# Gaming



## TRITON (16 Jan 2021)

Anyone else like the online world of shooting cartoon people with a cartoon gun ?.

I've been doing this since time began and I still cant hit the broad side of a barn 
Currently its Planetside 2, and prior it was Arma3, and the battlefield series. 

I spent years on BF2, probably longer than I should and missed a swath of titles, but then changed to Arma3, but couldnt get on with it.
Eventually I found Planetside 2, and while the nuances of the game still elude me, I do enjoy giant battles involving hundreds per team(3 teams) with all the land and air elements I've found make it great to play.
Maps are big, but the non earth surrounding makes it interesting to move around in. Night games I like the most as the laser effect of the weapons show up best and with hundreds of multicoloured streams crossing this way and that it's really visual.

Last week, I managed to stay alive for nearly 3 minutes, a record for me.


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## bourbon (16 Jan 2021)

I'm too busy in my workshop making things


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## Droogs (17 Jan 2021)

Have played mil sims since OP Flashpoint. Love Arma. Used to use VBS (professional Arma) as an instructor. Spent years playing it, mission editing and model and map making. Used to have good long talks with Bushlurker about his 1:1 Scotland map. Best game out there once you take the 6 months learning curve to get the full experience and play properly oh and have a decent rig to play on _ which I don't at the moment 

Have played maps with over 600 RL players including actual tank crews working together that was cool


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## billw (17 Jan 2021)

More of an AC/TR/ES player myself. Can't do anything FPS because I'm absolutely hopeless at co-ordination.


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## Oraclebhoy (17 Jan 2021)

I gave up online playing years ago.
People who cheat online or get aggressive when you kill them ruins the game.
Rather play against the computer so that’s my I play on a PS2 or Nintendo NES.


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## Doug B (17 Jan 2021)

I just pay the broadband bill so my 2 sons can shoot the world up 
I have to admit over the last 8 years or so the gameplay has changed unbelievably & whilst I have no interest in playing the games I enjoy occasionally watching the lads playing the different games


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## threedee (17 Jan 2021)

Been playing vg's since zx spectrum was a thing.

I'm more of a story over sports kind of gamer now. That and Path of Exile/Diablo/Torchlight/Grim Dawn... Havent played competitively since q2 and original unreal were a new thing, was quite good at railing and rocket jumps. Tried playing fps on consoles - big nope, fps with a gamepad sucks, +too many squeakers. I generally written off any console gaming, except switch. Switch is cool  (also, go pcmasterrace) Tried playing modern fps on pc - super toxic crowd, cant be bothered to be called N/D/C/G words all day by squeakers online. Have 2 squeakers of my own in the house, thank you very much...

These days i notice me playing less and less, if i play something its gonna be single player, with a story. And i usually just hack it to progress quicker (god mode, HP/MP, inf this or that, etc...) Used to be nice to spend 50+ hours on single run through.


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## Ollie78 (17 Jan 2021)

I am like threedee in that I prefer story driven single player games. I play games to escape and relax, I treat it more like an interactive movie or book than anything.
Been playing cyberpunk 2077 ( onPC) which is great despite the bugs. I think if it was not overhyped people would be happier with it and they should not have released it on ps4 /old xbox at all.
I have tried online shooters but I am not good enough at them for it to be fun.

I also like games like anno, and does anyone remember emperor rise of the middle kingdom, a classic.

Ollie


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## donwatson (17 Jan 2021)

I have fun with European Truck Simulator 2 and a bit less with Microsoft Flight Sim 2020,


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## Ollie78 (17 Jan 2021)

donwatson said:


> I have fun with European Truck Simulator 2 and a bit less with Microsoft Flight Sim 2020,



Have they done a brexit patch, to realistically screw up European truck sim ?

Ollie


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## Doug71 (17 Jan 2021)

I used to enjoy a bit of gaming back in the day going right back to Manic Miner and Jetpac etc. 

Never played anything serious, I was more into Halo, CoD, Tomb Raider etc and it was before there was much online stuff.

I have an 11yr old and 8yr old who obviously enjoy a bit of Fortnite, I try and take them on but they easily beat me every time. One of the games of the moment seems to be Among Us, I can't believe how loud and animated the kids get over such a simple game, I also can't believe how good my 8yr old is at lying but convincing people he is telling the truth 

One game I do like to play with the kids is Minecraft, we have great fun building some amazing structures together.


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## Spectric (17 Jan 2021)

I much prefer reality, I like to see what I have done that day and not just something in a virtual world.


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## Bm101 (17 Jan 2021)

bourbon said:


> I'm too busy in my workshop making things


Lucky you found time to come online in order to post about gaming in a thread that holds no interest to you then.


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## Bm101 (17 Jan 2021)

Spectric said:


> I much prefer reality, I like to see what I have done that day and not just something in a virtual world.


No irony?


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## pryere (17 Jan 2021)

The only game I am interested in these days is Assetto Corsa. A racy sim that has recently been updated with a thing called Content Manger that opens it up with more tracks and cars.
Free, with a pay what you want upgrade.

A few laps round Nordshleife is a test of your motor skills and is very enjoyable. I beat my personal best lap time with a 05.31.723 in an old Ferrari last night.


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## artie (17 Jan 2021)

Counter strike years ago when "the boy" was at home, just chess.com nowadays.


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## TRITON (17 Jan 2021)

Doug71 said:


> One game I do like to play with the kids is Minecraft, we have great fun building some amazing structures together.


One of the guys on my bike forum(Dave) is a programmer for that(Last time we spoke on a meet, he said something about working with them but in truth i cant say for sure.. Started off as a founding member of the company that made the first grand theft, and also Lemmings.
we share a love of early Hope tech products - First cable/hydraulic braking systems for bikes.
Although I've sold much of my collection to fund an Ebike, I've still a number of Hope prototypes in my sadly diminished collection.




bourbon said:


> I'm too busy in my workshop making things


Not at 11pm  Although If I could be in my workshop at 11pm, I would, but I fear the neighbours above might be a tad unhappy about me thicknessing oak at that time


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## rafezetter (17 Jan 2021)

BIG gamer here - longtime Planetside 2 / Path of Exile / torchlight / Diablo (just to name those mentioned here) player alongside a great many major title games from almost every genre (except football).

Also in my current "playlist" - No mans sky, Star Citizen (KS backer), Elder Scrolls Online, War Thunder, Space Engineers, Tyranny (RPG, VERY interesting take on the genre and worth a look) and replaying the Metro 2033 series from the start, but using the redux variants, to name a few. My steam list is obcenely large and that's not the only platform I use - GOG and Epic as well - and I'm not even the worst among my social group, I know people with far more games than I.

(feel free to PM me if you also play any of those - LOL I'm only a "nutter" in here because rorschach makes my blood boil with his BS - I'm quite different when gaming, you'd be surprised)

I did stop playing fast paced twitch style FPS games a while ago though such as fortnite, that even I have absolutely no interest in sinking 10 hours a day into that, the way streamers do, although the money would be nice 

I only play my consoles occasionally for RPG's, as I also agree FPS games on a console is utter pants, and is virtually impossible as a stealth / sniper which is my preferred playstyle.

It's a wonder I get anything done at all!

I'll play most things, and even manage to finish a few now and again , but never understood why people would cheat themselves out of playtime "just to get it done" why? If the game isn't doing it for me, I stop, move on and maybe give it another try later - using cheat codes and god mode just makes me wonder why bother at all; is it a "I'm going to finish this game, even though I hate it, because I paid for it" mentality or something else?

Arma is one game I've not ever played, though have watched many YT vids of it - seems the kind of game that needs a decent squad of people to get the best from it, rather than silly person randoms queued up on a server.

LOL Squeakers, not heard that before - but I've met quite a few people under 16 whom are pretty savvy - there are young people I've met playing Eve Online (a notoriously difficult and mentally challenging game to get into which I've been playing since 2009) that if they apply skills they have learned in the game to RL, will do well.

As a balance to that, the most ruthless S.O.B I know in Eve Online is... 87! I hope I'm still gaming at 87.

Gaming excercises the mind in ways that watching TV or even playing many sports, just cannot.

Just to counter those with negative viewpoints of gaming like Septic, sorry Spectric and Bourbon, for me the online community is a way to connect with people in a way I find difficult offline, and have met a great many very interesting people with some of those friendships lasting to this day, long after we have moved on from playing that game.

There are gamers for whom gaming is the ONLY way to connect to the outside world.

I'm a VERY different person online, confident and a leader of men and women - yes really - I say that without boast, it's just a fact**, and has been for many years and I think is also true of a great many other "gamers"; people whom the real world dismiss, but whose virtual presence commands thousands of real life people as happens often in games like Eve Online.

** people keep giving me a job / position in the command heirarchy, which I take as a very serious commitment and in several instances, have abdicated the Guild Master / Corp Leader / Outfit Commander position in favor of giving it to me, so I guess I must be pretty good at it.

I just wish I was 40 years younger, then I might get to experience an early version of "The Oasis" from the film "Ready Player One" - though I'm still regularly awed by some new games - though the debacle around Cyberpunk 2077 is why I NEVER prepurchase a game and also never play a newly released game on PC anymore, I'll wait 6 months or even a year - because the recent(ish) practice of dev houses releasing games that are little better than a beta (not including all those "early access" titles) has become all pervading, seemingly even for self publishing houses like CD Projekt Red, whom should bloody well have known better!


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## bourbon (17 Jan 2021)

Understand that, I'm usually in bed by 11pm!


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## scooby (17 Jan 2021)

rafezetter said:


> though the debacle around Cyberpunk 2077 is why I NEVER prepurchase a game and also never play a newly released game on PC anymore, I'll wait 6 months or even a year - because the recent(ish) practice of dev houses releasing games that are little better than a beta (not including all those "early access" titles) has become all pervading, seemingly even for self publishing houses like CD Projekt Red, whom should bloody well have known better!



The whole situation with CD Projekt holding back console review copies, or issuing embargoes was a warning sign. Even though, they replied pre release on twitter that it ran 'surprisingly well' on last gen consoles. The following 'apologies' (whilst basically blaming the testing team) have really put me off buying CP2077, which is a shame. I hope they can redeem themselves, much like the dev team behind no mans sky managed. That is a good game now.

Bethesda, are almost as bad. I love the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, putting in a stupid amount of hours into Fallout 3 and Skyrim especially but they have really showed themselves in a bad light over the last few years. I recall the Fallout 76 launch if you actually bough the disc version. Upon inserting the disc, you were greeted with a gigantic 50+gb day one patch. Feel like I dodged a bullet with not purchasing that.

I don't play as much now, I still sometimes play WOW (started a bit late in 2007) and a few games on my console like Forza Horizon 4, Minecraft and D2 (which I'm terrible at). I'm currently on another play through of Control in between shifts on Snowrunner.
I'm sure my interest will be rekindled when the next Mass Effect (hopefully) and Elder Scrolls games are released.


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## billw (17 Jan 2021)

scooby said:


> The whole situation with CD Projekt holding back console review copies, or issuing embargoes was a warning sign. Even though, they replied pre release on twitter that it ran 'surprisingly well' on last gen consoles. The following 'apologies' (whilst basically blaming the testing team) have really put me off buying CP2077, which is a shame. I hope they can redeem themselves, much like the dev team behind no mans sky managed. That is a good game now.
> 
> Bethesda, are almost as bad. I love the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, putting in a stupid amount of hours into Fallout 3 and Skyrim especially but they have really showed themselves in a bad light over the last few years. I recall the Fallout 76 launch if you actually bough the disc version. Upon inserting the disc, you were greeted with a gigantic 50+gb day one patch. Feel like I dodged a bullet with not purchasing that.
> 
> ...



Does feel like stuff is being rushed to market these days. Valhalla and Fenyx both crashed a fair bit so nice one Ubisoft.

DId well over 200 hours on Skyrim, what an awesome game. I just spend hours wandering around at random seeing what I find and forgetting I'm meant to be doing a main story arc.

One of my friends has got CP and she said it's crashed "about 300 times"


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## D_W (18 Jan 2021)

TRITON said:


> Anyone else like the online world of shooting cartoon people with a cartoon gun ?.
> 
> I've been doing this since time began and I still cant hit the broad side of a barn
> Currently its Planetside 2, and prior it was Arma3, and the battlefield series.
> ...



When I was younger, I liked games. Job responsibility would allow. Much greater enjoyment later shooting real guns at not people and not even paper silhouettes of people but rather reloading and trying to get the dots super close together.

But, alas, same thing with kids. Need an onsite hobby that can be done a few hors here and there and converted the hardware into woodworking stuff money-wise..

Last I gamed, Diablo and quake were popular, and you bought a game and owned it.


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## FranWood (18 Jan 2021)

I've been into gaming for a fair few years. We got a Spectrum +3 with a whopping 128k of RAM one Christmas which I'm guessing was approx 1986. That got me hooked and I've always had various consoles and computers since then.

Growing up I always had an interest in arcade machines and I got into MAME some years later which basically allows you to play emulated PCBs on a computer. Some years later I built [this] monstrosity out of MDF for a college project in ~2005. I built it in my parents summer house and I think they're still pulling MDF dust out of the carpet now 

MAME was a bit of a gateway drug into arcade machines and I later moved onto buying proper arcade machines and PCBs. I started with a JAMMA 'Woody' (the particle/plywood cabinets found in most UK arcades) before moving onto Japanese 'Candy' cabs that are mainly metal and plastic. [This] was the state of my living room at one point, my Mrs was absolutely thrilled as you can imagine  I did have a full size sit down driving cab in there at one point too which was great, in my eyes at least 

The Mrs wanted the cabs out of the living room so I downsized the collection a bit and moved them upstairs. [This] was one end of the room and [this] was the other. I 'built' the entertainment unit in the last photo as I couldn't find anything suitable to hold my PC etc. I say 'built' as I just designed it in CAD and got the black laminated and edge banded sheets cut at a supplier and I just dowelled the whole thing together.

I've since had to sell all of my arcade machines a couple of years ago when we moved into temporary rented accommodation whilst we relocated. We should be moving onto our 'forever home' in a few weeks and I would like to pick up a couple of machines again.

I do still have a rubbish load of console from the 80s/90s+ which I get out from time to time. I do game on the PC a bit but the main thing I've been playing recently is the Nintendo Switch as it's so easy to pick up and put down for a quick game. I do have a six week old daughter now so most of my free time has unsurprisingly vanished. I'm hoping I get to play again sometime in the next 18 or so years!


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## Bm101 (18 Jan 2021)

Generation 48K here. Attic Attack! Jet Set Willy!
Always gamed on off since I was kid. Biiiiig break from the Spectrum 'till I was in my mid 20's and several since then but I always end up going back. Culminated really in admining a clan site/community that died when EA killed dedicated servers on battlefield sadly. I was never a diehard gamer by proper standards although BM101 _is _short for BadMonkey. 
I dread to think how many cumulative hours I have sunk into games for no earthly reward. Less than most people have sunk into Sh**e TV programs though I would guess. And at least it's interactive. Not just gaping at the lightbox.
Been interesting watching my young lad (10) discover gaming. I bought him Skyrim for his xbox for Christmas. I still have the disc for the PC but the gaming rig is dead and unlikely to be replaced at any time in the forseeable.  I have the odd game of Warthunder and so on on his xbox. I do bemoan the lack of social life the kids seem to have now in terms of 'When I was his age we was out riding our bikes' etc But it's just not that simple anymore. I monitor his playtime and we do lots of physical stuff with the kids but it's such a huge part of kids socialising now that you need to be careful not to distance them from friendships because socially that's what a lot of kids do now. They game online. Nevermind now with the Covid.
Playing with my lad has been an eye opener for both of us. Sometimes he's telling me all about how to play then I just smash his score to keep him in check lol. 
Watching him play Skyrim a few weeks ago took me back. One late night when everyone was asleep I checked in the kids before going to bed myself.
Hmmm. I could just do a ultra casual playthrough.... What possible harm could it do?!?







Three weeks later I'm in the bleeding Nightingales (again!) and I caught my self sorting all the loot into seperate chests in the Abandoned House in Markarth like I had OCD because I'm too tight to buy a proper house.
Arggggggggghhhhh!


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## billw (18 Jan 2021)

Bm101 said:


> I caught my self sorting all the loot into seperate chests in the Abandoned House in Markarth like I had OCD because I'm too tight to buy a proper house.
> Arggggggggghhhhh!



Been there done that


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## Robbo3 (19 Jan 2021)

I started gaming when my daughter aged 8 wanted someone to compete against in Lego Races.
Somebody gave me a copy of Doom 3 which I'm just waiting to finish the final battle.


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## TRITON (19 Jan 2021)

Doom 3 is good. I like the creepiness of it. Ever descending down industrial staircases into the unknown, the tension ramping up, like a good suspense movie.
I take it you play with the lights off...Or are you not that brave 

I buy my home computer based around gaming requirements, basically because if it runs modern games on ultra, then it will run anything else.
I've an Alienware desktop. X51, 16gb ram a GTX970 card. i5 quad core.
Too many systems claim to run modern games, but you need to have all the settings on low or medium to get the frame rates, but on ultra, you see the game in how the developers wanted it to be seen.

Its fairly old now, but still will run anything you want to load into it on high to ultra.


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## threedee (19 Jan 2021)

I just checked my Path of Exile hours on steam... my god......... 2000 hours played. Which means overall i spent at least 3-4k hours on single game since 2013, as i started when it was in alpha/beta at the time... oof.

My brother still plays it, but i'm scared to go back to PoE - its my single worst vice in regards to games, and, evidently, a ginormous time sink.... And they're so good at putting out content that i'd never get bored again... all the way till my wife puts me with a suitcase out...

Second most time-wastey game (i speculate here) would probably be original Elite on speccy. Soooo many hours lugging slaves between systems and fighting "the man"...  Played Elite dangerous some, broke my joystick buttons by overusing hat for latteral thrusting too often in "flight assist off" mode. Game is a bit too grindy for my taste... One of my friends still plays it, and StarCitizen too...

To address hacking games to "play faster" - i use cheatengine to cut out on grindy bits of games that are ever present to pad out "playtime". If the game is story driven but has any sort of grindy mechanics in it - comes out the cheatengine... I may enjoy the game immensely, but if i'm forced to grind for grind's sake - nope...

I'm planning to build myself some sort of countertop MAME arcade machine. Been planning for long time, but last several years never time or money... Still in my plans though...

My kids play Among Us too. Made them some loot to brag about at school with my laser cutter. School bag dangly decorations.


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## rafezetter (19 Jan 2021)

billw said:


> Been there done that



Not been there - not done that yet - Skyrim is one of those games I'm keeping in reserve to play in full 4k gloriousness with tons of mods when I build my next uber rig (in readiness for Star Citizen) as this one is about 6 years old now, in fairness it could probably do it now, but the next rig will have more headroom and won't make my 1070TI scream.

If you've not got a rig by then BM101 this one will be up for grabs for not a lot.

@ Franwood - MAME - my mate and I made a tabletop arcade MAME machine a some 10 years back - he still has it somewhere, he might even be pursuaded to sell it since his new wife banned all that to the garage with the usual "games are for kids" trope.

@ threeDee - Elite Dangerous - I backed that too in KS - and have never started it, the lies FDev have continually told since launch and with delay after delay left a very sour taste in my mouth, and only now 7 years after launch are they introducing content ideas they sold in the kickstarter.

I've got a backer box with badge, Tshirt, art, Lifetime Expansion Pass, all of it. Never opened it as a symbolic refusal to accept thier BS.

Oh and for the original Elite - I'm a badge holder, one of only a few, whom entered the competition back then to prove Elite status by submitting a cassette with a save on it. On the Elite Dangerous forum in the first years, badgeholders were asked to make themselves known - at the last count less than 20 turned up with proof of badges.

here's mine  It's cast in Bronze with enamel lettering. (and far nicer than the ones given to ED backers).






(did you know PoE has released another chapter recently? LOL send me a PM I'll meet you in there )


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## Garno (19 Jan 2021)

I loved the concept of the original Elite game.
One major downfall for me was docking, I would always crash.
One of my mates ended up giving me a saved cassette where he had the automatic docker onboard.
I have never bothered to even buy the Elite Dangerous thinking it would take away so many memories of playing the original.


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## FranWood (19 Jan 2021)

threedee said:


> Made them some loot to brag about at school with my laser cutter. School bag dangly decorations.



Slightly OT here but great stuff, I love the bottom lit acrylic. A laser is definitely on my list of things to get. Ideally I would like something fairly large format like a 1080 with a 80-100w laser. May I ask what laser you have?


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## threedee (19 Jan 2021)

rafezetter said:


> Oh and for the original Elite - I'm a badge holder, one of only a few, whom entered the competition back then to prove Elite status by submitting a cassette with a save on it. On the Elite Dangerous forum in the first years, badgeholders were asked to make themselves known - at the last count less than 20 turned up with proof of badges. here's mine  It's cast in Bronze with enamel lettering. (and far nicer than the ones given to ED backers).
> 
> (did you know PoE has released another chapter recently? LOL send me a PM I'll meet you in there )



If i lived in UK at the time i'd have hacked saves in no time. We were a DIY enthusiast group, making our own clone speccy's (as in buy pcb+components and build it ourselves), so debugging, poking in code, savestating, etc was all in days work for us  ...

I bought elite as a backer, paid something like 70-80 quid for it, bought a joystick specifically for that, first in YEARS and got absolutely nothing as a backer... meh... i have machinery that can make t-shirts at home, will make one myself...

As for PoE, tempting but NOPE  Plus, while i enjoy the game, following builds etc, i'm absolutely terrible at endgame/trading/crafting. At one point i spent ~3000 fuses trying to get 6L bow out of one of the best bows ever dropped. Guild chipped in until all were cursing me  (still got the bow btw). Also, i usually play glass cannon types, i hit like a train but look at me funny and i die 



Garno said:


> I loved the concept of the original Elite game.
> One major downfall for me was docking, I would always crash.
> One of my mates ended up giving me a saved cassette where he had the automatic docker onboard.
> I have never bothered to even buy the Elite Dangerous thinking it would take away so many memories of playing the original.



Never had any trouble docking, i even figured out the rotation trick on how to approach the station so i get right to the mail slot instead of flying around to find it, as many did back then...



FranWood said:


> Slightly OT here but great stuff, I love the bottom lit acrylic. A laser is definitely on my list of things to get. Ideally I would like something fairly large format like a 1080 with a 80-100w laser. May I ask what laser you have?



I have 900x600 80W, with 100W tube taking a nap in a corner until this 80W kicks the bucket. If you need more info on lasering PM me, glad to discuss.


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## rafezetter (19 Jan 2021)

Garno said:


> I loved the concept of the original Elite game.
> One major downfall for me was docking, I would always crash.
> One of my mates ended up giving me a saved cassette where he had the automatic docker onboard.
> I have never bothered to even buy the Elite Dangerous thinking it would take away so many memories of playing the original.



Docking was fairly simple once you learned a simple tricks - because there was no "strafe" up or down I found it was easier if you used the left or right side view to line up the station, so the entrance face was "flat" (if you were not parallel there was always a hint of one of the sides) - they simply rotate the ship 90 deg onto it's back then pull "up".

Tap the roll button - voila - 2001 style docking 

For those people why want an "original" Elite style experience but with some extra bells and whistles - try Oolite - it's a fan made version based on the original, is STILL being updated even though it was started circa 2003 and has a HUGE library of extra fan made packs and content.

Edit - yeah the mail slot was ALWAYS facing the planet for a start.


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## Billy_wizz (19 Jan 2021)

D_W said:


> When I was younger, I liked games. Job responsibility would allow. Much greater enjoyment later shooting real guns at not people and not even paper silhouettes of people but rather reloading and trying to get the dots super close together.
> 
> But, alas, same thing with kids. Need an onsite hobby that can be done a few hors here and there and converted the hardware into woodworking stuff money-wise..
> 
> Last I gamed, Diablo and quake were popular, and you bought a game and owned it.


Diablo 1,2 or3 lol


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## threedee (19 Jan 2021)

Funny story, Diablo3 was the one and only game i was in the queue for, ever. So much anticipation i had to go to 24h tesco 30mi away to get it after midnight embargo lifted. There were all of 5 people waiting for the game  ... And what a let down it was - disappointment of the year, and still is. After D2 it was like nicely painted wheelchair of a game - absolutely crippled... What was nice and deep game (D2) was now an arcade offering, plus the auction house debacle...
Since the diablo3 fiasco i would never buy a game when its just out. Not even talking pre-orders here. I'd wait half a year now before deciding.

Smart saying - "have no expectations - suffer no disappointment"... works so far...


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## Jelly (19 Jan 2021)

Oraclebhoy said:


> I gave up online playing years ago.
> People who cheat online or get aggressive when you kill them ruins the game.
> Rather play against the computer so that’s my I play on a PS2 or Nintendo NES.



I'm with you on that.

I more or less gave up gaming entirely in my mid teens when Counterstrike was still a mod of HL, and the PS2 was still the hottest thing around, then came back in my late 20's to discover that it had changed beyond all recognition, and not in a way which made it feel more fun to me.

I still bring the PS2 out for a hit of nostalgic fun from time to time, and have an old PC with original versions of Half-Life, Operation Flashpoint, Deus Ex, and most of the classic C&C titles which I hang onto for much the same reason; but I'm not likely to ever return to gaming in a serious way now the industry and scene has changed so much...

The drive towards a constant drip-drip of (costly) single-player content and making online multiplayer the real core of the game is the opposite of what I'm looking for; I spend all day dealing with people, so when I want to just switch off I'd rather not interact with more of them; I can always go to the pub (ok, maybe not right now) or ring a mate for a chat if I want to socialise, and feel like it's more on my own terms.



All that said, whilst it's not for me anymore, I can see what attracts people, and totally get why it becomes a serious hobby for lots of people... Some of the excellent reasons for which @rafezetter sums up pretty comprehensively:



rafezetter said:


> Gaming excercises the mind in ways that watching TV or even playing many sports, just cannot.
> 
> Just to counter those with negative viewpoints of gaming like Septic, sorry Spectric and Bourbon, for me the online community is a way to connect with people in a way I find difficult offline...
> 
> ...



That second bit I find really interesting, because it really speaks to the positive things gaming can bring to people's lives, in terms of both self-esteem and personal growth!

So as much as gaming gets a bad rap from some quarters (and there can be a subcultures within some games of quite toxic individuals who _really_ don't help the image of gaming), it's definitely earned its place as a genuine cultural activity which is not to be dismissed out of hand.


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## Billy_wizz (19 Jan 2021)

threedee said:


> Funny story, Diablo3 was the one and only game i was in the queue for, ever. So much anticipation i had to go to 24h tesco 30mi away to get it after midnight embargo lifted. There were all of 5 people waiting for the game  ... And what a let down it was - disappointment of the year, and still is. After D2 it was like nicely painted wheelchair of a game - absolutely crippled... What was nice and deep game (D2) was now an arcade offering, plus the auction house debacle...
> Since the diablo3 fiasco i would never buy a game when its just out. Not even talking pre-orders here. I'd wait half a year now before deciding.
> 
> Smart saying - "have no expectations - suffer no disappointment"... works so far...


Hopefully 4 will go back to its roots! 
To be fair I liked the auction house in principle as it allowed me try other classes without having to spend loads of time finding ok kit or being carried till I got kit but it's application wasn't great! Best part of the game tome runs if we didn't crash the game we considered it not prepped right lol


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## Bodone (19 Jan 2021)

As others, started Atari, colecovsion, intellivion, etc etc. Went down PC route, found not comparable with family life. So been console user since forever. Xbox fan but always bought comparable sony console for a few exclusives.

Have Xbox series X in projector room, nothing much to play on it, but am enjoying it being “instant” gaming. Fits those, I’ve got 40 mins free, sessions.

Massive Div2 fan, currently on sabbatical with Destiny and I’ll probably go with Valhalla next, I’m a big fan of open worlds/colours.

As for Elite, docking music is ingrained in my mind, think I played it most on an Atari ST or could have been the MSX I had, not sure.


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## Jelly (19 Jan 2021)

TRITON said:


> Doom 3 is good. I like the creepiness of it. Ever descending down industrial staircases into the unknown, the tension ramping up, like a good suspense movie.
> I take it you play with the lights off...Or are you not that brave



Doom 3 played in a darkened room is far and away scarier than any horror movie I've ever watched... 

The developers did an excellent job of building a highly immersive world full of tension, which totally sucks you in.


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## D_W (19 Jan 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> Diablo 1,2 or3 lol



1. hah! I'm not sure that I've ever known of 2 or 3.

Diablo and Ascendancy were two of my favorites (kind of got bored with the dooms and quakes, though I recall quake was probably same time or after diablo 1. went to college right around when doom was introduced and we had in room ethernet while most people on those games in multi were using modems. It was like being a boxer with reflexes 10x as fast as anyone else).


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## FranWood (20 Jan 2021)

Jelly said:


> Doom 3 played in a darkened room is far and away scarier than any horror movie I've ever watched...
> 
> The developers did an excellent job of building a highly immersive world full of tension, which totally sucks you in.



I found Doom and Doom 2 pretty scary back in the day when I was a young'en. I can remember playing them both at my friends house and for a start he didn't have a sound card so all of the SFX were output from the internal speaker in bleeps and bloops which was pretty lackluster. I remember going with my friend and his dad to purchase a soundblaster sound card. Once installed we fired up Doom 2 and if I remember correctly as soon as you start the first level you can turn 180 and pick up a chainsaw behind a wall. Well, oh my god, hearing that chainsaw start up was absolutely incredible at the time and we were so excited! We continued to play it for hours and hours with the lights turned off and having proper SFX made the game so much better, and scarier!


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## Billy_wizz (20 Jan 2021)

FranWood said:


> I found Doom and Doom 2 pretty scary back in the day when I was a young'en. I can remember playing them both at my friends house and for a start he didn't have a sound card so all of the SFX were output from the internal speaker in bleeps and bloops which was pretty lackluster. I remember going with my friend and his dad to purchase a soundblaster sound card. Once installed we fired up Doom 2 and if I remember correctly as soon as you start the first level you can turn 180 and pick up a chainsaw behind a wall. Well, oh my god, hearing that chainsaw start up was absolutely incredible at the time and we were so excited! We continued to play it for hours and hours with the lights turned off and having proper SFX made the game so much better, and scarier!


Doom always loved the idk codes for that game


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## threedee (20 Jan 2021)

IDDQD, IDKFA, IDSPISPOPD ...  still remember by heart.

Doom/Doom2/Heretic/Hexen is on my "replay annually" list


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## FranWood (20 Jan 2021)

Bonus points if anyone can ID these:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A 

Up, Down, Left, Right. You should hear a noise like a ring being collected. Then, hold A and press Start.

There's a major clue in the second one


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## Droogs (20 Jan 2021)

I think one of the best FPS games of all time was MDK2. really inventive and chock full of dark dark humour. My fave weapon - The Worlds Most Interesting Bomb. Place it an all the baddies on your level would come and look at it and debate about it. Then when there were enough around it you could detonate it like an ied


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## threedee (20 Jan 2021)

One of the games that stick out to me is original MotoRacer on pc.
At the time i was working in PC sales (assembling beige boxes, pentium mmx's, pentium-II's) and we had a demo of motoracer. We would do record runs with beer as a bet. I did on occasion got some beer out of it.
Me and one of my MR rivals at the time had a bet ongoing for a week logging run records, bet was for a 24pack of beer. One day after party (friday) i come home absolutely hammered, barely remember getting home. You would think drinking and driving is a big no-no, but that day i absolutely trashed his record and beat my personal by a good margin, while very inebriated. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I couldn't replicate it sober later. Still got a case of beer...
Good ol days...


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## Bod (20 Jan 2021)

Bring back Space Invaders!!

Bod


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## billw (20 Jan 2021)

Bodone said:


> Massive Div2 fan, currently on sabbatical with Destiny and I’ll probably go with Valhalla next, I’m a big fan of open worlds/colours.



Valhalla is superb. Played the entire series from the start and Valhalla is definitely one of the most interesting stories and the ending is.....well.....unexpected.


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## FranWood (20 Jan 2021)

Bod said:


> Bring back Space Invaders!!
> 
> Bod



I have a lot of love for Space Invaders. The first ever arcade game I played on was Space Invaders on a cocktail table in a hotel in Blackpool.

I've made a few Space Invader things since. This is a clock I made from 3mm black and white acrylic. It was mainly made on my router table using flush and round-over bits and a fair bit of polishing.


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## rafezetter (20 Jan 2021)

Jelly said:


> I'm with you on that.
> 
> I more or less gave up gaming entirely in my mid teens when Counterstrike was still a mod of HL, and the PS2 was still the hottest thing around, then came back in my late 20's to discover that it had changed beyond all recognition, and not in a way which made it feel more fun to me.
> 
> ...




Thanks for the kind words of that - I'd like to add something else about my point you quoted, in online gaming it's "just gamers". Occasionally I get to have voice comms with people, but it's not the norm among "strangers", so it's mostly just text chat (for PC games anyway), and text chat has no gender or race.

Male, female, trans, neutral - and any one of the LGBTQ crowd, all chatting WITHOUT BOUNDARIES - and very very often, VERY often, if the online friendship turns into an offline one, with shared contact details, by the time you learn that "Oathbreaker" is actually a 46 year old gender reassigned female from Cardiff, married to another woman (one of my RL gamer friends), that new information becomes so inconsequential, you forget it after the first 5 minutes talking about more games  (at least those of us that are not a-holes)

It's "just people", interacting without the masks we all wear in real life. - well apart from the trolls, subverts (those pretending to be other than what they are) and G.I.R.L. (Guy In Real Life) players.

Gamers are without doubt THE most inclusive group of humans on the planet and that's a viewpoint I hold based on 20+ years of doing it.

You'd also be surprised at the feeling of community - I'd like to share two true stories, about a tragedy and how gamers dealth with it:

The first is about a Wow player - This isn't one I was personally involved with but is worth a read anyway: My disabled son’s amazing gaming life in the World of Warcraft

The second story is about an Eve Online player called "Vile Rat" (don't let the name put you off) he was a serving communications officer in the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Some of us higher up in the corporation heirarchy knew he was serving overseas and roughly what he did, but no more than that. The night of the attack on the embassy, he sent us ingame messages that the consulate was under attack - in REAL TIME - and then we heard nothing more until several days later when the names of those killed was released - and one of them was "Vile Rat" aka Sean Smith. I knew Vile Rat, and had met him once at Eve's Fanfest, an all round good human being, who served his country and just also happend to be a "gamer".

We (the corp he was a part of) decided to start a fundraiser for his wife and two children and raised over $127,000 - all donations of gamers, many whom had never met him, but knew of him through the game - as being part of the Goonwaffe's top staff, and thier main Diplomat for inter Corp / Alliance communications.

It was US, the gamers, who raised money for his family, not his co-workers, not his superiors; US. The people that many seem to dismiss as childish adults playign childish games, when the reality is often very far removed from that outside perspective.

There's also a wiki about him: Sean Smith (diplomat) - Wikipedia

You'd also be surprised how many "celebrities" play online, because there, they are utterly anonymous.


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## rafezetter (20 Jan 2021)

billw said:


> Valhalla is superb. Played the entire series from the start and Valhalla is definitely one of the most interesting stories and the ending is.....well.....unexpected.



I never could get on with the assassins creed series, I tried 1, 2 and 3, but it just didn't "do it" for me, though I couldn't really tell you why.


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## pils (21 Jan 2021)

Droogs said:


> I think one of the best FPS games of all time was MDK2. really inventive and chock full of dark dark humour. My fave weapon - The Worlds Most Interesting Bomb. Place it an all the baddies on your level would come and look at it and debate about it. Then when there were enough around it you could detonate it like an ied


Forgive my terrible memory but was MDK2 the one where you jumped from space onto the planet at the very start of the game? I still have wonderful dreams doing that!


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## Droogs (21 Jan 2021)

Well, jump is a bit optimistic  trip up and fall out the spaceship, then hell yeah

here is a vid of a run through


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## Bodone (21 Jan 2021)

rafezetter said:


> I never could get on with the assassins creed series, I tried 1, 2 and 3, but it just didn't "do it" for me, though I couldn't really tell you why.


You should try the newer ones, I much prefer them. Odyssey was great fun to play, just starting Valhalla, enjoying the visuals so far.


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## Britman (22 Jan 2021)

Love jumping on the Xbox to chill, CoD or Ghost Recon.

However after my recent PC upgrade I can play PC games. Loving Insurgence on Steam at the moment.


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## billw (22 Jan 2021)

Bodone said:


> You should try the newer ones, I much prefer them. Odyssey was great fun to play, just starting Valhalla, enjoying the visuals so far.



Give my regards to Keith.


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## Bm101 (22 Jan 2021)

FranWood said:


> Bonus points if anyone can ID these:
> 
> Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
> 
> ...


Sonic. 

Remember Abe from OddWorld?

Hay loooow.


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## Bm101 (22 Jan 2021)

Mass Effect hasn't been mentioned. Absolute classic.


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## scooby (22 Jan 2021)

Good call
I only discovered Mass Effect when 2 was released. Awesome game.
So was 3, even if the ending(s) were atrocious. Never played Andromeda.

Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition were damn good too, second game was terrible.

Just checked my Destiny 2 stats on my Xbox, time played 55 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes


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## rafezetter (22 Jan 2021)

Droogs said:


> I think one of the best FPS games of all time was MDK2. really inventive and chock full of dark dark humour. My fave weapon - The Worlds Most Interesting Bomb. Place it an all the baddies on your level would come and look at it and debate about it. Then when there were enough around it you could detonate it like an ied



I played MDK2 and didn't remember that so I had to google it - turns out it was MDk3 - which I didn't play.

Holy Handgrenade - not the one from Monthy Python - the game "Worms" - the whole "HAAAALLELUJAH - kaboom" was always fun.

Messiah - an evil humour game - about a Chreub named "Bob" who could posess people at will, and use thier bodies to solve problems in the game and when you're done.... you jump off a building... in thier body and theb "dispossess" them and listen to them scream on the way down - sick and hilarious.

There was a PS1 game (can't remember the name) sidescrolling platformer where you had a sort of "force lasso" you could use to pick things up with, like enemy guards and feed them to the various meatgrinders / spikes / flamethrowers / electricution grids and other obstacles blocking your path - ..I wish I could remember the name it was a lot of fun.

Plenty more dark humour games like that.

Oddly never played Mass Effect series - and considering the price on Steam, not sure I will - £8 for a 10+ year old game? nope.

I'm going to have to go look for that PS1 game now....

AHA! Wild 9 - well that was easy


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