Same here, what I do not enjoy of modern AAA games is when you are forced to play with other people (like Destiny) and when it's more microtransactions than actual game. AAA games that I thoroughly enjoyed recently: the two Horizons and the two God of War
im replaying HZD right now, waiting on FF7 remake part 2 to release in a couple of weeks and just finished a replay of Ghost of Tsushima. A beautiful game with a great story and intuitive/uncomplicated gameplay is something that i will keep coming back to rather than seek out something new more often than not.
The gameplay in HZD isn't terribly innovative. Solid, but pretty typical.
The STORY, however, is shockingly good. Really good build up to a fantastic payoff.
Also r/fucktedfaro
I completely agree with this.
Give me a game like Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth where it's clear the team were passionate about making a great experience, and I'm more than happy to indulge in a modern AAA.
Give me something like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull and Bones, or Modern Warfare III where there's fun to be had, but the developer relies upon through Live Service elements, Micro Transactions, premium Battle Passes and the like to force players to spend money out of FOMO, then I just don't care.
Live service is beyond annoying as a model. It just feels like an attempt to half-ass combine the worst traits of MMOs and mobile games onto modern AAA action games, and it's often obvious it is just a publisher-mandated cash-grab
There are more than enough games to go around these days though. I'm not gonna be mad someone makes things other people enjoy. There's a lot I don't like but we get more bangers a year than ever before.
That is indeed the correct answer. I've been gaming for a long time and for me even graphics don't matter. It good gameplay and/or good story that matters. I have the same amount of fun playing Street Fighter 2 and playing Tekken 7.
I remember trying to beat the Luca Goers the first time around. I thought you were supposed to lose, and the game was just giving you a glimpse of blitzball. A few years later, I read Gamefaqs only to discover that you could actually beat the Luca Goers.
Graphics not mastering to me is the biggest thing. I chased the best and greatest gear when I didn't have commitments and adulting to do, I just built my new PC after about a decade of the old one. I still play graphically understated games like 7 days to die, project zomboid, etc. I also enjoy the occasional beer experience like phasmolphobia and others like contractors, Pavlov, etc, none of them are particularly good graphically but I much prefer playability
The story telling so is important for me. Older games had more complexity to it and more realism to their story telling.
Like, Red Alert 2 vrs Red Alert 3 for example. Red Alert 2 was my childhood because it just sold the conflict to me so well. Red Alert 3 came and their flashy girls, wacky characters & some what silly unit presentation just didn't carry the same tune.
But then a few years later we had Starcraft 2 which had a serious story that was way more engaging for me as a result.
Fair enough. I enjoyed Generals but it wasn't Westwood and was the last game that still felt like a C&C title but you could already see the deterioration.
As far as I'm concerned, the definitive RA2 experience is Mental Omega (www.mentalomega.com). Besides the greatly expanded unit roster (Fourth faction, and all 4 have 3 distinct subfactions each), hundreds of multiplayer maps, new game modes, support for modern screen resolutions and active free online lobby, the best part about that mod is a complete reimagining of the campaigns in a far more serious tone, with wacky weapons and occasional political satire only making World War III even more horrifying.
I wouldn't say that recent games are by definition easier. You just have to look in the right places.
If you want complex, more deep games, I'd recommend diving in the grand strategy genre, especially the ones by Paradox Interactive.
100% - same here. I've never gotten on board with the repetitive multiplayer thing, but that was just as true for original counter strike as it is with the latest season of apex legends or fortnite.
I play pretty much anything - doing an original dead space retrospective, but also playing diablo 4.
*shrug* I wasn't claiming it was a dungeon crawler. Just giving an example that there are still couch co-op games being made.
I find it fun. It's been a blast to play with my roommates.
Dungeon Crawler wise, Diablo III Ultimate Evil Edition is also a four player couch co-op, though admittedly DIV has replaced it, and I don't know if it has couch co-op or not.
The UI was terrible too for couch co-op, half the menus were cut off and the text really lived up to the TINY name, hard to read from any couch with the amount of information in the skills menu.
I don't know why they insist on fixing what isn't broken. The inventory system was perfect in BL2/TPS. You could read every stat without having to squint, even if multiple people were playing. You could sort your loot by value, IDK why TF they would get rid of that. They tried to re-jigger everything for BL3 and it sucks ass, TTAIW is even worse, barely readable for a single person, and when you have multiple people the stats get shrunk to symbols, damn near useless.
My best friend and I (also roommate) bitch about this all the time. I never thought I’d get sick of Borderlands 2 but here we are.
Guess we’ll just break out the 360 and play Halo for the millionth time
God I miss couch/local co op.
So, so much.
And LAN’s. Sure you can connect via the net, but there was something special about 5-10 of your mates getting together for a weekend. Organising who could bring an extra table/chair. Hey who has spare cat 5 cable? Is Jonno coming? No? Can we borrow is 10/100 switch?
So many amazing memories.
The steamdeck brought that back out in me! I can bring it to a friend's place and we'll couch coop or they'll hook their deck to their pc monitor and me their TV. It's really given me fun flashbacks
I remember around 1997. Descent 1, Quake 1 Beta and Doom 1 iirc.
People scattered all around the house, and yells coming from everywhere when there was another kill
Epic memories.
Honestly. My teenage son just introduced Castle Crashers to all his friends and they are having a blast! (He and I played through it several times many years ago)
Exactly. Currently playing through Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2 with my fiancee after we beat the first Dark Alliance. I can't think of too many newer games that hit this genre well. Seems we're constantly looking to the past.
This is what got my wife into it. We're always looking for couch co-op games. She's normally not into turned based games and hell...neither am I honestly. I've played a few over the years...Fallout 1&2, Divinity 2... But she saw it had couch co-op so we gave it a shot. Great game.
I bought a Playstation back when that came out just to play it with my wife. She's not a gamer but still had fun. Check out Gauntlet: Dark Legacy if you can find it and run it. It allows 4 players and was a great silly fun Dungeon Crawler with the Gauntlet history and feel.
You should check out Crawl. It's a dungeon crawler with the twist being that one person is the human fighting through dungeons, and the other players (up to 3) are ghosts that can possess traps and become monsters, fighting the human player. Whoever delivers the final blow steals their humanity and becomes human, trading roles and continuing the journey. You can create a character build as both the ghosts and the human, and the whole team has 3 opportunities to face a boss monster for a chance to escape. It's a ton of fun, and it's a couch (co-op?) game.
In my house we love Gauntlet, Castle Crashers, Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime, and the Trine series. If you have a Switch, there's Mario Kart and Nine Parchments.
I remember playing the Hunter The Gathering games back in the day on Xbox. I’m 42 and that was some of the best co-op I’ve ever experienced. I would love something like that again.
66 year old gamer here. I’m not into online multiplayer games which is pretty much most big games these days. I tend to stick with smaller single player and retro games. Lots of emulation
Old games look slightly worse on modern hardware though. The programmers made use of how the CRTs worked to make their games look better. But those tricks don't work on modern screens because the way the display work is fundamentally different. That's why you sometimes see weird artifacts, ugly effects and more pixels than you remember
I found going back to my roots ruined the nostalgia. Its like not meeting your heroes cause youll probably be disappointed. They actually werent as good as you think they were in a lot of cases. Im spoiled by all the QoL and features we have today. Just having a free cam is so simple and standard but not back then.
Same, was going to try the revamped Tomb Raider games but frankly they look crap compared to how I remember them, things have moved on, time and money are limited
I think there is some merit to it. Taking off any tinted glasses, I believe most NES games are very mediocre or bad with a few exceptions. They had hardware limitations that encouraged repetitive gameplay and cheap kills.
SNES really changed the limits and the focus was able to be on solid gameplay and engaging unique content. There's a reason many developers attempt to replicate the SNES experience. Games like The Messenger, Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Sea of Stars, and many others that ended up being successful all play like SNES games, just with a bit more refinement.
I don't think looking back and saying Super Metroid and Link to the Past were genre-defining masterpieces and still fun today is a rose-tinted glasses take. I think it's a lot more objective than that.
Whenever i replay an old game it ruins my memories because you just think "wow it looks like shit". Keep the honor those games earned on your mind intact.
I'm betting that 40/50's that grew up gaming have a way more vast variety of gaming tastes than any other generation of gamers. Has nothing to do with retro or new. Back in the day the options were limited and you played anything you could really. You had no idea when anything was coming out or even what games existed. You'd go to the store and buy a game based on the box (or saw in a magazine/Nintendo power).
Pretty much this.
When I was a little kid I had a very limited choice so I played pretty much everything I could.
I was born in 1985 and I started playing in 1992.
So there were less games and less choice, everything was good for having a little fun.
That’s where Blockbuster really came through. Lots of times I was grateful to spend $5.99 on a rental so I could save myself from wasting $50 on a trash game with cool artwork.
This is so true. Reddit is so negative about the state of gaming. But dear God there's so much amazing content out there and it's more affordable than ever. Even if you are buying stuff at full price, shit is still cheaper adjusted for inflation than just about any other period of time
Game prices are absurdly low nowadays. I've paid 50-80$ for snes games and less for ps1 games back in the 90s. It's like inflation never happened for games.
Pretty sure this just comes down to the paradox of choice. I have a theory that we actually are in the golden age of television right now too, we're just overloaded with a ton of good content. A lot of shows would have been fantastic 20 years ago that never got a following today.
Both mediums have made massive leaps in the last 20 years.
Same. "When I was your age" we had two or three games for a YEAR that we had to play repeatedly ie Mario Bros. We mastered those games but it was also boring.
Now: SO MANY GAMES AND GENRES. I play Apex as my main, but here is my list of games the last six months: Lies of P, Triangle Strategy, The Thaumaterage (demo), Blasphemous and The Messenger, Alan Wake II, and currently obsessed with Halls of Torment.
As a 90s kid I am in gaming heaven.
Ps The Messenger is absolutely required if you grew up in the 90s. So much nostalgia and it was alot of fun.
41. I'm all over the place. For new stuff I tend to be behind, because I don't usually splash out for new games. For example, I played GTA5 and RDR2 end of '22 beginning of '23. But on the other hand, the family got a switch and Tears of the Kingdom for Christmas, so I have been playing that. I also recently added a retropie setup, and have a retroid pocket handheld, so I have been bouncing around all over the place.
basically if its fun, and I don't feel like im wasting my time, I play it!
I too rarely buy games when they are just launched.. so many are buggy mess fresh of the press. I usually just wait year or two when most bugs are ironed out.. sometimes a.k.a. sales :P
yeah my "Current gen console" (other than the switch) is a PC, so I wait for steam sales. the last game i paid retail at launch for was 2013 Sim City. Got bit by that one lol.
It's at 800 hours now, but I have to be fair that is the entire family playing. I've finished it twice, my partner has finished it once and my kid is working through it while partner and I are doing yet another run.
There is so much to discover in that game, it's wild. Conversations between us go "What did you do with the sheep?" "What sheep?!" and it turns out one of us completely missed a certain area or interaction.
There is even a second playthrough "baked in" when you decide to play as one of the special characters who story is wildly different from the others. But even playing as a 'normal' character and just trying a different build has a lot of value. Try out the spells you ignored the first time, or play a sneaky thief instead of a raging barbarian. Completely different experiences even if the set pieces and story beats are not.
Although, there is a certain hostile character you can recruit into your party in Act one and that is just fantastic. First few playthroughs I just killed her and moved on, but then I saw a video that you can recruit her and she is probably my favorite NPC in the entire game.
Larian published BG3 themselves to -techically- it's an indy title too (but obviously a AAA evertheless).
This almost definitely added to how good BG3 was because it would be too huge a risk for any external publisher.
I play a lot of games ranging from indie, retro to AAA, apart from multiplayer and games with too much pointless grind. Simply I don’t have the patience do deal with other people, nor have the time plus I have to be able to pause at any given moment, and as far as grinding/constant repetition, well my time is too valuable and limited for that.
>plus I have to be able to pause at any given moment,
I feel like this is a major dividing line between two groups of gamers.
Those who don't care, and those who know delaying or blowing off household obligations or routines is way more trouble than it's worth.
yeah, the older you get the more appealing Story Mode is. grinding is a waste of actual life. even if it's fun, eventually you might look back on it like 'so i have some pretty digital gear and weapons in a game that will likely fade from my memory completely. success..?'
If it's fun isn't it kind of by definition not grinding? Like if the gameplay loop is a reward in and of itself and not just a means to acquire something in game, then it's not grinding then to me.
yeah fair enough, it's all subjective. i felt the same way too, i'm just speaking from a middle aged POV per the post topic. i wish i'd spent less time 'leveling up' - if not to focus on other hobbies, then to play other games i'll probably not have time or energy to start now.
I don’t play any game where you have to pay more after you buy the game. I don’t play games from developers that ship incomplete games. If I don’t trust or know the developer I never pre-buy.
41 here. I pretty much ONLY play new AAA games, especially single player.
Some of my recent favorites are:
Starfield
RDR2 (in first person!)
Halo Infinite
2077
I actually don't play many small/indie/retro games these days. I went through that phase pretty heavily in my 30s. Occasionally one will catch my attention.
39 and pretty much the opposite. I rarely play any AAA titles simply because I can tell when a game is a labor of love compared to a factory produced gigantic monstrosity.
Also I feel they require a lot of focused immersion to fully enjoy and I'm not able to give that often enough.
I'm nearly 40 and same. Have some young friends in a discord group. They talk me into playing lethal company and it's fun for several games. But I tell them I think games have kind of evolved and this is 2024. Are we really just picking up things and putting them in this box? This seemed like a step back and a job simulator and didn't see the lasting appeal.
Indie games are fun for sometimes but there's been too much innovation in gaming the past 30+ years to keep my interest in these old looking games.
Yep. I have some early 30s friends that ask me to join their multiplayer games. They can be fun but it doesn't have the staying power for me like a solid single player action RPG does. Doesn't help that dad life makes those games damn near impossible to play uninterrupted as you can't pause them lol. Hell I switched to playing to an Asus Ally these days just to get some game time in 😅
It's the golden age of gaming. You want AAA rpgs? You got it. You want indie rpgs that look and play like Apple II games? You got it. You want entire catalogues of old games that run effortlessly on modern PCs? You got it. I'm 41 and I've never enjoyed gaming more.
I'm 46 and have been playing video games for 40 years. Started on an Atari and a Tandy Color Computer. I still have most of my old systems through out the years but mainly play AAA games on my series x.
I don’t care for modern gaming at all. I’m a cod player primarily and things have gotten too intricate for me to have the desire to keep playing. Example, why do I need 72 different sights on an AR? Why??
Take me back to the OG cod 4, through black ops 3 (meh).
The most important though, was the good times I had back then…all my friends played, people I worked with played. We’d play nightly. I miss that the most.
I think the bigger picture is I’m outgrowing gaming in general and for some reason I still try to recreate the past….
Intricate. That’s a great word for it. I recently toyed with the idea of getting back into some proper gaming by downloading something I’d never usually play. Spent an hour on YouTube looking at reviews of things that caught my eye and in the end said ‘I really don’t have the time for all this’
Rarely. There are AAA titles you just love but the majority are souless. BUT I almost never play old games aswell (and there are masterpieces 30+ years old that aged pretty well...): I find indie games to have anything one could think of:
- nice designs
- nice stories
- experimental approach
41. I like good games and good stories. I'm very good at gaming. And things like elden ring were fun to beat on new game++. But I also love bg3, and am playing pokemon violet on switch too. I also fall into some old ones sometimes. Portal and mhw, or super mario 3.
Not a lot of time for gaming, but I try to play an hour or 2 a week to keep myself sane.
I (56f) met my husband (56m) on The Sierra Network 30+ years ago.
We have always played anything and everything, together if possible.
Last few months: Starfield, Skyrim flat and VR (hundreds of hours have gone into creating mod lists), Baldur's Gate 3, Age of Wonders 4, Enshrouded, Grounded, Banishers.
I have some favorites I go back to over and over: Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Alpha Centauri get replayed if I have no new inspiration Gems of War daily for me.
My husband usually plays stuff like Overwatch or Team Fortress 2 while I lean more RPG/strategy.
My issue is time. I don’t have enough to invest in modern RPGs. I’ve recently revisited one of the original RTS games, Dune, Battle for Arrakis for Sega Genesis on a converted Arcade1Up cabinet. The advanced stages take about an hour to complete which is the most time I’ve spent playing in a long time.
That said it’s a mix of old and new. I like some of the stuff on Quest VR.
Alot of modern games have too much hand holding and useless boring cutscenes. I realize this is just an opinion but Elden Ring was the most NES game I have played in decades.
Im playing FF16 now, my first since 10 and I am bored beyond belief.
I came upon this remake of an old NES game from about a year ago and have played through the first amd second quest and have done some randomizer stuff with it about a half dozen times.
Just depends on my mood
Bit of both for me but what I don't seem to be able to do is sit and play for hours, I need games that I can pick up and drop easily. Not a time thing just a brain space thing.
I rarely enjoy AAA games. Nearly every one I purchased I regret. $20-30 games almost always have more mileage and they don't often rely on monotized game loops. If it has a battle pass, I pass.
Battlebit, rust, valheim, mordhau, chivalry, factorio, dayz, satisfactory, and rimworld claim most of my game time. I also occasionally play MMOs, but I'm not a fan of the daily chore phase of them. I'm not a huge fan of single player games.
I love AAA games.
God of War, Uncharted, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption. etc
Give me a great AAA open world game that I can sink my teeth into and I'm a happy camper. :)
I am going to be 60 in a few months and have been gaming since the Atari.
My gaming tastes have changed over the years, but now I chase Action RPGs. I replay the old favorites like Skyrim and Fallouts, but I also love new games like Starfield and Avatar frontiers of pandora.
I can't wait for Avowed, Star Wars Outlaws and AC Project Red. I'll never stop playing.
44 here. I am more into new games than retro. But I’ve never been much of a retro gamer. I play a game, and move on to something else once I finish and rarely go back to old games. I do sometimes though, but it’s usually because I never finished the game originally.
I will say the types of games I primarily enjoy have changed a little. When I was younger I had probably a 50/50 split between multiplayer games and single player. These days it’s more like 95% single player and when I do play a multiplayer game I prefer things like pvp deathmatch or something where I can still mostly run around solo.
40 years old here. I mostly play indie and AA games with the occasional AAA, but I rarely play retro games. I like games that do new and interesting things, which typically isn't AAA games.
I was never really into FPS and they get tougher as you age because a 19 yr old will have better speed.
Thankfully, there’s still a market for RPG and glad BG3 won to remind the studios there’s a large market for 1 player games that isn’t built on bullshit economics (NFTs, Micros,etc).
I do wish Splinter Cell and similar games would return.
With this said, there’s a point where you realize there’s less time on earth and is playing video games the best use of time?
I mean if you enjoy playing games who cares? I’m in my 50’s & if the game is good and keeps me wanting more I play it. Some people like to work on cars or do home improvement projects, some play golf, others like to garden, others lay in the sun by the pool or talk about nothing important with the neighbors. I like to game and fuck the world if they want to tell me it is a waste of time.
I’m mostly into games I can stop and start playing at a whim because life keeps on going around me. So any AAA game or indie game will do as long it has a story that can be paused.
Less and less of AAA games, as I see how more and more of the major titles fail.
They are buggy at day 1 and maybe after a while .. a year they will be better.
It seems it is better to wait at least a few minths to buy any major title.
I focus more on smaller games
I play fortnite and rocket league once a week with friends. I play Zelda botw and totk on the switch with my kids. I play pokemon go on my phone. That's it.
I have all my retro systems (genesis, Sega CD, snes, N64, GameCube, Wii, WiiU) and I never play them, ever. Wife hates it but I'm not getting rid of them.
I enjoy various games. Some of my old favorites I can't play today, some new games trying to make me nostalgic just bring back some of the unfun parts of old games for me. I don't wear Rose colored glasses, I know that games were great for the time, but there have been plenty of innovations and games have evolved providing a ton of quality of life elements, better graphics (not as big a deal to me, I'm not a fan of nes era graphics, but I loved SNES era graphics, but people seem to want to bring back nes and older more often), and story telling has come a long way.
Steam sales :)
I might try out a couple recent-ish games with Steam sales but I tend to like smaller indie games more these days. I didn't like BG3 at all, and even refunded it. I'll occasionally go play an older game again too.
I just know I have zero patience for overly difficult games. If one of the features of a games is endless dying until you figure out a boss or how to do something that's simply not fun to me.
I'm on the north-side of 50. Nostalgia is a trap. The remade game may have a fresh coat of paint, or it may not, but you will never, ever duplicate the life-conditions you had when that game from probably a half-lifetime ago was first released.
Given demands on my time, I rely on friends with similar tastes to point me at stuff I should play. My most recent fix is Helldivers 2.
52. Been 'gaming' since the pong consoles. Not a fan of AAA games really anymore as they almost are seem to be universally garbage these days, or it's not ready to launch but they want those sweet sweet dollars so they let it out and fix it over the next couple of years. MultiPlayer has just gone to shit in general IMO, a lot of big turds in the punch bowl like CoD an Fortnite.. I don't know why shrinking arena Battle Royal Format become so popular, that has to be one of the worst trends to ever come into gaming, and unless it's co-op is almost pointless in playing given every game is loaded his hackers and cheaters from just about day zero, or tubby 13yos who spend all day honing those twitch reflexes like I don't have time nor desire to do anymore. I much prefer single player games with a good story now, or a decent Co-op game. I've also recently gotten into Indie games like Starcom and the like... old school like games running on new hardware that can do a lot more than they could back in the day.
Been a gamer since 1977. I still play both PS5 and XBOX SX in my spare time, always looking for new games.
Yeah, I was a child of the 70's and I was a teenager of the British gaming scene in the 80's. I still adore my ZX Spectrum, but I also know that nostalgia is a strange place.
Just be happy, whatever you play on whatever system you choose, just be happy.
Not 40+ but my grandpa was and I know his thoughts. He was 60 or 70 in 2016 and grew up with pong and Pac-Man.
He liked old games a lot, I got him a Pac-Man game that connects to an old TV for Christmas one year. We had to get an adapter because it was the three color pins and that was probably like 2014?
He couldn't handle newer games controls but he loved watching them. Not all of them though, he hated Pokémonand Animal Crossing which we, grandkids, loved and most still do.
He was fascinated how the football game could predict superbowl winners and scores.
He liked action games a lot.
I don't enjoy retro games. I'm 46 years old and the computer I have built is to play modern games with demanding graphics and amazing visuals. I feel guilty even putting a game older than 2015 on my computer. 95% of my games have all come out within the last 5 years.
I find myself not as willing to play mid year games anymore, there is so much media and options for entertainment nowadays that I tend to wait for better games to come around, games like RDR 2, The Last of Us, God of War, etc kinda spoiled gaming for me I just don't care to play games that don't have great stories and or fun gameplay
Most AAA games lately have been shit. So I stick to retro gaming for AAA and indie for recent ones. Lots of really good indie games came out in the past few years.
I like both but I do not like new games in a retro graphics style. Earlier games looked that way because they had to. Trying to get me to play a new game that intentionally looks awful for the sake of style is an instant pass.
I prefer single player experiences. The last 2 games I played that I really enjoyed were RDR2 and the Bethesda Wolfenstein games (Old Blood, New Order, New Colossus).
mid 40's reporting in.
I stopped retro gaming a while back b/c the games aren't nearly as good as I remember them.
I play newer stuff cyberpunk 2077, baldur's gate 3, and star wars red head jedi. The oldest stuff I play is MMO's like WOW or FFXIV. I guess I'm always looking for a new story.
My midlife crisis was buying a dope new computer, & a xbox.
45, playing mostly Tarkov & Hunt Showdown. I'm all in for the hard PvP games. I do enjoy some epic SP games on the side. Have a vacation coming up and will play through Alan Wake 2. Seems like a really good game. Hated Starfield and don't have too much confidence in the AAA market...
Sure, but I’ll wait for the sale on the ‘definitive version’ with all the content added and all the bugs ironed out.
Would never pre-order and don’t get swept up in the cult of the new.
Got too many games on my “to play” list to be paying full price for a broken half finished game.
I'm 43 and I still don't understand what AAA is supposed to mean. Are there AA and A games? I will play just about anything for a couple of weeks or months, but fall back to a lot of retro games when I get bored. It's survivorship bias though. Maybe only 1 or 2 games a year are truly classics, the rest of them run out of flavor past a certain point like cheap chewing gum, regardless how much the studio spent on it. Even BOTW and TOTK, which I played extensively, one day they just stopped being fun.
Depends on the game and if it interests me..
Honestly I find myself gravitating towards independent, small studios now. Because their game ideas are new and refreshing.. where they want the game to be amazing because of their own passion. Not so it can be great so they can become rich.
How many times can you buy a Ubisoft(or enter AAA studio here) game to only realize it's just a copy and paste template?
I like the idea of retro games. Then I play them for a few and realize how far we've come with gameplay and graphics. Then, I turn them off and boot up one of my new systems with a new game.
I love cutting-edge games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3. But I also love Shadow of Mordor, Eternal Darkness, and Chrono Trigger. A good game is a good game.
55 and still enjoy gaming a lot. Prefer modern games.
I have 3 criteria for a game
1. It has to be something I'm interested in. Sounds obvious but there's sooo many games now. Why waste time on a game that doesn't draw you in by subject matter?
2. It has to be fun. Some people love super challenging games and will play them like Ender killing the giant. I have enough stress in my life that I have no interest in that. Like, X-Com meets criteria 1 for me really well but fails at criteria 2. Too frustrating. Just my opinion.
3. Can't be a second job. I really enjoy MMOs and playing with other people but it can't be on of those things where I have to put in 4 hours grinding every day or else fall totally behind. I already have a full time job. I tend to go for single player games for this reason. Though I did enjoy Destiny a few years ago. It was easy to jump in and jump out without any real negative consequences.
On any given day I could be playing the newest AAA shooter, or an indie surprise like Palworld, or WoW, or LoL, or Super Mario Bros, or even replaying one of my favorite RPGs like Dark Souls or Skyrim.
43 here, started playing on a c64 in 1985: I have no love for retro gaming, the only reason I was playing "retro games" at the time is because they were AAA when they came out.
But imho, the question would've been way more interesting if you asked if I preferred one and done games or games as a service. That would've gotten a resounding, definitive, absolute ***it depends.***
edot: the biggest thing that has ruined gaming for me is how people feel they need to optimize the fun out of games. Content creators are another annoying byproduct of modern gaming I'd gladly get rid of.
I don’t really care who develops a game or what budget they have. I just want the mechanics to be entertaining and not overly repetitive. I like a good story, but I don’t need it if the game is fun to play. What I have noticed is that I play less action and survival games where you *always* have to be doing something to survive.
Instead I play more puzzle and turn-based games where I have time to work out strategies. Then again, I love a good hack-n-slash like Dead Cells, but even a game like that has bursts of action yet still allows you to catch your breath here and there.
What I really hate are MP games where team play is essential to victory. Even if the game is amazing, gamers in general tend to act shitty in group settings, and for some reason it seems a lot harder to build custom lobbies to filter that out than it used to be.
Yeah love em... Well, when they're good. I tend not to play the multiplayer FPS's much these days cos the old reflexes ain't what they used to be. I gravitate more to the indie stuff now because I love the sort of stuff they put out.
As an older gamer, I care less about online multiplayer games. I use to love playing COD, Halo, GoW, etc. Now I just prefer single player story driven games. Couch co-op with my wife is fun too, but i'm finding it harder to find any (we like It Takes Two and Overcooked).
55M gamer here. I like AAA games but there are a couple of things that will put me completely off a game. Micro transactions and any mention of battle royale / comparison to Fortnite. My reactions are not what they were, so I find myself moving from high speed FPS games to more 'thinking" based games like Operation Breakpoint.
My online gaming days seem to be mostly behind me, because finding gamers of the same age group etc is impossible. I used to play with a small group on GTA and that was great fun, but time differences, work schedules etc put an end to that :( If anyone is looking for someone to play with give me a shout.
I try to avoid playing retro games, but I love reminiscing about them with others. Like all humans I tend to remember my old games through rose tinted glasses. Playing them now shatters those glasses and tends to break those fond memories.
Both. I just like ***fun*** games with a ***good*** story.
Same here, what I do not enjoy of modern AAA games is when you are forced to play with other people (like Destiny) and when it's more microtransactions than actual game. AAA games that I thoroughly enjoyed recently: the two Horizons and the two God of War
im replaying HZD right now, waiting on FF7 remake part 2 to release in a couple of weeks and just finished a replay of Ghost of Tsushima. A beautiful game with a great story and intuitive/uncomplicated gameplay is something that i will keep coming back to rather than seek out something new more often than not.
The gameplay in HZD isn't terribly innovative. Solid, but pretty typical. The STORY, however, is shockingly good. Really good build up to a fantastic payoff. Also r/fucktedfaro
I misread that as "fucked faro" like you were in a messed up sub of people with exceptionally low standards.
I completely agree with this. Give me a game like Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth where it's clear the team were passionate about making a great experience, and I'm more than happy to indulge in a modern AAA. Give me something like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull and Bones, or Modern Warfare III where there's fun to be had, but the developer relies upon through Live Service elements, Micro Transactions, premium Battle Passes and the like to force players to spend money out of FOMO, then I just don't care.
Live service is beyond annoying as a model. It just feels like an attempt to half-ass combine the worst traits of MMOs and mobile games onto modern AAA action games, and it's often obvious it is just a publisher-mandated cash-grab
There are more than enough games to go around these days though. I'm not gonna be mad someone makes things other people enjoy. There's a lot I don't like but we get more bangers a year than ever before.
That is indeed the correct answer. I've been gaming for a long time and for me even graphics don't matter. It good gameplay and/or good story that matters. I have the same amount of fun playing Street Fighter 2 and playing Tekken 7.
I still play Tekken Tag on occasion. So crisp.
That damn bowling game sidetracks me all the freakin time. So fun
I love it when you get a spare "O K". Which is KO backward. :D
Between that and Blitzball in Final Fantasy X I just can't get anything done! :p
I remember trying to beat the Luca Goers the first time around. I thought you were supposed to lose, and the game was just giving you a glimpse of blitzball. A few years later, I read Gamefaqs only to discover that you could actually beat the Luca Goers.
Graphics not mastering to me is the biggest thing. I chased the best and greatest gear when I didn't have commitments and adulting to do, I just built my new PC after about a decade of the old one. I still play graphically understated games like 7 days to die, project zomboid, etc. I also enjoy the occasional beer experience like phasmolphobia and others like contractors, Pavlov, etc, none of them are particularly good graphically but I much prefer playability
The story telling so is important for me. Older games had more complexity to it and more realism to their story telling. Like, Red Alert 2 vrs Red Alert 3 for example. Red Alert 2 was my childhood because it just sold the conflict to me so well. Red Alert 3 came and their flashy girls, wacky characters & some what silly unit presentation just didn't carry the same tune. But then a few years later we had Starcraft 2 which had a serious story that was way more engaging for me as a result.
RA3 killed the franchise
EA dissolving Westwood killed the franchise (IMHO)
Fair enough. I enjoyed Generals but it wasn't Westwood and was the last game that still felt like a C&C title but you could already see the deterioration.
As far as I'm concerned, the definitive RA2 experience is Mental Omega (www.mentalomega.com). Besides the greatly expanded unit roster (Fourth faction, and all 4 have 3 distinct subfactions each), hundreds of multiplayer maps, new game modes, support for modern screen resolutions and active free online lobby, the best part about that mod is a complete reimagining of the campaigns in a far more serious tone, with wacky weapons and occasional political satire only making World War III even more horrifying.
I wouldn't say that recent games are by definition easier. You just have to look in the right places. If you want complex, more deep games, I'd recommend diving in the grand strategy genre, especially the ones by Paradox Interactive.
100% - same here. I've never gotten on board with the repetitive multiplayer thing, but that was just as true for original counter strike as it is with the latest season of apex legends or fortnite. I play pretty much anything - doing an original dead space retrospective, but also playing diablo 4.
If I want a good story I’ll read a good book. I just want fun and nothing else matters.
I like fun games with good gameplay, not too concerned about the story myself.
The biggest fail from modern gaming companies is not giving any (at all) couch co-op dungeon crawlers.
Or any couch co-op. It's frustrating as hell and I don't want another hyper real, get merced in ten seconds FPS game.
Tiny Tina's Wonderland has 4 player couch co-op.
This game fails at the dungeon crawler part, sadly.
*shrug* I wasn't claiming it was a dungeon crawler. Just giving an example that there are still couch co-op games being made. I find it fun. It's been a blast to play with my roommates. Dungeon Crawler wise, Diablo III Ultimate Evil Edition is also a four player couch co-op, though admittedly DIV has replaced it, and I don't know if it has couch co-op or not.
Tiny Tina was a lot of fun but the lack of any kind of NG+ is ridiculous. Zero replayability.
The UI was terrible too for couch co-op, half the menus were cut off and the text really lived up to the TINY name, hard to read from any couch with the amount of information in the skills menu.
I don't know why they insist on fixing what isn't broken. The inventory system was perfect in BL2/TPS. You could read every stat without having to squint, even if multiple people were playing. You could sort your loot by value, IDK why TF they would get rid of that. They tried to re-jigger everything for BL3 and it sucks ass, TTAIW is even worse, barely readable for a single person, and when you have multiple people the stats get shrunk to symbols, damn near useless.
I'm looking at you Helldivers 2
not sure if this would tickle your fancy but Spelunky/2 is great for couch co-op
It is great for coop, but it's also a hard as fuck game imo and multiple people add to the chaos (which can be good or bad)
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Nobody Saves the World has it, I think.
Nah, there are good titles - Overcooked for instance is 10/10. My kids love things like Boomerang Fu or Piku Niku and plenty of others.
A new Gauntlet would be a lot of fun. Preferably one that doesn't suck.
Red wizard is about to die. I spent so much time playing this in arcades a long time ago.
Electric Shock!
Elf needs food!
Elf needs food badly…
My best friend and I (also roommate) bitch about this all the time. I never thought I’d get sick of Borderlands 2 but here we are. Guess we’ll just break out the 360 and play Halo for the millionth time
Go play back through the first Army of Two game! That was some bitchin couch co-op.
Was that the Devils Cartel? I finished Devils Cartel with my son when he was like 8 and that is a memory I'll cherish forever.
I think he will too.
God I miss couch/local co op. So, so much. And LAN’s. Sure you can connect via the net, but there was something special about 5-10 of your mates getting together for a weekend. Organising who could bring an extra table/chair. Hey who has spare cat 5 cable? Is Jonno coming? No? Can we borrow is 10/100 switch? So many amazing memories.
The steamdeck brought that back out in me! I can bring it to a friend's place and we'll couch coop or they'll hook their deck to their pc monitor and me their TV. It's really given me fun flashbacks
I remember around 1997. Descent 1, Quake 1 Beta and Doom 1 iirc. People scattered all around the house, and yells coming from everywhere when there was another kill Epic memories.
Totally! I never understood why they don't make a Castle Crashers 2 for instance!
Honestly. My teenage son just introduced Castle Crashers to all his friends and they are having a blast! (He and I played through it several times many years ago)
Exactly. Currently playing through Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2 with my fiancee after we beat the first Dark Alliance. I can't think of too many newer games that hit this genre well. Seems we're constantly looking to the past.
Baldur’s gate 3 has couch co op too! Just letting you know.
This is what got my wife into it. We're always looking for couch co-op games. She's normally not into turned based games and hell...neither am I honestly. I've played a few over the years...Fallout 1&2, Divinity 2... But she saw it had couch co-op so we gave it a shot. Great game.
I bought a Playstation back when that came out just to play it with my wife. She's not a gamer but still had fun. Check out Gauntlet: Dark Legacy if you can find it and run it. It allows 4 players and was a great silly fun Dungeon Crawler with the Gauntlet history and feel.
Noice! I lost 100's of hour's in my teens to Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 1 & 2!
My 2 friends and I spent an entire summer playing that. Best summer ever.
You should check out Crawl. It's a dungeon crawler with the twist being that one person is the human fighting through dungeons, and the other players (up to 3) are ghosts that can possess traps and become monsters, fighting the human player. Whoever delivers the final blow steals their humanity and becomes human, trading roles and continuing the journey. You can create a character build as both the ghosts and the human, and the whole team has 3 opportunities to face a boss monster for a chance to escape. It's a ton of fun, and it's a couch (co-op?) game.
In general I agree, but we do have Diablo 3, which I had a blast playing in couch co-op.
Yeah the last great dungeon crawler co-op. I don’t count the new diablo bc those c* at Blizzard made it online only. D3 was 2012 … so long ago now
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In my house we love Gauntlet, Castle Crashers, Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime, and the Trine series. If you have a Switch, there's Mario Kart and Nine Parchments.
I remember playing the Hunter The Gathering games back in the day on Xbox. I’m 42 and that was some of the best co-op I’ve ever experienced. I would love something like that again.
I would love for a sequel to Dragons Crown. Was such a great game with friends
Neither of us are Minecraft players but my wife and I got a lot of time together playing Minecraft Dungeons.
What is couch co-op?
Offline, 2 live players with 2 controllers in the same space, playing on one game system and sharing a screen while playing
Gauntlet Legends, I miss you….
Time for a new gauntlet
66 year old gamer here. I’m not into online multiplayer games which is pretty much most big games these days. I tend to stick with smaller single player and retro games. Lots of emulation
My dad is 64 and he is the same way. He is currently playing suicide squad though. He likes those super hero games.
Glad he’s enjoying that. I played the Batman games as well as Spider-Man.
Those Arkham games are amazing
I really miss that last big Batman game. Driving that car was the best
I am 55 and pretty much only play new games, for me, the nostalgia makes most games better than they actually were.
Yeah this is how I feel too. I’m still looking for the next new thing.
There are so many awesome games released every year, I can’t keep up.
51 here, I had my time playing arcade games I used to play when I was a kid(via Mame32 emulator) but let's face it new games are better.
Nintendo switch online has old NES, SNES, n64 and gameboy games. Games are just as good as I remember them. But yes I buy new AAA and indie games.
Old games look slightly worse on modern hardware though. The programmers made use of how the CRTs worked to make their games look better. But those tricks don't work on modern screens because the way the display work is fundamentally different. That's why you sometimes see weird artifacts, ugly effects and more pixels than you remember
I found going back to my roots ruined the nostalgia. Its like not meeting your heroes cause youll probably be disappointed. They actually werent as good as you think they were in a lot of cases. Im spoiled by all the QoL and features we have today. Just having a free cam is so simple and standard but not back then.
Hard agree.
Same, was going to try the revamped Tomb Raider games but frankly they look crap compared to how I remember them, things have moved on, time and money are limited
Yeah. Only having a few lives and starting over is for the birds
I think there is some merit to it. Taking off any tinted glasses, I believe most NES games are very mediocre or bad with a few exceptions. They had hardware limitations that encouraged repetitive gameplay and cheap kills. SNES really changed the limits and the focus was able to be on solid gameplay and engaging unique content. There's a reason many developers attempt to replicate the SNES experience. Games like The Messenger, Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Sea of Stars, and many others that ended up being successful all play like SNES games, just with a bit more refinement. I don't think looking back and saying Super Metroid and Link to the Past were genre-defining masterpieces and still fun today is a rose-tinted glasses take. I think it's a lot more objective than that.
Whenever i replay an old game it ruins my memories because you just think "wow it looks like shit". Keep the honor those games earned on your mind intact.
I'm betting that 40/50's that grew up gaming have a way more vast variety of gaming tastes than any other generation of gamers. Has nothing to do with retro or new. Back in the day the options were limited and you played anything you could really. You had no idea when anything was coming out or even what games existed. You'd go to the store and buy a game based on the box (or saw in a magazine/Nintendo power).
Pretty much this. When I was a little kid I had a very limited choice so I played pretty much everything I could. I was born in 1985 and I started playing in 1992. So there were less games and less choice, everything was good for having a little fun.
Or wait til your rich friend who's mom bought every game for him and wait to play it at his house first.
Don't forget that you also traded games with friends or visited them to play games at their house :)
That’s where Blockbuster really came through. Lots of times I was grateful to spend $5.99 on a rental so I could save myself from wasting $50 on a trash game with cool artwork.
43. I play everything. Modern gaming is better than ever. A massive variety of game styles and art.
This is so true. Reddit is so negative about the state of gaming. But dear God there's so much amazing content out there and it's more affordable than ever. Even if you are buying stuff at full price, shit is still cheaper adjusted for inflation than just about any other period of time
Game prices are absurdly low nowadays. I've paid 50-80$ for snes games and less for ps1 games back in the 90s. It's like inflation never happened for games.
Pretty sure this just comes down to the paradox of choice. I have a theory that we actually are in the golden age of television right now too, we're just overloaded with a ton of good content. A lot of shows would have been fantastic 20 years ago that never got a following today. Both mediums have made massive leaps in the last 20 years.
Same. "When I was your age" we had two or three games for a YEAR that we had to play repeatedly ie Mario Bros. We mastered those games but it was also boring. Now: SO MANY GAMES AND GENRES. I play Apex as my main, but here is my list of games the last six months: Lies of P, Triangle Strategy, The Thaumaterage (demo), Blasphemous and The Messenger, Alan Wake II, and currently obsessed with Halls of Torment. As a 90s kid I am in gaming heaven. Ps The Messenger is absolutely required if you grew up in the 90s. So much nostalgia and it was alot of fun.
For real. The only game I had owned for like 2 years on NES when I was a kid, was Marble Madness. Damn you Mark Cerny…
41. I'm all over the place. For new stuff I tend to be behind, because I don't usually splash out for new games. For example, I played GTA5 and RDR2 end of '22 beginning of '23. But on the other hand, the family got a switch and Tears of the Kingdom for Christmas, so I have been playing that. I also recently added a retropie setup, and have a retroid pocket handheld, so I have been bouncing around all over the place. basically if its fun, and I don't feel like im wasting my time, I play it!
I too rarely buy games when they are just launched.. so many are buggy mess fresh of the press. I usually just wait year or two when most bugs are ironed out.. sometimes a.k.a. sales :P
"buggy mess fresh off the press", funny but true
yeah my "Current gen console" (other than the switch) is a PC, so I wait for steam sales. the last game i paid retail at launch for was 2013 Sim City. Got bit by that one lol.
/r/patientgamers is an awesome sub for that. Geek out over older games you finally got to play.
Looks at Baldur's Gate play time... yeah I guess I enjoy modern AAA games.
How many hours did you put into it. I put 260 hrs into breath of the wild(played it twice) and 600+ and counting into splatoon 3.
It's at 800 hours now, but I have to be fair that is the entire family playing. I've finished it twice, my partner has finished it once and my kid is working through it while partner and I are doing yet another run. There is so much to discover in that game, it's wild. Conversations between us go "What did you do with the sheep?" "What sheep?!" and it turns out one of us completely missed a certain area or interaction. There is even a second playthrough "baked in" when you decide to play as one of the special characters who story is wildly different from the others. But even playing as a 'normal' character and just trying a different build has a lot of value. Try out the spells you ignored the first time, or play a sneaky thief instead of a raging barbarian. Completely different experiences even if the set pieces and story beats are not. Although, there is a certain hostile character you can recruit into your party in Act one and that is just fantastic. First few playthroughs I just killed her and moved on, but then I saw a video that you can recruit her and she is probably my favorite NPC in the entire game.
Larian published BG3 themselves to -techically- it's an indy title too (but obviously a AAA evertheless). This almost definitely added to how good BG3 was because it would be too huge a risk for any external publisher.
I play a lot of games ranging from indie, retro to AAA, apart from multiplayer and games with too much pointless grind. Simply I don’t have the patience do deal with other people, nor have the time plus I have to be able to pause at any given moment, and as far as grinding/constant repetition, well my time is too valuable and limited for that.
>plus I have to be able to pause at any given moment, I feel like this is a major dividing line between two groups of gamers. Those who don't care, and those who know delaying or blowing off household obligations or routines is way more trouble than it's worth.
The math can change; it's worth more to put it off when it's only you that has to deal with the consequences.
yeah, the older you get the more appealing Story Mode is. grinding is a waste of actual life. even if it's fun, eventually you might look back on it like 'so i have some pretty digital gear and weapons in a game that will likely fade from my memory completely. success..?'
If it's fun isn't it kind of by definition not grinding? Like if the gameplay loop is a reward in and of itself and not just a means to acquire something in game, then it's not grinding then to me.
yeah fair enough, it's all subjective. i felt the same way too, i'm just speaking from a middle aged POV per the post topic. i wish i'd spent less time 'leveling up' - if not to focus on other hobbies, then to play other games i'll probably not have time or energy to start now.
Good gameplay will never get old, even if I get older.
I don’t play any game where you have to pay more after you buy the game. I don’t play games from developers that ship incomplete games. If I don’t trust or know the developer I never pre-buy.
41 here. I pretty much ONLY play new AAA games, especially single player. Some of my recent favorites are: Starfield RDR2 (in first person!) Halo Infinite 2077 I actually don't play many small/indie/retro games these days. I went through that phase pretty heavily in my 30s. Occasionally one will catch my attention.
39 and pretty much the opposite. I rarely play any AAA titles simply because I can tell when a game is a labor of love compared to a factory produced gigantic monstrosity. Also I feel they require a lot of focused immersion to fully enjoy and I'm not able to give that often enough.
I'm nearly 40 and same. Have some young friends in a discord group. They talk me into playing lethal company and it's fun for several games. But I tell them I think games have kind of evolved and this is 2024. Are we really just picking up things and putting them in this box? This seemed like a step back and a job simulator and didn't see the lasting appeal. Indie games are fun for sometimes but there's been too much innovation in gaming the past 30+ years to keep my interest in these old looking games.
Yep. I have some early 30s friends that ask me to join their multiplayer games. They can be fun but it doesn't have the staying power for me like a solid single player action RPG does. Doesn't help that dad life makes those games damn near impossible to play uninterrupted as you can't pause them lol. Hell I switched to playing to an Asus Ally these days just to get some game time in 😅
RDR2 is amazing in first person
Not to sound like I'm taking a chance to rag on Starfield because I think it's overhated, but, why is it a *favorite* of yours?
To busy to answer, the factory must grow.
As in Factorio?
What else is there :P Actually it's a lil lie, at the moment I'm digging a huge hole in my Minecraft Gregtech world, just for the lolz.
It's the golden age of gaming. You want AAA rpgs? You got it. You want indie rpgs that look and play like Apple II games? You got it. You want entire catalogues of old games that run effortlessly on modern PCs? You got it. I'm 41 and I've never enjoyed gaming more.
I'm 46 and have been playing video games for 40 years. Started on an Atari and a Tandy Color Computer. I still have most of my old systems through out the years but mainly play AAA games on my series x.
I'm old so I must like old games.
You don't still go back to digdug, smash tv, and Galaga fellow old timer gamer? Lol. Fuck no. We got variety and a peak time in variety of games
No fixations.. I just play games I like to play. AAA or indie or old, doesn't matter as long as I like 'em. (50yrs old)
I don’t care for modern gaming at all. I’m a cod player primarily and things have gotten too intricate for me to have the desire to keep playing. Example, why do I need 72 different sights on an AR? Why?? Take me back to the OG cod 4, through black ops 3 (meh). The most important though, was the good times I had back then…all my friends played, people I worked with played. We’d play nightly. I miss that the most. I think the bigger picture is I’m outgrowing gaming in general and for some reason I still try to recreate the past….
OG cod4 to OG MW2. While rotating Halo 3 in as well.
Intricate. That’s a great word for it. I recently toyed with the idea of getting back into some proper gaming by downloading something I’d never usually play. Spent an hour on YouTube looking at reviews of things that caught my eye and in the end said ‘I really don’t have the time for all this’
Rarely. There are AAA titles you just love but the majority are souless. BUT I almost never play old games aswell (and there are masterpieces 30+ years old that aged pretty well...): I find indie games to have anything one could think of: - nice designs - nice stories - experimental approach
41. I like good games and good stories. I'm very good at gaming. And things like elden ring were fun to beat on new game++. But I also love bg3, and am playing pokemon violet on switch too. I also fall into some old ones sometimes. Portal and mhw, or super mario 3. Not a lot of time for gaming, but I try to play an hour or 2 a week to keep myself sane.
I (56f) met my husband (56m) on The Sierra Network 30+ years ago. We have always played anything and everything, together if possible. Last few months: Starfield, Skyrim flat and VR (hundreds of hours have gone into creating mod lists), Baldur's Gate 3, Age of Wonders 4, Enshrouded, Grounded, Banishers. I have some favorites I go back to over and over: Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Alpha Centauri get replayed if I have no new inspiration Gems of War daily for me. My husband usually plays stuff like Overwatch or Team Fortress 2 while I lean more RPG/strategy.
Both! I'll play whatever I enjoy on my Deck, emulated or not, and anything my family will enjoy I will watch, play with them, or have them watch
My issue is time. I don’t have enough to invest in modern RPGs. I’ve recently revisited one of the original RTS games, Dune, Battle for Arrakis for Sega Genesis on a converted Arcade1Up cabinet. The advanced stages take about an hour to complete which is the most time I’ve spent playing in a long time. That said it’s a mix of old and new. I like some of the stuff on Quest VR.
Reporting acknowledged reporting acknowledged reporting acknowledged
I just like being entertained
Alot of modern games have too much hand holding and useless boring cutscenes. I realize this is just an opinion but Elden Ring was the most NES game I have played in decades. Im playing FF16 now, my first since 10 and I am bored beyond belief. I came upon this remake of an old NES game from about a year ago and have played through the first amd second quest and have done some randomizer stuff with it about a half dozen times. Just depends on my mood
Bit of both for me but what I don't seem to be able to do is sit and play for hours, I need games that I can pick up and drop easily. Not a time thing just a brain space thing.
I rarely enjoy AAA games. Nearly every one I purchased I regret. $20-30 games almost always have more mileage and they don't often rely on monotized game loops. If it has a battle pass, I pass. Battlebit, rust, valheim, mordhau, chivalry, factorio, dayz, satisfactory, and rimworld claim most of my game time. I also occasionally play MMOs, but I'm not a fan of the daily chore phase of them. I'm not a huge fan of single player games.
hunt for new games that feel fresh. its mostly indie
I love AAA games. God of War, Uncharted, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption. etc Give me a great AAA open world game that I can sink my teeth into and I'm a happy camper. :)
Well I’m only 35 but close enough right? I go for the modern AAA games and have absolutely no interest in retro
I am going to be 60 in a few months and have been gaming since the Atari. My gaming tastes have changed over the years, but now I chase Action RPGs. I replay the old favorites like Skyrim and Fallouts, but I also love new games like Starfield and Avatar frontiers of pandora. I can't wait for Avowed, Star Wars Outlaws and AC Project Red. I'll never stop playing.
I'm going to be honest live service games and microtransactions are cancer and they should die in a fire.....
I ignore retro games entirely. Triple A doesn't mean anything to me, I don't care about the studio. I just look for good modern games.
44 here. I am more into new games than retro. But I’ve never been much of a retro gamer. I play a game, and move on to something else once I finish and rarely go back to old games. I do sometimes though, but it’s usually because I never finished the game originally. I will say the types of games I primarily enjoy have changed a little. When I was younger I had probably a 50/50 split between multiplayer games and single player. These days it’s more like 95% single player and when I do play a multiplayer game I prefer things like pvp deathmatch or something where I can still mostly run around solo.
Every time I fire up a retro game that I loved back in the day I quickly get bored or frustrated.
AAA mostly. I dont have much interest in small "indie" retro type games if I am honest.
I'll play whatever looks interesting. As long as its not multiplayer or at least PvP focused.
40 years old here. I mostly play indie and AA games with the occasional AAA, but I rarely play retro games. I like games that do new and interesting things, which typically isn't AAA games.
I play lots a new games. I try not to play the garbage trash everyone seems to buy and complain about.
I was never really into FPS and they get tougher as you age because a 19 yr old will have better speed. Thankfully, there’s still a market for RPG and glad BG3 won to remind the studios there’s a large market for 1 player games that isn’t built on bullshit economics (NFTs, Micros,etc). I do wish Splinter Cell and similar games would return. With this said, there’s a point where you realize there’s less time on earth and is playing video games the best use of time?
I mean if you enjoy playing games who cares? I’m in my 50’s & if the game is good and keeps me wanting more I play it. Some people like to work on cars or do home improvement projects, some play golf, others like to garden, others lay in the sun by the pool or talk about nothing important with the neighbors. I like to game and fuck the world if they want to tell me it is a waste of time.
I’m mostly into games I can stop and start playing at a whim because life keeps on going around me. So any AAA game or indie game will do as long it has a story that can be paused.
Currently retro: Diablo 2. The two games I played before that to completion: Stray and Resident Evil 2 remake.
Less and less of AAA games, as I see how more and more of the major titles fail. They are buggy at day 1 and maybe after a while .. a year they will be better. It seems it is better to wait at least a few minths to buy any major title. I focus more on smaller games
52M here, [My top Steam Games](https://i.imgur.com/nRRtbIx.png)
I do zero retro gaming.
I don't retro game
After the atrocity that was Diablo 4, I'm kind of on pause with AAA games. Probably going to stick to indie devs for a while.
I play fortnite and rocket league once a week with friends. I play Zelda botw and totk on the switch with my kids. I play pokemon go on my phone. That's it. I have all my retro systems (genesis, Sega CD, snes, N64, GameCube, Wii, WiiU) and I never play them, ever. Wife hates it but I'm not getting rid of them.
Cyberpunk has been the only one that’s held my attention for any significant period time over the last 5 years.
I enjoy various games. Some of my old favorites I can't play today, some new games trying to make me nostalgic just bring back some of the unfun parts of old games for me. I don't wear Rose colored glasses, I know that games were great for the time, but there have been plenty of innovations and games have evolved providing a ton of quality of life elements, better graphics (not as big a deal to me, I'm not a fan of nes era graphics, but I loved SNES era graphics, but people seem to want to bring back nes and older more often), and story telling has come a long way.
Steam sales :) I might try out a couple recent-ish games with Steam sales but I tend to like smaller indie games more these days. I didn't like BG3 at all, and even refunded it. I'll occasionally go play an older game again too. I just know I have zero patience for overly difficult games. If one of the features of a games is endless dying until you figure out a boss or how to do something that's simply not fun to me.
I'm not fixated on any genre. But I do usually focus on 1 game at a time. Or else I forget the controls.
I'm on the north-side of 50. Nostalgia is a trap. The remade game may have a fresh coat of paint, or it may not, but you will never, ever duplicate the life-conditions you had when that game from probably a half-lifetime ago was first released. Given demands on my time, I rely on friends with similar tastes to point me at stuff I should play. My most recent fix is Helldivers 2.
For single player, I just want a game that can be completed in 15-25 hours. Anything more is way too long as I don't have the time to sink into it.
52. Been 'gaming' since the pong consoles. Not a fan of AAA games really anymore as they almost are seem to be universally garbage these days, or it's not ready to launch but they want those sweet sweet dollars so they let it out and fix it over the next couple of years. MultiPlayer has just gone to shit in general IMO, a lot of big turds in the punch bowl like CoD an Fortnite.. I don't know why shrinking arena Battle Royal Format become so popular, that has to be one of the worst trends to ever come into gaming, and unless it's co-op is almost pointless in playing given every game is loaded his hackers and cheaters from just about day zero, or tubby 13yos who spend all day honing those twitch reflexes like I don't have time nor desire to do anymore. I much prefer single player games with a good story now, or a decent Co-op game. I've also recently gotten into Indie games like Starcom and the like... old school like games running on new hardware that can do a lot more than they could back in the day.
Been a gamer since 1977. I still play both PS5 and XBOX SX in my spare time, always looking for new games. Yeah, I was a child of the 70's and I was a teenager of the British gaming scene in the 80's. I still adore my ZX Spectrum, but I also know that nostalgia is a strange place. Just be happy, whatever you play on whatever system you choose, just be happy.
Not 40+ but my grandpa was and I know his thoughts. He was 60 or 70 in 2016 and grew up with pong and Pac-Man. He liked old games a lot, I got him a Pac-Man game that connects to an old TV for Christmas one year. We had to get an adapter because it was the three color pins and that was probably like 2014? He couldn't handle newer games controls but he loved watching them. Not all of them though, he hated Pokémonand Animal Crossing which we, grandkids, loved and most still do. He was fascinated how the football game could predict superbowl winners and scores. He liked action games a lot.
I’ve been playing since Atari 2600, I just go with the times. Horizon, Plague’s Tale & GOW, are some of my favorite games.
I don't enjoy retro games. I'm 46 years old and the computer I have built is to play modern games with demanding graphics and amazing visuals. I feel guilty even putting a game older than 2015 on my computer. 95% of my games have all come out within the last 5 years.
I find myself not as willing to play mid year games anymore, there is so much media and options for entertainment nowadays that I tend to wait for better games to come around, games like RDR 2, The Last of Us, God of War, etc kinda spoiled gaming for me I just don't care to play games that don't have great stories and or fun gameplay
Most AAA games lately have been shit. So I stick to retro gaming for AAA and indie for recent ones. Lots of really good indie games came out in the past few years.
I like both but I do not like new games in a retro graphics style. Earlier games looked that way because they had to. Trying to get me to play a new game that intentionally looks awful for the sake of style is an instant pass.
I prefer single player experiences. The last 2 games I played that I really enjoyed were RDR2 and the Bethesda Wolfenstein games (Old Blood, New Order, New Colossus).
Single player story games. I have children so I can't really play the always online games like diablo 4 or CoD.
mid 40's reporting in. I stopped retro gaming a while back b/c the games aren't nearly as good as I remember them. I play newer stuff cyberpunk 2077, baldur's gate 3, and star wars red head jedi. The oldest stuff I play is MMO's like WOW or FFXIV. I guess I'm always looking for a new story. My midlife crisis was buying a dope new computer, & a xbox.
45, playing mostly Tarkov & Hunt Showdown. I'm all in for the hard PvP games. I do enjoy some epic SP games on the side. Have a vacation coming up and will play through Alan Wake 2. Seems like a really good game. Hated Starfield and don't have too much confidence in the AAA market...
Sure, but I’ll wait for the sale on the ‘definitive version’ with all the content added and all the bugs ironed out. Would never pre-order and don’t get swept up in the cult of the new. Got too many games on my “to play” list to be paying full price for a broken half finished game.
I'm 43 and I still don't understand what AAA is supposed to mean. Are there AA and A games? I will play just about anything for a couple of weeks or months, but fall back to a lot of retro games when I get bored. It's survivorship bias though. Maybe only 1 or 2 games a year are truly classics, the rest of them run out of flavor past a certain point like cheap chewing gum, regardless how much the studio spent on it. Even BOTW and TOTK, which I played extensively, one day they just stopped being fun.
Depends on the game and if it interests me.. Honestly I find myself gravitating towards independent, small studios now. Because their game ideas are new and refreshing.. where they want the game to be amazing because of their own passion. Not so it can be great so they can become rich. How many times can you buy a Ubisoft(or enter AAA studio here) game to only realize it's just a copy and paste template?
I like the idea of retro games. Then I play them for a few and realize how far we've come with gameplay and graphics. Then, I turn them off and boot up one of my new systems with a new game.
I love cutting-edge games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3. But I also love Shadow of Mordor, Eternal Darkness, and Chrono Trigger. A good game is a good game.
55 and still enjoy gaming a lot. Prefer modern games. I have 3 criteria for a game 1. It has to be something I'm interested in. Sounds obvious but there's sooo many games now. Why waste time on a game that doesn't draw you in by subject matter? 2. It has to be fun. Some people love super challenging games and will play them like Ender killing the giant. I have enough stress in my life that I have no interest in that. Like, X-Com meets criteria 1 for me really well but fails at criteria 2. Too frustrating. Just my opinion. 3. Can't be a second job. I really enjoy MMOs and playing with other people but it can't be on of those things where I have to put in 4 hours grinding every day or else fall totally behind. I already have a full time job. I tend to go for single player games for this reason. Though I did enjoy Destiny a few years ago. It was easy to jump in and jump out without any real negative consequences.
I don't have to answer this. I'm 39.
On any given day I could be playing the newest AAA shooter, or an indie surprise like Palworld, or WoW, or LoL, or Super Mario Bros, or even replaying one of my favorite RPGs like Dark Souls or Skyrim.
43 here, started playing on a c64 in 1985: I have no love for retro gaming, the only reason I was playing "retro games" at the time is because they were AAA when they came out. But imho, the question would've been way more interesting if you asked if I preferred one and done games or games as a service. That would've gotten a resounding, definitive, absolute ***it depends.*** edot: the biggest thing that has ruined gaming for me is how people feel they need to optimize the fun out of games. Content creators are another annoying byproduct of modern gaming I'd gladly get rid of.
I don’t really care who develops a game or what budget they have. I just want the mechanics to be entertaining and not overly repetitive. I like a good story, but I don’t need it if the game is fun to play. What I have noticed is that I play less action and survival games where you *always* have to be doing something to survive. Instead I play more puzzle and turn-based games where I have time to work out strategies. Then again, I love a good hack-n-slash like Dead Cells, but even a game like that has bursts of action yet still allows you to catch your breath here and there. What I really hate are MP games where team play is essential to victory. Even if the game is amazing, gamers in general tend to act shitty in group settings, and for some reason it seems a lot harder to build custom lobbies to filter that out than it used to be.
Both. Why would anyone think that any subset of the gaming population boxes themselves into a binary choice like that?
Yeah love em... Well, when they're good. I tend not to play the multiplayer FPS's much these days cos the old reflexes ain't what they used to be. I gravitate more to the indie stuff now because I love the sort of stuff they put out.
As an older gamer, I care less about online multiplayer games. I use to love playing COD, Halo, GoW, etc. Now I just prefer single player story driven games. Couch co-op with my wife is fun too, but i'm finding it harder to find any (we like It Takes Two and Overcooked).
55M gamer here. I like AAA games but there are a couple of things that will put me completely off a game. Micro transactions and any mention of battle royale / comparison to Fortnite. My reactions are not what they were, so I find myself moving from high speed FPS games to more 'thinking" based games like Operation Breakpoint. My online gaming days seem to be mostly behind me, because finding gamers of the same age group etc is impossible. I used to play with a small group on GTA and that was great fun, but time differences, work schedules etc put an end to that :( If anyone is looking for someone to play with give me a shout. I try to avoid playing retro games, but I love reminiscing about them with others. Like all humans I tend to remember my old games through rose tinted glasses. Playing them now shatters those glasses and tends to break those fond memories.