Any gamers here?

Long-time gamer here, started back in the late 80s with a NES, Mario 1-2-3 (all of which I finished), Zelda (which I never finished!), Double Dragon 2 (awesome final boss music), Faxanadu (odd, weird and wonderful, also never finished), Megaman 2 (never finished), TMNT (never finished), Castlevania (never finished…what the hell, I had many games I never finished!). Also playing with my cousins who had Nintendo World Cup, don’t believe I’ve laughed so hard with anything (perhaps Pictionary!), we used to strategically buy (=ask our parents to buy) games so there’s no overlap and we can exchange.

Then it was SNES time, another awesome machine! Super Mario World + Yoshi’s Island, Castlevania 4, Zelda 3, Donkey Kong, NBA Jam…probably had many games I can come up with but let’s focus on some serious gems of the history of gaming.

  • Street Fighter 2, Mario Kart, Bomberman 1-4 - what can be said about these, we spent countless hours playing each other, honing our skills. Me and my cousin once went to a competition in mid 2000s and basically wiped the floor with the competition, him on Mario Kart, me on Street Fighter
  • Super Metroid…visual storytelling, atmosphere, pacing off the charts
  • Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3, Secret of Mana, absolute gems of JRPGs. Final Fantasy 3 had such depth of systems, I really believe these early days of figuring things out in the game benefit me to this day. Plus these games taught me English.

Then it was PC time, carrying on to this day, let’s see…

  • Baldur’s Gate 1-2 (none of that Larian crap!)
  • Ripper, Black Dahlia, Myst, Riven
  • Dungeon Keeper 1&2 (awesome!)
  • Daggerfall and Morrowind, how could I forget
  • Starcraft, Warcraft
  • LAN parties of Counter Strike, getting lost in internet cafes for 24-48 straight hours fuelled just with coffee a d cigarettes.
  • Some early foray in MMORPGs: Ultima Online, Lineage 2 (crap but insanely addictive) and then the landmark: World of Warcraft.

For years I was trying to explain to my wife, who doesn’t get gaming, that I’d give a kidney and a testicle to relive playing World of Warcraft (WoW) for the first time. That’s before Classic. Having played the shit out of Warcraft 3, walking into WoW for the first time back in 2004 was an experience close to, if not better than, sex. Having bonded withe the characters of Warcraft 3, being IN Warcraft 3 was just orgasmic.
And that was just the beginning. In fact my lasting feeling of this game was “this is just the beginning”. Hour after hour, day after day, each and every moment was “I am having the BEST TIME OF MY (gaming) LIFE”. It’s incredible that in 2+ years of literally playing 8+ hours a day I never got bored, I always wanted more. It’s a small miracle my most active WoW playing coincided with doing a PhD, guess when you’re 20-something you have endless energy. Anyway, played the hell out of WoW + TBC + WotLK, fully hardcore raiding+PvPing then finally had enough.*

Then there was a lull of sorts around gaming, I played a few games here, mostly Minecraft, and there but nothing I went crazy about until Witcher 3. A game so good, with so much love poured into it by the developers that it was palpable - these people in Poland know games and love RPGs. I’d say after WoW that’s my favourite adult game ever. To this day I maintain that the story of the Hearts of Stone expansion of the Witcher 3 is possibly the best story ever told in a game.

Then came another revelation, tried a series I ignored for years: Dark Souls! Again, not everyone’s cup of tea, but damn these developers from Japan decided to stomp their foot down and say “We’ll make a game like WE like it, and screw you if you don’t, git gud” :stuck_out_tongue:

So yeah, anyone here dare say they’re a gamers? Anyone here who was shaped, educated, trained, and formed long-lasting friendships through games? Funnily enough, my dad hated my gaming, he also hated my listening of heavy metal. Thought it’s a phase I’d grow out of. Well, 30 years has to be more than a phase!

*Until…“you think you do, but you don’t”…If anyone here knows WoW they’ll know what I refer to. Our prayers were answered, Blizzard decided to give us what we wanted, the liquid cocaine that was the OG WoW, #nochanges, warts and broken specs and pompyro mages and 3-minute rogues and all. Vanilla WoW was BACK. I told my wife “you know how I’ve been saying I’d give a kidney and a testicle to play this again, well I won’t have to, it’s coming officially back!”. She laughed it off, thinking that she knew what serious gaming was because I played 4-5 straight hours of Witcher 3 on a Saturday night. I said “What you saw so far was rookie numbers, amateur shit, NOW you’ll see what real addiction gaming is like”. And WoW Classic was glorious. The game was solved, but even so people made stories, again. Different stories. If anything it was more of a role-playing game than the first time ‘round. This was those of us, no longer teenagers and 20-somethings, who came back to it, this time with serious jobs, families and responsibilities. I played the hell out of that too, we had 2 raid nights and I’d schedule meetings with US clients around my raiding, and not the other way around, to not disrupt my gaming. Door was locked, phone was off. Played this for two years and then didn’t carry on to the expansions. The magic was still there but also gone. Incidentally Blizzard got revitalised by what they thought we didn’t want. It turns out it was a case of “you think you don’t, but you do!”, WoW Classic and its children are cash cows of an epic scale. Even the expression “epic” fuckin’ comes from WoW!

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I was more addicted to strategy games. I probably spent years of my free time on Civilization.

I played Age of Empires when my friend showed it to me as a came back from an 11am lecture. I immediately went home to bring my desktop and a serial cable and we spent the next 48 hours playing ordering pizza through the night and sleeping maybe 5 hours until we woke up and started again.

Good times.

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You’ll probably know, what was the map called on the w3 mods where you started as that spirit and had to go select your champion and then you’d get spawned and it was to me afterwards always more of a precursor to LoL than dota mod. I always picked the one where when you levelled were the archer that at the end just was a minigun basically. I think it was Aeon of the Six Gods. Those were the times. Was sad when I moved and lost my game. Also played TD for hours on end.

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As a person who finished Dark Souls 3 at NG+5, Bloodborne at NG+4, Sekiro at NG+6, I pretty much can say “I feel you bro “ :facepunch: @Mirager

Gaming was a huge part of my life. I then stopped the “hardcore gaming mode” just before getting married :man_shrugging:t2:.

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Never had a PS, friend lent me one to play Final Fantasy 7, but that’s literal decades ago, so never got to play Bloodborne. Sekiro I tried to get into twice but it never clicked with me on any level. I can appreciate it’s objectively a great game, and several steps forward from FROM, but just didn’t like it.

Played the hell out of Elden Ring, still playing it in fact, but can’t say, hand on heart, that I like it as much as DS 1&3. I think it’s a case of less could be more. Let’s see what else they’ll come out with.

Also some sort of Witcher 4 is in the works from CDPR!

@Cortana will see this after work :slight_smile:

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What’s the problem with BG3? It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played, and people seem to love it.

Hah, I was fishing for reactions :slight_smile:

Dunno what it is, I just have a visceral, cellular rejection to how Larian do games. I tried Divinity: Original Sin 2 and after tens of hours, and making it to the final area I realised I hadn’t had a single moment I was enjoying myself with it. My best friend and one of my brothers are seasoned RPGers, I trust their opinion, they say “BG3 is a masterpiece for the ages” but I just can’t get to like it.

I appreciate I am probably the problem here, RPGers globally appreciate Larian so I generally keep my mouth shut.

Also Long-time gaming-enthusiast here :nerd_face: :nerd_face: Focus on Strategy & FPS^^

My retro-fun-list:

  • Settlers 2
  • Syndicate Wars
  • Z & Z Expansion (Z95, who knows how to run this today??)
  • Warzone 2100
  • Anno 1602
  • Duke Nukem 3D
  • Earth 2140 & 2150
  • Worms
  • Battlefield 1942
  • Jagged Alliance 2
  • Half life & Derivatives
  • GTA (1)
  • Trackmania (The original, sniff, not available on today’s systems)

N64:

  • Smash Bros
  • F-ZeroX
  • Zelda Ocarina of Time

my Major Games:

  • Command Conquer TD, TS, RA, RA2 (but no later ones…)
  • Mechwarrior 4 & Expansions / Standalones
  • Civ 3
  • Diablo 2
  • Stalker Franchise
  • Portal 1 & 2
  • Warcraft 3
  • Unreal Tournament 2004
  • Minecraft
  • Atomic Bomberman, but noone plays this today :pleading_face:

my Addiction Case:

  • Starcraft2 1v1 ladder, with its mind-altering capabilities. I quit about 5 times, consideringg myself clean now^^

there many more, but in retrospect, these are the relevant ones for providing me endless time of entertainment^^

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Got more or less the same upbringing but I was more on the Sega side (but also played a shit ton of NES and SNES since its was quiet common to swap console with friends and cousins back then). Started with the Master System then Megadrive but skipped the Saturn though to get a PS one then I got the Dreamcast with Soulcalibur, one of the biggest jaw dropping moment I had with console, and I think this still the one I had the more fun with as a gamer.

I also got an Amiga back in the days (have fond memories with Lucas Art games in particular) then switch to PC gaming. I especially loved playing RTS games (Dune 2, Red Alert, Starcraft and Total Annihilation being my favorites). And like you I freaking loved Dungeon Keeper, such a gem!

Fun fact: WoW is the only game I avoided to play on purpose. Seen a few friends getting suck into it a bit too much (one of them lost his job and some others failed their year at the uni because of it) and I had others hobbies in life that I was not willing to let go.

Then I spent quiet some time with League of Legends though, loved it’s ruthless competitiveness but then again free time tend to shrink as you age (especially when you get kids) and you have to make some choice, and in this context sitting 45min on a desk just to complete one game (that might go horribly wrong) was not one of them. :smile:

Played some PS3-4, but despite some quality games, the magic was gone. I especially hated when buying for an unfinished game became the norm. Also the industry became just too big I think as with the money at stake. I’m really nostalgic of the time when developers had the ability to create games mostly all by themselves with super small teams while also taking risks with their ideas. And also when consoles were REALLY different from one and others!

Now I mostly only play some retro gaming stuff from time to time (still got the Megadrive and Dreamcast from my youth). Either to rediscover some gems I’ve missed back in the days or to play some Sonic and Disney games with my little daughter. She even quickly learned the “blowing into cartridges” trick.

Only regret: Not being born in a rich family to get a Neo Geo in my childhood. :laughing:

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My favorite YT video about gaming :smiley:

When I’m having free time, I enjoy weird games, my list is :

  • TM 2020
  • Factorio
  • Dota 2
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I am playing since a Pentium got in my parents home in the 90s…
Played some DOS games early on: Doom, etc, I remember Loom, TIE fighter, … however I was really little at that time.
My obsession early on was Warcraft II. I was waking up earlier during school days to play before leaving home.

Then got a Gameboy pocket and played Pokemon, the classics, Zeldas (links awakening). Pokemon Blue really really had me hook as well. It was crayz to live that time in school, with everyone bringing their gameboys and playing with the cable link.

Later I played then AoE II in computer, the Sims 1, The Sims 2 :smiley:
Then Warcraft III when it came out. Really love this game.

Then dropped it for a while and later in my life got the money for a Wii U and Nintendo 3DS and played a lot of the games for those. Specially in the Nintendo 3DS.

Then Civ 5 in computer
Nintendo Switch came later with its master pieces. Zelda <3

Last year got a PC and Xbox so lately I have been playing
Elden Ring, The Witcher 3, Minecraft, Anno 1800…

The thing I am playing the most now is Fortnite. I play with friends and BF and we have a blast.

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Started with Game Boy in the 90’s, then PS1. In year 2000 got a decent PC, played the usual suspects Half-Life, Age of empire and age of mythology, and mostly Diablo 2. Tons of hours.

Kind of stopped until I picked up a switch 4 years ago. Played Zelda, then came Diablo 2 resurrected and they did such a good job, I still only play D2r on the switch. at least 30 min a day. All my toilet breaks basically :joy:

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It makes several good points indeed!

I don’t play much games since very long time but I used to like some when I was in school and Uni. Mainly Mario, Street fight, mortal combat, EA Sports cricket. I believe that somehow I never got into playing online and that might have saved me from getting super hooked up.

I can vouch seeing super addiction with Age of Empires, Quake and Unreal Tournament amongst my Batchmates. They would literally skip classes day by day to play

Anyone interested in history of gaming industry, the following two Podcasts are very interesting . Talks about all of it - Atari, NES Game Boy, Monkey Kong, Mario, Sega, Sonic, Switch, Sony. I didn’t realise how big the brand Nintendo was and how it keeps coming back after falling down. And how big a legend Shigeru Miyamoto is.

Nintendo origins

Console wars

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“Sega can what Nintendon’t”…yeah right!

Exactly
These podcasts also talk about how Sega went after Nintendo and kind of did very well and then fell apart :slight_smile:

Sega never had a chance, they just didn’t have enough fun games with staying power.

While I’m also pretty biased against bg3 (the serie was finished, let it rest and start something new instead of fishing on the franchise), I think the real villain, here, is Beamdog.

They took perfectly pleasant and working games (GOG had done the work of having them run on modern machines, mods had the convenience stuff for those who wanted it), forced a completely unrequired engine tweak to bg1 (the game is made for its original engine and is marvelous that way) and their characters down the throat of the players (specifically Neera, whose first encounter can’t be avoided in both games, which is very un-bg1-2) and forced game sellers to take the original games off the shelves to only sell the “enhanced” version.

GOG still provides the originals to those who buy the “enhanced” editions but you have to buy brand new copies (my ownership of the original only has been cancelled) AND you have to give money to Beamdog to reward them for torturing the games.

Edit: My main beef against Larian is that now, when I search for videos on bg1 or 2, I get a whole bunch of bg3 stuff instead and Alphabet search algorithms have become so bad that finding older stuff is a torture if not completely unfeasible. Come to think of it, I have a pretty big grief against Alphabet for killing Google/Youtube search efficiency too: with efficient search engines, Larian doing bg3 would be a non-issue for me.

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