Weekend question: What's something about games you didn't mind as a kid but can't stand now?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What's something about games you didn't mind as a kid but can't stand now? Have you got more impatient about cutscenes or save points or boss fights? Is there a whole genre (or even a single game) you loved once but now can't be bothered with?

 

[Zloth]

As a kid? That's pretty far back. Assuming "kid" means "not able to buy alcohol in all 50 states," I used to love cruising the aisles at Best Buy to see what games had come out. Sometimes I would go every day to see if a game that had "shipped" had actually shown up. Now I would be pretty annoyed if I had to drive for miles just to get a game and I would be livid if it had "sold out" or, worse, if the game was expected "in next Tuesday's shipment."

 

[XoRn]

When I was a wee gamer sprout, auto saving and check points wern't always a thing. Usually between missions or levels you had to take a moment and find your profile and make a new save. That was then but manual saving has been mostly phased out since the naughties, and the onus to save has been largely placed on the designers.

Some cheeky devs never got that memo.

What's worse is discovering a game doesn't auto save usually happens at the start of your SECOND session with it, so your blissfully unaware all your work was cast into the void the moment you hit exit button . Then comes the shameful "redo" which involves watching all the starting cutscenes, again, doing the tutorial missions, again, and beating the easiest, least consequential missions of the game... again. If I REAAAALY liked those opening missions maybe I'll give the game a second chance but more often than not I just uninstall it.

 

[Frindis]

Bad voiceover. If I ever play a game with someone talking like they were half asleep or with an accent so horribly done that it makes you die a little inside, I instantly lose interest. Oh, and 20+ minutes loading times

 

[Johnway]

A lot of my stuff is from the 16/8 bit era. i think the biggest has to be rogue-likes that resets all progress. Why the change of heart? Time. In some ways the problem is worse as some rogue-likes rely on luck as much as skill. Sometimes you get good power ups, other times the game gives you the middle finger.

Vanishing power ups or collectibles. I know its partially technical reasons, but in this day and age they shouldn't vanish for no reason. if they float away or fall into hot lava, fair enough. Flash away and disappear after a few seconds? Sod off.

Timed missions. These days I like to take my time playing games exploring, taking in the sights and generally experiencing everything at leisurely pace. Timed missions goes against that and can get immensely stressful. Especially in RTS games as i'm not that good at them and leaves little option but to adopt more reckless tactics. Extra black marks if the missions are timed and doesn't tell you how much time you have until its too late.

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't play platformers any more. They weren't ever my favourite, but as a kid I didn't have a lot of choice and I played quite a few of them. The last time I tried was with Unepic. The RPG elements kept my attention for a little bit, but platforming gameplay just can't keep my attention.

I also don't play race games or sport games any more, but that's mostly because those are more fun when playing with friends, preferably sitting on the same couch or at least in the same room, but that just doesn't happen any more.

 

[Berious]

Can't be bothered with any game that doesn't respect my time eg checkpoints rather than save anywhere or huge difficulty spikes. Back in the day I'd bash my head against the wall mastering a gaming to get past the un-fun bits, now I'll just drop the game and move on.

 

[stevemcongdon]

Being British and nearly 44 I'd have to say Loading times, growing up with ZX Spectrum 48k and moving to a 128k +2 the anticipation and sometimes disappointment of waiting for a game to load and watching the screen graphic load was great at the time. Moving onto an Amiga 500 to 600 and to 1200 with CD and HD was a step in the right direction, I loved my A1200 I had a CD drive Hard disk and an 030 accelerator card loading times were less and having WHDload ready games was a bonus. but now my patience seems to be less.

 

[Frindis]

@stevemcongdon I still remember the abysmal loading times using C64. Played Summer Games back in the '80s and It felt like the loading was over 20 minutes. Even more annoying was when you got a loading error on the cassette and had to reload!

A1200 is an amazing machine! Some of my favorite games I played with it: Cannon Fodder, Dream Web, Simon The Sorcerer, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis and Skidmarks

 

[Sarafan]

Probably farming. 15-20 years ago I didn't mind to spend countless hours farming in single player games. It was very enjoyable for me to achieve as high level as possible. I even done a lot of farming in Planescape Torment. Reached 100 level with my Namless One by killing respawning mobs in Undersigil and Modron Maze. I'll never ever do something like that again. I had enough of this game for roughly 10 years after that. Then there was farming in some MMORPG games as well. Now I dislike farming in games if its justification is only to reach a higher level. It's still hard to avoid it in many titles, but I try to limit it and be reasonable.

 

[Zloth]

but now my patience seems to be less.

Wait, does this mean you won't be getting next month's 735 page edition of PC Gamer where they give us the hex code for an entire game that we can type in and then play all we want? I'm sure there's going to be CRC bits on each line so you won't have to search the entire thing for the one typo you made. <nightmare inducing grin>

 

[Pifanjr]

Regarding loading times, I love it when a games starts up within a few seconds. The games without splash screens, 10 different logos, a cut scene you have to skip and then a loading screen before you can even see the main menu are really annoying.

It's a small thing, but being able to jump into a game seconds after I decide I want to play it is really nice.

 

[SWard]

This feature is live!

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[Baldyboy]

Plunking quarters into a arcade machine, which I enjoyed when I was a kid

 

[samc91]

The fact that games used to be so simple? I definitely like complexity in games as an adult. I remember playing Street Fighter in the arcade and thinking it was the best game ever.

 

[Pifanjr]

I agree with Christopher Livingston. I haven't played an adventure game in forever, because it's just not as fun knowing you're going to (have to) follow a walkthrough through most of it.

 

[zippygeorgeandben]

Hmm I want to go down all different routes in this thread but I will stick to the original post. I think that I used to like the fact the games were limited when I was a child and you didn't have all the options of consoles/PC/steam/handheld gaming etc, but there seem to be so many choices now, and that is before you start looking at accessories etc. how does one dip their foot into gaming as a beginner these days?! Reviews used to be word of mouth or maybe in the odd magazine, however, now with paid promotions/paid reviews etc I am never sure which to trust.
Also, I used to work hard to afford the games I wanted as a teenager (Sega Megadrive era) but expecting children to now pay a minimum of £50 for a game is madness. How are children to learn the value of money?
Oh and don't get me started on DLC, which are basically gambling but the Government won't listen. It's too late now.
I have definitely gone off thread!

 

[Pifanjr]

Hmm I want to go down all different routes in this thread but I will stick to the original post. I think that I used to like the fact the games were limited when I was a child and you didn't have all the options of consoles/PC/steam/handheld gaming etc, but there seem to be so many choices now, and that is before you start looking at accessories etc. how does one dip their foot into gaming as a beginner these days?! Reviews used to be word of mouth or maybe in the odd magazine, however, now with paid promotions/paid reviews etc I am never sure which to trust.
Also, I used to work hard to afford the games I wanted as a teenager (Sega Megadrive era) but expecting children to now pay a minimum of £50 for a game is madness. How are children to learn the value of money?
Oh and don't get me started on DLC, which are basically gambling but the Government won't listen. It's too late now.
I have definitely gone off thread!

I think you misread the question. The question wasn't what has changed for the worse since you were a kid.

Also, there's so many indie games and sales going on at all times that games are more affordable than ever. There's also a ton of free to play games (which weren't a thing for much of my childhood) and, especially recently, a lot of amazing games being given away for free.