By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
S.Peelman on 07 November 2023
Edit Thread
SvennoJ said:
S.Peelman said:

It's funny how that works. I would say the opposite. After a little under a decade, this is the start of a rather uninteresting period. A 'dark age', if you will.

Yeah RTS kinda died in 2004, I can't think of a single one I enjoyed after. Well I enjoyed Tethered, for the novelty of it being in VR.
Tycoon games also died, should have stuck to isometric views. RCT3 was indeed awful. Didn't look as good as RCT2 and ran terrible, next to adding the complication of building in 3D. Simulation games kept adding more and more complexity instead of more fun.

One series I did enjoy more of was Tropico, until the 4th one I think. Yep I have 52 hours on Tropico 3, 51 hours on Tropico 4 according to Steam.
Civilization I enjoyed until the 5th one, 65 hours on Civ 5, and another 29 hours on Beyond Earth. Peanuts compared to the many years I played the first Civilization.

That's all my strategy gaming since 2003.

Ah yes, Tropico, I thought about that game a couple of 'years' ago, but then forgot to mention it. I played the original some. Not as much as like SimCity or RCT of course, or Anno, but I liked the first game enough to give it significant playtime. It wasn't as 'free' in its gameplay as those though, and I didn't really like rebels shooting up everything so I never really tried any of the sequels. I have been tempted to get and play another when some of the sequels came out but it just never happened.

HoloDust said:

It is really very dependent on what genres were your favourite.

I was still playing lot of FPS games and 2004 had some really good - beside the obvious Half-Life 2, which I liked a lot, but not as much as HL1, I really enjoyed Far Cry 1, linear-wide FPS that relied quite a bit on scouting and stealth (though you could go guns blazing), that felt very fresh to me in 2004 - I played this one a lot, since it has very good AI that reacted to everything you do, especially on hardest level were they will shoot in your general direction to flush you out, once they've learned of general area where you are.

Being fan of Pitch Black and (to a degree) Chronicles of Riddick, Escape from Butcher Bay was a must play, and it really surprised me immensely, being actually terrific game, and translating perfectly that combo of sneaking in the dark and inevitable fighting from the movies into the game.

Then there was Doom 3, which was fine experience, but it changed from run and gun FPS to almost horror game, so I didn't like it as much as its predecessors. Painkiller from the same year was actually much more Doom/Quake, then actual DOOM 3 was.

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault was also fine game. And of course CoD: United Offensive, which for a long time was is shinning example of what expansion should look like.

And last, but not least, HALO 2.

And then plethora of multiplayer FPS games - Unreal Tournament 2004, CS:Source, Battlefield Vietnam, Star Wars: Battlefront.


Also, it was pretty good year if you were C/W/RPG fan - beside KOTOR II, which lot of folks actually like more than original due to better writing (which was always Black Isle/Obsidian's forte), there was Fable, which was really very enjoyable experience (though, to be honest, I played Fable: The Lost Chapters which is better version of the game).

And then there was Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Brilliant game that, like KOTOR II, had lot of issues due to being rushed out the door, but despite that to this date remains one the most unique RPGs ever made and is considered cult classic. Of course, being PC exclusive, mired with technical issues at launch, and being slotted for release at the same time as HL2 really did the number on its sales.

But yeah, I can see your point - some genres were slowly going the way of the dodo and it will pass many years before Indie/Kickstarter Renaissance kicks in to bring them in the spotlight again.

Yeah indeed for me personally this was a period in time when certain things disappointed me in rapid succession. First Nintendo's mainline Mario and Zelda games which I thought were inferior to the N64 games and my subsequent abandonment of console gaming more or less. Then things like RCT 3 not being anywhere near as good as its predecessor, and later the butchering of SimCity. There was the decline of Star Wars games after KotOR II, the rts genre as a whole and yes also my interest in shooters would also take a major hit over the coming years.

I was very much into shooters, first person ones, during this era. I loved the World War II themed shooters like the first two Call of Duties (never really played III much since it was a console exclusive) and the quirky unique ones like No One Lives Forever or scifi ones like Star Trek Elite Force. Sadly for me the WWII focus went away with the success of CoD Modern Warfare after CoD had also usurped basically all the other fps's as well.

When you get disappointment after disappointment it hurts your motivation to actually look for and start anything new so I am aware I missed things I probably would have liked, but at that point there wasn't much left for me except for older games which I just continued playing. Until finally sometime during the 7th Gen, some new and interesting stuff would emerge and I would gravitate backwards towards the console space. Interestingly enough a similar phase has began for me in this day. A 'second dark age'.

Last edited by S.Peelman - on 07 November 2023