I had an epiphany about gaming yesterday. I was stuck at work, being paid a lot to do very little (the holiday period is good like that), and after we had exhausted showing off our meagre guitar talents (yes, that bored), somebody suggested a little Quake 3 action over the LAN.
After a little scrambling to figure out the best way to do this with three Linux boxen and two Windows machines, we stumbled upon OpenArena, which is a great cross-platform implementation of Q3. We were soon partying like it was 2000 again.
Anyway, the realisation I came to as I railed somebody from one of my favourite camping spots for the 10th time was that I hadn’t had as much FPS fun in ages. Sure, graphics and story and other things might have improved, but I seriously have had less fun combined with all three Halos, Gears of War and Doom 3 than I have across Quake 1, Quake 3, and Half-Life (and mods), Unreal (and its earlier sequels).
By no means am I near the top of the bunch. I mean, sure I can run rings around a newbie, but I was never dedicated enough to garner some of those advanced skills that come so natural to some players so as to appear somewhat godlike. But it’s still a lot more fun. The gameplay is free-flowing, over-the-top and a lot more funny than the depressing realism, grittiness, and grey palettes that seem to be infesting the genre at the moment.
I might be accused of indulging in a little nostalgia, but I don’t think so. I played for a good 3 hours before being forced to take a call, and would have kept going. It’s not that I’m an old fogey refusing to play the latest and greatest. I’ve tried a few, and they’re just not as fun.
What about you guys – do you stay on the bleeding edge, or prefer to hang on to the old classics?
I might go see if I can find my old Starcraft CD.