Are we setting our standarts too high?

[Simeon Ivanov]

Pretty much what the title says. Since the recent release of Warhammer 40K Space Marine, the reviews have been lukewarm, with most people saying "It's an average game" or "It's a GOW clone" ... bunch of heretics.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I can't recall the last time people actually LIKED a game (I'm talking about a consensus) Nowadays, there's one half of the audience who likes a game and enjoys it, and another who expects every game to be Half Life 2 (Which I don't really like, Ironically).

I can understand some arguments like "If I'm playing 50$ for a game I should recieve quality enjoyment" but do you know how hard it is to be creative nowadays? If you do something even SLIGHTLY similar to another game, people will call if a rip-off and pan it. If you do something original, people will still pan it because it's not really polished or some other lame excuse.

Don't you think it would be better if we lowered out standards a little? I mean, if I can play games from Space Marine to The Witcher 2 to Heroes of Might and Magic 3 to Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon and love them all, why can't you?

 

[Bloedhoest]

"To like" is quite personal. For example: I really enjoyed Homefront, and still play it. Everyone else seems to piss on the game. Had masses of fun with WET but absolutely can't stand Assassins Creed.
Is it a bad game? No, don't think so. It is not my personal taste.

 

[Woodsey]

(To focus on something that specifically irks me) Have you seen some of the shit people label as good writing and/or storytelling in games?

People's standards definitely aren't too high, and its a problem.

 

[Bloedhoest]

My standards are low. In fact the only 2 things I want games to adhere to are Story and gameplay mechanics. I can play with the T.V muted if it sounds like shit. I can deal with poor controls. I wan't a game with a unique story and even just one new game mechanic. I don't think our standards are to high. I think we just buy and slander everything all at once.

Story and controls are more important to me. I can deal with non unique gameplay mechanics. Take Homefront, it has sniping, vehicle section and some other things we've seen a hundred times before. This doesn't make a bad game. The story is solid and so is the gameplay.

 

[b3nn3tt]

'Standards' are an incredibly subjective thing. Yes, some people have incredibly high standards and won't play anything that isn't the best of the best, others will play anything. But then again, best of the best is itself a subjective measure.

I don't think we should complain that reviewers and other gamers pick up on flaws in games. Personally, if I'm reading a review of a game I'm doing so to determine whether or not it's something I'd like to buy, so I very much want to be told about its flaws. This is why I will often combine reading with reviews with watching a Zero Punctuation, because it's good to know where a game's flaws lie. If you decide that you will like a game in spite of its flaws, then go ahead and buy it.

I would say that, as a collective, standards are not set too high. I don't think it's too much to ask that every new release isn't a blatant copy of another game, but nor do I think we need every new game to be an entirely original concept.

 

[Bloedhoest]

(To focus on something that specifically irks me) Have you seen some of the shit people label as good writing and/or storytelling in games?

People's standards definitely aren't too high, and its a problem.

Please give some examples. I've got a eerie feeling that I'm going to get burned.

 

[Barry93]

I don't think so, the quality of games seems to be declining though.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Pretty much what the title says. Since the recent release of Warhammer 40K Space Marine, the reviews have been lukewarm, with most people saying "It's an average game" or "It's a GOW clone" ... bunch of heretics.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I can't recall the last time people actually LIKED a game (I'm talking about a consensus) Nowadays, there's one half of the audience who likes a game and enjoys it, and another who expects every game to be Half Life 2 (Which I don't really like, Ironically).

I can understand some arguments like "If I'm playing 50$ for a game I should recieve quality enjoyment" but do you know how hard it is to be creative nowadays? If you do something even SLIGHTLY similar to another game, people will call if a rip-off and pan it. If you do something original, people will still pan it because it's not really polished or some other lame excuse.

Don't you think it would be better if we lowered out standards a little? I mean, if I can play games from Space Marine to The Witcher 2 to Heroes of Might and Magic 3 to Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon and love them all, why can't you?

Because everyone has different tastes and with games costing around 50$ and i'm from the UK so around £40 i do in fact expect a game to be of decent quality since you are paying that much for a game that could of easily been priced at around £30-35 and also with the increase in graphics in games it just doubles our standards after what we have seen in recent games we expect new games to follow suit but i myself am just happy with Minecraft and some of my RTS games but i won't lower my standards for say a AAA game that's supposed to look and play great because if you set the bar with graphics a lot of people are going to expect the same or higher.

Also a nice point at what you said about games copying others getting us in uproar is simply because the game studios try to release a game every single year instead of simply giving it a few years to actually have a long hard think process as to what you want your game to look like but instead the studios just go with whats the latest trend in gaming and it does work but sometimes shows poor shoddy game quality because they took the short quick production/copy+paste route like Call of Duty and any other war FPS does these days.

I would like to end this post letting you know i have bought hardly any games this year save for Minecraft and going to possibly buy Dead Island and maybe Deus Ex and i'm content with playing games from the past or replaying old games over again as these days i'm not the type of guy that wants to buy every new game that comes out since i like to look into each and every new game and sort out the "pro's and cons" of each game and add the price tag to determine whether or not i'll buy the game.

I have hardly bought anything new based upon my calculations and it wasn't about my standards being set high, it was about me choosing what games i may like and deciding if it was worth parting my money for.

 

[odanhammer]

I'll start with saying i purchased an xperia play , just to play emulators of SNES games , while still having a phone. Priceless when your wife spends 3 hours shopping.

Now to go on with the quality of games comming out. I find myself anyways , looking at games with much more concern.
First games have lost the story , and gone for full out graphics. You want the gun to look like its real , or do you want the gun your holding to be apart of a great story, sure the gun might not look as real , but the reason your shooting it has so much more meaning.

I still enjoy games like burnout , since i enjoy mindless action , i enjoy mutli- player halo 3 or call of duty , its fun. But when i want to sit down and really get a story , i read books now.

My standards aren't too high , i loved the story in the back to the future games, i hated the game play , but the story was great.

Why can't Modern Warfare 3 , be realistic , but also have some emotion. Do the game in two parts , mixed in together , where one each side is a guy fighting for his side of the battle.
Make it real , add a cut screen where its christmas and one side starts to sing songs , the other side hears it and starts to sing along as well , both groups become connected , as just as everyone start to let their guards down , a sniper picks off someone , and the war continues.
Thats something that really happened in WW1 , its real.

The way the story was in modern warfare 2 and black ops , its was just setting up for the jungle mission and the city mission , and the mission where you drive the tank , and the one with the snow storm. It wasn't story , it was just different settings to shoot at people in different clothes.

 

[Woodsey]

(To focus on something that specifically irks me) Have you seen some of the shit people label as good writing and/or storytelling in games?

People's standards definitely aren't too high, and its a problem.

Please give some examples. I've got a eerie feeling that I'm going to get burned.

Pacing should have been in there too.

Off the top of my head, the biggest sinners for me are GTA IV (in every regard, terrible pacing, rubbish plot, massive disconnect between gameplay and story, poor use of characters), RDR (mainly for pacing, although Marston as a character is poorly written), and CoD. Perhaps the fairly decent voice-acting tricked people on that last one, I have no idea why that has suddenly started getting people defending it's writing.

There are more no doubt, just those were what I had in mind at the time of writing.

 

[veloper]

Remember that higher standards are set by products that previously raised the bar.

It can be done if someone did it before.

We should demand top games for full price.
Cheaper games like indies can sacrifice graphics and other fancy extras.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Eh, depends.

For things like gameplay balance, mechanics, and controls; most of those are measurable in some objective manner.

Everything else falls under subjective reasoning. I may find a game like Terraria more visually appealing than, say, Deus Ex Human Revolution, even though nobody is going to argue that the graphical tech in DE: HR is LIGHTYEARS ahead of Terraria's.

So, setting the bar for "standards" is somewhat tricky. That said..

If one starts referring to games as "clones" of each other, well, no shit.
It's just part of supply and demand, but applied to a personal observation. The more Halo-like shooters there are, the more we're likely to call them "Halo Clones", and the more/less appealing those games can become.
(if you're newer to popular-online gaming, you're more likely have a very different opinion from someone who has played a lot of online games already)

 

[krazykidd]

My standards are low. In fact the only 2 things I want games to adhere to are Story and gameplay mechanics. I can play with the T.V muted if it sounds like shit. I can deal with poor controls. I wan't a game with a unique story and even just one new game mechanic. I don't think our standards are to high. I think we just buy and slander everything all at once.

This goes for me also , except my standards are even lower , i just want a good story . This is why i like jrpgs and don't care ifthey are turn based or real-time or strategic , as long as the story is good . Now OP is right our standards are too high , like DNF, is seen as shit but it's just our standards skyrocketed since DN64. Also i would like to not that theres a concensus for liking deus ex HR . just throwing that in there . Gamers ( myself included ) are spoiled and don't even realize it.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I have high standards and it?s not so much about money (anymore) but time. I don?t have the time that I used to have (ironically when I was poor) to play games so I?m not going to waste my time on a game that?s just okay and I don?t want to fiddle around with a game that should still be in testing. At the same time I don?t exactly trust critics or fans as they all seem to be too forgiving of a lot of things.
Now just because I have less time doesn?t mean that I like these $60 games I can finish in a weekend. I like something that actually works and has some depth and options.
With the price of games now-a-days (which remember doesn?t just include the $60 price for the original disc but for all the supplemental dlc that always seems to follow now) I think we should be picky. If we?re not, and just buy whatever crap they release, they?re going to put in even less effort/content/testing if you can believe that. If your kid comes home with an exam grade of D for something he was studying all week for, you don?t pat him on the head and say ?good job.? But there are too many gamers who do.
But that?s why I rent. I get to try all the games that sound interesting but in reality suck. Then for those two games a year that are actually worth buying, I have plenty of time for them.

 

[KaiusCormere]

I tend to appreciate the best things about a game. If a game has an amazing story, but is a bit buggy, with poor controls and graphics, and no multiplayer, I will STILL rate it above a game that is average in all regards.

If a game doesn't do anything exceptional, then it's eminently forgettable.

 

[Brodie Jenkins]

High standards is what keeps the industry moving forward, simple as that. If we didn't constantly push for better quality gaming we'd still be playing N64 quality games, nostalgia aside N64 games generally speaking really weren't that good