Your favorite games then and now

[Tojo]

2001: JRPG's and other quirky games from the east. I would not touch a FPS or RTS, partly due to my ignorance but also because I've never owned a PC capable of that shit.

2006: The last JRPG I played was Final Fantasy X-2. Before that was Final Fantasy X. I play mainly Halo 2 and sports games now. I'm excited about Halo Wars as well. I guess the Xbox and 360 have opened a whole new world to me. That and the online stuff now too. I'll never play WoW though, I fear what it would do to me.

[elfneedsfood]

My tastes have changed a lot recently, like within the last year. I used to not enjoy sandbox games. Not because I was a chan or anything, I genuinely didn't enjoy them. Now it's one of my favorite genres.

In 2001, I was buying too many Dreamcast games, the majority of which I really didn't enjoy playing all that much.

[Bacon McShig]

2001: Had just bought a DC and quickly amassed a great collection due to all the price cuts on games after it was announced Sega would stop supporting it. Played a lot of PSO. GG! games of Alien Front Online were a good time (lol @ the crappy voice chat). Went through Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II voraciously. Played a lot of Mars Matrix, Garou, and KoF with a buddy of mine. Mastered Crazy Taxi.

Got a GBA mid-year (my first portable), with Castlevania: CotM and Gradius Galaxies. Couldn't see a got-damn thing. Was mostly abandoned until Advance Wars came out, then that got a huge amount of play.

2006: Just bought a 360. Have played Geometry Wars and Marble Blast on it way more than anything else. I lose interest in games much easier, everything's a ~20 hour affair anymore and I get sidetracked from them really easily then have a hard time going back... I've beat maybe 6 or 7 games this year, and 2 of them were games I already beat before (RE4 and Metroid Prime). RPGs, lol, forget it. Really burnt out on strategy games too, for as big as a fan as I was of Advance Wars 1+2, I still haven't beaten Dual Strike and am really hesitant to start it up. Was really into Halo 2 online with my roommate last year and the beginning of this one, but kinda burnt out on it lately. Aside from that, quick-play games like Ouendan and Guitar Hero have gotten the most play this year by far... PSP and DS see much more action than my consoles. Still pick up Crazy Taxi every now and then. Oh, and rediscovered the gospel that is Tetris Attack a few years ago and try to cultivate my friends into good competition for me.

[NeoZeedeater]

2001 doesn't feel that long ago and I don't feel my tastes have changed much at all. I always played a variety of stuff and the genres I didn't play much(rhythm, sims, sports, strategy) are still the same. My interest in fighting games and shooters isn't as high as in the early '90s but it's about the same as it was in 2001.

Graphic adventures have had a bit of a revival for me. It's a genre I loved back in the day but wasn't playing much five years ago.

I import less stuff but that's more of a sign of good games not being stuck in Japan or Europe than a change in taste.

[Diff-chan]

2001? It was so long ago. I wonder what life was like back then... back then... back then...

^__^ Oh man guys, Cowboy Bebop is the coolest thing I've ever seen! Guh! I'm just so in love with Cowboy Bebop! And Saber Marionette J! Limu-chan is so sugoi! Have you guys heard of FLCL? It's so cool! But i don't know why they call it FuriKuri, huh. ^^;;; So weird!

o_o Crazy. Also, guh, Dreamcast is the coolest system ever! GUH and what! I love Japanese games and I can't STAND baka American games! ^^;;; They're so.... GUH! Especially those nasty first person games! ^^ Even those... wait, have to look it up... Shin Megami Tensai... games. ^^;;;; ^w- I mean, they're rpg's and all, but first person... I don't know if I can take dungeon crawlers. But I'm so into Choc'bo's Mysterious Dungeon! Choc'bo! It's a Choc'bo! ^__^ Kawaii! =^;^=
^^;;; Xbox? More like... um, BEX BOX! GUH! It's so dumb and fat! So fat ^o^ ha ha ha ha ha! ^=^ ^^;;; ^^;;;;
And cars with more than 2 seats suck! I don't know why, they just do! I live in a dream world where everyone likes me and I don't like them if they don't like me! GUH! ^^;;; ^__^;;; ^__^ ^___^
Man... I wonder what I'll be like in 2006. It's so far away... away... away... away... GUH. Guh. guh. ^__^;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

^___^// Ohayo minna-san! Genki desu ka? Neko mama wa desu wa chibi neko kawaii-san, ne ne? o///o daisuke diffu-chan. He's so wakari masu. Also daisuke some western games. So sugoi. I like western games and XBoss 360 looks so rawesome! How grawesome! ^__^ ^___^ ^___________^ And Oblivion looks like the bee's knees! WOOT Oblivion! Like... OBLIVION!
But still, i want that Trusty Bell and Neko Mama and such. She's so sugoi.

This post makes my head hurt.

[Finch]

Mine too. That was really irritating trying to read all that. I hate 2 hours ago me almost as much as 5 years ago me.

[g0zen]

2001: Thief 2, Fallout 2, C&C: Red Alert 2, Tenchu, Persona, MGS

2005: Thief 2, Fallout 2, C&C: Red Alert 2, Deus Ex, SMT: Nocturne, MGS3

[Spent]

Much like Andy, I have always played pretty much what seemed fun at the time and never got too caught up into the "craze" of the time. Never slanted sides between western or jap devs, though I remember trying the Sims back then as everyone [casuals] were raving about it, that game sucked IMO. I played shitloads of TF, TFC, Red Alert 2 [this was huge at the time], and Andrew and I would go online with our Dreamcasts nonstop playing AFO. We also would run around in PSO with gameshark codes that made it so every time we droppped our cash it doubled. We mainly did this in servers with real high levelers to watch them piss and moan about how they played the game for 200 hours to get what we got in 4 minutes. I am not for cheating in online games where you face another person, but since this game was just co op it was all fun and games to me.

My most major change was probably stopping even TRYING to get into RPGs, too much to do these days, and I hadn't enjoyed one since probably FF7. From then onwards I would always sample the latest square offering and they always left a bad taste in my mouth. Besides Grandia II the generation died for me in the 90s.

TNL has changed so much since then. I remember making a thread on emulation for the DC and people exploded with hatred that I was illegally playing 20 year old games. Ever since about 03 around here most on the board did a 180 and now brag about how the only thing bigger than their collection of roms is their dick after railing out _______ mom.

Maybe it's just me but everyone here actually seems less jaded than back then, though that could be due to much less fronting and weeding out retards like Ethug. Been a good 5 years, looking forward to the next 5!

[Nash]

2001: Whatever looked to be good at the time.

2006: Whatever looks to be good now.

I can't really say my taste in games has changed much. I never had any sort of video game phase.

[Schlep]

This thread is a prime example of the many benefits of not fronting. When I read your post, I can't help but wonder why you liked the things you liked. If you didn't actually like what you were playing at the time, why were you playing it? Be yourself. Like what you like, not what is deemed likable by others.

The only real "phase" I went through, as far as I can remember, was a stint where I tried to be more interested in 2D fighters than I actually was, because at the time (DC era) they were prevalent among the "hardcore." Even then, I wasn't doing something I didn't like, because I liked fighters, and still do, but I was perhaps trying to be more into them than I really was.

I think I'm close to what you said in your second paragraph. As in I didn't necessarily dislike what I was playing, but I was trying too hard to like a lot of stuff that I wasn't crazy about. Not all of that was fronting, but more not being exposed to what I actually did like.

At the time, I loved Virtua Fighter 4, I finally got tired of the series after beating Kumite. Halo and Devil May Cry are just great games. The next year I started playing Warcraft III a shit ton, and more Xbox games like Gunvalkyrie and Panzer Dragoon Orta, which I enjoyed.

And it's not that I'm trying to shit on Japanese games, because some people still really love them, even the really played out genres. Hell, God Hand, FF12, Zelda: TP, and Lost Planet are high on my list over the next few months. Thing is, now that western games are so prevalent, I think western developers finally have the budget and the expertise to make great stuff. Gears of War is a prime example, in that it looks (and plays?) amazing. Also I think the trailers for Halo 3, Halo Wars, and Lost Planet really highlight how much the game culture in the US has changed since the launch of the Xbox.