8 Awesome Things New Gamers Will Never Get to Experience

ffronw

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Oct 24, 2013
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8 Awesome Things New Gamers Will Never Get to Experience

If you're new to video games as a hobby, you'll likely never get to experience these eight things.

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Scarim Coral

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Err using the cheat code on here didn't work on here (I was using the arrow keys near the numbers locks)...

Also you missed out those booklets of cheats on mang games that gaming magazine sometime come as freebies but I suppose they are similar to those cheat hotlines. Also those preview dvds like from E3 were neat too before the rise of broadbands.

EDIT- Oh yeah, arcades do suck alot these days (there four of them over here) since they had become more of the coin gambling base games and have arcade version of the mobile/ tablets games like Flappy Bird.
 

Tiamat666

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Dec 4, 2007
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These days you have such a vast choice of games to play, we have probably reached the point where its impossible to play all the great games within a lifetime (especially once you get out of school and get a job). You have to really think about where to spend your time and money, but if you make wise choices, you will always be rewarded with a great game.

Back in the old days you went to a store and they had maybe a collection of 10 games. Half of those you couldn't even figure out what they were about, and of the remaining, only a couple might have appealed to you. So if you wanted to spend your allowance on a game, you had a choice between two or three titles, or sometimes no real choice at all. Inevitably you would sometimes end up buying a game that would suck or was incomplete. Still you would spend hours playing it, trying to understand and squeeze fun out of it, because it was all you had.

I have a bittersweet memory of the original Outpost. The game was intriguing, but totally unfinished. I spent so much time trying to figure out some of the concepts, when in fact there was nothing to figure out. The game was simply not doing anything of all the exciting things mentioned in the manual.
 

Zontar

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Feb 18, 2013
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Another is lore-filled guides. For the physical copy of Supreme Commander, for example, has a several hundred page book that is 10 pages of instructions, and the rest is flavour text about the background of the three factions as well as the different units in the game.

I miss those, and I miss physical games.
 

Al_

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Demos used to be great. Lazy ones were typically the first level or two, much like "shareware" games (Doom being an example of the latter), but great ones were lovingly crafted standalones. Perhaps the best was the Cannon Fodder demo that came with Amiga Power. Entitled "Cannon Soccer", Sensible had put together a Christmas & football themed level that saw your men taking on an army of Sensible Soccer players. The goalkeeper, at the far end of a big open field, had a rocket launcher and line of sight better than yours.

Half Life got a demo, the "Uplink" level. It also had a decent, if brief, manual with some background about Dr Freeman.

Standalone tutorial levels? Again, Half Life is an exemplar- though the Opposing Force one was better, for the scripting. There's few finer lines in a game than the Drill Sergeant bellowing "AS YOU CAN SEE YOU ARE NOT DEAD". Standalone tutorials have the advantage of not getting in the way if you go back for a playthrough.
 

Sniper Team 4

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I miss manuals too. I remember cracking open each new Final Fantasy game and, before I even touched the disc, I pulled out the new manual and read all I could about the characters. Birthdays, blood types, hair, age, a mini bio. I ate that stuff up because it built up the world.

I can't remember what game it was, but I do remember the first time I opened up a game, pulled out the manual, and it was four pages, three of which were warnings about health, how to hook up the PS3, and warranty junk. The other page was the control scheme. And I remember thinking, "Wow, this thing is pathetic. Why would they do this?" and being really disappointed.
Now though, most of the time all you get is a single piece of paper. So sad.
 

Barbas

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Oct 28, 2013
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Scarim Coral said:
Err using the cheat code on here didn't work on here (I was using the arrow keys near the numbers locks)...

Also you missed out those booklets of cheats on mang games that gaming magazine sometime come as freebies but I suppose they are similar to those cheat hotlines. Also those preview dvds like from E3 were neat too before the rise of broadbands.
Make sure Num Lock is off. Also, remember to press Enter at the end.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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I remember when "arcade-perfect port" was the gold standard of console games. The first instance of this for me was the SNES port of Street Fighter 2; I still remember going with my friend from high school to the mall to get it, being excited all the way back about playing it... and then realizing he'd forgotten the key to his house, leaving us waiting two more hours until his parents got home. But it was totally worth it!

The second experience I had was with the Dreamcast port of Soulcalibur. In fact, I recall it actually being a bit better than its arcade source.
 

Barbas

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LordLundar said:
*inputs code*

0_o

The website designers are weird.
They are like a big bowl of candy that's nutty on the outside but sweet in the middle. They can even get kind of gooey.

Gods, I'm so hungry.

OT: I remember getting my first and only Nintendo 64. Build to last back then, they were - welded rather than riveted, and any problem solvable with a solid tap in the right place. Ah, they don't make 'em like that no more, tovarischi.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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I miss old PC game boxes.

The big, cardboard ones, that look imposing on a shelf.
And had big, heavy manuals. (and often, because of what old games were like, a dozen disks)

I had a whole bunch, but an accident while moving (I move a lot, and things tend to get lost along the way unfortunately) has cost me most of them.

I still have manuals, thanks to a quirk of what I did, but not the boxes.
There are still a few boxes in my collection from the early 2000's.

Interesting to think these still survived into the new millenium, but... Standardised DVD cases did eventually kill them off.
Pity.
 

American Fox

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DOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGSDOGS

Come to Nickel City! Its in San Jose and you can play Altered Beast and the Nick Fury/Punisher games fo' fwee!
Its my favorite arcade, and they take nickels to play!

p.s. I miss the smell of a brand new instruction booklet...
 

Queen Michael

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Tiamat666 said:
These days you have such a vast choice of games to play, we have probably reached the point where its impossible to play all the great games within a lifetime (especially once you get out of school and get a job). You have to really think about where to spend your time and money, but if you make wise choices, you will always be rewarded with a great game.

Back in the old days you went to a store and they had maybe a collection of 10 games. Half of those you couldn't even figure out what they were about, and of the remaining, only a couple might have appealed to you. So if you wanted to spend your allowance on a game, you had a choice between two or three titles, or sometimes no real choice at all. Inevitably you would sometimes end up buying a game that would suck or was incomplete. Still you would spend hours playing it, trying to understand and squeeze fun out of it, because it was all you had.

I have a bittersweet memory of the original Outpost. The game was intriguing, but totally unfinished. I spent so much time trying to figure out some of the concepts, when in fact there was nothing to figure out. The game was simply not doing anything of all the exciting things mentioned in the manual.
Word. The amount of games available nowadays is a kind of problem--there's no benefit in knowing about great games I'll never have time to play.
 

Leg End

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Oct 24, 2010
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You forgot "Good Games". Nah I'm just kidding. Had to be that guy.

Man, anyone remember the giant ass cheat books that had thousands of codes for hundreds of games and a certain percentage of them didn't work because the writers just didn't care to know which game was which?
 

FPLOON

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LegendaryGamer0 said:
Man, anyone remember the giant ass cheat books that had thousands of codes for hundreds of games and a certain percentage of them didn't work because the writers just didn't care to know which game was which?
Remember? I still have the 7 I bought when I was younger and lacked the games, let alone the console, to try them out...

OT: My cousins have an entire DVD case filled with nothing but PS2 demo disks... and one demo disk got me into the Burnout series...

Other than that, this list makes me feel old...
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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Oh my, that cheat code...

Didn't get how to do it right (at first), damn near gave me a seizure when it did. Remember when games weren't bundled with seizure warnings? That's another thing they probably won't get to experience; Games that don't run the risk of inducing seizures.
 

09philj

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Demos are still kicking around, although mostly as downloads. I bought Fire Emblem: Awakening on the strength of the demo, and it's since become my all time favourite game. The official XBox magazine here in the UK still packs demo disks as well.

There were still a few decent manuals in the last gen. Skyrim even came with a copy of the game's map, which was cool. It's stuck up on my wall.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Mar 30, 2011
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I think I'll always miss how much you would get surprised by easter eggs, glitches, and cheats in games back then, especially with arcade games.

I remember when Mortal Kombat 2 came out, and the game just had so many little hidden gems, and since this was (mostly) pre-internet, a lot of it was just rumors. You had a friend of a friend who claimed he had unlocked ERMAC, or found a way to play as Kintaro, or whatever, and it became something you would talk about with your friends and try to make happen. Nowadays you just hop on youtube, watch a video of it, and done.

Likewise, I do kinda miss the days when beating a game was actually a pretty big deal. If you had a friend who beat "Battletoads" without cheat codes, that dude was a legend, or played through "Contra" without the 30 life code, he was the man. Nowadays even notably tough games like "Dark Souls" you can still basically just keep throwing yourself at the bad guys over and over and you'll eventually win.

And as someone mentioned, there was something just more fun and exciting about going to the mall with your family and actually buying a PC game in a box, holding onto it, reading the instruction manual on the drive home, and just being really hyped to play it. Now with Steam it's just "click. Game."
 

RandV80

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Oct 1, 2009
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I always like bringing this up...

the Konami Code (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start)
Signs of an only child/gamer! Not saying it's good or bad either way, but having had 3 siblings to share the console with the Konami code is engraved in me as "B, A, SELECT, Start", which starts the two player game with the cheats.

Also a child hood mystery that will never be solved, when we came to the city (Vancouver) with our mom and went downtown, there were a couple of cool looking arcades that we'd be drawn to and want to go in but... they were "18+ adults only" and we weren't allowed? To this day I have no idea exactly what went on in those establishments to make them 18+.