Together Retro January 2021 - 2011 games!

[Ack]

I'm still gonna have Warhammer titles as an option, if only so one of you accidentally votes it in and gets to play Space Hulk on PS1.

[alienjesus]

I started up Sonic Generations today, and played through the first 6 levels so far (All the worlds up to and including the Sonic Heroes one). Pretty fun so far, even if it can be a bit too fast in the side-scrolling segments at times. The modern sonic bits are the better half of the game for sure - in terms of replaying old sonic levels in the sidescrolling style, it's obviously been done much better in the years since release with Sonic Mania.

I've got to do a few more of the silly challenges now before I can get into the last set of levels. I was surprised to see I have some nostalgia for the Adventure era games - especially playign City Escape. However, the next stage is based on Sonic 2006 so I definitely won't have the same warm fuzzy feeling for that one

[Sload Soap]

A thing we've always struggled with was engagement; people generally only participated if it was a game they'd always meant to play (backlog) or it was a game they just utterly loved and wanted an excuse to play again. Hence the shift to categories.

"2011" isn't a category, it's a timescale. Seems kind of redudant to water the topics down so much there isn't anything to talk about that couldn't as easily be said in the Games Beaten or Now Playing thread.

[PartridgeSenpai]

A thing we've always struggled with was engagement; people generally only participated if it was a game they'd always meant to play (backlog) or it was a game they just utterly loved and wanted an excuse to play again. Hence the shift to categories.

"2011" isn't a category, it's a timescale. Seems kind of redudant to water the topics down so much there isn't anything to talk about that couldn't as easily be said in the Games Beaten or Now Playing thread.

"Games from 2011" may be a broad category, sure, but it's a category nonetheless.
Experiencing (or in my case this month, re-experiencing) where gaming was compared to where it is now is a cool reflection exercise for me. Perhaps I'm alone in feeling this way, but I really like looking back to see where we were a decade ago to see how far our hobby has (or hasn't) come.

[marurun]

What Pidge said. This topic basically allows us to look at a snapshot of gaming in 2011. What were the trends? What were the standouts? It's sort of like a year-in-review of 10 years ago. It opens the door to discussion of some of the stuff going on in the scene adjacent to these games as well. It's also a moment to be surprised by how time flies.

[lordb0rb4]

Yeah, it's something entirely different when you put yourself in the right mindset, Crysis 2 was truly shocking in it's pinpoint focus and straightforward pace.

[Sload Soap]

What Pidge said. This topic basically allows us to look at a snapshot of gaming in 2011. What were the trends? What were the standouts? It's sort of like a year-in-review of 10 years ago. It opens the door to discussion of some of the stuff going on in the scene adjacent to these games as well. It's also a moment to be surprised by how time flies.

Go on then. What are the trends that Sonic Generations, Portal 2 and Skyrim share?

[PartridgeSenpai]

What Pidge said. This topic basically allows us to look at a snapshot of gaming in 2011. What were the trends? What were the standouts? It's sort of like a year-in-review of 10 years ago. It opens the door to discussion of some of the stuff going on in the scene adjacent to these games as well. It's also a moment to be surprised by how time flies.

Go on then. What are the trends that Sonic Generations, Portal 2 and Skyrim share?

Looking at them from a larger scope of the industry, they fit in very interestingly with where the industry was at the time, especially in where things have gone from there.
- Portal 2 was one of Valve's only forays onto consoles in recent memory, and the last proper look at the Portal brand.
- Sonic Generations was a hopeful look at what Sonic may've been capable of until Sega threw it into another dark age until Sonic Forces.
- Bethesda released Skyrim to massive fanfare, and then continued to rerelease it for just about the entire intervening time rereleasing it. (not to mention burning just about all the good will they had left in the meanwhile).

These games are like a time capsule back to a different era. Back when things looked hopeful for Sonic, Valve seemed to be getting back in the software game, and Bethesda was on top of the world. Single player games like Portal 2 and Sonic were going the way of the dodo as multiplayer-only titles and open world adventures like Skyrim started to take over the AAA gaming scene.

These "ten years ago" retro game themes are all about looking at where the industry was at and what were things like then. It's an exercise in pinpointed reflection.

You don't gotta participate if you don't want to. You could even run your own month if you want topics that appeal more to you~. The reason we ended up having this as a default January topic was because we didn't have enough people to run a full twelve months, after all ^^;

[Sload Soap]

So, no shared themes then?

And I am participating. This is it.

[prfsnl_gmr]

So, no shared themes then?

And I am participating. This is it.

There’ll be shared themes for next month. I’m putting them together now, and I’ll probably post a poll over the weekend. I think, to a certain extent, we went with the 2011 theme in January this year because: (1) last year’s 2010 theme was very popular; and (2) fewer and fewer people are volunteering to host TR and a 2011 theme is an easy way to cover one month.