Only the good things about modern gaming

[Flojomojo]

We like to bitch about everything wrong with the stuff. There's often a flip side, a silver lining for every cloud. Even if you're an aging, curmudgeonly, cartridge-clutching classic gamer, there are plenty of nice things about modern gaming.

 

Price

Thanks to the "race to the bottom," or tough competition, not everything needs to be in a retail box at $60 to sell nowadays. Download-only games remove some of the manufacturing risk of printing media, and are easily transferred between different computers, and allow for quirky, experimental games at lower prices. Free to play systems reduce barrier to entry so more people can try before they buy, and some developers have implemented ethical in app purchases that don't exploit people, but rather allow them to express themselves through cosmetic-only add-ons.

 

Distribution

We don't need to go to department stores and bang on demo kiosks to try and buy games. Physical media has a knowable launch date, and fast shipping can bring us new releases on day one, often at a discount price. Digital distribution is even faster, and storage space price/capacity ratios and network line speeds are still improving.

 

Technology

QHD screens, OLED handheld screens, wireless controllers, voice commands, ridiculous 3D graphical performance, live streaming, game recording, online matchmaking, social integration, easily provisioned instanced cloud servers, cloud storage, virtual reality, and other innovations add to the toolbox of the creative game developer.

 

Quality

It's rare to have a bug-riddled game at release time, and patches allow new features to be added in. Full screen, fast frame rate games are the norm, not the exception. Multi-platform games are possible thanks to common developer tools.

 

Community

There's an online group, and often a video stream, for just about anything you can imagine. I'm typing this on a forum geared around a 1970 cartridge game system. Massive multiplayer, often with voice chat, is ubiquitous and works well. Opinions are everywhere.

 

Diversity

When I was playing on my Odyssey 2 (I'm old), my mom commented that all the early games I liked were either shooting something on the screen, or a chase. No more. There are dozens of genres, and things that defy genre, on platforms from mobile to old computers to consoles to fancy big rig computers. Linux and Mac gaming remains a subset of what's available on console and Windows, but it's a much bigger slice than it once was.

 

Inclusion

Games aren't the sole province of the well-funded computer geek. Everyone can and should play some video games!

 

Profitability

Even for a hit-driven industry, there's plenty of money to be made. Free is great for the consumer, but not for the developer, so it's good that there's a healthy ecosystem of software tools, distribution platforms, and ways to reach out to gamers without them having to read magazine reviews from attending exclusive conferences.

 

Social Interaction (via spriggamortis)

Playing with friends .. without having to physically sit next to said friends. The onslaught of voice-over-internet-protocol and online multiplayer changed everything about gaming with friends and alike.

 

3D (via Jin)

When I was growing up there was nothing more amazing to me from a gaming perspective than the idea that one day you might be able to look at a screen and see your games popping out into real life, or look at a landscape that appeared to go on for miles beyond your flat two-dimensional television screen. I tried everything to get that experience, from the VictorMaxx StuntMaster VR headset for my Sega Genesis to Nintendo's Virtual Boy, but nothing ever quite delivered that true 3D experience I had hoped for.

 

Comfort (via Eltigro)

The controllers are more ergonomic and don't cramp your hand or give you blisters or whatever. For better or worse, you can play for hours. Also, just the fact that I can sit in my chair, with my controller in hand and do all of the following without having to get up: turn on the console, select a game, play selected game, switch games, play different game, search for new game, see preview of new game, buy new game, download new game, play new game, turn console off. I mean, admittedly, some of us could use that extra exercise...

 

Controller choice (via Video)

Most modern games don't have you locked into just a keyboard and mouse. For those that love keyboard and mouse combos, many modern consoles support this too.

 

Touch screens

Remember when phones needed an array of buttons, and BlackBerry was the best way to interact with a mobile device? With a touch screen, your input canvas is a lot more versatile than the cross pad and buttons. Sometimes it's a tricky transition (not unlike playing arcade trackball games with home joysticks, or arcade driving games with D-Pad controls), but the potential for better interaction makes up for it. New genres and play styles have sprung forth as a result of inexpensive, ubiquitous capacitive multi-touch screens. A touch screen can be almost any kind of input.

 

Sensors

Some devices know a LOT about their environment. They can see, hear, feel. They know their position (via GPS and other geolocation methods), orientation (via gyros) and other data from myriad sensor inputs. They can sense temperature, barometric pressure, heart rates, and more. New styles of gameplay can come out of this, including "waggle" games like Wii Tennis, "walking" games like Pokemon Go, "augmented reality" games like Face Raiders, "virtual reality" games like Skyrim VR, as well as simple things like a pedometer step counter to give you extra gameplay coins on a 3DS.

 

Open Worlds

We've come a long way from Elite and Nethack to Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls. Computers are powerful enough to realize fully open interactive worlds, and smart design innovations as seen in Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey make them seem a lot more alive and dynamic.

 

Online Gaming (via Bakasama)

There is the thrill about playing with team and killing team like Heroes of the Storm or League of Legends. As long the players don't take it seriously, it's very fun.

 

Storytelling (via Wongojack)

For me, gaming is single player. I like to enjoy and discover the gaming world that has been laid out. I want to understand the characters in that world and make my own progress through the story and various interactions. Modern gaming does this better than ever before.

 

Screens

Portables can be depended upon to have backlit, readable, fast refreshing, color screens. Televisions and monitors are much higher resolution, and much cheaper, lighter, and generally brighter than cathode-ray tubes of the "classic" times. What we have lost in terms of input compatibility is mitigated by the ease of digital connections. Lag often depends on manufacturer and could be dying out as technology processes improve.

 

What are some other good things about modern gaming? Curmudgeons will be branded with oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg

[negative1]

the only 'good' thing about modern gaming, is that it lets me play my old games,

that i actually like. (without having to drag out old consoles, even though i still have those too).

 

that's about it.

 

none of the other items mentioned really apply, because they all point to problems that didn't need to be solved or addressed.

 

later

-1

[Flojomojo]

the only 'good' thing about modern gaming, is that it lets me play my old games,

that i actually like. (without having to drag out old consoles, even though i still have those too).

 

that's about it.

 

none of the other items mentioned really apply, because they all point to problems that didn't need to be solved or addressed.

 

later

-1

 

 

Come back when you get a better internet connection!

 

[Recycled]

After I bought the Activision comp for the ps2 back in '05, I played nothing but 80s games for almost 13 years. If it came out after the CV, I considered it "modern." HA!! Over the last year, I really started wanting to play newer games again. It's been a nice change. Still playing the old stuff as well. That's were my heart is.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Recycled

[zzip]

3D worlds that are rendered in great detail, yet still perform smoothly

 

VR for taking immersion to the next level.

 

The vibrant indie scene that fills holes left by the big publishers

 

Party games like Jackbox that turn phones into controllers, and allow you to play with many people at gatherings of family and friends

 

controllers that are designed with decades of experience behind them and well-built. Definitely beats the classic controllers for quality and ergonomics.

[HoshiChiri]

I think there's been a HUGE uptick in overall convenience for modern games. Yes, the initial run can be a pain with data installs & patches, or getting the system set up properly... but after that? So many cool ways to play & share with others! Want to play with a friend who can't make it over? Play online! Hell, if you've got a PS4, they can watch you without being in the room! Hard drives have removed the need for limited save slots & memory cards, now you can have as many saves as you want AND lend you game to a friend without worrying about them deleting your files while they have it. It gets really crazy when the Switch comes into play- the modular nature of the system makes it excruciatingly easy to just move the whole damn system from place to place, no need to unplug all the cables or get a tiny TV to haul around with it.

I also love the "meta" game design that has been able to spring up as specific patterns in gaming have established themselves. Games like Eternal Darkness screw with you by making it look like your TV or system is malfunctioning. Want to beat Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid? Move your controller to port 2! Some indie games are going nuts with this, like Default Dan which flips all your standard platforming tropes around, or Screen Cheat, a 4 player split screen FPS where everyone is invisible, so in order to win you literally have to look at each other's screens to find everyone. PC can go extra crazy, making you change your game files around and throwing in full-on ARG elements (Doki Doki Literature Club, anyone?). Also, the fact that ARG exists is awesome.

Then of course, there's the tech itself- putting aside the obvious 'graphics are gorgeous these days so many different art styles are now achieveable', the actual control methods we have available are amazing. Wii sports lets you play Tennis by literally swinging your 'racket'. The high-quality HD rumble of the Switch Joycon, paired with the motion controls, means you can now have games where the actual TV screen is mostly un-needed. Have you played Tearaway on a Vita? That shit's crazy! You're inside the sun! You poke your fingers into the game world! You take pictures and yell at the system to advance in places, and you can find patterns to create your paper friends in your world! It's a completely different take on player involvement and I love it!

And of course, there's VR- a way to interact with a game so different we're still figuring out new ways to use it. I don't really know if it'll ever be commonplace, but the longer it's around the more interesting it gets!

[+Spriggy]

Social Interaction

Playing with friends .. without having to physically sit next to said friends. The onslaught of voice-over-internet-protocol and online multiplayer changed everything about gaming with friends and alike.

Edited April 5, 2018 by spriggamortis

[Flojomojo]

Speaking of "meta-game," the mobile style of picking away at a social RPG for a little bit every day is really compelling to me. It's almost like the casual style of a classic game, playing in short bursts at a time. By doing it every day, the sense of progression is really satisfying, and the social aspects are fun for team building. I think that companies like Sega would have leveraged technology like this back in the 1990s if it were more commonplace and convenient. You could see that they had some ideas with Netlink and Sega Channel, but the infrastructure wasn't there to make it mainstream.

 

I have enough games I want to check every day that it's difficult to add more. That, in my opinion, is a good problem to have.

[Bill Loguidice]

Quantity without being buried alive. I can have hundreds upon hundreds of games available to play without needing physical space to store all the cartridges/discs/cases.

[Flojomojo]

Social Interaction

Playing with friends .. without having to physically sit next to said friends. The onslaught of voice-over-internet-protocol and online multiplayer changed everything about gaming with friends and alike.

I think I really would have liked to have Discord when I was younger. I wonder how many teenagers think they can make a living streaming Twitch or YouTube games.

[+Spriggy]

I think I really would have liked to have Discord when I was younger. I wonder how many teenagers think they can make a living streaming Twitch or YouTube games.

 

Absolutely m8! We didn't have any semblance of being able to play with friends .. without actually physically being with them in our day. If I knew then what I knew now, I can imagine being at home at night, sitting in the front lounge giving the 2600 a workout. Grabbing the rotary phone from the passageway phone table, dragging it into the lounge with it's mega long phone cord and ploniking it next to me. Then, gaffer tape the handset to my head and call up Flojo. We both plug in our copies of 'Haunted House' and start playing , with the lights out of course. Carrying on like fools, talking shit, calling out new tactics and beating the game. If only!!

[Flojomojo]

^^^ I played some Duke Nukem 3D on Sega Saturn with Netlink like that a few times. Except in that case, it would tie up the phone line, and you'd need to call directly.

[xenomorpher]

Mods and other user created content I really enjoy and have come to appreciate quite a bit over the years. They can really improve the experience or make games like Aliens: Colonial Marines more playable. And thanks to modern distribution, we have access to tons of unique and high quality indie games.

[Flojomojo]

Mods and other user created content I really enjoy and have come to appreciate quite a bit over the years. They can really improve the experience or make games like Aliens: Colonial Marines more playable. And thanks to modern distribution, we have access to tons of unique and high quality indie games.

 

oooh yeah, I neglected to include that. I was just listening to the Retronauts talking about how DOOM was purpose-built to allow modification. Now we have Steam Workshop, which is amazeballs for programs like Skyrim.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

3D

When I was growing up there was nothing more amazing to me from a gaming perspective than the idea that one day you might be able to look at a screen and see your games popping out into real life, or look at a landscape that appeared to go on for miles beyond your flat two-dimensional television screen. I tried everything to get that experience, from the VictorMaxx StuntMaster VR headset for my Sega Genesis to Nintendo's Virtual Boy, but nothing ever quite delivered that true 3D experience I had hoped for.

 

Now 17 years later we finally have that technology, and (to me at least) it is glorious! Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that one day there would be a handheld game system I could carry in my pocket that would deliver the true 3D experience I always wanted as a kid without any 3D glasses or other accessories required. Nintendo's original 3DS was pretty decent at delivering the 3D experience provided you kept the system very still and didn't move around much, but it still gave me headaches and occasional motion sickness like the Virtual Boy. Then the "New" 3DS line which uses a face tracking camera combined with an infrared sensor to keep the 3D image lined up with your eyes at all times came along, and that's when the technology finally caught up to my hopes for what it could be.

 

With a New 3DS system you get a crisp, clear 3D image that's always in focus even if you move around and no headaches or motion sickness from prolonged use. Now everyone who is capable of seeing 3D (95% of the population, give or take) can experience true 3D gaming anywhere without the need for glasses or specialty televisions, and none of the unpleasant side effects of previous 3D devices. The future is here, and it is amazing!

Edited April 5, 2018 by Jin

[Flojomojo]

I like 3D graphics and am so glad that GPUs are getting cheaper and better all the time. I like that you could buy a $1000 GPU at the high end, but a $150 card is plenty for even the newest games at HD resolutions.

 

Stereoscopic 3D does all that for you? Sweet.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Stereoscopic 3D does all that for you? Sweet.

 

Oh yeah! Eye tracking stereoscopic 3D is unquestionably my favorite technological advancement in the entire history of video games. In second place would be the original Wii's motion controls. I know, I seem to love the two things that most people couldn't wait to put behind them when the Switch came along.

[dj_convoy]

I love DLC that adds new aspects to your game (not shitty on disc DLC). Love being able to just power up your modern console of choice and just buy whatever. It's great to buy games thru PSN or Virtual Console that would cost a zillion dollars for the physical discs or carts.

[Keatah]

The instant availability is nice, as long as I can save the installer/setup I be happy. Digital ecosphere allows for more modding, both commercial and homebrew alike.

[Eltigro]

Comfort - The controllers are more ergonomic and don't cramp your hand or give you blisters or whatever. For better or worse, you can play for hours. Also, just the fact that I can sit in my chair, with my controller in hand and do all of the following without having to get up: turn on the console, select a game, play selected game, switch games, play different game, search for new game, see preview of new game, buy new game, download new game, play new game, turn console off. I mean, admittedly, some of us could use that extra exercise...

 

Of course, there's a downside to this, too. Many of us have nostalgia laced stories of those cramping blistered hands... or can remember back to when they went to the store with grandma after their birthday to buy their copy of Zelda or whatever... thirty years from now, is anyone gonna have a great story that starts off, "I remember the day I downloaded the DLC for..."?

[Video]

Controller choice. Really just for computer, but... I like that most modern games don't have you locked into just a keyboard and mouse. Yeah, I'm weird. But I grew up in a time when mice was an exception to computer gaming, not a rule (And keyboards were for menus, not gameplay) And in addittion, for those that love keyboard and mouse combos, many modern consoles support this too.

 

Now if we could just have real options to that nasty touch screen plague going on...

[Flojomojo]

Comfort - The controllers are more ergonomic and don't cramp your hand or give you blisters or whatever. For better or worse, you can play for hours. Also, just the fact that I can sit in my chair, with my controller in hand and do all of the following without having to get up: turn on the console, select a game, play selected game, switch games, play different game, search for new game, see preview of new game, buy new game, download new game, play new game, turn console off. I mean, admittedly, some of us could use that extra exercise...

 

Of course, there's a downside to this, too. Many of us have nostalgia laced stories of those cramping blistered hands... or can remember back to when they went to the store with grandma after their birthday to buy their copy of Zelda or whatever... thirty years from now, is anyone gonna have a great story that starts off, "I remember the day I downloaded the DLC for..."?

 

 

Numb thumbs from games are temporary, diabetes and back problems are forever!

 

 

Controller choice. Really just for computer, but... I like that most modern games don't have you locked into just a keyboard and mouse. Yeah, I'm weird. But I grew up in a time when mice was an exception to computer gaming, not a rule (And keyboards were for menus, not gameplay) And in addittion, for those that love keyboard and mouse combos, many modern consoles support this too.

 

Now if we could just have real options to that nasty touch screen plague going on...

 

 

Let's rephrase that with relentless positive energy!

 

Controller choice

Most modern games don't have you locked into just a keyboard and mouse. For those that love keyboard and mouse combos, many modern consoles support this too.

 

Touch screens

Remember when phones needed an array of buttons, and BlackBerry was the best way to interact with a mobile device? With a touch screen, your input canvas is a lot more versatile than the cross pad and buttons. Sometimes it's a tricky transition (not unlike playing arcade trackball games with home joysticks, or arcade driving games with D-Pad controls), but the potential for better interaction makes up for it. New genres and play styles have sprung forth as a result of inexpensive, ubiquitous capacitive multi-touch screens. A touch screen can be almost any kind of input.

 

while we're at it ...

 

Sensors

Some devices know a LOT about their environment. They can see, hear, feel. They know their position (via GPS and other geolocation methods), orientation (via gyros) and other data from myriad sensor inputs. They can sense temperature, barometric pressure, heart rates, and more. New styles of gameplay can come out of this, including "waggle" games like Wii Tennis, "walking" games like Pokemon Go, "augmented reality" games like Face Raiders, "virtual reality" games like Skyrim VR, as well as simple things like a pedometer step counter to give you extra gameplay coins on a 3DS.

[xenomorpher]

I forgot to add remasters/remakes when done right. What they're doing with the Spyro Trilogy really makes me appreciate modern gaming. They're creating something that looks like it would have been made back then had the technology existed. I wish Konami would do that with the original Silent Hill, but they're Konami.

[Video]

I don't mind touch screen, when properly implemented. But that array of buttons disappeared.

Doesn't sound like 'choice' to me. 3ds is great, because of its side control variety. Somehiw, they managed a touchscreen AND buttons. So yeah, touchscreen is pretty much a plague.

 

Touch screen Pac man anyone?

[+x=usr(1536)]

Diversity

When I was playing on my Odyssey 2 (I'm old), my mom commented that all the early games I liked were either shooting something on the screen, or a chase. No more. There are dozens of genres, and things that defy genre, on platforms from mobile to old computers to consoles to fancy big rig computers. Linux and Mac gaming remains a subset of what's available on console and Windows, but it's a much bigger slice than it once was.

 

This is probably the category that my comment most likely falls under.

 

I really like how we're seeing games that have gameplay elements reminiscent of the 8- and 16-bit eras, but that are done in a modern context on modern hardware. There are quite a few titles out there that do this without being unimaginative reworks of earlier titles or games that simply ape what's come before without understanding what made those earlier games great.

 

Limbo comes to mind:

 

 

There are others, but I feel this is one of the best examples. The influence of older games is readily-apparent, but it stands on its own merits.

Edited April 7, 2018 by x=usr(1536)