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It looks like it's coming towards the end of the line for me, as far as gaming goes. It's been going down hill ever since... well... ever since either Goldeneye or Pokémon Red... or maybe WWF No Mercy...
I can't remember the exact ups and downs, but I remember there being about 6 months between finishing Conker's Bad Fur Day and getting my mitts on the Gamecube, and by then something had changed.
Gaming stopped being THE most important thing in my life and from there, although I didn't really notice it at the time, I slowly started losing all interest.
Infact, the most fun I've had from gaming recently is a heavy hit of nostalgia (although Metroid Prime has managed to very pleasantly surprise me, but I know that if I'd played this game 2 years ago, pleasantly surprised would be the biggest understatement ever).
I just don't enjoy games like I used to.
And I know why.
It's because I've more or less seen it all now.
I rememer when I first played Goldeneye, it was all fresh and exciting.
Sure, I'd played FPS before but they were crap and lifeless in comparison.
The 4 player splitscreen multiplayer, the intense single player missions which changed drastically with each difficulty setting.
But that wasn't it.
Because I'd never played a game like this before everything was new and unexplored. Everything was interesting and intruiging.
Shooting glass and watching it shatter. Shooting a guards had off, sniping unsuspecting guards from a distance, playing with glitches, exploring all possibilities with cheats (sending guards flying with explosives was HILARIOUS) and messing around with the AI.
Perfect Dark came along and nearly bettered it in nearly every way.
There were almost infinately more possibilities, only... other than the parts that were completely new from Goldeneye (like the Carrington Institute target range), I'd seen or done it all before.
And besides, when it came to FPS, I was an expert gamer now. Now I played to win, to beat it, more than I played for fun.
Sure, it had moments where I would mess around, but very few compared to Goldeneye. I'd become too experienced to enjoyed the simple pleasures in the game.
Take Pokémon Red.
The first RPG I ever played through.
This game also had it all.
Sure, the fighting system was fairly simplistic to the likes of Final Fantasy, but with so many monsters with so many different strengths and weaknesses, this sort of made it work better.
I must've spent over 500+ hours on that game (the in game clock stopped working after 256 hours and I think I passed that atleast twice - two play throughs).
Even after I finished the story, I then went about tracking down the rare Pokémon (like Zapdos and Mewtwo) and catching every single last Pokémon in the game (unlike that amature Ash, I DID catch them all! - although due to the nature of the game, I DID have to trade for some of them...).
And while I mastered the entire game, gradually learning about all the different types of Pokémon, their strengths and weaknesses, what moves they learn, where you can find them, I also spent countless hours training my super-teams to level 100.
Yeah it sounds sad now, but at the time I was totally hooked.
Sure, I got Pokémon Gold before it even reached our shores (regional lock-outs on the Gameboy! :-) ) and it was better in almost every way (starting with the fact that it was in beautiful full colour rather than everything in shades of red! :-D) but when I'd finished the story, I still spent countless hours finding the last Pokémon and training more "super teams" but the new one never made it to Level 100, and although I caught all 251, most of them were traded from my old Red game, and throughout the whole game, rather than simply enjoying the adventure, I'd, in many places, been playing to beat it, scouring for secrets and basically playing like the pro-gamer I'd become.
Such has been the nature of all games I've played before.
With Mario 64 I spent hours playing with Mario's 3D jumping tricks. With Mario Sunshine, I did that a fair bit at first (that Delphino City place is great fun for jumping on roofs) but the novelty wore out faster.
With Zelda 64 I scoured the landscape for every last heart piece and Skultula.
With Majora's Mask I didn't bother with the last heart pieces and Windwaker I stopped playing once I beat the story (I did briefly start again for a re-run with the special "hero of time" mode but got bored quickly).
The original Smash Brother's was played to death as I mastered every last character and got a high score for all of them (getting over a million points of each of the 14 - and NGC gave a raving mention + prize to an amature who only managed it with 13! :-P).
Smash Brother's Melée had more moves and modes of play and infinite possibilities and has probably clocked up the most gameplay out of all my Gamecube games but was barely played compared to the exstensive play it's predecessor got.
Heck, Timesplitters 2 had it all, but bar the few new twists (mostly involving that genius flaming system) I'd played it all before.
The game I've enjoyed the most recently, were ones that I'd not played anything like - Metroid Prime, Commandos and Pikmin namely.
Even then, they would've impressed me a lot more in the day.
I'm too experienced.
After all I used to say on here about never growing up, that's what happened. I never quite left Cloud Cuckoo Land... Cloud Cuckoo Land just gradually turned into a whole new place...
Time for something fresh, something new, something I've not done to death.
And yeah... I resultantly got a life... shame on me! :-S
It's not that I've given up games, or that I don't still enjoy them.
I do. I still play them a little more than I should...
But there WAS a time when a new game would be the important thing in my life, would capture my mind in a way that I could not think of anything else (VERY dangerous during exam time! :-S).
now they're just games.
So how experienced are you?
I can't remember the exact ups and downs, but I remember there being about 6 months between finishing Conker's Bad Fur Day and getting my mitts on the Gamecube, and by then something had changed.
Gaming stopped being THE most important thing in my life and from there, although I didn't really notice it at the time, I slowly started losing all interest.
Infact, the most fun I've had from gaming recently is a heavy hit of nostalgia (although Metroid Prime has managed to very pleasantly surprise me, but I know that if I'd played this game 2 years ago, pleasantly surprised would be the biggest understatement ever).
I just don't enjoy games like I used to.
And I know why.
It's because I've more or less seen it all now.
I rememer when I first played Goldeneye, it was all fresh and exciting.
Sure, I'd played FPS before but they were crap and lifeless in comparison.
The 4 player splitscreen multiplayer, the intense single player missions which changed drastically with each difficulty setting.
But that wasn't it.
Because I'd never played a game like this before everything was new and unexplored. Everything was interesting and intruiging.
Shooting glass and watching it shatter. Shooting a guards had off, sniping unsuspecting guards from a distance, playing with glitches, exploring all possibilities with cheats (sending guards flying with explosives was HILARIOUS) and messing around with the AI.
Perfect Dark came along and nearly bettered it in nearly every way.
There were almost infinately more possibilities, only... other than the parts that were completely new from Goldeneye (like the Carrington Institute target range), I'd seen or done it all before.
And besides, when it came to FPS, I was an expert gamer now. Now I played to win, to beat it, more than I played for fun.
Sure, it had moments where I would mess around, but very few compared to Goldeneye. I'd become too experienced to enjoyed the simple pleasures in the game.
Take Pokémon Red.
The first RPG I ever played through.
This game also had it all.
Sure, the fighting system was fairly simplistic to the likes of Final Fantasy, but with so many monsters with so many different strengths and weaknesses, this sort of made it work better.
I must've spent over 500+ hours on that game (the in game clock stopped working after 256 hours and I think I passed that atleast twice - two play throughs).
Even after I finished the story, I then went about tracking down the rare Pokémon (like Zapdos and Mewtwo) and catching every single last Pokémon in the game (unlike that amature Ash, I DID catch them all! - although due to the nature of the game, I DID have to trade for some of them...).
And while I mastered the entire game, gradually learning about all the different types of Pokémon, their strengths and weaknesses, what moves they learn, where you can find them, I also spent countless hours training my super-teams to level 100.
Yeah it sounds sad now, but at the time I was totally hooked.
Sure, I got Pokémon Gold before it even reached our shores (regional lock-outs on the Gameboy! :-) ) and it was better in almost every way (starting with the fact that it was in beautiful full colour rather than everything in shades of red! :-D) but when I'd finished the story, I still spent countless hours finding the last Pokémon and training more "super teams" but the new one never made it to Level 100, and although I caught all 251, most of them were traded from my old Red game, and throughout the whole game, rather than simply enjoying the adventure, I'd, in many places, been playing to beat it, scouring for secrets and basically playing like the pro-gamer I'd become.
Such has been the nature of all games I've played before.
With Mario 64 I spent hours playing with Mario's 3D jumping tricks. With Mario Sunshine, I did that a fair bit at first (that Delphino City place is great fun for jumping on roofs) but the novelty wore out faster.
With Zelda 64 I scoured the landscape for every last heart piece and Skultula.
With Majora's Mask I didn't bother with the last heart pieces and Windwaker I stopped playing once I beat the story (I did briefly start again for a re-run with the special "hero of time" mode but got bored quickly).
The original Smash Brother's was played to death as I mastered every last character and got a high score for all of them (getting over a million points of each of the 14 - and NGC gave a raving mention + prize to an amature who only managed it with 13! :-P).
Smash Brother's Melée had more moves and modes of play and infinite possibilities and has probably clocked up the most gameplay out of all my Gamecube games but was barely played compared to the exstensive play it's predecessor got.
Heck, Timesplitters 2 had it all, but bar the few new twists (mostly involving that genius flaming system) I'd played it all before.
The game I've enjoyed the most recently, were ones that I'd not played anything like - Metroid Prime, Commandos and Pikmin namely.
Even then, they would've impressed me a lot more in the day.
I'm too experienced.
After all I used to say on here about never growing up, that's what happened. I never quite left Cloud Cuckoo Land... Cloud Cuckoo Land just gradually turned into a whole new place...
Time for something fresh, something new, something I've not done to death.
And yeah... I resultantly got a life... shame on me! :-S
It's not that I've given up games, or that I don't still enjoy them.
I do. I still play them a little more than I should...
But there WAS a time when a new game would be the important thing in my life, would capture my mind in a way that I could not think of anything else (VERY dangerous during exam time! :-S).
now they're just games.
So how experienced are you?
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Pandaemonium wrote:
> However, they still are just games, and I treat them the same as
> movies (which I also love) in which there is a time and place for
> them, and I don't let them run my life.
Sounds like you're similar to how I am now.
But was there ever a time when they blew you away so much that they DID rule your life? When looking forward to a new game was the most important thing in your life?
Perhaps you were past your impressionable teens when gaming got really deep, so games never meant more than pastime to you.
So Notorious Biggles is like me, except he got two head on obbsessions - the first time round in the world of 2D and the second time round when the N64 blasted it all into 3D.
I think Messy is with us as well.
Grandprix never lost his enamour for games, but perhaps that enamour wasn't so big in the first place (like a Rubix cube, you're not blown away by it, you just spend ages doing it) and Pandemonium has always had it as a hobbie - never mind blowing but not boring.
I've got to get Dringo in here, see what his "experience is".
I mean, if he's finding Windwaker impressive after an N64 upbringing...
He must be taking E's or something! ;-D
> However, they still are just games, and I treat them the same as
> movies (which I also love) in which there is a time and place for
> them, and I don't let them run my life.
Sounds like you're similar to how I am now.
But was there ever a time when they blew you away so much that they DID rule your life? When looking forward to a new game was the most important thing in your life?
Perhaps you were past your impressionable teens when gaming got really deep, so games never meant more than pastime to you.
So Notorious Biggles is like me, except he got two head on obbsessions - the first time round in the world of 2D and the second time round when the N64 blasted it all into 3D.
I think Messy is with us as well.
Grandprix never lost his enamour for games, but perhaps that enamour wasn't so big in the first place (like a Rubix cube, you're not blown away by it, you just spend ages doing it) and Pandemonium has always had it as a hobbie - never mind blowing but not boring.
I've got to get Dringo in here, see what his "experience is".
I mean, if he's finding Windwaker impressive after an N64 upbringing...
He must be taking E's or something! ;-D
Messy wrote:
> I've analyzed the data shown here, and I'm sorry to say there's only
> one conclusion to be drawn. You're a hedgehog! Congratulations!
Preferrably a cool blue one that travels at Super Sonic speeds...
Like Sonic! :D
> I've analyzed the data shown here, and I'm sorry to say there's only
> one conclusion to be drawn. You're a hedgehog! Congratulations!
Preferrably a cool blue one that travels at Super Sonic speeds...
Like Sonic! :D
Strafio wrote:
> So how experienced are you?
I'm thirty years old. I have been playing games since I first played Zaxxon and Donkey Kong in a roadside cafe (donkey kong had battlezone controls). I still play games regularly. However, I'm a hobbiest programmer, and although I agree that current titles are a bit lackluster, there are titles that still make me sit up. Half Life 2, Far Cry, Doom 3.
The physics are just starting to get integrated into titles, and in the future, there will be some amazing products.
However, they still are just games, and I treat them the same as movies (which I also love) in which there is a time and place for them, and I don't let them run my life.
> So how experienced are you?
I'm thirty years old. I have been playing games since I first played Zaxxon and Donkey Kong in a roadside cafe (donkey kong had battlezone controls). I still play games regularly. However, I'm a hobbiest programmer, and although I agree that current titles are a bit lackluster, there are titles that still make me sit up. Half Life 2, Far Cry, Doom 3.
The physics are just starting to get integrated into titles, and in the future, there will be some amazing products.
However, they still are just games, and I treat them the same as movies (which I also love) in which there is a time and place for them, and I don't let them run my life.
I've analyzed the data shown here, and I'm sorry to say there's only one conclusion to be drawn. You're a hedgehog! Congratulations!
Strafio wrote:
> Or perhaps friends were more appealing now gaming's sheen had worn
> off.
> (that happened to me...)
Nah, I always tried to be a good friend. Just the way I was brought up.
> But even so, there must've been time when a game suddenly meant more
> than a set of challenges, and then slowly degraded again?
> Yes?
The only games I've really cared about were Sonic. For some reason, Sonic was a character that spoke to me. Maybe it was his attitude or the speed factor or a combination of many things. For most people, that fades. If anything, I care more about Sonic and Sonic games now then I did 10 years ago.
Of course, you lose the initial excitement of waiting for and playing a new game that arrives but to me games, apart from Sonic, are all on the same level. They are a challenge and are there to be conquered. I try to have fun and get my mind involved too, but it does depend a bit on my mood.
> Or perhaps friends were more appealing now gaming's sheen had worn
> off.
> (that happened to me...)
Nah, I always tried to be a good friend. Just the way I was brought up.
> But even so, there must've been time when a game suddenly meant more
> than a set of challenges, and then slowly degraded again?
> Yes?
The only games I've really cared about were Sonic. For some reason, Sonic was a character that spoke to me. Maybe it was his attitude or the speed factor or a combination of many things. For most people, that fades. If anything, I care more about Sonic and Sonic games now then I did 10 years ago.
Of course, you lose the initial excitement of waiting for and playing a new game that arrives but to me games, apart from Sonic, are all on the same level. They are a challenge and are there to be conquered. I try to have fun and get my mind involved too, but it does depend a bit on my mood.
Grandprix wrote:
> I probably would have done but I had gotten older, had a few more
> friends, started doing other things. That's not to say I wouldn't
> have done because if I wasn't doing homework or playing with my
> friends, I'd be gaming.
Or perhaps friends were more appealing now gaming's sheen had worn off.
(that happened to me...)
> Personally, apart from the repetitiveness and the relative ease of
> the game [Starfox Adventures], I didn't think it was that bad. I've always enjoyed a good
> puzzle.
I didn't mind the puzzles. It was the dire fighting system.
Just tap the green button until they eventually stop blocking and dire.
SO BORING!
Ruined the entire game.
It might've been fun if they'd atleast made one as good as Orcarina of Time, let alone Wind Waker.
> The thing with me is, when I was young and I didn't have many
> friends, gaming was the only thing I did. When I got older, I played
> games with my friends and whenever I had some free time, I played
> games.
>
> My recent years have seen my friends move on to either working or
> ruining their lives and we've lost contact. I don't have anywhere to
> go and I have a lot of time on my hands. I don't have any friends to
> challenge. It's just me and my games again. I once again set myself
> the challenges and try to improve myself, be it in reactions, thought
> process or just just skill.
>
> I guess I'm just a rare breed of gamer.
Perhaps so.
But even so, there must've been time when a game suddenly meant more than a set of challenges, and then slowly degraded again?
Yes?
:-)
> I probably would have done but I had gotten older, had a few more
> friends, started doing other things. That's not to say I wouldn't
> have done because if I wasn't doing homework or playing with my
> friends, I'd be gaming.
Or perhaps friends were more appealing now gaming's sheen had worn off.
(that happened to me...)
> Personally, apart from the repetitiveness and the relative ease of
> the game [Starfox Adventures], I didn't think it was that bad. I've always enjoyed a good
> puzzle.
I didn't mind the puzzles. It was the dire fighting system.
Just tap the green button until they eventually stop blocking and dire.
SO BORING!
Ruined the entire game.
It might've been fun if they'd atleast made one as good as Orcarina of Time, let alone Wind Waker.
> The thing with me is, when I was young and I didn't have many
> friends, gaming was the only thing I did. When I got older, I played
> games with my friends and whenever I had some free time, I played
> games.
>
> My recent years have seen my friends move on to either working or
> ruining their lives and we've lost contact. I don't have anywhere to
> go and I have a lot of time on my hands. I don't have any friends to
> challenge. It's just me and my games again. I once again set myself
> the challenges and try to improve myself, be it in reactions, thought
> process or just just skill.
>
> I guess I'm just a rare breed of gamer.
Perhaps so.
But even so, there must've been time when a game suddenly meant more than a set of challenges, and then slowly degraded again?
Yes?
:-)
Strafio wrote:
> BUT, for the each Sonic game, did you do all this replay for as much
> as the last one?
> You might've replayed Sonic 2 a LOT, but did it get AS MUCH replay as
> the original Sonic did?
I probably would have done but I had gotten older, had a few more friends, started doing other things. That's not to say I wouldn't have done because if I wasn't doing homework or playing with my friends, I'd be gaming.
When I played Sonic 1, I was a child with no homework, nowhere to go, nothing to do but game. Gaming means quite a lot to me and it's one of the few things I'm actually good at and I aim to get even better at the games I have in my collection.
> Are you over exadurating how much you've replayed these games?
> The fact that anyone wanted to play Starfox Adventures AGAIN after
> completing it is a complete mystery to me! ;-)
> The fighting on it was so dire...
> Are you telling me that each new game impresses you even more than
> the last?
No, I've played those games a lot, be it beating records, just trying to complete them and getting as much out of them as I can by using alternative methods.
The thing with Starfox Adventures was that I had completed it once and then I lost the save on the memory card. I thought I'd might as well play it again and do a really thorough walkthrough for it. I plan, at some point, to play it again.
Personally, apart from the repetitiveness and the relative ease of the game, I didn't think it was that bad. I've always enjoyed a good puzzle.
The thing with me is, when I was young and I didn't have many friends, gaming was the only thing I did. When I got older, I played games with my friends and whenever I had some free time, I played games.
My recent years have seen my friends move on to either working or ruining their lives and we've lost contact. I don't have anywhere to go and I have a lot of time on my hands. I don't have any friends to challenge. It's just me and my games again. I once again set myself the challenges and try to improve myself, be it in reactions, thought process or just just skill.
I guess I'm just a rare breed of gamer.
> BUT, for the each Sonic game, did you do all this replay for as much
> as the last one?
> You might've replayed Sonic 2 a LOT, but did it get AS MUCH replay as
> the original Sonic did?
I probably would have done but I had gotten older, had a few more friends, started doing other things. That's not to say I wouldn't have done because if I wasn't doing homework or playing with my friends, I'd be gaming.
When I played Sonic 1, I was a child with no homework, nowhere to go, nothing to do but game. Gaming means quite a lot to me and it's one of the few things I'm actually good at and I aim to get even better at the games I have in my collection.
> Are you over exadurating how much you've replayed these games?
> The fact that anyone wanted to play Starfox Adventures AGAIN after
> completing it is a complete mystery to me! ;-)
> The fighting on it was so dire...
> Are you telling me that each new game impresses you even more than
> the last?
No, I've played those games a lot, be it beating records, just trying to complete them and getting as much out of them as I can by using alternative methods.
The thing with Starfox Adventures was that I had completed it once and then I lost the save on the memory card. I thought I'd might as well play it again and do a really thorough walkthrough for it. I plan, at some point, to play it again.
Personally, apart from the repetitiveness and the relative ease of the game, I didn't think it was that bad. I've always enjoyed a good puzzle.
The thing with me is, when I was young and I didn't have many friends, gaming was the only thing I did. When I got older, I played games with my friends and whenever I had some free time, I played games.
My recent years have seen my friends move on to either working or ruining their lives and we've lost contact. I don't have anywhere to go and I have a lot of time on my hands. I don't have any friends to challenge. It's just me and my games again. I once again set myself the challenges and try to improve myself, be it in reactions, thought process or just just skill.
I guess I'm just a rare breed of gamer.
Grandprix wrote:
>> No, the novelty hadn't worn off. I did similar things with the rest
> of the Sonic series on the Megadrive, Quackshot, Micro Machines 2,
> Super Monaco GP 1 and 2, Sensible Soccer.
Okay...
Similar...
BUT, for the each Sonic game, did you do all this replay for as much as the last one?
I mean, I still messed around a LOT on Perfect Dark, and even a fair bit on TS2 but nowhere near to the extent of Goldeneye.
You might've replayed Sonic 2 a LOT, but did it get AS MUCH replay as the original Sonic did?
> A few recent examples is Wacky Races, Tiger Woods, SSX Tricky, GTA,
> Burnout 2, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Starfox Adventures.
Hmmm...
Are you over exadurating how much you've replayed these games?
The fact that anyone wanted to play Starfox Adventures AGAIN after completing it is a complete mystery to me! ;-)
The fighting on it was so dire...
Are you telling me that each new game impresses you even more than the last?
>> No, the novelty hadn't worn off. I did similar things with the rest
> of the Sonic series on the Megadrive, Quackshot, Micro Machines 2,
> Super Monaco GP 1 and 2, Sensible Soccer.
Okay...
Similar...
BUT, for the each Sonic game, did you do all this replay for as much as the last one?
I mean, I still messed around a LOT on Perfect Dark, and even a fair bit on TS2 but nowhere near to the extent of Goldeneye.
You might've replayed Sonic 2 a LOT, but did it get AS MUCH replay as the original Sonic did?
> A few recent examples is Wacky Races, Tiger Woods, SSX Tricky, GTA,
> Burnout 2, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Starfox Adventures.
Hmmm...
Are you over exadurating how much you've replayed these games?
The fact that anyone wanted to play Starfox Adventures AGAIN after completing it is a complete mystery to me! ;-)
The fighting on it was so dire...
Are you telling me that each new game impresses you even more than the last?
Messy wrote:
> Crazy. The more you play, the less you want to.
>
> Not very good for the industry, is it?
Well... it only applies to the hardcore few...
The spend the least money on games because they know how to squeeze a game for every single last drop of gameplay it'll offer! ;-)
The thing is, the more experienced they become, the less satisfying this becomes, until the day comes when they've seen most of what gaming can offer them and then have their imaginations stolen by something new, fresh, and exciting...
The simpleton casual market are still more than happy to blow fortunes on the same Fifa game they bought last year.
:-)
> Crazy. The more you play, the less you want to.
>
> Not very good for the industry, is it?
Well... it only applies to the hardcore few...
The spend the least money on games because they know how to squeeze a game for every single last drop of gameplay it'll offer! ;-)
The thing is, the more experienced they become, the less satisfying this becomes, until the day comes when they've seen most of what gaming can offer them and then have their imaginations stolen by something new, fresh, and exciting...
The simpleton casual market are still more than happy to blow fortunes on the same Fifa game they bought last year.
:-)
Lylat Wars is more fun! The zooming and the boom and the ease... First game I ever completed.
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