Video Games Are Incredibly Stupid!

[d1abolic]

Article of the month anyone?

Text

 

[aphex]

:Q

 

[sheselectric]

I agree with this article. Then again, I'm a girl.

 

[amnesiac]

I began to read the article but I could literally hear the sound of my IQ plummeting. I had to stop before I became stupid, or worse, lobotomized like that article's author.

What an incredibly inane article. Sad part is, I don't think it's a joke, either.

 

[Ameesh]

i do agree with the fact that older games on avaerage had much more substance to the game vs cool 3d graphics. many of the sierra and lucarts games come to mind, now lucasarts keeps remaking the same pod racer game over and over again.

 

[Beau]

That article is incredibly stupid.

 

[vi edit]

I think the author was too stupid to figure out where the "change camera perspective" button was.

 

[yllus]

Let me sum up the point of that article in one sentence:

Games today tend to focus on looking and sounding good, rather than on the gameplay that makes it fun to play.

I date the beginning of the trend at Quake I where everyone became convinced 3D graphics were god. Personally I thought Duke Nukem 3D > Quake I except in multiplayer.

Not to sound too Romero-like, but gameplay should be god - everything else is secondary. Nothing else has really changed.

 

[Jzero]

One or two of his points are almost valid.

He lost it for me when on one of the pages of responses, he admits that he never played Battlechess, and all he knew about it came from a single review he read! He might as well be one of our own ATOT posters pulling information out of his butt based on hearsay.


The one response about the merits of Dreamcast did make me realize that a lot of the DC games do have the simplistic and addictive elements that kept me interested in video games during my Atari 400 and C-64 days. I always joke with my brother that Sega's developers take the most boring and mundane concepts (UP DOWN UP DOWN CHU CHU CHU!) and turn them into strangely enjoyable games....it's quite amazing.

I can't even get into PC games anymore...

 

[Nefrodite]

diablo is really stupid click on the monsters with your cursor and they die!! woo!!

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: Nefrodite
diablo is really stupid click on the monsters with your cursor and they die!! woo!!

but baulders gate 2 was awsome!

 

[beat mania]

These critics and, unfortunately, most video game players have a basic misunderstanding about the nature of games. They believe that the purpose of a game is to imitate something in life. They think the more realism the game has, the closer it will come to imitating life, and the better the game will be. They are simply wrong about this. We don?t play games as a substitute for reality. Actually, no one knows why we do play games, but reality has nothing to do with it.

very true.

 

[ElFenix]

games + beer = escape^2

 

[d1abolic]

Yeah Diablo is stupid if you look at it that way. But it's one of the best games i've ever played.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Sad to say, I agree. I haven't played a video game since Need For Speed III: High Stakes (haven't bought a PS2 Gran Turismo 2 rig yet...). I have way too many better things to be doing.

 

[Spagina]

The article is hard to read, but the guy makes many valid points. I'm a heavy... heavy... heavy gamer and I have aspirations to get into the field. But I feel that it's going entirely the wrong direction. I find myself playing all my old videogames all the time. The new stuff doesn't even bat an eye, it's all the same cookie-cutter crap basically. There's really no substance to most of the new games, and that's a sad fact. The Sim-City games, X-com, Civilization series, old Lucasarts adventure games, old Sierra adventure/RPG games, and old Origin Games. These companies got it right but somehow missed the boat entirely later on. All Lucasarts releases anymore are these insanely stupid pod racer games and bad clones of other games. The only good title they have released recently is JKII and that's a cookie-cutter FPS. Sierra is the same way, they used to be a game powerhouse, now they barely release any great games. They have some good titles here and there, but mostly they just repackage and sell the same games instead of making new ones (e.g. Half-life, Half-life GOTY, Half-Life Platinum, Half-Life release Year 5, Half-Life etc. etc. etc.)

I don't know, I'm rambling now, but it's kind of sad when you sit down and compare older games to newer games. The newer games companies have missed the boat, all they care about are the graphics and sound, rarely any thought is seriously put into gameplay and story anymore. Most companies just want to showcase how good their artists and programmers are with a game engine instead of making a real game.

 

[xirtam]

LOL!

ROFL!

FOTCLOL!

Oh... the article was supposed to be a joke, right?

 

[amnesiac]

Originally posted by: Spagina
The article is hard to read, but the guy makes many valid points. I'm a heavy... heavy... heavy gamer and I have aspirations to get into the field. But I feel that it's going entirely the wrong direction. I find myself playing all my old videogames all the time. The new stuff doesn't even bat an eye, it's all the same cookie-cutter crap basically. There's really no substance to most of the new games, and that's a sad fact. The Sim-City games, X-com, Civilization series, old Lucasarts adventure games, old Sierra adventure/RPG games, and old Origin Games. These companies got it right but somehow missed the boat entirely later on. All Lucasarts releases anymore are these insanely stupid pod racer games and bad clones of other games. The only good title they have released recently is JKII and that's a cookie-cutter FPS. Sierra is the same way, they used to be a game powerhouse, now they barely release any great games. They have some good titles here and there, but mostly they just repackage and sell the same games instead of making new ones (e.g. Half-life, Half-life GOTY, Half-Life Platinum, Half-Life release Year 5, Half-Life etc. etc. etc.)

I don't know, I'm rambling now, but it's kind of sad when you sit down and compare older games to newer games. The newer games companies have missed the boat, all they care about are the graphics and sound, rarely any thought is seriously put into gameplay and story anymore. Most companies just want to showcase how good their artists and programmers are with a game engine instead of making a real game.

Very true indeed. I was aspiring to go into the video game field at one time but if you look at where it's going, it's becoming a clone of hollywood. Abuse of big-name licenses, unoriginal spinoffs, and second-rate clones of half-baked ideas. Very little effort is being put into many games to make them FUN.

The industry thinks that big names, fancy graphics and dolby digital sound will sell a game. Unfortunately, that is one of the truths. Consumers are cattle and will buy anything in a shiny box. Even "professional" game reviewers dock a game for lack of realistic sound and graphics, despite the quality of the game play. Isn't that what games are meant for? FUN?

Just like hollywood is becoming a stagnant pool of ripoffs of existing material, the video game industry will continue to wallow in mediocrity until some gifted soul with the bright idea to make a genuinely playable game comes along. Then the Suits will break his clever idea in half and toss it out the window, never to be seen again. Either that or he'll release a game in shareware where he'll never see a profit due to piracy.

Anyone have a solution? Someone is listening.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Uhm... modern FPSes are stupid because you just walk around and shoot people over and over again. What's the reason behind Pacman being a smart game? Walking around eating stuff up over and over again?

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0
I began to read the article but I could literally hear the sound of my IQ plummeting. I had to stop before I became stupid, or worse, lobotomized like that article's author.

What an incredibly inane article. Sad part is, I don't think it's a joke, either.

 

[StageLeft]

In the 70s and 80s, people of all ages played video games. Today they are played almost exclusively by teen-age boys or by young children.

Eh, that's total crap. Where is he getting these numbers - the 18-25 crowd plays a LOT of games, for instance.

BTW I totally disagree that games are, overall, trying to use graphics to replace game play. Look at a game like warcraft3 - the graphics are good yes but it's going to be a legend because it's FUN. Everyone knows that a game that looks good but sucks is going to do poorly. Gameplay is the goal - the problem is it's hard to make a good fun game. Anybody with some developers can put together a game that looks ok - that's not the hard part (just license an engine from IDsoftware for instance) - the hard part is making a game with good gameplay. That is the goal.

 

[CraigRT]

I have way too many better things to be doing.

Like posting on AT

I like video games.. alot of the people I know that play are between 30-50.

 

[no0b]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1
Uhm... modern FPSes are stupid because you just walk around and shoot people over and over again. What's the reason behind Pacman being a smart game? Walking around eating stuff up over and over again?

Yea what the author failed to realize is that games from the 80's are basically the same as now as far as gameplay goes.

I didnt read all of it but he also missed that games are a challenge also I.E. in CS you are competting.

 

[kami]

I began to read the article but I could literally hear the sound of my IQ plummeting. I had to stop before I became stupid, or worse, lobotomized like that article's author.

What an incredibly inane article. Sad part is, I don't think it's a joke, either.

Ditto.

Also did you see this at the bottom? hahahah

More notes: My essay had an inauspicious beginning. At first I was sure it would be published in a magazine, but it was rejected by two print magazines and one on-line magazine. So in August, 2001, I decided I would just post it on my site.

Loser...