Which games do you use as reference for "Contemporary shooters", and did you actually play them?
A pattern I see each time there are discussions about games, is to compare games in the past, actually played, with contemporary games, as observed in reviews or youtube videos (which, additionally, biases towards AAA-games, since they have more coverage).
To answer the parent:
> Just the other day I was wondering whether these old games were just so much fun because I was much younger and it was simply something new and exciting to me, or whether there's something else to it.
This is the nostalgia lens, and there are a couple of reasons.
The first is that today the gaming landscape is considerably wider than it was, because the barrier to entry is considerably lower, but one instinctually considers just the AAA games, and additionally, the noisier ones. There has been "one" Doom and Quake for some time, and with reasons - there was one Carmack only. Today there are plenty.
Second, one forgets very easily how games could have poor mechanics. From the article:
> But not everything from the past is being included in Dusk. “I want to avoid unintuitive navigation and overly obscure puzzles,” Szymanski said. Not everything transfers so well into the present day.
>Which games do you use as reference for "Contemporary shooters", and did you actually play them?
> A pattern I see each time there are discussions about games, is to compare games in the past, actually played, with contemporary games, as observed in reviews or youtube videos (which, additionally, biases towards AAA-games, since they have more coverage).
+1 to that. A lot of AAA games are designed with every moment being a handcrafted experience. That is, some sort of scripted thing is happening that couldn't happen organically by normal mechanics. Older AAA titles tended to just produce a solid set of mechanics and just let them speak for themselves.
But there's plenty of good stuff that still leans into that approach.
In my experience, after Doom, the pace of shooters started going down. Even Doom 3 was (IMHO) a cutscene horror. For me the only game in the spirit of Doom (with enemies attacking en masse, with meaningful weapons, without pretending there is some interesting story) was Painkiller. Otherwise, games got slower, even ones I otherwise enjoyed immensely (e.g. Half-Life).
Doom 2016 & Eternal are back to the game - with fast-paced mechanics, and (though, I cannot bear Doom Eternal demon piñata glitter, vide https://medium.com/@pmigdal/doom-2016-vs-doom-eternal-ui-sid...).
Dusk has a nice, gloomy mood, fast (and respecting players - in terms of challenge and difficulty). Ultrakill has g(l)ory kill mechanics, IMHO better than from Doom Eternal (even if not as visually appealing).
> Second, one forgets very easily how games could have poor mechanics.
Mechanics is hard. Kudos to Szymanski for polishing the mechanics, not the story or graphics glitter.
> [T]here was one Carmack only. Today there are plenty.
Well, Carmack is unique. His focus and attention to detail are second to none. Plus, there was another John - Romero. In Doom, he was designing and obsessively tweaking all parameters.
(To the extend, I compare these Johns to John Bell, and Albert Einstein. No, it is not a joke: https://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-like-side-projects/.).
A pattern I see each time there are discussions about games, is to compare games in the past, actually played, with contemporary games, as observed in reviews or youtube videos (which, additionally, biases towards AAA-games, since they have more coverage).
To answer the parent:
> Just the other day I was wondering whether these old games were just so much fun because I was much younger and it was simply something new and exciting to me, or whether there's something else to it.
This is the nostalgia lens, and there are a couple of reasons.
The first is that today the gaming landscape is considerably wider than it was, because the barrier to entry is considerably lower, but one instinctually considers just the AAA games, and additionally, the noisier ones. There has been "one" Doom and Quake for some time, and with reasons - there was one Carmack only. Today there are plenty.
Second, one forgets very easily how games could have poor mechanics. From the article:
> But not everything from the past is being included in Dusk. “I want to avoid unintuitive navigation and overly obscure puzzles,” Szymanski said. Not everything transfers so well into the present day.