the retro blahs

[Xeogred]

Lately I've really only been playing stuff with friends online. Most of my free time has been eaten up by other hobbies or by work and commute difficulties. There are lots of games I would love to play that I just don't feel I have time for or want to start up at the moment. I also have several games sitting half done that I want to go back to, but forcing myself to start them up just hasn't worked.

Warframe, lol.

I'm the opposite... I rarely ever play things online or even want to, even with a close knit group of some friends. On one hand it sucks a little because this has been how some of my old friends have kept in better touch with others that moved states away which is pretty cool, but yeah. I bet I'm a big joke among that group... "Yeah guys this might be the one I finally play with you guys!" then I never do.

I'm surprised more people around here don't replay games too much, but I maybe take it to the extreme sometimes. I've got a few couple dozens of games that feel like they're at least bi-annual revisits. This can be a double edged sword though, I think no matter how much you love a game, you can end up drying it up after awhile. Link to the Past and Super Metroid being the prime examples. I know these games simply far too well, can speedrun them, do limited items, etc too, so when I replay them sometimes it feels like the magic isn't quite what it was and in ways that feels like my fault? It's like I'm on auto pilot when I play them. So if there is one thing I maybe have to force on myself, it's trying to go a little longer in between some long time favorites like that that I've played 100 times over. Strange problem to have.

[Ack]

For me, it's that I have been playing games online since the days of Team Fortress in Quake and Ultima Online, and I met many of my friends in college by joining the university's computer gaming club. Playing multiplayer games with friends is a natural state of mind for me, and I gravitate towards it heavily for the social aspect. I'm not just playing a game, I'm socializing, learning the game, and competing in a friendly manner with my best friends.

That's not to say I don't appreciate single player. Some journeys are best taken alone and shared via word of mouth later. But gaming with friends is such a key component of how I've grown up that it would probably be the last thing I would give up if I were to drop the hobby entirely.

That said...There is a ton I want to play out there. Maybe over the summer I'll sit down with a few more old school titles while other folks do Summer Challenges. Ultima III needs to be beaten at some point.

[BogusMeatFactory]

For me, it's that I have been playing games online since the days of Team Fortress in Quake and Ultima Online, and I met many of my friends in college by joining the university's computer gaming club. Playing multiplayer games with friends is a natural state of mind for me, and I gravitate towards it heavily for the social aspect. I'm not just playing a game, I'm socializing, learning the game, and competing in a friendly manner with my best friends.

That's not to say I don't appreciate single player. Some journeys are best taken alone and shared via word of mouth later. But gaming with friends is such a key component of how I've grown up that it would probably be the last thing I would give up if I were to drop the hobby entirely.

That said...There is a ton I want to play out there. Maybe over the summer I'll sit down with a few more old school titles while other folks do Summer Challenges. Ultima III needs to be beaten at some point.

You saying Ultima Online has jibbled my bibblies. Everything is better with friends. Even if you are playing a crappy game, it is immediately more fun with a friend.

Also Ultima Online was the wild west of online games.... rarely is there anything like it.

[Jmustang1968]

I do mostly the same as Ack, but perhaps for different reasons. Most of my time has been in multiplayer games with my brother and other friends. For the past year to year and a half, we've been playing things like R6 Siege, Division, WoW Expansion for a few months, 7 Days to Die, and Player Unknowns Battlegrounds. Some other stuff mixed in as well, but those were the heavy hitters. I was also on a Crusader Kings 2 and Civ V & VI kick for awhile too.

There are multiple reasons for this. I have mostly been playing on my PC only. Wife and kids take up the main tv often, and I can play games on it, but it is a pain. And then, I also have to watch for stuff that is too mature in content for a 4 year old. My son also has his crib in what was the retro gaming room with the CRT. So I cant go in there for late night play sessions since he is sleeping. This will change when I move to the new house at the end of next month. I will have a media room just for my gaming needs. It will also free me up to do podcasts in relative quiet as well, which has been a problem for me with my current open game room set up.

So mine isn't so much a lack of desire to play older stuff, more of a ease of access. I also have a
retro pi set up I want to put together soon as well. I picked up a little genesis 4 port USB hub I will use to house the PI.

[Betagam7]

"The thrill of hunting" may have depleted in most of us due to price jacking and the general rise in nostalgia for certain systems.

The answer for me has simply been: change the systems.

I gave up on my dream of getting all the NGPC games and started exploring Wonderswan games instead.

I started getting into stuff like the Timetop Gameking and had great fun seeking out around forty plus titles for it finding it's weird variants and piecing together its library from a scarce few collectors I found our there has been a really fun project.

I bought a Timlex Megaduck and have had similar fun tracking down its games. the fact that there was pretty much zero coverage for these more obscure machines made it an adventure: a treasure hunt, powered not by nostalgia and rose tinted visions of the past but instead a sense of discovery.

Yes, some of the systems I acquired and collected for on this journey like the Watara Supervision or the Bitcop Gamate were mostly dreadful but I still found it fun to find games that hadn't been covered to death (or at all!) and that I could only experience by actually playing them.

So yes, I'd say that next time you get the Retro Blahs, spin that wheel of obscure systems, close your eyes and put your finger on it. Go in blind and see what you can discover. Despite what I've said about nostalgia, it's a great equalizer, a way of transporting yourself back to a bygone era when you were a kid looking at box art and puzzling over screenshots wondering whether to take a chance on a game you'd never heard of and had no way of researching.

[ElkinFencer10]

I tend to go through waves where I do nothing but retro and then suddenly neglect retro entirely in favor of modern. I'm on a modern kick right now thanks primarily to a slew of new releases I was excited for (Zelda/Setsuna/Mass Effect/Persona).

[marlowe221]

I'm another person for whom the line between retro and current is blurry, fuzzy, and hazy. To me, games are games. So I don't find myself in a retro slump really.

But that's not to say that gaming hasn't changed a good bit since I started gaming in the 80s - it definitely has!

That's why I like these forums. It's a place to talk about old games and new games with a group of knowledgable, mature people who don't take themselves too seriously.

And when it comes to discussing new games, I like talking about them here with folks who have retro sensibilities and who know and appreciate the context in which new games are coming out.

New games often stand on the shoulders of the giants of retro games. It's nice to discuss those new games with people who have perspective on how we got to where we are now.

Edit - It's also nice to talk about games with people who totally get how I can like Atari 2600 games just as much as I like modern PC gaming with a fairly hefty graphics card and 144 hz monitor!

[ElkinFencer10]

It's also nice to talk about games with people who totally get how I can like Atari 2600 games just as much as I like modern PC gaming with a fairly hefty graphics card and 144 hz monitor!

Dude, I hold adamantly that Berzerk is an infinitely superior game to Ghost Recon: Wildlands (although it is definitely better on Vectrex than 2600).

[marlowe221]

It's also nice to talk about games with people who totally get how I can like Atari 2600 games just as much as I like modern PC gaming with a fairly hefty graphics card and 144 hz monitor!

Dude, I hold adamantly that Berzerk is an infinitely superior game to Ghost Recon: Wildlands (although it is definitely better on Vectrex than 2600).

I agree 100%. I actually played Berzerk on my 7800 (it's the 2600 cart of course) for a couple of hours a few days ago.

But as an Atari fan, I feel obligated to say "Damn Vectrex.... *grumble grumble*"

[Gunstar Green]

I agree 100%. I actually played Berzerk on my 7800 (it's the 2600 cart of course) for a couple of hours a few days ago.

But as an Atari fan, I feel obligated to say "Damn Vectrex.... *grumble grumble*"

The Vectrex version is cool and unique and all but I prefer the 2600 or original arcade game.

On the original topic, most of the games I tend to enjoy are genres that are considered "retro" styled so even when I'm not actually playing old games most of the new games I play are like old games with modern twists. I don't do a very good job of keeping up with the newest stuff, even if I do want to play it at some point like the new Zelda for instance. I don't really get hyped up about new things unless it's something very specific and important to me.