Has gaming got better since you started playing?

[tapedeck]

This can mean many things, let me elaborate:

 

I'm sure many of us here have been playing electronic games for years. Maybe you continue to do so, or maybe you've since grown tired of gaming. Whether you came into gaming during the Atari years or were sucked into the Playstation's mainstream machine, it doesn't really matter. Enjoying electronic entertainment can be seen as fundamentally the same - Whether you were schooled in Pong or Wii Sports.

 

But has gaming got better for you? Have big-budgets and hi-def gaming made a diference to your viewpoint of games or the industry as a whole? And have games got better in regards to their design?

 

Another question:

 

I've been playing since the Atari days and obviously gaming has become a much more 'accepted' medium. It's difficult to say that when I am in my twilight years I will still be picking up a controller. But is that what you will do? Will gaming oust you due to ever-increasing costs or technological know-how? Or will gaming always be a part of your life?

 

Answers on a postcard as usual

[Patch]

I've been gaming since before the Atari years and I can honestly say I enjoy gaming as much now as I did back then. I remember being totally hyped for getting 'Midnight Magic' (Atari 2600 pinball game), getting frustrated many times over on Zelda (obscure NES game) and watching schoolmates in envy as they played Shinobi (Master System game). /End Grandpa Mode

 

So in a sense, not much has changed since those days. I still experience all those emotions with today's games and I hope to for as long as I'm able.

 

To me, gaming has simply become different.

[tapedeck]

To me, gaming has simply become different.

 

I like it Patch, nice to have the golden oldies mentioned! I agree that the initial hype feeling still remains and the frustration and enjoyment emotions are still factors every gamer has experienced. And yes, I too see the envy factor still bubbles under as three consoles (and their fans) dominate the gaming landscape.

 

Maybe there are greater implications involved there as there are now three major manuacturers looking to dominate. Looking into the past there were names like Atari, Sega, Amiga, C64, Spectrum and 3DO - These may send shivers down our spines (good and bad) but those defunct console makers may have been the start of someones love affair with gaming. I'm sure SEGA in particular changed gaming perceptions with Sonic in the 90's.

[blender]

no its got worse. I think the problem is that I spend to much money on new games rather than obsessing with the ones I do own. The other problem is that many games are more like crack! rather than fun. I think the online elements have made it way too social which is bad for my social life if you know what i mean.

[darksnowman]

Blender is onto something- I too spend to much time buying games and reading up on them rather than playing what I already have. It wasn't like this back in the olden days I tell you when there was only the odd NMS, Bad Influence and Movies, Games & Videos and none of this here Internet.

 

Gaming is likely better than ever. Games are available everywhere and they have become a huge business but we'll always look back on whatever we started off with as the golden period. *returns to adding Wii points in anticipation of the C64 games.*

[dazzybee]

Hmmm, I maybe classed as one of the oldies being born with a ZX Spectrum 56K rubber keyboard in my hands!! I've had pretty much every single console and handheld bar the 3di and PS3 (and I've just ordered one of them). Nintendo have always been my main love in gaming.....

 

As for have games got better, I'm sure people will say no, nostalgic is a wonderful thing. It's a trciky one, the last generation I was truly bored and thought that's it for me and gaming, than a certain Nintendo DS got released and got me excited again, then the Wii came out and I was truly hooked as much as I have ever been. The fact I've got a job means I buy shit loads of games, but don't really play through them all! It's weird, getting a game years ago was a big occasion because I couldn't afford many and xmas day was amazing cause i'd always get 2-3 games. Now I just buy every game I want so the special feeling has gone.

 

I probably don't get the same buzz from gaming as I did with the SNES and N64 years, but it's a a different one, I'm truly inspired by the Wii and playing games with my family is an experience I haven't since those first years with the spectrum when the whole family would play Chuckie Egg, Attic Attack etc. Now most of my family have DS's and all really enjoy the Wii, for me this is an amazing thing. And my girlfriend loves the Wii, my non gaming friends do, so it's a great experience playing with them! I mean my girlfriend has played through Zelda too!!! Incredible really.

 

In general terms i think gaming has become something great, online gaming in particular will continue to amaze and with new technologies - Wii, Z Camera etc. gaming will continue to be special for gamers long in the future and will be better experiences than what we get now. But I always feel gaming (well anything) is more special depending on where you are in life!!

[Tito]

I still enjoy games just as much as before, the only downside is that I'm no longer 12 years old and can't play as much, but I still play a lot, and most likely will play for my whole life. Technology allows for very rich game experiences, and since the Playstation and Xbox gaming has really grown. As much as I like Nintendo and dislike the current trend of style over substance, I don't think the industry as a whole would be where it is now if Nintendo hadn't lost its monopoly. Now there is a lot of competition, and that means more good games for us.

[Intensity]

Nothing will ever surpass the N64 days for me, in terms of truely quality titles. Sure, games didnt come out all that often but when they did, god they were worth waiting for.

[Maiky-NiSuTe]

hmm tough question.. well i have to answer with a yes and a no. yes in terms of technology (graphics and console power) and innovations (controlers and internet). no i terms of fun (having a good laugh with the friends that sit next to you) and gameplay (everything has gone to strait forwart.)

[Cube]

My main problem now is I have money (actually I don't. But I spend it anyway) to buy new games. So I buy the games, but don't play them enough.

 

I remember the days when I fully completed games...

[Strange Cookie]

I don't think gaming has changed as much as I have.

 

Allow me to explain: I started gaming at a fairly young age, and it really kicked off with the NES. The Golden Age of Gaming for me was the SNES-era. Not because the games were better then (revisiting some 'classics' make me wonder how I put up), but because I was at an age where it still had something magical. Back then the power of a console was measured by one simple thing: bits. A console was defined wheter it 'was' 8 or 16-bits. These days, it's polygons, shaders, anti-aliasing, dynamic lightning, multi-processing, after-processing filters and all that jazz. And let's not forget about the rise or the online-gaming.

 

So, if I let my gut talk, than I think gaming was better in the early days. But my rational mind says: no, you simply experienced and looked at it in a different way back then.

 

In the end, no matter how technology changes, there will always be crappy games around. So I think it hasn't really gotten better or worse. It simply changed.

[Rummy]

I feel I'm gonna reiterate what alot of people have said. First off, I was started off in gaming probably by my cousins having a gameboy, my mum later got us one and at some point we got a SNES+SuperScope for christmas too(I can't even remember which came first!). Of course, from that, I've been a Nintendo man for alot of the time, growing up, I was the sort who'd take the view everything else is inferior, as you do growing up, you're immature and have a bias, trying to maintain the identity you have, I guess. I didn't get my first non-ninty system til 2005, a nice Xbox Crystal

 

As for the actual question, has gaming gotten better for me? I feel like saying no. I feel there's too many factors though. When you're younger, you appreciate it more I think, plus everything seems to last longer as a kid too! When you're a kid, you don't have the means to be getting a new game too often, you get like 3 a year maybe, if you're lucky! As a result, you play the crap out of what you have, and as some people have said here, now it's less done. I, too, buy games, play them a bit, then move onto the next without getting the first's full play out of it, except in occasional cases. I'm not as pleased as I was as a kid, I guess. I need more stimulation!

 

That's not saying why things haven't gotten better though. I feel games actually lasted longer when I was younger, maybe I found them harder cos I was younger, maybe they actually were, but I feel some games these days are just too short, or too easy! I think in SMB1(on All-Stars) I've only gotten to the final bowser once, or twice, and that was a combined effort with me and my bro and over a long time thanks to savery. It felt longer, but if I went back now, I feel I could do it easily in a couple hours. Having said that, I can't help but think how Galaxy just wasn't as hard as SM64.

 

Maybe things haven't gotten worse as such, they've just gotten different, things have changed, and I feel as I'm growing up I'm turning into old man rummy, reliving the old days, how it was when I was a kid, the glory days! Punk kids these days don't know how good they had it. Do I plan on still gaming when I'm grey around the ears, raising kids and grandkids? You can bet your ass I am, I wanna keep gaming til I die, and I'm all for it in kids in a sensible manner(my mother only let us play on weekends until I was well into secondary school and started ignoring her, so consider that in my grand scheme of things).

 

I don't think I could ever leave gaming behind, it was like...the biggest part of me growing up. My parents still made jokes and comments about my gaming habits right up until I was 18, though they were getting off the mark as I was growing out of it a bit. My uncle still says it's weird seeing me without a gameboy in my hand(i used to take it everywhere family wise, sit in the corner and play, otherwise I got bored). For something I could do on weekends and didn't have alot of, it was my defining characteristic as a child and teen, gaming and spiderman were my two biggest passions, and I don't think I'll ever be able to leave either of them behind.

 

Blender is onto something- I too spend to much time buying games and reading up on them rather than playing what I already have. It wasn't like this back in the olden days I tell you when there was only the odd NMS, Bad Influence and Movies, Games & Videos and none of this here Internet.

 

Gaming is likely better than ever. Games are available everywhere and they have become a huge business but we'll always look back on whatever we started off with as the golden period. *returns to adding Wii points in anticipation of the C64 games.*

I totally agree with that too, it's much more....available? accessible? Back in the day you had to shell out money for a magazine or so, wait on a wednesday afternoon for your pitiful 30minute tv programme about games to come on! But with the internet, you can find out anything anywhere for free and in a matter of minutes. Not only that, but they go so much hand in hand, the internet is a great medium for gaming, and so full of gaming related humour and references, I'd say gaming was a big part of the early users of the internet and has had a profound influence on its development.

 

Btw Tapedeck, brilliant idea for a thread.

[tapedeck]

This is great, we all sound like Cranky Kong!

[Goron_3]

Gaming for me has been going downhill ever since I played Ocarina of Time.

[Intensity]

Gaming for me has been going downhill ever since I played Ocarina of Time.

 

Resident Evil 4 disagrees with you

[Ollie]

I haven't touched a console since WoW took over my life. As with what a lot of other people have said, I spend too much money buying games, there are too many games I want to play coming out all the time and not being a kid and having lots of free time anymore, I just can't finish them.

 

I do actually believe that something has changed with games, the peak for me was my N64. All games I ever played led to that era, but nothing has since made me WANT to play. I simply play now (consoles) because I feel I have to. I do honestly think thats down to lazy developers rather than nostalgia. Bring on the days of Banjo Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing and Zelda OoT. Go away Halo, WoW and PGR. Don't get me wrong, these games are great, just not as great.....

[darksnowman]

Epic stuff there Rummy. You raised another good point- are games just too easy now?

 

I know there are likely plenty of games that are hard as nails (Zack and Wiki!), but even then, do you find that you simply don't persevere through them any more?

 

But yeah, I can't help but think of Cranky Kong either- games have so many colours and the controls use so many buttons nowadays... why in my day, we had one stick, one button and about four colours...

[Fandango]

Yes, I do think games have gotten much better, both in terms of quantity and quality, but as others have said just because there is so many fantastic games coming out regularly, you hardly get time to finish one before you move onto the next!

 

Not necessarily a bad thing though as you nearly always have a good selection to pick from, and there really is something for everyone!

[McMad]

Discovering my love for video games on the N64 was probably the greatest gaming period of my life. Everything felt brand new for me.

 

At the moment I've had the most fun playing games that offer subversive experiences such as Silent Hill 2, Portal and Persona 3. Everything else either sucks or just feels like a refinement of older game design... Still I've played many amazing sequels in the past few months.

[Tito]

haven't touched a console since WoW took over my life.

 

Which is why I generally avoid MMOs (well, that and being unable to play offline, and the subscription doesn't help either) and other games that "don't end", like Civilization. I am a somewhat compulsive gamer (actually, my behavior is compulsive in general), and it doesn't really take much for me to forget about everything and play all day long...

[Pyxis]

As far as Nintendo goes, I have now lost almost all of my interest in playing games. The last game worth playing for me on a Nintendo home console was Resident Evil 4. I've completed that 4 times... I owned about 50 games on the GameCube and own 3 on the Wii. I read reviews and comments, so im not going to spend £30-£40 on rubbish half arsed games like the Umbrella Chronicles or Sonic.

 

I just think that the Wii is so crap. It has such a silly controller that isnt anywhere near as good as I imagined (its far worse than the GameCube controller) and its graphics are awful. The wii remote seems like a joke, I dont even know whether its supposed to be as awful as it is on my TV. The pointer doesnt even line up with where I am pointing. (Im not playing games on my sensor bar!!!). Why have a pointer when you have to point it away from where you need to point it? Even my fav franchises like Mario seem too confusing and alien for me to consider buying. The only game Im looking forward to is the next F-Zero, but F-Zero X was better than GX... That franchise is getting worse.

 

I wanted a GameCube 2, but the Xbox 360 seems like a far more loyal successor than the Wii. I think I started to lose faith in Nintendo once they announced that its name was the 'Wii'. Does anybody else want to scratch that stupid name off their Revolution? The only good thing about it is the Virtual Console.

 

As I only own Nintendo consoles, gaming has definitely got worse since the days of the N64 and GameCube. The DS is a brilliant console though and its probably my favourite console of all time.

 

Good games never die and a lot are far better than their sequels..

[kiwikid]

I sometimes feel like I'm going through some sort of gaming puberty and my hormones are all over the place. One minute I feel like having a blast then the next I'm thinking about how it's all such a chore. Nostalgia is messing with my head big time. I keep thinking how great it was when I would buy a new game not knowing a thing about it, just looking at the back and thinking 'this looks cool - lets buy it'.

 

This happened to me when purchasing games such as Super Metroid, Secret of Mana and Goldeneye. Back then I only had access to magazines for any snippets of info, none of this internet business. Nowadays my opinions are clouded with news and reviews from all sorts of avenues. I'm currently having difficulty getting enthused about Zack and Wiki. I have it and have started playing it but I feel that I need to devote hours of time to it and that to me seems daunting when there are so many other responsibilities in life (curse getting older). I'm also playing Tomb Raider and that has lots of little checpionts dotted through out that I can feel less pressured and intimidated by it.

 

My feelings are all over the place right now but I think I'm losing interest which is a sad thing for me. Being a stubborn Nintendo only gamer doesn't help either but I really don't have time to play every good game on 3 different consoles let alone one. Perhaps I should just go back to picking a game off a shelf if I like the look of it and not have any preconceived expectations of it. If it turns out great then cool, if it turns out to be a pile of poo then thats my tough bickies.

[tapedeck]

As the internet becomes more like Youtube - The impression games make on us will be wrecked. Remember seeing Mario 64 for the first time? I'm sure Galaxy would have blown that out of the water, yet by the time it's got to our TV's we've been mostly desensitised to it through grainy, conference streaming.

 

I propose something....I DARE someone to not look at ANY screens/vids/reviews of ANY upcoming Wii title (only magazine coverage is allowed) and then you mut buy that title. Magically perhaps, it may then be far better than you imagined.

 

BTW....I cannot do this. I've been conditioned too much!

[Tito]

Yes, the internet took a lot of the "magic" away from the games. I'm not going to whine about it and wish for the return of the "golden age", but I've also felt that was a downside to the internet age. Perhaps the most defining game in my life was "Wild Arms", for the PS1. I wouldn't like RPGs so much without it, heck, I wouldn't even be here without it, as I would not have learned English. I was 12\13 years old checking out some games looking for something fun to rent. I came across this game called "Wild Arms". It was a pirate copy (that's right. In my country, many legal shops freely rent and sell pirated games), so the only thing on the box was the handwritten "Wild Arms" name. luckily form me "wild" and "arms" were among the 5 or 6 English words I knew at the time, so I figured it was "obviously" a wild action game with lots of cool arms!! Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw the game had no action whatsoever, I just had to go around talking to people without understanding a word of it, and when I ran across a monster, I just had to click on a menu, sit back and watch. Boooooriiiing!!!!! But for some reason, I felt compelled to understand what those funny looking people were saying, and I started playing with a dictionary by my side. In time, I needed the dictionary less and less, and soon an English-speaking RPG fanatic was born!! If I knew what the game was like beforehand, I would have stayed the heck away from it.

[Emasher]

Gaming for me has been going downhill ever since I played Ocarina of Time.

 

Ocarina was the first Nintendo game I ever played, And I think your absolutely right. There have been some great games since, but there just aren't as many great games as there used to be.