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Remember the first time you sat down and played Quake? Or Duke Nukem 3D, or even Warcraft? It was grand, there was the DOS screen loading up with all the engine initialization commands whizzing by, if you were playing multiplayer you would hear the squealing of the modem. All this in anticipation of playing, what would become classic, PC games. Sure the graphics were garbage compared to modern games like FEAR but you just knew every time you played it would be a special experience. The lighting quick speed of Quake, the introduction of CTF, the strippers in Duke Nukem 3D, the new ‘RTS’ genre that Warcraft ushered in (Ok, I know Dune was first but Warcraft was for me). PC Gaming was in its heyday; I could go on and on about the golden age of PC gaming.

For those of you that can remember such a time, I propose a question, do you still get that same feeling when you boot up something like Battlefield 2? or Quake 4? I sure as heck don't. When I play a modern game these days, be it PC or console, I feel like I'm just going through the motions because I read a few reviews that said that particular game was "Great! 9/10!" or "Evolutionary!" I play the games to maybe waste a couple of hours because there's nothing else to do. I don't know about you, but I just don't get the same experience I did with the older games. I don't get the same feeling I got when I gibbed someone in Quake, or when Duke shot 50+ missles out of that weapon thing he had. Heck, we have VOIP built into games now but I miss having to frantically hide in a corner while quickly typing "die n00b!!" It's just not the same anymore. The community seemed so much tighter as well, you’d look forward to seeing friends on the local servers you play on, kind of like a local pub or bar. Now, when you game on a massive server, everyone is just another ‘player.’ No one you know, just people you have to kill. There’s kiddies on their mics yelling “die you f*cker!” It’s like you stepped into a local fast food joint, no one you know or care about, kids yelling, babies crying, while you’re just lining up for some food. I know, the analogy is a little extreme, but sometimes that’s how I feel.

I'm not sure what it is either, games nowadays seem like you're playing through a movie. A pretty darn nice looking movie, but a movie nonetheless. Scripted. Plain. Maybe it's because the innovation has stopped, I mean, are we really playing anything more than a suped up Quake these days? Don't get me wrong, I love FPS games but they don't seem to bring anything new to the table. Or maybe it's the fact that we have to buy new hardware for every single game that comes out, back in the day, Wolfenstein, Quake, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, ran great on my trusty PC. I didn't know enough about hardware to even know what kind of video card or how much RAM I was using. These days, you have to be a pretty much have a degree in electrical engineering to have the knowledge of all the new hardware that comes out what seems like every other day. Ironic: now that I’m a 20 something with a job I can afford all this high end hardware, yet at the end of the day my dual-core CPU, 2gigs of RAM and $400+ video card are sitting pretty… and that’s about it. Heck, I even bought an Xbox 360 over the holidays (my first console since the N64) to hopefully cure my gamer woes. Gears of War was fun for a little bit but I quickly came to the realization that, yet again, the passion wasn't there. I can't quite put my finger on it, it is a very finely polished game and one in which my friends are constantly playing; yet it's been collecting dust for awhile now at my place.

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe my expectations are too high. I have hope though, I still look forward to the games that are coming out this year like HL2 Ep. 2, UT, Quake Wars, etc. But deep down I know that the old feelings may never come back. Alas, I’ve lost that loving feeling.