Are games today really that bad?

[Wonderland]

Bushnell (creator of Atari) said that games today were a suckish mesh and that is terrible for the industry.

...


WHAT?

 

[Twilight_guy]

Judging the quality of something artistically objectively is very hard if not impossible. I'd say games are roughly the same as they have always been. People are the same all over though, I know that for sure, and I know that people are going to ***** without cease no matter how good or bad things are. Ignore the hordes of uninformed ignorant clods who populate the internet and believe what you want to believe.

 

[xDarc]

Undeniably worse, nostalgia having nothing to do with it. Vidya games are eclipsing other mediums in the entertainment business now and like all large commercial endeavors, they are shallow, soulless and average.

I remember getting my mind blown by how games came out with new mechanics, strategies, styles like every 6 months towards the end of the 90's. Things were evolving, changing, it was fun and challenging.

Now many games from 2006 and 2012 are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Thank you xbawks.

Yeah, i'd say today they are definitely worse.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Shamus Young, a contributor to this site, has revealed some interesting things [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/7652-The-Final-Fantasy-VII-Remake-is-a-Fantasy] about this subject. Fact is, the time taken to produce the 'complexity' of what you showed there pales in comparison to the amount of time taken to make the game look shiny enough to be accepted in this generation. The high standard of good graphics means that we cannot go back to that level complexity without some massive innovation in game design in general.

I partly agree, and partly disagree. The case Shamus Young made in that article was actually that things like game design are pretty trivial in cost next to graphics. So I don't think it would actually be much more costly to implement mech-style controls vs. the standard console FPS button layout.

On the other hand, you definitely do have the issue where large developers get very risk-averse with their bigger, more cost-intensive games. However, I think we're actually fine now as a result of the indie scene - the barrier to entry for making a vidya game is lowering, and therefore I think we're pretty likely to see innovation continue to come from the lower-budget games.

 

[veloper]

Plus, as a fan of Civilization, I think Civ 5 is the best so far.

Are you sure?
The civ5 AI has become a complete tactical joke that cannot get anything done under the one-unit-per-tile rule.
Emperor used to be a decent difficulty setting. Emperor is now a walk in the park. The AI needs even bigger cheats and advantages to pose any challenge.
Stacks of doom in civ 3 and 4 the AI could control properly atleast. 1 UPT is too much for it too handle. Civ5 replaced the stack of doom with a carpet of doom.
Players were outmanouvering the AI so badly, the devs nerfed the flanking bonusses and everything else that made 1 UPT and hex tiles tactically interesting in the first place.

On a strategic level the AI is just random. Doing crap like backstabbing their own allies when they are at war with the player. The AI doesn't even properly estimate the strenght of other civs when declaring war.
War and diplomacy is random now. In civ4 the AI atleast made sense, even if it was somewhat biased against the player.

On the economic level, the devs tried to balance the choices by making everything equally uninteresting and unappealing.
Gone is the variety of Civ4. No more specialist/hammer economy vs cottage spam vs super capital wonderspam, which were all valid economic strategies
given the situation. Civics used to have a very big impact on the game without unbalancing it.
Civ5 promotes only one thing and that is horizontal growth. Happiness limits cannot replace the maintenace costs of civ4. Many small cities with only the cheapest, primitive buildings, because everthing becomes progessively worse the higher you go on the ladder. It's a worse situation now than the science/tax farms in civ3.

 

[Hyper-space]

Anyone who actually thinks that games are somehow worse now than they were back then are deluding themselves.

Time tends to filter out all the crap, meaning that we've forgotten the days of unlicensed cartridges (games that literally did not work) and the sheer amount of clones that littered gaming back then.

Sure, you can cherry-pick all the day, claiming "proof" that the medium has somehow become less complex than before.

They're more linear and less complex

Nope and nope.

Back in the day, open-world games tended to be much rarer than now due to technical limitations. Also, here's an example of how gaming has become thousand times more complex:

Compare the console controllers, back then the most simple of games only used 8 buttons max. Now, the PS3 controller (for an example) has more buttons and functions than a car, this is what "simple" games are utilizing now.

I am guessing you don't remember much of what constituted 90% of games back then, or didn't play it.

EDIT:

Bushnell (creator of Atari) said that games today were a suckish mesh and that is terrible for the industry.

...


WHAT?

Ahahahahahahahaha...

...Is he serious?

 

[endtherapture]

Games are becoming more cinematic because people want to see big budget movies, just paying 60$ for them and playing them for 5 hours.

I'll just leave this right here

This is so true.

I remember playing Quake 2 and it was labyrinthine. Multiple floors, twisting tunnels. The massive levels in the warehouse section of the game were insane and you could easily get lost.

You play a modern day FPS, and its just A-B. So boring.

 

[Kahunaburger]

You just lost all your credibility right there.

You might think that, but I actually agree with him. Even the most putrid crap of today, in other words movie-based games, are actually generally more fun than the very best the 80's or 90's had to offer. What, Super Mario Bros? It always was crap. I grew up playing that game, and I never really liked it. It was incredibly flawed and not very fun to play.

Of course, there were exceptions, but there are ALWAYS exceptions, no matter which era you look at.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather play Super Mario Bros. than Kane and Lynch 2. Fun, simple, and well designed > unpleasant, slightly less simple, and badly designed.

And it's not exactly like Super Mario Bros. was the epitome of early games - it wasn't even the epitome of early console games. I would happily say that Starcraft is as good or better than any modern RTS, Planescape: Torment or Shiren the Wanderer are as good or better than any modern RPG, and Mechwarrior 2 is as good or better than any modern single-player FPS.

 

[Kahunaburger]

They're more linear and less complex

Nope and nope.

Back in the day, open-world games tended to be much rarer than now due to technical limitations. Also, here's an example of how gaming has become thousand times more complex:

Compare the console controllers, back then the most simple of games only used 8 buttons max. Now, the PS3 controller (for an example) has more buttons and functions than a car, this is what "simple" games are utilizing now.

The controller isn't really the problem here. I mean, look at Shiren the Wanderer. That's basically a graphical roguelike for the NES. Like any roguelike, you have a hilarious number of possible actions (change facing, put stuff in jars in your inventory, name an unknown item and every item of its type to make it easier for you to identify its function in the future, and so on). They get all those functions to fit on an NES controller.

It seems to me more like there's a perception among game developers that if they make their game too inaccessible (too difficult, too complicated, too unforgiving, etc.) they will sell fewer copies. This is certainly a position we can sympathize with, because Activision employees have to eat too, but it does lead to shallower, easier games coming from the major developers.

 

[R Man]

I have a question. When did the last 'generation' of games end and the current one begin?

Where do we put games like Halo 1, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Morrowind and Warcraft 3?

I think there are some excellent games in this current age. Dragon Age, Mass Effects 1 and 2 (haven't got 3 yet), Skyrim, Starcraft 2, Dawn of War 2, and 1. I've heard good things about Shougun 2.

All I thinks happened is we have become over saturated with shooters, and there is a backlash against them. So criticism of them may well be valid, but there are still other good games out there.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Bushnell (creator of Atari) said that games today were a suckish mesh and that is terrible for the industry.

...


WHAT?

Ahahahahahahahaha...

...Is he serious?

Pretty sure a game is only good when it's so bad that all copies of it are buried in the desert. In that sense Atari is still the top dog to this day!

 

[Hyper-space]

Pretty sure a game is only good when it's so bad that all copies of it are buried in the desert. In that sense Atari is still the top dog to this day!

They're the only generation of consoles to have crashed the fucking market.

In that regard, they are the only top dog.

[The controller isn't really the problem here. I mean, look at Shiren the Wanderer. That's basically a graphical roguelike for the NES. Like any roguelike, you have a hilarious number of possible actions (change facing, put stuff in jars in your inventory, name an unknown item and every item of its type to make it easier for you to identify its function in the future, and so on). They get all those functions to fit on an NES controller.

It seems to me more like there's a perception among game developers that if they make their game too inaccessible (too difficult, too complicated, too unforgiving, etc.) they will sell fewer copies. This is certainly a position we can sympathize with, because Activision employees have to eat too, but it does lead to shallower, easier games coming from the major developers.

...And?

I could list off Paradox Interactive's library of super-complex titles and it wouldn't prove anything, except that these few title are complex.

Its a fact that your brain slowly filters out all the unnecessary memories (such as mediocre movies/video-games that you've watched/played), leaving only the good memories behind. So why can't we just get some fucking perspective and realize that nostalgia only skewers your view-point?

There is no difference in quality now or then, except when it comes to the technical-side of things. Post-launch patching has made it so that you will for certain be able to play any game, no matter how buggy, unlike back in the day.

 

[370999]

It's not better or worse, it's different. The wheel keeps on turning and good and bad games are produced as it always happens.

Of course I would rather be alive now and have the option of playing previous games from bygone generations as well as contemporary games.

 

[Kahunaburger]

[The controller isn't really the problem here. I mean, look at Shiren the Wanderer. That's basically a graphical roguelike for the NES. Like any roguelike, you have a hilarious number of possible actions (change facing, put stuff in jars in your inventory, name an unknown item and every item of its type to make it easier for you to identify its function in the future, and so on). They get all those functions to fit on an NES controller.

It seems to me more like there's a perception among game developers that if they make their game too inaccessible (too difficult, too complicated, too unforgiving, etc.) they will sell fewer copies. This is certainly a position we can sympathize with, because Activision employees have to eat too, but it does lead to shallower, easier games coming from the major developers.

...And?

I could list off Paradox Interactive's library of super-complex titles and it wouldn't prove anything, except that these few title are complex.

Paradox Interactive should be applauded for this and we should give them more of our money. They have learned something that many other devs haven't - that depth is okay.

Its a fact that your brain slowly filters out all the unnecessary memories (such as mediocre movies/video-games that you've watched/played), leaving only the good memories behind. So why can't we just get some fucking perspective and realize that nostalgia only skewers your view-point?

The old-school games that I played the most around the time that they were actually released are as follows, in descending order of playtime:

1. Pokemans
2. Zelda
3. SimAnt
4. MechWarrior 2
5. Age of Empires

So I ran into stuff like Deus Ex, Homeworld, Planescape: Torment, and Super Metroid years or decades after they were released. I suspect I'm not the only one who likes these games because they are really good games, not because a nostalgia filter.

There is no difference in quality now or then, except when it comes to the technical-side of things.

The issue is more, at least in my opinion, a lack of progression in game design. Many people who should know better have failed to learn lessons like: WRPG stories should have choices and consequences, FPS level design should not be about the player moving linearly towards the next whack-a-mole section, turn-based tactics are fun and people will pay money for games that involve them, good gameplay and aesthetics age better than good graphics, people are smart enough to handle complicated control layouts, people are smart enough to figure out how to use items on the environment without glowing highlights around the interactable portions of the environment, and so on.

 

[Hyper-space]

The old-school games that I played the most around the time that they were actually released are as follows, in descending order of playtime:

1. Pokemans
2. Zelda
3. SimAnt
4. MechWarrior 2
5. Age of Empires

So I ran into stuff like Deus Ex, Homeworld, Planescape: Torment, and Super Metroid years or decades after they were released. I suspect I'm not the only one who likes these games because they are really good games, not because a nostalgia filter.

So you've played a range of games released from 1987-98, I've played as many great games in the last five years as I had during most of my childhood. Still doesn't prove shit.

people are smart enough to handle complicated control layouts, people are smart enough to figure out how to use items on the environment without glowing highlights around the interactable portions of the environment, and so on.

People who have played video-games for decades and have an extensive knowledge of recurring control-schemes might find it easy to play more complex games. But you are comparing those kinds of people with others who do not have the same experience.

You see, we are lucky to have gone through the medium hand-in-hand with the evolution of the controllers, we went from playing games with 8 buttons to shit like the PS3 controller. Dumping someone who has no experience whatsoever with video-games straight into a modern one doesn't work, its the equivalent of trying to teach someone how to drive a car (and all the logistics that come with it, traffic rules, ect.) within 5-10 minutes.

Saying "Oh, I didn't have any problems with learning how to play this game" is fucking meaningless. Moving around in a 3D-space is not a given, its something you have to become accustomed to. Knowing what kind of stats are in most RPGS is not a given, its something you have to have extensive knowledge on.

Trying to teach someone how to play Modern Warfare 2 is different from say, Super Mario Brothers. In fact, its a thousand times more complex than Super Mario Brothers. So again, fucking perspective, its seems as if its impossible for gamers to put themselves in someone else's shoes.