Nowadays the problem of gaming burnout is quite acute. I think you have either encountered this problem yourself, or have heard many stories about it. Here you are doing your favorite hobby, and then, suddenly, something clicks in your head and what was guaranteed to lift your spirits before now, at best, causes irritation and boredom. And in general, there is nothing terrible here, since this is quite a classic burnout, because if the brain receives stimulation from one source for a long time, it simply stops reacting as brightly as before. She’s such a force of habit. And usually it was quite successfully solved in two ways: either radically change the game genre, or take a break from games as such and occupy the brain with some other activity. And when this misfortune overtook me, at first I also thought that I had just overeaten with games a little. But even when I returned back after some time, it only got worse.
The realization has come that games have become some kind of everyday gray ritual that does not bring much joy. The very magic that brought me to these very games has disappeared somewhere. In online games, fill yourself with a battle pass and skins, and in the single player there’s already another open world with a billion questions on the map. The indie scene, although it looks interesting, is still not for me overall. Games began to feel terribly sketchy. It’s clear that a video game is always sketchy, but over the last few years this has become very noticeable. There was a feeling that I had lost something elusive in games, the very nerve that made me return to this type of entertainment again and again.
And so, when I was at the peak of this very crisis, my older brother brings an old PS3 Slim from the dacha. I even laughed at first, like, what should I do with this artifact of the past?? So that he can also collect dust in the apartment? After some time, out of boredom, I decide to take off this black box and look out of the corner of my eye at those old games. Yes, it was with the third curling iron that my own journey as a player began. I have an exceptionally clear memory and a great fear of becoming a victim of nostalgia, when memories turn out to be much more vivid than reality. But still, the console is connected, specific software is installed (sorry) and several games are loaded. I started all this with the idea of groaning at the old time for about 15 minutes and turning it all off completely, but in the end I almost made a marathon.
Effect PS2 or well forgotten old
You’ve definitely seen a lot of videos in which teenagers or gentlemen over 30 play with filters that apply a graphic effect to a photo or video that is as close as possible to PS2 graphics. Or just how people react to games from those times. People started creating whole game aesthetics with low resolutions, slightly sharp textures and a pervasive "noise" effect, like Silent Hill 2. People who were used to the ubiquity of 4K ULTRA HDDDDDDD experienced a real sense of novelty in all this imperfect and slightly dirty picture. This is roughly what happened to me with the PS3
Yes, the games of that generation of consoles did not become more beautiful or more technologically advanced. But you look at these games that have just learned realism. You see this famous soap and the resolution in 720p, and your soul becomes a little warmer. I am very grateful to fate that I grew up during the PS3\Xbox360 era. That same golden era, when really big money had already come into the industry, but there were still passionate nerds at the helm, capable and willing to surprise the player. It was then, it seems to me, that an almost perfect balance was found between cinematic production and exciting gameplay. And if interactive cinema came out, it was almost a small revolution (remember Heavy Rain). Many developers were ready to jump out of their pants, but show the public what the new hardware can do and what can be achieved with it. I will remember for the rest of my life how I hit the floor with my jaw when I saw the gameplay of God Of War 3 or Uncharted.
https://queen-vegas.co.uk/login/ Duration
I still remember the huge bullshit on websites that you pay WHOLE 2300 RUBLES and complete the game in a couple of evenings, but you need more, longer, more authentic. If only those speakers knew where this would lead us. I’m tired of lifelong games. It is already clear that the game has run out of steam and has already shown everything that is in it, and even the plot can already be finished, but it all goes on and on without end. As a result, you quit the game halfway through without seeing the end credits. The main thing is to load the audience with as much CONTENT as possible, but what quality all this stuff will be is a deeply secondary question. For the sense of proportion and the ability to stop on time, we should thank the developers of that time. They understood perfectly well that a game is a game. A bright flash of escapism, and not a job to which you are voluntarily and compulsorily drafted. That’s why one of my favorite games in recent years has become the remake of Resident Evil 3. Yes, the same part that takes four and a half hours. Few? Maybe. But these four hours are packed to capacity with excellent action and staging, and this whole chase with Nemesis is pumped up just when you are already completely exhausted from this race. And in the end you are left alone with pleasant fatigue when the final credits have already started rolling.
Moderately short games are good because they allow developers not to stretch out their creation by filling it with dubious side quests. A short duration can help you create an extremely story-rich adventure that will remain in your memory for a very long time. I really miss this.
The same style
I don’t know about you, but I still love the deliberate brutality and darkness of some games from that era. The same legendary brown filter, which turned into a meme years later. Yes, it’s almost absurdly funny but… it’s just a business card. After all, it was then that the first serious wave of audience maturation occurred. Those who were children in the PS1 era were already almost adults by the PS3 era, and they needed appropriate content. True, with some reservation. Nowadays, when we hear the word “adult games”, emotional dramas and a written plot come to mind. Then an adult game is adulthood in the understanding of a teenager. Blood, naked women, a sea of violence and nothing human at all. And if there are no naked women, then stern men with square faces will come up, who mow down their enemies only powerfully and extremely mercilessly. All this dark style was correctly used, in my opinion, by several games – Metal Gear Solid 4, GTA 4 and Heavy Rain.
Launching these games, the understanding came very quickly – the jokes are over. Now things are really serious. For the first and only time, GTA turned out to be so creepy-gangster, down-to-earth and…even humane. This is the only part in the series where you don’t want to cause Armageddon on the city streets. And this city itself presses on you with its monolithicness and dullness. GTA 4, even after many years, still continues to stand apart from other games in the series. It was even a little ahead of its time, because when real drama came to the industry, the game was still appreciated.
Metal Gear Solid 4 became the peak point that the entire series had been striving for since 1998. MGS 4 was born in pain, and Hideo Kojima himself was already completely exhausted from his own story and wanted to put an end to the adventures of Solid Snake. Yes, such a point that no one would even have the thought of continuing his plot further. MGS 4 became the apogee of those PS3 games: harsh, tough and… brown. But it is here that all this brutality often looks really depressing and even tragic, unlike the same Resident Evil 5. And it’s just a good movie. With all due respect, the gameplay here seems a little secondary, and all the pulp and nerve of the project are in these very long videos. MGS 4 is a real gem. But it’s a shame that it was locked into this generation of consoles
Since we have already entered this slippery slope…exclusives. It was then that Sony finally established the production of its exes as we know them today. They caused a lot of controversy, for many this policy was frankly unfair, well, there were those who simply said that these Sonyboy games are overrated crap and in general I went to play on Gameboy.
Each Sony game clearly divided the audience into several poles – some choked with drool with delight, rushing at those who didn’t like it, while others choked with bile or simply came for the sake of shit. But it was hard to deny that the curling iron exclusives of those years were a one-off product that left a deep mark: Killzone, God of War, Infamous, MGS 4, Uncharted and much more. These games are still worth returning to this console again or, at worst, using an emulator. And it was during this retro run that I discovered the Drakengard series and, in particular, Drakengard 3. Where Yoko Taro began his journey – the already legendary creator of Neir: Automata. And yet, I will take the liberty of recommending playing Drakengard 3 on an emulator, because on the original hardware the frame rate often goes into negative values… it was painful. The exclusives of those years each time slightly expanded the boundaries of what was possible, or honed the usual form to almost ideal.
But not everything is so wonderful in the realm of exclusives. Many of these games are simply locked into this architecture and were not re-released at all, or were simply forgotten about. Now Sony is experiencing an acute shortage of new IP, because the old proven series have either ended or new parts will not be released soon. And why not make not too expensive remakes of the same Killzone or Resistance? Moreover, it would be nice to bring back fans of classic console shooters or acquire new ones.
In general, I partially blame The Last of Us for Sony’s current laziness. I don’t argue. The game is a true modern classic and cult classic. One game that divided the entire industry and Sony itself into before and after. The success of TLOU turned the heads of the big bosses so much that they put almost everything on similar plot lines. God of War, Uncharted 4, Horizon. Infamous second son – the theme of family in its various manifestations has always been at the forefront. And this seems to be quite good and logical. Yesterday’s nerds have all already got families and children. Life began to throw completely new challenges and problems. Games shouldn’t get stuck in teenage infantilism and that’s right. The same reboot of God of War is now one of the most important and favorite games in my life. But there is still this longing for a simpler time, when games were not yet so deeply involved in deep psychological and emotional issues. Games have long proven that they are an art that even Hollywood now needs to reckon with. But wouldn’t a couple take a small step aside?
Returning to your roots and where you started is very useful. After all, it is at the starting point that we are most sincere and passionate. Now that a lot of time has passed and we have received a huge amount of information about the gaming industry, game design, thematic bloggers and publishing disputes – yes, we have become smarter and more experienced. We look at games more maturely and fully, without blind delight. But this may be the reason for some gaming burnouts. We stopped playing games. We look at bloggers, memes, funny reviews on steam. We hang out on different platforms, record 8-hour videos of how someone plays your favorite game incorrectly. We are too carried away by the information field that surrounds these very games. And the game itself as an object of creativity just recedes a little into the background. So appreciate the games of old generations, because they often remind you why this whole industry was created in the first place. Not solely for the sake of earning wagons of money, but to embody your own interactive worlds and invite other people to them.
