As someone who lived during that time and experienced Halo by playing with my friends and having tons of fun, Halo fucking sucks and only 1 and Reach are decent. It also helped Microsoft get a foothold on the industry and changed it for the worst. As soon as they got the upper hand and some financial success all the journo propaganda and monetization started happening in droves along with the AAA scourge. Fuck Halo, fuck Xbox and fuck Micro$oft

Also, make new memories faggot, good games are coming out right now and even obscure mods are populated due to ecelebs just digging around. I remember playing The Hidden and Double Action Bogaloo with a couple of autists and having tons of fun.

>>264 >good games are coming out right now You would be shocked how many people do not look below the surface level of AAA slop. It's the same for film, you can tell a lot of people watch nothing but Marvel when they scream about cinema being dead. OP is holding up Halo as an example of one of the last real video games, but I'm old enough to remember when people said the same about Doom and Duke Nukem while using Halo as an example of the downfall of video games, Babby's First FPS they called it. That common "indie games are all Earthbound inspired RPGs about depression" meme proves the ignorance, because that applies to maybe two games; Undertale and Omori. Anybody actually into indie games knows the real dime a dozen titles are deckbuilders and roguelites, not Earthbound clones. To be completely fair to casuals, AAA is truly in a dire state at the moment, I can understand their doomer attitude if that's they all they know. What I can't understand is their refusal to step outside only the bigget releases even slightly. A good game I played recently is Tunguska, which asks "What if STALKER were a CRPG and even jankier?". It's the kind of game you'd never discover if your vidya landscape was nothing but Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty. >effortposting on /vb/

>>265 A balance between effortposting and shitposting is what made /v/ alright back in the day. I'm just glad AAA is struggling, I've been waiting for it for 14 fucking years.

>>265 And oh yeah, thanks for reminding me Tunguska exists. It was something I meant to keep an eye on and completely forgot, I'm installing right now. Tried AtomRPG? Been meaning to give it a try as well.

>>267 >AtomRPG I've been really meaning to play that, but sadly no. I have played another Eastern European Fallout inspired CRPG called Underrail that's fucking excellent, but you've probably already played that if you know about ATOM. On the off chance you haven't played Underrail, you should look into it. The journo way of describing it would be "Fallout meets Metro", beyond nailing the late 90s/early 2000s CRPG aesthetic it's also a massive game with tons of content and options for play styles. It has a pseudo-magic system based on psionic powers you can entirely ignore, for example. It's popular among some gun geeks for its huge arsenal and weapon crafting.

>>268 I have indeed heard of Underrail, thanks

>>244 >big franchises >Half-Life 2 You would have missed out on that anyway, because it wasn't a big franchise. It was very niche. If you're too young to have actually enjoyed Halo 3, then you're too young to remember that playing video games on your computer, more than just shovelware that came in cereal boxes and the like, was extremely niche. If you were the type of casual that was into Halo, you wouldn't be the type of turbonerd that was into Half-Life. >>264 >good games are coming out right now Not often. But that's okay, because there are zillions of good games from the past. The only problem is that there are too many to ever play all of them. >>265 It depends on what genres you like. Being a bit older than OP, I miss 3D platformers, and despite a few more independent attempts at them over the last few years, none really feel as good or complete as Crash or Spyro. Crash 4 is SJW trash. Spyro was thankfully spared a full revival, but got two shitty reboots already that also sucked. We all know about how Yooka-Laylee turned out. A Hat in Time is the closest an indie game ever got to being a good 3D platformer, but it feels very unfinished, and the poz doesn't help it. The best you got in the genre, independent or otherwise, is Mario and Sonic, still. And Sonic Frontiers sucks balls compared to the Dreamcast games. I suppose I gotta check out Penny's Big Breakway, from the Sonic Mania guys, but that main character design is terribly off-putting. So instead I go back and I play all the old Crash, Spyro, Banjo, Mario, and Sonic games. I bet nobody here has ever beat every Sonic game, and definitely not every Mario game. But I bet every fucking one of those games is better than 99% of what's come out in the last ten years, indie or otherwise. So go enjoy them. I've found often that games I thought were meh and not worth playing when I was younger now feel a lot more worth playing given how shit things are. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.

>>265 >because that applies to maybe two games Way more than two, if only in parts. Have you forgotten YIIK, Hylics, Eastward, or LISA the Painful? It's a trend I personally hated because I never saw the appeal of Earthbound, it tried too hard to be "quirky" and "strange" back in the 90s, and so many people claiming it to be their favorites makes me think I'm missing a lot, but overt quirkiness like that is too massive of a turn off for me. But yes, Metroidvanias and Rougelites have been way more prevalent among indies with the occasional RPG that isn't Earthbound and pixel platformers still slightly clinging on to relevancy. >What I can't understand is their refusal to step outside only the bigget releases even slightly. People refuse to do any research beyond following trending discussions and the AAA or AAA equivalent products, moreso because it's "just entertainment". Did you know a new Contra game came out this past week? Or that 2D cuhrazee game Slave Zero X from last month? Most casualfags will probably never hear about them if they never make the mainstream gaming news, let alone smaller games from last summer or the year before that. >>300 >The only problem is that there are too many to ever play all of them. Too true >every Sonic game >every Mario game There's like 200 of each of those, not all of them platformers. One jewtuber I used to watch a while back started a project to play every Sonic game, and gave up around the time of the 2010 winter olympics game (one of the winter olympics anyways, I forget which). Colossal undertaking doesn't even begin to describe it.

>>302 >One jewtuber I used to watch a while back started a project to play every Sonic game, I've been doing that, as I realized I've played almost all of them already. I still have to beat Rivals 2, Black Knight, Free Riders, the PS2/Wii version of Unleashed, the DS versions of Colors and Generations, the 3DS version of Lost World, and all the Olympic games. That's a short enough list that I think I can do it. I've also watched almost all the cartoons and read all the comics. Just need to watch Sonic Boom and finish the last few issues of Archie Sonic. But I got bored, took a break, and went and played almost every Castlevania game instead. I beat Dawn of Sorrow. Good game, but figured I should take a break from that series too. So I went to finish off the Zelda series. I went back and beat every single one, including the Satellaview games and the CDi games, except Zelda's Adventure, because it doesn't have a remake like the other two, and I'm too lazy to figure out a CDi emulator. But I did the rest and now I'm almost done Tears of the Kingdom. I'm almost caught up. Gotta go back and do Zelda's Adventure, though. But the point is that there are so many games you can go back and play. You mentioned Contra. I know the last one from a few years ago sucked balls, but I'm sure there are many good entries in that series that I haven't beaten yet. I know people IRL who like Operation C on Game Boy, for example. I gotta look into that. So many good old games, so I don't need to worry myself with modern faggy ones. Why bother trying to sidestep poz and DLC and unfinished games and all the other cancer that comes with modern games? I don't need it. I still haven't beaten every Ninja Gaiden game, and I'd have a lot more fun doing that.

The older I get the more I realize I enjoyed most games for the nostalgia. Going back and playing some N64 games or even 360 ones is a little rough when you can see the cracks and seams through the illusion. There are still a lot that hold up really well mind you, but not as many as I would have thought.

>>396 Nostalgiafagging is terrible and I cannot stand when people defend flawed games solely because they liked them as a kid. A famous case of this is Goldeneye. That game is fucking weird jank that most N64 kids only liked because it was the first/only FPS they played. It's not that the game didn't age well, it wasn't even that great for the time. Doom 64 and Turok were other N64 first-person shooters and they're both miles better, I'd reckon most people never played Doom 64 as a kid and still enjoy it regardless. Goldeneye? People bend over backwards to excuse all of that game's problems because muh nostalgia. N64 was kind of a shit console in general, saved by having some of the most important games of the 5th gen

>>396 That's only if you had shit taste as a kid. I had good taste as a kid, so when I go back and play games I liked, they're still good. I also still find plenty of old games I never played before and love them. You just gotta pick good games and not bad ones. If you're a fag that gets caught up in "hype" or whatever, if you're a bandwaggoner, then this might be harder for you.

It was KC tier and it was on /vb/

>>401 I couldnt get inside the house at the start in Resident Evil 4 i was too scared as a kid, also Shadow of the Colossus is the worst fucking game i just wandered around doing fucking nothing, i really loved Need for Speed and Gran Turismo doe.

>>300 >Being a bit older than OP, I miss 3D platformers, and despite a few more independent attempts at them over the last few years, none really feel as good or complete as Crash or Spyro Have you ever checked itch.io? There are a lot of good 3d platformers there. They aren't as "complete" as the games you listed with some of them only being an hour or two long, but there are lot of solid titles if you're willing to dig.

>>562 >also Shadow of the Colossus is the worst fucking game Terrible opinion. But then again that's probably just my nostalgia talking, and being blown away by how good it looked on a PS2 back in 2000-whatever.

>>300 Was Half-Life really not that mainstream? Or was it just memed into that status through secondhand exposure via mods, gmod, cross-promotion through other Valve games and constant referencing from other sources, sort of the same way a classic book or movie gets really "known of" but few people ever check it out on its own?

>>595 what? fuck no, only if your exposure was to mario and console only. HL2 was hyped as fuck it was everywhere. On magazines and especially online forums, even in ut chat used to talk about it. Gmod and rest took time to spread among pc users

>>595 Half-Life was huge in the realm of PC gaming, I have no idea what he's talking about. Both Half-Life 1 and 2 sold over 10 million copies each within a decade of releasing. The first was a bit of a sleeper hit like Dragon's Dogma in that it took a few years for the sales to start picking up but it still sold well on launch, it exceeded its expected lifetime sales in a few months and it had one of the biggest modding scenes at the time. Anon probably thinks this because the Halo games had famously huge launches, Half-Life didn't. HL2 sold about a million copies internationally in 2004, Halo 2 sold over 2 million copies in 24 hours. Half-Life 2 would go on to significantly outsell Halo 2 throughout the 2000s, but I guess that initial hype sticks in people's minds, skewing their perspective. Console gaming was also six times larger than PC gaming in the United States in 2004.

Still pains me how to this day burnout is dead and buried, and the only one playable by normal means is Paradise, which fucking sucks compared to 3 ane Revenge. Even to this day, i think 3, and Revenge, are masterpieces, obviously with their flaws (like the fucking outrageous rubberbanding), but so fun and enjoyable at the same time, to the point i say that they don't deserve being THAT good after nearly 20 years (in the case of 3, Revenge is like 17-18 Right now), and hurts me even more knowing that, 20 years later, there isn't Another game like Burnout right now, nor in AAA, nor in AA, nor in the indie scene... If tomorrow the fucking jews at EA announced a port of Revenge and/or 3, that'll be the first time in ages when i'll unironically buy a game, even if i can play it in emulator, with all the hiccups

>>595 >>599 >>602 >only if your exposure was to mario and console only >Half-Life was huge in the realm of PC gaming, Exactly. It was "huge" in the realm of a tiny niche. "PC gaming" was a tiny niche within vidya at the time. Go look at sales numbers if you want. The biggest PC games sold middling numbers compared to console games. It was this way until the late 2000s, when Steam, and largely The Orange Box, got normalfags to meme about "the cake is a lie XD!" with their IRL friends on Left For Dead, which they were using as a glorified chatroom. Before then, there were only a few examples of Windows/DOS games that reached mainstream vidya popularity, and that just means they were as well known as a mid-tier success on Nintendo or Sega or PS or Xbox. Sure, some things like Doom, or Diablo, or Rollercoaster Tycoon, or The Sims, would become pretty well known, but not compared to actual enormous successes like Mario or Sonic, and even then, a lot of times those were being played through console ports. Half-Life, though? It did not have the normalfag/casual appeal of The Sims. As anon said, "Half-Life was huge in the realm of PC gaming," but that means practically nothing.

>>608 oh my god it's this autist, the conversation wasn't even about PC gaming but you had to turn it into that <everybody is the same person bloo bloo bloo boogeyman shut up there are few enough people on this website you can recognize individuals by their beliefs

>>609 >oh my god it's this autist, the conversation wasn't even about PC gaming but you had to turn it into that >>602 >Half-Life was huge in the realm of PC gaming I didn't make the post that made it into that. The point remains that casuals playing Halo weren't the type of people into Half-Life. Half-Lifefags mocked Halofags for many years, until now, when babbies who were too young to actually remember the time, come along and think Halo isn't for casuals, or that Half-Life wasn't for turbonerds. I'm not making a remark about quality. If anything, I'm arguing Half-Life is better, because I'm sure not siding with casuals on Halo. It's simply the fact that those two series weren't played by the same audiences en masse. You might as well be complaining that someone pointed out the Fortnite audience isn't the same as the Touhou audience. One is the most casual thing available at the time, the other is very niche.

>>608 Anon what the fuck are you even talking about, what does any of this have to do with whether or not Half-Life is mainstream? Your post is barely coherent.

The fuck is bro rambling about

>>612 >what does any of this have to do with whether or not Half-Life is mainstream? >>608 >It was "huge" in the realm of a tiny niche. "PC gaming" I expected this board to be dumber than real /v/, but not this much dumber. Half-Life wasn't mainstream because it was only (successful on) a platform that wasn't mainstream. Would you get mad if someone pointed out that Virtual Boy Wario Land wasn't mainstream? Yeah, good game and all, but barely anybody played its platform, so they didn't play its game. Same goes for Sonic CD, or Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Excellent games, but their platforms were very niche, so their games were very niche. And yes, Half-Life got a couple ports, but they sucked and nobody liked them then or likes them now. They didn't sell very well.

>>612 >>613 >they don't know "left for dead" was the most popular chatroom in 2007 lmao scrubs

>>615 Sorry, I forgot it used a "4" instead of a "for" to be cool. I never liked that casual shit.

💩

>>613 bro is schizo 💀💀💀

>>590 >Nostalgia No, it's a really fun time with plenty of unlockables too I only found out the towers were checkpoints you could activate via your sword 10 years after it released.

I remember when /v/ actually shat on Half-Life for being a "proto-cinematic linear corridor shooter" and anons looked up to DOOM and Quake as the kings of FPS.

>>556 Thank you, I think?

>>631 This is also true. It goes to show how far things have really fallen. Of course, Doom is casual trash compared to 3D Monster Maze.

>>590 It was when i was like 6 yo, i havent played it yet again out of sheer disinterest.

>>604 >Paradise, which fucking sucks Why would you assault me in such a direct way

>>779 He's not wrong It's a small shitty open world with the same challenges over and over and, barely any difference between cars and bikes. It lacks content and lacks the traffic of previous games. I wouldn't call it shit, but it's mediocre at best.

>>779 Get better tastes ASAP Maybe calling it like that was too rude, but after coming from 3 and Specially Revenge, it sure was a massive letdown. Don't get me wrong, the first hour is enjoyable and fun, but after the novelty passes, i was asking myself why i was playing that instead of 3 or Revenge. My main gripe against Paradise it's the badonkers rubberbanding, and how u fucking hate how some Little turns absolutely fucks all your face progress because that wasn't a shortcut but an entrance to Another zone where the exit is located in god knows where. Basically the right choice was Racing along the rivals so you don't fuck up accidentally for being too fast and take a wrong turn who fucks entirely with your race. Also, it really grinds my gears not having at least the crash camera and making aftertouch takedowns like in 3 and Revenge i can excuse not having the boost explosion from Revenge because of the different playstyles from the cars, doing tricks was fun in tuners. Overall, i think is really enjoyable, but 3 and Revenge are so high for me, that, if i play longer than 2 or 3 hours, i want to play again those instead of Paradise. The music... Well... I don't know what to think, the Main theme was a bliss, but the rest... I don't even know if the sound of the cars was very high, or the soundtrack very low, but i don't remember too much tracks from Paradise, even after searching some in EA Trax in Game, and listening to them. Contrary to 3 and Revenge, which were perfect and Made me enter in "The Zone", or something like that... Felt really good Racing with those tracks tl;dr Racing fucking sucks and i despise some retard choices, and Road rage was neutered down takedowns-wise, same with the camera, but chilling roaming the streets, doing tricks, or getting New cars, was fun. Bike mode was surely an aftertought because of how barebones it was >>786 I didn't really liked the fact that bike races are just glorified time attacks, and not actually bike races, and the poor roster of bikes. Still, i'll gladly pay for a remaster/port/whatever of 3 and Revenge for PC at the very least, but criterion is dead and buried Right now, same with a hope for a remaster/PC Port of Black

>>805 Wait, are they still not on PC? The fuck is EA doing You can play them via emulation instead if you want, PS2 emulation is in a good place

>>806 >Wait, are they still not on PC? The fuck is EA doing Those fuckers only ported Paradise, and then relaunched Paradise (((remaster))) which was unironically the same Game, but just a fancy way of relaunching the GOTY edition (ie: The base game + all DLCs, and Little tweaks to make it work on Win10/11). >You can play them via emulation instead if you want, PS2 emulation is in a good place I do, actually, i play them often in my phone and PS3, that's why when i've played Paradise for some hours, i felt strange and didn't feel the same feeling redundancy aside as playing 3/Revenge. And after all, maybe you're Right, better to play them in emulator, i just remembered the BF1 and 2 (((remaster))) fiasco of the same Game, but now instead of 7 gigs, being 50 gigs

I am so sick of the indie scene making deckbuilder roguelikes over and over again please god make somthing different

I wish I could have experienced arcades in the late 80's and early 90's.

>>927 try this https://store.steampowered.com/app/465780/New_Retro_Arcade_Neon/

>>926 Holy shit you have no idea how vindicating it is to hear this from someone else. I thought I was the only one. I've seen countless game trailers that'd I'd get real excited for and seemed compelling, aaaand then the gameplay is shown and it's YET ANOTHER shitty deckbuilding game. Slay the spire and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race and game development as a whole.

>>962 I've seen this before, it's pretty fucking sick and nails the mood of the period. You can customize the cabs in the arcade and the video that plays on the projector, so it's a build-your-own-arcade simulator almost as much as an arcade simulator.

>try to get friends into vidya years and years ago >most of them turn me down or aren't interested >The Last of Us/Halo/Fallout/some gay ass shitty TV show gets made based on a videogame >those same people are suddenly interested in videogames and act like they've discovered some hidden treasure It was the same with comics years ago, too.

>>2132 >It was the same with comics years ago, too.

>>645 Truth. I've never been scared by a DOOM monster. 3DMM on the other hand...

>>2134 Am I wrong? Comics in the 90's-00's weren't great but they were still readable and generally niche before the TV and movie industries went overdrive with like a dozen adaptations of everything, then it all became mainstream shit on the back of every soccer mom and Hot Topic display case. I'm looking at you, The Walking Dead.

How do you guys figure out what to play, or how to manage your vidya time? It feels nearly impossible to make a backlog and stick to it, sometimes I wonder if I just have ADHD because my focus is so scattered and it feels like there's less and less time in each day. And being a full time wagie doesn't help either.

>>2196 I only play one video game

>>2196 What I do is pick something and see if I like it, then I just go with it. Don't play MP games or live service shit because they'll suck up all your time. Also don't waste your time browsing social media.

>>2196 I don't figure out what to play and just pick randomly from my collection.

I was playing manhunt on my ps2 emulator now but my controller stopped working unfortunately, im going to order a new usb joystick soon, probably... the cheapest pos i can find.

>>2735 >Not playing emulated games solely with keyboard controls Pleb.

>>2740 Peace of fuck nothing life

Brownoids trying to roast back with silly strings of stunted English will never not be funny.

>>2786 shitty nothing nigger life

>>2807 expand dog

Interracial sex with Candy Kong. Suck Candy Kong's banana hair. Fuck Candy Kong's monkey tits. Call Candy Kong a nigger slut. Put your dick in Candy Kong's monkey lips.

>>2786 YOU BITCH BLOODY

>>3007 Fucking Candy Kong's banana tits.

>>3026 I WANNA SHOWER HER IN COCONUT CREAMPIES.

Talking about monkeys, this Redustheriot fella draws some nice ones.

If the entire entertainment industry shut down right now, nothing of value would be lost. There is enough existing books, movies, TV shows, music, comic books, toys, video games, etc that no one can enjoy even a small percentage of it before they die. If the industry shuts down you have enough to keep you entertained. Very little new comes out anymore worth my time as it is while the industry fucks your consumer rights in the ass with DRM, DLC, "always online", digital "sales" which they can revoke when they feel like it, treating piracy worse than real crimes & all the politicians who bend over backwards to coddle their greed such as (((Trump))) passing that music copyright law or Obama's TPP. You bend over & take it, too. I'd rather see this shitshow die & these CEOs go without their wine-tasting festival tickets than it devolve into a rental service where you go to prison if you don't go along with it. Most Indie games are shit too. Derivative work at best, graphics are lazy because 1 guy working on a game isn't going to put in a million dollar budget of effort. "Hentai" games are usually just a pile of rape fantasy art because the dev is mentally ill & hates women. Even if it is a goof game it's still just a variant remake of an existing game, if not an outright fan game that the IP holder will shut down yet the fucker made it anyway. Most have no info included with them about system requirements(if your 8-bit game needs Windows 10 & a beefy GPU, you fucked up) & lack the ability to remap controls. It would also shut up the small dick pedophiles screaming "WAAAAH BLACK CHARCATER! BAAAAW WOMAN CHARACTER! WOOOOOKE! White genocide is REAL!" every fucking game that comes out. It's always some overweight motherfucker with ungroomed facial hair, brown hair & brown eyes & 50% chance he wears glasses pretending he's some Aryan soldier doing it too.

>>3080 Good pasta, agreed

>>2743 what did he mean by this

>>962 >pay 20 bucks for a model of a room you load your actual ROMs into I don't imagine it would be hard to make something like this yourself. The reviews also all say the multiplayer is fake?

I have wanted to build a new PC for years now but I just can't justify it with money being so tight and the future looking so uncertain with so little time and wiggle room for anything. I'm an adult and have a job and disposable income but I don't have the time, energy, or lack of sense to invest so much into vidya anymore, it feels like I've been drained of everything I had already.

>>3125 if money is tight just wait until it isn't, the games aren't going anywhere

>>3125 Either dad it up or find another hobby. Just for the love of all that's holy don't sit the fuck down in front of the TV.

>>3127 I hit that point when I was a teenager, at this point I think I just pay videogames out of habit. Same thing with everything else.

Had the entire day for myself today and was planning on just playing cs2, now I'm here playing meet and fuck kingdom it's amazing how valve fucking ruined this game, i can't even have a modicum of csgo in my life now.

>>3444 Having never played Counter-Strike, why do people hate CS2 so much?

>>3446 Runs like garbage feels like garbage

>>3446 You get VAC banned for using basic console commands and online got quickly raped by hackers.

>>3444 >Playing live service F2P shit Your own fault, I'm playing Armored Core 6 and having fun.

I miss the 360 era. Mainly because I was a teenager and spent days at a time during summer break gaming but also because I have a very high opinion of many of those games and that time. Dead Space and Lost Planet still live rent free in my mind even a decade after their respective series both died a quick death.

>>3478 Yeah i know the steam jew yadda yadda

I miss the days of games coming in physical jewel cases with manuals full of beautiful art and bursting with useful info and enough lore to pull you into the game before even getting to the title screen. In some other world the 2000s never ended and that magic still lives on, at least that's what I like to believe.

>>3489 Don't you mean radda radda?

>>3780 My favorite era of games did use jewel cases, but no, they sucked. The DVD cases we got later were much better. Much less fragile. We still have those, but manuals are gone, and the physical games inside are frequently not even complete, even they even exist at all. Fuck this gay Earth.

>>3780 You should make manuals for your favorite games.