Games getting worse with every generation?

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Giygas

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Yes, there is improvement in the RTS genre besides graphics. The controls got more comfortable. Warcraft 3 introduced a small RPG touch with the heroes, who, after that, appear now in almost every RTS. DoW uses control points for resource income instead of harvesting some resource in your home base. Still, I think that's not too much of innovation or improvement in a genre, when you consider that Dune 2 was released 1993, 15 years ago. But overall, yes, RTS games have become a lot better. Although, the AI still seems to face similar issues: Pathfinding still is a major problem in most of the games, the AI often resorts to "cheating" to be competitive enough and so on. I don't see huge improvements in the AI section.
FPS are even worse when it comes to innovation and improvements aside from presentation: Many shooters still come with an AI that is quite reminiscent of Doom, and every FPS receives praise if the AI is capable of sitting behind cover, which shows how "far" we've come AI-wise. The only real innovation in FPS games probably came with Half-Life's "interactive" cutscenes. Oh, and full body awareness, too, was introduced at some point. Other than that, there's not much new in the genre.

Of course, that just is true for innovations to the basic genre: There have been some games that have brought something new to the table every year, but they are spread very thin. Still, in my opinion it's true that especially RPGs and FPS-RPGs have become simplified with every generation. Nowadays you find the most complex character systems in hack'n slay games like Titan Quest and the likes, a genre that was looked down upon for its simplicity by role-players when Diablo was released. I'm not saying that Titan Quest or similar games have an especially complex character system, but when I look at current "full-blown" RPGs and their character systems and compare those to Titan Quest, TQ wins, which is a shame.
 

Meshakhad_v1legacy

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I'd say that the ratio has increased in favor of bad games - but that's not because the industry is dying. It's just that there's a whole new load of bad games (like movie tie-ins), while the rate of good games has remained steady.

There is a problem in that new concepts are riskier, and aren't pursued. The majority of good games these days are improvements on an established concept, whether sequels or genre games.
 
Apr 12, 2007
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I completely disagree.

This fall was the single most greatest span of gaming greatness, ever. And I've been playing video games for over a quarter of a century.

Since the original poster mentioned Bioshock, I'll use that one as an example. While the gameplay in Bioshock might've not been that revolutionary by itself (it was a pretty standard FPS, after all), the overall experience was incredible. The first time I saved a Little Sister, I actually shivered. It was a great moment in my gaming history, for sure.

There were so many great games last year, especially at fall, I had real difficulties finding time to play all of them. In fact, I still haven't played Orange Box at all.

Today's games are more nuanced, more complicated and give players richer experiences than anything we've seen before.

The "get off my lawn" phenomenon explains why some people think the games of the 80s are better. As young kids we simply experience games differently. The sense of wonder comes easier, and computer games back then were truly worlds of wonder. Computers are so prevalent in our culture that you rarely get that feeling of "how on earth did they do that?" like you used to as a kid when you didn't know how computers worked.
 

whyhalothar

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Nov 21, 2007
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I agree with the OP in a way...

The industry today seems to be too focused on the graphic capability (not that it's bad) then anything else, also it seems to be taking less risk when making games. There will always be 10 gems in the 1000 ton of dung. No matter how you look at it.

I think if for those gameplay videos weren't seen on the internet, maybe gamers will be less aware on things like "GRAPH1X R L8M3!!!" or "I DUN L1K3 GAM3PLAY!!". I think those videos give the consumer false hype and hope, whether it may be positive or negative. I remember the days of just going out and rent the game, then hope for the best of my 7 days rental. At least, letting the gamer try the game first,as a demo, is a great way to see if it's what the gamer wants (though they need to know that demos don't always give the final product justice).

I don't just blame the game devs., but I also blame gamers. We've reached the next generation of gaming. I've seen much too many graphic comparison from one game to another or one platform to another. I find it really redundant and stupid, just be happy with what you have. Not to mention that the best selling genre (today) are shooters. This generation is now heavily focused on FPS "OMGOMGOMG KILLZONE 2 IS BETTAR" "OMGOMGOMG HAZE IS LIKE SO COOL".

I'm the kind of person who would rather play a game that has a lot of artistic values and great storyline than good graphics. I feel that not ONLY are devs. are not as focused to the gameplay, but most (usually North American devs.) completely forgets about innovation and art. Art as in really beautiful concept art turned into the 3D world we play in. I'm tired of war games, at least add female soldiers in them to shake things up a bit. Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Onimusha, ICO, ... the list goes on [Which is why I currently consider the PS2 era to be my favorite]. They had great artistic value, I'm hoping to see more. Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are great examples (despite me not owning a 360, I need a job seriously), unfortunately they seem to be forgotten by most gamers due to the hype of other games (i.e. : Halo 3 much?).

In conclusion, I'm sure to be only buying 4 to 8 games this gen. I'm not as excited to the new games as I was last gen, except for established franchises like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid. Then again, it IS one person's opinion.
 

Eilanis

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Mar 14, 2008
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While I've only been playing games for about 15 years (starting with the SNES, though it seems short compared to some here), I've found that because of the promise of MULTIPLAYER and SUPER COMPLICATED WITH DIFFICULT AI (bolded for emphasis, mocking the industry) and super duper graphics, story does get kicked in the rear. Taking Final Fantasy 6 (3) as an example, you have a game that tried new things (tons of characters, the sequences where you divided into teams and used everyone, the purple squid) and did well with it. You had a game where SPOILER ALERT the bad guy wins, becomes God, the world ends (mostly), and you have to get back on your feet and kick his divinity in the rear. Huge cast, great character development/drama, and an epic storyline that actually worked. Really, the games that invest themselves into a novel-like setting really don't come along too often. Though many people dislike them, Final Fantasy 12 and Tactics were excellent games that read like a story in many respects, having villains that are inherently good and are trying to achieve good objectives (Weigraf, for example).

I think that is sad that many games put the story on a backseat. I think Twilight Princess did an excellent job with this, putting new and unique controls to the test, taking some low blow hits against the player, but eventually tying it together in the true epic that Legend of Zelda games have encompassed since the NES. Personally, I felt something similar to the bone chill I got when playing Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I thought it was that good. That should be a modern benchmark in my opinion.
 

Deadbear

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Mar 17, 2008
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Hmm, a lot of valid points here, so I'm going to throw my hat in the ring.
For me, it's not so much that games are getting worse, it's a mixture of three things that create the appearance of such things. Firstly is the massive amounts of hype some games receive, which for the most part they don't deserve. I truly despise the Halo games, but mostly because, for me, they're just normal shooters that got overhyped to an insane degree. This inevitably leads to some games being disappointments when they don't live up to the hype.
Secondly is the raw number of games being produced. Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of anything is going to be terrible, and with more games being produced that law just states that a greater number of games will be bad. However, this does also mean that more good games will be made which is always a good thing.
Thirdly and finally is rising expectations. In the past ten years amazing innovations in technology have come through in gaming, and now it is expected that most games have these innovations. Go back 15 years and see which of your old favourite games still stand up to the test of time? My bet is, not many. I still play Wolf 3D, but I won't tell you it's the best game ever. It did an amazing amount for the day but compared to today, it's a bit old and stilted.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there's no real loss of quality in generations in games. We tend to view the past in a better light than we experienced it and say "the past was better". In reality, no, it was probably different but not better. We've been burned by a few games that everyone claimed was brilliant and turned out to be average at best(Halo 3, I'm looking at you!) but that doesn't mean there still aren't a load of good games out there. We just need to be careful in our choices and not always listen to the critics
 

ClassicThunder

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Dec 28, 2007
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What are you old farts example of great games? One problem may be is that you experienced the rapid development that the game industry saw as technology quickly developed. You know the quick, early development that comes with the beginning of anything new. And now your disappointed that things have fell into a rhythm and don't change as much?

Anyways much of the development has been for online gaming. Just 2 or 3 years ago online shooters sucked. Now its much harder to cheat and mod making games much more competitive. Hell even the RTS are competitive now. Less and less are there cheap tactics and only 1 unit used.

I'm looking froward to the future. Especially C&C 3KW. I only play the campaign once. Then move on to the multiplayer for weeks or months. Halo 3 was virtually bug and cheat free. A vast improvement over Halo 2 and other earlier games. And I hope designers continue to focus on online gaming. Books and movies are good for stories. Games are for competition.

Later,
ClassicThunder
 

Mr. Bubbles

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Sep 27, 2007
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I don't agree, TC, about the over-all point of your topic or with your opinion of BioShock which was (to me) awesome. Though you may have figured that out without even reading my post. I think that you just don't like that type of game, and if your list of favorites is any measure I'd probably be right. The problem (for you) is that those sorts of games are popular right now, so you don't get what you want. Again, this is all cunjecture.
 

Terramax

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nilcypher said:
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.
But these games don't HAVE to be traditionally long. They are because developers think that's what's expected of them. Like you said, filler. There shouldn't be filler in a good game. How can a game receive rave reviews when it's mainly filler?

I've owned GTA 3 for about 6 years now and I've still not completed it. I've restarted about 5 times in the past, but it just takes so long... great game, but you get tired of hearing the same radio stations, doing the same missions and story dragging far too long. If GTA only took 15 hours to complete, and the things you did more varied, I'd buy them. I'm looking forward to getting Bioshock for its shortness. I'll also by CoD4 eventually. I'll just wait until the hype dies down.

As for RPGs that take 60+ hours, I'm mainly on about JRPGs from the PSX era. All the time I have to spend levelling... blah! Maybe they're shorter now, but I wouldn't know because I don't play the things anymore. Last RPGs I played have been Stella Deus and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. The former I played for about 35 hours and was about 2/3 of the way through and got bored. Disgaea kept me to the end, and I spent over 60 hours before I could complete that the first time round.

And don't get me started on Western RPGs. Cliched sci-fi or Lord of the Rings crap. Argh! Can't stand it! No originality. Get away, evil ones!
 

Sixties Spidey

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Jan 24, 2008
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Part of the blame goes to the Reviewers, Critics, and Gaming Journalism. They hype too damn much. Hype makes or breaks anything, and when you have games like saay.... this generation, reviewers look at number-crunching than gameplay. I have been playing games for probably 12 years of my 14 year life on multiple consoles and portables. Its more on hype, and mostly on bias. Its also of taste. If you don't like that game, thats because either you don't want it, or you are setting a certain benchmark. They aren't getting worse, its gaming journalism who pimp the titles too much on graphics and physics rather than gameplay.
 

mitsoxfan

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Feb 12, 2008
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buy teh haloz said:
Part of the blame goes to the Reviewers, Critics, and Gaming Journalism. They hype too damn much. Hype makes or breaks anything, and when you have games like saay.... this generation, reviewers look at number-crunching than gameplay. I have been playing games for probably 12 years of my 14 year life on multiple consoles and portables. Its more on hype, and mostly on bias. Its also of taste. If you don't like that game, thats because either you don't want it, or you are setting a certain benchmark. They aren't getting worse, its gaming journalism who pimp the titles too much on graphics and physics rather than gameplay.
I think a few things are hurting games as the generations go on.

First, exclusivity (and EA), and I don't mean console. Games like Madden who have no competition. From the first Madden to probably Madden 2005, they got better every year. Recently, they've only gotten worse. Competition in the gaming world is important. And the more companies EA buys up, the worse games are going to get.

Second, a complete focus on 1st person gaming, especially in RPGs (specifically Western RPGs). It sort of makes for developing around graphics the priority, and then story and gameplay are stuck in a distant second and third. Honestly, Bioshock is an FPS. I'm sorry. I find it no different than Doom 3, other than being able to 'upgrade' yourself. GotY, that, IMO, is a complete joke. It was a pretty FPS, with some RPG elements. Take out the RPG elements, and you still have Bioshock.

JRPGs are a little different. I'm so looking forward to Disgaea 3, and FFXIII. They are sort of sticking with RPG in a traditional sense, and aren't (IMO) sacrificing themselves to the 'FPS in RPG Clothing' kick developers are on these days.

I still prefer Morrowing over Oblivion. I still prefer FFVII (hell, even FFX) over Bioshock.

Lastly, artificial length (insert joke here). Taking on fetch quests to add length. This isn't a new tactic, but it's something that ruins games. I LOVE games that are 60 hours long. 100 hours long, even. I only get to play maybe 10 hours a week, but if a game is going to last me 10 weeks, damn, that's great!

I'm actually looking forward to GTA IV. Big sprawling cities with limitless time wasting opportunities, now that's my kind of third person shooter!
 

portuga-man

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I play games for fun. A game's story is, for me, an extra.

If i want a good story, i read a book. I don't play games expecting to be given a compelling story.
 

mitsoxfan

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portuga-man said:
I play games for fun. A game's story is, for me, an extra.

If i want a good story, i read a book. I don't play games expecting to be given a compelling story.
One man's trash is another man's Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, I suppose.
 

chris100185

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Nov 21, 2007
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portuga-man said:
I play games for fun. A game's story is, for me, an extra.

If i want a good story, i read a book. I don't play games expecting to be given a compelling story.
It depends on the genre. A JRPG really lives or dies by its story. I can think of several cases where the story helped me finish one with otherwise mediocre gameplay and a poorly told story made a game with fantastic gameplay at times hard to play through to the end.
 

portuga-man

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chris100185 said:
It depends on the genre. A JRPG really lives or dies by its story. I can think of several cases where the story helped me finish one with otherwise mediocre gameplay and a poorly told story made a game with fantastic gameplay at times hard to play through to the end.

It's been a while since i played any jrpg, but if we are to talk about such particular case, then i'll have to say yes. jrpg's are getting worse with every generation, because stories are starting to get repetitive, or simply bland. There's nothing more to see in this particular genre, until someone starts giving a crap about the game instead of thinking on a cool name in latin.
 

whyhalothar

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Nov 21, 2007
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portuga-man said:
I play games for fun. A game's story is, for me, an extra.

If i want a good story, i read a book. I don't play games expecting to be given a compelling story.
That's like saying "I watch movies for the babes and 3D effects. A movie's story is, for me, an extra."

I know that it's your opinion. However, I, for one, want to have a reason to continue playing, besides the fact that it's fun (it gets redundant after a while too). I'd like to know how the world, protagonist, and/or party evolves and what kind of shit happens.
 

Giygas

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Mar 1, 2008
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portuga-man said:
I play games for fun. A game's story is, for me, an extra.

If i want a good story, i read a book. I don't play games expecting to be given a compelling story.
Well, sure, there are games I play just for fun, too, and couldn't care less about the story. But what's the point of playing an FPS, for example, with a crappy story or none at all? It's not like FPSs change much. There's tons of free maps for already existing FPSs, so new maps can't be it either.
If I play a single-player game that's supposedly telling a story (and almost every FPS out there pretends to do so with the exception of online shooters) I want that story to be at least acceptable. It doesn't have to be deep, it should just keep me entertained. But most cheap zombie movies have a more "compelling" storyline than many multi-million dollar games.