Top 10 things I love about modern games [Anton's Opinion]

1. Its the Goddamn future

When I was an itty-bitty gamer, me and my mates would dream of the amazing things to come in our gaming future. Now I live in the future and holy shit-balls did things escalate quick.

Sorry.

It seems like only yesterday 3D graphics were a thing of the movies, VR headsets a thing of dreams and the Internet wasn't even on the radar. We now have these things, in fact, we have had them for long enough for them to become boring... If you told me back then I could strap on an Oculus Rift, play a photo-realistic FPS online against my friends all over the world, I would have fainted. If you told me I would have the ability to store and play all the games from the NES, SNES, MS, MD and all the personal computers of the day on a mobile telephone smaller than a Dime bar, my little head would burst.


...Even fucking Star Trek's phones didn't do that.

2. The return of the greats

Its official, Retro is in! If I were a cynic I would say its a fad, but truth be told this is how it goes from here on in... Nostalgia will eventually push even the current generation games on to other newer platforms eventually, The YOLO generation will be buying GTA 5 on their mobiles in 15 years if not sooner.

Right now is a great time to be a gamer, we have access to so much entertainment and you simply do not have enough years in your life to play all the greats - you can however put together orgies of super triple A titles and indulge until full.

3. Everything must go!

A saturated marketplace leads to... hands up... yes you at the back...

Correct - price wars.

Its officially a race to the bottom and everyone is invited. While this is a bad thing for big developers, its great for the consumer. You buy a game on release day from a shop, its £50. You buy the same game online on release day its about £35... you wait 2 weeks it may be £10, or even on Humble Bundle for pennies.

Recently I purchased the EA Humble bundle, The THQ/Deep Silver Humble bundle and the Team 17 Humble bundle. All together these cost me less than £10

• Risen 2, 
• Sacred 2 Gold, 
• Saints Row 2, 
• Saints Row: The Third, 
• Metro 2033, 
• Risen, 
• Sacred Citadel, 
• Dead Space, 
• Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, 
• Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, 
• Medal of Honor, 
• Mirror's Edge, 
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising, 
• Populous, 
• Dead Space 3, 
• Darksiders, 
• Red Faction: Armageddon, 
• Metro 2033, 
• Company of Heroes, 
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, 
• Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, 
• Red Faction: Armageddon Path to War, 
• Titan Quest, 
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, 
• Superfrog HD, 
• Worms Blast, 
• Worms Crazy Golf, 
• Worms Ultimate Mayhem, 
• Worms Armageddon, 
• Worms Pinball, 
• Worms Revolution Gold, 
• and Alien Breed Complete Pack [3 Games]

...Are you fucking kidding me?! - that's less than 25p each. 

Don't even get me started on the Steam Sales!

4. Controllers

Right, this is going to hurt a little...

Old controllers suck.

No humans were harmed in this article.

Nostalgia tells us they were great, however like visiting your first girlfriend, you'll be in for a shock. Simply put 3 decades of research and development have given us the best controllers ever [so far]. They are ridiculously comfortable, sleek, wireless, and seriously durable.

I want to sing the praises of controllers past, but I would be lying if I said they are better. In fact ask the rest of the team about my  Atari controllers... holy fucking carpel tunnel Batman.

5. The [near] death of memory cards 

What can I say?, memory cards are/were shit. When they were new they cost a shit-load, they constantly failed to load and who the hell want's to spend money on a poxy memory card when they could buy a game for the same money? We have save game functionality out the box on every current console...

except one.

C'mon PS Vita users... this is your chance to vent.

6. Games everywhere

At your computer... use Steam, Desura, GOG, Origin and the whole freaking internet. On your phone you have the Google Play store, itunes, and Marketplace... the list goes on and on.

Image from Kotaku.

Games consoles, Phones, PCs, Tablets, iPads, Handhelds, Netbooks, Laptops and even fucking Facebook enable access to games 24/7.

7. The rise of the indies

Covered the reasons behind the larger companies failing in my last piece so I wont go crazy here, but simply put, creative individuals/publishers now have a direct link to their customer base and can meet their needs. They are small enough to take risks and this frees them to make anything their heart's desire. The current generations of Indies were raised on the great games of the last last 30 years and have no inclination to allow a board room to distill their ideas.

8. Bringing people together over distance

I am a dad. If your reading this blog, you probably are too - or at least old enough to have kids.

Totally worth it.

I finish my work at 5pm and my father duties run until about 8pm... this leaves me very little time to do anything, let alone go out to see friends. Regardless, I am an adult and all my friends are adults that have families too. Safe to say we are house bound for a good 16 years yet - So a big 'HOORAY!' to Xbox Live! I can finally be socially connected to my friends, doing what we love, together...

on opposite sides of the planet...

in our pants...

9. If you can dream it...

Seriously just look at this. Do I really need to explain?

10. The living dead [back from the grave consoles]

The almost God like techno-magic we now have means that you can get new games on dead formats, want to play SNES online, blog on a C64 whilst watching video on a Spectrum? go for it!

Cheers Google images... ugh, I think.

Want the latest indie games on your 30 year old micro computer?, why the fuck not?!

Feel the need to replace all your geriatric hardware in one shot? - feel free.

Need an excuse to get the Megadrive, SNES or any cartridge based machine out? how about the entire back catalog to play through?

Not only that... how about some NEW games for your dead system?

Have I made my point clear enough?
Have I used enough question marks?

Whats with Dexters Beard?

Peace.

~Anton