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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics

@millennialpcaest.bsky.social
3.6K followers 910 following 858 posts

Celebrating the visuals of the games I grew up on. Not your mum's librarian (but actually possibly your mum's librarian). Ōtautahi.

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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Yeah, from what I've seen it strips away a great many of the elements that I take issue with. Way more elegant. I suspect it does still maintain the massive mismatch between theme and gameplay though, which is probably the thing that keeps me from bringing Wingspan to the table the most.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I still think it's massively overproduced, a real victim of Kickstarter culture, with far too many components that could be stripped away for a better package, but it turns out that it's the thing my tired brain needed right now.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
While I have some longstanding issues with the way the game is designed, I will say that as a little setup to escape to and pick away at when I have a free moment it's actually quite delightful. It's all very pleasingly tactile and good to look at.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Currently at home with a newborn and, finding videogames impractical as a hobby right now, I have decided to learn the solo mode for 'Wingspan'.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Oh, wow. Kids these days could not comprehend...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
See also: bsky.app/profile/mill...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This is my favourite repeated gag in Tim Schafer games: the unending boring "conversation"...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
'Psychonauts' - 2005
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Only just now realising how formative a moment it was to watch my dad turn the TV's saturation all the way down in order to de-colourise 'Casablanca'...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' - 2011
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
'Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier' - 2012
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
'Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter' - 2006
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I've been keeping an eye on it, but it's a little more of a 'Delta Force' homage isn't it?
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Although credit where credit's due, 'Wildlands' comes the closest to recapturing the magic. It's deeply, deeply flawed, but it sort of almost understands what 'Ghost Recon' was all about. Plus, I love alpine tundra and this is hands down the best depiction in a videogame.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
It's a shame the series never really matched this highpoint again. There's flashes of brilliance here and there in the rest of the games, but nothing is quite the total package that this one was. They quite literally do not make 'em like this anymore...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
It's been 25 years since peak tac-sim (I don't want to hear your opinions about 'Operation Flashpoint', thanks). There has simply never been another game that blended intense realism with accessibility like this game did.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
'Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon' - 2001
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Oh, that's pretty cool! I love it when Psygnosis gets some love.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Yeah, that one's pretty bad. The thing is I don't even think they've done a bad job overall, it's just that there's a maddening lack of attention to detail.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
The pinup on the side of the seaplane in TR2 is a great example. Definitely upscaled, because the details of it have started to diverge kinda wildly (and nonsensically) from the source image. Like, genuinely, what is she holding...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
I think there's probably a mixture of things going on, judging by some of the stuff I've seen. There's a bunch of textures that don't really make sense as AI upscales (the above gravel, for example), but for sure there's a bit of that going on.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Okay, I promise this is the last one. Here they clearly took some textures they already had and mirrored them to create a cobra head motif. The remaster repeats its trick of using a high res version of the original source, so instead of a cobra we get a jumble of arms and torso from a carved relief.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
They really ought to have improved on the lighting, but consistently the remastered graphics are missing the lighting highlights that are supposed to guide you through the level architecture, making things more confusing than they ought to be. Anyway, long story short, play with the OG visuals...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Here's the remastered lighting and it's just.. flatter? I won't argue that it's not more naturalistic, but it's definitely less interesting and does a worse job of showing off the level. The irony is that the techniques for lighting videogame levels HAVE improved significantly since 1998...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
I realise that I'm risking being a bit "Old Man Yells at Cloud" here, but this is another example. The original graphics here have such great lighting, really evocative of vibe and place, and the mix of colours and brightness helping to pull your attention around the scene. It looks great.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
It's like the famous instance of the 'Baldur's Gate' remaster, where once the original textures were in HD it was clear that some of the stone surfaces were actually greyscale images of coffee beans. The difference is that in that remaster the decided to make a new texture to solve the problem...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Specifically there's some dodgy upscaled textures that fail to understand what the original graphics were going for, and then there's some odd instances of them unthinkingly using the same source images for the OG textures without asking whether that works. For example:
A scene from Tomb Raider III. Lara Croft stands on a surface of smooth river stones.The same scene with the remastered graphics. The texture of the river stones is very clearly aquarium gravel and looks extremely weird.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
I have been enjoying the remaster of these games, although simply for the convenient packaging because I'm playing with OG graphics and controls. The remastered visuals seem to generally make smart choices, but there are some really rough patches that speak to a rushed job...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
'Tomb Raider II' - 1997 (captured via Remaster)
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
and Alain de Botton's 'Religion for Atheists', to explain the importance for society of temples and having places to gather together.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Walter Bejamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', for an explaination on the value of physical pilgrimage and what it imbues art with.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Because I'm a specific kind of nerd, here's some things you should consider reading:
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
And, of course, all of this speaks to the ever growing problem with playing video games as a hobby: it's totally stripped of place. Where do we congregate other than online? Where is our community?
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
I remember buying 'Knights of the Old Republic' on one such trip (from an EB Games that was subsequently destroyed in the Christchurch Earthquake) and getting to spend the five hour drive home excited at the prospect of playing it. It's a strong, positive memory that now speaks to a dead age.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
I think I'm sad that going and browsing games at a dedicated store is now functionally dead in Aotearoa. I spent my teenage years living in a small town, and trips to a big city with games shops ended up feeling like a pilgrimage because that was your opportunity to pick up the harder to find games.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
In recent times they really seem to have almost entirely backed off from selling games (outside of being a place you pick up your pre-orders) and had instead pivoted to selling the all worst nerd-oriented collectable crap you could imagine.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Legitimately, I'm pretty sure I can pin down the last time I bought something from an EB Games, and it was over a decade ago. I remember feeling sad at the state of their PC games section at the time, as it had slowly but surely been relegated to a dwindling corner at the back of the shop.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Upon seeing this news I rather ungenerously thought: "I'm surprised it took this long", which is unfair of me. This really sucks for the workers, but also highlights what a hollowed out shell these stores had become thanks to digital distribution. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...
rnz.co.nz
All EB Games stores in NZ to close at end of month
It is uncertain how many jobs would be lost, and the letter to NZ employees did not mention anything about the future of the Australian stores.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
It's honestly not worth it. I'll probably post more fully about it in the next few days, but it has aged the least gracefully of all the series.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
I did this once before years ago, but when I upgraded PC I forgot to bring it with me, so it's been a nice little afternoon task re-learning what I did. Plus, now I can play 'SimTower'.
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
I've been doing my holiday thing of trying to keep off screens and the Internet as much as possible, but now I'm back and feeling inspired! So today I took on a little project of installing Windows 3.1 through DOSBox (and then naturally installing a bunch of Maxis games on it... )
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
'SimCity 3000' - 1999
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
'Deus Ex' - 2000
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Finally, a practical solution!
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
If it helps, I'm now in a full-blown crisis over where it can even go in my house because it's simply too big...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Guess who bought something deeply stupid...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
'Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity' - 1995
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
It's interesting moving directly on from the first game to this one because, even though the technical improvements are only slight, the visual design of the environments just leaps forwards. That's not to say that I dislike the first game, but there's just somethings so much more here...
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Millennial PC Gaming Aesthetics @millennialpcaest.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
'Thief II: The Metal Age' - 2000
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