Mainstream Games are so bad nowadays

[Carrna]

Well that's exactly how I've been feeling for years already. *points at the headline* Like a mummy. I still love and play games I used to play when I was a kid, but there's only very few new games I'm interested in.

Somehow I feel the older were more challenging - yes, I was younger when I played them for the first time but still I play them and think I find them being more challenging than most of the new stuff - they had interesting characters, plot and awesome music. Nowadays it just feels like most of game developers are ignoring everything else except neat graphics. I find pixel stuff very nostalgic, not really beautiful, but the poor graphics don't bother me much as long as everything else works. I don't either find some perfectly realistic looking games being interesting. You see realistic people and and landscapes every day. I don't want to watch those things while playing too. I want to see and experience something out of this world.

In new games I also get the impression they're often underestimating their players. I don't think tutorials are necessary, and if they absolutely want to make a tutorial they should make it very short or skippable. I like to find out myself what happens from which button. I don't want to listen to 10 minutes when I'm explained what will happen if I push a button. Probably the most irritating tutorial ever so far was in Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly where the dragonfly stops at every frigging crystal, portal, sheep etc. stuff to explain what they are and what I'm supposed to do with them. I was nearly ripping my hair off and screaming "LET ME PLAY ALREADY AND STFU."

I also like more games where you're allowed to examine the environment and find stuff for yourself. I find it very boring if there's just one tube-like place you have to go through without any freedom to go where you want. (Probably the only exception for me is Crash Bandicoot 1-3.) It's like the game is holding your hand so that you won't accidentally push wrong buttons or go to a wrong way. That's quite 100% way to make sure I fed up and quit the game.

There's so few new games I actually like and which I've played more than once that I can even say them here without the list getting too long: Oddworld Munch's Oddysee, Okami, Amnesia and Penumbras. If we count online games as well then there's also L4D2 and World of Warcraft. The others I've tried I've either quit before finishing or sold away after finishing. : <