As much as we all try to keep a rational head on things, sometimes the things we liked, or the things we fondly miss, don’t really make that much sense. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It can even make us miss things we even actively disliked, purely because it’s now unobtainable. As we’ve built up a catalogue of years spent gaming behind us (roughly 22 for myself), gaming has changed dramatically. There are things we miss; aspects of gaming that have just become obsolete. Let’s celebrate them.Â
This can be anything, whether it was installing a game from a ridiculous stack of floppy discs, blowing on your cartridges, or, shudder, trying to set your sound settings in MS-DOS for each and every game.Â
I’ll proffer up my suggestions first - total conversion mods for first-person shooters. Mods are still alive and well in certain sectors, but the AAA online shooter has effectively killed them dead in the genre. I used to absolutely love trying out the latest Battlefield 1942 mods, whether that was Battlefield Pirates, Forgotten Hope, Battlefield: Galactic Conquest, or the bane of my life, Interstate 1982. Plenty of them were a steaming pile of cack, but it was fun whatever the case to download them at 80KB/s and hope for the best. Oh, the things I would do to see projects like these make a return.Â
Secondly, multiple discs. Call me old-fashioned, but I love physical media. I love owning a game, despite what the fine print tells me otherwise. Part of this necessitated swapping out discs (or floppies) for the install. You still get the odd game that does this, GTA V a case in point. But there was something about opening a game and unfolding it, revealing disc after disc, each holding an epic slice of unknown adventure. Looking at disc four of Baldur’s Gate was like peering at one of life’s great mysteries. Now we just click download and 20 minutes later it’s ready to play. Simpler, yes, but it saps the fun out a little bit.
Over to you - what do you miss about gaming now you're in the year 2017? Are changes always for the better, or do you think we've left some great things behind? Let us know!
