It's Not Nostalgia Goggles

Sometimes I get into discussions with my friends or on forums and things like that about how older games are better than modern ones.  I'm one of those people who is inclined to agree with that idea because personally I find a lot of modern games to be a bit of a joke.  That doesn't mean I think modern gaming is bad but I just find the older experiences a lot more enjoyable.

At first I thought it was just a case of personal taste or hell, maybe it was really nostalgia goggles but on my long boring train rides I decided to think about it a bit more critically and old games are really just better.

So here's what I'm going to do to illustrate my point.  I'm going to take the first 3 genres that pop into my head and explain why old games in the genre are better than the newer ones.

First Person Shooters

This is a no brainer since if there's any genre that is guilty of being dumbed down for mass consumption its this one.  Take old games like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Hexen and many many others.  These games were popular not only because of their ultra violence, but because of their big sprawly labyrinthine levels full of secrets and generally speaking you needed some degree of brain power and strategy to win at these games on higher difficulty levels.

Contrast that with now, where all the exploration and skill that this genre was famous for has been completely stripped out for an experience that people who don't want to spend time learning a title (read: idiots) can handle.  Regenerating health was the first big culprit, then came limited weapon inventories ruining strategy and limiting your play style.  Also every level in a modern shooter is basically a corridor and all you do is hide behind cover and pop heads.

That's right, modern FPS is nothing but the fair ground duck shooting attraction but with a military theme and attached to a roller coaster track.  Finally, don't give me none of that shit about Multiplayer either.  If you think Call of Duty or Halo stack up to something like Unreal Tournament or Quake then you need a slap.

RPGs 

RPGs barely fucking exist nowadays and that's a damn shame.  Just to qualify, when I say RPGs I mean both the J and W type, so don't worry I'm not discriminating between countries.  Western made RPGs used to be such deep and rich experiences.  Things such as Ultima, Baldurs Gate and old school Fallout were such joys to play with so much goddamn content in them that it would probably take a few playthroughs just to notice all the little details about the world you were in.  Japanese RPGs were a little more simplistic but the variety of what was on offer in that genre back in the day was absolutely staggering.  Most western games tended to focus on Tolkien-esque swords and sorcery settings while JRPGs tended to have more outlandish settings and characters.

Contrast that with now, where every Western made RPG just feels like a cheap knockoff of something that came WAY before it.  Most RPGs today have these terrible fucking "morality systems" and stupid branching dialogue trees with only 2 or 3 options on them and the extra tidbits about a worlds lore aren't even half as developed as they are in older games.  Just look at how Elder Scrolls started and look at it now and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Japan on the other hand seems to have forgotten how to produce anything that isn't shallow, moe, otaku pandering bullshit with every game box on a store shelf having some wide eyed anime girl on it doing something cute and the game play is much shallower.

The Point and Click Adventure

 Do I even need to explain this one to you?  Just look at stuff like Monkey Island, Sanitarium, Myst, Grim Fandango and god knows what else.  Then look at what passes off for an "adventure" game nowadays.  Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Serina just to name 3.  A genre once known for it's insane mind bending puzzles and great stories now reduced to walking simulators with barely any game play produced by people who can't make a game worth a shit and can't write for shit either.

Let's just be happy that GoG exists to preserve all the great point and clickers so that people can still experience them and all this modern badly written bullshit can hopefully be forgotten about

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Now I know I've been ranting and it sounds like I hate modern gaming with a passion but that couldn't be further from the truth.  Modern gaming is still great and there are still new titles that come out and I have plenty of fun with.  It's just that gaming has gotten noticeably stupider and I think it's a damn shame.

Also I know I've been talking about "modern gaming" in general terms but there are exceptions to all the above and in all other genres.  Some developers are still trying to capture the magic of the old school shooter with things like Painkiller and The Rise of the Triads remake to varying levels of success.  I've been hearing great things about Divinity: Original Sin and Japan is still producing RPGs of the old quality such as "俺の屍を越えてゆけ２" which looks fucking radical

The point and clicker is still being moderately screwed but an HD remake of Grim Fandango is coming out so I guess it's not all bad, just a shame that the newest thing I can think of in the genre worth a damn is Anna on PC

So to all you devs trying to make intelligent games for the modern age, keep on going.  Finally to all you devs making safe, mass appeal bullshit, try pushing out the boat a little more will ya?   You can still make buckets of money with a smart game, I'm sure it'll be OK.