I feel the same way as OP, for the most part.
For me, too many new games are flawed and never get fixed. The biggest culprit for FPS games is the netcode, which can make games feel like a complete waste of time. "Early Alpha" releases that promise to get fixed but never do wear on you. Even games that actually work very well can ruin it with cringey characters with mandatory and repetitive voice taunts (Apex Legends).
Some of the classics are still great to this day, though, and like OP I find myself drawn to the gems of my era. One of my favorite games (though I'm not very good at it) is Age of Empires II. It's gaining in popularity due to the endless replayability and customization of game modes and maps. Counter-Strike and even Day of Defeat are still great to play, though hackers in CS are not few nor far between.
No doubt some of it is just age and loss of interest in gaming. It feels like the desire is there but it never meets up to expectation, and I can't help but think a lot of that comes down to longing for the good old days.
Exactly. "the desire is there but it never meets up to expectation" - you see, i feel that almost every day, when I think of some gaming time I had in the past. Every night coming back home and doing daily duties, I think of those times when I could simply sit down in front of my PC and play some nice game I liked, swim in in its world and feel it with all my senses...
My wife says I'm too nostalgic and with age I'm having my head more and more drown in the thoughts of the past.. Well, I'm happy seeing more people think and feel the same or similar.
I don't want it to sound like I'm unhappy with my life - its just... I think I cannot fit in in the new age I guess.
There are some great new games, but most of them I simply ignore as looking at them I see same repetitive stories, engines, systems, solutions.
I started to think that maybe this is it, maybe back in 80s-90s all games were kinda new, every stories, solutions were new, inventive, pioneering. Maybe this is that simple?
Remember sitting dozens of hours in front of Prince of Persia, Settlers II, Heroes of Might and Magic, Warlords, Dune, Warcraft, C&C, Zack MacKraken, Day of the tentacle...
Like movies - I watches literally 1000s of movies, started as a kid, watching them on tv, then VHS area came in, binge watching 3-4 movies every summer night with my dad. Everything was new, all stories were new, most of the movies brought new stories, new ways of showing it, every scenes were captured in new way.
Nowadays, I see to myself, I would like to watch some cool "catastrophic" movie. All are crap. But thing is, they are not, simply nobody came up with new subject, new story.
Do you guys remember Core, Deep Impact, Day after tomorrow, Dantes Peak? Not great ones, but it was pleasure to watch them for a first time, they brought something new.
I hope you catch my drift:)
