Hot take: a janky 2003 RPG with a 60-page manual is doing more interesting work than most $80 games shipping today. The hot take is incomplete because I don't actually finish hot takes, but here are the bones of it:
- Old PC games trusted you to read. AAA games are afraid of you closing the tab.
- Constraints make better systems. A 4-button combat menu forces designers to make every button matter; a 60-button gamepad lets them get lazy.
- The bugs were features. Rolling under the world geometry in Morrowind and finding a polygon shaped like a chair was its own kind of plot.
Tell me I'm wrong, I love being told I'm wrong.