lackblogger
SasqWatch
- Joined
- November 1, 2014
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What were some of your favorite games from the 2000-ish "golden era" you speak of? I'm trying to remember what I was playing around that time, but I think I might have been mired in MMOs in general back then as nothing is jumping out at me.
My god, man, how long have you got :lol:
Oh well… deep breath and…
The triumvirate of the Infinity Engine games, that being the two Baldur's Gate games, the two Icewind Dale games and, of course, Planescape Torment.
Then there's Neverwinter Nights & it's universe, Divine Divinity, Jeff Vogel's Avernums, either original or remakes, all of which are truly epic games and masterpieces in their own right and I've only listed the specific ones I have found great joy in.
Of those that I wasn't fussed in, other landmark RPgames were also highly abundant, including but not limited to Diablo 2, both the Fallouts, Deus Ex, Wizardry 8, Arcanum, Bloodlines, Jagged Alliance 2, System Shock 2, the Gothic series, Morrowind.
And we're still just on RPGs, but the theme is continued across pretty much every single genere:
For Adventure Games there's all the Myst sequels, The Longest Journey, The Broken Sword series, the early Nancy Drew games, again, I'm only naming ones off the top of my head here.
For tactical games there was the fantastic Myth series, the Commandoes series, Robin Hood The Legend of Sherwood, Desperados, the Worms series, the Stronghold series, just dropping them right from instant recollection here.
For strategy gaming there was Civilisation 2 and 3, Alpha Centauri, the Heroes of Might and Magic series and in particular the stand-out HoMM III, the start of the Total War series, the Age of Wonders series, Starcraft, the Age of Empires series, please stop me if I'm going to fast for you.
And the start of the Grand Theft Auto series, Crash Bandicoot, Goldeneye, Half Life 2, Hitman, the Tomb Raider games, Resident Evil, Thief.
Oh yeah, and the city builders and the like, SimCity, the Caesar series, the Anno series, the Tropico series, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, and my god I'm still forgetting shit loads of stuff. And I still haven't even discovered a huge amount of stuff for the first time.
I'll hit post and instantly regret not mentioning caseloads of landmark classics.
I'm still playing games from tht era as if they were newly released games and finding immense joy in game after game and in each game you can almost sense the joy the developers had in making all these products as they all ooze fun and experimentation out of every orifice.
You were playing MMOs? Like… forgettable trash? And you 'missed' all of this???? My god, man, but you have one of the most beautiful backlogs anyone could ever hope to have…
If you want me go specific on any one particular game or series I can use them also to further explain my premise, but for brevity's sake, I'll just take the Worms series as a golden example:
Worms 1 - came out in 1995 - poor graphics, miserable interface, terrible campaign mode, but a nice idea hampered only by the technology it was trapped in.
Worms 2 - 1997 and it's like a sea change. Amazing graphics, easy interface, interesting campaign mode, audible crisp sounds, but just as easy to learn but hard to master as its predecessor, nothing from Worms 1 has been 'sacrificed' to bring you a game that makes the previous entry entirely redundant.
Two more sequels that follow the same pattern of upgrading the joy while never sacrificing a single bit of complexity.
Worms 3d - 2003 and for some reason the game now has to be 3D instead of 2D because for no other reason than that is what everyone else is doing. It's like a husk of a game, or a completely different game entirely. The series instantly dropped from a guaranteed 8.5 standard series to a 7.0 forgettable sideshow series. The most complex thing about it being it's unwieldly and impossible UI.
Like a flash, true greatness shone out like beacon across innumerable game titles, as if someone had just cracked the ultimate gaming pinatar. Gone was the ugly impossible UIs and overly obtuse impossible games and suddenly we were knee deep in gaming perfection, so much so that one could try practically anything and have a reasonable expectation of gaming orgasms.
And then it all vanished one day in 2004 in a haze of 3D and game by committee design, and the stale old system of dire AAA garbage trains steamrolled everything into dull egregious putty. Games for dummies played by people who don't want to game but just want to 'interact' with something. Games where you could turn you head away and talk to someone for 5 minutes and when you turned back you'd still won the fight or completed the mission. Games like Oblivion, Call of Duty, Fable, Assassin's Creed, you know the kind of thing… complete dreck.
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2014
- Messages
- 4,778