The 7th Generation... Part 2 (Patreon)

I've been fiddling with emulators for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

In other words, I'm reliving my childhood.

I've been gaming since the original Playstation, but the Xbox 360 in particular is what I "grew up" with. It's the console that saw me go from a kid to an adult. The one where I binged games offline to online. What saw me go from merely consuming these games to making content specifically about them.

So it's a little strange to play these games when I'm closer to my thirties than twenties, and feel that for the most part, with just the resolution bump on these emulators, that they could pass for current-gen titles?

At the very least, they could be rereleased as a remaster on Steam and nobody would complain?

Apparently, all I needed was a 60fps patch to fall in love with Project Gotham Racing 4. It's easily one of the best driving games I've played, and in-terms of its track-design, physics model, vehicle selection, and variety of events, it hasn't aged a day.

It's the same story for the Gears of War trilogy. Its third entry is noticeably smoother in controls than its precursors, but other than that, these games are exactly what I experienced with Gears 5.

It's the same story when playing Army of Two The 40th Day, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Resistance Fall of Man, Forza Horizon, etc.

The gap between PS1 to PS2, did not repeat. You'll get some clunkers such as Haze but those games were criticized for being dated on the day of release.

However, though you could show how this console generation changed through its own leap in graphical fidelity…

Fact is, that's par for the course.

No, what broke the 7th Generation into two parts, unlike almost any other generation in history, was everything outside of the game.

In 2005, you joined a pre-game lobby in a multiplayer match, sometimes after choosing between a Ranked or Player Match search, you then talked over

I can't really relate to Project Gotham Racing 4's design. I sure as hell can relate to Mass Effect 3's…

The former is a game with multiple modes built around linear(ish) progression, earning Kudos Credits from all to acquire new packs of cars, circuits, and bonuses, adding variety to the list of events you partake in across the various modes.

That's not at all what modern games are like.

Either they're Gran Turismo 7's infamous T-Square linear Café Books, or Forza Horizon 5's completely aimless assortment of T-Square linear missions, both of which that constantly remind you to participate in the latest content updates, to spend your hard earned (unless you pay) credits, and/or spinning wheels hoping for the content you want!

Which almost perfectly describes the latter…

And 2012 wasn't just the year of loot boxes appearing in non EA Sports games but Doritogate with Halo 4, The War Z's asset flip disastrous launch, Blizzard's even bigger disaster for Diablo III, and Sega copyrighting videos with no footage of their games.

This doesn't sound like 2012.

This sounds like today.

I can't pinpoint it to a specific date, but I know, at some point during this generation of games, it stopped being HD PS2s and Xboxes, and entered gaming's current age that we still haven't evolved past…