I also think gaming now a days just feels different and not in a childhood wonder sort of way but a walking into an obscure bookstore kind of way. Social media makes learning about a video game way too easy. Spoilers are hard to avoid and the more people talk about a game the less novel it feels. I didn’t spend much time on forums as a kid so most games i learned about was via word of mouth or from demo disks. I’ll never forget my first play through of Halo 1 on the OG xbox. Played it coop with my bro. Was completely scared shitless when the flood was introduced. No one told me there were zombies in my shoot man game. Like no one talked about it. Good times.
On spoilers - also the whole goddamm culture shifted. A lot of people won’t pickup a game until they see at least gameplay vid of it or read tens of posts etc. Spoilers became culturally mainstream.
I do not partake and dive blind most of the time and still got that wonderfull wonder sensation I got as a kiddo.
Only ya know. We got so powerfull machines now that devs tend to focus on looks rather than story/gameplay. Thankfully slowly changing, in parts thanks to indie devs.
I would also make an argument that the limited technology at the time led to different kinds of games versus what we see now. Sure there’s the obvious things like internet enabled games and being able to get updates but I think even the less thought about things like restrictions on RAM and the power of computers led to restrictions on what you could do which led to specific types of games which aren’t made that way anymore because they don’t have to work around those restrictions. And while in a lot of cases those restrictions going away has allowed for better mechanics and gameplay it also still makes the games different which to people who were used to and liked those games will feel not as good anymore.
There’s something about those early games that were in the first generation of their genres and people hadn’t figured out the rules yet. Lots of experimental stuff. Things that could created a wall that the average kid would stall on.
Try playing the Marathon trilogy and then go right to Halo CE. You’ll realize why Cortana walks you though most of the game. The line “This cave is not a natural formation” came from when the opening was more natural looking, but even with the dialog, play testers had trouble fining the opening. Still way better then dumping yellow tape or green lights everywhere.
I also think gaming now a days just feels different and not in a childhood wonder sort of way but a walking into an obscure bookstore kind of way. Social media makes learning about a video game way too easy. Spoilers are hard to avoid and the more people talk about a game the less novel it feels. I didn’t spend much time on forums as a kid so most games i learned about was via word of mouth or from demo disks. I’ll never forget my first play through of Halo 1 on the OG xbox. Played it coop with my bro. Was completely scared shitless when the flood was introduced. No one told me there were zombies in my shoot man game. Like no one talked about it. Good times.
On spoilers - also the whole goddamm culture shifted. A lot of people won’t pickup a game until they see at least gameplay vid of it or read tens of posts etc. Spoilers became culturally mainstream.
I do not partake and dive blind most of the time and still got that wonderfull wonder sensation I got as a kiddo.
Only ya know. We got so powerfull machines now that devs tend to focus on looks rather than story/gameplay. Thankfully slowly changing, in parts thanks to indie devs.
I would also make an argument that the limited technology at the time led to different kinds of games versus what we see now. Sure there’s the obvious things like internet enabled games and being able to get updates but I think even the less thought about things like restrictions on RAM and the power of computers led to restrictions on what you could do which led to specific types of games which aren’t made that way anymore because they don’t have to work around those restrictions. And while in a lot of cases those restrictions going away has allowed for better mechanics and gameplay it also still makes the games different which to people who were used to and liked those games will feel not as good anymore.
There’s something about those early games that were in the first generation of their genres and people hadn’t figured out the rules yet. Lots of experimental stuff. Things that could created a wall that the average kid would stall on.
Try playing the Marathon trilogy and then go right to Halo CE. You’ll realize why Cortana walks you though most of the game. The line “This cave is not a natural formation” came from when the opening was more natural looking, but even with the dialog, play testers had trouble fining the opening. Still way better then dumping yellow tape or green lights everywhere.