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[BennyBlanco]

Everything was edgy as fuck for no reason. Games were constantly using hilarious morality systems that let you be a giant asshole.

What if we made a game about roided up juice monkeys killing poorly designed monsters and the guns had fuckin chainsaws on them? What if we made a trilogy of space opera RPGs that let you be the virtuous savior of the galaxy or you let you be a weird genocidal psychopath? What if we made a fighting game and all the girls had giant tits? All of this was greenlit by major publishers at the time.

It ruled. Devs were simply making games as fun as possible and everything else was secondary. Games were for the nerds and nobody gave a shit.

We are now firmly in the PG era. It’s hard to even pinpoint when things changed but they definitely did. Maybe when the industry made the collective choice to run nearly everything out of California. Everything must be focus tested and ran through diversity consultants so as not to entertain or offend anyone. Every AAA game out of the west is boring and predictable schlock. Games like Helldivers and Palworld just being fun games to play and massively outselling AAA junk like Suicide Squad should be a wakeup call to publishers but they will take all the wrong lessons from it.

You could reasonably make the argument that games were disproportionately making 30 something white guy protags. Everyone looked like commander shepard for a while there. But the pendulum swung way too far in the other direction. That Insomniac video about how they’re “not making games for white people” and the Black Panther dev saying she wont hire whites is insane. I would bet my life savings that nobody back in the day sat down in a room and said “this game isn’t for black people” or “we don’t hire black people”.

Makes me sick to see how far the big publishers have fallen off. EA, Ubisoft, and Activision barely even make games anymore. MS and Sony are both absolutely steeped in this new age shit.

Bring back the attitude era. The industry is so boring now and rotten with grifters who don’t care about making fun videogames. Indies and a select few JP studios are carrying.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Extremely based era. I miss it.

 

[LectureMaster]

Replaying old god of war series and it does give me such feeling. The games were much more focused, much more to the point, and therefore more fun, as they should be as an entertainment medium.

 

[Skifi28]

Thank god Japan/Asia still exists.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

 

[nial]

Games were for the nerds and nobody gave a shit.

Console gaming in the 2000s most definitely not; focus-tested to hell and back. Nerd shit was the computer scene from the 80s and 90s.

Makes me sick to see how far the big publishers have fallen off. EA, Ubisoft, and Activision barely even make games anymore. MS and Sony are both absolutely steeped in this new age shit.

Wasn't Helldivers 2 one of your examples of stuff simply meant to be fun and nothing else?
I mean, I get where you're coming from and all that, but it's hard to not see a lot of bias in your take, especially as someone who never cared for those type of games at all. You know, for all the shit EA gets, their output has not been nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be; are comments from some cunt at Cliffhanger Games really going to stop anyone from enjoying Motive's Dead Space remake?

 

[SkylineRKR]

True. There was basically no agenda. They just went with ideas, it could be anything. Games like State of Emergency, Manhunt, God of War, Stranglehold, Ninja Gaiden 2, Soldier of Fortune you name it. Games were trying to be edgy and violent, they weren't pushing a narrative.

Asia is absolutely carrying this gen for me. I haven't bought a western game since... Dead Space Remake? This year started off with FFVII Rebirth, Tekken 8 and Infinite Wealth. Stellar Blade looks like another game I'd play, along with Dragons Dogma 2.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I recently bought Prince of Persia and while it's a really good metroidvania, the story and characters are the most vanilla, focus tested crap ever.

PS- all the backlash about the protagonist being black was not totally unjustified. This game has forced diversity all over it- every race and gender is "perfectly" represented and it won't surprise me one bit if they put a way character or two in for good measure.

 

[adamsapple]

You know what, that is an extremely good distillation of gaming into wrestling terms. Early to mid 360 WAS basically the Attitude Era of games.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Console gaming in the 2000s most definitely not; focus-tested to hell and back. Nerd shit was the computer scene from the 80s and 90s.

Wasn't Helldivers 2 one of your examples of stuff simply meant to be fun and nothing else?
I mean, I get where you're coming from and all that, but it's hard to not see a lot of bias in your take, especially as someone who never cared for those type of games at all. You know, for all the shit EA gets, their output has not been nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be; are comments from some cunt at Cliffhanger Games really going to stop anyone from enjoying Motive's Dead Space remake?

Bias? What are you talking about? Modern Sony and MS are both all in with new age nonsense. I could post examples but there’s no point. Go watch that Insomniac video about diversity. Go look at the new Fable.



This right here is exactly the shit I’m talking about. It’s not about making the most fun game possible, it’s about trying to make kratos kiss a man between the cheeks. And yes, Helldivers 2 is great plus it’s free and clear of the weird grifters who have invaded the industry. Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, and Insomniac are not.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Would of been even better if they hadn’t chased that Wii money

 

[rofif]

I loved it.
Warrior Within is the BEST price of persia game !!!!!!!

 

[violence]

The good old days. Still surprises me we got those three grand theft auto games in three years.

 

[Holammer]

Punisher could never be done today. Not without Sweet Baby punching up the script anyway.
But I don't miss much of the edge stuff tbh. Specifically the poncy Matrix inspired stuff.

 

[fart town usa]

Western AAA gaming is absolute dog shit to me.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Western AAA games were still mostly bad during that era, but there was at least an attempt to be interesting and edgy prior to them all turning into Calladuty clones. So I guess that was an upgrade. Western devs making PC games back then were on a different wavelength altogether, though (and made way better games).

 

[Paltheos]

Such an old man take. Yeah allot of western, AAA titles aren't experimenting but there's plenty of smaller scale stuff that's still really cool. I just played Blasphemous a few months ago, a title that gameifies Catholic zealotry and the Spanish Inquisition with horrible, self-flagellating imagery. The game opens with you awakening atop a pile of corpses, slitting the belly of the gravetender, catching his blood in your cone hat, and pouring the blood all over your head as you put that hat back on as a purification ritual because you're the Penitent One. That's metal af.

Stop buying boring shit and extrapolating that everything sucks. I know some of you are just saying that bigger titles aren't taking as many risks (and that's fine), but I feel compelled to thwack the real old man takes whenever they pop up.

 

[nial]

Bias? What are you talking about? Modern Sony and MS are both all in with new age nonsense. I could post examples but there’s no point. Go watch that Insomniac video about diversity. Go look at the new Fable.

Nah, that's where I was going. You're actually condemning the creatives and developers, not the actual publishers, which just go where the money comes from. It's pretty much why they're literally publishing Stellar Blade after releasing Spider-Man 2.
And I say biased because first of all, not every single Western game is like that, and second, pretending that we didn't have focus-tested to hell and back stuff coming in droves in the past is disingenuous as hell.
But also (not necessarily directed at you), if people truly cared about their side in all this culture war shit, you would realize that Japan is heading to the same way. It's not East vs. West, it's a 'vote with your wallet' thing.

 

[Holammer]

Such an old man take. Yeah allot of western, AAA titles aren't experimenting but there's plenty of smaller scale stuff that's still really cool. I just played Blasphemous a few months ago, a title that gameifies Catholic zealotry and the Spanish Inquisition with horrible, self-flagellating imagery. The game opens with you awakening atop a pile of corpses, slitting the belly of the gravetender, catching his blood in your cone hat, and pouring the blood all over your head as you put that hat back on as a purification ritual because you're the Penitent One. That's metal af.

Stop buying boring shit and extrapolating that everything sucks. I know some of you are just saying that bigger titles aren't taking as many risks (and that's fine), but I feel compelled to thwack the real old man takes whenever they pop up.

The early 2000's 'tuuude games like Ratchet and Clank & GoW are being sanitized for modern audiences. There really is something to OPs point.
If we dig we could probably find more examples.

 

[ZehDon]

You know what, that is an extremely good distillation of gaming into wrestling terms. Early to mid 360 WAS basically the Attitude Era of games.

Yeah, I read the title and was like "No, that's dumb. It's..." and then I realised:

 

[SpiceRacz]

The absence of AA or lower budget B-tier games has really hurt this the past 2 generations.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

The punisher game tho was just something else.
Not sure if anyone played the demo disk from the xbox magazine but I remember the game being even more bloody than the retail version.

 

[Operations66]

Genesis/SNES days were the Hulkamania era of gaming. It was the most wondrous, innocent and BEST era.

 

[simpatico]

You'd be arrested for trying to publish that Punisher game today. Straight to jail.

 

[kiphalfton]

Punisher could never be done today. Not without Sweet Baby punching up the script anyway.
But I don't miss much of the edge stuff tbh. Specifically the poncy Matrix inspired stuff.

I saw somebody trying to sell that game for like $50+ disc only.

Maybr all this current PC bull crap will make old games worth a heck of a lot more. Already have figuratively.

 

[Arsic]

I loved it.
Warrior Within is the BEST price of persia game !!!!!!!

Time to ditch the forspoken avatar and embrace the warrior within avatar.

 

[WoJ]

I hadn't thought of it that way but I 100% agree. And love the wrestling comparison.

 

[CGNoire]

I loved it.
Warrior Within is the BEST price of persia game !!!!!!!

Hands Down. Best freeform fighting and Music. Shits been downhill since.

 

[rofif]

Hands Down. Best freeform fighting and Music. Shits been downhill since.

I would love to replay it. Maybe there will be some remaster soon

 

[Porcile]

360 era was a circle-jerk of devs wanking over "AAA hardcore games" , every buzzword under the sun, and any game not featuring big gunz as made for baby casual shit. Probably the cringiest era ever.

 

[sachos]

The PS2 era also had (on average) way more edgy UI designs, more personality to it imo. Miss big chunky UI, specially on racing games.

 

[{insert code here}]

Any youngsters reading this, if you don't already own any of these do yourself a favor and get you some combination of PS3/360/PS2/OGXbox.

 

[ReBurn]

It was definitely a time of experimentation, at least through the first couple of years of the PS360 generation. The latter half of the PS360 generation is when they shot originality in the head and went toward the focus group tested safeness we've had so much of lately.

 

[Paltheos]

The early 2000's 'tuuude games like Ratchet and Clank & GoW are being sanitized for modern audiences. There really is something to OPs point.
If we dig we could probably find more examples.

Fair enough.

 

[FeralEcho]

Replaying old god of war series and it does give me such feeling. The games were much more focused, much more to the point, and therefore more fun, as they should be as an entertainment medium.

What? You're telling me seeing Kratos sigh like a boring pretentious cuck for the 100th time as he travels with his mentally challenged son didn't bring you joy?

Nowadays everything is pretentious,every remake or reimagining nowadays is just like that...Just pretentious close ups showing the pores and nostril hair of our protagonists while they do fuck all or the most basic shit,compared to in the past where a cutscene meant some insane shit was happening on screen....but now? a cutscene means Kratos is about to take a fucking nap or have a familly dinner.

 

[MarkMe2525]

and that's the bottom line!

 

[diffusionx]

why yes I did play lots of games in that era, how can you tell?

 

[StereoVsn]

Literally the first thing I thought of while reading the OP.

Edit: There are still great Western games being made, unfortunately it’s a bit sparser on that front.

However, Spider-Man 1, God of War 1, Ghost of Tsushima, Wastland 3, Parhfinder games, Cyberpunk 2077 (after years of patching), Divinity OS2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts, whole bunch of boomer shooters, ton of strategy titles, a lot more games I am way too lazy to list are and were great.

They said, major Studios over last 4-5 years really went off the deep end, that is true.

 

[DryvBy]

Go back further. 90s until mid-360/PS3 was peak attitude.

 

[semiconscious]

replaying this right now, & I expect I'll never see another game quite as distinctive (never mind gorgeous) as okami. every image, every bit of music, you just instantly know 'that's okami'...

 

[EverydayBeast]

Do you think we get a Vegas 3? Frankly that theme was a risk for Ubisoft and they DOUBLED DOWN on Vegas.

 

[Drew1440]

Such a good era of games, not forgetting the controversial games:
The violence in Postal 2
BMX XXX
Jiggle physics in Dead or Alive fighting games
Bra & Panties matches in WWE Here Comes The Pain

For me the attitude died after the move to HD, when games became more expensive to make which meant games became less offensive to appeal to a broader audiences.

 

[Chuck Berry]

You'd be arrested for trying to publish that Punisher game today. Straight to jail.

What's so bad about it? Now I want to seek out a copy.

 

[WitchHunter]

Jesus, that Punisher game is Manhunt like material. Made by some fucking alpha psychomonkey beaten in the basement by the family.

Console gaming in the 2000s most definitely not; focus-tested to hell and back. Nerd shit was the computer scene from the 80s and 90s.

Jeez, don't tell me giant publishers use focus testing on games... fuck man, that's why every game is the same... Imagine telling Van Gogh, that The Starry Night looks ok, but those swirls cause people some discomfort so time to redraw it : DDDD.

 

[simpatico]

What's so bad about it? Now I want to seek out a copy.

The game is actually a ton of fun. But punishing criminals? In 2024? It's not OK man. They need therapy. Not brutal torture. (The Punisher has various torture mini games too)

 

[Puscifer]

It was definitely a time of experimentation, at least through the first couple of years of the PS360 generation. The latter half of the PS360 generation is when they shot originality in the head and went toward the focus group tested safeness we've had so much of lately.

Uncharted 2, despite it being *THE* game that turned me onto PS3, was the best and worse thing to happen to the industry.

 

[Quantum253]

Holy crap. Hit play on Rogue Warrior and the sound was going out the external speakers and not headphones......Seriously, what the hell is up with that game

 

[NecrosaroIII]

PS2 was the last great console. There was some good stuff too in the early Xbox 360 area. But that's basically when games started to be safe

 

[Chuck Berry]

The game is actually a ton of fun. But punishing criminals? In 2024? It's not OK man. They need therapy. Not brutal torture. (The Punisher has various torture mini games too)

Reminds me of the meltdowns for Splinter Cell Conviction. ITS A TORTURE SIMULATOR.

I think there actually was a scene where Fisher waterboards a dude but they removed it.

Ah gaming circa 2010

 

[simpatico]

PS2 was the last console.

Didn't need the word "great" in there. That was really the last console gen. It's been all x86 since then, along with some Nintendo mobile stuff. But no more sweet crazy custom silicon. Just walled garden gaming laptops without screens.