Do the games suck, or is it just me?

[Sigfried1977]

ps: I just wondered, do any console racing games have a proper manual gear box (not a sequential)
eg: can i go straight from second gear to fifth if I so desired ?

Pretty sure you can do that in both Forza and GT5 as long as you've invested a hefty sum of money into a premium steering wheel with gear box and pedals.

 

[Cyan]

This thread was a rather lengthy and interesting read. First of all, RancidLaunchMeat, they say that if you play Bioshock Infinite one second time you get to comprehend the greatness of the story.

______________________________________

Now on the subject at hand:::.... I think it's not all games that changed it's the society that did.

I haven't lost my passion for games, but as I am aging I don't try to read every single Gamefaqs entry about a game nor I try to be and play like the super TOP players at it. :smile: It was a common behaviour of mine.

I don't have the time and the energy anymore.

I remember that, quite a few years ago, I was a pretty above average Age of Empires 2 player, from practicing myself and watching Arch_Koven and some other great players recorded games, and developed my own strategies -often risky but fun- too.

Same with Diablo 2, I wanted to have the best loot, excellent characters, and wrote a couple of guides even, although I never found some of my most sought-after items.

But as I said, society has changed.:smile2:

I am subscribed to ZeroEmpires youtube channel (Age of Empires focused channel) and I watch videos of these kids playing a classic like Age of Empires 2.

I don't know if it is that there are many more things for them to do, or whatever, but they usually resign straight away quite early in 1vs1 games.

Back in the good ol' days people never did that, they always tried and some of them even succeeded in pulling off a comeback, some were legendary even, and Age of Empires 2 was well-known for that.

So yeah, there is more to it than people growing older, IMHO.

 

[Cyan]

There's now "If Doom was done today", part 2, nicely long and hilarious

That video was very fun to watch indeed.

I also agree with Arwin that some games have way too many cutscenes, and if they were a work of art then fine, but mostly the dialogue sucks, like your video very aptly shows.

Another thing I noticed from personal experience, is that I changed my behaviour in the way I play games.

I grab games I think I will play eventually and then months to a year or more later, never booted them up once.

I used to play my favourite games all the time, and lately, since 2008, I usually spent more time in my romantic life more than anything else.

A game like Skyrim managed to entertain me, and I recently purchased Halo 4 because I wanted to experience the love story between the Master Chief and Cortana.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/master-chief-cortana-love-sto​ry-halo-4-1B6023814

So I have games aplenty. My interest in some PC Gaming has been reborn to an extent, and I have like 40 GOG games, Dragon Age and Crysis 2 for the PC -I have both games on the Xbox 360 too-.

Additionally I recently purchased my first Steam -not a big fan of Steam and its CEO though- game ever, Age of Empires 2 HD.

I played and bought like 200 games on the X360 since it was launched. And yet my gamertag score says I achieved 22000 points.

This means I have a pile of games I left unplayed or didn't play deeply enough to be good at it.

There is still the kid in me who wants to keep that passion but I am happy with being average these days. Lucky in love, unlucky in games? Perhaps....

I expect to play a few games in the next generation, and expect some of them will hook me up enough to play many hours.

However, it will be rare and unexpected of me to buy as many games as I bought this generation.

 

[Cyan]

Perhaps, although I don't feel that's happened to me. Too much of the same is more what has cheapened brands to me, not the price that I paid for the game. I do think it explains why I'm not so bitter towards games though compared to others. If a game suddenly seems silly, I would just delete it rather than slog through it for another 5 hours. If "that section was no fun" well I wouldn't know because I would have stopped playing it the instant I wasn't enjoying it anymore. Frustrating boss? Don't know, I would have quit and deleted the game. Because of that games are still pure fun to me although I likely do play substantially less than most here. Ultimately with 8 games still in my Steam library, and 17 more sitting in my wishlist that will likely be bought in thr $2 to $15 range means I will never run out of awesome cheap gaming.

I am a keeper. And that's why my Xbox 360 Slim 250GB hard drive is at its limit most of the time, and I have to install/uninstall games that are sitting around in the HD memory.

I speak 3-4 languages regularly, sigh, and I also have a backlog of games in two languages.

Besides Halo 4, recently I haven't been bothered buying games as I've stalled playing them.

Hopefully Halo 4 -Skyrim aside- gets me playing again as I loved the series, and while I am not the biggest FPS fan, Halo is a pure old school FPS, and it makes sense to play it for being a FPS.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

This thread was a rather lengthy and interesting read. First of all, RancidLaunchMeat, they say that if you play Bioshock Infinite one second time you get to comprehend the greatness of the story.

I'm hoping that was sarcasm (on your part or one the behalf of those offering you that advice), because I can't imagine the logic in replaying a game that wasn't very good to begin with based on the premise that I somehow "didn't do enough" the first time around, or that the game is just so complex that I couldn't possibly have understood its greatness the first time.

That statement reminds me of the developer that said a while back that his game really wasn't racist, it was really an epic tale that was too complex for the gamers and general gaming media to understand. I forget what game it is, but needless to say, that sort of description of your game isn't going to convince me to purchase it.

But at least this explanation does lay the blame at the feet of the game. Whoo Hoo! It's not my fault I can't get more than a few hours return on my $60 investment.

 

[Davros]

I recently purchased Halo 4 because I wanted to experience the love story between the Master Chief and Cortana.

You bought a game to see a love story between a guy in a suit and a hologram ????

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's definitely the games that have changed and for the worse mostly, IMO.

Then again I grew up with a generation of games that appealed to intellectuals with imagination that sought a challenge.

For instance. In the first Wizardry game, the game only saved when you got to town or if you died. If your entire party died, then your party of characters was gone for good unless you created another party of characters and then went into the dungeon to retrieve their bodies and then have them resurrected for a large fee with a chance that the resurrection would fail and the characters would be lost forever. Despite the extremely dated graphics I still like to boot that up on an Apple ][ emulator to play some more. You actually had to think about the potential consequences of any action you took.

Contrast that to games now days where it's all about instant gratification. If the player isn't getting an achievement or a level or a perk or something that rewards the player every 5 minutes (it seems) then the game is doing "something wrong." Ugh. Seriously?

Not all games. There are still some gems that come out, but it's pretty gawd damn rare, IMO.

My biggest pet peeve is when did dying suddenly become, OK? No wonder most gamers now days can't handle a good challenge. Something that makes them think before they act. And I'm not talking about unforgiving action games here. For me, the bread and butter were almost all turn based. Turn based RPGs especially.

Meh. I still have no problems picking up something good and playing it for hours on end. But most of the new games that have been released in the past 5 years? Meh. There's a ton I haven't finished or had to force myself to finish. And very few that have been good enough that I've sat there and kept playing it until I finished.

I certainly haven't changed as that shows. If the game is good enough I'll play it until I look at the clock and go, "Oh carpe, it's 4 in the morning!" But more often then not, I'll start playing a game which seems good, then get distracted by a newer game and then never finish the game I started because I couldn't be bothered to pick it up and play it again.

Thank god for Kickstarter, as it seems that's potentially allowing some proper old fashioned turn based RPGs to be made.

Regards,
SB

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

My biggest pet peeve is when did dying suddenly become, OK? No wonder most gamers now days can't handle a good challenge. Something that makes them think before they act. And I'm not talking about unforgiving action games here. For me, the bread and butter were almost all turn based. Turn based RPGs especially.
Regards,
SB

Yes. The dying is okay thing is something that I still can't get over, and it's a pretty large part of the game mechanic in BL2. So you're supposed to die to use your abilities off of your second wind, or you're supposed to run straight into enemies so your shield goes down and then explodes become an offensive weapon rather than a defensive tool?

Ehh, it's a game play mechanic, and I get that. And it's just one that I'm not suited for. It seems that not only is death not something that you are penalized for, it's something that is actually being rewarded in games these days because gamers aren't going to adapt their game play style. So developers are making the game mechanics favor that method of play.

Some of the Battlefield games are okay, where if you die you have to sit out the rest of the round until the rest of the team wins or dies completely. But I think the last time I tried to play one of those games there was only a delay and then you just respawned at the nearest spawn point.

Maybe I'm just playing all the wrong games, but I remember the thing that almost "broke" Bioshock for me was the vita chambers. As soon as I realized that dying wasn't a problem, the story itself lost importance. And unfortunately, they show you the vita chambers in Infinite even before the game starts.

 

[Ethatron]

My biggest pet peeve is when did dying suddenly become, OK?

Planescape Torment?

Thank god for Kickstarter, as it seems that's potentially allowing some proper old fashioned turn based RPGs to be made.

Torment!

 

[fearsomepirate]

Let's back up a second and realize that you're comparing apples to oranges sometimes. A game targeted at an audience of 5 million is simply not going to the be the same animal as a game targeted at 100,000, like many of the classic PC games of our youths (90s, mostly). And a lot of the games we remember fondly did rather badly and lost money. System Shock 2 is probably the most prominent example of a game that's lionized today as a sterling exemplar of the superior games of the past, but so few people actually bought back in the day that its developer went bankrupt.

That said, the single-player action game campaign is definitely suffering from all the cutscenes and scripting. The whole problem with the "playable action movie" paradigm is one-off set pieces means every sixty seconds of action represents far too big a chunk of your development budget. Consequently, you've got no reason to replay a game, and the game feels like it's over way too fast for the $60 you paid. And if the multiplayer isn't something you're interested in, you just wasted your money. 2nd-tier FPSes basically are not worth touching for more than $15 today, because as soon as the 5-hour campaign is done, the game is done.

Some of the Battlefield games are okay, where if you die you have to sit out the rest of the round until the rest of the team wins or dies completely. But I think the last time I tried to play one of those games there was only a delay and then you just respawned at the nearest spawn point.

You've been able to respawn in multiplayer FPSes since Doom. Not every game should be CounterStrike.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

What I feel is gamers today, kids today, the newer gen are impatient. They want the game to change around them, not them to learn the game and conquer it. They look ar the game as a service. I paid 60dollars , now gratify me by singing my praises and rewarding me.

Mechanincs are being removed, games simplified and players are being handheld till the end, to make sure they can end the game/level actually and not give up in frustration. Cos kids get frustrated if they can't beat a level, but they don't try and evolve, they 'complain' !
Complaining won't get u anywhere in real life, u have to work it out, fight it out. But I see a major change in the newer gen who are growing up with 'instant messaging' , 'instant services' and virtual interactions. They expect softwares to be perfect, similarly, they also expect the 'world' to be in perfect service towards them. When things don't work out well, especially in a virtual world, they don't work it out, they comlpain and crib. Giving them a challenge in games is unthinkable ! They just stop playing that game and move on. To the next one , the one that makes them feel good.

Of course, I am talking generally. Not all kids are like that, but , yes, all the internet and software penwtration is sure bringing a change in attitudes. Kids give up and move on without a second thought. It was weird when I recommended Resistance 3 to people, each one of them came back with the same reply: it is too difficult ! When the game is actually too easy kn normal. RFOM's easy is R3 's 'normal'. But since the game requires you to avoid damage and not just spam 'L1+R1', people don't bother to see that, they just complain and give up and move on to the next gratification trip.


Ps: Remember Contra ! The countless afternoons spent on acing it with my cousins during summer vacations ! Try giving Contra to the newer gen and see how long they persist before moving on to another game.

 

[snarfbot]

there was a thread a while back about whether graphics really matter in your game playing experience, feeling inspired i went back and replayed undying, because hell it was a fun ass game.

still extremely fun.

you and i are not getting old, the games are just plain worse.

 

[Cyan]

I'm hoping that was sarcasm (on your part or one the behalf of those offering you that advice), because I can't imagine the logic in replaying a game that wasn't very good to begin with based on the premise that I somehow "didn't do enough" the first time around, or that the game is just so complex that I couldn't possibly have understood its greatness the first time.

That statement reminds me of the developer that said a while back that his game really wasn't racist, it was really an epic tale that was too complex for the gamers and general gaming media to understand. I forget what game it is, but needless to say, that sort of description of your game isn't going to convince me to purchase it.

But at least this explanation does lay the blame at the feet of the game. Whoo Hoo! It's not my fault I can't get more than a few hours return on my $60 investment.

Well, it wasn't sarcasm at all, that's what I heard in forums from people replying to others asking for advice about the game. Maybe they have a point and playing it a 2nd time helps to follow the story and join the dots that aren't jointed.

You bought a game to see a love story between a guy in a suit and a hologram ????

Why not?

If it's a good, well written story then I can kind of leech of the emotion that the story presents. I guess it's more about the emotions than anything else, and it seems to be an interesting story judging by the videos.

I think games are art nowadays, and I even use a pic from Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite in my FB account.

On a different note, I love to watch how the experts play and this is a video of a speedrun from the best game ID have ever made, imo:

Playing Quake in 1996 like I did was incredible. Doom was great, sure, but playing a game in actual 3D then, with such graphics and atmosphere was unique.

The game had no story at all, it was weird as hell, but it was a GAME, and really good at that.

If you add things like the Reaper Bot -created by Steven Polge, later hired by Epic- and the mods, Quake is in my top 3 best PC games of all time list.

No game captured the odd/particular atmosphere of Quake ever since, afaik.

 

[Blazkowicz]

This demo is best watched on a 100Hz or 120Hz and running on the original engine. This is how I had watched it back in the day but 60Hz vsync on with double buffering will be better than nothing too.

You only need glquake (and the full version's game files), which I think still works to this day, and download the demo which goes in a directory as if it were a tiny mod, have your .bat one liner launcher handy (which should look like glquake -width 1920 -height 1080 -nojoy +something_that_enable_water_transparency +set_the_water alpha_at 0.7 -run_that_demo) and big AA and AF forced in the driver too (add 1.2 of gamma).

 

[Davros]

The "games are simplified to appeal to the masses" argument I don't completely buy it.
I do in P.C space because the P.C was originally a business machine and used by geeks and tech heads before becoming almost a household appliance.
But the console has always been mass market, in fact it was originally marketed to children. If anything shouldnt console games have gone the other way? Originally it was for kids now as the user base has aged the average console gamer is around 30 years old.

 

[tuna]

Of course, I am talking generally. Not all kids are like that, but , yes, all the internet and software penwtration is sure bringing a change in attitudes. Kids give up and move on without a second thought. It was weird when I recommended Resistance 3 to people, each one of them came back with the same reply: it is too difficult ! When the game is actually too easy kn normal. RFOM's easy is R3 's 'normal'. But since the game requires you to avoid damage and not just spam 'L1+R1', people don't bother to see that, they just complain and give up and move on to the next gratification trip.

I think the problem is that if it is not fun there is no point in persevering. I had more fun beating one optional boss in Gravity Rush (which was really difficult) than beating R3.

If you can think of something more fun to do than playing a particular game you should do that.

 

[tuna]

Meh. I still have no problems picking up something good and playing it for hours on end. But most of the new games that have been released in the past 5 years? Meh. There's a ton I haven't finished or had to force myself to finish. And very few that have been good enough that I've sat there and kept playing it until I finished.

I do not get it. Why would you ever force yourself to play something you do not enjoy?

 

[Davros]

Theres the chance it could get better, then there is the completist mentality

 

[Kameradschaft]

I think you guys are a bit harsh. Games always where 'press a button to make something happen'.

I would even say that it is the exact opposite:

games these days have reached such a high level of quality and entertainment, that sometimes it 'might' be boring to play another near flawless piece of software...game dev'ing has reached imo a super high level of quality.

In past you are used to battle more the errors in gameplay and design in lots of the games. Games where not difficult because of an actual challenge, but because of actual bad quality software.

Imo best example is the Ninja Gaiden (never played the others, but vids show the same problem): game is fairly standard with respect to difficulty, except for the constant battling of the terrible camera work. But still you see this game getting praise everywhere for being a real challenge.

Fast forward to God of War: Ascension. The trials. Major meltdown of reviewers first, gamers second. Bla bla bla difficulty spike, bla bla bla unfair no magic, bla bla bla. Sequence was fair, just difficult imo.

Maybe you guys just getting to grown up for games? Maybe it is just that you can't enjoy gaming anymore? I know this happens to me because of less available time: GT5 sits at home collecting dust. No interest in investing hours over hours. But Motorstorm or Blur serves as a fast satisfaction of my driving game needs.

Time changes.

You make it sound like challenge in previous generations came exclusively from bad design decisions when this is not true and your example of superficial challenge is Ninja Gaiden which is one of the best action games ever and a totally fair game with the right amount of challenge even in the Master Ninja difficulty setting, anyone who spends enough time to learn the mechanics of the game will have no problem with the camera since it's part of the game part that you become better the more you play.

Also you seem to confuse polish with actual good game design when you talk about high level quality and near flawless pieces of software, if you look at the latest games of well known franchises you will definitely see polish but you will also see dumbed down mechanics, much more simple level design and lack of challenge: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Hitman Absolution, DmC, Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden 3, Final Fantasy 13 are some examples...can you say that any of these games are the best games in the series? I'd say that all of them are in the low tier and in some instances they are the worst games in their series by far.

All the complaining these days about games being homogenized (even in different genres), simplified and being created with the lowest common denominator in mind is not only in our minds, it's definitely there and it's spreading like a plague in the AAA games.

I was talking about that with a friend yesterday and we both wondered how this will turn out in the next generation, if the industry continues with this philosophy in a few years we will end up with almost all the major AAA franchises playing too similar: detective modes, automatic platforming, waypoints, cover shooting, ultra linear level design, simplified controls and "epic" set-pieces/scripted events with floors collapsing and your character falling down for the 100th time. I'm really curious to see how this will play out and if there will be a backlash or at least a reaction from the audience.

 

[fearsomepirate]

The "games are simplified to appeal to the masses" argument I don't completely buy it.
I do in P.C space because the P.C was originally a business machine and used by geeks and tech heads before becoming almost a household appliance.
But the console has always been mass market, in fact it was originally marketed to children. If anything shouldnt console games have gone the other way? Originally it was for kids now as the user base has aged the average console gamer is around 30 years old.

Good point...Skyrim is not dumbed-down compared to Final Fantasy IV. However, there are multiplayer features that N64 FPSes had that COD only recently added. A lot of that was driven by the false belief that no one in America wants to hang out with friends and play video games any more, but at least Treyarch's approach to development is sufficiently data-driven to correct their mistakes in that regard.

Now if only the "playable Michael Bay movie" paradigm would just die already.