Post #59495

2025-12-13 12:35 UTC

Personally, I never cared about the cheating aspect, I was never particularly good at gaming and I’d definitely prefer cheating over not finishing a game or trying to bruteforce whatever I’m stuck on for 10 hours. The issue is that looking up stuff casually like many people (including me) do today has a high risk of reducing the fun for no real reason. And I feel like games today tend to be easier and less grindy than they used to be in the dial-up days, too, so there’s also less reason to look anything up in the first place.

Replies (1)

@sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2025-12-13 13:56

Ah ok ok, yes, what you’ve said is all true as well, removing the sort of comepetive aspect and just focusing on a single person playing a game as an experience. Absolutely yes, in general, nowadays, most single player games are simpler, easier, power fantasies, as opposed to legitimate challenges. While I do not miss the bullshit ‘difficulty’ of grinding, healthbar sponges… I do miss the actual lower amount of tactical/technical complexity and risk/rewark of a lot of modern AAA games. Its possible for gameplay itself to be actually complex and engaging, instead of having essentially a metagame of stat min maxxing wrapped around it, basically to compensate for the actual shallowness of the rest of the gameplay. But, most people seem to prefer a dopamime stream, over a challenge of both intellect and dexterity. And also yes, even without comparing your skill at or experience in a game to others… yeah, if looking at a game guide is basically the same as having substantial portions of a movie or book spoiled for you… yeah, that’s a problem for any kind of game with a narrative structure that weaves into its gameplay as well. If you can’t be surprised in any real, impactful, shattering kind of way, its not a very compelling experience, at least in my opinion.

Open ##59668