Video games in general suck hard. Yes, this is mostly a rant/
NOTE: This post will exclude the mini/arcade stuff in this post for a while at least, (so games like "limbo," or "tetris.") Im talking about the major games: Skyrim, Diablo, Mass Effect, FF, Bioshock, CoD, Halo, etc etc.
* Games are generic, repetitive and lazy. Developers have gone down so many pigeon holes when it comes to design that now its really, REALLY hard to find a unique game, or one that turns the genre on its head. And I dont give a fuck about a single game thats coming out in terms of single player.
* When was the last time you played a game and thought "Oh, dude remember that time when you killed the 368th bad guy on that one level!?" "Yeah, haha that was sick!" --- No. You remember stuff like the nuke going off in real time in Cod4 and your helicopter crashes, or when you have to decide ashleys or kaidens fate in ME1, or the first time you get to the surface in half life 1, or when you jump off the beaten path in Portal against Glados will, or when Andrew Ryan shows his true self... shit like that. and almost none of it has to do with the games gameplay that you've done a billion times before. And, I know, those moments really shine because you've been hacking and slashing and shooting for hours to get there, but still.
* Here are some actual scenes/gameplay of from "Game of the year" winners. and hopefully you will see my point... this is mostly aesthetic things, but still... They suck. -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOIpeUAWCvs The Skyrim video has multiple things that make me want to vomit. 1. The voice acting is dreadful. 2. After every sentence a charachters says, there is almost a 2 second pause before the game kicks into gear... for example. "Follow the captain prisoner." Ok, waiting, waiting, waiting. ANNNDD girl starts to walk. 3. Animations suck. 4. The writing is literally something that my friends and I would have wrote in middle school. And the whole game is full of these... sure there is some clever stuff or a few quests that make you pay attention to whats unfolded previously, but fuck its bad. THIS IS A GOTY WINNER! When was the last time a Best picture winner had even 1 fucking scene that had a combination of bad acting, camerawork, etc etc. yet this game and every GOTY winner has these shitfest things happening all the time, but since you are actually "playing" you dont notice them that much. -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZY-sXrQeh0
*The Mass Effect scene has generic string music, (to make things really epic or w.e fuck you.) terrible animations and camera work, i mean half the damn scene is the camera zooming out or in to show really cool stuff or something idk. This is the ending to the god damn game! So shitty! And every fucking game has hundreds of these moments. God damn armeggedon has a better ending than this, and lets be real its michael bay directing.
*Why cant a game come out that has a new gameplay mechanic or multiple for every level. Like take the exampe of the NeoTokyo level in Timesplitters2. Your basic goal is to follow this chick, but the idea is you cant get too close, so you have to stay far enough away, and mulitiple conflicts occure that causes the player to think on his/her feet and solve the puzzle/get to the end. And thats a really basic gameplay idea, that doesnt get enough attention. Like fuck, think of normal every day things you do, that could be translated into the gaming world. And something as simple of a 20 foot radius attached to a charachter and you cant enter that radius isnt hard to program. and adding a quick time event isnt what i mean for a new idea. Seriously, there are INFINITE gameplay mechanics that nobody makes because, who cares right now? But guess what, in 2 years after the new consoles come out or crysis 3, people will realize that its just the same fucking games with slighty better controls and graphics. Its going to take a 2001 a space odyssey to revive games or a Blue Velvet or a something. games suck and people will start to get sick of them, or maybe im being to harsh. Just imagine a game that has a new twist every level, or every section of the level. If games want to take that next step into the quality of movies which the CAN, they need to step it up. Books to Movies to Games, it's just logical.
*Games can be interactive which just adds a whole new level of awesome that movies and music just cant touch, without being too gimmicky like the movie "Clue" which featured different endings in different theatres depending on which ones you went to. Or Bjorks new album which can be slightly altered with some buttons. I mean even though games are pretty dull atm, the fact that a million people can play 1 game, and all have a different expierence is tremendous, and thats not even bringing up what multiplayer or co-op can do... and I love games I really do, I play sc2 the instant I get done with work, or make Farcry2 maps for my friends when im bored, but my god dont you guys see whats happening? These big important titles are groing stagnant, while the rest of the industry is going mobile, and casual... will gamers really be fine with playing 5 dollar arcadey games on their new smartphones? I'll close this BS rant with some great movie scenes, these scenes games just havent matched, yet. IN ANY WAY. Heavy rains got some interesting moments Limbo does, Half life does, Uncharted does, Bioshock does etc etc, but at the end of the day they still suck.
And lastly, games need to stop with the shitty fucking writing, i mean jesus christ gears of war or fucking skyrim
Firstly WniO I just want to say I love Agria Sky, thanks for making it.
You are vastly underestimating the effort it takes to create a good game. While I agree with your criticisms of Skyrim, the fact is that it does offer the player a good deal of freedom within the constraints of the world.
I'm not sure why people hate on the animations of the Mass Effect series. You know how difficult using motion cpautre and refining it is? the music may be generic in your opinion, but to me, it is very emotional.
I feel that somewhere out there, there is a kid working on a indie game not giving a fuck about what the standards of game making is currently. He sees what game making is an art form and he is going to show the world how special our little hobby can actually be.
NOTE: This post will exclude the mini/arcade stuff in this post for a while at least, (so games like "limbo," or "tetris.") Im talking about the major games: Skyrim, Diablo, Mass Effect, FF, Bioshock, CoD, Halo, etc etc.
I read up to this part and realized you don't know anything, Tetris is bigger than all those games you listed combined. It always was and it always will be.
Well people who are really into video games know that all the game you have named are pretty much mediocre. D1 was good when it was released though but H'n'S are just way to primitive to be exciting, it gets old pretty fast (or at least it should lol). Any game involving massive amount of grinding is a big nono for me.
All the others names you have listed are dumbed down versions of superior games. SS/Dx > Bioshock Dx/Bg/Torment/Vtm > FF / mass effect and all the pseudorpgtrash. Quake/old Ut/CS > Console FPS
The funny think is that i was playing Unreal 1 last week and i realized that the guys who made Halo COMPLETLY copied Unreal haha. Except that almost everything is worse and you don't get level like the Sunspire, cool music and fast paced action.
Also on a pure aesthetic level, all the games you have listed are ugly except D1 (Even if it is technically limited) and Bioshock (but that's the only thing they got it right lol).
On May 18 2012 19:05 Sinensis wrote: Sounds like you lost your passion. Mass Effect and Skyrim are great.
And The Social Network is a terrible movie.
What is Skyrim great at exactly? the only thing great about Skyrim is that there is a lot of content to waste your time with. The quality of the content and the time wasted is fucking abysmal, worse than almost any RPG released the last decade, excluding Bethesda's own games. The acting, the dialogue, the maturity, the combat system, the balance, the storyline, the bugs. It's not great. And you totally missed his point. Even if you think Mass Effect and Skyrim are great, you'd have to be delusional to believe they have gotten to the point movies has. They're still like 2 year old kids playing around in a sandbox in comparison. Most games in the 90's had a lot of depth and creativity, a lot closer to rival other mediums than this present corporate greed mainstream industry which is all about pumping out successors and claiming ip rights while trying to squeeze out some last money with half-assed patches which somehow were renamed to DLCs. Give me one, just one fucking game rivaling stuff like Grim Fandango or Planescape Torment in 2012 and I'll shut up.
On May 18 2012 19:05 Sinensis wrote: Sounds like you lost your passion. Mass Effect and Skyrim are great.
And The Social Network is a terrible movie.
What is Skyrim great at exactly? the only thing great about Skyrim is that there is a lot of content to waste your time with. The quality of the content and the time wasted is fucking abysmal, worse than almost any RPG released the last decade, excluding Bethesda's own games. The acting, the dialogue, the maturity, the combat system, the balance, the storyline, the bugs. It's not great. And you totally missed his point. Even if you think Mass Effect and Skyrim are great, you'd have to be delusional to believe they have gotten to the point movies has. They're still like 2 year old kids playing around in a sandbox in comparison. Most games in the 90's had a lot of depth and creativity, a lot closer to rival other mediums than this present corporate greed mainstream industry which is all about pumping out successors and claiming ip rights while trying to squeeze out some last money with half-assed patches which somehow were renamed to DLCs. Give me one, just one fucking game rivaling stuff like Grim Fandango or Planescape Torment in 2012 and I'll shut up.
There are still good games and good game studios not all developers are subsidiaries of Activision. Shadow of the Colossus is better than any movie I have ever seen and the HD release on PS3 was just last year.
You're giving the 90s games too much credit. Try replaying them now, you will find that very few if any actually match that impression, especially regarding the gameplay innovations.
Fallout:NV, Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1 and Witcher 1/2 are really really good relatively recent RPGs in my book, on the other hand I think Skyrim totally sucks (feels like playing WoW in single player) and Diablo 3 is OK but nothing special.
How about Portal 2? Isn't that fun fresh gameplay? Or Relic's RTSs?
And to be honest I hate most indie games these days that try too hard to "innovate", because too often their whole gameplay is dependent on one gameplay gimmick, and as soon as that gets old (which is within 15 minutes for me on average) the game gets totally boring.
You seem to be arguing that games suck for two reasons: bad gameplay and bad drama/aesthetic/plot execution (non-gameplay stuff).
I'd say non-gameplay stuff has certainly IMPROVED in recent years. It's been slow, steady improvement. You complain about stuff like voice-acting, but a lot of these games see big name, talented actors voice-actors signed up. I think games need to make mroe effort to make better use of these talents, and create more unique and interesting characters, rather than the same old archetypes that we see again and again. But on the whole, this aspect has improved. Furthermore, even if plots remain rather predictable and dull, with the exception of a game like Bioshock (perhaps), the manner of story-telling has certainly improved. Gone are the days of text boxes and cut-scenes as the only way to tell a story. You list a number of great story-telling moments yourself:
You remember stuff like the nuke going off in real time in Cod4 and your helicopter crashes, or when you have to decide ashleys or kaidens fate in ME1, or the first time you get to the surface in half life 1, or when you jump off the beaten path in Portal against Glados will, or when Andrew Ryan shows his true self
These are great moments, and unique acheivments in the field of videogames. I think it's problematic to compare video-games to movies, as you do, (how could any videogame be remotely relatable to The Social Network? They offer entirely different experiences) but if you are criticising the quality of story-telling in videogames, I think there are clear signs of progress rather than the reverse.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with gameplay, which is the most important aspect of a game, in my opinion. Again, I think innovation continues. Portal is the stand-out example of innovation that comes to mind, but also the games that have spawned the huge wave of anonymous carbon copies should be seen as succesful, innovative contributions. Games like the first Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3. It's hard to think of them as anything other than banal, thanks to the endless waves of sequels and imitators, but those titles became influential because they were great games in the first place. Other examples that spring to mind are the Relic games like Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, which did amaaaaazzing things for the RTS genre, but didn't explode to the extent they deserved.
There is a lot of monotonous trash in videogaming, but this is also the case in mediums such as movies, music and books. On the whole, I think we can see progress, not decay. Be patient!
TL;DR innovation in gameplay is out there, and games are improving as a story-telling medium, slowly but surely
On May 18 2012 21:18 Random() wrote: You're giving the 90s games too much credit. Try replaying them now, you will find that very few if any actually match that impression, especially regarding the gameplay innovations.
Fallout:NV, Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1 and Witcher 1/2 are really really good relatively recent RPGs in my book, on the other hand I think Skyrim totally sucks (feels like playing WoW in single player) and Diablo 3 is OK but nothing special.
How about Portal 2? Isn't that fun fresh gameplay? Or Relic's RTSs?
And to be honest I hate most indie games these days that try too hard to "innovate", because too often their whole gameplay is dependent on one gameplay gimmick, and as soon as that gets old (which is within 15 minutes for me on average) the game gets totally boring.
Games of that era deserve mucho credit. I have been a gamer since 1988 and have to say that the late 90's espcially was the best period for video gaming I have encountered, FFVII, Zelda Oot and Metal Gear Solid standing out from a great number of games from the same time.
I do agree that games of late are less innovative in many aspects and gameplay wise can be lacking. The aspect which I believe has stopped the gaming industry from failing is the inclusion and widespread use of online multiplayer we see available of a high number of game releases.
As an old school gamer myself at heart, do I play the elitist jerk card of newer age games? - No. I actaully purchased Skyrim and D3 on release and enjoy playing them, otherwise I would just not bother if I found them no fun or thought they sucked.
On May 18 2012 21:36 blubbdavid wrote: Play shadow of the colossus. It's a PS2 game, and holy shit, it blew my mind. I value it higher than my alltime favorite BW.
fuck, sinensis ninja'd me
The HD version on PS3 is better to play, mainly because it doesn't lag during some of the larger Colossi. Even the Ps2 version was released in the past decade though. There are definitely still good games.
On May 18 2012 21:18 Random() wrote: You're giving the 90s games too much credit. Try replaying them now, you will find that very few if any actually match that impression, especially regarding the gameplay innovations.
Fallout:NV, Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1 and Witcher 1/2 are really really good relatively recent RPGs in my book, on the other hand I think Skyrim totally sucks (feels like playing WoW in single player) and Diablo 3 is OK but nothing special.
How about Portal 2? Isn't that fun fresh gameplay? Or Relic's RTSs?
And to be honest I hate most indie games these days that try too hard to "innovate", because too often their whole gameplay is dependent on one gameplay gimmick, and as soon as that gets old (which is within 15 minutes for me on average) the game gets totally boring.
Games of that era deserve mucho credit. I have been a gamer since 1988 and have to say that the late 90's espcially was the best period for video gaming I have encountered, FFVII, Zelda Oot and Metal Gear Solid standing out from a great number of games from the same time.
I do agree that games of late are less innovative in many aspects and gameplay wise can be lacking. The aspect which I believe has stopped the gaming industry from failing is the inclusion and widespread use of online multiplayer we see available of a high number of game releases.
As an old school gamer myself at heart, do I play the elitist jerk card of newer age games? - No. I actaully purchased Skyrim and D3 on release and enjoy playing them, otherwise I would just not bother if I found them no fun or thought they sucked.
In the 90s the games were innovative because the game design was an unexplored field, people didn't know what worked and what didn't, they had to try stuff and whole new genres were discovered. The limited technology available at also played a big role, improvements in computing technology during the 90s were enormous and opened new paths for game development every year but were not yet so advanced that developing content for a video game would cost a hundred million dollars.
But now pretty much everything that is possible within the traditional gaming framework (a controller, a display/sound device and a computer) has been explored, there is not that much new stuff that you can try and expect it to sell (because you know that other people have already tried that before and that didn't work), the technology limitations are mostly gone (not in the sense of improving visuals, but in the sense that probably any sensible gameplay idea that someone could come up with could be implemented without too much problems) and the limiting factor is the profitability of those ideas.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that although the 90s were indeed a golden age in gaming, game devs had much more room for innovation back then, and because the development costs were not astronomical they could afford to release experimental and niche games, which is, sadly, just not economically viable anymore.
1/5. Why are you in a gaming forum if you hate games? Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Games are evolving. Every genre has improvements in depths and complexity of gameplay. From RPGs now you have MMORPGs, and a ton more features. In RTSs, you can add racial diversity, tech trees, skill trees, heroes, resource management... the list goes on. If you think that the first RTS is the same as the most recent one, you must be living under some rock.
No new gameplay mechanics? Portal would like to have a word with you.
Please think before posting. If you're drunk, please don't post.
On May 18 2012 21:18 Random() wrote: You're giving the 90s games too much credit. Try replaying them now, you will find that very few if any actually match that impression, especially regarding the gameplay innovations.
Fallout:NV, Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1 and Witcher 1/2 are really really good relatively recent RPGs in my book, on the other hand I think Skyrim totally sucks (feels like playing WoW in single player) and Diablo 3 is OK but nothing special.
How about Portal 2? Isn't that fun fresh gameplay? Or Relic's RTSs?
And to be honest I hate most indie games these days that try too hard to "innovate", because too often their whole gameplay is dependent on one gameplay gimmick, and as soon as that gets old (which is within 15 minutes for me on average) the game gets totally boring.
I've actually replayed Fallout 1 and 2 recently, and not long time ago Planescape and Baldur's Gate. They didn't lose anything in my opinion. Gameplay is super smooth and the storylines are better than in most of the movies...
The whole OP can be disregarded the minute we realize that Skyrim is a "blockbuster", much like Transformers. Do you say that cinema sucks because of Sucker Punch and American Pie? No. Because there's still Valhalla Rising or El secreto de sus ojos for a more demanding public, just like Baldur's Gate will always be there to welcome those who seek a higher form of expression. Or Okami, or Shadow of the Colossus, or MGS2.
On May 19 2012 01:25 Kukaracha wrote: The whole OP can be disregarded the minute we realize that Skyrim is a "blockbuster", much like Transformers. Do you say that cinema sucks because of Sucker Punch and American Pie? No. Because there's still Valhalla Rising or El secreto de sus ojos for a more demanding public, just like Baldur's Gate will always be there to welcome those who seek a higher form of expression. Or Okami, or Shadow of the Colossus, or MGS2.
On May 19 2012 01:25 Kukaracha wrote: The whole OP can be disregarded the minute we realize that Skyrim is a "blockbuster", much like Transformers. Do you say that cinema sucks because of Sucker Punch and American Pie? No. Because there's still Valhalla Rising or El secreto de sus ojos for a more demanding public, just like Baldur's Gate will always be there to welcome those who seek a higher form of expression. Or Okami, or Shadow of the Colossus, or MGS2.
Yeah but that started happening in the latter half of the 00's. Before that you almost never saw a game being promoted like crazy and eventually selling millions of copies even though it was not so good. Prior to that only the real gems were selling by the millions, bw, myst, doom, etc. So you can say that games nowdays are bad cause of the blockbuster identity they have assimilated.
The Grand Theft Auto series has very well delivered narratives as far as blockbusters go. I include Red Dead Redemption in that spiritual series. The Uncharted series isn't awful even tho it's cookie-cutter.
Right now, I think video game graphics are improving so much that developers want to push the limit and see what they can do with that. I don't see a problem with that. It's not always "creative" in terms of gameplay, but in terms of visuals, games have really made a big leap in the last 10 years. I, for one, can at least appreciate that aspect where games have really advanced themselves.
On May 19 2012 01:47 ninazerg wrote: Right now, I think video game graphics are improving so much that developers want to push the limit and see what they can do with that. I don't see a problem with that. It's not always "creative" in terms of gameplay, but in terms of visuals, games have really made a big leap in the last 10 years. I, for one, can at least appreciate that aspect where games have really advanced themselves.
Well. Final Fantasy X came out 11 years ago and I don't think we have really transcended that level of graphics yet. If you said 12 years I would have agreed with you.
On May 19 2012 01:47 ninazerg wrote: Right now, I think video game graphics are improving so much that developers want to push the limit and see what they can do with that. I don't see a problem with that. It's not always "creative" in terms of gameplay, but in terms of visuals, games have really made a big leap in the last 10 years. I, for one, can at least appreciate that aspect where games have really advanced themselves.
Well. Final Fantasy X came out 11 years ago and I don't think we have really transcended that level of graphics yet. If you said 12 years I would have agreed with you.
On May 18 2012 22:01 JDub wrote: You should play Braid. Small indie puzzle game but the only game recently (besides Limbo) that has truly blown me away.
This is a great suggestion. The way I feel is that since gaming has to appeal to the masses, most games are made for casual gamers who don't care about anything other than camping their friends in a call of duty. Most of the good ones are indie made, like the two mentioned above, Dead Pixels, etc. Otherwise, you gotta go back to the 90s and play some of the games from around then, especially some of the rpgs. The quality of story telling, gameplay, and grandness is so much higher in these games, and they have convinced me to continue playing on many occasions. Right now I am in the process of playing through Final Fantasy Tactics.
On May 19 2012 01:39 Fyodor wrote: I thought you'd be all over Heavy Rain. Being French and all.
I don't own a PS3, so I prefer not to talk about a game I haven't played. But I'm happy there's a French touch, true.
On May 19 2012 01:40 Steveling wrote: Yeah but that started happening in the latter half of the 00's. Before that you almost never saw a game being promoted like crazy and eventually selling millions of copies even though it was not so good. Prior to that only the real gems were selling by the millions, bw, myst, doom, etc. So you can say that games nowdays are bad cause of the blockbuster identity they have assimilated.
There were also gems that didn't sell so well, like I have no mouth and I must scream. Not only that, but you have to consider the commercial success of a product proportionally to the market it can reach, which was smaller before 2000. Final Fantasy VII for example was a blockbuster, and many agree on its quality.
In short, "blockbuster" is a relative term and is not necessarily pejorative. The Social Network and Barry Lindon (which wasn't a great sucess but emplyoed great means of production), or even Eyes Wide Shut are in this regard "big movies" with a big budget. Are they bad because of this?
Many also seem to forget that video games are young, just a little more than 40 years old. You could compare it to cinema in the late 30s... was it only made of masterpieces? Sure no, Hollywood was rising and even before this the majority of the production was designed as entertainment. People mostly remember Fritz Lang but at the time he was a filmmaker among others. The first talkie, The Jazz singer, was in fact pretty crappy.
Video games aren't bad nowadays. There are just more video games, and the industry is very profitable. That's all. Saying the contrary is equal to saying that music is crap today, but there were many crappy composers in Bach's time, and there are plenty of good bands today.
On May 18 2012 22:01 JDub wrote: You should play Braid. Small indie puzzle game but the only game recently (besides Limbo) that has truly blown me away.
Agreed
The witcher 2 is an awesome single player game. It's way better than skyrim. The witcher 2 reminds me of Braid in a lot of ways. Awesome graphics, gameplay, music, storyline, everything.
Then there's starcraft 2, the best game ever. Good games do exist. Just don't play fable 3.
In the last 2-3 years or so, only Amnesia: The dark descent fascinated me. I'm a big fan of good gameplay games (I don't care about graphics and stories) and how they did Amnesia is just really innovative and surprising.
On May 18 2012 21:18 Random() wrote: You're giving the 90s games too much credit. Try replaying them now, you will find that very few if any actually match that impression, especially regarding the gameplay innovations.
Fallout:NV, Dragon Age 1, Mass Effect 1 and Witcher 1/2 are really really good relatively recent RPGs in my book, on the other hand I think Skyrim totally sucks (feels like playing WoW in single player) and Diablo 3 is OK but nothing special.
How about Portal 2? Isn't that fun fresh gameplay? Or Relic's RTSs?
And to be honest I hate most indie games these days that try too hard to "innovate", because too often their whole gameplay is dependent on one gameplay gimmick, and as soon as that gets old (which is within 15 minutes for me on average) the game gets totally boring.
I bought a lot of games from gog.com and i have to say: Might and Magic 4&5 (_not_ HOMM) are still great - eventhough more than twice as hard as i remembered. I remember early on in the dwarf mines going against the dwarven king and dying 20 times until i finally found a way to defeat him with my party combination.
Baldurs Gate 1&2 are also still as good as i remembered. I have (actually not that) fond memories of facepalming when i learned that koveras is sarevok and of epic battles where i had to retry them 10 times until i got them right and noone in my party died. Or of meeting Drizzt Do'Urden and stealing his swords.
Master of Orion 2 is more fun than any space strategy - or more modern 4X - game that came after it (and i've tried just about all of them). It is still a great feeling, fighting through endless wars until you finally have the breakthrough and get deathstars and then flying around blowing up all the planets.
I also still enjoy Dungeon Keeper 1&2, though i can't name any specific memories.
The Realms of Arkania games are even more complex than i remembered but still fun, eventhough i die on every corner. For a long time i remembered the phrases of every spell you could cast in that game (about 40 or so which all had different phrases, not just sound effects). I also remember travelling through some swamps and my whole party going ill and me not having the items/skills to heal, so all of them died a cruel death.
I even had a blast playing Cannon Fodder and Syndicate again, more specifically of accidently blowing up my own guys with grenades or rocket launchers. In Syndicate i remember thinking "That gun sounds like fun, i wonder what it does" (i think it was plasma gun or so) and then shooting at opponents, hitting the wall next to my soldiers and all of them dying a fiery death. Or the persuasion target getting caught in the crossfire, causing the mission to fail.
Quake 2, the panic where you jump into water to get to the other side... and then suddenly get attacked by a fish and struggle to get out of the water ASAP.
Master of Magic - still an unrivalled game - where i still mourn the loss of many brave heroes that i sent into a dungeon containing "Earth elementals"... only to find out that they also contained Basilisks who turned the whole group into stone one by one. Or where i went into a blue magic node against weak phantom warriors... and then suddenly invisible monsters killed all my units. I tried all games that pretended to be MoM, including the recent Warlock - Master of the Arcane, but none even got close.
X-Com: Enemy unknown (aka Ufo Defense in the US) and Terror from the Deep. So much fun... until you go up against either the opponents that turn your soldiers into zombies that in turn turn other soldiers into zombies or the mind controlling aliens... or both. I remember lots of frustration, my whole team panicing, soldiers shooting each other in panic... but also so much joy when you finally managed to beat the aliens after lots of saving and loading.
It's not all just nostalgia, some older games _are_ better than modern games. I have played all of the mentioned games in the past 2-3 month and still continue to play those i haven't beat yet.
Games that i haven't played recently but that i still love: * Tie Fighter and - more recent - X-Wing: Alliance. If i ever buy a joystick again, i'd get XW:A immedatly because it's still the most fun space combat game ever (and don't talk to me about X or such). * Descent 1 (not Descent:Freespace). I remember the nausea you could get from losing your orientation as well as the epic multiplayer fights we had on the school network.
Honorary mention due to khaldor: I nearly forgot the Commander Keen Series eventhough i played all the parts for days. Such great games.
Most of the games that are discussed here in this thread I have never played and only know by name or from youtube videos. However, from what I do know I tend to agree with the OP.
Bottom line is: better graphics don't necessarily make for better games.
Skyrim was fun and was pleasing to look at, but I honestly grew bored with the game because the combat just got boring and uninteresting. And I just got busy with real life to spend hours exploring. And i bought it for the PS3 and it was soo buggy at first that I couldn't even play so that turned me off.
Mass effect 2 and mass effect 3 (never played 1 cause again I bought them on ps3 but ME 2 on ps3 does give a recap of ME 1) Were amazing games. Honestly were the best games I have played in a long time, and personally I'd put these above Zelda OOT, FF 7, and w/e other games id place in my top 5. I am pretty biased with this franchise, but it had everything I wanted in a story.
On May 18 2012 21:36 blubbdavid wrote: Play shadow of the colossus. It's a PS2 game, and holy shit, it blew my mind. I value it higher than my alltime favorite BW.
I second this. SotC was epic, and definitely one of my top 3 games of all time.
I do sympathize with you, about how most video games suck. You have to actively seek out original games. I play a lot of offbeat/indie games. I always have wondered why video game companies spend so much time and energy on gameplay/graphics, etc, but can't seem to hire a decent storyteller or voice actor. I would think the cost of that would be quite low compared to all the other production elements.
On May 18 2012 21:34 ZessiM wrote: You seem to be arguing that games suck for two reasons: bad gameplay and bad drama/aesthetic/plot execution (non-gameplay stuff).
I'd say non-gameplay stuff has certainly IMPROVED in recent years. It's been slow, steady improvement. You complain about stuff like voice-acting, but a lot of these games see big name, talented actors voice-actors signed up. I think games need to make mroe effort to make better use of these talents, and create more unique and interesting characters, rather than the same old archetypes that we see again and again. But on the whole, this aspect has improved. Furthermore, even if plots remain rather predictable and dull, with the exception of a game like Bioshock (perhaps), the manner of story-telling has certainly improved. Gone are the days of text boxes and cut-scenes as the only way to tell a story. You list a number of great story-telling moments yourself:
You remember stuff like the nuke going off in real time in Cod4 and your helicopter crashes, or when you have to decide ashleys or kaidens fate in ME1, or the first time you get to the surface in half life 1, or when you jump off the beaten path in Portal against Glados will, or when Andrew Ryan shows his true self
These are great moments, and unique acheivments in the field of videogames. I think it's problematic to compare video-games to movies, as you do, (how could any videogame be remotely relatable to The Social Network? They offer entirely different experiences) but if you are criticising the quality of story-telling in videogames, I think there are clear signs of progress rather than the reverse.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with gameplay, which is the most important aspect of a game, in my opinion. Again, I think innovation continues. Portal is the stand-out example of innovation that comes to mind, but also the games that have spawned the huge wave of anonymous carbon copies should be seen as succesful, innovative contributions. Games like the first Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3. It's hard to think of them as anything other than banal, thanks to the endless waves of sequels and imitators, but those titles became influential because they were great games in the first place. Other examples that spring to mind are the Relic games like Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, which did amaaaaazzing things for the RTS genre, but didn't explode to the extent they deserved.
There is a lot of monotonous trash in videogaming, but this is also the case in mediums such as movies, music and books. On the whole, I think we can see progress, not decay. Be patient!
TL;DR innovation in gameplay is out there, and games are improving as a story-telling medium, slowly but surely
Voice acting? Having a lot of funds with a large studio of actors doesn't yield results. Voice acting became steadily worse as the gaming industry were put into mainstream. The focus lies elsewhere. Sure, there are some not so recent gems, Psychonauts for instance, but the reason why voice acting only gets worse and worse is because the voice actors are separated from the game itself. In games like Gabriel Knight 1/2 and the earlier LucasArts games - the actors were very much involved with the game itself which allowed them to make more of an effort and shaping their own dialogue to make more sense. In almost all modern games, they get a very cheesy script from terrible dialogue writers that try to cater to a wide audience. The actors are hired, record some lines, receive money and leave. Sure, this might work for movies or to some degree anime where the actors can adapt very well to different roles and stay close with the script editor, but it apparently doesn't work for games. Voice acting has steadily decayed since the 90's. That's a fact.
Some guy said that gameplay and ideas have been exhausted and that 'indie' games only go for gimmicky things that last for 15 minutes. This is just outrageously wrong, the video game industry is still in an infant stage, and there is so much to explore and innovate. The problem is that the industry goes toward a few big corporations that only release successors and safe games such as bastardization of movie IP rights (Hello EA). Daring and revolutionizing big studios such as Bullfrog, Interplay, Westwood, Looking Glass Studios are all gone and replaced by EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Betheseda which are owning almost the whole (PC) market. This is not an improvement in any way, it's a gigantic decline for PC industry as a whole and only a delusional child who haven't played games in the 90's would not understand that.
Sure, this might sound unnecessarily harsh, some things like (lifelike) graphics, animation and physics has obviously improved (although very slowly, because of the limitations of consoles... Just look at Crysis 2 vs Crysis, Dragon Age 2 vs Dragon Age for example, not much happens in the graphical area cause they want to release on a multi-platform), but these things are all unnecessary if there is no substance beneath. I've also liked some recent games like Demons Soul/Dark Souls and The Witcher/Witcher 2. Hell, I even liked Heavy Rain despite all its issues. I'm not saying all modern games are shit. But we sure aren't advancing in terms of games that break the boundaries or games that are genuinely interesting in both concept, depth and gameplay. Almost every modern game is a poor recycle of a genre or series, and don't fucking tell me 'it was like that in the 90's too' because NO. It wasn't. A lot of amazing games were released every year. And this isn't nostalgia talking, you'd see if you played some of them now too, after getting used to the graphics.
Do you know why gaming companies make non-innovative, money grubbing games? Because they've found it works.
It's so much easier to design a half-baked game and run a big ad/hype campaign than it is to actually make a good game (this takes longer too). And the majority of gamers will simply buy the "next big game" that everyone is talking about, because casuals don't have high standards, and some gamers will buy it even if they know it sucks. There's very little incentive to innovate, or to craft more detailed elements, because the way to maximize revenue is to release games as fast as possible, recycling as much as you can, for a full price tag of 50 or 60 USD.
To make a comparison, it's sort of like blockbuster action films (specifically looking at Transformers and Wrath of the Titans here). You skimp on a good plot and character development to put in as much explosions, action, CGI, hot women, and advertising as you can. Great entertainment for 2 hours, but not much re-watching value. Indeed, many scenes in COD:MW2 in particular are like watching a movie on your computer screen.
Things like good writing, good voice acting, and innovation, I mean, who even needs this sort of stuff when a sizable chunk of your fanbase is 13 year old kids using their parents money? Or a bunch of males just looking for a few hours of cheap thrills? Good writing and innovation would prevent Activision from releasing one COD game a year, and we can't have that!
tl;dr and conclusion: don't blame gaming companies for ruining games, blame the gamers
On May 18 2012 18:49 Boblion wrote: Well people who are really into video games know that all the game you have named are pretty much mediocre. D1 was good when it was released though but H'n'S are just way to primitive to be exciting, it gets old pretty fast (or at least it should lol). Any game involving massive amount of grinding is a big nono for me.
All the others names you have listed are dumbed down versions of superior games. SS/Dx > Bioshock Dx/Bg/Torment/Vtm > FF / mass effect and all the pseudorpgtrash. Quake/old Ut/CS > Console FPS
The funny think is that i was playing Unreal 1 last week and i realized that the guys who made Halo COMPLETLY copied Unreal haha. Except that almost everything is worse and you don't get level like the Sunspire, cool music and fast paced action.
Also on a pure aesthetic level, all the games you have listed are ugly except D1 (Even if it is technically limited) and Bioshock (but that's the only thing they got it right lol).
Buddy, what Unreal 1 and Halo are you playing???
Genius games appear at about the same rate as genius in other art forms. Same for "enjoyable" and "shitty".
It's really hard for the game development process to allow for good writing -- and for good writing to be realized in a way that does it justice.
That's why games like Shadow of the Colossus are really special and very rare. One producer's uncompromising vision made manifest by a devoted team of talent... and it pays off.
Most major games suck because they are a jumble of assets cobbled together to fit some half-conceived story and an under-iterated gameplay design.