Gaming is ever changing and as it does, so we lose some aspects of it that we used to love.
Here, we have a look at some of the things that seem to be on their way out.
Instruction Manuals
Nowadays most games include a tutorial for play as the first mission. This is great, as it means you don’t have to read the manual.
As soon as you get the game you can stick it in and go rather than do some homework first.
But, I have always liked having the manual as well. Firstly, it’s great to have it there in case I forget what button does what. Secondly it’s usually got more in it than just the controls.
Sometimes you get good game info or backstory. Sometimes there’s some good comedy stuff. Sometimes there’s gameplay stuff in there that’s left out in the tutorial.
Multiplayer Splitscreen
There’s more money in online gaming, so the days of being able to actually sit in the same room as your friend are ending.
We all remember having gaming days with our buddies coupled with pizza and Pringles. It’s not quite the same sitting in a darkened room alone with the snacks.
Endless Hours of Immersion
Remember Age of Empires? Heroes of Might and Magic? Populous? Command and Conquer?
You could play and play and play for months and months and never get bored.
Nowadays because of improved graphics and the need for every spoken word to be voiced, games are infinitely shorter experiences. When everything was 2d and text based, they could whack out material in moments. Games were huge and easy to add to.
Now seven hours is normal for game completion.
Escort Missions
These are dying out because people hate them.
The reason people hate them is because so often they are done poorly. The person to escort usually runs about like a bouncy ball in a small room, straight into enemy fire and can only take two hits before dying and forcing you to restart the mission.
But when it’s done well, it can be a lot of fun. If you can order the protectee to hide somewhere and wait for you to clear the area before moving, it gives you another level of control and introduces new tactical gameplay. If they’re capable of basically defending themselves, all the better; then you have a buddy to help you in battle.
Memory Cards
Current generation consoles come built in with memory, so your saves go straight into the box. In some ways this is great, but it does mean that you can’t take your saves with you to your friends house, or somewhere that you might be staying for the weekend but are able to carry on your game on a different machine.
The other great thing about memory cards is that when they are full, you buy another and can keep the first. When your PS3 is full, you need to start deleting stuff, or find some way of transferring the information to a backup system. Either way, it’s not readily accessible any more.
Solid Stories
It is common now for games to come with choices that result in a unique ending. This is a lot of fun, but it can cause story complications.
It’s probably easier to have a solid story that has a definite ending rather than having to tie all ends up in different ways. A lot of good games manage it, but the real difficulty usually arrives when sequels come about.
So many part two’s have to revert to some sort of memory loss cover all to explain why anything could have happened last time and it doesn’t matter now.
Mass Effect probably did it best by having each sequel read the save file of the previous and genuinely have it continue on. You could then see different endings by replaying and doing different things, but that sort of takes away from the idea of playing once and having your own unique story.
