New games are just not fun anymore?

[SOSU]

Pirate Doom 2 just came out and you guys are telling me modern video games are bad :V

Jokes aside, AAA games are all too homogenous and bloated to be worth playing, everything on phones is a cashgrab skinner box and while Indies are more interesting, after a while you notice some patterns (look at all the 'I grew up with Super Metroid' games on Steam) so you have to know how and what to look for

The biggest problems are the lack of risks the big companies take (Hi Fi Rush is an example of a risk paying off that came out recently) and the non-existence of the AA market, back in the late-90s early-00s you could spend a lot of fun time with cool games made by obscure studios, for example when I played Armored Core 3 for the first time on PS2 I ate that shit up :D!!!

[mmx]

On 4/9/2024 at 1:39 PM, DNSKILL5 said:

There’s plenty of older games you likely haven’t played. Start there and work your way up, or don’t. 

 

That is an interesting idea. Thank you, sir.

 

On 4/9/2024 at 2:31 PM, Jizzwardo said:

Try something out of your comfort zone! Outer Wilds, Elden Ring, anything FromSoft :)

 

I did try the Souls-like genre, it appealed to me, but it unfortunately got boring pretty quick. I like the mechanics, though, not sure where to put my finger on it. Outer Wilds felt empty and grocery store todo list-ish. Go here, do that, fetch this, have fun, obey.

 

You mentioned FromSoft, then I Googled, and then I realized they also make Amored Core games. I'm going to give those a try! Thank you!

 

On 4/9/2024 at 2:52 PM, maxmanium said:

A common response to this is that we got older. It's true to some extent. But I kinda agree that it feels like games don't have much of a hook anymore, at least not for me. I look at the time it would take to get used to all aspects of the game (controls, gameplay loop, etc.) and just sigh, because it just feels like more effort than it's worth. This is especially bad if the game doesn't do a particularly good job of teaching you what you need to know, or if you're even doing things correctly in the first place. Then, it can feel like even more of a slog than it should have in the first place.

"and just sigh, because it just feels like more effort than it's worth". Precisely!

 

On 4/9/2024 at 2:57 PM, mrthejoshmon said:

 

New games are fun, you are not playing the right ones.

 

New games to consider:

• Trepang² is super cool
• Severed Steel is great, pretty, stylish... Can't wait for it's successor Echo Point Nova
• Helldivers 2 is actually pretty good
• Total War titles, despite recent fan reception, remains great fun.
• Darktide, despite somewhat shallow depth, has a great and satisfying core gameplay loop.
• Starship Troopers Extermination is a great game in early access, just wait until the promised soon^tm class overhaul (Update, literally tomorrow it releases)
• Robocop Rogue City was an absolute blast and I'm now on the Terminator game they made, also great.
• Ready or Not is an excellent game and I cannot recommend enough
• System Shock remake is a great experience (soon to be updated, the 11th of this month).

And this is just what I have got around to, looking forward to some real bangers like En Garde and later on releases like Space Marine 2.

That is an extensive list. I love Total War ones, never played a recent one. Thank you for the attention given to this!

 

On 4/9/2024 at 3:24 PM, Zerofuchs said:

Eh, I'm rarely interested in the big ticket "AAA" stuff these days but the indie scene tends to have a fair number of interesting releases.

 

I do tend to play older games but it's hard to say how much of that is lack of interest in a newer title, and how much is simply a desire for some retro gaming and/or to clear out a little of the backlog.

 

Plenty of solid titles already mentioned in the rest of the thread, and my definition of "recent" kinda expands out to anywhere within the last 5-6 years because there are a LOT of games out these days, and it takes a while to get to them sometimes. Which probably contributes to a perception that the good ones are hard to find. The pile's getting bigger and harder to sift through.

 

Some suggestions for a few games I've been enjoying and why:

- Mortal Sin. Bit eye searing but a solid kinda realtime randomised dungeon crawler.

- Trepang² is short but explosively fun.

- Xenonauts 2 is really more Xenonauts 1 with the most annoying parts fixed

- Bannerlord is a true damn sequel in all the right ways

- Hardspace Shipbreaker is the closest we've got to a real spaceship salvaging game and it's great.

 

I'll stop my list here but yea, I find these days there are plenty of good games releasing, and enough usually that I haven't caught up to that I can wait for a special for almost all of them, making my average spend for game a far cry from the $70 Ubisoft et al. would desire.

 

Could also be an aspect of energy levels, if everything else is tiring you out games tend to lose their lustre since they do demand some mental energy to actively enjoy.

Second mention of Trepang. Gotta try this.

 

On 4/9/2024 at 4:34 PM, TheHambourgeois said:

I kind of feel this as well, there haven't really been any AAA studio output that I have been interested that don't involve hideo kojima in some way in a loong time. Seems like there is a lot of interesting indie stuff coming out if you can navigate around a lot of the shovelware garbage in Steam. I am pretty interested in hyper demon and stuff like that but I'd rather eat glass than play another military sim shooter.

Also dwarf fortress finally got a steam release with a real UI so that's kind of new and interesting

 

Navigating through all the crap is impossible. :(

 

On 4/9/2024 at 5:08 PM, OpenRift said:

The thing about what I call the "neo-boomshoot" wave that's been going on for the past 5 or so years is that it's a lot of indie developers. There are vastly more indie games put out per year than AA and AAA afaik, and as a byproduct, the new wave of boomer shooters is very saturated with games varying greatly in quality (though still better than most AAA games, but I'll get to that later), so it can be hard to really find new/upcoming releases that interest you.

 

From what you've described, I think you're looking in the wrong places. The best games you're going to find are rarely the ones that are in one of those subscription services. These are just the games that are approved by Sony, which has a whole host of potential motivations behind it. 

 

The current state of AAA gaming is what happens when an industry has been around long enough. The execs and shareholders thought they'd figured out how to game the system by releasing unfinished, shallowly designed, always-online, microtransaction-infested pieces of e-waste. But with the mass layoffs going on right now, I think we're on the cusp of AAA publishers and studios either rethinking their business model and learning from the indie and AA games that are succeeding like Lethal Company, Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3, or continuing down their path of petty greed and have karma meet them at the end in one form or another. 

 

Never heard of Lethal Company or Helldivers until you guys mentioned. Will try, thanks!

 

On 4/9/2024 at 7:02 PM, Captain red pants said:

I mean, I'd love to help you out, but from this sentence alone it's apparent that we live in different realities.

It's not that I don't like'em. They don't add anything new, nor do they understand the vibe that we had in the 90s while playing those. Every game after Doom had something new, quirky or exciting to offer and it was just a blast.

[Captain red pants]

1 hour ago, mmx said:

It's not that I don't like'em. They don't add anything new, nor do they understand the vibe that we had in the 90s while playing those. Every game after Doom had something new, quirky or exciting to offer and it was just a blast.

Hard disagree on not nailing the vibe though I guess I can agree that they value refinement over anything else but if they're not your bag they're not your bag.

But if you really are looking for something new we can get a little weird

Cruelty Squad

 

Looks like this:

You will probably have your divine light severed in the first mission
I've sunk over 40 hours into it.

[ReaperAA]

5 hours ago, Captain red pants said:

Cruelty Squad

 

Looks like this:

You will probably have your divine light severed in the first mission
I've sunk over 40 hours into it.

 

This is the first time I have seen an image of this game and boy does it look wild. Not a fan of this style of aesthetics, but probably worth for someone looking for a bizarre game.

 

6 hours ago, mmx said:

It's not that I don't like'em. They don't add anything new, nor do they understand the vibe that we had in the 90s while playing those. Every game after Doom had something new, quirky or exciting to offer and it was just a blast.

 

I feel some of the new-retro fps games nail the style better than others. Zortch is the best example that comes to my mind when it comes to games most accurately emulating the visual and gameplay style of 90s. It feels like a lost fps game from 1997/1998.

[taufan99]

24 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

This is the first time I have seen an image of this game and boy does it look wild. Not a fan of this style of aesthetics, but probably worth for someone looking for a bizarre game.

And the gameplay is even moreso. Calling it "Hitman/Splinter Cell/etc. on crack" is accurate, but won't exactly convince its madness. It's one of those things you need to watch by yourself to truly believe.

26 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

I feel some of the new-retro fps games nail the style better than others. Zortch is the best example that comes to my mind when it comes to games most accurately emulating the visual and gameplay style of 90s. It feels like a lost fps game from 1997/1998.

Agree with the Zortch one. Its price feels like a steal while other lesser games are sold at a higher price. I wish its map editor was more intuitive and documented, though, but I guess it's just me.

[Naan]

I play and enjoy old and new games alike. Lately I finished my first Pokémon game (Red version, 1st gen from 1999) as well as slinging Hearthstone games and dabbling into the foray of Dying Light's DLCs.

 

I enjoy games for what they are and essentially ignore every marketing piece editors throw at us, given how disconnect they are from the final product developer teams releases and essentially building up disappointment. Many games end up being underrated because of that, Starfield is a prime example of this.

 

Also, Metacritic, Steam user reviews and other review aggregators should all die in a dumpster fire. They make people have a firm opinion on every game they never played by copy pasting whatever the aggregation or their favorite opinion leader says and make arguing online about games feels like talking to ChatGPT.

Edited April 12 by Naan

[Dylan Jarvis]

Last year had some banger games. This years been a big misfire for sure mostly JRPGs (meh) and an overhyped sequel for an overrated game that somehow people convinced themselves is good (Dragon's Dogma). 

 

I'm thankful though because it gives me time to work on my backlog of games and lord knows I'll never truly play them all.

 

 

 

 

[Drago]

AAA gaming has turned into a money machine, but indie gaming has scratched my itch.

Ive been playing a lot of KSP lately, and also ravenfield, those games are bangers.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

No, sounds more like you have to fight with many mental barriers you've put up to stop you from playing any new game. The same soulless clones that you accuse new "boomer shooters" was the same accusation people used 2+ decades ago to skip Heretic, Blood and Quake 2 without ever playing them in depth.

Edited April 30 by Cruduxy Pegg

[vyruss]

New games can be fun.  Very fun in fact.  For me it's not so much a lack of interest or finding them unenjoyable, but rather its about making time to play them.  I have a hard time convincing myself to play games very often anymore as I have so many other competing priorities with my time.

 

As others have stated in the thread quite aptly, it's the price of getting older.  Maybe in the long winter I can find something to play again.

[LegendaryEevee]

     I will be honest, when I got past DooM 3 I was worried about the future of my favorite franchise.  I loved the horror asthetic but hated the lack of fast paced combat and exploration.  I reluctantly FINALLY tried DooM 2016 which looked like more of the same but MAN WAS I EVER WRONG! 

 

     Not only do I feel it revitalized the franchised but advanced it so much further, with plenty of exploration for secrets, monsters that are actually smart enough to dodge your attacks while raining down death at any moment.  DooM 2016 despite my everlasting love for DooM II and it's millions of custom WADs has easily become my favorite game I've already started a UV-Max run let's play on my channel and will add commentary to the newer videos starting tonight!

 

 

Edited April 30 by LegendaryEevee

[heliumlamb]

[yakfak]

mmm I will say that every notable new game feels like a Prestige 3D Beat-em-up with a skill tree and that's bad

like if you didn't delve into more personal indie stuff or outside 3d gaming it could be totally understandable to be depressed with game industry tendencies!

also the feeling that a large group of people were slave-driven and then replaced in order to create said prestige 3d beat-em-up with a skill tree is hard to shift

 

Edited May 1 by yakfak

[Aaron Blain]

If you're reading Doomworld, you might be someone who could get into the retro dev scene. It's the same kind of creative stimulus provided by limitation and well-known boundaries that we enjoy so much in Doom.

 

I'm especially interested in the NES, but there are several other platforms that have growing communities that are pushing their platforms to new heights.

 

Full Quiet for NES:

Spoiler

 

Former Dawn for NES (in development):

Spoiler

 

Attack of the Petscii Robots (multiplatform):

Spoiler

 

I'm following the NESdev Discord, so I'm seeing all kinds of cool stuff that people are working on. The Genesis scene is blossoming too. I also have a PlayDate, which I'm really excited about.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 1 by Aaron Blain