I know, it's the type of brainless shit that normies play, but I feel like being somebody who has actually hate played these games in the past to figure out what makes the normies tick it's worth mentioning. Unsurprisingly they're not difficult to figure out and as a result what starts trending with normies and what gets them excited is going to be woefully predictable that I can do a bullet point list.
. Third person walking simulator where you just walk forward and change directions a bit while the character shimmies through high polygon loading screens once in awhile
. Minor platforming sessions that you could probably get through heavily drunk
. Some kind of cringey QTE during 'le epic' cinematic sequences that happen because the games industry has an obsession with trying to become Hollywood and they're covering up the fact that there's no gameplay
. Cringe girl boss females everywhere that have been beaten with the ugly stick to the point you even feel sorry for the female actresses involved
. If there aren't women, it's usually a black man with an afro or dreadlocks featured even in a setting where it doesn't make sense in the slightest to have those hairstyles
. Self-inserts by woke employees who turn out to be trannies or feminists and it turns out it's not just them being used for modelling reference they literally scan them in and plonk them into NPCs which is why NPCs constantly look like they've got warped facial features or they're stoned
There you go, if you're ever looking at a modern day title and thinking about it out of sheer boredom I've just saved you potentially hundreds given how much of a rip off these games are. I would rather go and watch paint dry than deal with any of this crap anymore.
They almost always follow the same formulae, what's remarkable as well if they do delve into any other genres even slightly they dumb the mechanics down a huge amount. Baldur's Gate 3 for example was something pretty noticeable and I think it's so they could do steam deck and console support properly. I was a little bit baffled as to why they didn't have any box selection and the pathfinding was buggy in places and then it hit me that they dumbed down the party movement in order to cater to console players and make it work.
I found a few retro stores nearby where they sell some older games, and I've been enjoying things from the PS1 and PS2 era again. It's actually impressive that the games graphics have improved, at the cost of just about everything else.
I found a few games under 10 dollars that were pretty decent. Not insanely great, but they had this charm that made me want to continue playing. I can't say that about any recent AAA release since, well 2018 or 2019. Somewhere around there.
I get that one of the issues is that I've been gaming for a very long time, and that means I've seen a lot of new games in older ones, where they've clearly been inspired by, or outright borrowed directly from, and I start to think "Okay, so they want 90 CAD, and the only new thing they can show an old fart like me is this one thing? Nah. Pass."