An attempt to Focus on the good: ways modern gaming is better than ever.

[Smooth Operator]

Well there should be some:
- plentiful games
- plentiful game sources (legal or otherwise)
- can get any game at any time, almost any price as long as you search
- plentiful game coverage, sponsored or not you can always find some relevant info
- graphics improved, mechanics got smoother, and the tech to run all that does everything else faster also

Obviously there are just as many issues but that isn't what we came for.

 

[Clearwaters]

More and more Japanese games are getting localized nowadays. Gone are the days of us getting only every other game in a series. Also the localizations themselves are improving; unfortunately this means we may never see a glorious train wreck like Revelations: Persona again.

 

[Inazuma1]

AAA developers are bolder than before!
Dedication to game quality is more long term!

Those are both flat out lies. AAA has demonstrably regressed to the point of paranoid risk aversion. Almost every Ubisoft game now has shoehorned in the Assassin's Creed parkour controls whether it benefits the game or not. Adventure games and survival horror are considered 'dead' genres despite the indy scene showing that not to be true. As for quality and long term being in the same sentence, if you think long term quality means "release it unfinished now and patch it to completion later" then yes they are dedicated to doing that. Of course, it still doesn't explain why a new Madden gets released every year instead of doing yearly roster update patches and just having one Madden game for 5 plus years.

Controls. Try and go back to some of those games back in the good old PS2/XBOX/Gamecube era and earlier... Yeah, they control like crap now. Not that there's no current games that control shitty, but back in those days it was the standard to have unwieldy controls in 3D games.

I never understand why gamers keep saying that the old games they used to play 'control like crap now' just because the old control styles are no longer used in the modern age of analog. Tank controls for me are like riding a bike. If I play a game that has tank controls, I slip back to my 1998 days where games like that were normal and can control the game just fine. Are you that weak of an 'old school' gamer that you can no longer handle the old control scheme or are you just so spoiled by the modern style that going back to old ways takes you out of your comfort zone? It's why I can say I still remember what buttons to press when I play a SNES game. I look at my PC pad that has the buttons color coded to the 360 and it doesn't effect me at all. I hit the red B button, but since it's a SNES game I unconsciously think "I'm pressing A now to confirm my selection!" I hit the yellow Y button and think "I'm pressing X now to engage the Arwing's boost function!" Seriously, if you can't handle old control schemes then you aren't old school, you're a wannabe.

 

[DOOM GUY]

snip

Well, some early 3D games do have kind of awkward control schemes, but it just takes some time to learn and you should be fine... 6th gen stuff shouldn't even be a problem though, they generally have pretty easy control schemes.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Controls.

Try and go back to some of those games back in the good old PS2/XBOX/Gamecube era and earlier... Yeah, they control like crap now. Not that there's no current games that control shitty, but back in those days it was the standard to have unwieldy controls in 3D games.

I never understand why gamers keep saying that the old games they used to play 'control like crap now' just because the old control styles are no longer used in the modern age of analog. Tank controls for me are like riding a bike. If I play a game that has tank controls, I slip back to my 1998 days where games like that were normal and can control the game just fine. Are you that weak of an 'old school' gamer that you can no longer handle the old control scheme or are you just so spoiled by the modern style that going back to old ways takes you out of your comfort zone? It's why I can say I still remember what buttons to press when I play a SNES game. I look at my PC pad that has the buttons color coded to the 360 and it doesn't effect me at all. I hit the red B button, but since it's a SNES game I unconsciously think "I'm pressing A now to confirm my selection!" I hit the yellow Y button and think "I'm pressing X now to engage the Arwing's boost function!" Seriously, if you can't handle old control schemes then you aren't old school, you're a wannabe.

I'm not talking about tank controls, I'm not talking about NES/SNES era games, I'm talking about the PS1/PS2 era 3D games, most of which controlled like garbage, because it was the early days of 3D gaming. As well as games back then not having enough memory for super minute contoller inputs.

And where the hell are all these "old school" remarks coming from?!

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Very halfhearted admission of some things being good and accusations about not being old school enough (?), so much for focus on the good...

I love you grumpy escapists, don't ever change I kid I kid most of you aren't that grumpy.

Although it's interesting, most comments seem to focus on effects on the synergy between internet and gaming. Is it just the internet being awesome that makes modern gaming better?

One thing I noticed is that modern games seem a lot harder to get stuck in without being able to figure out what to do next, I think part of that might be thanks to my superior adult brain as opposed to when I was a kid but sometimes plating old stuff from GOG it's easy to get stuck. Not realising what you are supposed to do is frustrating. Less so thanks to being able to look it up on the internet(Internet again!)

 

[SKBPinkie]

This is the Escapist. Why do people even hope for any degree of positivity around here?

Seriously, most of the people who flocked over are here mainly because of zero punctuation and probably have shrines built to Totalbiscuit in their bedrooms. If you want "criticisms" and nothing more, then this is the right place for you.

 

[DOOM GUY]

This is the Escapist. Why do people even hope for any degree of positivity around here?

Seriously, most of the people who flocked over are here mainly because of zero punctuation and probably have shrines built to Totalbiscuit in their bedrooms. If you want "criticisms" and nothing more, then this is the right place for you.

I just find it difficult to be enthusiastic about most modern games, though there are still some I absolutely love, like Hyperdimension Neptunia, or I'm really looking forward to, like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

 

[Mutant1988]

This is the Escapist. Why do people even hope for any degree of positivity around here?

Seriously, most of the people who flocked over are here mainly because of zero punctuation and probably have shrines built to Totalbiscuit in their bedrooms. If you want "criticisms" and nothing more, then this is the right place for you.

I didn't know that being critical against industry trends forbids us to appreciate what is still good or that is good in spite of all the awful thing.

I can tell you that I love Earth Defense Force, am looking forward to MGS:V Phantom Pain (Heavily critical against GZ, later got it for a measly 13 euro) and not so long ago I happened upon the game Ziggurat which turned out to be an absolute gem.

Very few things are entirely one-sided, critique least of all. As Yahtzee put it in one of his videos, paraphrased, 'It's by us criticizing what they do that developers can learn to do better.'

Very halfhearted admission of some things being good and accusations about not being old school enough (?), so much for focus on the good...

I love you grumpy escapists, don't ever change I kid I kid most of you aren't that grumpy.

I like games. In fact, I adore games.

I don't care much for the industry. It's too obsessed with growth and they want it now rather than later and is willing to cut all the corners (Read: End User Rights, Convenience and Freedom) to get it.

What's good is still mostly good. It just has more garbage attached to it.

 

[small]

i love being able to go back and play games now that were unplayable on modern systems thanks to gog.com

the rise of the indies and medium budget games is a huge plus

 

[Sassafrass]

There's more of them and the majority of the ones I've played over the past two/three years haven't been too bad, with only a couple making me want to throw the game off a cliff.
They're a lot better looking and easier to get into now, which means I personally get into more games and expand my horizons, going into genres that I've never touched before.
The F2P market isn't as shitty as it was made out to be, after I dipped my toe into it.
Sales. Glorious, sexy sales.
Early Access does have SOME gems on it.

 

[SKBPinkie]

This is the Escapist. Why do people even hope for any degree of positivity around here?

Seriously, most of the people who flocked over are here mainly because of zero punctuation and probably have shrines built to Totalbiscuit in their bedrooms. If you want "criticisms" and nothing more, then this is the right place for you.

I didn't know that being critical against industry trends forbids us to appreciate what is still good or that is good in spite of all the awful thing.

I can tell you that I love Earth Defense Force, am looking forward to MGS:V Phantom Pain (Heavily critical against GZ, later got it for a measly 13 euro) and not so long ago I happened upon the game Ziggurat which turned out to be an absolute gem.

Very few things are entirely one-sided, critique least of all. As Yahtzee put it in one of his videos, paraphrased, 'It's by us criticizing what they do that developers can learn to do better.'

The problem is that people spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing rather than talking about what the industry does right. Appreciating good work and commenting on it is just as important, but it simply doesn't get that much attention on gaming forums.

The problem with most forums is that it's where people who like video games talk about how much they hate it.

I'm not saying criticism should be banned; people need to just tone it down a bit.

 

[Silvanus]

Good points:
* Indies! The gaming landscape no longer has to rely on big companies and big-name developers.
* Greater diversity in both style and storytelling (though there's still a way to go).
* Graphics are inarguably a great plus in modern gaming. They're not as important as certain developers would have us believe, but at least a game has the potential to look pretty much however the creator wants now.

 

[stroopwafel]

Games look prettier than ever. Granted, graphics don't make a game but it's a visual medium so it atleast accounts for something. Detailed open game worlds are created that would be unimaginable in the past. Quality testing of games have improved, espescially if you consider how dramatically the complexity of games have increased since the 8/16/32-bit days. This also ties in to the fact that online connectivity is now an integral part of modern gaming so broken games can be 'fixed' over time. Something that also wasn't possible in the past. When a game was broken, it stayed broken(kinda like Bethesda games).

I think games really came on their own during the legendary Super Nintendo/Megadrive days. When they evolved from being mere distractions to entertainment you could immerse yourself in for weeks and with unlimited potential. And I think in this regard we are still just scratching the surface. Games are definitely more impressive and spectacular than ever, but at the same time many modern games suffer from a loss of agency and are prone to repetition and tedium. A trend we've only seen to kind of revert in recent years when many more high-profile games started to incorporate old-school game philosophies in their design. Admittedly these games are kind of drip-fed to us but they are there, which I think is a promising sign.

Modern gaming really is like a 'win some, lose some' situation for me. The technological possibilities are nearly endless, but the financial stakes are high and the corporate culture that have come to dominate the games industry hasn't exactly been beneficial to creative freedom. Which shows in most games. Not that they are bad, but, you can see the cautious approach in every part of their design. It takes a visionary genius like Hidetaka Miyazaki to break this mold, and prove to gaming companies that there is money to be made outside tried and true 'conventional' game-design as well.

Finally modern gaming is more welcoming to indies than ever. Though they too often try to recapture old magic by trying to become a nostalgia trip or be 'artsy' and try to pull at the heart-strings way too obviously. I don't blame them though, as their budget ofcourse limits their options. I kind of miss that 'mid-segment' of gaming between indie and 'AAA' that had budget to make bigger visions a reality but never to the extent that it was game-design by checklist. Espescially during the PS2 era many novel ideas were born that way.

But anyways, modern gaming isn't bad and the technology is amazing. If developers could go back to that 'dare to dream' mentality of old, than, good times ahead.

 

[Recusant]

Gamers don't complain about games (and the industry as a whole) because they hate them; they complain because they love them, and want to see them improve. If they hated them, they'd just walk away.

I would say that much of the problem is that a great many of the changes that have come are most definitely complaint-worthy; they may (and I stress may ultimately be mostly positive, but the downsides are often enormous: rising production values mean rising production costs, causing not only delays in release, but a need to sell boatloads of copies to show a profit. More people playing means more games being made (and more time and money being spent on them), but it also means that solid standby genres, elements and attributes are being neglected in favor of following the money by targeting a notoriously indiscriminate demographic. The rise in public acceptance of gaming (when I was a kid, admitting you were a gamer in public was tantamount to asking to be beat up) means less ostracism, but its destruction as a subculture means being forced into the larger superculture it emerged from (and presumed acceptance of its norms under fear of even greater backlash), horribly stifling creativity. The rise of digital distribution removes power from the hands of physical retailers, but hands it over to digital retailers. Sales open up people to things they wouldn't be able to get otherwise, but force producers to adhere to a model that may not be able to support them. The list goes on and on (and on and on and on...).

It's not that it's a case of "one step forward, one step back" so much as it is "one step forward, one step back, two steps to the left".

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'll stray away from the norm a bit and mention sound quality and music.

Yes, 8-Bit songs were endearing and often absurdly memorable, but I for one adore the full orchestral scores, electronic music and other improvements we have now.

Additionally, the general sound quality has gotten incredible. I'm currently playing through The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and not only is the music great, but the ambiance is unmatched.

 

[laggyteabag]

Games are prettier than ever, and for the first time, I can be seriously impressed by things other than the skybox. Character models are just on the cusp on the uncanny valley, and I sometimes cannot tell if something is real or not.

Being able to buy a game online and download it immediately after my purchase is something that I also take for granted. Gone are the times where I have to plan a trip out to the city, and then find my way to the game store just to find out if they have the game that I want in stock. Now I can just search something on Steam and buy a game from 20 years ago without having to worry about if they have a copy or not.

More powerful hardware means that battles actually look like battles, and crowds actually look like crowds. Assassin's Creed: Unity might be average at best, and it might also be plagued with technical issues, but I must admit, I was certainly impressed with the amount of NPCs that they have on screen sometimes. Does more always equal better? Not always, but for the few cases that it does, my god is it impressive.

 

[Angelblaze]

Despite (and probably thanks to) the constant shouting for more diversity, we probably have more racial, gender and genre diversity in gaming then ever before.

And its mostly thanks to indies. WTG indies. We love you