>>717913272
I miss the way older games had this simple enjoyment of figuring out how to progress... how to get through the next door.

Games like Ocarina of Time, Max Payne, Half Life, Rune, Clive Barker's Undying. They all have this super enjoyable loop of: enter area, inspect your surroundings, fight enemies, figure out how to enter the next area. There was a bit of guesswork, exploration and some light puzzle solving needed back then. Find a switch to lower the water, put out a fire with a physics puzzle, shoot out some boards for a hidden switch, find a new spell that lets you get past a previous barrier... whatever it was, it created this amazing pacing where you went from combat encounter > novel space to explore > hunt for the route forward > combat encounter...

It feels like new games have failed to achieve this same loop. They either go open world and become quest icon chasers or are so tightly scripted and "cinematic" you are just gently carried through the whole game without needing to think. Also, because their graphics are so advanced you can't possibly search the environment for clues to proceed, there's just too much detail, so they have to make it insanely obvious... like the Nu-God of War and it's "puzzles" which are an absolute joke. You don't have to use your brain once.

I miss that friction of old games, of getting borderline frustrated because you can't figure out where to go and then actually analyzing your environment and figuring it out... modern games... it's like I don't even "see" the environment, because it's just set dressing it requires nothing of me.. the game will just gently guide me forward forever while I mindlessly upgrade shit and kill enemies.