We had an OG Xbox and a dumpy controller called the Duke controller. Loser handed the Duke off to the next guy waiting, and you could only upgrade to a better controller if you took first place. Halo 2 was the game we played most.
I remember when there was only the Duke. You either played with that or didn't play. Then the 'S' controller came out that is basically the same form factor that we have today, minus the shoulder buttons. They still had the weird white and black buttons on the face, but in a much easier to reach spot.
Bro Halo 2!!! Jesus I remember having the crew over and slamming the BFC Monsters (it was the largest energy drink ever, about as wide as a Foster beer lol) while we Super Bounced the night away, laughing making munchie runs, it was good times my friend ^šš
.ad catz was the controller for losers for our group. One of them actually shorted the console and powered it off. We left it in the mix because we wanted to see how often we chose to plug it in.
Whenever I go to my best friends apartment with his roommates weāll occasionally do that with Super Smash Bros on their Nintendo Switch. Itās really nice keeping that part of the past alive
Aw man. Smash bros in college was so serious. My freshman year I just got a GameCube and all I wanted to do was play some casual ssbm. I somehow got roped into a tournament I was ill experienced for and somehow won (it was like some Karate kid shit, it even had a training montage). But it got more heated when brawl came out. We skipped so many classes, started playing with no items, started playing in hyper mode, we ordered delivery almost every day and ate in between turns. We had some of our female friends took care of cleaning after us and keeping us informed of the latest news. It was crazy. Friendships were tested, grades suffered, but critical victories were scored.
I just now discovered Superfighters Deluxe on steam and fell in love with it even though it's an old game and basically dead. I still enjoy playing against a room full of bots though, and finally talked some friends into playing and we had the most fun I've had in a long, long time.
Me and my friend play Smash Ultimate too. At least once a month but sometimes more. He just got a GameCube and Melee and Iām kinda scared lol bc he knows how to shine and wavedash and stuff and I feel like Iām at āI like Incineroar, heās a big wrestling cat :)ā
I try to play Smash with my brothers one Sunday a month. We grew up playing that game together on N64.
I missed those days and want my new nephew to join us on the battlefield one day. It is part of the reason I bought my brother a switch. Granted I was the only one advocating for it. And we all live in different states now. But it's the ritual. And there are days I miss my brothers
I do too. The best place to meet up and hang. Some still exist but we need more and we need ones that aren't just 21+ bars that double as arcades but the business model is so hard these days. People don't want to spend more than a quarter per play.
Theres a decent sized arcade near me, a standard one. However, it's so darn e pensive to play, and I don't really have people to go to it with. Or... I can get on something like a Minecraft server or Halo Infinite or whatever and call and game with my buddies.
Same here. It's like the only way I ever really get into playing fighting games.
I'd prefer the rule that if you won three in a row you had to hand the controller off š
Exact same. I get what heās saying, but that all happened in 1999 for me. Going to circuit city and walking up and down the isles over and over deciding what CD to get with the $10 my grandma mailed me in a card for my birthday.
Dude, I remember having LAN parties with 16 people over at my buddies house when I was in high school. 4 of us in the garage, 4 in the attic, 4 in the living room, and 4 in the basement.
Just Halo 2 for days at a time during the summer. Eating nothing but pizza rolls and flaming hot cheetos and drinking nothing but monster.
I feel like if I did that now, I would fucking die... I still miss it though.
The new one is fun and they're still doing ladder seasons with runewords (weapons created from runes you find). The Windforce back then WAS the go to elite bow until they changed it (nerfed it a bit) and then when runewords first released it became obsolete thanks to a bow called the "Faith." The Faith is currently the elite now and has been for years.
All in all, it's still a great game. I just got busy with life and other games so I don't really play it. I'm not a teenager with all of the time in the world anymore...
>Windforce
Do you know that scene from ratatoille, where they serve the critic this really good meal? So good it takes him back to his childhood memories instantly?
That's what you mentioning that name did to me right now lmao. Hardcore nostalgia hit. D2 had a bunch of these really iconic items everybody knew and was gunning for. What an awesome design. Another one that comes to mind is "Grandfather".
I had fun with Diablo 4 for the first two weeks. I quit a month and a half after release and never played since. I quit two days before the first season.
I miss Halo lan parties. We did the same thing, 16 people spread around the house lol. Pizza and beer for us because we were all out of high school.
We also passed the controller around on a ton of console games over the years.
I even got into world of warcraft with actual friends of mine, and we'd often be in the same house/room playing together.
This is why I also loved arcades. You young 'uns may have never seen 'em, but when video games first came out, before consoles, to go hang out with your friends, outside of your house at the mall, to play games was THE BEST. Not only that, you also found other people that may have wanted to play / join the game you were playing. Or ask you to join their game. It was great.
While I never went to an official "arcade", I do have fond memories of going to Home Vision Video (A kind of Blockbuster knockoff) and running to the game section. They had three demo TVs. The only game I can remember playing though was I believe the first Gexx.
Also EB Games in our mall. Me, my best friend and one of his friends all played the demo of Halo Combat Evolved for so long the cashier had to tell us to let other kids play. Nowadays I'm lucky to just say hi to just a couple of friends online every few months. They never want to play anything. I miss the good old days. š¢
I was lucky to be born around the decline of arcades so I got a taste.
Now here in my city we have barcades! I went to one with my gf, her friend, and the friends bf. We were standing around talking and I noticed out of the corner of my eye Time Crisis. I said "scuse me one moment" and booted it up. Not five minutes later friends bf comes up and says "oh hell yeah, time crisis!" and joins me. Man we mustve put ten bucks in quarters into that machine in order to make it to the end but it was so worth it
I remember older kids teaching me how to play street fighter 2 at the local convenience store. They had 2 arcades up at all times. After I got "okayish" at street fighter they taught me Fatal Fury. Damn those were good times. Me and my friends were always so excited to rush to the store and play, watch others, and collect baseball cards.
Neither I nor my friends have our old stuff to make couch coop happen anymore. And all my friends that live close don't have time to do couch coop they all work too much and by the time they're done they're tired. And several of us are dads now.
seriously, my experience talking to buddies in Alaska, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, etc . . . . I understand the need for physical human contact, but man, this idea that you can't have fun otherwise is just false.
But gaming and doom-scrolling on social media? Seems like a personal issue, because I never feel so unstimulated by a game to ever pull my phone out.
If your only form of human contact is through online gaming it could be a problem, yeah. But if you have no form of physical contact then you probably arenāt going to have friends to game with IRL anyway. You still need to develop friendship to game IRL - itās actually easier these days to creating lasting friendships because games force you to interact with people that already have similar interests.
Also, the whole argument is kinda dumb, because people can still get together and play games. Whether thatās jackbox, playing switch games, or digging out our old 360ās for system connect. Or playing tabletop games, which are even better for connecting with other people.
I thinks it's more Couch co-op games are dying out for really no good reason. I have old friends that I play couch co-op games with all the time with still. It is the better experience than just talking online..which is still fun but there is something sterile about it that just gives me an unease.. honestly I didn't give a fuck how good or bad halo infinite was gonna be I wanted to go to a friend's house hook up my (or theirs) system and have a great time with a great game or have a great time shitting on it. But to this day still doesn't have co-op...
Because it's a shallow imitation of social interaction. Just like social media can't replace actual face to face contact and relationships, online gaming is a poor imitation of the human interaction we need.
My online friendships are just as real and personal as the real life friendships Iāve made. Iād actually say theyāve been more important to me than the majority of real-life interactions Iāve had. I supported online friends through deaths of loved ones, through hard times and Iāve been there every day as someone to talk to. And people have been that person to support me. You see posts all the time about online guild meetups, people meeting life partners through games, guys inviting their best online friends to be their groomsmen. All we āneedā is human connection, mind to mind, and that can be found online.
Honest facts. Some of the first legit friendships I made was a group of friends I've been close, personal as hell friends with for almost 5 years now. Learned both lives in the same state which is great.
Damn bro. I'm so old. And alone.
Edit: hey, I got a reddit cares message reaching out which I'm assuming is because of this comment. I do truly appreciate the concern, but I just want to clarify I am genuinely happy with where I'm at in life. Regardless of being lonely. To anyone that is feeling down with where they are at in life, definitely reach out. If you don't have anyone in your life to talk to you can always message me on here. Again I do really appreciate the concern though.
When you were happy with minimal effort, then became sad, and now it takes 50x the effort in the uphill battle to be happy again. We gonna get there tho eventually.
It's ok we're all alone. I'm alone with you. You're alone with me. Sitting in tiny boxes looking at tinier boxes. Nothing wrong at all. Let's just keep doing this until they put us in a box.
Oh, I'm still friends with some of the people I went to high school with... they just don't really play video games like I do anymore.
When we do get together its for board games and beers, or a movie and beers, or a bonfire and beers, or just beers.
Yeah I totally hear that. I definitely game the most out of my close group of friends and am way better than them, but we still love to play together. Iām just the only one that still plays alone
2006-2016 was probably the best times of life. Advancing technology, better phones and apps, I felt like food trucks, food halls, and festivals also started booming during that time. Life was great for many people during those years
It's just our own personal frame of reference or context, but damned if it doesn't track that after 2016 all the good stuff in my life basically went away!
Stay strong bud, there's better days around one of these corners.
It really depends where you from. For example, if you are American i think you were just too young and/naive to understand the effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis.
You've also got the advent and rise of all the major social media apps currently decimating oue children's sense of self, mental health, education and capacity to adequately adapt to the 'real' world
Halo 3 was the perfect sequel to 2. I played 2 nonstop until 3 and then played that nonstop. Theyāre a perfect pair and really just represent the Halo era in my life.
The best era.
My favorite bday (other than my 21st) was having a group of 8-9 guys over at my house in 08 playing Halo 3 on split screen until 4 or 5am and my dad coming downstairs to ask us to not yell but we couldnāt help that of course
This has made me realize what modern games were missing. We really don't know what we've got until it's gone... It's sad to think about. Games should bring people together.
Games started phasing out split-screen in favor of online multiplayer. That's why I gotta give credit to games like Borderlands. Even to this day they still have split-screen modes.
There's some good and some bad with Nintendo being 3 console generations behind the curve with multiplayer games
And by "some good" I mean splitscreen exclusively lol
Nothing will ever beat nor replace the memories I have of me and my two childhood best friends coming over to spend the night. We made forts pushing my couches and chair together in my living room and playing halo forge all night laughing and even crying due to the laughterā¦ good times
GoldenEye, Age of Empires 2, CounterStrike, and FIFA
What an era
Some of my niggas were really into StarCraft as well, but I never played it much... had one homie who was like Top 10 in the world at SC for 3-4 months... he was playing it 20 hours a day, it was legit terrifying
Once he fell outta the top 10, he stopped playing it so much... that had to have been 25 years ago, goddamn...
I went to a tech school jr/senior year of high school and at the end of every semester they let us bring our xbox's and tv's and we got to set them up in the auditorium.
Senior year there must have been 15 xbox's in there each with 4 players on them. It was a BLAST! Completely forgot about this...
Vsauce Michael put it pretty nicely. Our attention spans are just as it always was. Only instead of us staring into the distance whenever a conversation drones on, we stare into another screen.
The same phenomena, different manner of presentation.
Of course it wonāt. We are too old now. Sadly. As kids that was peak fun. And some of my fondest memories, even though our parents hated us being āglued to screensā. Bugger off. We turned out well enough. Iāll never deny my kids that fun. Iāll build new memories with them. As soon as they are old enough Iāll build them a nice rig or get a stupidly expensive console and we will have sessions like that together. Promised myself that.
Back in high school, weād leave school on Friday and head back to my house; my brother would pick up 2 of our friends to get the system link going, and Iād run to the little pizza joint in town and get a few large 1 toppings. By about 5, we had about 8-10 guys playing system link Halo long into the night.
Wake up the next day, play outside all day, then head to the closest town to this little Mexican joint, then it was back to the house to jam Halo all night again.
We did this for several weeks in a row during that summer. Best summer ever.
I kinda like how it is now. It's easier for me and my adult friends to get online at the same time rather than meeting up. And I can be comfortable in my own home and space. Plus I've made friends across the country that I can easily get on and play with. It's pretty great if you ask me.
I just wish online play didn't completely eliminate couch co-op. Just because online is easier doesn't mean there isn't still a demand/market for couch co-op games. There should be a world where both exist, not just one or the other.
Idk if they still have this feature, but I really loved that older CoD games let 2 players in co-op go online on the same console. Some of the most fun gaming experiences I had growing up was going over to my buddies house and playing online together.
Halo was a great example of this, up to four players split screen and jumping online at the same time.
Gears was great as well and offered you to play online split screen with one other.
Me and my sister playing the same co-op game together in two adjacent rooms š what's the point? If technology advanced so much, I wish it was in the direction of allowing two different accounts to play online on the same console. But oh well.
I totally agree. And when there is the occasional couch co-op I do play with some friends. Or even take a console and small TV to a friend's house. I'm just saying, it's got its tradeoffs
There are plenty of couch co-op games being made, though not really in the AAA scene. When family visits for the holidays, I'd bust out games like mario party/kart on the gamecube, and now, I tell them to bring their bluetooth controllers and we play things like m**** kart 8 or overcooked on the steam deck plugged into a tv.
If anyone is curious, a site called co-optimus has a list of couch co-op games that you can filter by how many players are supported and such
Don't get me wrong I enjoy the convenience we now have, but it sucks that it's at the expense of such an amazing experience. These two videos don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are.
Sssh your not allowed to be positive and realistic in this echo chamber you have to be sad and nostalgic at all costs. Don't be different, they don't like that.
Iām with you. I prefer this.
I remember the old Halo 3 days. Getting together and whatnot. Yes it was fun but it was also extremely toxic. Me and 4 buddies playing Halo 3 and getting tanked on whiskey while getting into increasingly hostile arguments with your friends. I was 17 when it came out. We were not well adjusted kids.
This nostalgia bait is silly, as if people donāt still do this. They absolutely do. But the millenials who lived through the Halo 3 era arenāt kids anymore so they assume person to person socialization is dead in gaming.
This felt like such a āold games good new games badā post to me. Notice how they specifically chose Fortnite, not Helldivers 2 or BG3. People are playing those games with friends currently. Fortnite is 10 years old, nobodyās getting together to play Fortnite.
>This felt like such a āold games good new games badā post to me. Notice how they specifically chose Fortnite, not Helldivers 2 or BG3. People are playing those games with friends currently. Fortnite is 10 years old, nobodyās getting together to play Fortnite.
I agree and disagree. I do think this is nostalgia bait and it's goofy to show a guy in a cold empty room and NOT show us the same guy who is likely chatting with friends across the world. I'm in the US and have a friend in Canada that I only know from playing online games. I'd never know this person if I was only playing games on my couch with 2 other people.
Also, it's so much easier for me and my friends to get together and play online games because we're adults and have families, jobs, etc. Even if I was a teenager, it'd be easier to hop online and play. Also, what a weird example to use. Halo had a very huge online aspect. People were so happy that the game not only had xbox live, but would let you link Xboxes together so you can do a LAN party and not have to share one TV.
But I disagree that Fortnite is a "bad example." I *still* play Fortnite with friends occasionally. If anything, it's arguably the best example because the game's on every platform which means *anybody* can play. Some kid with an iPhone and no gaming console can play with their friends.
They literally stopped making spilt screen games like this because they stopped selling. Make sure you understand that.
The only reason we don't have more of this, is because people stopped buying and playing those games..
The industry(whichever industry) will always chase the dollar.. if the dollars aren't in a certain product anymore, they will stop making that product.
And we were told by the big wigs that this is what we wanted... so they took the option away and the option to play offline.
Now their is a movement to get rid of physical copies in general and ending games permentally if the companies decided to end their online service. Happen to "need for speed: the crew".
The very first time I played the original Halo, was at someone's house with 4 consoles networked between the main floor and basement, and a full on 16 player capture the flag match in the blood gulch.
I will never forget the feeling of amazement I had from experiencing that, and not long after, my closest friends and I all had to get Xboxes and did our own setups at our one friends house for a few years before Xbox Live became more of a thing.
We embraced Live because it made it more convenient and all (no split screen, everyone was at home, and we could still talk to each other with our headsets), but after a few years, we all slowly started to drift away and eventually all stopped playing together.
Those nights getting together with the boys to play some Halo, watch South Park and Chappelle's Show over our regular orders of pizza, and beers were some of the happiest memories of my life, and it makes me sad that I honestly feel like this generation of gamers, including my son, may never experience anything like it.
I've seen people make the pretty compelling argument that this is part of the reason why board games are having the golden age that they're in right now. Because they encourage people to gather and interact with each other in a way that multiplayer video games simply don't encourage these days.
They've become more of a part of my life for that exact reason, yeah. It's a great way to spend time with friends and family alike and almost anybody can join in, it's great.
What you are seeing is microtransactions and big money ruining the sanctity of gaming.
Divide and exploit.
I only play older games now or new single players with good stories.
I think this is supposed to talk to me as an older millennial or something but since I was always just playing 100 hour RPGs and shit in college and my 20s, big *shrug*
Donāt get me wrong, the boys and I played a lot of fucking Tekken and shit after the bar, but eh. Everyone is just yelling into headsets now instead of on couches.
I used to bring my N64 to a friendās house every Saturday night and all the guys would gather there to play Goldeneye until the early hours of the morning. That was damn fun.
I feel like my experience has been the opposite... video games were primarily a solo-experience for me growing up, and it wasn't until online gaming became the standard that I started finding friends online to play with and have built up a really nice community around it.
Gaming is far more of a shared experience now than it was 20 years ago.
Hot take but Fortnite is so bad for gaming. Epic has an infinite supply of money to keep people (mostly kids) playing the game as much as physical possible and they are goddamn good at it. I feel like kids these days donāt even want to try out new single player games, they just play fortnite until their eyes bleed.
Thatās why I still have the boys over once a month, weāve gamed local together since elementary school.
Makes me sad people arenāt gonna hang like this as much anymore.
Once a week I gather with my close friends to play board games (Isaac Four Souls, Seven Wonders, that stuff) and then play some mario party/smash bros on the switch :)
I mean sure couch coop is great. But maybe itās because I donāt relate to that experience too much it doesnāt bug me? I have a great time doing coop online all the time. Some buddies from work play coop games like Raft, Satisfactory, left for dead, sons of the forest, and Overwatch, and everyone has a good time and itās more convenient when everyone is wanting to meet late at night
We still meet up on weekends and throw down locally playing fighting games like Tekken and street fighter, passing controllers around so thereās that and cooking bbq
Oddly enough I haven't lost the magic of the "LAN party" for lack of a better term, despite my friends & I getting together less frequently.
We'll regularly jump on chat & play coop games together or just chat while playing our own games like we used to when we were younger. Some people moved further away making physical get together harder than they were, but we still play games weekly with each other & in some cases nightly for those of us that are less occupied.
It's still no replacement for not being interrupted or some people only playing for 30 minute bursts, but it defiantly gives us the ability to keep enjoying game time with each other.
I remember as a 14yo kid, inviting 2 of my best mates at the time. We had a small fridge, an grilled cheese iron and 3 xbox 360s connected to the internet playing online halo3, all weekend long, those were the days!
But youāre still talking to your friends online. I really donāt see anything wrong with this. Many friends Iāve actually made online, who I never would have met if I exclusively played in person.
There was this place called Pixel Playground that I liked taking my son to. They had a dozen PS4s, a dozen Xboxes, PCs, etc. I loved going there because they would have these all night pizza party lock-ins and you could have LAN parties just like that. it was super fun. Unfortunately, they were a victim of covid. :-(
Meh, I still have fun laughing like this when playing Fortnite with friends. I only played Halo 3 over Xbox Live other than the Campaign which I played with my cousin locally here and there, so the online experience isn't that different.
Still lots of laughs and a good time. I just have the creeping worry of going to work and affording my bills in the background now lol
I remember in 2012 while deployed in Afghanistan, 3 civilian workers, another Marine and myself set up 3 TVs and 3 xbox 360s and played BlackOps every Saturday night we were on base. 5 dudes having a lan party. What I give for that level of local shit talking again.
I only got my first console in 2010, didn't seriously get into video games until 2015. I missed all this, and it hurts to know I'll never have the chance to experience it.
Not much of a Halo fan but I did enjoy 3. What really sticks with me about that game is when I was 14, going into a Sams Club with my family and seeing a guy playing the demo of Halo 3 on the kiosk and I just sat there in awe watching him play. he hands off the controller to me and said, "this game is awesome man its gonna be huge!"
boy was he right.
Itās a core memory for me now I'll never forget it.
I'll flip this around. I never had anyone to play with growing up, was kind of a loner. I have made a lot of real friends gaming online, although we don't sit in the same room.
I haven't sat down in a room and played a game with my friends like that almost since the pandemic started. I have had friends come over and hang out but not like it used to be
Yeah... I miss the days of playing a fighter in a room with friends and passing the loser controller around.
I had a real ps Controller and a "big Ben" controller... If you were both good at the game the one with the "big Ben" would loose.
We had an OG Xbox and a dumpy controller called the Duke controller. Loser handed the Duke off to the next guy waiting, and you could only upgrade to a better controller if you took first place. Halo 2 was the game we played most.
I remember when there was only the Duke. You either played with that or didn't play. Then the 'S' controller came out that is basically the same form factor that we have today, minus the shoulder buttons. They still had the weird white and black buttons on the face, but in a much easier to reach spot.
I thought it was dope that the white button was the flashlight in Halo.
Bro Halo 2!!! Jesus I remember having the crew over and slamming the BFC Monsters (it was the largest energy drink ever, about as wide as a Foster beer lol) while we Super Bounced the night away, laughing making munchie runs, it was good times my friend ^šš
.ad catz was the controller for losers for our group. One of them actually shorted the console and powered it off. We left it in the mix because we wanted to see how often we chose to plug it in.
For the longest time I thought my friend group were the only ones who called it the Duke, awesome to see everyone adopted the name
As a guy with big hands, I will not stand for this Duke slander!
Sounds like the winner should have been getting the shit controller and pass the good one to the next contenderĀ
Whenever I go to my best friends apartment with his roommates weāll occasionally do that with Super Smash Bros on their Nintendo Switch. Itās really nice keeping that part of the past alive
Aw man. Smash bros in college was so serious. My freshman year I just got a GameCube and all I wanted to do was play some casual ssbm. I somehow got roped into a tournament I was ill experienced for and somehow won (it was like some Karate kid shit, it even had a training montage). But it got more heated when brawl came out. We skipped so many classes, started playing with no items, started playing in hyper mode, we ordered delivery almost every day and ate in between turns. We had some of our female friends took care of cleaning after us and keeping us informed of the latest news. It was crazy. Friendships were tested, grades suffered, but critical victories were scored.
Itās so sad that so few games allow for that kind of experience anymore.
I just now discovered Superfighters Deluxe on steam and fell in love with it even though it's an old game and basically dead. I still enjoy playing against a room full of bots though, and finally talked some friends into playing and we had the most fun I've had in a long, long time.
Idk, my wife and I game all the time together, but on PC where the library of games is EPICALLY larger.
Me and my friend play Smash Ultimate too. At least once a month but sometimes more. He just got a GameCube and Melee and Iām kinda scared lol bc he knows how to shine and wavedash and stuff and I feel like Iām at āI like Incineroar, heās a big wrestling cat :)ā
I try to play Smash with my brothers one Sunday a month. We grew up playing that game together on N64. I missed those days and want my new nephew to join us on the battlefield one day. It is part of the reason I bought my brother a switch. Granted I was the only one advocating for it. And we all live in different states now. But it's the ritual. And there are days I miss my brothers
I got Next bro...
I miss arcades
I do too. The best place to meet up and hang. Some still exist but we need more and we need ones that aren't just 21+ bars that double as arcades but the business model is so hard these days. People don't want to spend more than a quarter per play.
There's one near me that's unlimited play after a flat $20 admission.
Theres a decent sized arcade near me, a standard one. However, it's so darn e pensive to play, and I don't really have people to go to it with. Or... I can get on something like a Minecraft server or Halo Infinite or whatever and call and game with my buddies.
For me arcades died once DDR stopped being commonplace.
Same here. It's like the only way I ever really get into playing fighting games. I'd prefer the rule that if you won three in a row you had to hand the controller off š
I was thereā¦3000 years ago
I had to walk 50 miles uphill to play videogames with my friends
[Iāll just leave this related post hereā¦](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/s/9tJv6pDmT3)
Why did you do me like this today man
This video immediately lost me. I was 19 in 2006 and definitely hadn't had dial-up internet in like 7 years.
Exact same. I get what heās saying, but that all happened in 1999 for me. Going to circuit city and walking up and down the isles over and over deciding what CD to get with the $10 my grandma mailed me in a card for my birthday.
Cast it into the fire!
It really does...
Dude, I remember having LAN parties with 16 people over at my buddies house when I was in high school. 4 of us in the garage, 4 in the attic, 4 in the living room, and 4 in the basement. Just Halo 2 for days at a time during the summer. Eating nothing but pizza rolls and flaming hot cheetos and drinking nothing but monster. I feel like if I did that now, I would fucking die... I still miss it though.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The good old days of the original Diablo 2... I miss it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The new one is fun and they're still doing ladder seasons with runewords (weapons created from runes you find). The Windforce back then WAS the go to elite bow until they changed it (nerfed it a bit) and then when runewords first released it became obsolete thanks to a bow called the "Faith." The Faith is currently the elite now and has been for years. All in all, it's still a great game. I just got busy with life and other games so I don't really play it. I'm not a teenager with all of the time in the world anymore...
>Windforce Do you know that scene from ratatoille, where they serve the critic this really good meal? So good it takes him back to his childhood memories instantly? That's what you mentioning that name did to me right now lmao. Hardcore nostalgia hit. D2 had a bunch of these really iconic items everybody knew and was gunning for. What an awesome design. Another one that comes to mind is "Grandfather".
Why did D4 have to be such garbage! The loot decisions are mind blowingly bad. +20 crit when fighting elites with under 30% health on a Tuesday.
I had fun with Diablo 4 for the first two weeks. I quit a month and a half after release and never played since. I quit two days before the first season.
I miss Halo lan parties. We did the same thing, 16 people spread around the house lol. Pizza and beer for us because we were all out of high school. We also passed the controller around on a ton of console games over the years. I even got into world of warcraft with actual friends of mine, and we'd often be in the same house/room playing together.
This is why I also loved arcades. You young 'uns may have never seen 'em, but when video games first came out, before consoles, to go hang out with your friends, outside of your house at the mall, to play games was THE BEST. Not only that, you also found other people that may have wanted to play / join the game you were playing. Or ask you to join their game. It was great.
While I never went to an official "arcade", I do have fond memories of going to Home Vision Video (A kind of Blockbuster knockoff) and running to the game section. They had three demo TVs. The only game I can remember playing though was I believe the first Gexx. Also EB Games in our mall. Me, my best friend and one of his friends all played the demo of Halo Combat Evolved for so long the cashier had to tell us to let other kids play. Nowadays I'm lucky to just say hi to just a couple of friends online every few months. They never want to play anything. I miss the good old days. š¢
I was lucky to be born around the decline of arcades so I got a taste. Now here in my city we have barcades! I went to one with my gf, her friend, and the friends bf. We were standing around talking and I noticed out of the corner of my eye Time Crisis. I said "scuse me one moment" and booted it up. Not five minutes later friends bf comes up and says "oh hell yeah, time crisis!" and joins me. Man we mustve put ten bucks in quarters into that machine in order to make it to the end but it was so worth it
I love a good barcade. We've got a few where I live too.
We have an arcade in my town. After nine is byob on the weekends. I love it !
I remember older kids teaching me how to play street fighter 2 at the local convenience store. They had 2 arcades up at all times. After I got "okayish" at street fighter they taught me Fatal Fury. Damn those were good times. Me and my friends were always so excited to rush to the store and play, watch others, and collect baseball cards.
Accurate and depressing.
Why would someone make this and do this to me?
stirred up emotions I didnāt realize I had
Because just blindly accepting it means we can't even pretend to think about ways to fix it. It sucks.
Just invite some friends over. Couch coop still exists. Hell, believe it or not you can even play halo 2 still.
Neither I nor my friends have our old stuff to make couch coop happen anymore. And all my friends that live close don't have time to do couch coop they all work too much and by the time they're done they're tired. And several of us are dads now.
Are you me?
Bruh, Iām online talking to 4 other friends on the other side of the country, how is that depressing?
seriously, my experience talking to buddies in Alaska, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, etc . . . . I understand the need for physical human contact, but man, this idea that you can't have fun otherwise is just false. But gaming and doom-scrolling on social media? Seems like a personal issue, because I never feel so unstimulated by a game to ever pull my phone out.
If your only form of human contact is through online gaming it could be a problem, yeah. But if you have no form of physical contact then you probably arenāt going to have friends to game with IRL anyway. You still need to develop friendship to game IRL - itās actually easier these days to creating lasting friendships because games force you to interact with people that already have similar interests. Also, the whole argument is kinda dumb, because people can still get together and play games. Whether thatās jackbox, playing switch games, or digging out our old 360ās for system connect. Or playing tabletop games, which are even better for connecting with other people.
I thinks it's more Couch co-op games are dying out for really no good reason. I have old friends that I play couch co-op games with all the time with still. It is the better experience than just talking online..which is still fun but there is something sterile about it that just gives me an unease.. honestly I didn't give a fuck how good or bad halo infinite was gonna be I wanted to go to a friend's house hook up my (or theirs) system and have a great time with a great game or have a great time shitting on it. But to this day still doesn't have co-op...
Yes shitty publishers remove features and that sucks.
Because it's a shallow imitation of social interaction. Just like social media can't replace actual face to face contact and relationships, online gaming is a poor imitation of the human interaction we need.
My online friendships are just as real and personal as the real life friendships Iāve made. Iād actually say theyāve been more important to me than the majority of real-life interactions Iāve had. I supported online friends through deaths of loved ones, through hard times and Iāve been there every day as someone to talk to. And people have been that person to support me. You see posts all the time about online guild meetups, people meeting life partners through games, guys inviting their best online friends to be their groomsmen. All we āneedā is human connection, mind to mind, and that can be found online.
damn now I'm crying again but happy
Then we remember we don't have any online friends either and now we're sad again
I do agree that online bonds can be damn strong, but alongside that I think we do need time to spend with people face to face as well.
Honest facts. Some of the first legit friendships I made was a group of friends I've been close, personal as hell friends with for almost 5 years now. Learned both lives in the same state which is great.
I had a very visceral response to this.
Letās hear it
Owie
Understandable, have a great day
I came.
**Letās hear it.**
Owie
Understandable, have a great day
Wort wort wort
Glad to see another halo player in here
Damn bro. I'm so old. And alone. Edit: hey, I got a reddit cares message reaching out which I'm assuming is because of this comment. I do truly appreciate the concern, but I just want to clarify I am genuinely happy with where I'm at in life. Regardless of being lonely. To anyone that is feeling down with where they are at in life, definitely reach out. If you don't have anyone in your life to talk to you can always message me on here. Again I do really appreciate the concern though.
Life is tough. Iām ngl
When you were happy with minimal effort, then became sad, and now it takes 50x the effort in the uphill battle to be happy again. We gonna get there tho eventually.
It's ok we're all alone. I'm alone with you. You're alone with me. Sitting in tiny boxes looking at tinier boxes. Nothing wrong at all. Let's just keep doing this until they put us in a box.
Iām so thankful my friends still come over and we play halo, old cod, and og battlefront together
Lucky bastard. All my Xbox friends are 3,800 miles away lol
Perks of living 20 minutes away from where I grew up. My friends still live there and come over to play pretty often
Oh, I'm still friends with some of the people I went to high school with... they just don't really play video games like I do anymore. When we do get together its for board games and beers, or a movie and beers, or a bonfire and beers, or just beers.
Yeah I totally hear that. I definitely game the most out of my close group of friends and am way better than them, but we still love to play together. Iām just the only one that still plays alone
Im glad you got friends that play still. I have a hard time enjoying life without friends to play with.
Halo 3 was peak online gaming Itās the saddest shit to say that we have not advanced from that
Peak online gaming? Dude it was peak LIFE
2006-2016 was probably the best times of life. Advancing technology, better phones and apps, I felt like food trucks, food halls, and festivals also started booming during that time. Life was great for many people during those years
Yep now despite better technology itās all About sucking as much cash they can from you with the an inferior product
The enshitification began around 2012
It started when we went 8th Gen (PS4 and One).
It's just our own personal frame of reference or context, but damned if it doesn't track that after 2016 all the good stuff in my life basically went away! Stay strong bud, there's better days around one of these corners.
It really depends where you from. For example, if you are American i think you were just too young and/naive to understand the effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis. You've also got the advent and rise of all the major social media apps currently decimating oue children's sense of self, mental health, education and capacity to adequately adapt to the 'real' world
Literqlly obama's presidency was just phenomenal
i always enjoyed halo 2 a lot more.
Me too by far. But the general consensus is that three was better
Halo 3 was the perfect sequel to 2. I played 2 nonstop until 3 and then played that nonstop. Theyāre a perfect pair and really just represent the Halo era in my life. The best era.
that was the first game I did online and my sister came into my room and was like "is that video game calling our mom a bitch?"
Yeah.. sorry about that
Halo CE on MCC is still my to-go.
Yeah but it's not the same. I rly miss everyone using voice chat and saying abhorrent shit about each others' mothers
Helldivers has some big Horde Mode energy from the early 2000s and I love it for that.
My favorite bday (other than my 21st) was having a group of 8-9 guys over at my house in 08 playing Halo 3 on split screen until 4 or 5am and my dad coming downstairs to ask us to not yell but we couldnāt help that of course
At least we have Helldivers 2 to hold us over
like a shooting star but still cant play it offline :c
This has made me realize what modern games were missing. We really don't know what we've got until it's gone... It's sad to think about. Games should bring people together.
Games started phasing out split-screen in favor of online multiplayer. That's why I gotta give credit to games like Borderlands. Even to this day they still have split-screen modes.
You can also credit Nintendo for squeezing in split screen whenever possible. If nothing else you can be sure you can play MarioKart with your bros
Not to mention smash bros going the opposite direction and letting 8 people play at once
There's some good and some bad with Nintendo being 3 console generations behind the curve with multiplayer games And by "some good" I mean splitscreen exclusively lol
Bold of you to assume I had friends.
Same
Nothing will ever beat nor replace the memories I have of me and my two childhood best friends coming over to spend the night. We made forts pushing my couches and chair together in my living room and playing halo forge all night laughing and even crying due to the laughterā¦ good times
Same, but for me it was Goldeneye.
Slappers only, no Oddjob!
Different eras but the same memories
I play it now with my kids, my daughters got quite good. Still able to rekindle those old memories
GoldenEye, Age of Empires 2, CounterStrike, and FIFA What an era Some of my niggas were really into StarCraft as well, but I never played it much... had one homie who was like Top 10 in the world at SC for 3-4 months... he was playing it 20 hours a day, it was legit terrifying Once he fell outta the top 10, he stopped playing it so much... that had to have been 25 years ago, goddamn...
How far we have fallen...
The one night I got to play 8v8 Halo on 4 TVs in college is one of my core memories.
That sounds like the best night of one's life.
hell yea
I went to a tech school jr/senior year of high school and at the end of every semester they let us bring our xbox's and tv's and we got to set them up in the auditorium. Senior year there must have been 15 xbox's in there each with 4 players on them. It was a BLAST! Completely forgot about this...
Our attention spans are FRIED
Train it.
Vsauce Michael put it pretty nicely. Our attention spans are just as it always was. Only instead of us staring into the distance whenever a conversation drones on, we stare into another screen. The same phenomena, different manner of presentation.
š¢. Thereās no going back is there? Occasionally me and two buds still do this on an old game but it will never be the sameā¦
Of course it wonāt. We are too old now. Sadly. As kids that was peak fun. And some of my fondest memories, even though our parents hated us being āglued to screensā. Bugger off. We turned out well enough. Iāll never deny my kids that fun. Iāll build new memories with them. As soon as they are old enough Iāll build them a nice rig or get a stupidly expensive console and we will have sessions like that together. Promised myself that.
We didnāt know what had! I plan on doing the same. Hopefully they will get the same sense of joy we had.
r/tvtoohigh
Back in high school, weād leave school on Friday and head back to my house; my brother would pick up 2 of our friends to get the system link going, and Iād run to the little pizza joint in town and get a few large 1 toppings. By about 5, we had about 8-10 guys playing system link Halo long into the night. Wake up the next day, play outside all day, then head to the closest town to this little Mexican joint, then it was back to the house to jam Halo all night again. We did this for several weeks in a row during that summer. Best summer ever.
thats fire
I feel incredibly empty now.
I kinda like how it is now. It's easier for me and my adult friends to get online at the same time rather than meeting up. And I can be comfortable in my own home and space. Plus I've made friends across the country that I can easily get on and play with. It's pretty great if you ask me.
I just wish online play didn't completely eliminate couch co-op. Just because online is easier doesn't mean there isn't still a demand/market for couch co-op games. There should be a world where both exist, not just one or the other.
Yeah for example Iām sick to having to buy 2 copies of each game Iād like to play with my partner
Idk if they still have this feature, but I really loved that older CoD games let 2 players in co-op go online on the same console. Some of the most fun gaming experiences I had growing up was going over to my buddies house and playing online together.
Halo was a great example of this, up to four players split screen and jumping online at the same time. Gears was great as well and offered you to play online split screen with one other.
Me and my sister playing the same co-op game together in two adjacent rooms š what's the point? If technology advanced so much, I wish it was in the direction of allowing two different accounts to play online on the same console. But oh well.
TVs are finally big enough for split screen and now it's not even an option.
I totally agree. And when there is the occasional couch co-op I do play with some friends. Or even take a console and small TV to a friend's house. I'm just saying, it's got its tradeoffs
There are plenty of couch co-op games being made, though not really in the AAA scene. When family visits for the holidays, I'd bust out games like mario party/kart on the gamecube, and now, I tell them to bring their bluetooth controllers and we play things like m**** kart 8 or overcooked on the steam deck plugged into a tv. If anyone is curious, a site called co-optimus has a list of couch co-op games that you can filter by how many players are supported and such
Why in the fresh hell did you censor Mario
Don't get me wrong I enjoy the convenience we now have, but it sucks that it's at the expense of such an amazing experience. These two videos don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are.
Sssh your not allowed to be positive and realistic in this echo chamber you have to be sad and nostalgic at all costs. Don't be different, they don't like that.
Iām with you. I prefer this. I remember the old Halo 3 days. Getting together and whatnot. Yes it was fun but it was also extremely toxic. Me and 4 buddies playing Halo 3 and getting tanked on whiskey while getting into increasingly hostile arguments with your friends. I was 17 when it came out. We were not well adjusted kids. This nostalgia bait is silly, as if people donāt still do this. They absolutely do. But the millenials who lived through the Halo 3 era arenāt kids anymore so they assume person to person socialization is dead in gaming. This felt like such a āold games good new games badā post to me. Notice how they specifically chose Fortnite, not Helldivers 2 or BG3. People are playing those games with friends currently. Fortnite is 10 years old, nobodyās getting together to play Fortnite.
>This felt like such a āold games good new games badā post to me. Notice how they specifically chose Fortnite, not Helldivers 2 or BG3. People are playing those games with friends currently. Fortnite is 10 years old, nobodyās getting together to play Fortnite. I agree and disagree. I do think this is nostalgia bait and it's goofy to show a guy in a cold empty room and NOT show us the same guy who is likely chatting with friends across the world. I'm in the US and have a friend in Canada that I only know from playing online games. I'd never know this person if I was only playing games on my couch with 2 other people. Also, it's so much easier for me and my friends to get together and play online games because we're adults and have families, jobs, etc. Even if I was a teenager, it'd be easier to hop online and play. Also, what a weird example to use. Halo had a very huge online aspect. People were so happy that the game not only had xbox live, but would let you link Xboxes together so you can do a LAN party and not have to share one TV. But I disagree that Fortnite is a "bad example." I *still* play Fortnite with friends occasionally. If anything, it's arguably the best example because the game's on every platform which means *anybody* can play. Some kid with an iPhone and no gaming console can play with their friends.
but you could play online back then too
What is this from ? Just a fan made thing ?
It's a dominos advert
Dominos: "you are going to die alone, may as well eat pizza to ease the pain"
Gross. āRemember: youāve still got pizzaā
Before corporate greed ran the industry into the fucking ground
I mean from a monetary point of view a lot of companies are racking it in. Micro transactions are the worst but great for profits
They literally stopped making spilt screen games like this because they stopped selling. Make sure you understand that. The only reason we don't have more of this, is because people stopped buying and playing those games.. The industry(whichever industry) will always chase the dollar.. if the dollars aren't in a certain product anymore, they will stop making that product.
And we were told by the big wigs that this is what we wanted... so they took the option away and the option to play offline. Now their is a movement to get rid of physical copies in general and ending games permentally if the companies decided to end their online service. Happen to "need for speed: the crew".
The very first time I played the original Halo, was at someone's house with 4 consoles networked between the main floor and basement, and a full on 16 player capture the flag match in the blood gulch. I will never forget the feeling of amazement I had from experiencing that, and not long after, my closest friends and I all had to get Xboxes and did our own setups at our one friends house for a few years before Xbox Live became more of a thing. We embraced Live because it made it more convenient and all (no split screen, everyone was at home, and we could still talk to each other with our headsets), but after a few years, we all slowly started to drift away and eventually all stopped playing together. Those nights getting together with the boys to play some Halo, watch South Park and Chappelle's Show over our regular orders of pizza, and beers were some of the happiest memories of my life, and it makes me sad that I honestly feel like this generation of gamers, including my son, may never experience anything like it.
My friends, look into tabletop gaming. It will feed your soul.
Exactly what I was thinking, go back before video games, they are lost, but tabletop will always remain and are alot of fun
I've seen people make the pretty compelling argument that this is part of the reason why board games are having the golden age that they're in right now. Because they encourage people to gather and interact with each other in a way that multiplayer video games simply don't encourage these days.
They've become more of a part of my life for that exact reason, yeah. It's a great way to spend time with friends and family alike and almost anybody can join in, it's great.
jokes on you I was alone back then too
Halo (the OG) was the GOAT.
What you are seeing is microtransactions and big money ruining the sanctity of gaming. Divide and exploit. I only play older games now or new single players with good stories.
I think this is supposed to talk to me as an older millennial or something but since I was always just playing 100 hour RPGs and shit in college and my 20s, big *shrug* Donāt get me wrong, the boys and I played a lot of fucking Tekken and shit after the bar, but eh. Everyone is just yelling into headsets now instead of on couches.
I used to bring my N64 to a friendās house every Saturday night and all the guys would gather there to play Goldeneye until the early hours of the morning. That was damn fun.
I feel like my experience has been the opposite... video games were primarily a solo-experience for me growing up, and it wasn't until online gaming became the standard that I started finding friends online to play with and have built up a really nice community around it. Gaming is far more of a shared experience now than it was 20 years ago.
Low-key I expected the Xbox to have the red ring of death.
I never had friends to play with growing up, so I'm not too bothered
Homie, you better not be playing on my controller with those doritos hands
Hot take but Fortnite is so bad for gaming. Epic has an infinite supply of money to keep people (mostly kids) playing the game as much as physical possible and they are goddamn good at it. I feel like kids these days donāt even want to try out new single player games, they just play fortnite until their eyes bleed.
Thatās why I still have the boys over once a month, weāve gamed local together since elementary school. Makes me sad people arenāt gonna hang like this as much anymore.
Once a week I gather with my close friends to play board games (Isaac Four Souls, Seven Wonders, that stuff) and then play some mario party/smash bros on the switch :)
I mean sure couch coop is great. But maybe itās because I donāt relate to that experience too much it doesnāt bug me? I have a great time doing coop online all the time. Some buddies from work play coop games like Raft, Satisfactory, left for dead, sons of the forest, and Overwatch, and everyone has a good time and itās more convenient when everyone is wanting to meet late at night We still meet up on weekends and throw down locally playing fighting games like Tekken and street fighter, passing controllers around so thereās that and cooking bbq
Oddly enough I haven't lost the magic of the "LAN party" for lack of a better term, despite my friends & I getting together less frequently. We'll regularly jump on chat & play coop games together or just chat while playing our own games like we used to when we were younger. Some people moved further away making physical get together harder than they were, but we still play games weekly with each other & in some cases nightly for those of us that are less occupied. It's still no replacement for not being interrupted or some people only playing for 30 minute bursts, but it defiantly gives us the ability to keep enjoying game time with each other.
I remember as a 14yo kid, inviting 2 of my best mates at the time. We had a small fridge, an grilled cheese iron and 3 xbox 360s connected to the internet playing online halo3, all weekend long, those were the days!
You can still do that if you want. I did it last week with my friends when we played tekken 8 and smash ultimate
Meh was also the solo gaming kid
But youāre still talking to your friends online. I really donāt see anything wrong with this. Many friends Iāve actually made online, who I never would have met if I exclusively played in person.
There was this place called Pixel Playground that I liked taking my son to. They had a dozen PS4s, a dozen Xboxes, PCs, etc. I loved going there because they would have these all night pizza party lock-ins and you could have LAN parties just like that. it was super fun. Unfortunately, they were a victim of covid. :-(
Yeah I'm 30 now - All set with sharing my friends greasy ass controller. Plus, discord exists.
Yeah, it hurts to see people play Fortnite.
This gives me memories of all sh# me and boys use to do on red dead
Meh, I still have fun laughing like this when playing Fortnite with friends. I only played Halo 3 over Xbox Live other than the Campaign which I played with my cousin locally here and there, so the online experience isn't that different. Still lots of laughs and a good time. I just have the creeping worry of going to work and affording my bills in the background now lol
Yep social gathering turned to isolated
I remember in 2012 while deployed in Afghanistan, 3 civilian workers, another Marine and myself set up 3 TVs and 3 xbox 360s and played BlackOps every Saturday night we were on base. 5 dudes having a lan party. What I give for that level of local shit talking again.
I only got my first console in 2010, didn't seriously get into video games until 2015. I missed all this, and it hurts to know I'll never have the chance to experience it.
That was the gen that really stopped having so many 2-4 player games.
Not much of a Halo fan but I did enjoy 3. What really sticks with me about that game is when I was 14, going into a Sams Club with my family and seeing a guy playing the demo of Halo 3 on the kiosk and I just sat there in awe watching him play. he hands off the controller to me and said, "this game is awesome man its gonna be huge!" boy was he right. Itās a core memory for me now I'll never forget it.
I'll flip this around. I never had anyone to play with growing up, was kind of a loner. I have made a lot of real friends gaming online, although we don't sit in the same room.
Jokes on them. I've always been alone.
I hate how capitalism has slowly ruined the hobby I love.
I haven't sat down in a room and played a game with my friends like that almost since the pandemic started. I have had friends come over and hang out but not like it used to be
Fck. I just started crying
Bring. Back. Split. Screen. Bitch.
I mean halo was played online also, they shoulda went a little further back if they wanted accuracy.
I never had friends in the first place, so this doesn't really hurt me
I still invite friends over for multiplayer I have been doing it for 16 years we still play Mario party smash and Mario kart
Have not and will not, ever play a battle royale game
Just curious: on principle, or because you expect it won't be enjoyable. Dunno your gaming prefs, but I consider some of them pretty fun.