I feel like I'm the only one who likes AAA games [rant]

[GrimHeaper]

Oh dear Vault, you aren't alone. Though I enjoy games from all spectrums I don't want AAA games to disappear or the industry to crash (and die) just because I can't look outside of a small area for games I may like. There are plenty AAA I liked, like and look forward to.

Indie gaming is not the only beacon of PC gaming and gaming. There are gems but they are niche titles. I can't expect (and I don't expect) everyone to like them and see them in the same light as I do.

AAA needs more variety and less bullshit.

What are you talking about? AAA covers nearly all genres there are with a few exceptions. We have strategy games (Sim City, Civ, Starcraft, XCom and more to cover subgenres), FPS (CoD, Dishonored, Far Cry 3 and many more to cover subgenres), we have RPGs (Mass Effect, Witcher, Ni No Kuni and many more to cover subgenres), we have platformers etc etc. And there is variety, you just don't have to focus on one subgenre to find it (what I mean: If you don't see variety then it is your own goddamn fault).

Less bullshit... I agree.

The bullshit has no vareity. Many of the games are rather one note. Like CoD.
Sure you may get one here and there, but frankly it isn't often enough and most of the industry is that way because of bullshit practices (aka jim's most recent video)
Not sure how I feel about Sim city and the like being called triple A surely it doesn't take that much money to make them. But if you ignore the money factor, maybe. I've played Civ and it never screamed big budget at me to be honest.

Simply put most Triple A games don't actually come out being worth the amount spent which is why they are called triple A(lots of money) and (high quality). People are now simply using the (lots of money) throw enough money at a something and suddenly it's triple A when it would be more proper to simple have triple A be high quality. It make it easier on me honestly.
AAA is more like a C or a B at the moment.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Just play what you want to play.

I've always found boycotting corporations like EA and Activision kinda stupid. I'm not going to let some shallow grudge I might have get in the way of something I enjoy doing. If I enjoy what they're producing, that is.

That's not to say I'm fine with the current state the industry is in, not all - It's a big, bloated, constricting monstrosity, and it'll only get worse come next generation. But that doesn't mean it can't still produce some great stuff. Stuff I'm going to enjoy it for what it is, not where it came from.

Also, I'm entitled and I want my fix.

 

[felbot]

and this would be the third angry thread you make, unless I missed one in which case this might be the fourth or fifth, I really don't know

anyway, the whole vote with your wallet thing didn't work because they were sequels, in fact they were the last games in trilogies, how could you not want them? after spending so much time with the first 2 games obviously you'd want to finish the "story", which is odd because before diablo 3 started being talked about I don't think I ever heard anyone talk about the story, mass effect i can sort of see people wanting to finish but diablo 3? never thought they cared.

so because of that apparently they bought it, and to their dismay they saw the error 37 message, they couldn't really predict that at that point so yay, they gave their money and couldn't play now.

same thing with mass effect, no one could predict that the ending was apparently going to be shit and by the time we knew everyone had already bought the game so not much to do now other than returning it and get your money back, which is when a army descended down upon them calling them entitled for wanting their money back.

 

[Vault101]

I know but heck, I'm not throwing a tantrum because I didn't like the last 20 minutes of a game...
I don't even finish most games, if a game gets me to play it to the end it is a feat that adds the game in my toplists.
(*looks at XCom:EU* You should learn something from Dishonored!)

[just to bait a little more]

nothing to do with the ending..I mean calling Mass Effect an RPG

 

[miketehmage]

I like certain AAA games. You know, the ones that aren't the sixth in the series and bloated full of ridiculous shit and are blatantly just attempts to further milk the franchise?

One of the reasons I like valve is because they don't release games all the damn time.

I liked the first modern warfare.

I liked BF2.


But when people complain about AAA games it's usually because they end up becoming a series of money-grabbing unoriginal boring nonsense, and it frustrates people that game companies are actually rewarded for releasing such shit. For example, I'd imagine BLOPS 2 sold pretty well. That frustrates me. Because I remember back when Call of Duty used to be good.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

, we have RPGs (Mass Effect.

youre putting a bullseye on your back with that one XD

He's really not. My (many) problems with the third title aside, ME is still a ground breaking series that is practically a clinic in terms of creating an emotional connection between the player and their avatar. Some RPG purists hate them for their genre blending and lack of stat crunching, but as something of an RPG purist myself (since Ultima II was new on shelves) I find it to be one of the most compelling set of RPGs ever made. This is why there was so much bleating when it went off the rails. If they'd been bad games, no one would have cared.

Frankly AAA games take way too much shit around here. In most cases, they're not BAD games. Many...perhaps even most...are quite GOOD games. What they often are is SAFE games. The more a game costs, the less risks its likely to take. So they stick to proven formulas. Proven formulas can be nice. Do you like Hamburgers? Hamburgers are a proven formula.

Indies risk less, and with less on the line can choose to be more adventurous. Sometimes this results in refreshing, unique games. Sometimes it results in pretentious wankery. Sometimes it results in unplayable dross. Since the games are seldom more than a buck or two, we are inclined to be forgiving, whereas we will take the lash to a $40 AAA game that has dropped a popular feature from its progenitor, or included an underwhelming DLC. If they are associated with a publisher convicted of crimes against the saintly nation of gamers (...and really, aren't they all?), all the more reason to heap scorn and derision on them.

In the grand, olden days of gaming I could buy a new title for my console...choosing from a whopping library of 30-40 games...for a heaping sum. I could play that game only on that console, and only so long as I had the physical media to hand. I could later expand this to my first PCs. I remember paying anywhere from $59 to $79 for a new first run title. There wasn't much of a review industry then, so the difference between a classic and a stinker was often down to how much you liked the box art. I was young. I could afford maybe 2 games a year, and maybe 1-2 more for birthdays and holidays. Maybe 1 in 4 was just a straight up failure.

At the turn of the century I had more selection, at slightly better prices, assuming I could find the games I was looking for. The local merchants didn't always have a great track record, and I remember constant calls to EB, wanting to know when my game would come in. They'd understock, or screw up pre orders. One guy almost came to blows with a clerk for losing his DAoC pre-order.

Now I can buy games for pennies on the dollar in every Steam sale, and download them right onto my PC without leaving the house. I can choose from a ridiculously vast library to scratch every gaming itch I could possibly have, and several I didn't even know I had. I have MMOs laboring to provide me with 100s and 100s of hours of content on launch. I have FTP games offering me fairly elaborate experiences just to tempt me in and try to sell me some stuff while I'm playing.

And complaining? Complaining has never been louder. $10 is a "ripoff" for a year old game, folks will scream, if they're willing to play at all...we have massive jeremiads on a weekly if not daily basis on the virtues of piracy. Despite staggering choice, we have ceaseless complaints about stagnancy and boredom and a lack of innovation. Fans of MMOs play their hundreds of hours and complain that they were not presented with THOUSANDS of hours for their $60. Those trying FTP games moan and carp that they're not getting enough for free, and declare the experience "a rip off". Apparently, we've never had it worse. We live in a gaming hinterland, buggered from every side by ruthless developers. Weep! WEEP for the plight of the noble gamer!

You guys will get there too. In 20 years we'll have amazing virtual worlds that will be blowing your minds right open, and gamers will be whining that the force feedback is giving them mundane orgasms.

 

[Vault101]

snip.

I am a huge fan of Mass Effect...I just dont know if I can call the latter 2 RPG's

not that I really care, I didnt enjoy the gameplay in ME1 as much, and aside from that its all story and charachters for me (sad that it had to end like it did....but what can you do?...[small/]aside from buy all those action figures to fill the void in your heart from when the game tore it open[/small])

 

[GrimHeaper]

The bullshit has no vareity. Many of the games are rather one note. Like CoD.

So you want to say that... a sequel is like its previous game? So? Was that not always that way? Super Meat Boy is just a more polished Meat Boy. Zelda: A Link to the Past is pretty much just a more polished Zelda. And sequel N is pretty much just a more polished N-1.

Yes, a game is pretty much like the genre it belongs to with maybe little changes to add the illusion of 'variety'. I don't expect a stealth'em'up to jump the shark and change the gameplay to a big extend from what was established in Thief 2. I don't expect a shooter to move away a lot from the 'point and click at bad guys to make them go away' formula. If I buy a Modern Military Shooter like CoD I'd pretty much expect iron sights, linear gameplay and regenerating health. But MMS is not the only thing that makes the FPS genre.

Now lets look at the variety in the Indie genre. We game game X that gets successfull and a ton of people who want to ride that train and make the same game with a slightly different artstyle. There are platformers... platformers... platformers... Yeah, that is Indie gaming for you. A ton of entries that lack in quality and the few big ones that create the illusion of variety (because honest, who the fuck heard of Demigod, another bloody [and poorly made] DOTA attempt). Yes, there are the Hotlines: Miami and Binding of Isaacs and Super Meat Boys (of whom I all own) but at the end of the day my Indie tab in Steam is as varied in Genres as my Singleplayer AAA tab (and I have a rather big tab of 60-90 games each).

The budget thing: It is tricky. Not many studios release numbers so I lack any actual prof for tackling 'AAA' on games because AAA is mostly associated with a certain budget. So to say "this game is not AAA because it does not feel like a AAA budget" falls in the same pit as me saying "It is AAA because it is one of the biggest IPs of that genre and I'm sure as heck that Sid Meier works mostly on AAA games nowadays".

Well yea, but they can actually move forward for example.
Mario used to just be able to jump, but they decided to give more options.
double,triple,Back,running,wall,etc jump are now able to be done.
They don't expand on the mechanics enough taking an entire new take on it.
Shooters should have a bit more than pewpewpew.
RPGS haven't actually done anything new in years.
Platformers admittedly have been done to death but they are popular because of how much they have decided to do.
Which now leaves us at, just make a game with all of the features working well together.
There are still new idea's for platformers that could be done I guess.

For example if DMC5 was to be made they would actually expand the series by a great bit if they had every single weapon from the old games in it along with on the style switching with all styles, and grabbing (and of course 60 fps) That alone would change the way things are done by building on old ideas and using them to make something overall is new.
It would change standards.
Many games don't try to carry over the older good parts of mechanics and expanding anymore.

 

[TecnoMonkey]

I feel exacly like you do.

In my opinion the gaming community as a whole is full of entitled brats nowadays. I think The Escapist has the best community a gaming website could have and still there are so many people here that make me roll my eyes every time I read one of their posts. I've seen people in these forums frequently saying that they don't buy a certain game if it's published/made by a certain company, I've read people saying that they won't buy a game because there was music in that games trailer that they didn't enjoy (the music usually being dubstep). And then there's the negativity, seriously has no one noticed how much of a downer some escapists are, there's just... so much hate here.

Game companies like Ubisoft, EA, Activision have lot's of flaws, no doubt about it, but the gaming community has flaws too and those flaws are starting to influence the people that make video games and it may not be for the better.

 

[krazykidd]

Wow , 33 posts in and no one said: " you're never the only one ". Is this forum maturing ?!

OT: This is really hard to answer to . People complain about what they don't like naturally . When it comes to AAA games , most of these series are held in high regard by gamers , therefor when something happens that people don't like , they have good reason to complain . Because they have played or grew up with the series . The best example i have of this is DMC . New dante , his characterisation ( forget what he looks like ) , is not to my liking . I grew up with old dante , and honestly in my opinion , old Dante was badass . Now all these years later , iv'e gotten older , and there is a new dante . Do you know what i see when i look at new dante? I see a 16 highschool kid . And i hate it . BUT the game is no longer aimed towards me , the old generation , it's aimed towards the mew generation of gamers , the 16-17 year olds who will be the future of gaming . Just like Old dante was aimed towards my generation of gamers , New dante is for the new generation . Old dante represents what was cool 10 years ago , New dante represents what's cool now . I just grew up and am no longer the target demographic of that game . Some people upon the realisation ***** and moan that their favorite series is dead . Are the wrong? No , the series is dead to them , but they weren't the target demographic for that game . But to the people who that game is marketed to , it's and ball full of awsome .

I forgot what my point was . Take from that what you will.

 

[SonicWaffle]

In my opinion the gaming community as a whole is full of entitled brats nowadays.

Nowadays? Also, just the gaming community? Look at the number of musicians, actors, directors or sports players who are accused of "selling out" when they do something the fans don't like. We're all whiny, entitled little bitches

I think The Escapist has the best community a gaming website could have and still there are so many people here that make me roll my eyes every time I read one of their posts. I've seen people in these forums frequently saying that they don't buy a certain game if it's published/made by a certain company, I've read people saying that they won't buy a game because there was music in that games trailer that they didn't enjoy (the music usually being dubstep). And then there's the negativity, seriously has no one noticed how much of a downer some escapists are, there's just... so much hate here.

I'm not so sure about that. Sure we disagree a lot - we're the most argumentative bunch on the internet and proud of it - but in the main the discussions stay relatively civil. Hate is a strong word. People ***** and complain and argue, but it's rare that we devolve into hating one another.

Negativity is fine so long as it's an honest opinion with some backing behind it. Saying "game X sucks because it sucks" is more likely to be trolling, and we should just ignore those people anyway.