Current Events > remember the old days of gaming, bros?

(+) Yeah! (+)

check out the ign or gamespot or gamefaqs or whatever forums and call people lemmings, sheep, hermits, cows, crabs, and so forth. but seriously i really do think something was lost when we went to reddit or twitter or discord/twitch/youtube chatrooms as primary modes of internet discussion instead of msg boards. easy way to keep track of everything instead of stuff being lost in the shuffle and endless scroll.

eagerly awaiting a written review by a guy with decades of gaming expertise and then going batshit when it only gets an 8.8. everyone having meltdowns. peak comedy.

turning on g4 to check out our pals adam and morgan and kevin and olivia and vincent and tommy talking about gaming news. back when e3 was a major event before everything was silo'd into their own company presentations.

exciting new AAA games coming out every month since turnaround was so much quicker with less powerful systems. that feeling of holding the disc in your hand and not knowing what adventure awaits. and no having to download it either. just plug and play.

hell yeah

Zithers posted...

check out the ign or gamespot or gamefaqs or whatever forums and call people lemmings, sheep, hermits, cows, crabs, and so forth. but seriously i really do think something was lost when we went to reddit or twitter or discord/twitch/youtube chatrooms as primary modes of internet discussion instead of msg boards.

We're still fucking here, bro. Like, we're literally on a gaming message board right now.

Yeah, the gaming bros were the best

Go home Zithers you're drunk

TomClark posted...

We're still fucking here, bro. Like, we're literally on a gaming message board right now.

gamefaqs is dying though. actually a pretty common topic on here, across all boards. along with basically every other message board on the internet.

To me the "old days of gaming" were long before this place existed.

archizzy posted...

To me the "old days of gaming" were long before this place existed.

fair

i started gaming in '96 with the n64 and made my way to gamepsot in 2004 or 2005

forgot to mention getting MAGAZINES dedicated to gaming. game informer, nintendo power, tips & tricks... had to have a subscription, dude

I remember when games released in a functional state and it wasnt a praiseworthy novelty, yes.

PraetorXyn posted...

I remember when games released in a functional state and it wasnt a praiseworthy novelty, yes.

hell yeah

also remember having your pals over to do some gaming. get some za and 2L of your preferred soda. nice

Yeah I miss those times. Youtube is so bad for walk-throughs and half them are literally just assholes doing lets plays and dicking around instead of showing you a quick efficient way to conquer an obstacle

The Old days of Gaming was waiting for the month's Electronic Gaming Magazine to figure out where the secret dot was in Atari's Adventure.

PraetorXyn posted...

I remember when games released in a functional state and it wasnt a praiseworthy novelty, yes.

and i remember getting the Sonic 3 service pack for christmas

DKBananaSlamma posted...

Yeah I miss those times. Youtube is so bad for walk-throughs and half them are literally just assholes doing lets plays and dicking around instead of showing you a quick efficient way to conquer an obstacle

You can normally find good walkthroughs on Steam Community somewhere or other. I dont like video walkthroughs as they take too long.

I grew up with the NES, SNES, TurboGrafx...
But to me my gaming days were on the ps1 and ps2. Didn't have that many games, but I had a blast playing the metal gear solid games all the way until I got to highschool.

Well I also have some nostalgia for the GBC, GBA and DS...

Really really really miss those days

PraetorXyn posted...

I remember when games released in a functional state and it wasnt a praiseworthy novelty, yes.

The downside of that is if a game was busted it was busted forever unless you go out and buy a reprint of it with fixes.

Bass posted...

The downside of that is if a game was busted it was busted forever unless you go out and buy a reprint of it with fixes.

Alcohol and Q-Tips for the win!

Bass posted...

The downside of that is if a game was busted it was busted forever unless you go out and buy a reprint of it with fixes.

Yeah, but what percentage of games were busted back then? I cant remember many.

Bass posted...

The downside of that is if a game was busted it was busted forever unless you go out and buy a reprint of it with fixes.

It like that for spyro 3. The 1st version had an incomplete soundtrack so the levels starting from like the 3rd homeworld will repeat music from the levels before it. Also I think it has a ton more exploits which is why the rom hack which came out this year advises to use og version

C:
C: /DOS
C: /DOS/run
run DOS run

archizzy posted...

To me the "old days of gaming" were long before this place existed.

Here I am remembering when I was excited cause my friend was going on vacation and I was going to borrow his 2600 games...

PraetorXyn posted...

Yeah, but what percentage of games were busted back then? I cant remember many.

The majority. In that same line there is a reason that the same 200-ish games get mentioned: they were the less broken ones.

ellis123 posted...

The majority. In that same line there is a reason that the same 200-ish games get mentioned: they were the less broken ones.

If youre talking about Atari and NES, sure; it nearly crashed the industry. But after that I dont think it was very high.

Besides, Ive been primarily a PC gamer most of my life, and we had patches back in the late 90s at the latest.

Shamino posted...

Here I am remembering when I was excited cause my friend was going on vacation and I was going to borrow his 2600 games...

Absolutely. I truly started in the arcade but as far as home consoles go Atari 2600 was my first. I eventually had both ColecoVision and Intellivision but never cared for them as much as Atari. Until the NES came out in 1985 and blew my mind.

People laugh now but that was such a step forward it didn't seem real at the time. I was truly jaw open when NES came out. For nostalgic reasons it still remains one of my most cherished gaming memories and times.

The amount of absurd awesome games that came out between 1985 and the next few years was crazy. 1987/1988 was a bonanza.

PraetorXyn posted...

If youre talking about Atari and NES, sure; it nearly crashed the industry. But after that I dont think it was very high.

Besides, Ive been primarily a PC gamer most of my life, and we had patches back in the late 90s at the latest.

Naw, it was enormous. The difference was that was when those involved were children so the bugs were lauded instead of hated. Like, could you imagine a modern game with Pokemon's glitches? People would cry en masse about how talking to a tutorial NPC causes your game to brick. Instead they nostalgia about how Missingno was so awesome in the brief moments before their cartridge overwrote itself and died.

People complained more about an easily fixable single letter on a config file than all old games ever did. That says all you need to know about how much the entire thing is about "my childhood = best, everyone else's = worst" rather than anything factual.

Oh, and PC games had patches since the early 90's and even shareware stuffs had it if you wanted to include that form of patching.

Remember instruction manuals that were the size of a book?

Good times! When into complete detail about the game and included art work.

Remember the times when you had the actual Cartridge or disk... Now it just codes.

ellis123 posted...

Naw, it was enormous. The difference was that was when those involved were children so the bugs were lauded instead of hated. Like, could you imagine a modern game with Pokemon's glitches? People would cry en masse about how talking to a tutorial NPC causes your game to brick. Instead they nostalgia about how Missingno was so awesome in the brief moments before their cartridge overwrote itself and died.

People complained more about an easily fixable single letter on a config file than all old games ever did. That says all you need to know about how much the entire thing is about "my childhood = best, everyone else's = worst" rather than anything factual.

Oh, and PC games had patches since the early 90's and even shareware stuffs had it if you wanted to include that form of patching.

It depends on what the bugs are. I mean, FF6 is buggy as absolute shit, but most if not all the bugs benefit the player.

Vanish makes magic 100% successful, even instant death magic on bosses.
I forget the specifics, but one of the evasion stats does nothing, and the other one counts for both physical and magic, so for the characters that can equip basically everything (Terra, Celes, Edgar), for at least one of them, you can make so its just literally impossible to hit them.
Psycho Cyan
Super easy to make Gau broken as all hell
Etc.

People dont tend to mind bugs that benefit them.

who do you guys following for good gaming opinions and/or news btw

i just follow a lot of ex gamespot/giant bomb ppl. basically just gerstmann and the nextlander crew. is there beef between them? anyone know?

There is SO much whippersnappering going on. We need more canes to wave at them before we don't even have a lawn LEFT for them to get off of.

Zithers posted...

who do you guys following for good gaming opinions and/or news btw

i just follow a lot of ex gamespot/giant bomb ppl. basically just gerstmann and the nextlander crew. is there beef between them? anyone know?

CultOfMush on YouTube for sales
Various outfits for gaming news. YongYea is probably a safe one most people wouldnt find controversial.

archizzy posted...

To me the "old days of gaming" were long before this place existed.

Same. The 80s didn't really have an internet. And even well into the 90s, I'd think of EGM before I'd think of old forums.

PraetorXyn posted...

It depends on what the bugs are. I mean, FF6 is buggy as absolute shit, but most if not all the bugs benefit the player.

Vanish makes magic 100% successful, even instant death magic on bosses.
I forget the specifics, but one of the evasion stats does nothing, and the other one counts for both physical and magic, so for the characters that can equip basically everything (Terra, Celes, Edgar), for at least one of them, you can make so its just literally impossible to hit them.
Psycho Cyan
Super easy to make Gau broken as all hell
Etc.

People dont tend to mind bugs that benefit them.

Naw, it's more accurate to say that it came during a time period where no one cared. For instance a bug meant that the Evade stat didn't do anything. That is purely negative to the player (minus the part where the bug also caused things like Blind to do nothing, I guess). Your comment is confusing the MDef stat doing nothing due to both damage types caring about the normal Def stat. While it is true that the majority of the 50+ major bugs in FFVI were positive to the player, that largely means nothing considering that holds true to modern bugs as well. It's always a "the person is no longer a child" thing rather than anything else. Take Pokemon Scarlet/Violet for instance. People complained, and rightfully so, about how easy it was to break out of the map. This version of breaking out, mind you, is purely beneficial to the player due to you being able to easily abuse it. The same holds true for the vast majority of the bugs in the game: they benefit the player.

Thus the only difference is age. Not quality, not content, etc. Age.

Zithers posted...

lemmings

Yes, I remember Lemmings. Great game.

ellis123 posted...

Naw, it's more accurate to say that it came during a time period where no one cared. For instance a bug meant that the Evade stat didn't do anything. That is purely negative to the player (minus the part where the bug also caused things like Blind to do nothing, I guess). Your comment is confusing the MDef stat doing nothing due to both damage types caring about the normal Def stat. While it is true that the majority of the 50+ major bugs in FFVI were positive to the player, that largely means nothing considering that holds true to modern bugs as well. It's always a "the person is no longer a child" thing rather than anything else. Take Pokemon Scarlet/Violet for instance. People complained, and rightfully so, about how easy it was to break out of the map. This version of breaking out, mind you, is purely beneficial to the player due to you being able to easily abuse it. The same holds true for the vast majority of the bugs in the game: they benefit the player.

Thus the only difference is age. Not quality, not content, etc. Age.

I think its more a 2D vs 3D thing. Kids wouldnt notice stuff like the FF6 bugs. If the graphics wig out in really obvious ways, or the frame rate drops to 10 or whatever, kids will notice.

PraetorXyn posted...

I think its more a 2D vs 3D thing. Kids wouldnt notice stuff like the FF6 bugs. If the graphics wig out in really obvious ways, or the frame rate drops to 10 or whatever, kids will notice.

^This.

Was it Fallout 3 or 4 where the first guy you meet has his head upside down? 3D models just invite all sorts of problems.

That wouldn't happen with 2D sprites. Games were actually less buggy because there was less to go wrong.

Gaming died when the internet was born IMO

Shamino posted...

^This.

Was it Fallout 3 or 4 where the first guy you meet has his head upside down?

That wouldn't happen with sprites. Games were actually less buggy because there was less to go wrong. 3D models just invite all sorts of problems.

That was New Vegas. But its still the best 3D Fallout by miles. Its just the buggiest because Bethesda only gave Onsidian 18 months or something to develop it.

Zithers posted...

seriously i really do think something was lost when we went to reddit or twitter or discord/twitch/youtube chatrooms as primary modes of internet discussion instead of msg boards.

I've been on this site since i was like 14 and made an account to talk about GTA:SA.

We didnt lose anything switching to different sites. Same toxic BS

People still too put far too much stock in reviews though. It's just not 8.8 from Gamespot anymore, but metacritic stores and steam ratings and such. None of it ever mattered and it continues to not matter.

As far as the quality of the actual games though, I don't think much has significantly changed. For me, I just got older and I'm struggling to maintain interest in stuff in general.

booth babes

Robot2600 posted...

booth babes

hell yeah brother

GeneralKenobi85 posted...

People still too put far too much stock in reviews though. It's just not 8.8 from Gamespot anymore, but metacritic stores and steam ratings and such. None of it ever mattered and it continues to not matter.

As far as the quality of the actual games though, I don't think much has significantly changed. For me, I just got older and I'm struggling to maintain interest in stuff in general.

i don't think anyone was really putting much stock into 8.8, just it was a surprise and obviously given the nature of system wars, you had to go make fun of nintendo fans.

obv great games still come out but the development turnaround and general culture around it is a lot different now.

i forgot to mention we didn't have dlc or microtransactions back then which was cool

Robot2600 posted...

booth babes

Remember when Nintendo unleased all these booth babes with 3DS's chained to their waists? That was great >_> I miss stuff like that

bump

Maybe I'm just old and/or joined the party late, but the good old days of gaming for me were before my days of gamefaqs. Not that I resent signing up in 2007, but the kream of the krop for gaming was before that. Back when, to me, the internet was mainly a source of cheat kodes, and later flash games. Snes, N64, PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, GBC, GBA and a small PC library at my disposal. Not sure when I got my hands on a GameCube, but I was definitely hitting a friend's house for his Xbox for more sweet sweet kouch ko-op/vs. Everything from Mario World to Kingdom Hearts 2 was just so... right.