Interesting Links for 12-07-2021

[andrewducker]

Lothian Drop-in Vaccination Clinic Locations (including the mobile ones)

(tags:vaccination Edinburgh )

Board games companies are completely fucked right now

(tags:boardgames shipping Doom viaSwampers )

Least Religious Countries 2021

(tags:religion )

Doctors Might Have Been Focusing on the Wrong Asthma Triggers

(tags:asthma pandemic )

Can People Still Play the Same Computer Games as They Get Older?

(tags:games age )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

"Can People Still Play the Same Computer Games as They Get Older?"

Nice article. I really appreciate games with several difficulty levels, particularly when you can switch freely between them whenever you want, assistance and accessibility options. Both for myself because sometimes I don't want to spend hours trying to kill a boss again and again, and for my 70+ parents as I can recommend better games for them. One thing the article doesn't mention, I think, is the difficulty in remembering controls and combos as you age. Games where you have to remember everything are difficult for my parents.

Hopefully, the 'purist' 'this spoils the game' discourse from certain devs and gamers will quiet down as gamers age.

[melchar]

The article works in regards to 'twitch' games, but ... other computers games? Not so much.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri plays exactly the same & is still as much fun. So are the various 'Civilization' games - tho my interests cycle between Civs 3,4,5.

PS1 & 2 games like Final Fantasy? Still fun - plus FFX is now out for the PC. Same with FFVII. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne -just- came out for the PC and is -wonderful-.

xbox games KotOR 1&2 are out for both PC & ipad. Excellent games.

and PC, still on PC - and now on ipad 'Baldur's Gate' is still as much fun.

What I want are -all- the games I initially played on the PS2 & xbox to be released on PC &/or ipad. The convenience of those platforms is -so- appreciated.

[ninetydegrees]

I don't know what you mean by 'twitch games'.

And I don't really understand what you mean by 'still plays the same'. If you mean nothing has become more difficult for you as an older gamer, good for you, but it's not everyone's experience (just like the article doesn't reflect everyone's experience).

[andrewducker]

Twitch games - games that require reflexes (Doom-like, Dark Souls, etc).

Civilization doesn't require reflexes, because it's turn-based, so slowing down with age won't affect your playing.

[ninetydegrees]

Got it, thanks.

Yeah, the article doesn't mention cognitive losses. It says you're basically smarter as you get older. That's debatable. Abilities to concentrate, memorize, appreciate situations, etc. can decline too.

[andrewducker]

Good point. You learn tactics, but your base cognitive ability may well slow down.

[melchar]

Sorry. A 'twitch' game is any kind of game that is played by reacting to movement on the screen & requires quick reflexes to play. Most 'first person shooter' games are twitch games, as an example.

All of the games that I referenced, OTOH, are games that are turn-based. I can start the turn in 'SM's Alpha Centauri' [as an examples] - and while there will be more and more things that happen in a 'turn', as more forces are deployed & cities are built - the game politely lets you make each choice, one at a time & there is no time pressure to make quick and rapid decisions.

A game like that, or like the game 'Final Fantasy X' [and the rest], can be left at mid decision point, or mid-battle - while I run off to make dinner or visit the loo & I will come back to find the game still waiting for me. With a 'twitch'/aka reflex game, sometimes pausing to blink, sip water or adjust the mouse cord means that you die in a sudden barrage of weapon fire.

My point was that IMO the person making their written claim was speaking about one category of games, while including every other game by inference when they wrote about 'gaming' and 'gamers' as a monolithic thing.

[movingfinger]

I've been playing Breath of the Wild for a bit less than a month, and the controller buttons are incredibly annoying; they are tiny and fiddly, there are a lot of them, and the buttons don't control movement smoothly, and they aren't intuitive at all (also, apparently Nintendo never made control actions consistent across games, so that classes of action can be mapped to different buttons in different games!). There don't seem to be difficulty settings, so everything happens at pounding speed, and the camera view is so limited it's not possible to track and plan in a fight.

The animations mean that getting a character facing in the correct direction with the buttons to line up a shot can be difficult, because the default pose is angled! This is the first game of its type I've tried and increasingly I'm trying to avoid the fight situations in it because getting killed and reset repeatedly is so frustrating. I do like using bigger movements with the controller to aim; if I remember to start from a suitable position that works well.

[ninetydegrees]

It's been a while since I played BOTW so I don't remember much about it, except that I did avoid combat for a good while until I had explored a good portion of the map and found better weapons and more hearts. The game seemed pretty hard at the beginning. If you play on a switch there are other compatible controllers out there, with different grips and layouts. Might be worth looking into if you haven't already.

Immortals Fenyx Rising, which is more recent and very BOTW-like, has at least four difficulty settings. They ain't perfectly balanced but at least they're there. Hopefully, Ubisoft's decision to add story and easy modes to their historical games will inspire other studios to do the same.