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Comment by spaceman_2020 | Hacker News Reader

spaceman_2020

I'm not 50+, but I'm nearly 35. The only new games that I've managed to play through in the last 10 years are Super Mario Odyssey, BotW, GTA V, Diablo 3, and Mario Kart 8.

Most games lose me within the first 10 minutes. I don't know why but any game that tries to be "cinematic" or has complex controls just loses me immediately. I tried the Witcher but I just couldn't sit through all that dialog.

I understand that people want their games to be cinematic, but there should be a market for games where I can just jump in, have 30 minutes of fun by myself, and log off. I don't want to be immersed in another world. I don't want storytelling.

I just want to have an hour of fun.

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Yeah, I'm 38. I don't care about story, dialogs, whatever. I only care about game feeling and mechanics. If there are cutscenes I can't cancel, I'm out in a blink. Hence, I usually play competitive online games (currently a lot of Wild Rift), because they don't come with all that baggage.

A few good single-player games I played that have the story unfold in the background while you play:

- Hotline Miami (fast action, only few cutscenes, nice retro style)

- Dysmantle (story unfolds mostly through objects in the world)

- Raft (survival game, story is completely told through objects in the game)

- Valheim (almost no cut-scenes, but gets a bit repetitive after a while)

> I only care about game feeling and mechanics. If there are cutscenes I can't cancel, I'm out in a blink. Hence, I usually play competitive online games (currently a lot of Wild Rift), because they don't come with all that baggage.

I'm in a similar boat but I am 40.

My goto since about 6 to 7 years are roguelikes and fighting games. Those are very accommodating for gameplay-focused games that can be played in short bursts and they are very enjoyable for me at least.

I would care about a story - if they were not so stupid and time wasting. Stories in books and tv series matter to me. But, video game stories are just badly written. When they try to make characters, they end full of false sentimentalism, when they dont try it they end up wooden.

> I don't know why but any game that [...] has complex controls just loses me immediately

For me, the cutoff point is any game that requires combinations of button presses. The Xbox controller already has a crazy number of buttons. Any game that requires me to e.g. press the left stick down while simultaneously pressing the shoulder button is just an instant no. I remember abandoning the latest Doom game for this reason - it was just too much.

> there should be a market for games where I can just jump in, have 30 minutes of fun by myself, and log off

I've been playing Spelunky 2 for most of the last year for precisely this reason. Randomly generated levels, runs that last less than 15 minutes (sometimes seconds!) and gameplay that's simple to pick up but which has considerable depth when you get into it.

Heh, meanwhile I know a game where a command allows you to do a click&drag + Shift + Alt + Ctrl (+ remembered Z/X)...

Also, why in the MarsHell would you play a first person shooter with a controller ?!

> would you play a first person shooter with a controller ?!

I hate gaming sitting at a desk personally.

There is no way I could finish GTA, BoTW, or Diablo. I’m 40, I have a career. I have plenty of items to collect to upgrade stuff in my real life, plenty of menus too. I’m OK with complicated controls if they are revealed slowly. But there is an amazing amount of busy work in games these days. I stick to Rocket League and Overwatch and forego the skins and other tedium.

Diablo 3 is a very streamlined game... (perhaps too much ?)

Also, I find this ridiculous and a symptom of bad pacing, but most "competitive" people seem to prefer to skip it entirely : takes only a few minutes with the help of a high level player.

EDIT : as an example, the current «season» (where you restart the whole accumulation game from scratch across all season characters) added an «altar» where you can sacrifice random items to get season-wide character boosts. I though I was going crazy not finding the altar at the described & screenshotted location... it's because it's NOT available in story mode – only in the adventure-(the whole world starts open to you)-mode ! Nobody even thought to point that out : not in the (quite long) official season description, not in the guides that players made !!

It's a feature aimed at seasoned and returning players, this category does not play in story mode; story mode is aimed at people just starting the game. The majority of people playing the seasonal mode will play in adventure mode.

I am a returning player – from long enough ago that I am actually interested in replaying the story... and I think that I prefer the early game the most (when it's less chaotic), might or might not be related to me enjoying and completing the D3 beta with all the (then available) characters, which ended at lvl 12 and the Skeleton King ?

OK maybe I need to try it again. I bought it on release ages ago and as I recall, it’s one of these many games where you go around picking up collectibles so you can have the pleasure of dealing with upgrade menus. I felt the same way about Witcher and so many other games.

What about modern indie titles? They often forgo the bloat and focus on core gameplay.

If you like BotW you might like A Short Hike, if you like Diablo3 then Hammerwatch (released a year later) could be fun too, etc.

At the start of the pandemic I bought a decently specced gaming PC.

I haven't played a single AAA game since then. Only indies :)

Indies are on a roll, there's one for any genre and gameplay style.

Knowing my own gaming habits I chose a non-gaming laptop with an iGPU over a more expensive gaming branded one with a mobile gpu variant.

I don't need a lot of graphical grunt to play Factorio, Rimworld, Vintage Story, Battletech, or the like. A lot of AAA games just don't appeal to me any more.

You might want to look into indie games. They tend to focus on simple controls and interesting, more experimental, mechanics.

If you like puzzles, you might like Patrick's Parabox (sic), Baba is You. If you like strategy games, try Into the Breach. Mini Metro and Mini Motorways give you a hyper-minimalistic take on the city-building genre. All of these are eminently playable in half-hour slices.

If you're willing to have your mind changed about storytelling, try Return of the Obra Dinn or Hades, or maybe Subnautica.

> The only new games that I've managed to play through in the last 10 years are Super Mario Odyssey, BotW, GTA V, Diablo 3, and Mario Kart 8

Are you me?

PS: consider trying Rocket League.

My favourite game of the last 10 years was Ori, but every time I have a free afternoon to kill I have to start again. Because I forget everything in the half year I was absent and that game builds the skill you need to play the game... I'm at loss every time I sit down.

So my current favourite games are 2-4 hour long that tells a good story. Eg Journey, tale of two brothers, slay the princess, Stanley's parable...

This is exactly why the Demon/Dark Souls series has ruined most other games for me.

I've been really enjoying Dead Cells recently for this exact reason.

It's a castlevania style rogue game, I can turn it on, play for 30-60 mins and turn it off again.

SImple controls, hard, a bit different each time, fun.

> I tried the Witcher but I just couldn't sit through all that dialog.

That is issue with all witchers imo. I once wanted to play them, but literally after an hour of boring cut scenes I rage quitted.

You're basically me, except I'm a year younger and you need to switch out GTA 5 and Diablo with the Hitman trilogy. I feel exactly the same way as you do about gaming.

I've liked the Far Cry series recently. The story seems pretty irrelevant - it's just an excuse to gun down random goons in creative ways.

You could try something like Hollow Knight?

For maximum adrenaline fast action I would go for Guilty gear XX survival mode.

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