Is the 'Competent Game' the new 'Perfect Game'?

[Terramax]

About a decade ago, for a game to get amazing scores it not only had to be better in all fields than the competition, but it had to bring something new and innovative to the table.

Metal Gear Solid had excellent production values, clever AI, masterful storytelling, well implimented music, etc. Soul Calibur with its extra modes, smooth controls, outstanding graphics and music. Gran Turismo with its all new level of realism... you get the idea.

And yet for a game to get perfect scores now it merely has to be a barely more than competent. It really hit me today when watching my sister play Xenoblade Chronicles. In terms of its gameplay, story and presentation it pretty much ticked every cliché in the book. There doesn't appear to be a single original idea at all. And the problems facing JRPGs in the past haven't been addressed either. Melodramatic acting, flat characters, confusing, uninvolving and unintuitive battles, graphics barely an improvement over FFXII on the PS2. And yet this game got 9/10 everywhere!

And it's pretty much with every major release out there. Skyrim, Zelda, Call of Duty, Halo, you name it. Sequels with improved graphics and slight tweaks to previous instalments. Or if not direct sequels, cliches or blatant copies of other titles.

Is a game that's merely competent but given a little more polish what we consider an outstanding, perfect game?

Now, before people convict me of ranting about specific favourite franchises, genres, etc, that's not my intent. I have no quarrel with people enjoying games such as the ones listed. I just want to know if people think our perception of a great game has changed over the years?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think that the word "iteration" gets a lot of bad press these days. Lots of people like to point to some ancient title and laud how innovative some feature was or how original some idea is while, at the same time, decrying some game for simply "copying" from another. Yes, there are plenty of games that are unashamedly rip-offs of another franchise but that does not mean a game that iterates is somehow unworthy of praise.

No human endeavor, not even any idea has even been constructed in a vacuum - nothing we have ever done is utterly unique. What people do is not innovate. People iterate. We take old ideas and we make them better. This is never more obvious than when we look at video games. Innovation, it turns out, is just a word we use when something iterates and we are unable to determine the original form.

Consider short list of games in the first two posts here: Skyrim, Crysis, Gran Turismo, Soul Calibur, and Metal Gear Solid. The latter group were lauded for innovation without a trace of irony or sarcasm to be found. Consider the following, then:

Crysis: Notable for being a technological marvel. Considering the FPS has, since it's inception, often been concerned with doing this exact thing and further considering that the game presented literally no technology not seen in some other game, this most notable of point becomes quite meaningless. Beyond that, you were given a first person shooter that gave the player a set of abilities that could alter the basic dynamic from run and gun or hide and shoot. This exact set of abilities exists, in some form or another, in dozens of prior games. Mechanically it is obviously iterative at best and narrative it is positively derivative.

Gran Turismo: A game notable for being an early example of simulation as game mechanic. Beyond that, it is a racing game of which there were hundreds of examples before. A racing game with a slightly more rigorous application of physics is hardly a quantum leap or an idea born of whole cloth.

Soul Calibur: Functionally, the game is essentially Tekken played with weapons. The weapons themselves serve little purpose beyond helping justify differences in rate of attack and range.

Metal Gear Solid: This one is painfully obvious, really. Mechanically, it is simply a translation of the old Metal Gear games to 3d and metal gear itself had little to distinguish it from any of a dozen NES games. Narratively, the game simply went the Custscene route which was not new in games by any stretch and, considering movies have been around awhile, aren't new in concept.

Iteration is not a shameful thing; it is how progress is made. Iteration is what eventually lead to the idea that "Racing Game" might refer to something like Mario Kart or something that gives a valiant attempt at simulation like Gran Turismo. And, sometimes, iteration does nothing but further refine what already was. Skyrim is, simply put, an Elder Scrolls game. While there are things about the game I wish was better (that isn't worth going into here), the game made significant strides in constructing a believable and interesting world even if the basic formula remained the same. And I might not understand why people would so eagerly await a game like Starcraft 2 when it, to my untrained eye, seems identical to a game made fifteen or so years ago, having played another RTS at length I can understand that a relatively minor tweak can utterly change how the game plays out.

Sure, not all iteration is a step forward. But sometimes the market simply doesn't want a step forward. We can all say we want Call of Duty to be different but when Activision makes a few hundred million dollars in a week on the latest version, it makes it seem silly to demand it be different. Sure, I want it to be something different but the sales tell me that most people want the last thing but more of it.

And, to be honest, there is something to be said for being able to make the best version of a product with little variation. Reach represents the best Halo as far as I'm concerned even though it rarely strays from the formula. Mechwarrior 4 is my favorite iteration of Giant Walking Tank combat game in spite of all the blasphemy. Human Revolution might not edge out Deus Ex in terms of my favorite, but if I'm being honest I think Human Revolution is the better game.

 

[tippy2k2]

Big snip

Holy Fudgey Bear, I had a response but I think I'm just going to shamefully bow my head at seeing yours...eh, I'll try my hand anyway:

I subscribe to Game Informer and not one of those games ended with a perfect 10 (granted, it may have 10'ed on other sites/magazines however). EDIT: Skyrim: 9.5, MW3: 9, Halo Reach: 9.5, Skyward Sword: 10, so Zelda was the only "perfect" game

Reviewers realized that a 10 was not supposed to be some unreachable goal (which is why I think so few games in the past received them). Along with that, there was much less AAA stuff being released for previous generations but gaming have become such a money maker that companies are throwing millions into a game. With the current market, of course you're going to get more 10's. There's just so much more being released with so much higher budgets that it would be silly to expect this not to happen.

 

[Crazedc00k]

Skyrim was huge, yet detailed. One might say it is the most substantial RPG ever. Otherwise, I agree. Look at DA2: a marked step down in many ways, yet garnering numerous really high scores.

 

[skywolfblue]

Is a game that's merely competent but given a little more polish what we consider an outstanding, perfect game?

Who's saying it's only "merely competent"? To some it may be the best game ever, but it just doesn't appeal to ~your~ particular tastes.

Sequels with improved graphics and slight tweaks to previous instalments. Or if not direct sequels, cliches or blatant copies of other titles.

Why does being a sequel mean the game cannot be "perfect"? They take an idea some people loved, and improved on it, so in many cases the sequel ends up fixing a lot of the flaws and making a much better game.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

It's been said for quite a while that the ratings and reviews for video games are quite inflated, and it is very true. There have been gaming sites that have added a "6/5" type of rating for games which are somehow "beyond perfect." I'm not exactly sure where it came from, either...there was that guy who worked on a game and went and whined about how it deserved a higher rating than it got, which probably opened the gate. But even before that it's been a growing trend for games which have room for improvement to get perfect scores. The only thing I can think of to possibly explain it is a lot of game reviewing sources out there aren't after giving constructive criticisms to the games they review. They want to be the "voice of all gamers" and be entertaining, so rather than saying something like "There are many good aspects, even a few great ones, but there's still room for improvement in x and y areas" they'll simply say "Oh man, it was so awesome and fun!"

They believe it's much more entertaining to read a "down to earth" account of how generally fun a game is rather than giving a serious and comprehensive critique of the game not only as a game, but also in terms of its visuals, its narrative, and its overall presentation. Games haven't really hit that point where we have a huge back-catalogue of "classics" to fall back on for our reviewing standards. Yes we have classics and established genres like film, but even two games within the same genre can be radically different simply based on what console they were released on. There are far fewer consistencies between the past and the present of games as compared to past and present films. Plus, films have simply been around longer. There are far more established standards in film, standards which are much more concrete and not as subject to such radical change as games. And because of this lack of standards for games in general, the standard for reviewing games is also nonexistent. So most of the industry has settled on the type of reviewing which is the most lucrative for them--entertaining and gratuitous reviews geared towards telling the gamers what they want to hear rather than an actually comprehensive critique.

 

[Metaphysic]

Bash a game, and if it doesn't sell well, that company may not buy adspace in your magazine or on your web site. Professional 'reviewers' like to see big games sell well almost as much as the companies who make and publsih them.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's been said for quite a while that the ratings and reviews for video games are quite inflated, and it is very true.

This is actually a fairly interesting point to consider in some ways. Most games it would seem are rated on the 6 - 10 scale leaving a whole huge swath of said scale vacant. I suppose that were the scale applied properly, we should reasonably expect to see a bell curve with the peak right at 5.0. Of course, this all presupposes our perception of how games are scored is accurate.

People often make claims like yours and I am quite inclined to agree with the observation. But then I'm forced to remember that there are myriad factors that serve to cloud my perception. Of all the games widely discussed, I'm only legitimately interested in a relatively small handful and as such am only inclined to seek opinions on this fraction. Even if we widen the scope, only a fraction of the games made actually garner significant attention from the gaming press. Most of those games, it turns out, are well funded and being made by a staff that is often full of veterans in the field. It is easily possible that the reason for my perception of "inflated" scores is due to the fact that I tend to look for information about games with large budgets made by a skilled staff and in such a category even a "bad" game is relatively good when compared to the whole of gaming.

It is also possible that the claim is utterly unfounded because I've never once seen someone actually do a study.

They believe it's much more entertaining to read a "down to earth" account of how generally fun a game is rather than giving a serious and comprehensive critique of the game not only as a game, but also in terms of its visuals, its narrative, and its overall presentation.

The trouble is simply that the only truth anyone can relate about a game that is even remotely useful is what their experience was. Every single field you just listed is meaningless. Visuals? What does that even mean? Are we talking about which game has the better HDR algorithm or which game can handle more polygons? Or are we talking about which game looked the best. The former can be measured and yet provides nothing meaningful. Doom 3 was a technical marvel at the time but it wasn't a visually interesting game for most people. Flower used ancient technology and is lauded to this day for the visual presentation. Narrative is just as tricky. I'm a sucker for the Hero Journey story and will respond favorably to a well told version. By contrast, the honor bound knight story bores me to tears and it would take an exceptionally well told version to hold my interest.

I'm not saying that there isn't room for improvement in the field of course. But when you get right down to it, what service is a game review trying to provide? People can stand atop a soap box and speak about how it could be a vehicle to improve the medium but this point is largely bullshit. Commercial art is not improved by professional criticism and it never has been. Success or failure in the market is and has always been what drives change in any media. The critics part is tangential at best in that they have some power to sway people to purchase (or not). By and large, the purpose of the reviewer is not academic. At best they are consumer advocates and at worst they are little more than another arm of an ad campaign.

 

[Phlakes]

...What? So, Morrowind was a brilliant game, Oblivion improved on that (arguably), then Skyrim improved on that, and that makes Skyrim only competent? This confuses me greatly.

 

[weker]

our perception of a good game is still the same. UNIQUE not innovative is important, and always has been, most innovation comes from the smaller titles that people don't know about until someone has a go at them for not knowing where it came from, when the attribute it's creation to another game (portal and the student's game made before it)

Good writing
Good story
Good game play
Unique
and ofc FUN

All still important in a game today as well as a review.

Bash a game, and if it doesn't sell well, that company may not buy adspace in your magazine or on your web site.

Reviews rarely effect how well a game sells, and almost all do not care if they get one bad review. Also most producers know that people will still buy their game in the same amounts even if said reviewer gave them a 7 instead of a 8, as it won't make a difference.
Reviewers are always against this bogus idea that any of them are forced to say something.
Also the only proof of this happening at all in recent years is with Two World 2 and loads of people were coming forwards about that instantly, and what happened, the fans of the site backed them up.

 

[Terramax]

Is a game that's merely competent but given a little more polish what we consider an outstanding, perfect game?

Who's saying it's only "merely competent"? To some it may be the best game ever, but it just doesn't appeal to ~your~ particular tastes.

Whoa, hold your horses! As explained previously I in no way said I dislike the games named above, or that I look down upon those who do. But just because you enjoy a game immensely doesn't automatically make it a near perfect game.

My original statement is that a game that simply collects ideas from other titles in the genre and polishes them is considered an outstanding title. But if this is the case, what does that make an average title?

To use a title I really like as an example - Tenchu Z. The game is a simple assassination action game. Everything it does it does either to average standard or excellently. It controls like a dream and it perfectly transports us back to historical Japan. The game does have its flaws, such as the A.I.

Z got average reviews, and whilst I really enjoy it, indeed from a technical perspective it is nothing more than an average. But the Assassin's Creed series, which hardly improves at all on the concept, rated incredibly highly despite suffering the same kinds of problems with the A.I., so where are we drawing the line?

Soul Calibur: Functionally, the game is essentially Tekken played with weapons. The weapons themselves serve little purpose beyond helping justify differences in rate of attack and range...

Sure, not all iteration is a step forward. But sometimes the market simply doesn't want a step forward. We can all say we want Call of Duty to be different but when Activision makes a few hundred million dollars in a week on the latest version, it makes it seem silly to demand it be different. Sure, I want it to be something different but the sales tell me that most people want the last thing but more of it.

That's understandable. But my question is though, whilst I'm not arguing a game like CoD shouldn't sell well, and shouldn't have a great many fans, should that detract from their flaws?

To use the Soul Calibur and Tekken comparison as an example. I do believe Soul Calibur was more than just an expansion of previous 1 on 1 fighters, and it really did deserve near perfect scores.

If you compare it to Tekken 1-3 or Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur improves, expands and adds a whole level of meaningful depth. Soul Calibur got perfect scores because it can't improve on the 1 on 1 fighting concept in any way.

It's far more responsive, faster paced, the weapons really do add a whole level of complexity, but still easy to grasp. Then there are the modes, adding lenght and further rewards. And the fact that the characters were so very well balanced, offering variety to different play styles (unlike, say, Street Fighters where most people just choose Chun Li, Ryu, Ken, and the rest are just filler) and of course the music and graphics which were a giant leap. Soul Calibur looked better than any game in the arcades at the time, back when the arcade industry was seen as a breeding ground for the most technically impressive games.

In fact, if you look a decade on, 1 on 1 fighting games haven't improved at all since SC1, besides graphics. Even SC4 failed to meet the standard of SC1 seeing as characters weren't very well balanced, and the game was noticeably slower and clunkier than predeccessors.

Compare this to Xenoblade Chronicles, which I mentioned to begin with. The game has deep flaws and can only be considered a 9/10 (near perfect title) if you activily enjoy nonsensical storytelling, meaninglessly confusing battle systems, NPCs that talk like robots, fetch quests to the extreme, etc. Xenoblade is by no means a bad game, but could have easily been improved significantly in so many ways.

Untimately, even if you love JRPGS, it really is just an adequete game, perhaps getting higher scores simply for being on the Wii, a console starved of JRPGs. But does this mean we're lowering the bar just because there's a lack of?

 

[Battleaxx90]

It really hit me today when watching my sister play Xenoblade Chronicles. In terms of its gameplay, story and presentation it pretty much ticked every cliché in the book. There doesn't appear to be a single original idea at all. And the problems facing JRPGs in the past haven't been addressed either. Melodramatic acting, flat characters, confusing, uninvolving and unintuitive battles, graphics barely an improvement over FFXII on the PS2. And yet this game got 9/10 everywhere!

Wait...

You DARE insult Xenoblade Chronicles!? The game that quite possibly qualifies for my most favourite game of all time!?

Okay, sure, looking back on the game, it does contain quite a few cliche's. However, there's a huge damn difference between "Cliche' fest" and "Cliche' fest done right". Take the film Rango for instance; it contained every damn Western cliche in the book, but each one was either:

A) Played perfectly straight
B) Cleverly subverted
C) Lampshaded to hell and back

AND IT WORKED, GODDAMNIT!

Xenoblade is no different. In the way that Rango was a love letter to the Western, Xenoblade's a love letter to the JRPG genre; taking what makes it great and making it shine like the damn sun.

Also, by "Problems facing JRPG's in the past not being adressed", nobody ever said that this game was going to remake the damn genre. Many of these "problems" that you're no doubt thinking about, by the way, are only really noticed by those who tend to favour WRPG's, anyway. Over-the-top action scenes, unorthodox battle mechanics, long cutscenes, impractically stylish outfits, that one game mechanic that confuses you for half the game (In this case, the gem crafting), the weird-ass creature in the party who's either the best or worst fighter in the game, bizzare plots....

JRPG fans like that stuff, d00d. If YOU don't, nobody says you have to stick around. Door's over there.

....

Okay, so I read the paragraph again. My above points still stand, but you mentioned your "Problems" with the game. Allow me to adress them:

Melodramatic Acting (Only a few small bites of ham in the entire script, each for good reason anyway)
Flat characters (A DAMNABLE LIE, some of my favourite characters ever are in this game)
Boring battles (Try calling the battles boring after you and your team work together flawlessly to pull off a perfect Chain Attack and knock the giant beast on its ass with You Will Know Our Names making sweet love to your ears)
Lackuster graphics (I'll admit that the close-ups are kinda pixel-y. The wide shots, however?)


I haven't seen any vids of FFXII, but I just KNOW that it's got nothing on that. And if you still don't believe me? Go to Satori Marsh at night. HOLY CRAP.

And to answer your original question: Is the "Competent game" the new "Perfect game"? I don't know how to answer that. Why? There never was a "Perfect game" to begin with. How can you replace something that never existed? Ask any gamer to give you a list of the flaws of his favourite game; I can guarantee he'll deliver. Case in point; I'm pretty sure I admitted the odd flaw with Xenoblade during my rant. Perfect is synonomous with Flawless; if something has flaws, ergo it is not perfect.

One more thing. You think that games these days are less innovative than the days of old? I present you with two choices. You can either stay in your little Pessimism Party and keep playing the games that are at least 65% innovation, or you can accept the fact that this is just the way the market is and enjoy some genuinely good modern titles. Say what you will about games like CoD and Battlefield, they must have SOMETHING going for them if they're that popular.

Now if you'll excuse me, if anybody needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.

EDIT: Zounds, but what's this?

Now, before people convict me of ranting about specific favourite franchises, genres, etc, that's not my intent. I have no quarrel with people enjoying games such as the ones listed. I just want to know if people think our perception of a great game has changed over the years?

I swear on my life that I didn't see this on my first reading of the thread. I'm sorry if I offended you or anybody during my rant, I just noticed you bashing the game and I just... snapped. Please disregard my rabid fanboyism and my initial inability to understand what this thread was about.

Now then; onto the rational discussion!

Are our standards of a good game being decreased, if review ratings are anything to go by?

My answer is thus:

Spoiler

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

You know, something that doesn't come up a lot in these discussions I feel is that the memory only goes back so far. You can talk about how a game from way back when was far superior to a more recent version(Sequel or just something copying that style) and while I may agree with you, some people may have never even heard of that game.
I feel increasingly dated in that my favorite games, most gamers have never even heard of, let alone played. That could partly be the reason why games you might see as mediocre get much higher scores.
I personally believe that the whole scoring system for games is retarded anyway. A 7/10 is considered practically unplayable nowadays.
Also, I am getting sick of everyone referring to Skyrim like it was the best game ever made and Dragon Age 2 like the worst game ever made. There are many games better than Skyrim and many games better than Dragon Age 2, get some perspective here people! I enjoyed both equally myself. Of course, I just started playing Planescape: Torment again and its better than both of them, so take that!

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

If anything the prevalence of bugs comes with scale and complexity of modern games. The closer we get to the next generation of graphics the more dev's will try and stretch the hardware until they finally throw up their hands and say 'new console please.'

Games are always buggy at the start and end of console generations.

As for rehashing the same formula well, we have all seen what happens when they don't do that. Final Fantasy 13 and DA2...

bad things, bad things happen.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

You are giving games like Skyrim way too little credit, and older games way too much. If anything standards are higher now. The level of realism put into Gran Turismo 5 is unbelievable, but reviewers weren't nearly as impressed by it.

As an older gamer I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Everyone seems spoiled almost. Those people hating on games like Skyrim, just take a step back and actually think about how much work and effort went into that.

Gamers are getting a lot harder to impress.

 

[4RM3D]

As I have stated in another thread before, I stopped caring about reviewers long ago. About 99% of the reviewers can not be trusted. Whether it is because of marketing agreements (e.g. I will give a positive review, because...) or because the reviews are just incompetent; heck probably both!. Anyhow, if it bothers you, you should just ignore them.