Are Modern Shooters Too Much for Older Gamers?

[Gin Fushicho]

Thank god someone noticed it, I'm tired of all the "hate" talk , people under 18 should not be playing games for people 18 and up, because of the immaturity that happens.

I tend to like to play with everything silenced other then pure SFX now.

 

[n8dogg]

This is why most older gamers are fans of the pc. Punk kids can't afford anything decent so the age is generally older with the pc crowd. I'd like to see some regular 12 year old kid cough up $1500 for a good gaming rig. Heck even at $300 they still complain.

 

[shovel]

I'm nigh on 50 & been a games player all my life (Arcade,TV Pong/Atari2600/Coleco/C64/Amiga/PC..) I also program for a living. In the last 5 years I've noticed my eyesight is failing quicker & my reaction times are slower. The old community gaming spirit (or community PC spirit) has gone the way of the dodo. I've tried multiplayer online but have never had a good experience in the last 15 years due to the d--kheads out there. I've always found CO-OP with my old friends at our yearly (since 1998) Lan Party to be the most enjoyable.

I just find the whole scene has degenerated into a trash-talking/eye candy/antisocial mess. I'm finding it very hard to find games that warrant my investment in time in...

Thank the gods for Fallout 3, Mass Effect & Oblivion - I found these recent games were worth my time however I feel(sadly)the day of the single player game may be drawing to a close... (hope not).

As for FPS - I think the last one I really enjoyed was the HL2... (where's my EP3!!!)

Signed: (Old Fart)

 

[shovel]

I'm nigh on 50 & been a games player all my life (Arcade,TV Pong/Atari2600/Coleco/C64/Amiga/PC..) I also program for a living. In the last 5 years I've noticed my eyesight is failing quicker & my reaction times are slower. The old community gaming spirit (or community PC spirit) has gone the way of the dodo. I've tried multiplayer online but have never had a good experience in the last 15 years due to the d--kheads out there. I've always found CO-OP with my old friends at our yearly (since 1998) Lan Party to be the most enjoyable.

I just find the whole scene has degenerated into a trash-talking/eye candy/antisocial mess. I'm finding it very hard to find games that warrant my investment in time in...

Thank the gods for Fallout 3, Mass Effect & Oblivion - I found these recent games were worth my time however I feel(sadly)the day of the single player game may be drawing to a close... (hope not).

As for FPS - I think the last one I really enjoyed was the HL2... (where's my EP3!!!)

Signed: (Old Fart)

 

[jsc]

Since my Descent days, if I cannot map the game controls to my joystick and throttle, I do not play that particular game.

 

[fulle]

This isn't hard to figure out. I play like 4 hours a WEEK, while most teenagers pull almost twice my weekly practice a DAY. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I can get the same results with 1/10th the practice time... regardless of how good I was 10 years ago.

 

[HVDynamo]

[citation][nom]jsc[/nom]Since my Descent days, if I cannot map the game controls to my joystick and throttle, I do not play that particular game.[/citation]

Ahh, Good old Descent, I miss that game and wish they would bring it back. I liked the flying aspect of it a lot, and I think its time for games like that to make a comeback. FPS are good and all, but I am looking for something different now, and I think a Descent 4 or another Descent Freespace would make me very happy.

 

[maigo]

My father wants a game to run around and shoot stuff, he doesn't want dice rolls to shoot stuff, he doesn't want to play online. He just wants a simple straight up FPS. Make those again

 

[geofry]

Older shooters were much faster paced than the typical FPS these days. Combined with laser accurate weapons, death came swiftly to the weak.

I'd say the younger crowd is the one lacking. The only way they know how to play is with shields, auto-healing, leveling, and unlockable weapons rather than tactics, a handfull of weapons, and pure skill.

Sure their reaction time might be a tad faster, and they learned how to swim in a game world full of vehicles, new game types, and voice coms, but experience trumps speed any day of the week.

I loaded up the new Alien vs Predator demo and was smoke checking the nubs within a few rounds. A few rage quit, and a few asked how I was beating them so easily on a brand new game. I simply pointed out that I've been playing this same game in one form or another for more than 10 years.

Dump me into any FPS and within a day or two I'll move up to the middle of the online pack. You only end up at the top with lots and lots of practice. Unfortunately real life calls, whether it be work or the family so most of us over the age of 25 (me I'm 38) don't have the time to play.

Let me predict something in 25 years or so, when the first generation of old school FPS gamers retire, a great wailing will fill the voice coms, of "How the heck did grampa and his gaming budies mop the floor with us again?!" and our response will be "Because junior, we were learning how to rocket jump before your daddy was even a gleam in my eye."

 

[JOSHSKORN]

I trained on Black Belt. SEGA!

 

[bin1127]

I understand now that games really are responsible for real-world violence. If you get called fu**ing gay fu** sh!t fu**face for the thousandth time you'd trade in your BB for a semi-automatic.

gg never led to school massacres.

 

[kato128]

I don't think it's better tools, it's down to time pure and simple.

Also a lot of us older gamers are bored with a lot of the new stuff because it's basically the same game we were playing in 95-96 with better gfx. I'm 27 and I tend to find online is a waste of time because I've done it all before. TF2 is essentially the same game I was playing on the quake engine back in 97. CSS is essentially the same game as it was back in 99.

The persistant stats and achievements are not enough carrot to draw me back to something I played to death a decade ago. Especially when they're compared against experience winning at lan parties and causing a someone to break their mouse in frustration after being beaten.

I've also noticed FPS games have been diluted on PC since consoles started getting most of the releases. Seems PC FPSing involves nothing but terrible console ports these days and it's at the point where I won't bother trying them anymore.

So I really think it's a combination of things that simply has us old timers leaving the FPS behind because we've grown out of them.

 

[joker961]

Website for the older gamer, where you can meet and join up with more mature players:

http/www.2old2play.com/

 

[joker961]

Plug: http/www.2old2play.com/

The website for the older gamer... Plenty of mature players to join up with on a lot of popular games.

 

[BluntObjection]

I've noticed that a lot of younger gamers aren't actually better...Sure they hit the top of the charts more than me.
But my kill-death ratio usually topples theirs. Where is the skill in getting 34 kills and 28 deaths? As opposed to my 20 kills and 5 deaths(non-camping)
Myself and my friends don't win games by getting more kills, rather, we win by dieing less. We are all in our mid-twenties, all active duty in the USAF, and have all distractions that come with our adult lives. I will confess that we trash talk...a lot, fueled by beer...But trash talk none the less.

 

[Maxor127]

I hope this was a joke, but it sounds like it wasn't. The guy is an idiot. He said younger people were trained better. But oh wait, younger people also have more time on their hands. Dumb article. It has nothing to do with training. It has everything to do with someone not having anything better to do than play a game whether they're young or old. And maybe he just really sucks at online games. Like any game, the more you play, the better you get. Kids don't have superhuman reflexes.

 

[kyzar]

I'm 34 and have a partner and daughter that take up most of my time. I still play CS:S and love HL2 style games, but although I completed the campaign, I found modern warfare 2 just too bloody fiddly. Maybe as it was my first PS3 shooter, but I found the control system either far too easy (auto-aim) or far too complicated (never could find claymores easily). I am worse than useless online so don't really bother. I don't really like online play of most games unless it's with RL friends. I spent 7 years playing Everquest and have just about had my fill of whiny morons - now that every game lets me hear those whiny morons as well - /shudder. Thankfully mandatory voicechat hasn't been enabled yet, though refusing to use it did get in the way of EQ towards the end.

But then the incredibly intricate interface / vehicle setup of GTR2 comes to me naturally - go figure. I'm also usually one of the fastest in any given GT5P online match (and I'm clean), but then I kart regularly and love driving. I also manage very well on CnC games - I take a long-game strategy that most kids don't understand and fall apart on when their initial tank rush is defeated

 

[r3t4rd]

[citation][nom]necronic[/nom]Totally agree with this. If you were to put most of these MW2/Halo3/TF2/L4D players into an old fashioned Quake 3 rail arena you would see who had the better training tools. That is the absolute definition of 'twitch'. Does anyone even make stuff like that anymore?..[/citation]
Quake3 was good but Unreal Tournament was much better. You had secondary attack or a third attack for each gun, double side steps, and various other types of movements and attacks that made UT much better and more fast paced game than Quake. UT required more skills to be a very good player - basically. Just think of it, Capture the flag...with teleporter...and telefragging the noobs was just soo much fun. Not to mention learning how to double side straf, jumping while doing a 180 to launch 6 rockets?....those where the days. UT probably in my opinion was the best FPS Shooters.

That said, FPS on Consoles is just not right. Its like pizza flavored icream - just not right. I wished PS3 and Xbox would connect to same servers for MWF2 as PC's do. The PC players would wipe the floor clean with the console players. I cannot imagine playing UT on the Xbox or PS3....

 

[safcmanfr]

As for skills....I disagree that the younger ones are better. It's all about how much time you put into it. The old phrase 'practice makes perfect' comes to mind. When an older gamer that is in the 25-40 age range is out working a full time job and has real-world responsibilities, that dramatically cuts into game-time (fun-time) vs. the 15 year old, that doesn't even do homework and just games all day like it's a job.

QFT

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]maigo[/nom]My father wants a game to run around and shoot stuff, he doesn't want dice rolls to shoot stuff, he doesn't want to play online. He just wants a simple straight up FPS. Make those again[/citation]


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