In this next game, you're a downtrodden anti-hero trying to survive in a dystopian world...

Stealth games in 1981: "You have to escape from the literal fucking Nazis, who are seeking to genocide most of Europe."

Stealth games in 2019: "You are a goose"

I just got that game a few weeks ago after having somehow completely missed it. I've never laughed harder being an absolute cunt to the whole town.
- I love how much I relate to this comment. That game is so silly and delightful.
- what game is it?
Rake in the lake!
Sold. Guess I'm getting the goose game.
Castle Wolfenstein was such a fun game! Not just one of the first stealth games, but one of the first procedurally generated games too! Most people think that it was Elite. Haven't played or thought about it in a few years... Maybe I'll fire it up tonight.

Alternately, videogames now: I have a farm and it's the nicest farm of them all, and all the chickens have names and are demonstrably happy. Also I moonlight as an interior decorator for all my friends with whom I have deep personal relationships.

Just saying, we may be playing different types of games here.

The last game I played had me building a self-sufficient factory so large that I had to heavily dip into the logistics tech tree to navigate it.
The constant pollution does sort of upset the neighbors.
- I want to love Factorio but all the drama surrounding its creator have really put me off.
  Not a single sale in its entire lifespan but somehow being okay with doubling the price nearly a decade after release?
  Defending statutory rape?
  Idk man, maybe I’ll pirate it or something.
- is it satisfactory lol
Also alternative: you must build the factory. The factory/factory/Dyson Sphere must grow. Watch out for hostiles.
- To add, a lot of those games have you being an employee of an intergalactic megacorp where it's clear you're a cog in the machine.
Or I am a truck driver making delivery across the country, and attending to my island.
We definitely playing different games.
There's also more games being made now than there ever have been. People have a lot of choices.
The big AAA blockbusters do tend to aim for a different demographic than they did in the 80s, though. Probably largely because so many people who were kids in the 80s and 90s still play games.
- I don't know what people mean by "the big AAA blockbusters" anymore. I mean, the biggest console around is the Switch, the biggest games on Switch are a kart racer and a laid back cozy town sim. This year's big action game from Nintendo is Zelda but now it's also Minecraft (or Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, more accurately). Their latest blockbuster is a 2D Mario platformer cashing in on the hype for the billion dollar Mario animated movie by having every level be a musical showstopper. The biggest PS5 "AAA blockbuster" is a Spider-Man game. The big triple-A story this year was everybody shunning Fallout-but-Star-Trek for Dungeons-And-Dragons-But-Everybody-Is-Horny, and both games are huge productions with ridiculous budgets and insane amounts of content.
  I don't know what demographic all that is supposed to be for. Is that one demographic? I don't think that's one demographic beyond "humans who like it when they can see the money on their screen while playing their games".
Alternate videogames:
The demons have taken everything. A rotting carcass fished from the city river signals the beginning of its true downfall. Someone is to blame, whether it be a literal demon, or the ones we call neighbors. This mystery will be my last singular devotion.
But the real challenge is going to be gathering clues inbetween watering my crops, researching new plants to grow, and crafting tools using a system of over 8000 materials.
- What did Tom Nook do?
Also alternatively: I am a dead sexy treasure hunter, and I go on adventures with my dead sexy girlfriend/wife where we climb over pretty ruins and find lost cities.
- We've been doing that one since before there were videogames. Dead sexy treasure hunters have been a thing for so long the dead sexy treasure hunter we're all thinking of was a retro callback in 1981 already.
Or I am a truck driver making delivery across the country, and attending to my island.
We definitely playing different games.
I am a geometry and I dash
We always had these on PC. The joke stands and stands alone when regarding console.

Nintendo is still making run, jump, eat this flower, collect the coins games and they’re still excellent.

And they play absolutely fantastic on the PC. Their own hardware - not so much.
- Nintendo simps downvoting this comment as if a PC release for Nintendo games wouldn't just completely slam any Nintendo console release.
- Nintendo simps downvoting this comment as if a PC release for Nintendo games wouldn't just completely slam any Nintendo console release.

The "Video Games Now" part basically describes Castlevania II.

What a horrible night to have a curse.
And Max Payne. That shit was dark.
He's gonna take you back to the past
Also Castlevania Curse of Darkness.

There was sex and violence in 1980s games too!

Wasteland from 1988

"In 2087, generations after the devastation of a global nuclear war in 1998, a remnant force of the United States Army called the Desert Rangers operates in the Southwestern United States, acting as peacekeepers to protect fellow survivors and their descendants. A team of Desert Rangers is assigned to investigate a series of disturbances in nearby areas. Throughout the game, the rangers explore the remaining enclaves of human civilization, including a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas."

Splatterhouse from 1988

"Splatterhouse is an arcade-style sidescrolling beat 'em up with platform elements[2] in which the player controls Rick, a parapsychology college major who is trapped inside West Mansion. After his resurrection by the Terror Mask, Rick makes his way through the mansion, fighting off hordes of creatures in a vain attempt to save his girlfriend Jennifer from a grisly fate."

Leisure Suit Larry from 1987

"The games follow Larry Laffer, a balding, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit-wearing man in his 40s. The stories generally revolve around his attempting, usually unsuccessfully, to seduce attractive young women."

1982: You are General Custer and trying to rape an American Indian woman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer's_Revenge

The last game I played gave me the option to remove the vocal chords of tens of thousands of people because they annoyed someone I'd just met. That was not a "bad guy" choice.

Made me laugh quite a lot.

Rogue Trader?
- Yes lol. The humor in that game is dark AF and im here for it.

Missile Command is one of the darkest games out there.

Bethesda games: you are a prisoner about yo be executed

Souls-likes: you wake up in a jail cell
- "Ah! Dead body!"
You weren't about to be executed in Morrowind. You were a prisoner, but you get released almost immediately. Of course Bethesda promptly forgot how to create a good game as soon as they released Morrowind.
Imsims: you wake up in the medical deck

I guess if the only game in the 80's you played was Mario Bros and not Pacman...

I personally don't mind games being like they are now so long as the story and gameplay together make the game enjoyable. It's why I, for the most part, avoid online games.

Also, I don't know about the antihero part, but the downtrodden hero trying to survive in a dystopian world immediately made me think of Brok The Investigator.

you're a downtrodden anti-hero trying to survive in a dystopian world...

Is my alarm clock the game?

Did you win today?
- I....certainly played.

You have crashed your spaceship in a drunken stupor. You should do genocide about it until you can build a new one.

fire in the hole

Play it out. Mario is a game where a plumber from New York visits a land of mushroom people who's princess is kidnapped by a dragon turtle, and he must eat mushrooms to get stronger and eat flowers to spit fireballs. In the most recent iteration, there are piranha plants that jump out of giant pipes, walk around, and do a whole song and dance number for you.

Clearly, there were a lot of drugs involved in its development.

New York just hits different.
https://youtu.be/mvh7UyQ5NJ0

Mark my words, Ashen-one. You shall remain among the accursed

No Harry here, name's Raphael I don't care about apricots.

Try not to die turning on lights or sitting down.
- That doesn't sound like superstar behavior.

This is one of the reasons why I'm mostly a retro gamer.

Retro games rock. I've been playimg a lot of retro and retro-themed indie games lately.
- SNES was my favorite console because it was technically primitive enough the devs had to design around it's limitations, but advanced enough that the gameplay itself could still be complex.
  Hundreds of SNES games still look good and play well. With PSX/N64 generation onwards, the drive to make things look "better" resulted in visuals aging horribly.
  Link to the Past still looks and plays great. Ocarina of Time (while a great game) looks like crap.
- I'm also old. I grew up with an Atari 2600 and then an NES, plus an Apple II at my parents' house and a C-64 at my grandparents' house. When I want to play a game for comforting fun, those are the games I most often turn to because they take me back to a simpler time in my life while being generally simpler themselves. And sure, there were some games for those systems that were complex and dark, like some Infocom games and Wasteland, which I thoroughly enjoyed and even enjoyed the modern sequels to... but honestly, I'd rather play Snake Byte on an Apple II emulator most of the time.
  Unless you want a phone game, there are so few games out there now that you can just pick up and play for five minutes and then do something else. Most of them are indie edge cases (which admittedly can be good games sometimes) or quickly made web games that pretty much suck. Everything has a complex storyline. They're not games to me as much as interactive movies sometimes. And that's fine when I have a couple of hours to devote my time to it, but not all that fine when I want a slight distraction while watching a YouTube video on the other monitor.
  I swear, they'd give Tetris cut scenes if it existed today.
- Dusk: You woke up hanging on meat hooks. Kill
  Amid Evil: Evil has conquered the realms. Kill.
  Cultic: You woke up in a pile of dead bodies while investigating a missing persons case. Kill.
  Ion Fury: An asshole mad scientist made you spill your drink. Kill.
  Turbo Overkill: Stop an AI bent of godhood. Kill.
  System Shock: Also stop an AI bent of godhood. Kill.
  Marathon: The AI bent of godhood is using you, but you both don't like the alien slavers invading your spaceship. Kill.
  Prodeus: IDK. Red Demons vs Blue Demons vs You. Kill

Disco Elysium vibes

You just described the original Jak trilogy.

Also video games now: You're a robot and all you know is blood is fuel and hell is full, therefore you need to kill everything you see that can bleed

The shadow president needs you to kill the presidential candidate so he doesn't impose a 1% income tax on the rich.

Being back arbitrary points. Well, I guess they have S-class rankings.

Games in my youth vs. Games at an adult

What can I say, I like realism in my games.