But the "getting old" part definitely plays a role too. When you're a kid or in your teens everything is just more exciting and impressive to you. A teen today might think the latest Wolfenstein installment is the most awesome thing they've ever seen while to you it's just another first person shooter or doom clone, with somewhat better graphics. Now you could say "but doom was new and groundbreaking", but even if there had been a dozen identical games before, if doom were the first one you played, it wouldn't have mattered. Graphics is another thing I stopped caring about. In the late 90s and early 2000s I was blown away by new graphics demos released every year showing off what the next gen of gfx cards were capable of. Nowadays I'm so out of the loop. Graphics from 5 years ago look no different than today. Although I must admit the latest unreal engine tech demos actually did manage to impress me.

I recently bought and played thief, thief 2, deus ex, starcraft, the rise of nations, prince of persia (My dad used to play Jordan Mechner (PC port) one with me, but I was too young then), max payne (1 and 2), half-life 2. I know these are blockbuster games of their time, but I feel they are better than blockbuster games of today. I play RDR2, Spiderman, God of War etc on my modern PS4 but thre is sothing these games are missing.

Some modern games I do like and recommend to everyone: Rimworld, Kerbal Space Program, Prey, ShenzenIO

Also Notable: the Witcher series

Also both Dishonored games—best of the more recent descendants of the Thief/Deus Ex games. Improved with the right mindset—you start out more capable than the average person, and are very soon "hella OP", so, whatcha gonna do with all that power? Plus no save scumming and turning off all the modern flashy-arrow-waypoint HUD bullshit. Makes you really feel the weight of things better.

> max payne (1 and 2)

Max Payne 2 on the ultra-hard mode that you have to unlock, where you only get like 2-3 saves per level, is one of my favorite gaming experiences, and I'm not usually the sort to like hardcore "challenge" modes. It totally changes how you play. Highly recommended. Plus you get the real ending :-). Hated 3. Repeated "hold on while we take control for a cutscene then leave you standing in the open for no reason, with guys already shooting at you" got old fast, and the game just never stopped doing that, sometimes seeming only to take control in order to do that. Plus the story failed to make me give a damn about anything that was happening, which is a problem.

Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) might be up your alley if you've enjoyed the open world "make the icons disappear from the map" games (Red Dead, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry from 3 on) at all. It actually has a plot you might care about, unlike almost all the others, and the world is much cooler than average.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice has the best acting I've ever seen in a game and I've felt very involved and immersed in the game and the character.

But yeah, games like Horizon:Zero Dawn are great.

There is also some indie gems like Hyper Light Drifter - I've stopped counting how many times I've beat this game :)

It’s one of those games that I’m really looking forward to play again the next day. Those are few and far between these days.

I think we can still recognize something new: I found that playing "Vader Immortal" on Oculus Quest to be a genuinely new gaming experience. And I've been gaming on PC since 8/81 (when PCs were first released) and on Apple IIs before that, and IBM 5110s before that.

EDIT: I disagree games are no longer good. Slay The Spire is a brilliant combination of rogue and card game. Total War: Warhammer II is a good real-time RTS with a non-realtime map component. World of Warcraft was a good MMORPG, and it is from this millennium (2004).

Humans are pattern recognition machines and someone who has a much larger training set than a younger person would have a much better sense in spotting what is new or not.

I'd say the most recent time I've been blown away was using Vive's full room VR setup. Many VR games have some very primitive concepts and graphics but it's a very different way of gaming even in multiplayer. There's a lot of room for improvement in graphics, but even _more_ room for improvement of controller hardware designs.

I'd love to find out about a dozenb Doom-like games that appeared before Doom. Of course, there was Wolfenstein 3D but its 3D engine was much more limited, there was Ultima Underworld but it was hardly an "identical game"... but other than that? Which fast-paced, first-person 3D action shooter existed before Doom??

I've found this to be especially true. Playing through Witcher 3, Factorio - I'm rediscovering some incredible games that focus a lot of systems design for more emergent gameplay. The architecture of factorio vs the divergent gameplay of Witcher captivates for hours upon hours!

It takes a bit to get used to playing on planets instead of classic maps with borders but that’s what makes this game special.

Problem is that the indies production values pale vs what AAA studios did even 20 years ago in terms of how polished the games could be. Like, you won't find any indie game that's as good as Starcraft 1. So in reality you get a lot of half-assed games in many genres (of course sometimes you get lucky and get true gems).

Terraria and Factorio are great (for multiplayer/coop and replay experience correspondingly)

You also wanted something the scale of SC, which was very singular for quite a while in its success. And I managed to name 3!

But there's plenty of games that match what you describe. Sony has published a solid lineup for the last few years. The dark souls series is a very solid example of modern skill based progression.

DLC used to exist - we just used to call them expansions.

There's also free to play games that use microtransactions as funding - but they're all either cosmetic or slight quality-of-life boosts that don't have direct gameplay impact (see: warframe and path of exile)

And that's not even talking about indies. There's plenty of indie titles that are pretty much 90s games with modern quality of life upgrades.

Some quality games that meet or exceed the quality of the 90s era from the last few years (in no particular order):

- God of War

- Horizon Zero Dawn

- Dark souls series (including bloodborne)

- Zelda Breath of the Wild

- Hyper light drifter

- Enter the Gungeon

- Spiderman

- Rimworld

- The Witcher Series

There's a ton more.. and there's also a glut of games coming out in the next couple years that also look amazing.

The thing that exists today that didn't in the past, is companies exploiting psychology to produce endorphin rushes tied to microtransactions. Companies tying gambling mechanics to gameplay advantage (FIFA and Madden are egregious examples of this).

But just like films where you won’t find the auteurs or Criterion Collection at your local theater besides a few exceptions, you have to seek them out and being paying attention (most people who make critiques like this aren’t anywhere near involved in music/films/games/etc like they were when they were kids. But they expect the same ROI.

Every booming cultural market pumps out more crap than good stuff, and I assure you the 90a and early 2000s had plenty of awful games.

If you look for real time strategy then the choices we have right now are nowhere near the quality of what we had 15 years ago.

Most modern strategy games are overly complex, take forever to get into and are overwrought in ways that makes them just not enjoyable.

StarCraft 2 is probably the most recent major RTS release, and it's not particularly active despite being an excellent game. The issue with the RTS genre is it's been superceded by two other genres. The people who want to play RTS games are playing MOBAs like Lol or Dota, or have moved to city building games which have had an explosion in popularity.

That said, Dawn of War 3 was released last year, the Total War, and Anno series still exist, StarCraft is still receiving updates, albeit infrequently, and there's a handful of indie games that scratch that itch

It's a small hardcore group of people that still play it but I find that stands out as the most innovating RTS that I have ever played.

There's nothing quite like having to negotiate with your peons to chop wood in exchange for better weapons later in the game.

There's a new RTS-FPS hybrid which is being developed currently on Early Access. It's taking the genre in a way is more similar to Battlezone in a sense that you actually train AI units rather than it being 100% human players on the field. It's a 5v5 , and commander filled the battlefield with trained AI mobs while player are much similar to warcraft3 hero.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/505740/Eximius_Seize_the_F...

Discord : discord.gg/ammoboxstudios.com

Wrt BZ2 a remastered version is available on GoG / steam. A few of the original developers have kept the game patched and compatible with todays hardware / software.

Age of Empires is being revived with the classic, well-proven look and feel, with upgraded graphics and new campaigns. Settlers is being revived with the classic gameplay (I hope) and not the AoE style gameplay.

There are several other games expected to be released this year or next and look like excellent candidates for being top-of-the-line strategy and city-building games. I hope at least some of them live up to the promos and hype.

Planet Coaster if you want a decent Rollercoaster Tycoon successor.

- Titanfall 2

- Uncharted 4

- The Batman games...

IMO we're just old.

If there was any way this was true, then people born after 1999 would be itching to play games from the 90s and early 2000s, instead of the latest thing from EA and crowd. (They aren't. No teenager in 2019 groks Star Control.)

This goes doubly true for "games were easier to learn back then". No, teenagers today are picking up the latest games in 10 minutes just like we used to when we were teens. Games aren't harder now (plenty of 8 bit console games were punishingly hard) we're just OLD. I'm positive if I still had the pliable brain of a 16 year old I'd be hopping on whatever newest, shiniest DRM / DLC goodness was out right now.

Not necessarily. Games at that time targeted a quite very different audience than today's games. So people born earlier do not like these modern games and people born after 1999 are not itching to play games from the 90s.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle

That said: Breath of the Wild exceeds everything else I’ve played sing Kings Quest 4.

I do agree though, that we've lost some things (while gaining others). Blizzard is no longer putting out the same kinds of games that put them on the map. A lot of valuable IP's that forged the gaming industry in its early years are forgotten or killed off or have some weird mobile/mobile transaction-ridden game to carry the flame. We'll probably never see another Starcraft. The next Diablo will likely be a huge disappointment. We've lost studios like Westwood or Maxis. We're never getting another Silent Hill. Or another Metal Gear. The list goes on.

And then you have a company like Nintendo that's pretty much doing exactly what they've always been doing, putting out the same kinds of games that made them so beloved (with many improvements and experiments along the way). Or Sony with its laser focus on great single-player experiences without loot boxes and their crazy large number of first-party and second-party studios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft:_Brood_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheron%27s_Call

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest

Like I tried the latest Need for Speed. It's got this whole artifice about you being a racer and you drive around a city to join races.

Back when I played Need for Speed a lot (especially NFS 2, 3 and 4), the games had no such pretention. You just started the game, picked up a mode and started racing. The games never felt compelled to tell you how to feel or think.

Grade School: Doom 2, Quake, Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, Red Alert, HOMM 1-3, Total Annihilation

Jr High - High School: Tribes (started playing it late), Warcraft 3 / DOTA, Diablo 2, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, World Of Warcraft (beta through WOTLK)

College: Team Fortress 2, Heroes Of Newerth, League of Legends

Post-college: Civilization 5, DOTA 2, Path of Exile

I consider all of these periods equally great/golden. The number of games in each period varies, but I don't consider that a factor.

I could go back and play any of these games and enjoy them today, assuming compatibility issues are dealt with and there are servers with players for the multiplayer-focused titles (sadly not the case for Tribes, and I think HON is dead too).

I played Diablo 1 for the first time in nearly nineteen years last night on diabloweb, and it's aged incredibly well. The atmosphere is just as immersive as it was back in my childhood. I was surprised to not feel nostalgic. Instead, I was reminded of how incredibly disappointing Diablo 3 was.

I'm pretty gamed out now. Lately I only really play MTG Arena. The current Battle Royale era is the first major gaming phase I've opted out of entirely. I haven't played DOTA2 in nearly a year after playing at least one MOBA game near-daily between 2004 and 2018.

I'm tempted to try WoW Classic, but I feel like I'll either be unable to play more than a few hours before losing all interest, or it will completely take over my life again

So nostalgic!

You had completely new genres of games being invented almost every other year.

Today it is the same type of games, just re-hashing of the same content, maybe with more/better graphics.

The only most recent completely new type of game is Minecraft.... and walking simulators type of games. (although some one can say that they are just like old time RPGs).

Sandboxed MMOS (EVE, no mans sky, Elite: Dangerous)

MOBA (Dota, HoTs, LoL, Smite)

Real MOBAs (WoW Arena, WC3: Warlock, Battlerite)

Battle royale games (Apex, PUBG, Fortnite, DayZ, ETF, Battlerite Royale)

Simulators (Arma, flight sims, truck driver simulator, which are now SUPER realistic)

Online Trading Card Games (Hearthstone, Magic [1])

Rocket League (I dont know any game like it nor what genre it is "sport"?)

Fast paced RTS (WarCraft, StarCraft, Total Anihilation, Red Alert)

Auto Chess (Autochess, Dota Underlords, Teamfight Tactics)

Competitive FPS (Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch)

Casual social/arena action games (JackBoxTV, Use your words, Mario party, Overcooked, Duck Game, Gang Beasts, Speedrunners, Stick Fight, Hidden in plain sight [2])

If you are feeling old/and/or out of touch of modern gaming and coming from a perspective from the 90s, at least try these genres out. And of course games in the same genre has cross pollination and are similar in some ways, but some games play very differently, so don't dismiss a genre totally because you have tried only one game!

[1] One could argue that these are not a new type of game, but the mechanics in hearthstone is not possible in a physical TCG.

[2] Boardgame-ish types of games.

Edit: Of course I have left out a TON of games and some are actually considered quite old, these were the ones that came to mind.

EVE is from 2003. DotA is too. Magic Online was from 2002. RTS goes well back into the 90s, simulators back to the 70s, etc etc. I'll give you Battle Royale and I don't even know what Rocket League is but most of these are not recent at all.

As the person said: the only new "type" of game they know of released the last years was Minecraft, and lists games from "early 3D" era, I assume the person is not aware of all the new genres of games created the last 20 years. The only goal with my post was to list some genres that might be unknown (some of which has been around for a long time). I hope someone reads the list and finds something new that they might like, you should try out Rocket League if you are remotely interested in games. Rocket League is an insanely hard (high skill cieling) physics based football-ish kind of game.

Simulators today are a totally different breed of games, no one that plays them now would consider them even close to what was possible to achieve 20 years ago, thats why I included them.

Edit: I meant to write Planetary Annihilation, not Total Annihilation in my original post. Which is a quite unique RTS.

Practically the same game, and the only ones in the genre.

Battle Cars was a racing game akin to Mario Kart i believe.

Probably there's a few more indie games that I am not aware of.

If you want to stick to mainstream games only, even then there is real innovation. E.g. calling Super Mario Odyssee a rehashing of Mario Galaxy does it a misservice (in my view).

However, I'm a counterexample unfortunately. Of all the games that ardit33 talked about, I was between 12 to 18. And for me that period was the golden age of gaming.

A fun side anecdote: I remember when I played GoldenEye I had an English to Dutch dictionary, just to understand the missions! I really got caught up on the term "rendez vous with 006" (this was with the level called Facility), I couldn't find it! And my parents weren't that great in English or any other foreign language, so they didn't know either. It took me 6 months of asking some people from time to time to figure it out.

The golden age of gaming for me was between 12 to 18. I loved Warcraft 3 for example. And I felt it all went slowly downhill after the first installment of World of Warcraft.

The golden age for me was perhaps a little later, LAN parties with friends, primarily FPS games with some RTS mixed in, circa 2000-2003. My biggest mistake was thinking as we got older and had more money we could do this more, but instead it was never.

There are a lot of really good games out there. Game developers (specifically indies) have learned lessons from old games. Some games are updated persistently thanks to disliked business models. The nostalgia factor is hard to overcome, but it is something that is completely invisible unless you were the one playing the game 20+ years ago.

I feel in general that people are bad at keeping long friendships, and I seem very good at it (I don't know why). I have ~20 close friends that I speak to regularly that I have known for like 10 years. Many of those are people from the "golden days".

Have people that say they miss the "golden days" just not kept in touch with the friends they had at that time? Or have they just given up on gaming because everyone else they knew stopped playing?

The age before the internet and monetization where we owned are games and internet penetration hadn't allowed companies to steal videogames functionality with drm.

The 90's AAA game modding scene was heads and shoulders above the modern AAA space because there was no internet, there was no incentive to hold back free level editors, file specs, access to contents inside the game files.

The last 20 years has undermind that hugely in big budget games. How could would have it have been to have level editing and a programming SDK for Need for speed Most wanted 2005? OR mass effect 1 + 2 for instance?

We've definitely lost a lot as game companies are forcing games into the mainframe dumb client model. AKA literally preventing you from owning the game you are buying.

Given that has always been the end goal of these companies since the beginning. Game preservation is going to be a nightmare going forward for all these server locked games.

So to say now is the golden age, means you're basically clueless about game preservation and what the mainframe/cloud model means for your basic rights.

The agenda is to turn PC into a more heavily drm'd locked down platform like mobile and control your software remotely.

Software as a service is literally a scam to invade your privacy, get you locked in and then jack up/extort you.

Look at all the DLC for SF V or Guilty Gear for instance. Huge amounts of cut content, sold back to you at ridiculously inflated prices.

Nothing like that existed in the 90's because there was no internet and analyticis to target stupid spendthrifts. Internet Analytics to target the spendthrift gamers has seriously fucked up gaming.

When people say "golden age" how i understand it is that they feel like it was "better" experience playing the games then, and for me it means i enjoy playing games just as much now as i did when i was 15.

Sure, game preservation sucks, nothing I have given any thought. But that is not what I am talking about, I thought we were talking about the quality of games and how much people enjoy playing said games, not the state of the industry at large, privacy, DRM, and the future of gaming.

So yeah, you need to know about the state of the industry to understand where game companies are taking us and it isn't for our benefit.

I do not want every new game to be an app controlled by googles cloud and thats exactly what the game industry wants. They want to move us all to the dumb terminal model of computing.

If you can't see that, you are blind. They openly talk about it on businss sites.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-01-making-pir...

we need to strive to preserve the good things. and video games is one of those areas where the best ever will often be a name from a not so distant past... sorry.

https://totalannihilation.fandom.com/wiki/Boneyards

Over the years, certain processes were aligned with what people found to be done well, and of course market dynamics dictated some of the genres to be phased out. That's why, today, you see more or less a bunch of 'the same stuff', yet you also get the best of 'the same stuff'.

Kind of like with computers from 80's through 90's. There was a large variety of equals. Various processors, whole computers, operating systems, everything... and now it's more or less 'the same stuff' (on desktop).

Aging makes us "love" new things less. But I also consider this period peak gaming (emphasis on gaming). These days video games are too sophisticated. Your fathers motorcycle is not your bike to fool around with your friends on saturday.

Most big names push away game designers to favour software engineers with elements of game design. That could have worked 15 years ago, but with the increased competition, the need for proper game design has increased.

Finally, the people that made videogames 15 years ago were mostly engineers, but I get the impression they also had a better understanding of game design.

Hence that time was the golden era of videogames because it was when the key people in the industry made their careers. Todd Howard (Bethesda) and Jess Schell (Disney/Schell Games) for example were in the line at that time, but now are in management positions.

Because game designers where having an hard time in the videogames industry, they turned their attention to other areas: board games. Board games are indeed in a great period now, with many independent makers finding success.

So if you want to have again a good time playing games with friends, go for board games.

Remember arcades?

In games you give a coin to play in establishment, aka rent a machine for a given time. Pretty clear. Before that you had pinballs, pool halls, and more. Same concept, but everyone was equal and progression was dependent on your skill.

With today loot boxes a you pay "for something random" so you can get some kind of desirable upgrade, or advantage, otherwise you will have to grind your way to the game...

I don't see Wolf3D on your list, nor Doom / Doom 2. Single-player wise these were state of the art. You could also play co-op via LPT1. Also, Quake 2 + Lithium mod was my first and most remembering online FPS. Although team-play wise, it is the HL mod Counter-Strike.

Since you're on about games, how about Magic: The Gathering? They practically invented lootboxes. It still exists, but I find with the innovation of Type II / Standard they screwed people into a permanent upgrade cycle.

Edit: actually I take it back - there were some great games in the 2000s too (Deus Ex, Half Life 2, Fallout 3, Mario Galaxy, GTA IV, The Sims, Bioshock).

Crowdfunding made possible projects like Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2, starting a renaissance of sorts in game design and a reinvigorated respect for the PC as a gaming platform.

Also let's not forget the dawn of MMOs, with UO and then the revolutionary EverQuest in '99.

Stay away from the pay to play, most sports titles and anything on casual mobile and you've got it better than ever before. And it all runs on a decent windows PC that's less than 7 or 8 years old.

Strong single-player storytelling and action has been sidelined, and most multiplayer games tend to be the same. Some have unique mechanics and gameplay but they all depend on your team and unless you have a very good group of people to play with, it just ends up feeling bland and repetitive.

- Mass Effect 1–3

- Minecraft

- Surviving Mars

- Offworld Markets

Just a few of my favourites. There are so many bad games out there because there are so many games.

Those last two are about base building, one is an open-ended colony simulator, the other is a commerce based RTS with definitive end conditions.

Whether you want something to meditate to or something to get your competitive juices running there’s plenty out there to choose from.

It's always in the eye of the beholder, but I think a statement that would remain very much true would "the peak of a certain kind of gaming was in the 90s/early 2000s". There is certainly something that changed in the audience and the market as gaming became largely mainstream vs when it was very much still a niche market in the entertainment realm.

the semi-indie scene is producing gases that are comparable in scope, quality, depth and innovation to the titles of old.

sadly it's very hard to discern indie with potential today because the noise is much more and much higher, but titles like factorio, kerbal space program, keeperrl, automation: the car company game, empyrion, stormworks: build and rescue, castle story and many other to list here provide highly polished experiences.

I'm an avid indie supporter[1] so I might help navigating the landscape if anyone is interested, just restrict the genre a little so that the scope is focused enough to be relevant and interesting

1 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197986674427/games/...

The modern philosophy is that LAN gaming shouldn't be allowed -- all multiplayer must go through the vendor's official central servers.

It's awful.

The rise of the internet fucked up gaming because it allowed game companies to control the software and insert all sorts of abusive monetization inside it.

The internet allowed game theft by EA, activision and Valve. It began with mmo's in the late 90's to take control of software out of the publics hand.

That is why gaming is such a clusterfuck, and why AAA gaming went to shit. High speed internet allowed game companies to take game functionality hostage, dedicated servers and level editors had to be massively scaled back to sell lootboxes and microtransactions.

Go loadup any popular mobile game like Final fantasy brave exvious or Fate grand order.

Single player games under the mainframe dumb client model. AKA they can now force kids to play games as publishers want because they control the values from their servers.

That was their wet dream since the late 90's. The fact that drm, world of warcaft, uo, and Team fortress 2 and League of legends even exist means the average gamer is retarded.

To watch so called "hackers" on hackernews fall all overthemselves to give up software ownership and eat drm in windows 10 was a far cry from the nerds of the 90's. We who remember palladium and wanted to keep control over our PC games because we knew the evil empire was coming to steal our PC games to get rid of dedicated servers, level editors, etc.

But the masses got internet and their stupid consumer behavior fucked up gaming.

All major franchises from the 90's got turned into mainframe - dumb client models.

Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3 Tribes vs Tribes ascend Mechwarrior 1-4 vs Mech warrior online

The game industry gloats about it's great victory to server lock every new big budget game going forward on businss sites.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-01-making-pir...

So no mass invasion's of privacy, stealing PC games via splitting the local application into two and selling it to the gullible masses as mmo' and "software as a service" / always online drm. Meant that the money men could now control the game from end to end.

Which is why gaming went to shit.

The internet radically altered the power between game buyer and game producer. When game companies can literally steal software by merely holding onto part of the software they produce in an internet enabled society, you know you are no longer in kansas anymore toto.

The shit the nerds of the 90's feared game true as the dumb masses ate up all the corporate PR to take over PC's and turn them into dumb terminals through slowly boiling the frog over decades and raising a new generation of gamers that don't are or don't know about the golden age of the 90's.

It was a golden age for a reason - the incentives were to produce good games, it was a "by gamers, for gamers" era, aka nerds producing games for other nerds.

When gaming went mainstream in the 2000's, everything got dumbed down to chimp level. We went from 8 or so weapons in quake to two in Halo 1 as bungie got bought out by microsoft.

Most PC developers entered the MMO space or jumped ship to make console games and there was a dry decade in PC gaming until it started back up in early 2008-2009 as a new generation of kids got internet and came online, leauge of legends hit and the most exploitive model became the most successful - take control of the game via mainframe-server, and sell flags to display skins to technology illiterate gamers.

To go from something like warcraft 3 to lol and dota is pretty much dystopian. There's no incentive not to make gmaes like the 90's where you got singleplaer campaign+multiplayr + level editors in the AAA space.

The microtransactions in the latest Ubisofts games are abhorrent and the non moddability of games like The Crew or For honor speak volumes about the locked down nature of modern AAA space.

So yeah gaming did go downhill - the internet allowed game companies to take control of the game software which means they can no infect it with all sorts of anti-fun game design.

That was the difference between pre mass internet penetration and after the internet hit the gaming masses.

Night and day.

The best Mario Kart came out in 2008, so.