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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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I was talking about Starfox Adventures on the Gamecube. Please don't confuse me. I'm easily confused. :)
Wahey, Starfox Adventures.
No, Lylat Wars, foo'.
o.O
No, Lylat Wars, foo'.
o.O
Strafio wrote:
> Grand Prix, since Sonic, how many other games have you played to
> death like that?
> Did you to the same thing for Sonic 2?
> Master each level and get all the rings in under a certain amount of
> time?
> Or had the novelty worn off by then?
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.
A few recent examples is Wacky Races, Tiger Woods, SSX Tricky, GTA, Burnout 2, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Starfox Adventures.
The list goes on and on.
> Grand Prix, since Sonic, how many other games have you played to
> death like that?
> Did you to the same thing for Sonic 2?
> Master each level and get all the rings in under a certain amount of
> time?
> Or had the novelty worn off by then?
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.
A few recent examples is Wacky Races, Tiger Woods, SSX Tricky, GTA, Burnout 2, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Starfox Adventures.
The list goes on and on.
Crazy. The more you play, the less you want to.
Not very good for the industry, is it?
Not very good for the industry, is it?
Notorious Biggles wrote:
> Like you said, I've seen it all before. I haven't played a game in a
> week or more I think. Not because I don't enjoy it any more, simply
> that there are other things I could, or should, be doing. It doesn't
> even feel like I am missing out on anything really. I just need a bit
> of space and time before I throw myself back into another period of
> time wasting, albeit very enjoyable time wasting.
Beautifully summed up. :-)
> And then when I come back to games, it is all wonderful again. Try it
> Strafio. Take a break for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Then
> sit down when you have a few hours, with beer and coffee on tap. Try
> to forget about the masterpieces of yesteryear and just concentrate
> on what is so good about what you are playing.
I do that here and there, but even then it's usually very short lived.
Sometimes you can come back to a game and it's better than you remember (especially one you didn't play much the first time around).
The thing is, when you've played a game to death, coming back to it, it'll only seem new again for a short while.
But yeah, leaving a game for a while does put a fresh coat of freshness on it. :-)
Grand Prix, since Sonic, how many other games have you played to death like that?
Did you to the same thing for Sonic 2?
Master each level and get all the rings in under a certain amount of time?
Or had the novelty worn off by then?
That's why I mean.
Sonic was probably your first 16bit platformer.
You've never had one so complex and playable and so open.
So much more freedom to the level than those classic Spectrum games.
Hence you were able to get enjoyment out of just playing it and setting your own challenges and tricks to do.
I got that out of Goldeneye and Smash Brothers (I spend HOURS mastering the moves and getting high scores on Smash Brothers), but not so much out of Perfect Dark and Melée, because I was experienced, you see? :-)
> Like you said, I've seen it all before. I haven't played a game in a
> week or more I think. Not because I don't enjoy it any more, simply
> that there are other things I could, or should, be doing. It doesn't
> even feel like I am missing out on anything really. I just need a bit
> of space and time before I throw myself back into another period of
> time wasting, albeit very enjoyable time wasting.
Beautifully summed up. :-)
> And then when I come back to games, it is all wonderful again. Try it
> Strafio. Take a break for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Then
> sit down when you have a few hours, with beer and coffee on tap. Try
> to forget about the masterpieces of yesteryear and just concentrate
> on what is so good about what you are playing.
I do that here and there, but even then it's usually very short lived.
Sometimes you can come back to a game and it's better than you remember (especially one you didn't play much the first time around).
The thing is, when you've played a game to death, coming back to it, it'll only seem new again for a short while.
But yeah, leaving a game for a while does put a fresh coat of freshness on it. :-)
Grand Prix, since Sonic, how many other games have you played to death like that?
Did you to the same thing for Sonic 2?
Master each level and get all the rings in under a certain amount of time?
Or had the novelty worn off by then?
That's why I mean.
Sonic was probably your first 16bit platformer.
You've never had one so complex and playable and so open.
So much more freedom to the level than those classic Spectrum games.
Hence you were able to get enjoyment out of just playing it and setting your own challenges and tricks to do.
I got that out of Goldeneye and Smash Brothers (I spend HOURS mastering the moves and getting high scores on Smash Brothers), but not so much out of Perfect Dark and Melée, because I was experienced, you see? :-)
I know what you mean Strafio. I've been playing games for years, since the days of the Master System and Spectrum etc. A long time. I did however view them as just toys back then, when I hit my teens I began to lose interest. I missed out on most of the early to mid nineties, missed out on the release of the PS etc.
But then I played Goldeneye at a mates house around about 1998. And I remembered how much fun games were. From there the addiction grew. I spent uncountable amounts on games and consoles, I had to make up a lot of ground in a couple of years before the Dreamcast and Playstation 2 were released.
The amount of classic games I played in that time... Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario, Zelda, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid.... The list goes on and on and on. I whiled away entire months of my life playing games.
Every release at first brought something new to games. And then it slowly began to tail off. And now all I get is fancier graphics, at least most of the time.
Now we are in the next generation and there are classics this time round as well. ESPN NHL Hockey, Halo, Project Gotham Racing, Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic, F Zero GX, Viewtiful Joe, Rainbow Six 3... this generation is every inch as well off as the last in terms of gaming masterpieces. Yet, I still don't play as much as I did.
Like you said, I've seen it all before. I haven't played a game in a week or more I think. Not because I don't enjoy it any more, simply that there are other things I could, or should, be doing. It doesn't even feel like I am missing out on anything really. I just need a bit of space and time before I throw myself back into another period of time wasting, albeit very enjoyable time wasting.
The other day I bought Commandos 2 for the Xbox. I haven't played it yet. Not even opened it. I do not know when I will. I have hardly played Worms 3D. But it is great, and I always did love Worms. But the gameplay is the same as it always was, and whilst that is a good thing, it also doesn't give me a sense of urgency to play it.
The only game I got really addicted to in recent times has been ESPN NHL Hockey. Best ice hockey game ever. I love it. Not finished it all yet, due to some sort of glitch where the game freezes at a certain point in a season. Not sure if it is in all of them, or just because I shattered most records for goals in a game etc the match before. Still, I'll play it all over again.
Part of that love for ESPN was that it had amazing in game commentary. It *was* like watching a real match. It did something new, and it grabbed me by them and twisted. It caught my attention. Which is why it is such a wonderful game that deserves to be noted as one of the best from this generation.
If more games were like that I would still be spending all night and all weekend in front of my TV with a coffee and a cold beer within reaching distance. But they don't, hence I don't.
But I do still love games. And when I play them, I'm in another world of my own. I enjoy it. There are still great games out there. And that is the main thing. But in my gaming life, I'm getting old. Rarely is there much to find refreshing. So I will do what I always do, take a break and then come back in a while. I forget to a degree why I got slightly bored in the first place when I do that.
And then when I come back to games, it is all wonderful again. Try it Strafio. Take a break for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Then sit down when you have a few hours, with beer and coffee on tap. Try to forget about the masterpieces of yesteryear and just concentrate on what is so good about what you are playing.
Above all else, just have fun. Try not to critique every game you play, try not to compare. That just ruins the mood and then the fun.
But then I played Goldeneye at a mates house around about 1998. And I remembered how much fun games were. From there the addiction grew. I spent uncountable amounts on games and consoles, I had to make up a lot of ground in a couple of years before the Dreamcast and Playstation 2 were released.
The amount of classic games I played in that time... Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario, Zelda, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid.... The list goes on and on and on. I whiled away entire months of my life playing games.
Every release at first brought something new to games. And then it slowly began to tail off. And now all I get is fancier graphics, at least most of the time.
Now we are in the next generation and there are classics this time round as well. ESPN NHL Hockey, Halo, Project Gotham Racing, Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic, F Zero GX, Viewtiful Joe, Rainbow Six 3... this generation is every inch as well off as the last in terms of gaming masterpieces. Yet, I still don't play as much as I did.
Like you said, I've seen it all before. I haven't played a game in a week or more I think. Not because I don't enjoy it any more, simply that there are other things I could, or should, be doing. It doesn't even feel like I am missing out on anything really. I just need a bit of space and time before I throw myself back into another period of time wasting, albeit very enjoyable time wasting.
The other day I bought Commandos 2 for the Xbox. I haven't played it yet. Not even opened it. I do not know when I will. I have hardly played Worms 3D. But it is great, and I always did love Worms. But the gameplay is the same as it always was, and whilst that is a good thing, it also doesn't give me a sense of urgency to play it.
The only game I got really addicted to in recent times has been ESPN NHL Hockey. Best ice hockey game ever. I love it. Not finished it all yet, due to some sort of glitch where the game freezes at a certain point in a season. Not sure if it is in all of them, or just because I shattered most records for goals in a game etc the match before. Still, I'll play it all over again.
Part of that love for ESPN was that it had amazing in game commentary. It *was* like watching a real match. It did something new, and it grabbed me by them and twisted. It caught my attention. Which is why it is such a wonderful game that deserves to be noted as one of the best from this generation.
If more games were like that I would still be spending all night and all weekend in front of my TV with a coffee and a cold beer within reaching distance. But they don't, hence I don't.
But I do still love games. And when I play them, I'm in another world of my own. I enjoy it. There are still great games out there. And that is the main thing. But in my gaming life, I'm getting old. Rarely is there much to find refreshing. So I will do what I always do, take a break and then come back in a while. I forget to a degree why I got slightly bored in the first place when I do that.
And then when I come back to games, it is all wonderful again. Try it Strafio. Take a break for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Then sit down when you have a few hours, with beer and coffee on tap. Try to forget about the masterpieces of yesteryear and just concentrate on what is so good about what you are playing.
Above all else, just have fun. Try not to critique every game you play, try not to compare. That just ruins the mood and then the fun.
I think the major problem nowadays is that we have shorter attention spans due to everything being all 'instant' and what I can get out of it now instead of looking at the bigger picture.
When I was younger, games were fun. I used to watch the games load on my Spectrum and I used to remember all the little sounds that told me it was getting close to loading up. I could spend hours on those games because I enjoyed them so much. Back then, they were challenging as I was just a little kid but I've played them again and again now as I'm older and they still possess a challenge.
I think it's true that games have gotten easier due to the fact that they try to cater for every age and/or ability and not just a certain group. It's how we perceive games in our minds that either attracts our attention or turns us away.
For me, games are full of challenges. I'm not talking about completing the game, I'm talking about setting your own challenges. Take Sonic 1 on the Megadrive for example. I remember completing it many times, so I set myself a new challenge. I started coming up with crazy ways of doing things, like finding alternative routes, collecting all the rings on a certain level, completing levels in super quick times.
I remember watching Gamesmaster and they had a Sonic 1 challenge. It was to get 160 rings in under 2 minutes and complete the level on Green Hill Act 2. I set myself that challenge and I did it. It got easy to do so I'd improve on it. There are 163 rings on that level so I attempted to get all 163 in under 2 minutes.
There are many ways we can increase the usage of our games. I remember completing Sonic 1 with a joystick on the Megadrive. I always try to set myself a challenge which will keep me coming back.
Sure, this way of looking at things doesn't work for everyone but it works for me. I get to play my old and new games and I still get the sense of fun and enjoyment that I felt when I first played the game.
There is also the advantage of being THAT good at a game that you can show off your amazing ability to your mates. I remember doing that with Super Monaco GP on the Megadrive. I said I could get in the best car in 3 races. And I did.
Well, that's my thoughts on it anyway.
When I was younger, games were fun. I used to watch the games load on my Spectrum and I used to remember all the little sounds that told me it was getting close to loading up. I could spend hours on those games because I enjoyed them so much. Back then, they were challenging as I was just a little kid but I've played them again and again now as I'm older and they still possess a challenge.
I think it's true that games have gotten easier due to the fact that they try to cater for every age and/or ability and not just a certain group. It's how we perceive games in our minds that either attracts our attention or turns us away.
For me, games are full of challenges. I'm not talking about completing the game, I'm talking about setting your own challenges. Take Sonic 1 on the Megadrive for example. I remember completing it many times, so I set myself a new challenge. I started coming up with crazy ways of doing things, like finding alternative routes, collecting all the rings on a certain level, completing levels in super quick times.
I remember watching Gamesmaster and they had a Sonic 1 challenge. It was to get 160 rings in under 2 minutes and complete the level on Green Hill Act 2. I set myself that challenge and I did it. It got easy to do so I'd improve on it. There are 163 rings on that level so I attempted to get all 163 in under 2 minutes.
There are many ways we can increase the usage of our games. I remember completing Sonic 1 with a joystick on the Megadrive. I always try to set myself a challenge which will keep me coming back.
Sure, this way of looking at things doesn't work for everyone but it works for me. I get to play my old and new games and I still get the sense of fun and enjoyment that I felt when I first played the game.
There is also the advantage of being THAT good at a game that you can show off your amazing ability to your mates. I remember doing that with Super Monaco GP on the Megadrive. I said I could get in the best car in 3 races. And I did.
Well, that's my thoughts on it anyway.
Oh.
I'm gonna take my GCSE's in two years. Shouldn't really be too tough, I hope. Taking the normal English (x2 Papers), Maths (x2 Papers), Triple Science (3 Papers, Chem., Bio., Phy.), History, Art and Music.
I'm gonna take my GCSE's in two years. Shouldn't really be too tough, I hope. Taking the normal English (x2 Papers), Maths (x2 Papers), Triple Science (3 Papers, Chem., Bio., Phy.), History, Art and Music.
No rethinking stuff.. i haven't had a smooth life in terms of; do well in gcses, do a levels then onto uni.
You taking a gap year then?
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