(Obligatory “I wish we still got pack-in material in the new games” “Oh, I wish we still got - you know - packaging these days”)
It’s because the games were made with passion; the creators wanted to share their story and gameplay vision with people who will appreciate it and their hard work.
Unfortunately nowadays you really have to comb through the muck to find this kind of thing, because the world is flooded with games that were made not with passion and creativity in mind, but only greed and manipulation, and greed, and deceptive marketing, and also more greed. They don’t care if you like it, they don’t have pride in their work, they don’t give a damn about a single thing other than more and more revenue.
So I think this kind of thing does still exist, in small independent developers who make something special and creative. And I love finding those things. But the swill you have to wade through to find them… ick. I mean… the Apple App Store? One gambling app after another? The games with so many forms of currency, micro-transactions, and outright deceptive promo content… tell me, please, when did Apple become bottom-feeders?!
Makes me appreciate the old days of gaming sooo much more.
unlocks doors
Was the door locked with a red, blue, or yellow key?
So this is the last game I played in my early twenties, then a gaming hiatus of 15 years (studying, dating, work…) It was on a brand new PC I had put together for my design studies. Two things I remember perfectly: A) the atmosphere was incredible and scary B) when enemies showed it ran in stop motion. Sadly I had to put my money towards more memory and better monitor and the GPU wasn’t as necessary to me at the moment.
I love this sort of thing! I experienced the reverse lately; I downloaded Diablo 4, closed the blinds, and got drawn into the intro cinematic. Genuinely awesome, moody, atmospheric. I was IN, so ready to play some dark and brooding spooky shit! The cinematic ends…
DLC! BUY OUR COSMETICS! HERE’S A BAJILLION DIABLO CREDIT$$! totally killed the mood. Turns out the game is always-online, even when playing solo, and I was experiencing laggy movement so I just uninstalled. Left a huge bad taste in my mouth.
First diablo game I played was 3 years ago, and I thought it was fine. Booted it up for a couple hours then never again
Currently playing through diablo 2, and holy moly is it good
Turns out the game is always-online
Just like the game before it. Which also had tacky micro-transactions.
I’ll let you guess what Diablo 5 will be like.
Diablo 3 isn’t always online. 🤨
The only modes you have to be connected to the internet to play are the multiplayer and seasonal shit. The single player campaign is entirely offline in the normal, default mode.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/single-player-offline-option/9797
offline solo is only for consoles.
https://expertbeacon.com/can-you-play-diablo-3-in-offline-mode/
Wait, was it? :o I played that for a few hours and don’t remember experiencing any lag! It was a few years ago mind 😂
I particularly liked that the original Unreal came with a pack-in note apologising for the crappy netcode.
Something pretty simple but that I think works very well, at the end credits, at the very end, when there’s something in the lines of “…and a special thanks, To You”.
I also thought that newer Halo games aren’t as good as the old ones, simply because in Halo 3 and Reach, the game said “Welcome!” in the beginning of the online matches. I was, like, thank you, happy to be here.
Gotta get that head pat.
First, games will need to start including pack-in material again instead of just a download code and EULA.
It was just stupid jump scares. It wasn’t even scary because you just knew it was coming on every long hallway.
And darkness. Thanks for the most useless flashlight in history!
And Doom 3 isn’t even that fun gameplay-wise…
Yeah, Doom 3 was so mediocre that it pretty much killed the franchise for years.
The game engine enjoyed some popularity, but id didn’t really know how to make a good “game” for that era.
It doesn’t help that all of the OG Doom developers except J. Carmack left id software years before Doom 3. No wonder it’s so different from its predecessors.
Yeah was interesting to see Carmack and Romero go different ways.
On the Carmack side you had an excellent technical execution of a fairly bland experience.
On the Romero side you had a very shoddy execution of what could have been an interesting concept… Maybe…
Of course Doom itself was fun, but not exactly made in an era that demanded much in the way of plot. Here you are, you got guns, there’s demons from hell… Go for it. The instruction manual introduction, the titles of the levels, and visual design cues were all that was plot wise.
Trying to have a half life style plot didn’t really fit the franchise. Doom 2016 both had a bit deeper plot than old Doom, but was self aware enough to have doom guy just destroy something to make the exposition go away and get on with what needs to go on.
The first mod the game ever had, to my knowledge, was the Duct Tape mod that put the flashlight on some of (but not all of) the guns because a common joke about the shitty flashlight mechanics was “there ain’t any duct tape on Mars? Cmon!” 🤣
I call it Doom: Teleport, cuz that’s all the enemies do is teleport behind you. Yawn
Prepare to be jump scared every 30 seconds by a mob locker with 2-3 imps opening directly behind you.
This is how I played Doom 3 and I fell off the chair a couple of times. It was an incredible experience.
Walked up on my step son playing with headphones on in the dark. He jumped.
Excellent!
Same here, even at 15 FPS.
What did you play it on? I think I had a modded Radeon 9550 that turned it into a 9600.
I can’t remember, it was so long ago. I think I had a 9550 too. Had to run at 640x480 and turn specular and shadows off to get a decent frame rate, left bump mapping on no matter what because the game just looked like arse without it. I played through constantly turning specular and shadows on and off so I could alternate between gawking at the graphics and being able to actually play the game lol
This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore
(Obligatory “I wish we still got pack-in material in the new games” “Oh, I wish we still got - you know - packaging these days”)
I literally went to the comments to write that :D It really is such a shame.
I still think of the National Enquirer ripoff that was included in the Zak McKraken box. Young me didn’t realise it was a hint book masquerading as a faux-gossip rag.
The trinkets and inclusions in big box games were cool, whether they were required (Lenslok, codewheels etc) or otherwise.
I remember Star Siege and MechWarrior 3 coming with a big novella book of some sort, accompanying the manual, and Sim City 3000 came with a wire bound TOME of a book lol. RTS games would often come with big foldout tech trees and stuff too.
The original manual for The Sims was really fun to read too because it was full of humorous witticisms at every turn.
Way to use Diablo’s font to siphon that sweet pseudo-nostalgia to draw in the new generation. 🤔
Nostalgia? Doom 3 came out three years after Diablo 2’s expansion.
I’m not sure you quite understand the point, but good effort on that swing, Tiger.
K
jackass. 🤦🏼♂️
K
I loved playing games in the dark and having the sound loud ( before headphones era). My computer room was tiny and the door was directly behind the chair. it was in the basement and you had to walk through my dad’s workshop. I got a lot of jumpscares from people coming up behind me
Horror? Doom is horror? Wtf?
Dude, I go around killing demons as if they were made out of paper. How the fuck is that a horror game?
The marine campaign from aliens vs predator is horror, well kinda. Doom is just an arena shooter.
This is about Doom 3, which was definitely more down the horror alley than the Doom installations after the reboot 2016.
doom 3 is all narrow corridors and pitch darkness. they created a very impressive-for-the-time dynamic lighting engine to be able to hide the monsters, made it so you couldn’t have your gun and your flashlight out at the same time, and had all interaction to open doors and such be done through virtual screens with a mouse-driven interface so you couldn’t look away. it is very much so horror.
