Video Games just don't cut it anymore

[CorporalClegg]

I think the medium is falling apart. There's just too much going on; things are spread too thin. Its ubiquity has become its Achilles--the whole "business side" has completely taking over and things have begun to erode.

There is now a complete emphasis on flash and style while substance seems to have become completely irrelevant.

Plus, there really isn't a whole lot of originality left. Everything is sequels or remakes--or at best, a new spin on an old idea. It's been a while since there's been anything truly fresh and new.

That said, I think the golden age would be the decade spanning from about '95 to '05 with the SNES/GEN era being a "Silver Age."

 

[ALF]

You had me at the word, "chore". I loved Mass Effect, but with it's very linear way of delivering a story in what seemed like a nonlinear universe I lost interest near the end of the game. I hope the second one puts more emphasis on exploration, sandbox style.

I don't have much time for games anymore, so pretty much everything I play is open ended sandbox-y gameplay. I can pick it up for an hour or two and put it down and forget it. For Xbox there's Grand Theft Auto IV, Pac Man Championship Edition (for an old school game, that hits the spot) and maybe a round of Simpsons or Chrome Hounds or something. Lost Planet is a beaut.

For PC, I don't play anything new that I can't run. I'm often reinstalling Bridge Commander, Diablo II, Star Wars: Battlefront II and a handful of Battlefield games.

Oh, one game that gets special mention is Ghostbusters. What a work of art. Even though it's story driven and linear, it's a masterpiece. If the OP enjoyed that film in any way, sink your teeth into it.

 

[darthraidr]

i think a lot of posters are remembering the "old days" of gaming with rose colored glasses... the problems you have with games now, are the same problems that existed back then... too many sequels or clones of games... there were plenty of those. we just dont recall them because a lot of them weren't memorable.

i'm sure there were plenty of pac-man/galaga clones in the "old days." lots of similar fighting games in the 90's... plenty of beat 'em ups for a period of time... plenty of bad side scroller games that all played similar as well.

there are plenty of 'different' games out there now. i'd say there are more now than before simply because the industry is bigger. you just need to look harder for them because the industry is bigger and there are more games as a whole. want something slightly different, try Portal or Braid or Katamari

 

[gh4chiefs]

. However I find myself playing more and more games that I played 15-18 years ago when I was as young as 5 when I got my first nintendo for X-mas. Games just dont seem to have the "fun" factor that they once had.

Could that be a factor of us getting older?

I think so. I used to be hardcore when I was a teen and in school. SNES, N64, and the like before I moved on to the PC. I'm 27 now and I still like gaming. I play when I can, but more older titles. I just don't seem to have the time anymore to get so involved. I bought my top of the line PC for gaming 3 years ago and all I use it for now is POGO, BBS surfing, and news sites. The horror.


What's happened to me?

Well as we age, our tastes and interest do change. I'm almost twice your age (48) and I've been gaming in some fashion or another, off and on, going back to the pong days.

I still like it, but I'm finding the older I get, the less time I have, therefore the less tolerance I have for playing challenging and/or poorly implemented games. If a game is not a lot of fun right out of the box, or if it's got a steep learning curve, then forget it, I'm not interested. Just don't have the time for that kind of thing nowadays. Obviously there are exceptions from time to time, but generally it's the way things are.

And again, I think it just goes back to a function of getting older, having other interests and responsibilities, etc.

 

[gh4chiefs]

i think a lot of posters are remembering the "old days" of gaming with rose colored glasses

I think you may be right about that. I've often said if gaming hadn't progressed past the Mario days (lose your life, you have to start over at the beginning), I know I never would have become as avid of a gamer as I am.

So I for one am happy about the progress and direction of gaming overall, but as I previously posted, I don't have the patience for the less than good games that I once did.

 

[Jim Steele]

It is rose tinted glasses. You get the same things said about classic movies/television/music, you name it. It's because the crap gets forgotten about and the good stuff sticks around.

The way some people go on you'd think the 60s charts were nothing but The Beatles and The Who. There was a lot of shit back then and there's a lot of shit now, no doubt. For every Elite, there were 100 shitty Centipede clones. And Centipede was shit. So there.

 

[Hermiod]

I'm mixed on this.

Games have improved dramatically in my view, but they still make the same fundamental mistakes they've been making since the 80's.

Nobody ever seems to get difficulty settings right. I'm hoping schemes like Valve's AI Director from Left 4 Dead become more commonplace. Though L4D has difficulty settings, it also learns how well you are doing and adjusts the game accordingly. That way, people who are rubbish (like me) and people who are awesome both have fun for their money.

Then there are games that get difficulty right for 99% of the game and then blow it horribly in some small but frustrating section of the game. I haven't played it myself, but Call of Juarez apparently is the latest example. It's fun all the way through except for ridiculously frustrating quick draw duels which are very difficult to get right.

I've noticed that it's often when a game tries to do something different to the core gameplay that it goes wrong. Wolverine ? Massive fun all the way through except when it does something different. Result ? It goes from being an 8/10 to a 6 or maybe a 7.

I've lost count of the number of games that make this simple mistake. Get your games playtested. Find any parts that aren't fun and change them so they are or take them out entirely.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Nobody ever seems to get difficulty settings right. I'm hoping schemes like Valve's AI Director from Left 4 Dead become more commonplace. Though L4D has difficulty settings, it also learns how well you are doing and adjusts the game accordingly. That way, people who are rubbish (like me) and people who are awesome both have fun for their money.

Amen on that.

The other problem that I think they continue to perpetuate is the lack of a "save at any point" feature. Apparently it must be some kind of programming difficulty but far too few games let you save and stop the game whenever you want. A lot of the harder games (for me) could probalby be improved immensely if they would simply let you save your progress and not have to play the same section over and over and over just to get to the "hard part."

 

[CorporalClegg]

It is rose tinted glasses. You get the same things said about classic movies/television/music, you name it. It's because the crap gets forgotten about and the good stuff sticks around.

The way some people go on you'd think the 60s charts were nothing but The Beatles and The Who. There was a lot of shit back then and there's a lot of shit now, no doubt. For every Elite, there were 100 shitty Centipede clones. And Centipede was shit. So there.

Apples/Oranges.

This theory works fine if you don't grade on a curve, but you kind of have to.

Sure, that was a lot of musical shit in the 60s just like there is now except the good was a lot better than it is now.

There simply isn't the contemporary equivalent to The Beatles, The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream, Dylan, The Birds, The Doors, The Kinks, Herman's Hermits, CCR, Buffalo Springfield, Hendrix, Big Brother and the Holding Company, I could go on all day.

The Bell Curve has become gnarled, tangled, and strung so far out that it doesn't offer any real fair comparison. People ignore the shit from the "Golden Age" of rock, not because they've forgotten about it, but because it's fucking irrelevant.

One can make the same argument about 70s and film ... or the 90s and video games.

And yes, there were a lot of Centipede clones, and Pac-Man Clones, and Asteroid Clones, but the market was a different entity back then; "cloning" was a phenomenon that pretty much died out by the third generation and is completely different from the rehashing that goes on today.

Besides, t really isn't a very fair comparison. Back then programmers had both a limited scope of knowledge and a limited source of resources and tools to work with. There's only so many ways to reinvent the horse and buggy. Now days they have everything they need to build an Enzo Racer but they're still giving us Pintos ... except now with fins and a nice set of new rims.

Also, those clones were, even at the time, pretty much buried in the abyss of who gives a shit?

Now days you have games like the annual sports games, Pokémon Whatever, the Fallouts (Insert Western RPG here), the countless FPSes that, aside from Doom 3, haven't made any real advances in a decade, Final Fantasy remake/sequel #359, and the countless MMORPGS that all do the same thing all at the top of the food chain. They are the most popular and highest sellers--a far cry from "Bob's Cento-Creed 'O Fun."

The production companies have figured out that they can put this stuff out there and people will eat it up. It's cheaper to do things this way which, obviously, nets them a lot more cash. Because of this, they have no real reason to push the envelope anymore.

The Wii is a perfect example of this. It presented an opportunity to drastically push the medium forward, but a side from a few novelty niche games made by Nintendo, it's full potential has all but been completely ignored.

But during the better part of the 90s and the first half of this decade, there was really a surge of ideas. It was actually see (and follow) the path of evolution. Things seemed to progress exponentially.

Heck, in the recent "Best Game Ever" contests on GameFAQS, I think eight of the top ten games ended up being PSOne/Early PS2 era titles. And frankly, I don't think that has anything to do with some misguided nostalgia. They're just better.

Why do you think backwards compatibility has become such an issue with the PS3?

I also think it's a pretty safe bet that games like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Zelda OoT, Resident Evil, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania SOTN, etc. will remember and revered for years to come, their spin-offs, sequels, and remakes will be forgotten in a decade.

 

[Trubinator]

I think some of the haters should look at Project Natal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluWsMlfj68

It will have motion capture technology to replace the controller and can scan in items for use in games. It's scheduled for a tentative 2010 release date as an add-on for the XBOX 360.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I think some of the haters should look at Project Natal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluWsMlfj68

It will have motion capture technology to replace the controller and can scan in items for use in games. It's scheduled for a tentative 2010 release date as an add-on for the XBOX 360.

Well again this is probably a factor of age, but I have no desire whatsoever in putting that much effort into playing a video game. Hell even the frickin' Wiimote has given me a few issues with "Wii wrist." I can't imagine what Natal is going to be like.

 

[Jadzia]

I'm not over impressed with 3D myself. I think it's overrated. It is cleverly done, but all this talk about pixel shaders and shadow maps and gpus feels like it's celebrated more than the game. 3D games are more a triumph in technical wizardry than rewarding gameplay... imo.

But that's what sells though isn't it? A lot of people seem to want something only to show off their cutting edge hardware, so they can ogle at the graphics, and see how their setup performs.

 

[Hermiod]

^Sounds like you should get a DS.

PC gaming is often too much about framerates and benchmarks, I agree. Even console gaming suffers sometimes with obsessive nerds picking on Halo 3 for not quite running at 720p.

 

[Kelthaz]

I think some of the haters should look at Project Natal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluWsMlfj68

It will have motion capture technology to replace the controller and can scan in items for use in games. It's scheduled for a tentative 2010 release date as an add-on for the XBOX 360.

Wow, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I'm a huge defender of current games, but even I think Natal is an example of everything that is wrong with gaming today. You're not going to win many people over to your side by bringing it up.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

^Sounds like you should get a DS.

PC gaming is often too much about framerates and benchmarks, I agree. Even console gaming suffers sometimes with obsessive nerds picking on Halo 3 for not quite running at 720p.

I wonder if that's who the DS and Wii were aiming at? People who were part of the videogame revoluition from the start, craving the good old days of retro gaming and pure gameplay in a casual manner but just enough to ease them through their busy lives.

The younger generation who joined at the time of Playstation will of course want bigger and better and their Halos and Crysises and their 720p and 360 Live things and whatnot.

Then there are the PC gamers, whose status given the focus on online console gaming seems less clear by the day, and whose market is now more geared towards a few BIG EVENT TITLES™ and otherwise hit and miss independent and/or episodic casual game titles. In a way, they represent a mixture of both generations of gamers.

 

[Kelthaz]

^Sounds like you should get a DS.

PC gaming is often too much about framerates and benchmarks, I agree. Even console gaming suffers sometimes with obsessive nerds picking on Halo 3 for not quite running at 720p.

I wonder if that's who the DS and Wii were aiming at? People who were part of the videogame revoluition from the start, craving the good old days of retro gaming and pure gameplay in a casual manner but just enough to ease them through their busy lives.

Well how far back are you talking here? From what I've seen classic gamers who grew up with the likes of the NES or Atari 2600 think the DS and Wii are full of casual crap that in no way resembles retro gaming. I agree that the DS and Wii were intended, and amazingly successful, at getting gamers who grew out of the hobby back into it, but if you're craving the good old days the Wii or DS are the last places you should look. Well, except for Mega Man 9.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

^Sounds like you should get a DS.

PC gaming is often too much about framerates and benchmarks, I agree. Even console gaming suffers sometimes with obsessive nerds picking on Halo 3 for not quite running at 720p.

I wonder if that's who the DS and Wii were aiming at? People who were part of the videogame revoluition from the start, craving the good old days of retro gaming and pure gameplay in a casual manner but just enough to ease them through their busy lives.

Well how far back are you talking here? From what I've seen classic gamers who grew up with the likes of the NES or Atari 2600 think the DS and Wii are full of casual crap that in no way resembles retro gaming. I agree that the DS and Wii were intended, and amazingly successful, at getting gamers who grew out of the hobby back into it, but if you're craving the good old days the Wii or DS are the last places you should look. Well, except for Mega Man 9.

They've grown up with the games industry and actualy have seen it all, and need something novel yet casual and simple in their lives?

 

[Jim Steele]

I really don't buy into the bullshit that the industry is obsessed with graphics over gameplay. Frankly that's just one of those off-the-shelf, cookie cutter criticisms that people love to perpetuate but don't really stand up to scrutiny from where I'm standing. Sure, there are some blatant examples of this like Crysis (it's photorealistic! But you'll need tomorrow's hardware to run a game you effectively played 10 years ago...). But most of the *good* devs are focussed on delivering a decent gameplay/story experience - and making it look good is often a secondary concern. "Good enough" is becoming the paradigm, often to preserve framerates and dev time.

Valve, Bioware and Bethesda's titles in the last ten years are good examples of this. Hell, Valve are so focussed on tight game mechanics over pretty shaders that they've been using the same engine for 5 years.

Frankly I'm of the opinion that the gaming industry is better than it's ever been. I'm not saying it's perfect, but at the moment there's a surge of ideas that's delivering some wonderful experiences. Sure there's a lot of crap coming out, but there always was and there always will, so I'm not worrying about that.

Now days you have games like the annual sports games, Pokémon Whatever, the Fallouts (Insert Western RPG here), the countless FPSes that, aside from Doom 3, haven't made any real advances in a decade, Final Fantasy remake/sequel #359, and the countless MMORPGS that all do the same thing all at the top of the food chain. They are the most popular and highest sellers--a far cry from "Bob's Cento-Creed 'O Fun."

Annual sports games have been around since the early nineties, and there's some obvious reasons for it that go beyond publisher greed (not that I'm denying its part in proceedings). Now that there's a focus on online updates and DLC, we might actually see things change on that front.

I agree with your "Pokemon Whatever/FPS/jRPG" observations, there is a lot of saturation in those markets, no doubt, and for every innovative title that gets released there are 20 static doom clones, or ridiculous turn-based random encounter ridden bullshit. No arguement from me there. But there *are* many exceptions to the bullshit rule - Half Life 2, L4D, Dark Athena, Prey, Eternal Sonata (one of the strangest but most wonderfully designed jRPG's I've ever played), Star Ocean 4...

I don't take your point about western RPGs though. It happens to be my favourite genre and it certainly isn't static or complacent at the moment. Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are both described as "scifi action RPGs", which they are, but they are totally different (and both fucking fantastic for my money). The upcoming stuff like Dragon Age (a reinvention, of sorts, of the Baldur's Gate formula) and Alpha Protocol are making genuine innovations and I can't wait to get my hands on them.

As an aside, I would hope that titles like Brutal Legend, Braid, Portal, World of Goo etc would put to bed the myth that the industry has no imagination.

*sigh*

Why am I even bothering arguing the toss. That's a point, why *AM* I arguing the toss when I could be playing Red Faction Guerrilla? Gonna go do that right now, but lastly:

I also think it's a pretty safe bet that games like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Zelda OoT, Resident Evil, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania SOTN, etc. will remember and revered for years to come, their spin-offs, sequels, and remakes will be forgotten in a decade.

I don't think that's as safe a bet as you think, and it's interesting that two of the examples you use to make your point are the SEVENTH entry in a jRPG franchise and the FIFTH in a popular Nintendo action/adventure series (and at the time they were released, there were people complaining about the industry in the exact same terms you are today - I remember it well - now that console generation is looked upon as a golden era... and so will this one in the same span of time. Guaranteed.)

Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots will be equally as revered as their respective franchise's earlier titles in a decade's time. Besides, the big franchises tend to be remembered/regarded as a whole first and foremost.

Do you think Mario Galaxy or Mario 64 will eventually be largely forgotten while the gamers of 2019 rave about SMB 3 on the NES? 'Cos I doubt that, too.

 

[Da'an]

The only thing that was "seventh" about Final Fantasy 7 was the name "Final Fantasy".

It could have been called anything, unlike the various Zelda, Mario or Sonic games...

 

[darthraidr]

Besides, t really isn't a very fair comparison. Back then programmers had both a limited scope of knowledge and a limited source of resources and tools to work with. There's only so many ways to reinvent the horse and buggy. Now days they have everything they need to build an Enzo Racer but they're still giving us Pintos ... except now with fins and a nice set of new rims.

Also, those clones were, even at the time, pretty much buried in the abyss of who gives a shit?

On the same note, programmers back then may not have had rigid time frames to meet... though i am not sure when "back then" is. as technology improves, it certainly allows programmers, artists and designers to push boundaries further. but it also takes longer and requires more people.


it's easy to dismiss the annual sports games as not advancing. but really, go back and play some madden '89 and explain to me how it's no different from madden '09. there is a huge example of progress in that franchise. it's actually a decent benchmark for progress made with videogames. not just in terms of graphics, but content, presentation and tech advances.