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Getting back into gaming.

Started by ThickAndCreamy, September 08, 2010, 09:13:44 PM

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ThickAndCreamy

A few years ago video gaming pretty much ran my spare time alone. I spent hours playing games, looking for games, reading reviews for games and getting desperately excited. This happened for about 4 years of my life then about 2 years ago I stopped playing games much.

Games for me just seemed to stop becoming fun. I stopped caring about releases, about genres and generally about every aspect of gaming. I used to wait ages for E3, staying up late at night to watch the videos and know if Battlefield 3 was announced. It all just began to fill a bit empty and a waste of time.

I had a Wii, a 360 and sold them both. I got bored of games after a few plays, never wanting to return to them even if I did partially enjoy it. To me gaming became a bit... depressing frankly. Compared to other media forms, such as films and music I never got much from it except that it occupied my time. Films and music make me feel something deep, occasionally profound and beautiful. Games just give me something to do.

But now, I want to change my ways. I have months of unstructured nothingness ahead of me and am thinking of getting a PS3. Would it be worth it? Have I just been short on my attention span and not giving games a good enough chance? I'm not sure if it's going to fill a void or just if I'll become bored again.

Now the only gaming I do is Team Fortress 2. I often have spent hours a day mindlessly playing, but not for the game, but because I listen to music whilst doing it. I engage in the music and the game itself become just something visceral to draw my attention to.

This is mostly rambling here but generally;


  • What am I missing from not gaming?
  • Can gaming on a PS3 ever be a truly beautiful, life improving and generally highly emotional experience?

I'm making this sound far too profound than what I want. I want to actually feel something other than contentment when playing a game, which I haven't felt in ages for extended periods. Would this be possible on a PS3 or is it that I simply cannot game any longer?

It's just games seem so... fucking derivative. I need something creative, not linear shooting shite.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Often the best games are those that accidentally give the player more power than they ought to have. This encourages people to explore its limits. Whether it's something fun like the warthog jump in Halo, a glitch in Midtown Madness 3 where you get to drive around in a semi-developed land of coding full of holes that lead towards infinite blackness, or something like Fallout 3/Deus Ex/Morrowind where the games very mechanics direct you towards a sort of quasi-cheating. Because they're not on rails you can leave their stories half-concluded at any point, and the wealth of items and potential combinations with those items make it actually addictive to play the game in this fashion rather than do it by-the-book.

Getting away with stuff you're not supposed to be able to do in games is brilliant. All of my favourite games have some element of this. I think due to the way games have developed, I think the last 15 years will probably be seen as the best era for this sort of thing.

Simulation and management games are a hotbed of creativity. If you haven't assembled your own rollercoaster or set up your army on the eve of battle, those are definitely gaming experiences to try that go far beyond the simple pleasures of shooting a man in the head with a gun.

It's like anything - don't let any one hobby dominate. Have a few interests concurrently (some indoor, some outdoor), and as you get sick of one, you'll get more into another for a few months, then it all cycles around.

wasp_f15ting

I go through phases of gaming, and I believe we are in one of the best periods of gaming ever. My eyes welled up in Mass Effect 2. Amazing games exist now, the 360 is a brilliant choice for multiplayer games, but the PS3 is the best for all around awesomeness for the HD world. Esp with the blu-ray compatibility. An ex cabber wrote a wonderful review of Heavy rain here;
Heavy Rain Review

Gaming now provides the visceral joy of God of War 3 or the emotional heights of Heavy Rain, there is so much out there, even games like the original condemned are amazing. You are most certainly missing out on a lot of experiences by excluding gaming from your cultural foray. With lovefilm.com or boomerang you can rent a fair few games a month for the price of  TV license.

I haven't purchased a game since Bioshock 2 which I got for £20.00 I am a single player, and find that gaming now gives me a lot of highs. I think people like Jack McBastard and Borobski  can comment more as I see they have played a tonne of games.

ThickAndCreamy

See, I played the original Bioshock ages ago and thought it was incredible... for the first few hours. After that it became repetitive task making, shooting and running around a bit through environments that look the same. The atmosphere was brilliant at first, yet it still seemed a bit hollow in content and in depth compared to generally most other dystopian sci-fi's.

It seemed a bit like the Equilibrium of the gaming world. The atmosphere and setting is there, it's just the ideas are well overdone and utterly, utterly predictable.

See, that's my trouble with gaming really, summed up well from that. Dystopian books and films generally seem to have so much more depth and originality in ideas whilst games seem to put that behind them ahead of shooting and other tasks, demoting it. Gaming is on par with all other media theoretically, it's just whenever I seem to play them the depth in story and emotional response is nearly always lacking.

chocky909

I love the possibilites of video games and spend a lot of time reading about and lots of money on games and systems but I actually tire very quickly of the modern gaming experience. I think I don't want to invest so much time and effort anymore and a lot of games demand thatof you, for you to get the most out of them. Like T&C says, after a very short space of time, the mechanics of the game quickly become apparant and lift me out of the experience. I prefer games that instantly wow me technically and sensorially over in depth games with thick manuals, long tutorials and a million controls. It's not that I can't hack it. I just don't want to. Imagine if every time a new film came out you had to learn a new language or at least a different dialect, would anyone bother? I suppose that's why people put so many hours into these games because they have invested so much of themselves and learnt so much. Me? I'd rather sample a larger section of the new media that is evolving in an exciting way right in front of our eyes.

Maybe it's just me? I'm lazy and can't be bothered with these new games. I know I would've fucking lapped them up as a youngster, especially if I only got 2 or 3 games a year. I almost envy poorer kids that savour every last byte of their games collection. I've got far too much shit to watch and listen to and play with. And that's without having much of a social life. God, I'm depressed. :)

Consignia

I wouldn't force it. Your attitude sounds like you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. I'd suggest something without much of a narrative, personally I love rythmn based games, I pick 'em up and play them without thinking most of the time.

mook

do what i do, get RDR, get into mexico and shoot up a whole fuckload of armadillos - they look far too much like huge woodlices (woodlouses? doodlebugs?!) for my liking. so far i've killed 11072 of the soppy scuttling cunts. fuck only knows where they all come from but by jimminy do i like shooting them.

Zero Gravitas

^You should start some kind of games/cider review blog.

Quote from: Consignia on September 08, 2010, 10:07:56 PM
I wouldn't force it. Your attitude sounds like you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. I'd suggest something without much of a narrative, personally I love rythmn based games, I pick 'em up and play them without thinking most of the time.

Bingo! That's it - play a game of bingo ThickAndCreamy!

mobias

Quote from: mook on September 08, 2010, 10:14:01 PM
so far i've killed 11072 of the soppy scuttling cunts.


Now that my friend Mr Mook is time well spent. Personally I prefer spending many of my precious and finite hours on this planet shooting wolves in the face but each to their own. 

ThickandCreamy - get a PS3 and get Uncharted 2 - incredible bit of video gaming art. Its not highly original but it is hugely and engrossingly cinematic. Set piece after set piece of gaming fun. You don't have to bother with the first one to get the gist of the story which is basically just an Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider rip off.

Also the PS3 is worth the price tag for one of the simplest and cheapest games out there - Flower. Even Charlie Brooker said its one the best games this generation and its not even really a game, its more of an experience. Strangely emotive and really quite beautiful it only costs £3.99 from the Playstation network.   

mook

 update...11104... when will this ever end, they breed faster than i can kill them.

mobias

Quote from: mook on September 09, 2010, 06:33:48 AM
update...11104... when will this ever end, they breed faster than i can kill them.

The joy of it is.... it'll never end.

wasp_f15ting

Oh man T&C you need to revisit rapture and complete it..

Even really good sci-fi has repetition of events to re-iterate the meanings of people within it and what they do in book or film formats. I think its more apparent in games, but Bioshock delivers a truly amazing story with such brilliant music. I still can remember what it felt like now. If you don't like doing the same thing again and again i.e. grinding avoid RPGs I guess and go for games like Drake. I am afraid there aren't many games where things aren't repeated :( I tried to think of more for you..

The Masked Unit

I just find I've got no time to play these days, especially now I'm living with my girlfriend. We'll only have a few spare hours in the evening and I just couldn't play something that took 20 hours to complete if it meant playing for a couple hours a night over the course of a week or two. The last game I tried to play was RDR and although I loved it, I only really got the chance to give it a proper go as my girlfriend was away for a few days. It's now been about 2 months since I've been near it and so I've completely lost interest.

The other side of gaming I used to adore is online, and I clocked up a ridiculous amount of time on Gears of war and COD 4, but that was when I was living by myself and could hog the TV as I pleased. I won't bother with the next COD or whatever as I know I won't be able to put the hours in that it needs.

Because of this, I tend to only play downloadable games that you can play for 20 minutes, like Geometry Wars 2 (which my girlfriend also loves, which is a bonus), or Trials HD. I'm thinking of getting FIFA 11 this year as you can enjoy the online aspect without having to put so much time into it.

My last hurrah with be The Last Guardian, which I still spunk over every time I see the trailer. After that I think I'll probably hand up my joypad until next gen, when I will undoubtedly be reeled back in! I'm also looking forward to retiring in 20 years or so, as we'll surely have something approaching a holodeck by then.

mook

Quote from: mobias on September 09, 2010, 08:42:17 AM
The joy of it is.... it'll never end.

i'm slowing coming to that conclusion myself... i think i'll just off two more and leave the total at 11111 - i think that is the only sensible option left. i doubt it though, they are just so fucking moreish.

mcbpete

Quote from: ThickAndCreamy on September 08, 2010, 09:13:44 PM
It's just games seem so... fucking derivative. I need something creative, not linear shooting shite.
A lot of them are, my appeal for games nowadays is now not because of some billion extra polygons on screen but because they have a fresh new game mechanic. So for me my favourite games on the PS3 are Flow, Flower and LocoRoco Cocoreccho (and Katamari Forever, even though that's a sequel - I loved the original concept so much) rather than games like God of War and Call of Duty.

I think that if like me you've grown up with games your whole life for the past 3 decades then the bulk of 'mainstream' gaming can feel pretty unfulfilling. I see it pretty similar to that of pop music and hollywood blockbuster movies, after a while you want something a little more left of field - with less hand holding and more depth than just instant gratification. That's why almost all my favourite games of late have been in whole indie gaming scene - things like Cave Story, Knytt / Knytt Stories and games by the developer cactus.

But then again I'm a pretentious cunt !

Little Hoover

T&C You might prefer Bioshock 2, it still suffers from repetition and the atmosphere never tops the opening hours of Bioshock 1, but it's story actually remains interesting throughout, unlike the first game which peaks in the middle and then just becomes dull. I'm sure you know which bit I'm talking about. But equally I can see that there might be parts of it you hate, so I dunno.

Get Flower from the PSN. Not much "game" to it but it makes you feel far happier than endless brown and grey FPS's

About a year ago I was of a similar frame-of-mind to yourself, ThickandCreamy, in that I'd gone from being a videogame obsessive to barely bothering, except for casually with friends on console multiplayers like PES and Timesplitters.  I think it was once my PC started to be left behind by graphical improvements that it all became too expensive and, though I owned a Gamecube and a PS2, I only played a handful of games on each by that point.  I wouldn't even say this is the best era for console gaming - chipped PlayStations and games for a quid a pop were unbeatable - and I find Live/PSN a pale imitation of the GameSpy days when you had excellent mods like Action Quake knocking about.  Console multiplayer is fun and serves a purpose but its rigidity puts it at a huge disadvantage.  Even a game like LittleBigPlanet, which I love, is merely a desultory stab at player-generated content.

That said, the PS3 is worth every penny and is obviously much more than just a machine to play your games on.  Just as well, since so far I've found the 'blockbuster' releases on the whole an underwhelming bunch (Red Dead Redemption excepted) but like others have said there are plenty of innovative indie games available on PSN (Flower and Linger In Shadows being my favourites) that it's hard to complain.

Would have much preferred to have been 'getting back into gaming' on a beast of a PC but the PS3 was the next-best option and, despite the mild negativity of this post, I certainly haven't been disappointed.

mcbpete

Quote from: thehungerartist on September 09, 2010, 12:52:33 PM
Flower and Linger In Shadows being my favourites) that it's hard to complain.
I wish Linger In Shadows had been longer, it was a great 3 minutes play (and then another 20-ish trying to get the trophies) but I've only played it in one sitting and don't really have the inclination to do so again.

Flower is a lovely game, God knows how many hours I've invested in it. I still can't unlock the last trophy ('unharmed travel to the city' or something) as I always get hit right at the last section, but yeah a brilliant little game.

Mister Six

Quote from: Garfield And Friends on September 08, 2010, 09:33:21 PM
It's like anything - don't let any one hobby dominate. Have a few interests concurrently (some indoor, some outdoor), and as you get sick of one, you'll get more into another for a few months, then it all cycles around.

Very sensible advice, that.

mobias

Quote from: mook on September 09, 2010, 10:28:43 AM
i'm slowing coming to that conclusion myself... i think i'll just off two more and leave the total at 11111 - i think that is the only sensible option left. i doubt it though, they are just so fucking moreish.

Mook - are you a PS3 or 360 player? If you're a PS3 gamer then I think we should should join forces sometime. I can help you shoot armadillos and you in return can come and help me dynamite some buffalo.

vrailaine

I just stick to playing older games, much cheaper.
Lumines is pretty damn addictive, a game can take up 2 hours if you need sonething to kill time. So any time I've nothing to do for that length, I'll just play a level.

ThickAndCreamy

I'm going to go by some of your advise I think and buy a PS3 and just rent games and buy online ones. This is great as it means it will cost me very little as I will sell the PS3 in a few months for only a little less than I buy one for second hand I imagine.

As for the game advise here, it's also good. I've loved Katimari Damacy on the PSP, Lumines and generally the more original games recommended here (and Timesplitters of course). I will probably just try out the best games it has to offer for a few months and see how it goes from there. I'm looking forward to it now, as something like Flower is exactly what I want in gaming. When it just becomes something beautiful to play and to watch. I'll also rent Heavy Rain hopefully.

Renting really seems like a sensible option, considering with games I always bought one and sold it again within the month usually, using the money gained to buy another game. I just hope I can find more open ended and original games, preferably something without shooting things too. If I want to shoot something I'll just pop on Timesplitters 2 or 3 and shoot my gingerbread mate in the forehead, that's more than enough.

Big Jack McBastard

Shoulders? post covered a lot of what I had in mind, so I'm going to blather a bit.

I can barely recall a time when I've not been a gamer, even when I was a very young kid (around 4) I was more informed than my mum on how to turn a computer on or off, though she is a technophobe and thus remains infuriatingly slow to grasp these concepts even now. Still, I do recall selling off my PS1 and not having a console or hand-held for the first time in as long as I could remember, it'd be nice to think I was highly productive and used that time wisely, tackling important real life events rather than just pissing it away on some games-box.

I probably didn't, to honest I can't remember, fairly sure I migrated to our PC a bit later, which at the time was just getting tolerable as a gaming machine and realised just how much better than consoles they'd become on a basic level.

Since then it's been a continual thing (though now I am back into consoles as my PC is shite), as I got back into games again I gained some (minor) perspective on just how much they'd advanced and gone from, well in retrospect, shitty to not shitty, seeing what someone else could dream up and throw out for you to tackle and solve (or break and exploit) to your satisfaction remains delightfully satisfying. The pace of the improvements can be disappointingly slow at times though, as developers doggedly hang on to old game engines that broke the mould years ago. They may do new and interesting things with them though which leads to fundamental improvements down the line, it's just a shame they're never as quick as you'd like them to be.

So many games feel the same at their foundations as innovation can be a two headed beast, if a game with a following dares to knock out a sequel the rabid fanboys will throw shit like no-bodies business, if it's too similar, it gets it in the neck for being lazy, if it's too much of a departure from the original they cry foul and damn the whole thing as an abortion, the successful developers end up walking such a narrow line that progress can't be anything but in babby steps through fear of loosing the market.

Once they see enough of this happening cross-generation gamers can get jaded and either revert to their own particular 'golden age' games or drop off altogether through being bored with it.

While all this is going on, people who've not tried any games in decades and who have a very wrong-headed notion of what games are now like, blab on and on like prannets about how 'video games' are all shit or are corrupting kids or some toss.

So I'm for the notion of getting back into gaming if there's been a semi-significant gap in your involvement, if only to get reacquainted with how things are developing.

To ThickandCreamy I'd say; if your computer is up to it, get hold of some torrents of highly rated, but obscure PC games, doesn't mater when they were released, (obviously your hardware is the arbiter of what you can run, but) there is a plethora of ace games for computers you'd never see on a console and that width of scope, not to mention the crazy amount of modifications you can make, may be enough to revitalise your gamers inclinations.

I'm off to tool about on Tropico 3 to knock up a tin-pot dictatorship in a banana republic.

ThickAndCreamy

I just bought an old 60GB PS3 on ebay for just over a hundred quid, comes without controllers mind.

Still, looking forward to playing it when it arrives. I think I'm just going to go back to Ratchet and Clank at first to settle me into the PS3 (and I have completed every Ratchet and Clank game so far on the PS2 and PSP, mostly on more than one occasion). Should be fun hopefully!

Then onto the more hardcore stuff... like Flower.

Little Hoover

You might be slightly dissapointed as the PS3 Ratchet & Clank's take themselves a little more seriously, they're still good though with some inventive new ideas.

ThickAndCreamy

I just want the huge variety of weapons, vast terrains and excellent platforming. I do hope they aren't too serious though. Even though they didn't make me laugh, the stupidity of Quark and the generally absurd storyline in every game before was excellent. I could easily spend hours pissing about with holoducks and super fun animal weaponry.

How do you mean more seriously then? I just want some fun guns, some ridiculous enemies and a lot of wild jumping about not knowing if I'm going to die or not.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I was starting to drift out of gaming's orbit, not through boredom with it, but purely by dint of not owning a current generation console or a particularly beefy PC. This has all changed since I moved in with a friend who owns a 360 though. It's the demos on Live what did it. Now I've probably bought more games in the last month than I have in the last 5 years.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I'm still very excited about Halo Reach and F1 2010 despite having no adequate way of playing these games. I might just pester my brother to buy them then go around to his more.