Thursday 9 August 2012

Games today vs. in the "Old Days"

When I grow old enough to sit on my porch in a rocking chair and shout at people in the street, I fully intend to shout about how the young whippersnappers of today have it too easy with their Internets and whatnot... And that in MY day we had to load OUR games from analog magnetic bands and floppy discs that were actually floppy!

If you grew up before the beginning of the new millennium, and cut your teeth on video games in the 8-bit or 16-bit era, you probably have thought to yourself at some point: "Games are not nearly as good today as they were when I was young. Sure the graphics are better, but the game-play is just not what it used to be!"

...And you would be right! ...And wrong. My opinion is that gaming is now awesome again and have been for some time, after having been a bit dull for a few years before that. The gaming industry has had ups and downs in the 30+ years it has been an industry.

It is my intention with this blog to look back through the decades and examine the important developments, trends and titles that have had an influence on games up to today. I will probably not do this chronologically, and updates will most certainly be sporadic at best, but I WILL aspire to make it all fit in a context that by the time I'm done, will all make sense.

I am doing this mostly for my own benefit, as my brain has accumulated so much data about gaming over the years that I need to get it out in some structured form to make space for new stuff. However... If someone out there browsing through my stream of consciousness also find it somewhat interesting... Well, then a winner is you ;)



3 comments:

Jørn Tillnes said...

If there are great games out there these days I still haven't found it. Although, perhaps I have the attention span of an attention-less senile Goldfish. Last game I played for a few hours was Civilization 5 Gods & Kings. I also plan to spend a few hours with Football Manager 2013 when it arrives.

As for action or RPG's I haven't found anything good since Baldur's Gate and Diablo 2.

Still fire up the old C64, Amiga, Snes, Mame etc. emulator from time to time and still have lots more fun than I had when I tried Skyrim for example.

Glad you found some decent games still being made. What are they by the way?

Sveinjo said...

I found that gaming was awesome again mostly through the new wave of indie games that surfaced around 2008-2009 like Braid and Trine. I'll do an article about it someday :)

For the record, I actually enjoyed Skyrim quite a bit. I just wish it scaled better as you leveled up.

Jørn Tillnes said...

True, there are some good indie games, they just don't succeed in lastability (is that even a word?) with me. I think what I dislike the most is the complexity of games. You just can't pick up and play a game for fun within literally a minute like you could before.

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