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I also enjoyed watching Mr. Bercow’s antics. It is also interesting to note that he was found guilty in 2022 of quite serious bullying charges against House of Commons staff. It is unfortunate that he did not reserve his acid, if entertaining, tongue for deserving politicians alone, but rather used his sharp wit to belittle staff as well. Not cool.
You are totally right. We are living in a golden age of not only video games, but entertainment in general, thanks to ridiculously powerful computers and the internet. People with video game nostalgia remember how those old games made them feel, because the games were new and exciting and they were young. But video games (and board games) have done nothing but improve over the years as developers figure what works and what doesn’t.
Nowadays there is just of ton of…everything. We are spoiled for choice. There are so many excellent games at every price point, and also tons of crap, and yes, too much shovelware and too many rehashed franchise games. But here’s the thing: these things aren’t mutually exclusive. We have all of it, all at once, and reviews and advice are everywhere. If someone is tired of rehashed AAA franchise games, they can spend the rest of their lives playing clever indie games and they’ll still barely scratch the surface of what’s available.
This seems like a natural evolution of the market: a period of expansion followed by saturation and contraction. And there can be no doubt that we have hit a saturation point. There has been an absolute explosion in the number of games available, largely because platforms like Steam have simplified the logistics of distribution tremendously.
On the positive side for small developers, if you look at which games are rated “overwhelmingly positive” on Steam, the vast majority are not high-end graphic-intensive AAA games. There is a huge market for lighter, innovative games that can run on a cheap laptop. For every massive Cyberpunk type games in my collection, I have three Stardew Valley, Caves of Qud, and Undertale type games.
The most fun I’ve had with WITP is the Coral Sea scenario. That scenario epitomizes the carrier tactics of the time and doesn’t get bogged down in logistics or long-term strategy. Almost every turn is tense as you try to find and damage/destroy the other side’s carriers while avoiding being detected yourself. It’s like playing a high-stakes game of tag in the pitch dark with a flashlight and a gun. Have you played that one?
The full grand campaign in War in the Pacific: Admiral’s Edition.
Ypu fight the entire Pacific War in 3 day turns across a map with 40 nautical mile hexes with the full order of battle at your disposal. If you play seriously to win against a capable opponent, you have to manage everything right down to individual pilots. There are thousands of ships, thousands of planes and pilots, and hundreds of land units. It is almost more of a historical achievement than a “game”. You can play against the AI, but the real experience is to play against another person by email. The full campaign could take 450 turns if you play it out right to the end. Of course, one side can concede early if defeat becomes inevitable, but even so, if each player takes one turn per day, it will probably take about a year to finish. And you won’t just be spending time taking your turn, you’ll also be reading up on the actual war strategies of each nation, analyzing your opponents moves, planning your own moves and strategies, figuring out supply logistics, learning the capabilities of the ships and planes at your disposal, reading intel reports, and managing virtual pilots and commanders. In many ways, WITP:AE is more of a technical and historical achievement than a game. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to complete the full campaign. I would certainly have to be retired before I’d ever attempt it versus a human opponent. And even if I could fully commit, who knows if my opponent would also have the fortitude to finish.
Witcher 3 is probably my favourite game of all time, largely because of the semi-parental storyline with Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri. That said, I think the weakness with the Witcher 1-3 series as a whole is that the plot is too complex. Since most modern AAA RPGs have many, many side quests, I think the main plot of a long RPG should be relatively simple or else risk diluting its dramatic effect.
I feel like CD Projekt Red did a better job with that aspect of story-telling in Cyberpunk, even if the overall emotional arc is less intense than that of Witcher 3. There are lots of cool things to do and interesting side quests in Cyberpunk, but the main arc is pretty simple. You can go off on hours of side quests and still come back to the main plot without forgetting what’s going on.
Valve is a private company right now. But Gaben is 61 and it goes without saying that Valve is at the top of every predatory tech capitalist’s wishlist. Can you even imagine what Microsoft or Google or Meta would pay for Valve? Steam is great, but that probably won’t last forever. GOG is waiting in the wings if Steam ever becomes enshittified, but most of your library cannot be transferred over.
I’m old and have enjoyed many, many games over the years. However, the one that hit me hardest in the feels was The Witcher 3. The ending where Geralt realizes that he has to let Ciri make her own decisions, scary as they are… wow, it was so well done. It’s one of the best examples of how a game can become art on the same level as cinema and literature.
Edit: I want to add another. The first game that made me feel actual dread was the original Quake, especially when played in a dark room. The soundscape was incredibly immersive. I remember literally moving my own head to try to peer around corners.
Replay of Mass Effect. I had to cheat, though, because I forgot that the Mako is mandatory to finish the Ilos level. I had to use a cheat code to spawn it just before the end. So many people have made this mistake and you can’t go back for the Mako if you left it behind, so you are soft-locked out of the ending if you don’t re-spawn it. You’d think they’d have fixed that in the Legendary Edition, but no.