zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 111,860
- 31,346
- 146
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
Amen to that.
I noticed how children's cartoons today suck compared to my generation... just to verify it empirically I went and looked up cartoons from my gen, then from my dads gen, then from his dad's gen... And each generation backwards I went they became less stupid. I have to say that cartoons from the 1950s were amazing compared to what we have today.
What cartoons were you looking at? What was there in the 1950s that could be compared to things like Spongebob Squarepants, Fairy Odd Parents and Rockos Modern Life?
Thats the point you see, there are AWESOME games from 20 years ago that I can still play today. Early MegaMan games, for instance. Yes there were also rubbish games, but there were games so good that they are still played today. THAT is something modern games fail at - longevity.
However, there arent many games from the last 10 years that I would consider classics. There are far fewer games produced today that will be remembered in 10 years time, than 10 years ago. Only standout games like BioShock deserve a place in history, if you ask me. Things like Dragon Age 2 and Crysis 2 will be forgotten by next year.
You really don't think there are games today that will be worth playing years from now? Get out a bit, every generation has great games and horrible games. God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon Age, Skies of Arcadia, Final Fantasy X, Super Smash Bros, Zelda, Metal Gear, take your pick of these and multitudes more. You're just attached to the older games because people love old crap, especially when they identify it with their own generation.
If Megaman came out today, this entire forum would rail it for being shallow, dated, too linear, and infinitely 'consolized'.
gothamhunter
Diamond Member
- Apr 20, 2010
- 4,464
- 6
- 81
I think a big problem that the developers are facing is innovation and being able to provide "bang for your buck".
Gaming has been around for 20+ years and the amount of unique ideas are becoming fewer and fewer because so much has already been done. Nowadays there is always that group that goes "pfft I'm not buying this it's just a ___clone" or "wow way to rip off ___" or "it's a fun game but it's just another *insert genre*, I've played so many of these already.
When gaming first started and "expert" reviews began, gaming was fresh, exciting, unique; all qualities that the gamers and reviewers noticed and understood. The NES, the first breakthrough console, grabbed households by the balls and said "PLAY ME, IM EFFING AMAZING" and no one disagreed. Then came the SNES/Sega era, which allowed for additional controls, a larger color pallete, the ability for the gamer to do MORE because there was more room; the SNES is praised as quite possibly the greatest console of all time because it had so much innovation and quality *new* games that even today people still want to play them.
Playstation/Dreamcast/N64 era introduced polygons as being mainstream and added a new dimension - 3D. I remember FREAKING OUT when I played Spyro or Resident Evil for the first time - I couldn't believe the jump from SNES to Playstation. This era created more genres and developed existing ones as we know them today; FPS, Survival Horror, 3D platformer, Action Adventure, RPG's.
Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox era looked at the previous generation and said "how can we make it better"? The obvious update were the graphics; being able to mainstream larger discs and better hardware allowed for more data to be processed and increased the graphic quality, as well as make games become larger. They included movie playback (minus the Gamecube) and helped introduce the console to the living room and to the family rather than in the bedroom. The Xbox introduced 4 player games natively, which also paved the way to the future.
Current era - the problem we're at now is this: where is the innovation from the previous era? There were some graphical improvements for sure, but it seems like the trade off of making games look good is that there's less time to develop those games to provide a quality, fun experience. It's almost as if there's TOO much focus on making the game look perfect, and only then do they worry about the gameplay. This is a double sided blade; they want their game to measure up to the competition graphics-wise, and there are also those who are screaming (WTF EFFF YOU THIS GAME IS AMAZING BUT WHERE IS MY DX11 WTF DEVELOPERS!!!!) There is also too much focus on movement tracking technology and 3D; although these are innovations, they just seem so out of place in a market dominated by the controller and the failed Virtual Boy.
The second part, which I will make a lot shorter, is the "bang for your buck". When games first came out, many were really, really short, but they offset that by making them either a) really difficult, b) implement a checkpoint system where you have to start over unless you make it X far, or c) once you turn it off, you start over. Obviously there are exceptions (Zelda for one). Now you can quicksave every 5 seconds if you really wanted to, so there's no worry or desire to try your best/hardest because you can always F9 your way back to your previous save. I think this tends to make gamers rush through a game, unworried about the consequences.
A lot of people love classics, but if any *new* classics were to be released, they mostly would flop because a) they would be too difficult (the new MegaMan games were fantastic but a lot didn't like them because of the difficulty) or b)they wouldn't last long and people would be upset because they spent $20 or so dollars on a game they been in one evening.
tl;dr version - Gaming is on the downslope because lack of innovation and uniqueness (not the developers fault, there's just so much already done) and because people would not be welcome of more *classic* style games.
Gaming has been around for 20+ years and the amount of unique ideas are becoming fewer and fewer because so much has already been done. Nowadays there is always that group that goes "pfft I'm not buying this it's just a ___clone" or "wow way to rip off ___" or "it's a fun game but it's just another *insert genre*, I've played so many of these already.
When gaming first started and "expert" reviews began, gaming was fresh, exciting, unique; all qualities that the gamers and reviewers noticed and understood. The NES, the first breakthrough console, grabbed households by the balls and said "PLAY ME, IM EFFING AMAZING" and no one disagreed. Then came the SNES/Sega era, which allowed for additional controls, a larger color pallete, the ability for the gamer to do MORE because there was more room; the SNES is praised as quite possibly the greatest console of all time because it had so much innovation and quality *new* games that even today people still want to play them.
Playstation/Dreamcast/N64 era introduced polygons as being mainstream and added a new dimension - 3D. I remember FREAKING OUT when I played Spyro or Resident Evil for the first time - I couldn't believe the jump from SNES to Playstation. This era created more genres and developed existing ones as we know them today; FPS, Survival Horror, 3D platformer, Action Adventure, RPG's.
Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox era looked at the previous generation and said "how can we make it better"? The obvious update were the graphics; being able to mainstream larger discs and better hardware allowed for more data to be processed and increased the graphic quality, as well as make games become larger. They included movie playback (minus the Gamecube) and helped introduce the console to the living room and to the family rather than in the bedroom. The Xbox introduced 4 player games natively, which also paved the way to the future.
Current era - the problem we're at now is this: where is the innovation from the previous era? There were some graphical improvements for sure, but it seems like the trade off of making games look good is that there's less time to develop those games to provide a quality, fun experience. It's almost as if there's TOO much focus on making the game look perfect, and only then do they worry about the gameplay. This is a double sided blade; they want their game to measure up to the competition graphics-wise, and there are also those who are screaming (WTF EFFF YOU THIS GAME IS AMAZING BUT WHERE IS MY DX11 WTF DEVELOPERS!!!!) There is also too much focus on movement tracking technology and 3D; although these are innovations, they just seem so out of place in a market dominated by the controller and the failed Virtual Boy.
The second part, which I will make a lot shorter, is the "bang for your buck". When games first came out, many were really, really short, but they offset that by making them either a) really difficult, b) implement a checkpoint system where you have to start over unless you make it X far, or c) once you turn it off, you start over. Obviously there are exceptions (Zelda for one). Now you can quicksave every 5 seconds if you really wanted to, so there's no worry or desire to try your best/hardest because you can always F9 your way back to your previous save. I think this tends to make gamers rush through a game, unworried about the consequences.
A lot of people love classics, but if any *new* classics were to be released, they mostly would flop because a) they would be too difficult (the new MegaMan games were fantastic but a lot didn't like them because of the difficulty) or b)they wouldn't last long and people would be upset because they spent $20 or so dollars on a game they been in one evening.
tl;dr version - Gaming is on the downslope because lack of innovation and uniqueness (not the developers fault, there's just so much already done) and because people would not be welcome of more *classic* style games.
gorcorps
aka Brandon
- Jul 18, 2004
- 30,741
- 456
- 126
IMO your post just shows why gaming is NOT on a downslope. Everything you said here is right, we seem to be out of ideas. The part about this that's good is that almost every genre is saturated now. But the downside is that popular genres are OVER saturated so it's hard to stand out.
Back in the day so many things seem to stand out because there wasn't much competition. These days games get lost because they can't do much to stand out, and if they do stand out even a bit they get lost in the flurry of semi-decent games that get released every month. It's hard to sit back and think of many stand-out games because everybody has their genre of choice. Once they find their top game in that genre everything else just seems to pale in comparison, or be a "rip-off" of the thing you liked.
Some people like slower shooters like Battlefield, some people like quick arcade type shooters like CoD. Then each series has its own line of games that people like. Some people like CoD MW2 the best, some like BO more, some haven't liked a CoD game since they've moved out of WW2. Gameplay is incredibly subjective which is why you can't say one "sucks" more than the other. You can't argue bugs, but you can argue enjoyment. You can even argue visuals to a point. That's the thing... the field is so saturated these days that you might have already seen your perfect game whether you know it or not. Now everything seems disappointing because it's either NOT your perfect game, or the things it shares with that game people complain it's a ripoff.
People rag on Crysis 2, but I personally find it better than the first. Maybe I like the urban setting more I don't know, but I do know that it fits my play style better. You can say one is better than the other for you, but you can't say anything past that. I can't peg exactly why I like the 2nd one more, but I do. The single player may "feel" less open, but the way I'm playing it I seem to have more options. The first one gave you more space to work with, but I always felt that my choices were limited. If I wasn't being stealthy then I was dead... so the wide open feeling was restricted by the gameplay balance of the rest of the game.
I think a lot of that is due to economics. Games are more expensive to make now so the publishers are becoming risk-averse; preferring "safe" ideas like sequels, movie tie-ins or clones of proven games.
It means developers have less chance to take risks or experiment, and they often have to work to a tight deadline which can mean the games come out half finished.
It's no coincidence that the best games come from developers who don't care about frequent release schedules - Valve, Blizzard, Rockstar etc
Look, I'm replying to you Dan, but this goes to all of you. First off, you're all wrong, let's just hammer that home before I get any further. Now, when did I say my golden age of gaming meant there wasn't a single bad game? No bad games? who makes that claim?! There were bad games on the Atari and there were sure as shit bad games in 1995.
Before I explain why I picked a golden age of gaming, let me first discuss music because I see that paralleled. The obvious assumption is that because I wasn't born recently, I should think music in 2010 sucks. But that isn't true, I love current music, the roots are putting out their best albums, royskopps comeback, pendulum, infected mushroom, glitch mob is getting big, helloweens 7 sinners was amazing, deadmau5, daft punk doing the tron soundtrack, crystal castles, chemical brothers new cd, brother ali, BTs new music is better than ever, etc.
However, if you asked me what my golden age for music is, I'd have a much more difficult time even stating an opinion. Music is so broad and I feel I haven't really been involved enough in it to make such claims. Also, music is mature enough, that a lot of what is occurring is evolutionary and not revolutionary.
I cannot say the same for video games. I've been around, and knee deep in this shit, since it began. I was playing moria on a unix terminal as a kid, I played brimstone and other ebook adventures, I played the sierra series and ultimas and final fantasies and mario brothers, I've had every generation of gameboy.
When I list 1995 to early 2000s as a golden age, it isn't because there wasn't any bad games. It is because the sheer number of revolutionary games that came out during that period. A period that we may never see another of. We saw the birth of the FPS genre and the MMO genre. Games that were played so long and fervently that people lost their jobs.
Mechwarrior 2 came out in 95, Mechwarrior 3 in 99, Mechwarrior 4 in 2000. Meridian 59 cmae out in 1995. Sierra's The Realm came out in 96. DAoC came out in 2001. Unreal came out in 98. UT came out in 99. Fallout 97. Fallout 2 98. Baldur's Gate 98. Baldur's Gate 2 - 2000. Planescape Torment 99. Deus Ex 2000.
I didn't stop because I ran out of good games, I stopped because I could do this all day.
The birth of the FPS genre started a few years earlier with Doom and Wolfenstein.
However you have listed some sequels there which aren't revolutionary in the same way that the originals were. I also remember Unreal being critisised in many quarters for being unimaginative.
Since then we have had the Halo games, Bioshock, KotoR, WoW, Call of Duty, Morrowind, Oblivion, Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
I don't know why people think its "Revolutionary" or "original" that makes a game good or bad.
Its the execution. The problems of modern gaming isn't lack of originality, even original games are ruined by voracious souless monsters like EA.
The issues are, in order of significance:
1. Incomplete buggy games that are never fixed. Release game, cash in, leave it to rot.
2. Hostile to gamer practices: Obtrusive DRM, craptacular DLCs, etc. (you can have good DLCs, for example, Neverwinter Nights premium modules program... except that only resulted in several good "first episodes" none of which got finished, so that was bad in turn)
3. Bad design decisions that result in unfun games. For example things like "realism" (according to project directors who are obviously artists, not scientists) or "artistic vision" saddle us with annoying and tedious things like inventory weight / size limits and limited bullet counts and breakable weapons.
Original is nice, sometimes... but I will take "well executed" over original any day.
Its the execution. The problems of modern gaming isn't lack of originality, even original games are ruined by voracious souless monsters like EA.
The issues are, in order of significance:
1. Incomplete buggy games that are never fixed. Release game, cash in, leave it to rot.
2. Hostile to gamer practices: Obtrusive DRM, craptacular DLCs, etc. (you can have good DLCs, for example, Neverwinter Nights premium modules program... except that only resulted in several good "first episodes" none of which got finished, so that was bad in turn)
3. Bad design decisions that result in unfun games. For example things like "realism" (according to project directors who are obviously artists, not scientists) or "artistic vision" saddle us with annoying and tedious things like inventory weight / size limits and limited bullet counts and breakable weapons.
Original is nice, sometimes... but I will take "well executed" over original any day.
Those are your only comments on what I posted? I'm going to take that as a success then. Bioshock is nowhere as good as System Shock, Wow nowhere as good as EQ, Kotor nowhere as good as BG (same for ME and DA), Morrowind and Oblivion nowhere as good as... shit anything, I'm not sure what games I'd compare them to because they are open ended abortions of the RPG genre.
It's almost like a list of cheap knockoffs.
gothamhunter
Diamond Member
- Apr 20, 2010
- 4,464
- 6
- 81
Your note about Morrowind and Oblivion; they're an innovation, a new genre that has its own userbase. It's not a knockoff of anything else or a crappier version of x or something like that. It is its own thing, the open ended RPG, which then helped other genres develop open-ended versions (FarCry, STALKER, an open ended action/adventure game I cant remember, etc...). To compare TES: III+ to something like Final Fantasy or Baldurs Gate doesn't work; they aren't the same. It would be like comparing Final Fantasy to Baldurs Gate - it also doesn't work, they are two different genres (JRPG and WRPG), or Serious Sam to Rainbow Six Vegas - they are also two different genres (arcade-style shooter and tactical shooter).
You could say OMG RAINBOW SIX IS MUCH BETTER THAN SERIOUS SAM but that's a bold claim because they aren't comparable. Now, you could say "Hey, I enjoy tactical shooters more than arcade shooters" and that would be something that makes sense, because you prefer one genre over another, and I guess inherintly you would like R6 more than SS. Or saying "I prefer some sort of structure in my RPG's instead of open-endedness" would show you would prefer something like FF or BG over TES III+, but saying OMG OBLIVION CAN NOWHERE NEAR COMPARE TO FINAL FANTASY VI or something similar doesn't really compute.
Just my two cents on that blurb. I'm indifferent about the rest.
Last edited:
Take it as a success of what exactly? If you are just going to brush off Morrowind and Oblivion as being abortions then you are just being absurd.
Neither of the BG games have aged well at all and the character development in KotoR, ME and DA surpassed them by a huge amount.
And as for saying that EQ is better than WoW... there is a reason that hardly anyone plays EQ any more.
You also managed to list Unreal, a game that was criticised for being bland when it was released.
I could compare Oblivion / Morrowind to Betrayal at Krondor, Ultima 7, Gothic, Arena, Wizardry and any number of other large scale PC RPG from that era.
Personally, I'd rather play Stonekeep even though that game is not very similar. It also came out in 1995 and was a much more engaging game.
Last edited:
gothamhunter
Diamond Member
- Apr 20, 2010
- 4,464
- 6
- 81
Those would be fair comparisons, and if you think the others are better, then you are entitled to your opinion
Cerb
Elite Member
- Aug 26, 2000
- 17,484
- 33
- 86
gothamhunter
Diamond Member
- Apr 20, 2010
- 4,464
- 6
- 81
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
speaking of how crappy modern pop music is... (btw, you should look up who composed the notes and wrote the lyrics for those songs pop artists sing... they are just pretty faces to put on a stage... heck, their voices aren't even that great thanks to sound artists digitally enhancing them!)
Anyways, you know what is good music? Mozart! Beethoven! etc... and btw, mozard WAS a "pop artist" of his time, its just that back then an artist actually had to be good at what s/he does instead of taking a dump on a canvas and calling it "abstract"
Anyways, you know what is good music? Mozart! Beethoven! etc... and btw, mozard WAS a "pop artist" of his time, its just that back then an artist actually had to be good at what s/he does instead of taking a dump on a canvas and calling it "abstract"
TheSlamma
Diamond Member
- Sep 6, 2005
- 7,625
- 5
- 81
Don't blame PC gaming.. I don't know if you have noticed but those SNES games that didn't have any bugs were measured in kb they were so small and they were linear as all hell.
Why don't you go find out how many lines of code it took to make a game like Castlevania on the NES and then see how many it took to make Lords of Shadow.. then tell me with all those lines of code how many years of game testing it would take to get through that just to release a single game.
It's not the fault of PC's.. it's the fact that all games, PC and console are getting massive in size.
Oh and for the record games are still getting consolized galore. When they take out the lean function in Call of Duty.. yeah you know LEAN.. like we were able to do in FPS's for over a DECADE then there is NO good argument that consolizing is not occurring.. Game Over
Or you could ditch pop all together and go listen to George Winston or a million other amazing musicians.
Not much of an excuse I am afraid. Sure, if the bugs were limited to obscure ones that not many people found then that would be acceptable but the sheer amount of fixes that some games need mere days after release is because they skimped on testing.
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
exactly... I have SEEN PC games that are massive and modern and bug free, they are rare but exist. And so do console games with such conditions.
PC gaming acted as a "lab" that showed greedy ceos that they CAN get away with releasing buggy untested products and never fixing them, so they do.
The requirement for that is internet updates (which all modern consoles have) to allow for fixing some critical bugs. But just the capacity wouldn't be enough without proof that customers will bend right over and take it.
TheSlamma
Diamond Member
- Sep 6, 2005
- 7,625
- 5
- 81
TheSlamma
Diamond Member
- Sep 6, 2005
- 7,625
- 5
- 81
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 22K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
News NVIDIA and Intel to Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products- Started by poke01
- Replies: 411
-
Facebook
Twitter