Aren't all computer games the same?

drhowarddrfine said:
See. Second verse. Same as the first.
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It's more like an interactive zombie movie. Infected and players are not the same. Infected are never friendly, they're down right dangerous, you'll want to avoid them, certainly at first. Players you meet may or may not be friendly, or act friendly then stab you in the back and steel your stuff (gosh, it's almost like the real world).

You basically start in your underwear, hungry and cold. First order of business is finding food and something to drink, avoid all infected and other players. Plenty of times I died of starvation before getting some marginally good gear. The map is huge (25km2), no vehicles (there are some now, but not when the game was first released), resources are scarce, firearms definitely are. You may find a hunting rifle in some farm house but no ammo. Ammo is scarce too. So you often can't even use it. There is some better stuff in various police stations or army bases, but those attract other players too. For the same reason you are there. And honestly you don't want to use a firearm, sound travels far. It'll attract more infected and other players will be aware of your location too. It's much more like a cat and mouse game, with you being the mouse, trying to hide as much as possible. I've had great fun playing this with my buddy. There have been many times where I thought I'd die laughing in real life because of some stupid situation we got ourselves into.

That said, I can understand this type of game (or any other shooters) might not be your forte. But there are plenty of other genres, role-playing game perhaps (think D&D)? Turn-based strategy? Management games (football manager, baseball manager, etc)? Not all movies are the same either, with different genres catering to different groups of people. I like certain movie genres more than others. Same with games. And it's been half mentioned before, they can actually be beneficial for older people (yeah, including you old fart!). They keep your brain flexible, cognition improves, coordination, a lot of good things.
 
SirDice said:
Management games (football manager, baseball manager, etc)
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Growing up, we used to play Strat-O-Matic baseball and football. Kind of like a pre-computer real statistics based game where the games were based on real players and their stats. You rolled the dice to see what the player would do on the field. It was rather amazing how close game statistics would match what happened to them in real life over the course of a season.

I used to work at one place where the engineers and one salesman--the man to beat--would play chess at lunch time. I was definitely at beginner level at first but there came the day when I finally beat that salesman.

I'm interested in 'go' but have no one to play with and I don't think I'm interested in playing online. I'll have to find the time to get into it.

I guess the thing is that I've always been a physical player--played baseball to where I was scouted once and football. When it comes to mental things, I dedicate that to business, electronics and software.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Growing up, we used to play Strat-O-Matic baseball and football. Kind of like a pre-computer real statistics based game where the games were based on real players and their stats. You rolled the dice to see what the player would do on the field. It was rather amazing how close game statistics would match what happened to them in real life over the course of a season.
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Exactly. Now those same games are digital.

drhowarddrfine said:
I used to work at one place where the engineers and one salesman--the man to beat--would play chess at lunch time. I was definitely at beginner level at first but there came the day when I finally beat that salesman.
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There you go. Have some colleagues at $DAYJOB I've been playing chess with too, we've even set up a smallish chess group. Chess is basically a turn-based strategy game. Maybe try X-com (also one of my favorites), or the heavily X-com inspired open source version games/ufoai perhaps? Those are more or less chess on steroids, with a bit of RPG thrown in.

Having said that, those same colleagues I play chess with also play online (not chess) games. So they've roped me into playing Fortnite. I'm very much into first person shooters ever since the original QuakeWorld. So I felt right at home, definitely a bit rusty and a bit overwhelmed at first, but I'm keeping up quite nicely.

drhowarddrfine said:
I'm interested in 'go' but have no one to play with and I don't think I'm interested in playing online.
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I'm sure there's a go game where you can play against a computer opponent. Although I can't think of one right now.
 
By the same token, though, aren't all ball sports basically the same?

Carry ball through field, avoid or neutralize enemies, negociate field and ball in conjunction with teammates, prevent enemies from doing the same.

My only complaint with computer games is this: don't call it "gaming." Call it playing video games.
 
epower53 said:
The only game I've played for the past 12 years: Kerbal Space Program. The successor was a dud, but there's another studio working on Kitten Space Agency and it looks like it's even better. I'm putting together a purpose-built PC just so I can enjoy KSP and KSA in glorious 4K. I might even go for some custom cockpit controls. There's nothing more Zen than chilling out by building and flying some rockets.
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That's an amazing game, but the career mode is not very good. It's really more of a space simulator with more accurate physics than a game. It's one of the few games in which I have more than 1000 hours.

Kitten SA looks very interesting. I'm downloading it and will probably send them a few bucks.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Yes but each game is different with different goals, methods and tools.
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Well the limiting factor of computers is the UI which is seat and monitor driven.
There are some variations like Nintendo Wii stuff that was quite popular due to the physical nature of the gameplay.

However you're still quite wrong about nature of games, as there were many popular titles up to year 2000 that do not include any sort of fighting, single or multiplayer. Let me list some of titles I spend hours with :

Sokoban - logic game about moving boxes
Brix - fantastic Epic Megagames logic crossover between Sokoban and Tetris
The Incredible Machine series - Rube Goldberg machine simulator
Sensible World of Soccer - fast paced football manager with entire world in the database + manual gameplay mode
Laser Light - set up mirrors to guide the beam to the destination. Simple approach but quite addictive

Now, since year 2000, there have been about 10 thousand titles, logic games, simulators, and all you can imagine. If you can imagine something, there is a game about it.

Anyhow, games like flight and space simulations are direct proof that not all games have 'fighting' DNA.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
A number of people here are into shoot 'em up computer games. I am not. When I see videos of people playing computer games it seems they are all the same. You get placed into a battle zone of some kind, you run around trying to find bad guys, you shoot bad guys and avoid getting shot. And that's it. The only difference among games is the look of the battle zone.
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I get where you are coming from. For a long time everything I saw seemed like a spinoff of wolfenstein-3d (aka doom) so I quit looking at action games altogether. Might be different now, but I understand the sentiment.

My gaming is basically mahjong, backgammon, and flightgear.
 
No. I am afraid you are simply an old man who is out of touch. This question reads to me as oddly as someone asking "Aren't all maps the same? When I see maps on people's walls it seems they are all the same. You see a graphical representation of some geographical area, you see lines separating regions, placenames for cities and other features. And that's it. The only difference among maps is the scale they're drawn in." But that would be absurd. You wouldn't pull out a map of Congo if you wanted to go hiking in France.

Of course there isn't much of a difference between two different maps of France and there might not be much of a difference between, let's say, two different Call of Dutys or some other run-of-the-mill games that are pumped out on a factory line annually.

But I wouldn't play Quake 3 if I wanted to play Duke Nukem 3D and I wouldn't play Half-Life if I wanted to play DOOM, et cetera, because they are distinctly different games. The running around feels completely different. The bad guys are different and behave differently. Shooting in them is different as the guns are different and depending on how the guns behave there are even multiple different ways of aiming your weapons: tracking, leading or flicking. To say it is simply a matter of moving your mouse and clicking to shoot bad guys would be to simplify too much. And all these differences combined between the bad guys, the weapons and the movement make avoiding getting shot also feel completely different and put emphasis on different skills in different games.

Just the movement alone in some games can be so intricate that it has spawned its own minigame that removes the shooting part entirely and focuses solely on going from point A to point B like in the DeFRaG mod for Quake 3 or Kreedz, bunnyhopping and surfing in Counter-Strike and players treat these gamemodes as their own separate racing games. I'm barely scratching the surface here and I could go on and on...

As a young man who is out of touch I am quite equally unable to grasp the nuances of gardening (though I must admit I have never tried to). You just plant seeds, water them and watch them grow? The only difference is the look of the plants. But there is charm even in that.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Manley Pager You aren't following along (a problem for kids like you) and you describe the games as if they are different when they are not beyond the scenarios which is what I stated.
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I am not following along because the point you're making, it has now become apparent, is quite meaningless and I was trying to be generous in answering it. It is pedantic and reductionist. So pedantic in fact that I'm quite certain I'm being trolled by a geezer right now. Are you wrong? No, you are right.
 
I was responding in kind with light banter to your “kids like you” remark by calling you a geezer and I thought you might be trolling because this is Off-Topic and I am genuinely confused by this thread.

Your original post could be restated as: “Do all shoot em up games consist of shooting em up?” Which sounds like a wisecrack to me and kind of answers itself doesn’t it? You said you are not familiar with games so I tried to explain the differences. As for Reddit I’ve never used it. If if turns out my input is not welcome here then so be it, but I did come here in good faith.
 
Manley Pager said:
I was responding in kind with light banter to your “kids like you” remark
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Really? Kind? Maybe you look better at yourself first, before critizing others. Else you wouldn't missed that you started it:
Manley Pager said:
I am afraid you are simply an old man who is out of touch.
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Uh, sorry. My mistake. Of course that's not rude. That was just telling the truth, right? And it's not your problem he cannot deal with it, but it's just his personal issues, right?
But being named as a kid afterwards is for sure an insult. Right? You don't have no issues. Only others have.

That's also typical for today's kids:
With no reason they aggrieve and crap into the room. And when they're told to reconsider what they did, because they affronted somebody, they feel suppressed, cannot deal with it, tell the others they don't want be treated unkindly. They can hit others for no reason. That's their right to do so. But nobody is allowed to hit back. They are not used to that. Those poor, sweet little helicopter mommy's and daddy's superior being princes and princesses are allowed to do, and forgiven everything. That's what they learned.:what:
(Don't try me! My wife is a teacher. That was just a glimpse in what I'm capable of.)

No self-observation.
Uh, let me guess: Now I am the rude one lacking of self-observation, right?

Buddy, dealing with "old" people means you're dealing with adults.
Adults can hit you harder as you can imagine. Better don't try. We don't want to do so neither.
You don't recognized it, but so far the reactions you caused by your posts were lukewarm, because they try to stay kind, and not let it escalate.

Now it's up to you to show how adult you really are:
Reconsider what you said, and rise the white flag, or throwing the next, even larger bomb.
 
Maturin said:
That's also typical for today's kids:
With no reason they aggrieve and crap into the room. And when they're told to reconsider what they did, because they affronted somebody, they feel suppressed, cannot deal with it, tell the others they don't want be treated unkindly. They can hit others for no reason. That's their right to do so. But nobody is allowed to hit back. They are not used to that. Those poor, sweet little helicopter mommy's and daddy's superior being princes and princesses are allowed to do, and forgiven everything. That's what they learned.:what:
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Everyone's living the rich life all-inclusive while ignoring their particular social economics :p
 
Manley Pager said:
I was responding in kind with light banter to your “kids like you” remark by calling you a geezer and I thought you might be trolling because this is Off-Topic and I am genuinely confused by this thread.

Your original post could be restated as: “Do all shoot em up games consist of shooting em up?” Which sounds like a wisecrack to me and kind of answers itself doesn’t it? You said you are not familiar with games so I tried to explain the differences. As for Reddit I’ve never used it. If if turns out my input is not welcome here then so be it, but I did come here in good faith.
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You are correct about the trajectory of this thread, though. The goalposts were shifted quite a bit on the way from the thread title to where we are now.
 
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