What 5 things do you miss about retro gaming the most that isn't in modern gaming?

For me it's

1. Physical PC games I miss going to my local Best Buy and seeing a aisle of PC games.
2. Instruction manuals I always enjoyed reading them.
3. Arcade scene there will never be anything like it again it was so exciting to go there especially as a kid and young teen.
4. Renting games from Blockbuster it was nice to try a game without paying full price and discovering a hidden gem.
5. AAA PC exclusives games I miss this period in gaming so much it will always be my favorite the late 90's to 2007 era had so many classic PC AAA exclusives like Half Life, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Battlefield 2, SWAT 4, Crysis ect.....

So what are your 5 things you miss that isn't in modern gaming?

Showing my age here but ...

1. I miss how so many games supported local 2 players. That may seem kinda silly now with the internet and all but some of my best memories in gaming are playing games like Double Dragon, Contra, River City Ransom, Final Fight, Jackal etc. with someone right next to you or passing the controller around in a small group. It was such a better experience than a headset over the internet.

2. I miss borrowing and lending games between trusted friends. It was nice to borrow a game instead of buying it and that's something a bit more difficult to do digitally which is kinda ironic.

3. I also miss arcades, the dim lighting, the various colorful screens awesome cabinets and lively noises....the social aspect of it. I don't miss running out of money/not having enough money.

4. I miss the simplicity of games in a way, the limited hardware capabilities had a real charm. Games focused more on gameplay than being like a movie.

5. Finally I miss the difficulty of games in the past. Many games on NES I never could beat and that was fine. People complained about game difficulty and videogames became easier with newer consoles but I liked the challenge and reward of making it to a new level back then. If you actually beat the game it felt really good.

LAN/Direct Connect - Most games don't offer these features, likely to combat piracy but it was so much more convenient to play with friends.

Gaming magazines - Used to buy and read a bunch of them. Every month I'd get the latest issue and read about upcoming games and read the reviews and play the demo tapes/discs. Now all of that is online and updated daily but it isn't quite the same.

No unlocks/arbitrary progression systems - You bought a game, all the content was there and instantly accessible. Didn't have to grind to unlock content you've already paid for beyond advancing through the story. You played the game because the game was fun to play, not just to unlock the next carrot.

Multiplayer mods - Modding scene used to be huge with a number of mods literally being entirely new games. A number of which became genuine, stand alone games. You don't really see that much at all anymore. Even back when HL2 came out, there were a lot of really well made multiplayer mods that just weren't being played and multiplayer modding seems to have died out completely

Time to actually play - So busy these days, barely manage to get 3 or 4 hours in a week to play something.

Yeah, definitely agree with 2 & 4. I was looking through some of my old classic games I kept over the years (mainly on Gamecube & Xbox), and it's so cool looking through the manuals. Devs used to put a lot of work into them. It was awesome.

Yes! Boy do I miss reading all the old gaming mags... some are still around here in Aus, but nowhere near the same as the old days. I especially miss having a Nintendo-focused mag.

Definitely... that's why I find myself gravitating more to Indie games nowadays, and the Switch in general. I'm finding more & more that the big realistic AAA games are becoming stale and samey.

The other thing I loved about the old days (and the Switch to an extent nowadays) is the simplicity of buying a physical copy of a game and not having to install it & download a million GB update. It's so refreshing on Switch to just buy a game, insert the cartridge and play (maybe a very small update). Or not having to download a game which is 100GB (my internet is decent, but still).

I basically agree with all of the points. The only one I don't really feel is the PC AAA exclusives thing. Those games are still getting made and coming to PC. I couldn't care less if someone on another platform also gets to play them now.

• Local Multiplayer
• Completed games (relative)
• Private servers

I miss just putting in the cartridge and playing no updates or dlc. I've been playing golden axe 1 and 2 on mega drive and it's been a very pleasant experience.

They are?? please name some cause I don't see them. And as far someone else getting to play them on another platform is find by me. My issue is having games purposely downgraded for parity aka Watch Dogs and the Division every system should be able to utilize it's own hardware it's like nerfing a sports car because it's not fair to regular cars it's ridiculous.

@warmblur: I genuinely can't list all the FPS games that come out every year and don't want to. Sure, Halflife is dead. That's sad. But that's not a PC issue. That's an everyone issue. Good IPs come and go. We might be collectively in a dry spell for novel FPS games. I don't see it as a PC-vs-the-world issue. This happens to be a great time for other PC-centric genres like city sims and strategy. With games like Cities Skylines, Frostpunk, Total War, Iron Harvest, Ancestors Legacy, Age of Wonders, etc coming out and going strong, PC is doing just fine. Nobody has nerfed those experiences. We just need more Dooms and fewer CoDs to strengthen FPS again.

I'm with you on that.

@Sam-os_IMP: You don't have too miss difficulty in modern games, just play indies. There are tons of great indies out there that capture the spirit and challenge of the classics. I actually enjoy the challenge of modern indies a lot more than retro games because in many cases they are just as difficult but almost always have modern conveniences (save systems, unlimited continues, tight controls, difficulty that is hard for the right reasons, etc)

For my 5(lets see if I can get 5)

1) Definitely arcades, the arcades in the 80's and 90's were unlike anything else and will never exist again. Walking into an arcade and seeing an exciting new game that you had no idea existed was just an amazing feeling. I remember the first time I saw dragons lair 2 and was just blown away that I was actually controlling a cartoon, there are so many cool stories like that.

2) On the subject of arcades I miss the competitive fighting game scene in the local arcades. I was always the king of my local arcades and there was no better feeling than putting 50 cents into a killer instinct machine and playing all day on that one 50 cent play, until of course everyone just sat back and let you beat the game because they were afraid to play you. Online gaming does not even come close to the fun of meeting new people face to face and playing them in fighting games

3) I miss not knowing things. I remember when I was 12 or 13 my dad let me pick a random video game out of a catalog. I saw warsong on the genesis, the cover art looked cool, I had no idea what it was, and that was the game I ordered. I had never played a SRPG in my life and was totally blown away by that game. The mystique of not knowing what a game was and just being introduced to a whole new world of gaming is something that simply can't happen in this age of information. To this day Warsong is my favorite genesis game and my favorite SRPG of all time, and I literally bought it knowing nothing more than the cover art.

4) Being stuck with one game for the whole weekend. I currently have nearly 1700 games on my steam account, a few dozen more in my uplay/origin accounts, over 100 open bor games, tons of fan made games, and just about every game ever released for every system from atari to ps2 on my laptop. I also have a switch with about 25 games and a ps4. If I play a game and it doesn't hook me I put it down and play something else, but there was something magical about renting a game and being forced to learn it and play it all weekend. I remember struggling with some terrible NES games but with Nintendo power in hand and my older brother at my side, we persevered, learned, and conquered some horrendous games that, depsite their objective terribleness, I genuinely enjoyed and have fond memories of. Nowadays if a game sucks I give it 10 minutes and move it to my "sucked" column in my steam library. Time is too precious to waste playing a sucky game but I do miss the feeling of figuring out games that would inevitably be covered by the angry video game nerd.

Like many have already said; local multiplayer, lan parties, complete games at launch, arcades, and cheat codes.

1. Complete games at launch.

2. AV ports. (Something about playing on the older tv's is just fun sometimes)

3. Console manufacturers not using their latest console for a beta test of their next console and only selling 13 mil of the beta test. * Says while glaring at Nintendo for stabbing us Wii U owners in the back *

4. No DLC or Micro-transactions.

5. New PS1 games.

I Miss retro gaming me and my mates would go in the local newsagents and look through gaming magazines to write down cheats. To be fair the owners just let us in the end.

I have to go for arcades and internet cafs back in the day. There are still places that I enjoy, but the crowd back then was more exclusive, and it feels like you're amongst friends. I'm not saying that the crowd nowadays are toxic, but sadly most of them are. And that people care more about themselves than the game.

Does this make sense?

Seeing World Cyber Games coming back also gives me both nostalgia and some sort of conflict. I hope they don't destroy it, or what it used to mean. That and I actually hope they feature retro games in their tournament next year.

What else? In terms of games, I guess the accessibility of new games. I miss it when all I have to think about is buying the game. Now I have to think about buying the console as well, and those things don't come cheap. Luckily a lot of games create versions for Steam, but I miss playing console games.

1. Split screen games. I miss playing with my family and friends on one tv and console

2. Full games on release. Everyone definitely misses this same thing I am sure.

3. The lack of guide and walkthroughs everywhere. I usually like doing blind playthroughs and it was great having to talk to other people about uncovering some easter egg or mystery.

4. Game developers doing what they wanted. Diablo Immortal cough cough.

5. I MISS THE DREAMCAST. IT WAS AN AWESOME CONSOLE.

Having a friend come over with a controller to play, driving to the store picking physical copies of games. no online gaming bs. No Steam or DLC.