Tastes in video games as you age

[Trash]

As a kid I could perhaps get my hand on one or two new games every half year or so. That coupled with the long loading times my cassette deck driven MSX had meant that every game, once loaded, kept being played. As a kid it was mostly arcadey games like platformers, sports, racing and shooting. Mostly because that was all that was available. In my teens I discovered adventures, rpg's and strategy games. Then came the awesome Wolvenstein and fps games made their entry. Nowadays I got a rather eclectic taste in games. Mostly strategy but pretty much everything that entertains me gets played.

Unfortunately the time I got to play has decreased dramatically. Meaning that games that I can play in short bursts seem to be the biggest hits these days.

 

[JarlFrank]

I still enjoy the genres of my childhood - adventures and jump'n'run - and my teens - RTS and FPS, and these days I'm mostly playing old games that I didn't play back then, or competitive multiplayer because it's quick and fun. I didn't play a lot of multiplayer at all as a teen, only the occasional LAN party at a pal's house, but nowadays I love to just fire up an FPS or an RTS when I get home from work and play one or two matches against other people. I'm not top tier in any kind of game, but I'm good enough (I was one of the top players on Resistance and Liberation, a cool WW2 sourcemod, for a while though) and it's a quick and simple way to get some fun and relax after a day at the office. You don't have to invest much into the game, you just fire it up, pick a random server, or with Age of Mythology I just use random matchmaking to get a 1v1 game, and then play.

I still love the RPGs I discovered in my teens, and I like the genre in general, but the quality of what is being offered, as well as the type of what is being offered, just isn't on par with the old stuff anymore. There is no modern Arcanum, no modern Morrowind (no, Oblivion, Failout 3 and Sykrim don't count because they have that retarded fucking quest compass and level scaled loot that ruins everything), no modern Gothic, no modern Ultima Underworld (well, I hope Otherside Entertainment will change that). There are solid RPGs these days, but the greats that let me completely immerse myself in a well-designed world with lots of hidden things to discover haven't really come back yet. Mostly because of the "hidden things to discover" part. I'm an explorefag, and the phenomenon of the quest compass has become so prevalent, it has ruined the joy of discovery.

FPS, especially single player ones, also used to be better in the past. So, mostly, I just play mods for Doom and Unreal these days, because modders are much better level designers than modern game developers are.

And then, there's Thief. I play a lot of Thief. I first played Thief in 2009 when I discovered it thanks to the Codex and decided to give it a chance because it was praised here. I didn't like stealth before Thief. Whenever a game had forced stealth sections in the tutorial, I got annoyed (but then, most games have shit stealth systems), but I gave Thief a chance and started with Thief 2: The Metal Age. When I finished the first level of it, I was hooked. And then, in 2010, I discovered T2X, and then fan missions in general, and now Thief FMs are the thing I play most these days.
Thief is love. Thief is life.
Thief made me into a stealther. After Thief, I played a stealth playthrough of Deus Ex, I played Oblivion and Skyrim and Fallout 3 as a stealthy character who sneaks everywhere, I learned the sneaking skill in the Gothic games and stole everything I could get my hands on without being seen...
Thanks, Thief. You completely changed my gaming habits forever.