/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10825242
Maybe it's because PS2/GC were always an awkward middle ground in terms of time investment. People will hate what I'm about to say but the truth needs to be spoken.

Older games/consoles are way quicker on average; you load a game, play for 25 minutes (or a little less/more according to the game & player), get your dopamine rush and you're done with it -unless you want to continue, or switch to a different game.
On the other hand, newer games (X360/PS3 and newer) are way slower. You need like 1-2 hours to make your session worthwhile, or it's going to feel unsatisfying. By that era, games went full "cinematic" even in terms of time required to realistically enjoy them.

So we got a quick dopamine cycle and a slow dopamine cycle.
But the PS2/GC/Xbox generation sits in that odd spot right in the middle. You know you don't really need hours and hours for your play session to make sense, but you don't really get that instant dopamine spike that older games provided as soon as you boot them. You aren't mentally prepared to waste a whole evening on that game alone (or at least, you're fully aware it doesn't really require that much time to be enjoyed) but you don't get nearly enough satisfaction in the first few minutes.
Sure it's a huge generalization because there are exceptions with extremely shorter or longer dopamine cycles in each gen, but still