Games getting worse with every generation?

[Terramax]

Funnily enough, this is something I was thinking to myself last night.

I'm not sure that games are getting worse with every generation, but they are certainly getting shorter.

You what? I don't buy most games now because they take too long to complete. RPGs with their 60+ hours, Grand Theft Auto with the same repeated missions for almost the same time, simulation racers with their never ending championships so you slowly save up to buy the most expensive cars... even Soul Calibur has you doing long adventure modes to win characters etc.

For me, I prefer games that last around 10-15 hours. Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus and Sanitarium are the only recent games to give me this shortish but sweet pleasure. And when they're as good as these games, I know I'll play them again in the future.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

The examples you cite are all types of games that are traditionally long. Saying a sandbox game like GTA takes a long time to complete is like saying that fire is hot and grass is green. CoD4 can completed in an afternoon, as can Devil May Cry 4. I stopped buying fighting games because I was blasting through them in 20 minutes, even Bioshock, which I loved, didn't last very long.

I'd also like to know what RPGs have you been playing that take 60+ hours to complete? Oblivion probably has that much content, but to complete the main quest takes nowhere near that long. Mass Effect's main quest is about 10-12 long, with a large quantity of what amounts to filler.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

For instance Bioshock. I played it as soon as I got my 360 expecting a true GotY, but when I finally beat it I realized I didn't have any real fun with it and was left with a bland, tedious taste in my mouth

The last games I can remember having real fun with where Shadow of the Colossus, Mother 3 and Okami (well, there are a bit more I've had fun with these last few years, but those reign high on the list)

Is it me or are games becoming more shallow and boring as with each generation? Real pieces of art that suck you in like SotC only come once in a blue moon and games like Halo 3 and Smash Bros will always be touted as the "more important" games by the masses

The problem is, with every generation of gaming if you listen to the masses then you're going to get nowhere. This generation, last generation and the generation before that have all had games hyped by the masses, most of which leading to frustrating realisation that the masses know jack-shit about what good games really are.

It's all subjective, like everything. Personally, I think that Bioshock is a masterpiece (though not as good as System Shock 2) and that Shadow of The Colossus is horribly over-rated (and theres NO-ONE who agrees with me on that one.) What we need to worry about for this generation is whether games are becoming too homogenous. Shooters are the most popular genre and most big games now are sequels (Zelda, Mario, Halo, Devil May Cry, GTA). Originality is becoming a precious commodity in mainstream gaming. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Bioshock was regarded as being one of the best games of last year, due to it's originality and fantastic story.

Anyway, this post is turning out longer than I expected so I think I'll stop now. But don't fear that gaming is getting worse because it isn't. Gaming is changing, now more than ever, and change is good.

Apart from casual gaming. Casual gaming is bad

 

[fnph]

As I'veonly had experience from the N64 onwards, the only experience I have with really old games is through ports and re-releases. Some of my most played games are oldies like Final Fantasy 3 on the DS and FF6 Advance on the GBA. But there are also some wonderful new games out there, take Zack and Wiki for example. It's just most of these gems don't get the publicity they deserve.
I'd say games are generally getting easier now though, which I take to be a bad thing. Like New Super Mario Bros. is the easiest 2D Mario game to date and Metroid Prime 3 is so easy it's not even funny.
Casual gaming probably makes it seem like there are more bad games than there used to be, but I see this as more of a different kind of game for a different kind of person. Casual games are good at what they want to do.

 

[Giygas]

It's all subjective, like everything. Personally, I think that Bioshock is a masterpiece (though not as good as System Shock 2) and that Shadow of The Colossus is horribly over-rated (and theres NO-ONE who agrees with me on that one.) What we need to worry about for this generation is whether games are becoming too homogenous. Shooters are the most popular genre and most big games now are sequels (Zelda, Mario, Halo, Devil May Cry, GTA). Originality is becoming a precious commodity in mainstream gaming. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Bioshock was regarded as being one of the best games of last year, due to it's originality and fantastic story.

It's a matter of taste then. I would hardly call Bioshock original, it's basically an underwater version of SS2 without any real strategy and repeating scenarios. The story and atmosphere wasn't that great either. You never at any point feel like you're being sucked into the game because you're constantly having to kill dumb enemies that came straight from the original Doom


Shadow of the Colossus is about traversing a baron, esoteric landscape looking for the next boss. The bosses aren't two-dimensional things like splicers who spout obnoxious lines while trying to kill you, they're living beings trying to survive and you end their lives. I felt really sad after taking down certain colossus, whereas splicers are annoying crack-heads that HAVE to kill you for some reason

Many people bashed it for this because they where bored out of their minds, but at the same time they go on about how great Bioshock and other shallow games are.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

It's a matter of taste then. I would hardly call Bioshock original, it's basically an underwater version of SS2 without any real strategy and repeating scenarios. The story and atmosphere wasn't that great either. You never at any point feel like you're being sucked into the game because you're constantly having to kill dumb enemies that came straight from the original Doom


Shadow of the Colossus is about traversing a baron, esoteric landscape looking for the next boss. The bosses aren't two-dimensional things like splicers who spout obnoxious lines while trying to kill you, they're living beings trying to survive and you end their lives. I felt really sad after taking down certain colossus, whereas splicers are annoying crack-heads that HAVE to kill you for some reason

Many people bashed it for this because they where bored out of their minds, but at the same time they go on about how great Bioshock and other shallow games are.

Can't agree about the atmosphere in Bioshock being bad, but yes it is essentially a stripped down version of SS2. From the list of games that you gave at the start (Okami, Sotc and Mother 3), I'm guessing that shooters really aren't your genre.

I really do think that the story is one of the best that's ever been told in a game, but then it's all down to personal taste. I don't think that the lines the splicers spout are particularly obnoxious, due to the fact that they're all particular to the splicer. There's a huge variety of lines delivered by the splicers and it's worth paying attention because they've got some disturbing things to say.

If you look at the game and actually think about the plot, you realise that it's actually making an interesting point about games. You mindlessly follow whatever the game tells you to do. You take orders, follow the leader, and become a twisted murderous psychopath throughout the game. All because you're being ordered to by this disembodied voice in your ear. I would argue that in this way it's actually a much deeper game than Shadow of The Colossus.

Sotc is very artistically made, but it doesn't really make any points. It's a beautiful game (though the frame rate is very shoddy), but it's so empty. I realise that this is the point, but the gameplay is very repetitive and uninteresting too. Even Bioshock, with it's constant stopping you from proceeding and collection missions has more variety than Sotc. In Sotc you have a grand total of three things to do: Travel. Find way to get on colossus. Stab colossus in shiny part until dead. That's it (or it is until the point I played to, I got bored after that so I gave up).

Anyway, you seem to have missed the point of my post. I'm more concerned about original games like Bioshock (compared to Halo 3, Rainbow 6, Army of Two, etc) OR Shadow Of Colossus becoming less and less frequent in today's gaming landscape. I don't care about which game is better, only that games like these continue to get made.

 

[shadow skill]

Nilcypher: I don't know I love fighting games and while they are not known for depth of story and all that, the truly good ones have very fully developed fighting mechanics however if you are not into mastering a character it can get old very fast. More fighting games need to incorporate a decent story mode in order to offset this fact espeially if they are 2d and don't include some kind of online play. As much as I love Virtua Fighter 5 its just not the same playing against the admittedly impressive AI as it was playing against my brother. It most certainly is not the case that 2d or 3d fighters have become worse or stagnant like some other genres its just that I no longer have anyone to play against regularly, and I have yet to play an online enabled fighting game that has actually solved the problem of network latency.

I will agree that games do seem to be getting shorter and shorter with few exceptions, I think the online de-evolution is responsible for this more than anything else especially in the case of the shooter where the single-player and even co-op campaign is eschewed in favour of the online component.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Shadow of the Colossus is about traversing a baron

I read that and had a little Yahtzee-esque moment and said to myself:

"I am so going to quote that out of context".

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Nilcypher: I don't know I love fighting games and while they are not known for depth of story and all that, the truly good ones have very fully developed fighting mechanics however if you are not into mastering a character it can get old very fast. More fighting games need to incorporate a decent story mode in order to offset this fact espeially if they are 2d and don't include some kind of online play. As much as I love Virtua Fighter 5 its just not the same playing against the admittedly impressive AI as it was playing against my brother. It most certainly is not the case that 2d or 3d fighters have become worse or stagnant like some other genres its just that I no longer have anyone to play against regularly, and I have yet to play an online enabled fighting game that has actually solved the problem of network latency.

I'm confused, are you agreeing with me or not? You seem to go off on a tangent a little.

 

[VRaptorX]

There are not as many games that we can say will stand the test of time now. that's the real difference. Super Metroid still plays as well compared to modern games. But Spyro...didn't age that well. That's really the big difference as to why people say gaming is going down. Games are definatly good but they don't have that "this will last a lifetime" effect. I think the last system that did that consitently was the N64.

 

[shadow skill]

Nilcypher:

I will agree that games do seem to be getting shorter and shorter with few exceptions, I think the online de-evolution is responsible for this more than anything else especially in the case of the shooter where the single-player and even co-op campaign is eschewed in favour of the online component.

I agree with you at least in part. I just don't think fighting games are short or otherwise worse off than they were in the past.

VraptorX: You make an excellent point games these days don't seem to age quite as well as some of the older titles.

 

[The Poet]

People may argue that todays games are much shorter in length then older ones. Hell I still haven't beaten games like Zelda Ocarina of Time or Mario 64, but I think you are being close minded. Look at the length of Army of 2. Singleplayer will take you maybe 6-8 hours to complete. Even I feel that's not enough time to tell a complete story. But do I think that I get more value out of games like Army of 2 then games like Zelda OoT? Yes I do think I get much more value out of them. Why? Because I feel everyone is having a bit of an oversight on multiplayer. Army of 2 is a great example of this to me. While I didn't have an extremely high amount of fun playing it by myself I had a blast playing online with my friend. We're on our 3rd playthrough of the campaign and haven't even played over an hour of multiplayer yet. I probably have sunk around 20 hours or so playing with him and will definetly be spending many more on this game. And now I have games like GTAIV to look forward to. Fans of GTASA probably really liked the ability to fly around and stuff. But let me ask you if you had any joy having such limited play with a friend in that games Co-Op. You would probably tell me you played it once with the friend who insisted on trying it then went into taking turns playing singleplayer. GTAIV is going to be great in my mind for the reason of it's 16 player freerom. I think of so many posibilities when I hear that just like the Burnout 8 player freerom. I think of games like cat and mouse. That's what me and my friends did on the demo to Paradise. We got in cars and sped around the city dodging each other. I think the same for GTAIV and that's where I feel my money is well spent. When given opportunities like this I see the fun as endless.

 

[shadow skill]

Army of Two was and is built around at least two player co-op much in the way most fighting ganes have been and still are. I do not really fault Army of Two for campaign length but I do fault other games that are not really expressly built around multiplayer that have a campaign mode you can knock out in six hours, has a vapid story and relies on deathmatch and other typical modes to add replay value to the game that is not already there. Also it simply does not make any sense for me to spend money on a game with a tacked on multiplayer. (Most shooters now) if most of my time with the game is spent on my own. Hell we are even starting to see co-op erroded by the online de-evolution, suddenly things like four player co-op is considered a "Hardcore" feature for shooters according to one of the RSV2 devs. I hope his insanity does not extend to the complete removal of split screen co-op for at least two players locally.

 

[Giygas]

I somewhat agree with the OP, but only to some extent.
Yes, there are a lot of uninspired or downright boring games, but overall I guess the number of truely great games per year probably has remained the same.
I still love to play System Shock 2 every now and then, same goes for Deus Ex. Dungeon Master, too. All the LucasArts adventures and some old jump'n runs and shoot'em ups. Overall I played a lot of crappy games in my life, though, which I just forgot about shortly after. But it's a fact that the gaming industry is growing and that there are more and more games being released per year. The great ones just tend to slip through with all that other mess going on.

One thing bothers me, though, and that is the reason why I still agree with the OP: Even the great games released today are much simpler than older games used to be. Bioshock is a prime example for that: It's advertised as SS2's spiritual successor and that heritage is obvious, the moment that guy on the radio begins to address you. Problem is: Everything that was slightly complex in SS2 is now simplified until there's nothing left. Research was turned into shooting enemies, just using a camera instead of a gun. The choices about your character, that you had to stick with in SS2, are now meaningless, and so on.
Another example would be RPGs: I've not seen proper turn-based combat in years (except for the JRPG / Final Fantasy version of turn-based combat). I guess they're just not action-packed enough for today's audience. Character development in RPGs nowadays boils down to a minimalistic skill-tree or is done by "learning by doing", because obviously everything else would require the player to think more than half a minute about what advancements he wants at level-up. I'll just stop here.

So, while there are still great games around nowadays, I miss the complexity of the great, old games in them, too.

 

[neems]

On a side note, somebody mentioned how Bioshock makes a point about doing what you're told in games, but...

*OBVIOUS SPOILER*

When Atlas said "Would You Kndly step out of the bathysphere" or whatever it was, the first time round I stayed in for a couple of minutes. I was peering out of the porthole, trying to spot the splicer, examined everything minutely. Went to get a drink, came back, stepped out.

Later I discovered the significance of WYK, and passed it off as a delayed reaction

 

[Zaakar]

I'd say that diffrent genres has developed diffrently. My favourite gengre is rts games, and I don't understand the people who would not say they are alot better now then they were before. The graphics have improved, of course, and I don't see the great skill or spirit of the games when you spend 4/5 of your time fighting a stupid design, I was so happy when I found out you can queue farms in AOE2, or the rallypoint system in RON. (If you put a rallypoint on a unit, the newly created unit will be in the same controlgroup.)
Also, the campaigns are so much better, featuring such simple and great things as to choose your next step yourself etc etc...
As for the other genres, I'd say the new games, not regarding to the larg pile of crap games the industry produces, are so much more entertaining then the stars of previous generations, but thats just me.

 

[Zaakar]

I'd say that diffrent genres has developed diffrently. My favourite gengre is rts games, and I don't understand the people who would not say they are alot better now then they were before. The graphics have improved, of course, and I don't see the great skill or spirit of the games when you spend 4/5 of your time fighting a stupid design, I was so happy when I found out you can queue farms in AOE2, or the rallypoint system in RON. (If you put a rallypoint on a unit, the newly created unit will be in the same controlgroup.)
Also, the campaigns are so much better, featuring such simple and great things as to choose your next step yourself etc etc...
As for the other genres, I'd say the new games, not regarding to the larg pile of crap games the industry produces, are so much more entertaining then the stars of previous generations, but thats just me.

 

[BlueMage]

I find that while, technically, the newer games are vastly superior to their predecessors, we therefore expect a more deep game experience - something that goes beyond pretty graphics and realistic sound mapping. This isn't something every game can accomplish, nor every studio put together. There are gems that stand the test of time in this respect - Planescape Torment, Deus Ex, Civilisation 2 - but these gems are few and far between. We have greater technology than ever before, but for most games, that just means better graphics. Not all of them of course - some step up to the challenge. Just too few.

A greater focus on solid design may overcome this.

 

[brazenhead89]

There's always been, and always will be, a plethora of crappy games available for any given system. The difference nowadays is hype. The games industry is currently at its strongest, particularly given this generation of gaming - we've got 3 very different consoles available to us. With this of course, comes competitive marketing (complete with insufferable Fanboys), and thus each company tends to over-enthusiastically push their "Next Big Thing" on us. It's not that the games are getting worse with every generation, just that the hype is becoming harder to swallow.
Now, are games getting less IMAGINATIVE with every generation? That's a different story altogether.....

 

[ClassicThunder]

I'm 17 I just don't understand this. Maybe its because I only play online and don't like single player anyways. But I've enjoyed COD4, Halo 3, Civilization 4 BTS, and Command and Conquer 3. I went back and played some older FPS and RTS and they were crap. Bad controls bad AI. Just no fun.