Gaming Confessions . . . (and seeking opinions) (Gaming)

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Friday, December 11, 2015, 17:50 (3269 days ago) @ cheapLEY

So, I was listening to the most recent The Patch and the Ready Up Live podcast earlier today. The Patch talked about Half-Life, and Cruel was talking about Battlefront II on RUL. This, along with the discussion Korny and I had about not giving games enough time to sink in, led me to thinking about games I have missed out on over the years.

I have never played Half-Life 2. I have never played Battlefront II (other than a handful of matches at a friend's house when it was new). Which led to me to thinking about how I've never played Republic Commando, which everyone apparently loved. I never played Knights of the Old Republic II, despite absolutely loving the first one.

So, that's my confession, and now I ask a question.

Are any of these games worth playing at this point, if I've never played them before? Do they hold up? They're all cheap enough on Steam. Hell, you can probably get all of those games together for twenty bucks. Should I? What other old games hold up well and are still worth visiting today (that can be easily obtained)?

Half-Life 2 is a great, solid FPS but I never felt it was the greatest game ever. It has some great characters and art direction, but the story doesn't really go anywhere.

I just played Republic Commando for the first time last year and enjoyed it.

Knights of the Old Republic II has some great parts and some parts that are literally missing. It was made by a different studio rather quickly (Obsidian, like how they tackled Fallout New Vegas for Bethesda) and had a lot of cut content. But there's some really neat story directions.

In regards to your question of holding up, or if they feel dated... I think that really depends on the player. For me, I can easily jump between systems and generations, appreciating them for what they were and finding avenues in which they excel over modern trends, though sometimes it takes twenty minutes to get used to the changes.

The graphics may have less fidelity, for example, but the art direction might be more unique. Controls may be clunky but the world may actually be more explorable. More specifically, I find the lack of voice acting in older games, like classic Final Fantasies, to be more immersive than a lot of modern games because my imagination creates the voices perfectly and convincingly in my head. A lot of non-AAA game demos I try on Xbox One would really benefit from just leaving out the stiff voice acting, I think.

In some ways that relates to the deeper immersion I sometimes feel with 'simpler' graphics. The less realistic the graphics, the more my brain reads them as representation instead of the actual thing. My imagination then fills in the gaps and enriches that game world a thousand fold. Compare that to the more realistic graphics of today and you'll find those gaps are much smaller - so small that your brain doesn't read it as representation anymore and when there IS a crack in the realism, it's actually distracting. When Assassin's Creed is huge and epic and detailed it's awe-inspiring, but when you look at a character up close and their eyes are dead they feel less human than MegaMan. In older games, your imagination was as much a part of the graphics engine as the game itself.

...I guess it's kind of the Uncanny Valley affect now that I wrote it down. Huh!

And, just as a discussion starter: what are your gaming confessions? What games have you missed over the years?

-I thought the art direction and setting of Bioshock was fantastic but I quit after a few days because I just wasn't having fun. :/

-I haven't played a Call of Duty since they took place in WWII.

Can't think of any others at the moment, mostly because I just plan on getting to them at some point, preferably when they're old news and I can afford them! Someday I'd like to get a PS3 and try all the exclusives I missed in the last decade, too.