Do you ever get the feeling that Gamers these days dont want to enjoy games?

[Sniper_Zegai]

The title says it all.

With the popularity of games reviewers and the need to be more pro-active than ever with the current price trend of video games, its important to know your stuff.

But with all the Yahtzee's, Armake21's, Angry Video Game Nerds and Spoony One's out there, it seems to be a recurring theme today that gamers enjoy proving how shit a game is as opposed to what they actually liked about that game.

Dont get me wrong, I love reviews that rip the shit out of games, even more so when their points are valid but I know when Yahtzee says games are shit he blows it out of proportion for comic effect, and it works great but has this negativity crossed over to the point where a gamer does'nt want to enjoy a game but rather sit and wait for mistakes to crop up?

Hope you enjoy the topic.

P.S. Attention all Yahtzee fanboys, I like Zero Punctuation. Do not declare blood feud on my house.

 

[propertyofcobra]

Everyone enjoys a good game, but everyone also enjoys soundly thrashing a bad game with legitimate, humorously put points about the bad parts of it.

It's the same reason you might want to watch Plan 9 from Outer Space. It's why Mystery Science Theater 3000 could ever even exist.
People enjoy beating bad things as much as we enjoy liking good things. Simple as that.

 

[shadow skill]

No really I think it's just you because people have always had thoughts on what they consider good and what they don't. Really it is nothing new, the only real dfference is that the gaming press does not have a stranglehold over expression anymore. Does anyone really think that if you were to go back ten or so years and put Nintendo and Saga lovers in a room you would not get all sorts of different opinions on games?

 

[Jack Spencer Jr]

The negativity is a refreshing change from the wide-eyed gushing every review seemed to be in magazines back in the days of the NES. But then, the reviews were basically paid advertisements. Which is all a review is, really. They make you aware of the game, so even a negative review will lead people to give a game a look, either to see this awfulness for themselves or because it sounds like something they would enjoy even if the reviewer didn't. So, negative reviews don't bother me in the negativity. I am tired of reviews that basically just go "Poo poo, pee pee, and titties" as if this is still clever, if it ever was clever in the first place.

 

[Hey Joe]

Yeah, that has mainly to do with the 'jaded games journalist-journalism' that seems to be about the place these days.

Even from citizen writers (see the User Reviews section) there seems to be a real fixation on savaging a game and trying to make the review as spicy as possible, without really ever going in depth about the game itself. It's as if the game becomes a secondary motive in writing the review!

They seem to want to entertain rather than inform, whereas a journalists job should be to FIRST inform THEN entertain.

So when the discourse on a game and gaming in particular revolve around these themes, it is logical that players perceptions of any given game should be molded by this. Players want to find the bugs and ruthlessly expose them because they're being told subconsciously that this is the way to analyze and contextualize games.

I'm OK with witty criticisms, but I come the school of thought that says that opinion and review should be balanced and fair, taking all things into account instead of ripping things to shreds based on one particular aspect of a subject.

In summary, if the conversations about gaming are conducted in this manner, then a player's thinking WILL be affected.

 

[shadow skill]

It's just remebering the bad old days really, people have always had these kinds of thoughts on games and people are buying them even more than they did in the bad old days before the rise of the internet, so I think it is safe to assume that people are enjoying games much as they always have the major difference being that you can actually HEAR about people's opinions on a game more readily than you could a decade ago.

I even have to wonder why it is so important that people have "nice" things to say about a game? What is the benefit of "positive" comments over "negative" ones? Both types of commentary should lead to improvements in the next set of games. I love the latest Devil May Cry, the whole think stinks of pure awesome, they made Nero his own character and gave him decent emotions for a character in an action game like DMC. The controls were all very tight, and the graphics were top notch.

However there are things that I did not like about the game as well. I thought the Exceed system was largely useless and players would have been better served by giving Nero a block button, it pisses me off that we can see Nero use the Devil Bringer(that was a lame name btw.) to block sword attacks on at least several occassions yet we cannot do this at all even though there is an extra button on the controller that is not utilized for Nero at all that could have easily been made into a block button. The camera (Which is a problem in basically every third person game ever granted.) could also use some help, something like Ninja Gaiden's camera (Which also has issues.) is prefferable to what DMC has now. The current camera kind of takes things out too far making the on screen characters much smaller than they are in Ninja Gaiden for example.


Now assume I did not preface all of this by saying I loved Devil May cry 4, what would be wrong with this statement?

 

[Duck Sandwich]

When I saw the topic title I immediately thought of people who play World of Warcraft, but I digress.

Sometimes, even if a game is great overall, it can still have some pretty annoying flaws. Take Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles for example. I like the weapon customization, the ranking system, the "lets shoot random stuff to find ammo and health", and most of all, the zombie headshots.

But what pisses me off sometimes is that giant spiders don't flinch, meaning they can get an unfair hit on you even if you give them a weak spot full of bullets as soon as they appear on the screen. So I'll often have to resort to bringing out the trusty magnum revolver and outright kill them before they can attack, wasting a shot that would have been better used against the boss.

I think a lot of times, flaws are brought up and emphasized on in order to emphasize that the game isn't perfect. (ie. "other than flaws x and y, this game is perfect") Also, it may be that if someone has been playing Umbrella Chronicles and dying a lot because of the aforementioned flaw, they'd be really pissed off about that and it would show if they did a review of the game.

This might not be the case for everyone, but I find that as I get older, my standards for games get higher. If I had played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 5 years ago, I would have been bloody ecstatic. But now, I can't stand the game.

 

[The Q]

What's to be expected? We're living in an age of cynicism. Negativity is the way to go these days, from music to games to social interaction. Besides, you say anything positive about a game, a publisher, or a video game retailer and you just get accused of being a robot or a pawn. Nah, people want the viscous ick of negativity. Certain people find a great deal of appeal in complaining about everything.

 

[Heroic One]

I tihnk it's more of an annoyance that games are getting more and more expensive, but the quality isn't keeping up with it.

We all still want to be in the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis - N64/Playstation era.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

First of all, back in the days of the NES, games could only do so much, so we didn't expect Morrowind out of them. Now, games can do so much more, and at times, it's tough not to get upset about the things that they don't do. Also, especially with the next-gen titles, there's a tendancy to make it pretty with reasonably tight controls, but forget to put in a good storyline, any replay value, or even playtime.

Also, there's more bad (or at least mediocre) stuff in the world than there is good or excellent stuff. That's part of what makes the good noteworthy. It's rare. There's a decent share of stuff out there that gets positive reviews, and a much higher share of lacking stuff. Seems about right to me.

Finally, remember that we're still in the "intro" phase of next gen, where the consoles are still fighting the early battles of the title library war. Thus, they're mass producing as many games as they can very quickly to have the appearence of a strong lineup, but when games are churned out like this, almost none of them are worth any real time.

- J

 

[end_boss]

In Yahtzee's defense, he plays up the negative side of games because people apparently didn't find his Psychonauts review funny, or as funny as his other reviews. He noted that "nobody likes me when I'm being nice to a game" in his Bioshock review.

I know that I've been more than aware lately that these internet reviewers base their gimmicks too much off of pointing out which games are horrible, and really, as popular as they all are, Zero Punctuation is the only one of this breed that I actually find funny. I've actually made it a point that, when I write a review (poorly), I try to focus on older games that were actually good, because I feel that it's a lost practice to appreciate the good games that are slipping away through the passage of time, rather than to immortalize games for being horrible.

 

[neems]

Like 'The Q' says, a lot of it is about cynicism - or at least it is in the UK.

I was considering making a similar thread a while back, the subject being "Gamers who don't like games". I don't know if this is primarily a PC thing (I don't know many console gamers), but there do seem to be an awful lot of people around these days who regard themselves as gamers, but don't seem to like games.

I'm sure we've all come across their like. "Bioshock... overrated. Cod4? Didn't like it. Portal? I don't see what the fuss is all about. Best game ever? You don't play that shit do you? Best game ever SUCKS."

You have a £1000 super computer with multi-cores and gti turbo injected graphic doodahs, which you use solely to run Counter Strike Source at 900 frames per second.

I can remember a time when gamers were the guys who, you know, played games. Because they enjoyed them. Now I'm not saying everybody should like everything, but sometimes you wonder if some people might be happier with a new hobby...


I came across this on a random forum, I don't remember where, or who was involved. It was basically two main contributors to a thread on gaming, and this is, by necessity, heavily paraphrased-


Hardcore Gamer 1 : You know, sometimes I envy normal people, who can actually enjoy all the average games that come out. It must be nice to just sit down and play [whatever, insert game of choice here] without analysing it's [lack of pretentious credibility for twats like me]

HC2 : I guess, but do you really wanna be one of the idiotic masses, who just play what they're given, never realising the awesome leet hardcore-ness of [imported japanese game you and 99.99% of the game playing public have never heard of]?


Ad nauseum.

Frankly, I too would envy normal people if I were that far up my own arse. I've tried to convey how patronising and pretentious these guys were... I have failed, you have no idea what this thread was like. It was mutual masturbation for the self proclaimed gaming elite.


In conclusion - play what you like, try to have fun, don't over analyse it, and if you're gonna be a cock-jockey about it possibly consider keeping it in private.

 

[Terramax]

It's simple. WE pay MONEY up front for a game. WE expect FUN out of it.

I pay ridiculous amounts for some games (see my recent thread 'How much have you paid for a game'. When I spend 3-7 hours worth of wages on a game, a day+ of my life working for a single CD, I expect my time, patience, hard work and moneys worth.

I was thinking I was getting too picky with games, but then I got Sega Rally Revo that's kept me cheered up for 6 weeks now. And I'm only 2/3 of the way through! When I get a game I enjoy I really do feel appreciated by the programmers, but sometimes, with all these mediocre games, rereleased, remakes and sequels- when spending money, it's more a game of sorting the mud from the shit than anything else, if you get what I mean.

 

[some random guy]

The main job of game reviewers like these is to entertain.
"This game is shit" is more entertaining than "actually, I like this game".

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The Internet lets everyone have a say and a listen now. This is Democracy (or as close as we'll ever get to it). Problem is, like Yahtzee said, positive reviews are boring; we like to hear the bile.

The other major problem is a lot of games ARE boring piles of reconstituted toss because the games that are bought (I'm looking at you HALO) are not by gamers but by hype-sheep.
This reinforces the idea that HYPE (as well as greed) is good, and they plug their designers back into the
Collect 7 Rats Tails in the Sewer Level that doesn't really work but LOOK AT THE BIG GUN!

And the cycle continues.

(P.S. I bought Psychonauts and it's awesome. My friends won't play it though because they don't like platformers - Morons)