Soapbox: I Miss The Type Of Pick-Up-And-Play Games We Got On Original Xbox

i get annoyed with all the reading devs want us to do.

Great game, I still have a Bloodwake disc but it isn't BC on 360 nor Series X...for no apparent reason. Unless Stormfront Studios IP ownership was too difficult to sort out in the past. Now that DOESN'T make sense as they were part of Sierra Entertainment whom was owned by Activision and now in turn owned by Microsoft directly.

So Microsoft/Xbox division needs to get on with another round of BC added from all the Activision licenses. It's been quite a while.

Agreed. I love some denser, "commitment" games as I like to call them, I really do, but I also adore games that you can just pick up and instantly start having a good time. Every now and then I'll just boot up Streets of Rage 2 for a few minutes to quickly play through the first stage, having a blast. Or I'll play a few rounds of Qix, or maybe for a more modern game, just do a quick run of The Binding of Isaac. Heck, one thing I often like to do is space out my playthroughs of "commitment" games with "pick-up-and-play" games to avoid burnout.

I played an absolutely obscene amount of Blood Wake. Was such a blast. I might actually still have my copy.

@Tasuki Playing off your point: Games now a days are still throwing tutorials at you 10+ hours into the game. And if you ever take a break, good luck remembering all the controls.

Back then your 10 minute control test was the tutorial and you knew everything you needed for the entire game.

Take a break and forget how to play? Look at the back of the instruction book and you've got the control scheme and what every power up does in 2 minutes.

We need a lot more games that need less commitment. Microsoft especially needs them having a Subscription service, things that take less time and money to develop and can fill the gaps without big AAA releases.

And they clearly don't know this considering they shut down Tango Gameworks who was a perfect example of that role.

It was on 360 but The Club was an amazing pick up and play game

It’s why I love Brotato so much …. 3 seconds and go right into it… no tutorial just figure it out

Pick up and play didn't go anywhere. There's more of it than ever. What it doesn't have is big marketing budgets and physical copies that cost fortunes to distribute through major mega-publishers. The small publishers that make such games went digital-distribution at lower prices than mega-publishers, started getting called "indies". Game Pass is loaded with such content as well.

@Tasuki @InterceptorAlpha Despite saying the above, I massively agree with you both. Gaming jumped a couple of sharks in a monster truck in moving from a set of basic controls you use in interesting ways through the game to the the tutorial that "builds" on the systems through half the game. I can't tell you how many games I have half finished that I can't play again or have to restart because jumping back in and learning all the systems you were supposed to learn over time is impossible 60% into the game. When did playing a video game become a field of study (flight/racing sims excluded which bring in real world learning of real vehicle operation.) And the trend of needing to watch a bunch of youtubers and read guides just to figure out how to beat bosses (From Software, I'm looking at you), or "min-max" everything to have the best odds has become ridiculous. Even the P&P D&D based games of old didn't need all that, and they even came with spiral bound manuals.

@NEStalgia I still remember my first wakeup to this.

Playing Final Fantasy XIII, IE the hallways simulator. And SOMEHOW, like 15 hours in was still getting tutorials on what should have been a fairly straight forward JRPG affair.

The fact they were still doing tutorials that far in was really just impressive given how linear it was.

@InterceptorAlpha LOL yeah, I think I had the same experience and thoughts with that. Then again, half the problem with that game was that the first 60% of the game was just the tutorial, just reaaaaaally drawn out lol.

Yeah that's got a lot to do with why the past generations felt so much better, the games were just a lot easier to pick up and play. Today's gaming scene has far too much emphasis on these massive epics and live service games that demand your constant and continual dedication. Gaming used to be a lot more relaxed.

It is a good point, indeed.

Recently, I have been playing old games (or new games with an oldies' vibe). Killer7 (doing my annual playthrough!), MGS2&3, RoboCop: Rogue City, GoldenEye 007...

I know it wasn't a hit, but man, I loved Hellblade II and its 6–8 hours of gameplay. Going now for my second run.

(IMHO, Killer7 and Hellblade combat systems are simple but fun).

Wreckfest is great fun for anyone nostalgic for the PS1 Destruction Derby games and the cherry on top is using a USB with the Destruction Derby 2 soundtrack instead of the base soundtrack. Streets of Rage 4 is a modern classic. Gamepass occasionally gets some cracking pick up and play indie games too. I do think PC/Steam gets more pick up and play type games nowadays.

@NEStalgia Funny enough, once I got to the one open area in FFXIII, I gave up. 😅

Oh yeah, favourite OG Xbox games - Halo, Rallisport Challenge 2, Project Gotham games, Tony Hawk 3, Doom 3 and Brothers in Arms.

I played the demo back in the day it came with the Official Xbox magazine disc. It had a couple of tracks if I remember correctly. Nice for a demo.

I think this is why I love No Mans Sky so much. No matter how long I'm away, I can just pick up where I left off. I definitely agree with the author on this one. But of course those games don't have excessive loot or need to "always be online" either.

Some games can offer that and if want to tackle small things like 1-2 quests or bit of leveling or exploration but yeah just small levels, repeating them for times, or just some fun arcadey moments yeah I enjoy them quite a lot.

Or roguelikes just doing a few runs. Or racing, or whatever else to offer short moments in a console game (as long as the checkpointing is good or levels suit or survival game resource gathering or whatever tasks) not always needing a phone game to experience that.

Whether handheld length short or just 5-30 minutes they are good. Been fine with that for 360 shooters, racing (annual, arcade, sim/cade) or hack n slashes these days as collecting many of them.

it depends how we want to experience a pick up and play type of way of play in even long drawn out games (or feeling we achieved something or played enough and come back whenever) or they just offered that more in some modes/games besides what Indies offer or some arcade IPs returning offer as well.

Publishers want us glued to the games yet forget some of us just want a brief experience. Even some board games you can leave for a long time or have a brief round. Sometimes we just want short sessions as that's all we need. Not short as in chip away at it for a year either. Sometimes just a few minutes or a weekend type game I guess.

Been fine with the short what 3-4-6 length many can longplay them quickly as but for me regardless of deaths or taking my time exploring if secrets or browsing any upgrades if the game has any (some shooters don't) it's been fun with just a few levels to get through.

See how I go as some parts I get stuck on and just move on to the next moment I want to play them, or finish them across 3 days if binging, or a week but largely spread out to whenever I want to play them. The hour counts don't bother me, the prices at $5 to $30 are fair I think even if getting just the campaign value or any side content that isn't online bound.

Like playing Colonial Marines, Turning Point (now owning all Spark titles I felt was an ok achievement) and Never Dead has been nice besides the 2 games on 1 disk of Riddick games (like White Knight Chronicles good to get the 2 games on 1).

It's why I'm more into OG Xbox/360, not so much for the length but the ideas and IPs I missed out on have been so exciting to experience.

@TJ81 Agreed. While it's not as varied like Flatout of the human catapult minigames (use the car to send the driver to whatever the minigame offers like a target) or any other 6th gen racers I find with more compelling event variety and mechanics I find that modern games suck at (yes yes variety isn't everything but with how focused some are, some put the bare minimum of race, time trials, drift, it gets boring, it's like with later CODs the vehicles weren't the best parts but sometimes the on foot got boring for me regardless of stealth, breaching and other scenarios).

Wreckfest was still fun with the events/mix of vehicles. Fake vehicles to me is fine enough I don't need REAL licenses all the time to have fun and Wreckfest, Flatout, Burnout, Ridge Racer and Destruction Derby did a good job with that of just making the vehicles and arcade moments really fun.

I mean Ninja Theory made Kung Fu Chaos back then. I'd take a few of those over Hellblade, personally, but I'm more into games that are fun. Now everyone needs to be, you know "auteurs." Same era when Naughty Dog was doing Jak and Daxter. To be clear, I think games are better than ever. I'm just outside of the group whose apparently asking for games that cost hundreds of millions to make. I like a giant game every now and then, but the break out success usually look like Minecraft not The Last of Us.

@shoeses godddd tango's closing still hurts like hell

@NEStalgia You are correct about the struggle of going back to games after time. It baffles me how late DLCs make money, I could never go back to a game a year later just because a DLC was released.

I wish Xbox would make more arcade styled games again, like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Skies etc.

A lot of modern games, just feels like a chore to play.
Both AAA and Indie.

Some times, I just wanna hit start, and blast away. No annoying intros, dialogue and tutorials.
And no complicated upgrade menus and 500 billion button combinations, to memories.

Yes this is so true and so me.

Outside of doing challenges on Fortnite and career mode on EAFC (which has also waned a lot in recent years) I've found my gaming days seem to be long behind me for the most part up until recently.

See I love the IDEA of huge open worlds with a million possibilities, and I've stacked up a fair amount of those games on top of what's also available on game pass...yet I just get way too overwhelmed with these types of games. I either have way too much choice or the game is needlessly complex, or another pet peeve is the game is keeping me on training wheels so long that I get really bored and frustrated at just wanting to be let loose on the damn thing and let me figure it out myself.

Now I'm finding that games like Brotato, Wreckfest and similar are pulling me back in because they're simple to just jump into and have fun. It feels like games are now developed like blockbuster movies. It can be fun once in a while but not every game needs to follow that route.

Also I'm enjoying The First Descendant a lot right now and that's because even though the levelling up and whatnot seems complex on the outside, it's so easy to just jump in and keep blasting waves of enemies without having to overthink it.

I still feel there's a ton of such games being made and released all the time. They tend to be indies, there a lot on Game Pass, and there's plenty on PS plus extra if you go through the 600+ PS4 titles. They simply don't attract the marketing budget of the 'big hitters'.

I find I play more of these smaller titles than the AAA behemoths these days, as its easier to just have an afternoon of fun and then put it down

@shoeses YES! I've been playing a game I actually own for a couple of months now and it's been bothering me that I paid for GamePass during this time. If games were shorter I wouldn't care but so much seems like a long slog these days. And now with the price hike I'm sure this feeling will only increase.

I can definitely relate to this! I just recently hooked up my original Xbox and was playing the game mission impossible operation surma. I used to play that game daily when I was in highschool! I always had such a good time with my Xbox and glad I still have it even after all these years!

As a few others have mentioned, it's not so much that these kinds of games have disappeared. Rather, it's mostly indies that cover that ground now.
But indies don't always scratch that itch, the way an actual 6th-gen game can. I think the AA and AAA games of yesteryear sit in a no man's land: between today's monstrous AAAs on one hand, and most indies on the other.
There's something different about non-AAA games (at least by today's standards) that were given a AA/AAA budget.

I'm the opposite. I really struggle to play pick up and play games anymore, need that story to keep me hooked!