my custemer as possible'. It stinks.
This is true and as a person that enjoys games it's very damaging to the person that wants to have a fun experience
Greedy Suits.
Never felt squeezed. Simple to play and not buy the rest. You don’t need that $4 skin, dude.
@@bjornironsides6474 Not paying £6 for pay to win features, dude
Even Rockstar. I specifically remember they said first and foremost they make sure their game is fun... then I play the Cayo Peeico heist and realized that it's designed first and foremost to waste players time to try to push them towards shark cards.
Modern gaming is why I continuously replay games released 2015 and back all the way to the Genesis (I can't believe I'm 45 now...)
Youre not alone. As a 27 year old. 2015-2016 is when games fully died. I also dont play games past that year. I just pick up single player games from the past anymore.
I can play old games for hours. I’m absolutely STOKED to play the remasters tomorrow. I have loved this series for over 20+ years.
stupid comment what piss poor excuse games are bigger than ever and u sit there and complain simple way around dont game @@GucciBodyBags
So…… you didn’t like Sekiro or the recent resident evil games?…… not even devil may cry 5?
@kareemmasri3934 they just whinge about nothing. A lot of these people talk out there arse or they aren't true gamers
It struck me when replaying Soul Reaver 1 and Psychonauts 1. You start, the world already feels massive and it has presence. You start finding collectables, and it feels like you're in for another slog-fest of ten bajillion collectables that barely factor into anything, a massive world you'll maybe see 30% of and could never navigate without quest markers, and you'll make like 1% of progress per day at most. But then, you progress so damn fast. Everything you collect has some meaning and it's actually collected relatively quickly with reasonable exploration. It feels manageable, and progress isn't just a number.
I was about to comment about psychonaunts and how it was way ahead of its time. I couldn’t believe how long ago that game came out.
Sometimes you dont know youre in a golden age until it ends, xbox/ps2/gamecube to 360/ps3 was a goldenage that is never coming back. So many quality games made
Games from that generation actually felt like games. Games now feel so hollow.
Not only quality games but the jump in quality was noticeable from game to game.
Love how you put Soul Reaver here, pretty excited to pick up the touch up that's coming out in a few weeks - soon as I saw it's all the original voice actors (especially Tony Jay) I was sold.
Same I'm going to beat that game like 10 times when the remaster drops 😂
@Quartv2 I booked the day off work on the 10th just to spend all day on it haha.
Here from the future.... it's wonderful. I am going to play the crap out of it this weekend. I've missed it so much. I have it on PS1 and Dreamcast, but I don't have any of those plugged in at the moment. Having it on Steam effing rules now..... However, I do have the whole Legacy of Kain collection on PC, but it's kind of hard to get Soul Reaver running right on modern hardware.
It'd decent, beat SR1 in 4 hours and haven't gotten around to sr2. Simply don't like it as much, too plot heavy for my time.
8:29 can't believe you didn't throw the spear in his back, do you even soul reaver?? 😲
And this is why I've been collecting for my ps3 and psp and have an anbernic handheld. With a few small exceptions, nothing in the modern era is satisfying anymore. The magic is gone. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. I've tested it. Games LITERALLY aren't made how they were back then. And it's all part of the plan. You'll own nothing and be happy. You'll pay for stuff they can take away from you and be happy. You'll play creatively bankrupt games and you'll like it. It's horrible.
Bloodstained you felt the love (for modern games, like the only one), but then again, that's because Koji Igarashi felt the same sentiment, that modern day games suck. As for those who complained about people putting their pets into Bloodstained itself - who cares? They paid hard earned money to support the game, and the dev listened to the customer and honored their wishes - the disembodied dog head was legit (personally I would have done my bloodhound, and have his drool inflict the poison effect).
Bruh hasn't heard of the indie scene.
VR gaming is a true modern. I do play a few games on pc like Dota 2 and Apex Legend because those are unique but I spend more of my hard earned cash with vr games
Yep. I live by my own now, but I occasionally visit my parents house. They still have my OG Xbox standing there, and I give it a go for the nostalgia but whenever I do, I always have a blast. I put in my favorite Xbox game, PGR2, the disc into the drive, the game instantly starts. I am met with a short but sweet intro cutscene, a cool but super functional menu and I can just play instantly and have a great time.
No mircotransactions, no advertisement, no checking for updates, no server issues, no filler content. The game just works, and it's a blast to play. This is how gaming used to be, and it's not nostalgia.
I got a ps5 but i prefer my ps3 over it 😂
Legacy Of Kain = The best Vampire Videogame Saga with Kain and Raziel ever created!!!
I love this series!!!
Buy this game!!!! One of the best experience I have ever made!!!!
I bought the remaster I crushed them under 3 days, 2 days for SR and 1 for SR2
It must absolutely suck to feel like this about gaming :(
I’ve been gaming for 40 years and 2024 is one of the best years I can remember, it’s been an absolutely fantastic year.
Older games didn’t treat players like idiots by holding their hand every step of the way. Moreover, they were generally aimed at an older audience than today’s target demographic. Nowadays, games are practically "auto-play" experiences where you just click, and the game tells you what to do, where to go, and how to do it. If it’s too hard, the "lemmings" start complaining, a patch gets released, and the game is made easier - examples being the Diablo 3 and 4 series vs 1 and 2.
Yeah I agree they definitely made the games easier nowadays compared to older games that I've played in the past
You clearly don’t play enough games. Elden ring? Returnal? A shit ton of indie games? Gaming has never been better and I’m 37. I think people just can’t move on from the past. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. I’ve never enjoyed gaming more than I have now. So many great games every year. Maybe that’s the problem is there are too many.
Younger gamers love this "old games were better" trope because it sounds cool, "oldschool".
Many of you people really don't know how it was back then.
As a 44 old player I roll my eyes when I see something like this video and these comments.
@ exactly haha glad someone else realizes this
@@JHGgaga I never said that games used to be better. As a 40-year-old, next time I’ll think three times before writing anything about games from over 20 years ago. I’ll wait until I’m 50. Then it’ll be safe.
Modern times are too mediocres. Its not only for videogames , music it is completely mediocre, movies are shit. There is no New ideas, everything is a remake or a continuation. And the remakes are bullshit like The Crow. Alien Romulus, completely aclaimed, but the movie is mediocre, the cast is awful, they have no emotions, the cgi is garbage. Everything is mediocre now!!!!
It is the same with books too. I have a Kindle and Kindle unlimited, because I love to read as well as game, the gym etc. I checked my good reads and I have only finished 30% of the books I have started to read this year. 😵 They are full of the author's weird hang ups. Seriously I was reading this one urban fantasy novel, can't remember what it was called now. There was a whole paragraph during a car chase, about how it's toxic masculinity fault the shitty feminist Ghostbusters film didn't do well. I was gob smacked. I highlighted it and took a pic and sent it to my friends. We were all laughing at how awful it was. The sad thing is, I was enjoying the story, then this just ruined it for me, took me out of the tension. I stopped reading it and left a negative review. You took me out of my escapism to complain about shit no one cares about. I have given up trying to find new fantasy novels. Reading the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E Feist again. I highly recommend it.
One man on Russian UA-cam said that our current time and generation is doomed to nostalgia. He said we live it time without a face. I'm almost 30. That dude was right.
The lazy generation
It's hard to find the gems todays as every market is oversaturated with generic 💩.
Unless we show another where the gems are, we might never discover them.
A gem in gaming would be Deep Rock Galactic and as for a gem in music i just post something you can search here to find a nice metal band that was shown to friends: "States of mind shape shifting".
There’s still good modern music out there, at least in metal. But you have to dig a lot more than you used to.
You said it perfectly, and that's basically why I hardly play games anymore:
"...I'm not really enjoying the game I'm actually playing. Maybe you're bored or you have nothing better to do..."
I'm 43 years old, I'm a busy teacher, I'm a homeowner, I'm a husband and parent - I **ALWAYS** have something better to do. So if a game isn't absolutely blowing my mind, I'm going to put it down and do something more important. I do still love games, but there is just so much mediocrity now. You have something so effortlessly joyful like Astro Bot or Hi-Fi Rush, and that truly pulls me in. But so many other games just feel like WORK, and I just can't deal with that.
I have too much REAL work that I'd rather get done than have my game feel like a "task" to complete. I don't want my video games to become a lifestyle or need a work ethic for it, I want an escape.
Exactly that
Nintendo still making good games
My switch has done this for me because theirs no achievements so I’m actually enjoying the game’s like I once did, because those games are actually fun to play
@@aaronthomas6183 I agree with this! I do like the fact that Switch games really don't have achievements unless the game has them built in themselves.
On PS, I have exactly zero platinum trophies and I'm in no rush to change that.
@PeteOliva then u shouldn't game then that's a u problem not the industry problem
It’s weird it’s happening almost in all media everything feels generic it’s like a generation of weak visionaries instead of risk dreamers.
My “fave”part of modern tv is with many shows it now takes a while season to tell a story worse than when in the 80s you could cover it in a two parter and have stronger character work.
So many shows and films feel stretched thin cos no one knows anymore how to do it with brevity and keep all the important parts.
Yepp even shows and movies are polished look amazing but they just feel like fast food not something memorable like i dunno anything back in the late 90's and 2000's
Amen brother.
It's in part being lobbied to be this way. It's not entirely organic. It's a plant, pardon the pun. They've clearly incentivised a certain "type " gets the jobs at big devs.
No way that's fluke across many different dev teams.
Also getting money for implementing DEI. Wukong Devs were being offered millions to have outside involvement of that kind. Then they crybullied when they refused. Gross people behind this. Twitter likes to name them lately. 😉
Wukong is borringgg. Bad example. It's a copy of previous western games.
The bigger problem I have with modern games is how bloated they can be. They just add so much unnecessary crap (side quests for example) to pad out the play time. The 2 Final Fantasy Remake games are a good example of this.
Open world filler has killed gaming a lot. It makes games feel like a job or
Busy work . I miss tightly designed more linear games that didn’t have pointless busy work.
Absolutely. I gave up on Far Cry because of this. Tried number 6 hoping it was different. Ebayed it the next day.
@@Cerbera82 Same. I played the hell out of Far Cry 3, I really enjoyed it. So I got FC4 when they came out but it was just too much of the same stuff again so I sold it without finishing it.
@@teeem7493 not everyone can do open world right I'd say only morrowind oblivion elden ring do those well. I don't like the open world dynamics we have of climb tower so you can unlock the map alongside 140 stupid side quest of fetching stuff with no purpose except padding.
I miss the oblivion days when I found there's an arena and became a gladiator or I meet with some vampire hunters that you can join to then learn they are vampires or the village where an evil god tasks you of making two families kill each other by killing one of them and planting evidence of the other family doing it. Having the beggars be the eyes and ears of the thieves guild need. The world felt alive even if it looks dated and combat didn't aged that well. Then skyrim streamlined everything and now we have starfield ...
Dark souls 1 has the perfect mix of openness and linearity that interconnection should be studied on history books. It is my belief though that the problem isn't a specific genre rather the greed of companies milking said genres.
If triple a games start milking platformers like astro bot giving us 70 of those in ten years everyone will talk how platformers is everything wrong with the gaming industry. We need people that wanna makes games they wanna play rather than games that they wanna sell
I thought you were going to say it, but you didn't. To me the reason is because old school games you 'played' - they were games. Games that could be enjoyed in little spurts to break up your day. Modern games you 'game' - they are life replacers. They expect you to take every spare minute out of every day, forever, to progress or compete or experience what they want you to experience. They want to be your life.
I made a similar comment in a vid awhile back talking about old school arcades. Arcades wanted an hour of your afternoon and the change out of your pocket. Modern games want your life and all your money and all your social time.
You have a good point and you're right I should have added that in, but I record these videos in one take so what ever I say is just raw thoughts
@@Quartv2 gaming companies seem to have 'the amount of content' as a major priority or they get backlash. They don't get I would rather have 25 min of intriguing content I spent 3 days on than 500 hrs of content. I don't want a replacement life thanks. | want a small reprieve in the afternoon, after work, from the one I have
@@Quartv2 easier to answer twice than edit the original.
..
and I would also prefer a poorly drawn facsimile of the real world in my reprieve than a picture perfect, replacement reality that 100 devs worked on for 10 years to look as real as possible. Because again, I don't want a replacement reality thanks.
Correct! Games have turned into legacy of Kain basically, soul sucking time sinkers and bloat, open world trash 🥱🥱
I stopped playing modern games because it started to feel like a chore or second job to make sure i logged in every day, did whatever the daily/weekly thing was to get that limited edition unlock, it's when they started forcing me to play in a certain way that i lost most enjoyment.
Like in battlefield 5 some of the criteria to unlock weapons in that game was absurd.
Even some single player games do stuff like this now. I don't even touch Ubisoft games now because of this reason.
Yeah I agree with you I just want a really good story, that gives me that old school feel again where I'm engaged
stop buying new games without watching a review on youtube first and foremost. if you do, you are part of the problem
it''s because the people making games nowadays hate gamers and gaming. they do it only for a paycheck and to push a certain agenda. it is no longer art.
uneducated statement
Sad truth
Well no. All the game devs are passionate about art and love their work because it's special and has meaning. If you want someone to be angry at it's the executives of big brands that stomp down ideas and scope and money for more "palatable" experience. The passion there and never left, but if you're only looking at big corporate decisions you'll always be disappointed.
@klaudiso that is not true at all. most devs nowadays are obsessed with pushing their nasty political agendas. they don't even care if their games look good and are appealing to the people buying them. I have seen many instances where the so called "executives" and "suits" are the ones telling the devs to make less politically driven divisive slop, but the devs refuse to listen and break all kinds of rules to push their narratives. Look at naughty dog, how they disable comments and get disliked to oblivion. But they don't care, Neil has admitted he wants to piss off the majority of gamers. Same goes with most devs nowadays like the creators of Veilguard, or the creator of perfect dark saying gamers were a mistake because we refuse their slop and agenda. They sell their soul for a few bucks, regardless if it ruins the legacy of their games. Utterly disgusting.
It was never Art. It was always about the money.
Nothing has really changed
Modern gaming: un-fun busy work you do for the privilege of spending money on another thing you dont need because the game itself isnt fun.
It's absolutely insane what I was just disallowed from posting in someone's thread. No insults at all. AAA companies be out here preventing you from saying what the problem actually is. No joke.
1990s -2000 were peak gaming.
Man don't miss the 2014
Early 2000s were amazing too.
Ok Boomer... You think Soul Reaver 2, Gothic, PoP Warrior Within, Rayman 3, Dragon Age Origins, NFS Underground, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires 3 are without soul? What game from 90s is better than this? Superman 64? Bubsy? Extreme Paintbrawl? Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero? Or maybe Home Alone?
@@zetset8098 Relax man whatsup with you bro, casually forgetting about the rise of 3D gaming? Doom, Quake, Mario 64, Final Fantasy 7, Half Life, Chrono Trigger, Sonic, Resident Evil, Donkey Kong, Star Craft, Ocarina of Time, Metroid, Castlevania, Goldeneye, Metal Gear. I can go on for ages. It was a different time, u weren't there and it shows. Early 2000s were good in their own right, just different. Stop the boomer bullshit..
@@XpRnz Donkey Kong, Metroid, Castlevania are games from 80s "bro". Relax, take it easy.
I get you. I've been there too for a while. This year my favorite stuff was old titles I'd never played before. Id suggest going into the indie scene. There's a lot of creativity and games made by people who actually care. Throw on slay the spire and never look back.
1. The walking simulator affect. The amount of cutscenes nowadays is insane
2. The random pointless tasks. In an attempt to increase the perceived immersion they have you doing random pointless tasks that have nothing to do with game progression
3. The endless scavenger hunt. I'm really getting tired of this being used so universally as if there is no other form of gameplay
4. Micro transactions and patching. These go hand in hand. They don't just patch the bugs, they also patch the things that were fun that the developers feel "breaks the game" as if that wasn't an element of gaming that we used to love
Number one started with Kojima not walking simulators. We were complaining about the cutscenes back in MGS1. And that’s my second favorite game. And then he turned around and added even more in 2. Almost to a ludicrous extent. Just to spite everyone who complained lol.
I disagree. This remasters shows how simple games where back then and they have improved a lot.
In my experience, and I do work retail, while there has been a few sales of the PS5 pro, people are buying it, the disc drive add on, and the metal vertical stand for it and are paying nearly a 1000 dollars and doing it happily. Back when the PS3 released, and keep in mind, the PS3 at launch was essentially two consoles, people lost their minds at the 699 price point. Now you get a console that can't even play physical games and people pay for it without so much as a word
Accountability is a rare thing to see in videos like these.
I thought I was just getting lazier with gaming lol, until I noticed how excited I was to play Mr. Run & Jump for ATARI 2600 & Secret of Mana 2nd hand for SNES recently. (It certainly proves that graphics don't make a game!) While there are certainly some great modern games, I just often find the retro scene more immediately gratifying. Modern games often lack interactivity feeling so "scripted" & "on rails," (as well as the long load times & frustrating trophy hunting etc!)
I can remember when i used to play older games like Abes Oddysee, Soul Reaver, and some games from the late 2000s like Little Big Planet, Transformers Fall of Cybertron, Real Steel, and more recently in 2017-2018 i played indie games like Undertale and Deltarune. I got into Dark souls trilogy and Elden ring too. And its only been since 2021 i played Titanfall 2. And let me tell you, the best way of knowing a game was good is how replayable it was.
Now, most of these games have dated graphics, some have dated mechanics, and some lack the fast paced play styles you see with most modern games. But what i appreciated was that they were fun, exploring something new, or expanding on something that was dine before.
Undertale was inspired by Earthbound games, and even sampled sound effects from the games, and it used save files as a way to tell a story that's pretty good, with nice narratives and themes you dont realise until afterwards.
Titanfall took FPS games and gave you the option to have a robot buddy or to be the giant robot, and the experience feels wicked when you're playing a strong force, and even better when you're a nimble pilot soaring across the walls.
Little Big Planet was only a platformer, but it offered you so much creative potential. Costumes, materials, machines, mechanisms, sound effects, this was taken up a notch in LBP2 and 3, that people in the community could even recreate popular games. It had a fun story, but it was always about the creativity.
Real Steel, while not exactly the nost impressive game with its dated graphics, was the only fighter game i really enjoyed. You could customize your robots, and you could even destroy arms or heads, and it offered a lot of parts and attack moves for you to play around with. Sure theres better fighter games, but this one i enjoyed because i felt i had control with the fighter i wanted, and the impacts always felt heavy.
Now, theres many games out there I'd like to play, but point I'm making is, these games are pretty dated now, but the experience they offered was something for fun. Characters you could love, game mechanics you could exploit, worlds you could be drawn to, and communities that you could be part of in a welcoming environment.
Most modern games just don't offer that experience. Its hyper realisic graphics with TLOU/ God of War 4 style story telling with none of the substance, with quirky millenial characters you can't stand, and just game mechanics you've already seen before. It's to be expected, not every game can be the star in the awards, but there's even some indie games out there that offer much more with a $2000 budget than most AAA games offer with a $50,000 budget. Its not always about the passion behind the project, but it's the experience from it you get
There’s modern games that are good and modern games that are trash. There are old games that are good and old games that are trash.
There is a point in life where you realise that the thing you grew up with and loved is no longer made for you. There are still great games being made, just not in the AAA scene.
Been going back to older games recently myself and whilst I'd say they are more complete on release but there is a lot of stiffness and jank that wouldn't be accepted in current times.
Gaming isn’t turning bad, what’s bad is allowing a lot of small developers push out low quality games and over saturating the market. It creates the illusion of bad games, and if you constantly pick the wrong ones, then you’ll be making videos like this and crying about it..
Same thing happened to me. I switched to retro games and bought a couple of arcades. I’m having so much fun playing the old games like Defender, centipede, etc.
Eh, i litteraly just pick what i decide to play.
Be it modern games , older games, indies, triple A.
I enjoyed GoW, Doom 2016 and so forth, while playing celeste, hollow knight, trails of cold steel, bucky o hare on NES etc.etc.
While also enjoying weird VR stuff like Euro truck simulator 2.
It has become the very best time to be a gamer, even if nothing new ever gets released, their is more then enough games that already exist to keep you going untill you die.
I do enjoy older games more or older style games, but theirs so many insane indies that are worth the money.
Nailed it. The Soul Reaver gameplay is also much appreciated as a fan of the series.
I agree 100% that Games were just better back on the PS2. I think it has a lot to do with hardware, how games were made, and how much money was put into the industry. You are definitely on to something with this video. Keep it up!
The PS2 back catalogue is great. It has games from every genre. Even ones that no longer exist. Every modern game is the same. Same politics, same agenda. Same gameplay loops. Generic characters...its just boring.
@@AtmonTheExectioner I agree with man. Hey if you are up for it I have a video series where I talk to gamers about games, and I would like to have you on talking about this topic. If that sounds like something you want to do just hit me up on my socials.
@@AtmonTheExectioner Agreed. Another important aspect was that you had a diversity of takes within the same genres and in house developed game engines, allowing specific and sometimes unique experiences to be had. I loved how MGS, Thief, and Splinter Cell played very differently from each other despite all being Stealth games. Same thing goes for Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Siren in the Survival Horror genre. Then more and more games started using the exact same couple engines and control schemes, so that no matter what every Third Person game felt the same independently from genre, with the same palette of possible actions and limitations.
@@Zeburaman2005 For sure, each game felt like it's own thing. Like Xenosaga. It told the story it wanted to in the way it wanted to in that first game. Nothing else was like that at the time. Ridge Racer was its own distinct arcade racer too. You had V-Rally and a whole lot of other arcade racers, but not anything that was Ridge Racer..
It's like...before you had these big investment firms come in gaming was this big smorgasbord of titles, each trying something new and putting their own unique take on a genre. You had devs coming up with all these wacky ideas like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Worms...modern day those devs feel like instead of coming up with a character and concept that's actual fun...they are too scared of being branded as children and now they want to make serious games that rival cinema. These products come off as cookie cutter tryhard. Soul Reaver took videogames to a writing peak, no other game has beaten it yet. Metal Gear came close, but still in my opinion never quite got there. Insomniac used to be king of the mascot platformer...now its just stuck trying to make "serious" Spider-Man games....the amount of PS2 era platformers getting remastered recently, you don't want to take another crack at that genre? Get ahead of the curve? A lot of remasters are nostalgia bait for sure...but also (and I see this in my nephew), I introduce him to a GEX or Soul Reaver, Dino Crisis 2, Bloody Roar or Silent Bomber...he is amazed by these games (graphics aside) and asks why we don't get games like this anymore.
File size gone up like 30x since then, quality of game not so much, besides more pixels to not notice while focusing on gameplay
I started playing last years robocop and it feels like a proper homage to both the movies and older shooters.
Great stuff.
Definitely.
I was enjoying that until a game breaking bug on the last mission. Not been able to finish it. 😢
100% correct! When i was a kid growing up in the 90s, going to blockbuster renting a game and playing it all weekend, even if it was not good, I still enjoyed the time!!! I got Gamepass and had it for a few years, and i was totally overwhelmed and would just go back to playing Destiny, elders scroll, or some classic retro game like Sega collection! So this video is spot on!!!
I blame unreal engine and literally every studio using it. Remember the good old days when there were over 100 game engines studios were working with. It gets boring when every game looks the same.
OG competent and passionate devs with a lot of skill got replaced by lazy millennial/zoomer devs that only want to checkmark and generate game automatically it's a joke they are only there for a paycheck not to create amazing games that they would love to play.
I am constantly coming back to Ninja Gaiden Black. It is just perfection. I miss those times so hard.
This is definitely a good perspective on new vs retro and the truth is your not alone in it.
Thank you, I can definitely see I'm not alone and I couldn't be happier
Then play good games, that's on you, play Indies
Video games have gone the same way as music. 60's-70's classic rock will always be the best we ever had. Video games will never be better than 90's-2010.
The 80s was the peak of pop music, and depending on who you ask, heavy metal. 90s was the peak of alternative and underground metal.
I agree about the music comparisons. Where people fight and claim there era was the best and new music is trash.
Same rose tinted biased glasses when it’s always been an evolution.
So yes video games can be better. Or at least different. Same as with music.
Had to like because Soul Reaver 1.
Thanks g 🙏🏻
Soul Reaver Remastered reminds me why I love video games in general.
It is a precious game.
The atmosphere is sublime. The gameplay is easy, but addicting and you get to enjoy a world that still is surprising could be done in the PS1, but with a lot of quality of life improvements.
I really recommend it ❤
Problem with modern gaming is that there's no actual "game over". It's more like a start from last checkpoint.
Exactly, I thought I was the only one 🤣
This is an excellent point.
Hard disagree. That means nothing.
Btw you have hardcore modes in many games, if that really is the only problem for you.
The fact that we are spoiled with choices is not the problem. The fact that said choices over little to no variation is.
Farming killed it for me. Spending endless hours in menus comparing items. Every game is a halfass RPG whether it needs to be or not.
Or these stupid simulator games they have now, if I want to simulate real life I would go outside smdh
I have the same feelings playing modern Tomb Raider games. There's simply too much going on. The inventory upgrades are not that bad as they add something to gamplay as time goes by but the number of hidden secrets and supply crates plus the bushes that you strip for twigs... It takes away the joy of exploration. I constantly enter the survival instinct mode to make sure that I'm not missing out on any secrets or resources. It's like pausing the game at every corner to ANALYZE the area. I remember playing Indiana Jones and Infernal Machine years ago and that game, if only a bit remastered, would be superior to anything that's coming out now. Soul Reaver? A masterpiece of storytelling and action. I wish I'd forgotten the plot and locations so I could relive the experience of playing its long awaited remaster.
Doom 2016 and Eternal basically the only modern game that i beat over and over again and i enjoyed it.
I’ve felt this. Hell even some new games get heavily discounted only a few months later. Older games for the most part just feel better
Retro games and 2d games ate proof that graphics fint matter. Id be happy with a ps2
That’s exactly how I’ve approached gaming the past year. Ive bought barely any new games this year but when I do I won’t touch it for weeks, knowing it’s probably broken or just not working as intended.
I have just gone back to older games most of the new games seem to have agenda and forgot to tell a story
Yes this is true, older games just hit way better
"You need this key to open that door, btw I'm gay af and I identity as a frog"
I disagree, video games are just as good as ever. I think you're most likely burned out on video games. I'd recommend not playing anything for a very long time. Instead play real games like board games for example. And do sports. Those things are equally rewarding. Maybe in 5-10 years you'll have regained your interest in video games.
Yup. Patches, updates, balance changes…THEN you have to click through 4 loading screens to get to the main menu, then you have to make sure you are signed in online. Then you can finally play.😅
Dude I played my 360 for the majority of 2024. And I think 2025 is gonna be similar
how does it even work? Usually xbox 360 only last for like 3 to 4 years before they get the red ring of death.
@@kxr842 My xbox have 15 years and still works fine
Games are split into 2 categories now. Either are pay to win or tasks simulator, sometimes are both. Either of those could work if they did it in a balanced way but no, either do too many tasks on a huge map or pay to win
I’m glad someone said it. I’m tired of the new slop games that come out. A year or 2 ago I got rid of my PS4 cause I work a lot but also the fact anything new that comes out isn’t fun. Like you said it’s either micro transactions, dlc, season passes or online. Nothing works day one, there’s always a double digit gigabyte patch. My $300 switch plays most of my old favorite games and even the worst Nintendo slop rarely has day one patches and almost never micro transactions or DLC. Not to mention whatever modern slop, walking simulator, preachy slop I’m expected to pay $70 for which takes up 120 GB.
Most modern AAA games try to incorporate a little bit of multiple genres to try and appeal to everyone
True so many games do not need exp systems and skill trees (at least not at the extreme they are) and could be tighter shorter games)
this has been a thing since the beginning are u new to the world @sonicsean34
Speak to everyone not offend anyone make a pile of shit in the process
Yeah I agree. I grew up playing video games. Like, from NES, SNES and Megadrive, all the way up to an Xbox Series S (is the latest console I got), but I haven't been playing a whole lot of games in recent years. This past year, I've played Dragon's Dogma 2 and Mortal Kombat 11, and then I started downloading old games, like Alice: Madness Returns and more recently Soul Reaver. I mean, throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, you'd play one game after another, and all of my friends were into gaming. One of our buddies used to burn discs and just distribute them; there were so many games that we were playing. One dude had the N64, and one guy had a Dreamcast, and we had Playstations, PSPs, PS2s, Xboxes, PCs, etc.
Super Mario All Stars, Donkey Kong Country 1&2, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario Kart, U.N. Squadron, Super R-Type, Star Fox, Street Racer, F-Zero, Mortal Kombat 1-3, Primal Rage, Killer Instinct 1&2, Doomsday Warrior, World Heroes, Street Fighter 2, SF2 Turbo, Super SF2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Jurassic Park, Joe and Mac, Turtles in Time, Turtles Tournament Fighters, Brawl Brothers, Castlevania 4, Secret of Mana, Gargoyles, Aladdin, Hercules, Smash Tennis...
That's just some of what I can remember, and that's all just from the SNES days. Doom, Duke Nukem, Twisted Metal, Interstate '76, Tomb Raider, Myth: the Fallen Lords, Netstorm: Islands at War, etc. on PC. Battle Arena Toshinden, Time Crisis, Wipeout, Colin McRae Rally, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Bloody Roar, Rival Schools, Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, Def Jam Fight for NY, Metal Gear Solid, Abe's Oddysee, Shadow of the Colossus, Tekken games .. I mean, I could add paragraphs of Playstation 1 & 2 games alone.
Whether it's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007, 1080 Snowboarding, Wrestlemania 2000, for the Nintendo 64, or Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast or Xbox 360's Tenchu Z; those were the gaming years. Plenty of fun and good games being released all the time. Between me and the boys, we played countless games, and always had a blast doing so. Perhaps as one gets older, that passion for playing games kinda goes away, but I can still enjoy a good video game, even now; even though I don't have as much time anymore to play. But you're right; games nowadays lack a fun factor that older games used to have. It's why I went back to replaying some of those nostalgic games. Hell, during the Corona lockdowns I dusted the old PS2 off and replayed Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven and Fatal Shadows, and had more fun doing that than playing current triple-A games.
You spoke to me when you said "spoiled by choice" and how there is no depth.
I paid £1000 in total for a BC PS3 along with 50 original Ps1 and Ps2 games and have never felt so much love again for gaming. Best choice I've made.
Im with you on this. The most enjoyment I get now days are the older ones.
Yeah I have been playing all the silent hills from PS2, Fatal Frame 1 2 3, Hunting Ground, the older GTA games with , Even have a ps1 emulator that im playing with RE 1 2 3 and Silent hill 1 Metal Gear Solid 1and its been a blast so far.
Golden age of gaming for sure
Im also playing the DMC hd collection and the Manhunt games there is so much to choose from
Bro totally agree, I can't stop playing the thing, so much fun.. And everything you said I was in tears because it's so accurate.. I legit stare at games for half hour.. Just subbed..
I remember that feeling of being tired of something i suppose to love. And i just lost it somewhere in soul reaver dilogy. It was best 30 hours since last year. Modern games are exhausting and easy to get. Old times were magical. Old games are truly adventures and actually games. Ps2 era is home for my gamer soul, so praise the emulators.
lots of games are bugged on launch, but usually with online games the reason they don’t work on launch is because on day one the servers are going to have the largest amount of concurrent players the game will ever have, so they usually don’t shell out a massive extra ton of money to support the extra server stress that’ll die off in a few days
I feel you bro. I'm exactly there as you
Holy crap 2:40 monologue. imagine when we just popped a disc in. No UPDATES, no BATTLEPASS, no EARLY ACCESS, no BUGS, no BROKEN LAUNCH, no NVIDIA GAME DRIVERS, no INTERNET NEEDED, no PSN ACCOUNT $$$, no MICROSOFT FUCKERY, no OPTIMIZING SETTINGS, no LIVE SERVICE ONLY GAMES, etc etc etc
You pretty much described my experience: Open PS Store, scroll for a bit and just turn off my PS5.
For the last 2 years i've only been playing old games consistently. Like, really old. Diablo 2, Castlevania, Old School Doom and Quake. If wasnt for those, id quit games completely at this point. I will occasionally do a run of one of the Souls games (the last games that actually got me) and finished a playthrough of Darkest Dungeon recently (after months), but its the oldschool games that get me to spend a weekend playing nonstop.
The old games were so much creative and had so much more fun packed in them, i dont even care about new releases specially AAAs
Very simple... Wait 2 years till you buy. Stop play MP and any service based. Done. That's what i do. And i really have that. This is trash feeling.
Totally agree, I spend most of my gaming time on emulators now, I occasionally dip into new games but I still have to wait a year after they release so they've been patched a bunch etc but even then the sheer size and time commitment they take makes it seem if it's really worth it!
ps1 era games was the best. abe odysee, abe exodus, resident evil 1 2 3, heart of darkness, spyro, crash bandicoot, tekken 3, tomb raider 1 2 3 , MediEVIL, Rayman 1 2.gaming was golden back then
To be honest, it never happened to me. I'm usually very cautious on what games I buy/play, so I don't really get bored with them. Sometimes I even want to replay them after months of having finish them, like Kingdom Come Deliverance or The Witcher I.
I don't play AAA games anymore either; I play either older games or new, indie / limited budget games.
For example, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which was directed by the guy who led the "Aria of sorrow" castlevania games. It has some DLC but it's totally optional and the base game is one that you just pop in and play, it's finished, it's not buggy, it's a good gothic metroidvania game.
I like to support smaller devs in general, with the outliers being SE (I play FFXIV which while not perfect it's not scummy) and Spike Chunsoft (massive Danganronpa fan) and maybe Atlus and their persona games.
Again, finished, polished games.
I heavily relate to what you say. Due to boredom from modern video games I've been stuck in playing souls games and survivor horror games (selected topics from both). But recently I rediscovered a game called Alice: Madness Returns and I've been enjoying that game to utmost level. The majority of old games (pre 2015) were excellent, and no wonder many gamers are rediscovering these niche topics and abandoning modern AAA garbage.
I stopped finding games fun after red dead redemption 2, then I began going backwards again and honestly remember why I had enjoyment spending time on those games.
As someone who grew up during the 8-bit home computer / console era UFO 50 has been a very positive sign for me. It looks like that we still can create games like back in the good old days (and actually even better than that) if just want!
The collection is mainly experimentation on simple and easy to pick game play concepts with new and unexpected twists. This is what I value and feel like investing my few spare moments I can allocate for gaming, not getting mixed up in overly complicated schemes scientifically engineered to inconvenience you in order to extract every last penny and time you have.
It is not that we have grown and changed, it's just that older games were better. I have played Diablo 1 for the first time recently (something that's been a long time coming) and I am completely addicted, a feeling I thought a had lost for games ever since I was a kid. Games have lost their magic, their spark. If you ask me I can't tell you what it is, but it's missing in modern games.
Got a PC recently, now I'm discovering the games I missed as a kid, all those 90's classics. Feels bad to know where we are...
I am 100% with you on this. New games are too polished / too coorperal. They are made to make money not to show a cool story or experience art.
DLCs, Battlepasses and unfinished games at launch are also my biggest pet pieves. At the same time just the fact that we all got older and have no more time to just endulge in a game for a whole day as we used to when we were in school unfortunately makes them feel like we are "wasting time".
I think the internet and social media flooding you with opinions and over sensationalized critiques have turned me off to a lot of games. It’s less of a one on one experience now. Some of the mystery has been taken away as well
Yeah I agree social media shapes how we think more than we know
i agree modern gaming is not exciting for me anymore i still play my old games the most recent games that got me actually excited for are Marvel Rivals which looks good plus its free and Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver Remastered i never played it back then when i saw the trailer it got me excited it looked really interesting it will be my first time playing it also it has good price not like the AAA games
I'll definitely do a review on the game and play it for the channel forsure :)
The only games I'm currently playing are The Legend of Dragoon, Alundra, and Galerians, all classic PS1 titles. While there are some decent new games available now, especially among indie titles like Sifu, Blasphemous II, Anno Mutationem, and Fear and Hunger, most modern AAA games are heavily influenced by DEI and lack creativity and soul. Even if they are somewhat entertaining, I just can't get excited playing them. It's also emotionally disheartening to see how each of my favorite game franchises has somehow fallen into a state of decline.
Anno Mutationem is really good. It's an unpopular opinion but I enjoy Genshin Impact. I have over 26 characters leveled up to where I have all kinds of team comps for combat. Also, the world exploration on that game in my opinion is fine cuz it has some of the beautiful world design that I've seen in gaming.
I always find these vids funny cause its usually some dude who's from a older generation complaining about how games used to be better even tho the same quality and quantity are released today gaming has changed yes but good games consistently release Y'all just don't play them. No offence but gaming might not be bad your love for it though is
I hate that “maybe I should play something else” feeling. But when I finally find that game that enraptures me, it’s such an amazing feeling.. like the first time playing NieR or Earthbound where you don’t want to put it down or do anything else but play the game. But then comes that feeling when you finish it…. Like what’s next
That's why modern games like Stardew Valley or Hypercharge: Unboxed are so appealing because they give off an old school vibe of quality and they ooze with passion. There's no micro transactions and you just launch the game and can play it in a matter of moments.
I got rid of my PS5 after a couple of months because the games that are on it are also available on my PS4 Pro and there's little to no good exclusives.
Steam Deck solved a lot of these problems for me. It's a consolized PC with an OS design to just.. work! Almost anything you want to do, you can do it, usually with push-button ease. The kinds of experiential self-contained games we used to have on PS1-PS3 are still flowing out at a rapid pace from indie and small studios with great prices and sales on Steam. Nearly every day I see some game I've never heard of before that makes me say, "Wow, what a cool idea!" And all of my humongous retro game backlog that's sitting on my shelves, I can play them on Steam Deck, too! AAA gaming is broken, but if you focus on the good parts of the industry, there's really never been a better time to be a gamer.
Well, as a child and teenager, I didn't had the money to constantly buy new games. This "overwhelmed by choice" is for a big part also caused by not being limited by money anymore.
But I'm also starting to get away from the "I started this game, so I should stick with it for at least a while". Just today I played 2 RPGs that tried to emulate classics from the 90's and failed in doing so. I dropped them and won't get back to them. I feel many indie devs, who are trying to copy the classics, do not understand what made said classics great. So it's not just big titles that fail.
In general I feel that indie games have the same problems as big production titles, only that there are far more of them. Many simply try to copy whatever is hot right now. Best example are all these Vampire Survivor like games. And don't get me started on this fad of card battle / deck builder combat system games...
Modern AAA games cost so much to make, and the development cycle is so long that publishers release buggy games that need patches so they can start to recoup their cost. This is why simplicity is key. Some of the best games are made by small teams on a budget.
Videos like this are nice to come across because it makes me feel like I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've felt this was about gaming since the PS4 era though it was already starting to creep in during the PS3 era for me as well So many modern games just don't really grab my attention much at all and part of the reason is exactly what you said which is how it's practically a gamble on whether the game will work. So many games these days come with glitches and problems that don't get screened out before release because developers think "So what? We can just patch it later" and sure that's a solution but games are expensive as hell already and if you're going to be paying $70-$80+ on a game, you better be getting your money's worth, not a rushed out product.
Another reason for me personally is I've always been more of a lone gamer type so all these co-op games that are all the rage in recent years really don't interest me at all and the fact that most of them rely on battle passes, lootboxes, micro-transactions, and are just money sinks through and through, it's such a big turn off. My brother is the opposite of me where he loves these games and I get shocked every time he tells me when he buys the next battle pass for the games he's juggling (Overwatch, Destiny, Final Fantasy 14, and Marvel Rivals). More power to people who like that but I just could never, no thank you. I just prefer a single player experience playing through a story which is why I much prefer older games. There's nothing more daunting a thought then a game that has no end to it.
But finally, another person shared this and I agree with it a lot and that is how so many games try to look as realistic as possible, I personally loathe it. Real life is fine and all but when I'm playing a game, I like to see imagination and creativity. I think this is why I love the PS2 / Xbox / Gamecube era of consoles because it was that perfect middle ground of seeing improvement of the PS1 / N64 graphics but not overly detailed neither and they still looked like video games, you know not realistic with that uncanny valley effect and I personally love that. It's why I don't mind hopping onto Ebay and buying obscure PS2 and/or PS1 games that I missed out on and can still have fun with them. The last game I bought was a game called Primal and sure the game had a bit of a janky combat system but I still had fun with it because the story was great, the world was immersive, and it just felt like the game was "complete", it was pretty great lol.
Needless to say, I do think modern gaming is just the pits at this time. This is not to say that there aren't any good or interesting games out now, there are and this is especially true in the Indie game scene which really is a renaissance back to the PS1-PS2 era of gaming as you see so many different kinds of games being made that have that have that artistic spark that you saw back in those days. But aside from that, yeah the modern gaming scene is just not "it" anymore.
🧢 you don’t play games. You watch ppl play them. Foh.
Man I was literally just telling one of my buddy’s this yesterday. I’v been having so much fun playing old ps1 and n64 games that new games just don’t get me excited anymore. Emulation has been my friend in this regard
Yeah pretty much this
Older games were designed like movies, where it’s something you experience, you enjoy, and then you finish it. The money grab has made a lot of modern games too bloated and want to keep you around to keep spending, not only diluting the enjoyment of the game itself but constantly breaking your immersion by reaching for your wallet. All these modern gacha and Hoyo-verse games make me sad. It just feels shallow and soulless. I just want good stories man.
I just thank the lord that I was able to grow up in an era where gaming was great, innovative and everything was new, what I hate the most about today, is that it’s nothing but downgraded remakes/remasters, and the sad part is, the people want more.
Remember DeusEx - the very first one on PC?
You loaded that up and went at it like an FPS of the time and got brutally punished for it.
You’d have to use your brain - realize it was an rpg and the sooner you realized the only thing it had it common with an FPS was its perspective.
You’d play it, go along with it on a path as it would play out and you’d end somewhere as a result of your choices and then sit back and think “Christ that was brilliant!”
And little did you know there were other ways to go in that game until you talked to some other nerds which followed a different path and got a completely different experience, immediately you went back and had another go at it and it would be like you played a different game.
You had no idea there were different ways to go about it and it was awesome.
I remembered that experience when I much later bought deusEx for my Xbox back then, and I got watered down experience, where every freaking time there was a choice to make, it was obvious there was another way to go - the game would prompt you in a much more “are you sure you want to do that?, because you can also do this instead?”
And all of the choices were totally pointless, because in the end you would have a chance right at the very end of the game to go one of 3 ways, and the game would litterally autosave RIGHT BEFORE you would have to choose the a certain way to end the game…
Meaning any gameplay and story choices before that was kinda pointless as you’d have the ability to right at the end choose a completely different ending anyway.
I felt like I earned a participation trophy at the end of it.
Fallout 4 did the same thing - right up till the very end you could kinda quickly change your path from railroad, to institute, brotherhood or minutemen - and play 1 of four endings.
You could play all factions almost equally all the way up to the end, making consequences of choice kinda moot.
All new games do that… and I kinda pisses me off.
With one exception I can think of.
Wasteland 2
Right of the bat in that game you get to choose if you save the ag center or the other one which I don’t remember.
But it’s either or - and the rest of game you need to live with that choice - can’t have it both ways - hard fact of life - and it is brilliant!
Game developers need to put the bubble wrap back in the drawer and punish the player for the choices made if they insist on making storytelling into something that feels natural. Like it was in fallout 1 and 2.
Learn, and learn fast, or get frustrated quickly and prepare yourself to make choices to survive that doesn’t necessarily make you the good guy!
Hardcore - but brilliant!
Deus Ex, the original is great on the PS2. The level design is a bit different because of the hardware, but the overall experience is gold.
I feel this so much! It's why I've been mainly sticking with indie games since 2011! I also can't stand the longer stories they put in games these days with so much filler!
back in 80's i would power up my ZX spectrum before school, loaded a tape and played a lvl or 2 of MANIC MINER
I love playing games so much, is that 80% of my time of not more, goes into editing and irl work. We are are in retro genesis phase of the triple A studios, so place your bets on the indie developers. Old games like Soul Reaver had a charm. Modern games feel like they don't have a soul nor a charm.
I agree with everything, and I also hate this "Ray Tracing" era, as if it makes huge difference having reflections perfected for the cost of a huge processment power. I miss the times where you could see significant graphic changes when you buy new hardware, this ray tracing bs never convinced me. It's crazy to think that having a working MIRROR in a game requires so much power, why can't they just be creative and find a better solution like they did in old games?
Your not alone man I want to go back more than you could know