I…I…couldn’t resist…please…it’s my sense of humor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHUfy_YBps
Oh dear! All is well, I presume?
Speaking of retro gaming, there’s no better homage to the classics than the almost-finished masterpiece, Fez.
It’s utterly fucking magnificent. Such a shame Phil Fish packed it in.
Absolutely not. Retro gaming is something your son can explore for himself if he takes an interest. A lot of older gamers’ enjoyment of retro gaming is nostalgia; we remember the games as being good because they were at the time but in comparison to modern games they are actually pretty terrible.
Games, like most technology, evolve over time. GoldenEye is one of my all time favourite games and I played hundreds of hours of it when I was younger. I recently fired it up again and found it almost completely unplayable; the framerate is nausea-inducing, many of the game mechanics are fundamentally broken, the AI is practically non-existent and it’s shockingly fugly.
The last two decades have done great things to game design and I’m glad gaming is where it’s at now. GoldenEye is still one of my favourite games but there is no way I would show it to someone who is not a gamer as an example of how good video games can be.
If anything, I would say that a love of modern videogames is a prerequisite for exploring the classics and even then, most of the enjoyment will come from seeing the evolution of ideas over the years rather than from the games themselves.
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Indeed. Few games from the early 3D era (3DO, N64, PS1) hold up well in terms of gameplay or graphics - thought there are outliers like the delightful Yoshi’s Story or Winback: Covert Operations. There are pioneering games that are great to explore as aficionados of certain genres. The third-person cover shooter genre was almost entirely invented by Winback, for example.
If you have access to a DS, I recommend playing Metroid Prime Hunters. This was the first online, portable FPS and a very good one at that. In an era dominated by Halo, it was a breath of fresh air. Very impressive graphics. Very good gameplay.
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i’ll probably take flack for it, but i’ve been playing Warcraft for almost a decade now, and i ain’t gonna stop yet. i love that game.
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With the dog? Yeah, the pugs weren’t too close yet and their owner navigated them away 
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Ahem.
I said,
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I agree that it’s definitely not a prerequisite. My daughter has a habit of making up stories about upcoming things. She’ll say something like “Did you know that they’re making a Mario Kart 9”. Usually I just encourage her to tell me the details, but sometimes I’ll tell her about the games I played when I was her age, or even a bit older. I need to work on getting a RetroPie setup working, but we have played some games together on an MAME cabinet as well. I also have a pinball machine from 1978 that she can play whenever she wants, so she can experience that as well.
Another option is to take a look at some of the remakes that have been released over the years, and try to show them next to the originals so that they can see what elements were changed, and what stayed the same.
Also, if you have the means and opportunity, check out the National Videogame Museum. Many of their exhibits are interactive, and the layout lends itself to walking through the overall timeline of video game history. Also, at the end is a legitimate arcade.
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That’s an awesome, classic table. Nice!
Until last week, I was trying to get as much time in at one of the best pinball arcades in the country before it closed. Sadly, good things don’t always last.
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A podcast that I have a personal affiliation with mentioned Pinball Wizards on their latest episode:
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Darkest Dungeon just got a huge update, if anyone else is playing. It looks nicer, but is harder. The enemies seem smarter.
Currently cycling through Ticket to Ride, Catan and Carcassone on the PC as I can’t find peeps to play boardgames IRL.
That Planetbase looks good though
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Catan as a videogame pales in comparison to the boardgame. The whole point of the boardgame is that you make and break alliances, fuck each other over and generally manipulate the gameworld socially; playing against AI is no fun at all…
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I whole heartily agree, but it has helped me grok the expansion rules better than the once in a blue moon I can play with humanoids
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I got a Diablo 3 Necromancer beta invite the other day. It’s been a lot of fun – not unlike the first experience playing D3 as a Wizard and joyfully disintegrating stuff and being thankful you weren’t a potion drinking machine anymore. Though in this case, it’s more like… tearing the blood out of the nearest enemy, then using their bones as a missile to kill the biggest one, then exploding that corpse to wipe out all of its lesser allies, while your skeleton squad keeps enemies away from your own squishy self. It’s morbid, metal, fun 
And it’s a really smooth experience without all the “I need mana” and “not enough hatred” and “you can’t afford your medical bills” and whatever.
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My screentime games (i.e., Steam) lately have been longtime favorites 7 Days to Die (with an extensive mod) and Torchlight II. I’ve also been trying out Democracy 3 and Poly Bridge. These last two are particularly good because I can play them with just the mouse while petting the cat with my other hand.
Up thread, there was the discussion about playing ‘evil’ characters? I find something similar with Democracy 3. There are achievements I will never be able to get simply because I can’t bring myself to implement certain policies in even a fictional country.
In the real world, we’re just at the starting to organize a Pathfinder game based very loosely on The Pirates of Dark Water. (I’ve never seen it, but the GM is a fan.) I’m really more of a GURPS player, but I don’t currently have the spoons to run a game, and this is what the GM is most comfortable running.
Also in the real world, the “game” I’ve been playing most is Zombies, Run!, which I really feel like I should start a new thread to discuss a bit, but right now, I have to go out and evade a few dozen zeds!
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Nethack. Still.
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My controller of choice for Descent was either keyboard only, or keyboard and a Sidewinder 3D Pro. I can’t imagine playing that game with any fewer inputs at hand. The people who actually chose to play it with a mouse are a sick fascination to me…
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Oh man, I remember playing Knights of the Sky (great old WWI fighter pilot game) on keyboard, madly tapping the cursors to line up my stream of bullets with my target… Dogfighting like that was mental.
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