Is anyone actually excited for upcoming game releases anymore?
Do you get that same buzz of anticipation and fun?
Maybe its an age thing (or a real world stress thing) but i find myself more excited when a game has been out for a while and is on special or offer pricing than the actual release anymore.
I got burned by X-rebirth absolutely years ago, took a 2 day holiday from work and it was total and utter crap (ive heard its actually quite fun now) and lost that spark from that day
I bought Battlefield 2042 the other day on @saghen recommendation and its super fun. Almost as enjoyable as playing Bf2 or 3 was back in the day. But i find myself wondering how much fun i would be having if id paid 50 quid instead of 5 quid? Is it an age thing? Iām just not excited like i used to be.
Iām extremely looking forward to Metal gear solid Delta. Hyped even. But thats a remake and I KNOW Iām gonna love it. Iāll even buy that at full price. But i already own that game on my PS2, and the remastered edition on PC (which Iāve yet to try with the new one coming out)
How do i get that spark back? Take a break? Buy things cheap?
I love gaming. But 2 kids, a business, home renovations, all the other stuff that goes with life. Maybe thatās the cause?
I get hyped a lot. I cannot WAIT for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Even though Iāve played Taxinaut, Starsector and SpaceBourne II in early access, theyāre my most anticipated games and I canāt be more excited for them.
So yeah, I still feel hype quite a bit. So much good gaming to be excited about.
I donāt feel as hyped as I used to. Like the man said, kids, business, things like that. Perhaps just generally being a greybeard. But some things I do want. Like Sea Power. Anything Heatblur are going to put out. If and what becomes of Falcon 5.
Thereās also things I feel quite interested in and excited by but just donāt have the headspace and time anymore to deal with, things like Total War titles, or Paradox grand strategy titles. That space thing with the aliens. Terra Invicta, thatās it.
Marketing really really really really overhypes things these days. And its not helped by any big game getting played through and thoroughly reviewed on the tube before I even had a change to download it.
I got excited for MW5 Clans. I now own Clans. I hope to have some time this week to play Clans
Edit: as another example of a game I would have been excited about back in the day, but modern marketing and exclusiveness killed it for me - Detroit: Become Human. But I didnāt own the console it was exclusive to for a long time. So I watched iiJehricoās play-through of it, and Iāve never felt the need to play it myselfā¦
I guess in a way, I donāt think I am āexcitedā by fewer upcoming games than I was 20 or 30 years ago. But proportionally, because a lot more games are released now when compared to then, it is a lot less. There are a few games coming down the pipe that Iām keen to try, such as Sea Power: Naval Combatā¦, but not really any that I feel the same excitement for compared to say X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter or Quake
I think in part this is because, like a lot of recent movies and TV series, the creators seem to be running out of ideas or pandering to whatever the marketing wonks say will sell? and it is all a bit like ābeen there done thatā.
But also, it is a function of getting older. Unlike as a child when there was adventure around every corner I have experienced so much more and (sadly) there is a lot less mystery in the world.
One of the the most recent games that I was excited about playing was BG3. That definitely lived up to the hype. But I was also excited about Starfield and that (for me) was a disappointment.
The last game I played that had the āWowā factor for me was Death Stranding. It was so off the wall bonkers in terms of story and gameplay it had me thinking about it long after I had finished playing. And that is a game I stumbled into more by accident than anticipation. It was on special, I had heard it was good so I thought āwhat the heck, Iāll give it a goā.
Good gravy! Not as excited when Iād trot down to my local EB Games store to pick up my hard copy of a newly released game. Manual included. Good days, those.
I still fondly remember picking up my copy of Silent Hunter 4 on a friday afternoon after work from EB. Fun!
The games/addons that make me hyped are the ones that was released without previous announcement and out of EA schemes.
Nowadays when something is announced and only released years after and/or in an EA, for me it kills all the hype.
I strongly love flight sims and have many installed with tons of addons, but sincerely this msfs2024 not hyped me because too costy to have +/- msfs2020+neofly+addons=msfs2024 all that i currently have. And from my experience since xp4, fs4, ā¦ whatever promisses they talk about compatability you will have more than half of current addons incompatible and never migrated, or because devs now are on other projects or because they died, etcā¦ infact i was much more hyped for the condor 3 than msfs2024.
Another factor to reduce the intensity of the hype nowadays are the huge backlog list of games that i already bought and not yet played themā¦ ha ha ha
When something new is announced you became a somekind of shamed to want something when you already have 100s of games installed and many not yet started.
Things like EA, multiplayer only, hidden casino games pretending to be a specific themed game (like some 2K sport games), etc etc, all that destroy the hopes and hype of many games.
haaaa and about the hype around msfs2024 career mode, ā¦, i not uunderstand the general hype around it, specially when few years ago if someone asked for something similar on fsx/p3d/xp, ā¦ where crucified and steamrolled in foruns like avsim, etc, now everyone are inlove with it as if it something new, when not.
It certainly ebbs and flows. Iām excited for Sea Power because good naval games are few and far between. The last one I enjoyed was War on the sea that came out in 2021, the one before was Cold Waters that dropped in 2017. For other games it depends, and I donāt mind waiting out a deal. When gaming doesnāt provide the escape from reality that it usually provides, itās usually a signal to spend some more time with other hobbies instead. for me.
Painful memories! I havenāt even gave X4 a try because of how bad rebirth was on release. Iāve been eying it on sale but it already has so many DLCās. Similarly, I have never really forgiven ubisoft for how they slaughtered Silent Hunter 5 upon release and then immediately abandoned it just a few years after they brought us the amazing SH4.
I strongly love the SH series, sadly they where abandoned in a way that since sh3 included they have some structural bugs that ctd if you not take care and required some vudu dances around the procedures of saving, taking docks etc that even with mods it was not fixed. Its so sad. Thanks that U-Boat arrived but that EA for years when it was finally released was something that was already dusted and rusted in your hdd/ssd (too long EA projects)
Over the past couple decades I have come to realize Iām more of a game collector than game player.
The only latest exceptions to that are X-Plane 10/11, FSX, and Arma. Even DCSā¦yeahā¦Iāve played it someā¦maybe even a lotā¦but there are a ton of modules I have bought that I havenāt played. And then there are sims like Steel Beasts and Dangerous Waters that I WANT to playā¦but just canāt find the time to get hooked into them. Then I read stories about games that it SEEMS I should want to playā¦like Red Dead Redemption and CyberPunkā¦but I havenāt bought those yet mostly because I feel like Iāll just be collecting them.
VTOL VR was the last game that really really blew me away. And I still dabble in PGA Tour 2K21ā¦didnāt buy the newest one.
I was in the same camp until this year. I promise you that it is worth it now, the DLCs have added everything that old X3 fans (like me) could hope for. It literally blew me away.
You probably donāt need the most recent DLC, but the others are superb.
As a teen I would get myself wired into a tight ball of anticipation for any upcoming flight sim. I remember ordering Microprose F-15 for the Atari 1200 when I was 17 and checking the mailbox with a level of nervousness that was up there with my daughter being born. (Donāt tell her but I am only barely exaggerating). Turned out, that game was unplayable but the joy of unboxing and reading the manual was almost worth the emotional currency invested.
Black Shark (pre-DCS) was right up there. Could I even fly a helicopter? Even though I had flown an R-22 for an hour in the early 90s without too much struggle, I had convinced myself that the jury was still out. It was the most satisfying game release of my life!
MSFS 2020 for XBOX had me pretty worked up also. And that too lived up to the very high level of anticipation I had invested. I am looking forward to 2024 but I feel like I have a very good idea of the game. The excitement for that one is more measured.
X-Plane 12 was a big high. I really miss it but I canāt go back.
As far as non-sims go, no. Maybe the Atari stuff when I was a kid got me worked up. But nothing else really. I am now and always have been a very bad gamer. I simply suck at them. I know my limitations.
Thatās also a really good point - the excitement of opening a box and having real things in front of you is way better than clicking ādownload and installā then coming back tomorrow because the game is 90GB. Seriously, Battlefront 2, why are you 90GB?!
I can still rememberā¦viscerallyā¦knowing that this box was going to be wrapped for me for Christmasā¦and that was at age like 20! I was that excited for itā¦!
And donāt even get me started on SubLogicās ATP. I flew over Chicago on my way to Madison, WI todayā¦and I STILL to this DAY look out the window looking for the wire frame scenery I enjoyed in my early yearsā¦
āATPā! I learned so much from that sim. They did something very creative that didnāt match reality but forced the player to fly airliners the way they should be flown. The stick had very little power in pitch. It basically allowed you to to move the nose gentle around wherever the nose is trimmed. That lesson is one that I ā¦.
I think the last one I was genuinely excited for was Cliffs of Dover.
There were plenty of warning signs that things werenāt looking so hot in sturmovik land, but I refused to believe it was going to be anything other than the most incredible sim anyone had ever seen. It was quite a shock how it turned out!
Currently looking forward to Sea Power, and hoping Stalker 2 comes through okay.
