thefugitivesaint: I have zero love for nostalgia but I have to admit to feeling something similar to
thefugitivesaint: I have zero love for nostalgia but I have to admit to feeling something similar to nostalgia after coming across these ads for PC games that once occupied substantial amounts of my free time in the late 90s and the early 2000s (with the exception of Arcanum which had some frustratingly janky gameplay).As far as I’m concerned these 20 year old games still hold up (perhaps not graphically speaking) and some of them have had ‘Enhanced Edition’ re-releases (and awkward Switch ports) that I fully endorse (if cRPGs are your thing, for example, the well crafted ‘Planescape: Torment’, a game that retains my love, in spite of its combat mechanics, for its humor, its involved plot, and its memorable characters). Each of these titles serve as a road map documenting the history of the form and formula of many modern games in one way or another. These were the games that introduced voice acting and complex dialog tree options, innovations that created an immersive experience that elevated the games above their flaws. Having the ability to cultivate relationships with your characters was entirely new at the time (it’s just a standard part of many games now) and this really helped give players a sense of participation in what kind of story you were experiencing. Of course, you have to enjoy the format of these games which often involve reading copious amounts of text (the amount of text various from game to game but, overall, I just approach these games like I’m engaged with an interactive novel), sometimes clunky combat, and, like many games, repetitive tasks. If you do stay, you stay for the story and world building because that’s were the strengths of these games rests. They’re “classics” for a reason.Contemporary games that try to reproduce the feel of these titles would be games like ‘Disco Elysium’, ‘Tyranny’, ‘Pillars of Eternity’, ‘Divinity: Original Sin’, the ‘Wasteland’ series, and ‘Pathfinder: Kingmaker’ (a game I found frustrating to play TBH and never finished). Each of these examples has their own spin on the cRPG format (’Disco Elysium’ substitutes skill checks for combat for instance) and I’ve enjoyed them all as they did they’re own thing. I don’t dig most FPS (especially if it’s military oriented like ‘Call of Duty’, the ‘Borderlands’ series being a notable exception here given how much fun I found them to be) and some folk don’t dig cRPGs. To each their own. But, if you do, I encourage you to try some of these games out, you might find them a pleasant expenditure of time. -- source link