Don't you inevitably bore of games eventually? Shiny or not you end up having played it, or something like it, numerous times before. I still love games but not in an all consuming way quite so much. Board games are my new love and I can fully see why people reach that meh stage with video games.

A long break might be in order. I've had a couple over the years and always come back to games with renewed enthusiasm.

Armadillo Run is the answer to every videogame question. Or, for the sake of universality, "Who cares? Play Armadillo Run."

Get a JXDS7800b, or something similar, load it up with decent emulators, stick a 32gb SD card in it, fill it with thousands of ROMs and ignore modern gaming until something exceptional takes your fancy.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Get a JXDS7800b, or something similar, load it up with decent emulators, stick a 32gb SD card in it, fill it with thousands of ROMs and ignore modern gaming until something exceptional takes your fancy.

Is that what you PMed about? I read it drunkenly and forgot to reply back, it looks a tasty bit o'kit.

If you don't mind me asking, how much was it? I'd be sorely tempted if it was within my price range.

Something I could happily save up for! Shall get to it I think, I'd love a handheld retro delight.

I don't get this sort of attitude when it affects people, really.  I tend to look on it that I'm not 14 anymore, which means the exact set of circumstances that were there when I first played Link to the Past and Super Mario Kart will never appear again.  I'll never have that first game of battle mode with a friend who'd also got a SNES for Christmas, or the round-robin tournament in the school library on the last day of term when we were allowed to bring toys in.  I'll never get the feeling back of finally even getting to the master sword in LttP when curled up in bed in my room.  I'm not going to re-experience the first games of Ghostbusters, Head Over Heels or Turbo Esprit in the late 80s.

Likewise, I'll never be able to repeat playing Homeworld aged 18 on my friend's PC, playing a level then him playing a level, until 3am when on holiday before starting uni.  Or clawing my way through FFVIII when sick in my 3rd year at uni, after getting 30 hours into it and realising I'd need to start again and level up more.  Or Silent Hill, swapping the pad occasionally with a friend when it got a bit intense, and working through it over a few nights.

We all have top experiences like that (I could go on about the perfect storm of circumstances that led to me being able to put hours and hours into L4D, or the first Mass Effect, or talk about my first online gaming experiences with Modern Warfare or Gears 1), but they're all part of the circumstances at the time.

Going back via emulation isn't ever the answer for me because while I could play LttP again and enjoy it, it'll never conjure up the same feelings.  Every single one of those games (even last gen standouts to me like Fallout 3, Assassin's Creed 2 and Far Cry 2) were products of their time and the way I first encountered them.  It wasn't just about the games themselves.

Look at what it was that excited you about a game, and rather than going back to it via emulation and spoiling the memories, find something new that engenders the same feelings.  If you liked the frenetic action of SFII, get SFIV!  If you loved action games, seriously, try Titanfall (a very very very very impressive reworking of all the mechanics of a modern FPS).  Like story-driven adventures like the isometric Batman, things like that?  Heck, get into Assassin's Creed properly.  Miss those glorious late 90s FFVII/VIII days?  Play the Mass Effect trilogy.  

If you adored platformers you should be playing Fez.  If you miss the emotional connection you had with an older game, play The Novelist, To The Moon, or the first season of The Walking Dead, or something like that. Miss playing something like Age of Empires or Command and Conquer?  Get Company of Heroes.  Heck, play FTL, which is wonderful.  Liked Civilization?  Look at Europa Universalis (the thread here has me interested).  Wishing you had a good puzzle game?  Play Spacechem, which is the best game of whatever year it came out, probably.

I don't think gaming's ever been better.  Rather than waiting for friends to come round to play something and rely on same-room multiplayer, the sheer variety of online gaming available is incredible.  There's just as much depth of story available in all sorts of modern games.  Fact is, we change; so the days of running home from school because you're desperate to play something are unlikely to come back (although I have been excited like that about Titanfall).  

But whatever it was that inspired you about an older game, there'll be a modern analogue.  And here, you've got a decent community of people who can help you find it.  Without wanting to sound like g.man, it's now getting on for 30 years since I started gaming, and a lot of those early situations simply can't be replicated; but there are individual experiences now that still blow my mind just as much, or in a lot of circumstances, even more than they did in the late 80s.

So to stellavista, you say you liked R-Type II... I bet there's a billion shooters in the shoot 'em up thread that would float your boat too, and enough that are suitably different that you'd love them.  What else used to excite you?

M0stly harm13ss wrote:

@DS piqued my interest as well. Seems to be around the £130 mark.

Yep, I paid £130 but apparently it has been available for far less if you're comfortable ordering from websites that have their fair share of negative reviews (£80ish here).  They've recently released a smaller 5" version, which is also a phone, called the S5800.  I've ordered from DX once before and had no problems. 

The smaller version running some stuff:



Be warned: They do take a fair bit of fiddling with to get emulators running well, but www.dingoonity.org are have been extremely helpful to me.  It's not open source, so you download emulators from Google Play.  I'm far from an expert in this kind of stuff, but I'm getting by.  If I had a complaint with the S7800b it would be that the dpad could be a wee bit better, although that's nit-picking as it is good.  It comes with decent enough emulators already on it too (the pre-loaded MD one is shit, but I found a good free one), and, bizarrely, a few games (I'm pretty sure Mario 64 was on there, Contra on the DS defnitely was, possibly DKC3 on SNES too).  I've only really scratched the surface of the possibilities, and it's too precious for gaming on the go as it just feels so....valuable/breakable - drop it a few inches and you've got no chance of it still working when you pick it up, imo.  I use a dodgy old Caanoo or a recently acquired PSP - thanks Rev - for my commute.

Nice. If the Vita had a bigger screen and competitive input lag over Remote Play, I'd have bought one ages ago. I quite fancy playing through stuff like Planescape, half an hour at a time.

Elmlea wrote:

find something new that engenders the same feelings.

But that's just it, Elm. Still thirsty, but the well's dry. Retro gaming isn't about reviving, it's about reliving.

Escape wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

I think I need to play Titanfall, because I don't get it.

It's like Mirror's Edge, but not for girls.

My problem is that I'm finding it very difficult to be enthused by it's online onlyness.

I mean, I'm the guy who bought Call of Duty for the campaign. Mirrors Edge 2 however has me creaming my panties.

I remember lurking back in tha day and laughing my moobs off when a  few unfortunate souls raised the "I'm bored with games" thing in ye olde maroon roome, only to be hounded out of there like a zombie jimmy saville! Fuck happened, brah?

Feeling very 'fuck it all' today, but it might just be because it's Monday.

Vela wrote:

Beautiful post @Elmlea

In a way that you can never recapture those moments again, I recently had the feeling with Wonderful 101 that I was getting a new set of moments analogous to the way Gunstar Heroes and the like felt back in the mid-1990s.

Actually - wouldn't a "if you liked this, you'll love this" thread be generally useful for all?

Just post there stating what you liked and see what pops up from this ever helpful community.

Quite- I'd say if you're bored of gaming you're just not playing the right games. Nothing wrong with being bored of what's in your collection or pile you just gotta find something else is all.

A vita might be good or a pc or a tablet.