2005 – 2025: Taste Differences and Opinion Shifts, Part 1

Based on my math, 2005 was 20 years ago. I have used this pleasing round number as an excuse to write about the games I was playing then and compare them to what I play today. The other videolamer contributors were also asked for contributions and some even answered – see their exciting responses above mine, which will actually be posted in a Part 2, because I am nothing if not the most humble person on earth.

Cunzy

I often think about how, as a gamer* the best time to be born was late 70s-early 80s. We went from not having computers at home to early home systems, LCD handhelds, home consoles and handheld systems to all singing, all dancing entertainment and gaming monoliths under the TV. We filled in the pixel worlds with our imaginations to translate yellow squares into dragons, coins, cars and spaceships, blips and bloops into epic soundtracks all the way through to games-as-a-lifestyle, cinematic, limitless, endlessly playable, online, living multiverse games. When I play new games today, there’s always myself as an eight year old in my mind who can’t believe this is how far we’ve come.  

But being middle aged, you learn first-hand that the elders were right. Your perception of time gets all fucked up. 2005 can’t be two decades ago. At best it is maybe ten years ago. There’s been a time slip somewhere. Not only is this generally disorienting when you hit the downward slope of life, when you think about video games which, like music, certain smells, films and books are so tied up in the memory bank with a time and place they can transport you there instantly, looking back breaks your brain. The endless summers of childhood clash with the blur of the last five years. Looking down the list of 2005’s releases gives me stomach-churning vertigo. I still have a Resident Evil 4 save file I’m determined I will go back to. I have a notebook with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas stunts and feats partially crossed through. I think. I can’t quite place where it is now. Maybe in that unpacked box from three house moves ago. Oh god has it been 20 years? I can’t bear to check in on my Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends. They’ll be mummified at this point. King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie was surprisingly decent. I must go back to finish it off. Once I find that PS2 memory card I hope still works.

If that wasn’t bad enough such is the recycled, remade, remastered nature of video games today that not only am I deluded in thinking I’ll go and finish off these unfinished games. I also have the remake versions on pause as it were. I need just one quiet week to go back and conquer the galaxy in Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005) and then hoover up those trophies in Star Wars Battlefront II (2017). Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005) was my salvation one awful Summer in 2006; I should really finish those bonus maps. Oh, why didn’t I put any time into Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (2023) despite pre-ordering it? I will make time to go back and do all those stupid new game bits and unlocks in Metal Gear Solid 3 (2005), Metal Gear Solid 3 (2006) Metal Gear Solid 3 (2011) and Metal Gear Solid 3 (2012) before starting Metal Gear Solid 3 (2025).

There’s something deep down in my soul that refuses to believe in the notion that, perhaps, just maybe, if you look at it scientifically, I probably won’t. In fact. Get back to any of these. Or forward.

There’s one exception though. As one dear gamer** friend affectionately called it, “my mental illness game (series):” Pokémon. 2004’s Pokémon Emerald was still topping the charts in 2005 (again, disorientation, Pokémon fucking Emerald and Resident Evil 4 released a year apart?) and although I didn’t play that particular game, I was still playing 2002’s Pokémon Sapphire. And still am. Played it yesterday actually. Even hooked it up to the Gamecube to run a koffing through Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness’ 100 battles in a row Battle Tower. I’m also still playing pretty much every generation of Pokémon games currently too. In the-actually playing the games sense and in the sense that in the latest games in the series, at the time of writing, Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, I have Pokémon in my games who I caught back in 2002. I argue it’s not nostalgic or an exercise in trying to recapture the excitement and optimism of formative days if you never stopped playing in between. I’m still doing new stuff in those games. I just need to Master two more Master Rank contests with exceptional ratings to get that elusive Gold Trainer card. Sure, having the internal battery on the cart run dry makes it even more challenging than it would have been 23 years ago. Sure, I have to keep the GBA permanently plugged into the mains on the dodgy third party charger that’s the same age as Wikipedia. Sure, I have to be careful not to touch the GBA-GC Game Boy Advance Cable as it’s gone all sticky. Sure, I have to hope the first generation HD TV doesn’t give out because it has a scart cable port for the Gamecube. Sure, the original DS touch screen has lost sensitivity on the left hand side when I transfer them to Pokémon Diamond. I just need one quiet week.

 * I think we reclaimed this term now right? It used to be a slur, the worst one, but now you’ll find it on emblazoned on cheaper by the billion mall-bought tees for ten year olds.

** The grey stripe with a generic d-pad symbol on it on the LGBTQAI+ flag represents gamers.

Chris

Twenty years ago, I was playing RPGs.  There were less of them then, or at least it felt like there were, so it seemed like it would be possible to eventually finish all of them.  In 2005 I would have been midway through college, playing games like the disappointing Wild Arms 4, Rogue Galaxy, and occasionally breaking things up with various Koei games (Dynasty Warriors 5, Romance of the Three Kingdoms X, Crimson Sea 2).  I lived with roommates who also enjoyed games, and we would play Super Smash Bros: Melee almost every day (I was a mean Peach).  Otherwise, I was almost exclusively playing games on PS2.  Occasionally I would play freeware games on PC such as Cave Story.

One of my roommates would periodically joke that I enjoy games in proportion to how many menus they have, and it was true.  Any genre that features menus prominently is one I enjoyed, whether it’s simulation, city-building, RPG, strategy, or any combination of them.

Now, I’m still playing RPGs.  There are way too many of them actively coming out to keep track of, so I have to choose either big-bang games that are wildly popular in the hope that I will enjoy them as the multitudes have (most recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Metaphor Re:Fantazio, but occasionally games that don’t have colons too), games from developers whose games I’ve enjoyed before (Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes), or taking chances on short indie games that are inspired by games I like (Horizon’s Gate).

Often, I have found myself playing games that are 20 years old or older, but repackaged and resold to me with graphical or quality-of-life improvements.  For example, I’m pretty sure I played Star Ocean: The Second Story in 2005.  I also played Star Ocean: The Second Story R in 2024.  Replaying these games in remake format is like seeing an old friend you haven’t talked to in years, in good and bad ways; they’re not quite exactly how you remember them, you generally still like them, but you’ve both moved on a bit since you last saw them.  While you still have a connection, it’s not quite the same.  So there’s a mix of pleasant nostalgia and loss – in my experience, mostly the former.

I still appreciate simulation and strategy games too, even if Koei’s output remains disappointing compared to its heyday.  Indies and other AA studios are picking up the slack where Koei dropped things, with games like Sailing Era and Chaos Galaxy.  I was really into Europa Universalis IV until around 2021, and aspire to eventually play Crusader Kings III for real, but the constantly shifting window of what features are in there make it intimidating for both its learning-curve and price (what DLCs do I need, and why is there $200 of it?  If I wait it will be $100 surely, but then more DLCs will be out and I’ll have to learn more stuff).  It is hard to get into complicated Grand Strategy games, especially when I am still occasionally playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX.

I try to branch out into more interesting indie games, stuff like The Wandering Village or UFO 50 that are in genres (or contain genres) I’m interested in to try and keep my horizons relatively broad, but at the same time I’m realizing that some genres are still not my cup of tea and that is okay.  Roguelikes and Metroidvanias are genres that I dabble in occasionally, but mostly find unsatisfying.

One thing that has changed quite a bit since 2005 is the limited time I have for games now (being a parent to awesome kids). More and more I am preferring games that are easy to pick up and put down over games that really need hour-long sessions to make progress or have long, open-ended sidequests.  This sometimes means delving into the darkest depths of mobile gaming – though I have to date only played three gacha games, and mostly restrict myself to the purest form of gaming possible, the Kairosoft simulation game.

Now, I don’t look for games based on an “hours per dollar.” I have the dollars, now, but I don’t have the time and maybe I never will.  In the meantime though, I’ve got a really cool library of games from 2005-2025 to choose from.

Join us next time, whenever that is, for Part 2 of this one part series.