Are games today really that bad?
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"Doom clone" was what they called FPS games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter#cite_note-britannica-9] before we had a whole genre for them.Raven said:
Well in that case fair enough. But by that token you could call Ridley Scott's upcoming Prometheus a 2001: A space odyssey clone... Not exactly helpful or accurate is it?Kahunaburger said:
Besides, it just goes to show how many titles were released at the time to imitate Doom's formula. But it does a major disservice to the process of innovation if you call milestones like Goldeneye, Half Life, Call of Duty and Gears of War doom clones... The world of archetypal FPS's has changed almost beyond recogntion since the original Doom.
a lot of games are shit in like every generation, but there's always SOME that are just great.
Just that our market has a much higher level of overall saturation these days, so there's more shit to shovel to find the diamonds underneath.
Just that our market has a much higher level of overall saturation these days, so there's more shit to shovel to find the diamonds underneath.
That answer is yes, but it isn't just games. Every form of entertainment has gone down a great deal in quality.
At some point the corporations realized they could put less work into making a great quality product, and the masses would still buy it. Every time that happens it justifies them putting less and less effort it.
CoD games are a great example. Released on a yearly basis, getting worse each year, and breaking sales records every time. The less effort they put in, the more money they make.
Just checked Steam quick,
Call of Duty: Black Ops, 9 Nov 2010 is still 39.99.
Every single other Cod game, including Call of Duty 13 Oct 2006 are still 19.99.
There are a few companies that seem to be exempt from this. Valve, Irrational Games, Rocksteady Studios, Rockstar Games come to mind.
At some point the corporations realized they could put less work into making a great quality product, and the masses would still buy it. Every time that happens it justifies them putting less and less effort it.
CoD games are a great example. Released on a yearly basis, getting worse each year, and breaking sales records every time. The less effort they put in, the more money they make.
Just checked Steam quick,
Call of Duty: Black Ops, 9 Nov 2010 is still 39.99.
Every single other Cod game, including Call of Duty 13 Oct 2006 are still 19.99.
There are a few companies that seem to be exempt from this. Valve, Irrational Games, Rocksteady Studios, Rockstar Games come to mind.
I'm not sure of that - I'm still in a first-person perspective, shooting stuff with my gun until it falls down. If we stray too far from the Doom formula, by switching perspective to third person, adding enough RPG (or customization) elements, focusing combat on melee, or basing the game on voxel-based building elements, we stop considering the game a pure FPS.Raven said:
Although I think the FPS genre is a good example of changes in gaming over time. There are games that (IMO) represent a clear evolution on the Doom concept, such as Halo with its advanced A.I., Hat Fortress 2 with it's simple-but-deep multiplayer, and Metroid Prime with its exploration/adventure mechanics. These games generally take things that make Doom good (fast-paced gameplay, visceral combat, minimalist story structure) and expand upon them as allowed by technological advancements and innovation.
There are also games that represent a clear decline from Doom, because they throw out the elements that made Doom fun while neglecting to add in anything interesting. Every CoD game after 4, with whack-a-mole combat and highly scripted gameplay, are a pretty clear example of this, as is basically every game that apes that formula. These games (and their equivalents in other genres) seem to me to be characterized by both a lack of understanding of what made the original formula fun, and a lack of understanding of how the original formula can be tweaked while allowing the game to remain a fun or worthwhile experience.
I think that gaming is in the best position its ever been and its making some of the absolute best games ever made. The overall quality of games has improved as well. However people dont seem to see this. The problem is nostalgia. Its twofold really. The main problem is people dont remember all the crap from the past because its crap. Will anyone in 10 years time remember kane and lynch? Nope. Will anyone remember homefront or (shudders) shadow harvest? No. Because they suck and thus there is no reason to remember them. Im willing to bet that people remember previous games as better than they actually were. By no means were they bad by any stretch (for the usual suspects anyway) but I feel that flaws are ommitted and the good is inflated. People bemoan challenge when they dont seem to realise that 'challenge' in a lot of old games was designed to extend their length and (in arcades) get more quarters. If you want a challenge you will still not have much trouble finding it.
Gaming's past has some great titles and we should treasure them but we must also allow gaming to evolve and expand into new areas. We can learn from the past but we cannot stay there forever. People like to complain about gamings current state but as a matter of fact they are still here and still playing and still having a ton of fun. That is proofenough to me that gaming is not worse but better. That we have more people gaming and we havent lost the crowd from the so called good old days.
Also id like to ask people to please stop bitching about the single player of games which have a clear multiplayer focus. Games can have both sure and its great when they get both right (see Assasins creed brotherhood) but they really try to. Id rather Battlefield to have more to the multiplayer instead of an awful single player. At the same time I dont want a tacked on multiplayer with less in the single player focused game (cant think of a good example).
Gaming's past has some great titles and we should treasure them but we must also allow gaming to evolve and expand into new areas. We can learn from the past but we cannot stay there forever. People like to complain about gamings current state but as a matter of fact they are still here and still playing and still having a ton of fun. That is proofenough to me that gaming is not worse but better. That we have more people gaming and we havent lost the crowd from the so called good old days.
Also id like to ask people to please stop bitching about the single player of games which have a clear multiplayer focus. Games can have both sure and its great when they get both right (see Assasins creed brotherhood) but they really try to. Id rather Battlefield to have more to the multiplayer instead of an awful single player. At the same time I dont want a tacked on multiplayer with less in the single player focused game (cant think of a good example).
Well I can aknowledge your point. I'd probably only end up arguing semantics about the addition of story telling, multiple dialogue heavy characters and the extensive development of AI enemies. But, after all, they are still first person shooters. What a gamer comes to expect from an FPS game then is dramatically different to now however. Both eras have their classics and poor imitations.Kahunaburger said:
In my experience the only way to move forward and continue innovation and game design is to acknowledge the roots but always think out side the box. That's how new genre's are born after-all.
If it makes you feel better call Doom a classic FPS and Half Life a modern FPS... Until the next generation at least.
I don't actually think this is correct. I didn't play that many of the classic games as a kid, so I played many of the classics like Doom, Planescape: Torment, and Super Metroid pretty recently. My general reaction to these is "wow, these games are so good for so many reasons!" They either tend to be (as in the case of PS:T) amazing executions of things that have been done by later games, or (as in the case of Doom) games that are basically a distilled version of what makes a particular genre fun. In other words, they're classics for a reason.ablac said:
Yeah, I agree with that. I also think that there isn't enough acknowledgement of innovations that work. Take Halo: you'd think that more people would be making FPS games with good AI, big open fight areas, and awesome shotguns. Instead, they took away only the two weapon limit, and here we are in linear corridors plinking away with enemies that are too dumb to flank us. And, our shotguns are useless.Raven said:
I snipped all the rest, even though everything you said is completely true, and I was mentally applauding your post all the way through.Canadish said:
You know, I like to think that these things go in cycles, and that at one point, the current situation can't maintain itself anymore, and there will be a little crashing and burning, and a vacuum will be created in which the magic of olden times will flourish again, for some time. It happens in nature, it might happen here.
And this brings us to the whole "games = art?" discussion. Because if they insist on being safe, they can't be art, by definition.Lunar Templar said:
Not trying to shoehorn that discussion into this one. The comment just stood out to me.
Pff, yes they can. Most movies from the Hayes code era were as safe as a rubber pacifier. That does not stop film from being an art form.Skoldpadda said:
OT: Gaming has changed. It is now more mainstream, and therefore can reach out to a larger audience. Many of the biggest games reflect that. Doesn't mean we can't still have brilliant core games (my 360 and PS3 library pretty much proves that to me), but they will always be overshadowed by those games that have more mass-market appeal. People, in turn, pay more attention to those games. This is different from "back in the day", when the market was core gamers, so anything that had mass-market appeal appealed to core gamers, because the market was core gamers. I still think the ratio of crap to awesomeness is still the same as it ever was, games just are not as controller-smashing difficult or spreadsheet-tastic complex as they used to be. They are still just as deep.
