Thread 723257727

i feel like i'm miserable on my way to death because it's not 2008
and to me 2008 was when i was having the time of my life playing the first witcher and autistically replaying max payne 2
and despite these games still being available to me in 2025
i'd never touch them in a million years

so it's not about the games, it's because i'm no longer a kid, right?

but why am i so depressed about not being that thing anymore?
it got no puss, it had no money, it had no freedom

talk to me anons, let's figure this out together

Play LOTR: ROTK, Spiderman 2, and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

>>723257727 (OP)
Play Patapon, Monster Hunter freedom unite, any minecraft modpack, and voices of the void

>>723258246
ohhhh shit
which LOTR game was that base building rts one? that one where you can put fire arrow units in the barracks? holy shit if that is on steam right now you might've saved my life

>>723257727 (OP)
you're never getting back that childish curiosity & wonder but you can get something close if you find what you're passionate about.

>>723257727 (OP)
I was a 20yo guy serving in the Army back in 2008.

I can tell you, without a hint of a doubt:
The WORLD as a whole was better before the iPhone and Social Media came, attracted filthy normalfags in, and ruined the fun and games for all eternity.
Even if all that cancer started taking their roots in the year 2007, none of it was a common-place norm just yet. Gamers were already sick and tired of the "Casual gaming" Wii had brought upon us, and were looking forward to the next normal, "hardcore" type of games, like MGS4, FF13 (yeah, really), the next SH and RE, and obviously the sequels to Half-Life.

The modern day is filled with all sorts of woke cancers, performance issues, games-as-service scams, endless licensing and copyright infringement hunts, SoMe controversies, and even valor-theft and history retconning + censorship in form of modern day remakes and remasters that always change the content.

Witcher 1 was literally the only good game in the franchise.
And I say this as a late-bloomer who only got into the series way after TW2 had already come out.

>>723257727 (OP)
>wahh wahh wahh
>I'm getting old :'(
total millenial death

I'm 35 and life's never been better

>>723258665
it will happen to (You)

>>723258798
I'm already 41.
Grow up, anon. Stop clinging to the past like a braindead monkey.

>>723257727 (OP)
I just miss hopping onto CS:S or TF2 and getting to play on a server with equal parts funny and skilled players. I'm pretty enough to hit on chicks with a 100% chance of success but I would trade that to have 2010-2012 TF2 exist for the rest of my days

>>723259338
i'm the same but for bad company 2 about 2 years after the release

nostalgia is overrated your taste evolves and you should find new favorites

>>723258463
battle for middle earth is not on steam. you can torrent it or download for free on myabandonware.

>>723259825
this. millennials are faggots. zoomers could never.

>>723257727 (OP)
ive been playing killing floor 1 since its release, same with l4d2 and guild wars 2. I only recently (5+ years ago) implemented fallout 76 into this rotation because it has more content than stalker which i played before fallout religiously. Your longing is proff that current games are all trash and that you should completely imemrse yourself in nostalgia

>>723259338
>CSS
You have no idea just how bad its communities are nowadays

>>723258643
I've been chasing the high of 2000s gaming for decades now. As a PC gamer it's really sad how neglected the potential of the medium has become as games have shifted towards controller based input structures to accomodate consoles.

You really can't play something like Half Life 1 or 2, or CS 1.6 or Tribes or Max Payne or any of the great RTS games with a gamepad. All these games have tried to make it work with soft targeting and work arounds, but the move from Mouse + Keyboard input to Gamepads utterly destroyed entire pathways of video game exploration.

WASD + mouse FPS control from something like Half Life is just so smooth, precise, and tight. This level of control meant you could have an FPS game with platforming, intricate level exploration where you're actually expected to look up and down, as well as difficult enemy battles that require the sharpness of aim only a mouse gives you. Swapping weapons on the fly with the number keys meant you could quickly loop through a versatile armory of tools to defeat challenges... this just isn't possible on a gamepad and the weapon wheel time slow solution breaks the flow of gameplay.

So just looking at the world of FPS games, all of the tight player controllers, sharp aim expectations, wide array of weapons to switch between and inclusion of first person platforming / interesting puzzle solving... have all been lost.

Playing Half Life 2 I was so excited about the future of PC gaming and FPS and it turns out that was the peak of the genre.

>>723262357
You still have plenty of indie games that use mouse and keyboard as the primary input.

>>723263045
That's true. Dusk is the most fun I've had gaming in a while. It's just sad to not see what could have been with the talent and budget of the gaming industry applied to the potential of M + KB as the core game input.

>>723262357
You still have plenty of indie games that use mouse and keyboard as the primary input.
The real issue is the utter lack of games like half life
Single player, level based fps are very rare at this point. Boomer shooters aren't really the same. The levels in those games don't always make sense, and there is never any sort of environmental interaction that makes you feel like you're part of the world.

>>723263326
Sorry, I deleted that post because I wanted to add some more info
See>>723263389
There is a general lack of games that are similar to half life

>>723263389
Yeah I'm replaying hl1 right now and I had forgotten how unique it is. It feels like a bridge between boomer shooters and immersive sims in a way that is both super digestibile and simplified, but still rich and complex.

I agree that boomer shooters feel shallow. The shooting is all they focus on--story, interactivity, a sense of place are all meaningless in the goal of creating fun shooting challenges. Meanwhile, the more cinematic FPS experiences of today are way too cinematic. They are just meaningless set pieces of shooting galleries split up with dull hollywood cutscenes.

I really long for a game that you just play the whole time, from beginning to end and you as the player are actually unfolding the plot by figuring your way through the world and overcoming challenges rather than watching movies between shootouts.

I'm almost 30, and I still don't know what nostalgia feels like.

I found my peace in boomer forums. I'm 33 and I must be the youngest people in those circles.
There's a lot of autistic dude in their 40's reverse engineering all the old games from the 90's-00s and modding them to insane proportions.
Like, I'm not a star wars fan but I like the games casually, the old x-wing space sim games got full on VR support with updated meshes for everything and even outputs telemetry data if you own a motion rig (vid related).
So yeah, it's peaceful. There's no ironic shitposting and everyone is genuine. It feels like back then.

>>723262357
>I've been chasing the high of 2000s gaming for decades now.
same

>>723264910
like how has there not been an FPS to top half life 1 or 2? How has there not been a third person shooter to even match Max Payne 1? How has there not been an Action RPG to match Gothic 1 and 2? How has there not been a multiplayer shooter experience to beat Counter Strike? How has GTA San Andreas still not been topped? How is each iteration of Battlefield worse than Battlefield 2?

It just seems like all we've gotten is more and more realistic graphics (that actually dillute the immersion and interactivity of games) more elaborate cutscenes and worst of all, a big pivot from creating interactive experiences into creating addictive incentive systems.

Most games now focus more on loot tables, roguelike build variety, lootbox gambling, level up unlockable hamster wheels and every other psychological trick to get players addicted to the game... instead of just making fun interactive worlds full of chalanges and wonder to overcome with your brain and skill.... rather than time and luck.

>>723257727 (OP)
There's nothing stopping you from playing cs 1.5 right now. Go download Half Life Won and CS1.5 full, but more than that, you're right, you're not a kid anymore. Yoou can't re-create those conditions again, because you're not the same person anymore.

>>723259116
oh then you're just a crusty irrelevant nigger, nevermind. Thanks for ruining the future for us

>>723257727 (OP)
>and to me 2008 was when i was having the time of my life playing the first witcher
Its good that you are suffering. Why would anyone who likes video not celebrate people like you being miserable? You never played any real video games to begin with. It was just a time capsule of casual retards being catered to, and it was bad.

>>723266070
>There's nothing stopping you from playing cs 1.5 right now
i mean you'll get insta-giga-raped by russians who have been playing the game since before the invention of the microprocessor but point taken

>>723262357
I shit you not: I spent most of the 2010s playing oldass games.
Old classics I either adored as a kid, or missed on back in the day.
Life was seriously pretty good; I could probably make do with just the stuff released between 1990-2005 alone for the rest of my life.

That being said, every once in a while, some actually NEW title managed to scratch the itch. They just came out of the blue, through IPs or genres I didn't expect.
Yakuza 0 was one such thing, feeling like a mix of late-80s beat'em ups and early 2000s silly yet emotional rollercoaster stories found in MGS or Max Payne.
Nier Automata was like "what if DMC, Zelda and Ghost In The Shell had a baby?", and left a lasting impression on me.
Persona 5 was a literal throwback to the PS2 era FFX and obviously P3 style JRPGs, with a kickass OST and art style.
Deep Rock Galactic was the most fun I'd had with randoms and friends in ages, by far the best co-op action game since the original Killing Floor and L4D. Also a prime example how to provide fair and transparent games in the 2020s, at great cost and file size, all while also providing private server hosting + modding, out of the box.

Hell, I'd even nominate some normie-friendly titles, like Zelda BotW and Death Stranding as must-play modern classics, that felt more like "STALKER" than anything released by Ubisoft the past 15 years.

>>723257727 (OP)
It's both. Nostalgic real thing, but so is the sterilization and corporatization of ALL facets of media. There are two negatives working against you here. That's not to mention everyone's general crippling worries in life, having no money, pussy or freedom.

>>723268231
It's true that there are some modern standout games that are still fun. I really enjoyed Hades, Persona 5 and indie games like Cruelty Squad, Stardew Valley and Northern Journey.

I have a wife and son now so it's much harder to isloate away at the computer and play a PC game, which makes console gaming and handheld gaming much more attainable... but nothing beats a mouse and keyboard FPS to me.

>>723268964
>I have a wife and son now so it's much harder to isloate away at the computer and play a PC game
Me and missus got a simple solution years ago:
Got rid of (most of) our consoles, and just keep a full-size PC tower plugged to our TV, and a gamepad plugged into the PC at all times.
This + wireless KB with a trackpad makes it a stellar multimedia box and the best gaming "console".

I still escape into my "work office" to do some naughty solo-gaming every once in a while.

>>723264347
Agreed.