What's gone wrong with the game industry?

[cookyy2k]

I've been playing serious sam DD recently, it's brilliant 2D side scrolling run and gun mayhem. It is in the fashion of contra, but contra on acid and speed. Anyway as I often do if I really enjoy (or hate) a game I had a look at metacritic to see what the critics and general people thought. The player reviews were generally positive except for one guy moaning about no multiplayer, the profesional critics though tore shreds from it for no multiplayer and bad (by which we mean cartoony 2D) graphics. One critic says it has bad visual and music with no comment, even cursory to the gameplay. The game isn't trying to take itself seriously, it's trying to be fun, the thing many AAA games have forgotten to be while being polished up the graphics and moneterised it up the arse.

Since when did multiplayer and "good" (by which they mean grey/brown) graphics become the be all and end all of computer games? Give me side scrolling mayhem or a JRPG over spunkgargleweewee any day. Cartoony graphics, no multiplayer and fun gameplay or solid story will always be better in my opinion than a "grey brown kill all the darkies aren't we so serious" game.

 

[tippy2k2]

Do I have to be the one to say it? I guess I do...

Opinions: It's OK for yours and another persons to not match.

I for one can't stand Serious Sam and those speedier shooters (give me a Call of Duty game ANY day over that crap). Does that make them bad games? No and I'd be an idiot to believe that the Serious Sam games are bad because I don't like them. You can talk about the objective stuff like if the game works to determine if it's objectively good but everything you're putting down are all subjective.

 

[cookyy2k]

And that's the exact point I'm making... The problem is that if a game comes out without a multiplayer (no matter how tacked on it'd be) or if they haven't spent millions on masking "realistic" graphics the critics do call it bad, it does get maked down on those things even though they aren't necessary in that type of game.

The AAA publishers listen to this crap so tack a multiplayer on to the side of everything taking up dev time and money, they polish the graphics to the nth degree at the expense of other things. And then finally they realise they have to sell multiple million copies to just break even, stop green lighting anything that isn't the same as the last big seller and blame the consumer if it doesn't make them all rich.

The AAA game industry budgets are becoming unsustainable, the market can only grow so big and I think it's getting close to breaking point. AAA games cannot be inflated in price to the consumer much further or sales will likely drop, they can't keep going higher and higher budget all the time or the profit margins will become thin to non existant, all the microtransaction and DLC crap is starting, slowly, to build a backlash. Telling the publishers over and over we need multiplayer and "realistic" graphics will not fix this. Take a look what happened with spec ops multiplayer, it was tacked on, against the dev's wishes and was deserted within a month, this is because of people and critics going on about multiplayer in everything all the time.

The critics need to start thinking did the lack of fancy graphics take away from this, did the lack of multiplayer take away from this and if they didn't don't mark them down based on this.

 

[Burntpopcarn]

I don't really know. The industry really sucks these days. Classic games like Doom and Half-Life are good games. 2-hour long games with way too much detail in the multiplayer are terrible. I can't stand games which present me with a single-player mode which only lasts 2 hours, and when it's over, they present you with a multiplayer devoid of other players with WAY too much work put into it. And on another note, what the hell happened to split-screen? I'd say that 98% of the games I own have co-op and multiplayer, but no split-screen! Case in point, Syndicate. A really fun cyberpunk tactical shooter with awesome co-op. But I can't play that awesome co-op in split-screen! The main point is, games shouldn't be all about the multiplayer now. I want games to go back to the golden age of fps games, like Doom, Quake, Half-Life and Counter-Strike. Back in my day we rocket-jumped all over the place and had to pick up health packs instead of just sucking our thumb behind cover for a few goddamn moments. I don't know about the other genres, but today's fps games are generic crap with no variety. You keep playing Serious Sam, friend. Those dumb critics are probably whiny CoD fanboys, anyway. Long live classic fps games.

 

[Pulse]

A note on the visuals....

The visuals are pretty rubbish, it's very rigid and limited animation with a basic art style. To be honest it's free internet browser game quality. Plenty of side scrolling games have far better visuals than that. Nothing to do with not being grey/brown.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Yeah, Serious Sam DD is actually just ugly. Super Meat Boy's visuals were widely praised, Braid's visuals were widely praised and so were the visuals of many other modern side-scrollers. It's not a bias against unrealistic graphics, the game really is an eyesore.

I love Serious Sam but DD... was not good. The terrible animation and physics just make it un-fun for me. I'd much rather play Contra or Metal Slug or Intrusion 2 for this kinda thing.

I'm with the critics on this one, I'm afraid.

 

[cookyy2k]

Yeah, Serious Sam DD is actually just ugly. Super Meat Boy's visuals were widely praised, Braid's visuals were widely praised and so were the visuals of many other modern side-scrollers. It's not a bias against unrealistic graphics, the game really is an eyesore.

I love Serious Sam but DD... was not good. The terrible animation and physics just make it un-fun for me. I'd much rather play Contra or Metal Slug or Intrusion 2 for this kinda thing.

I'm with the critics on this one, I'm afraid.

You have just given better reasons why you don't like it than any of the professional reviews that gave it sub 50% scores. Those sort or reviews/critiques are helpful, they would help a dev decide what could be done better next time. The annoyance is when a game gets marked way down because of no multiplayer or whatever the flavor of the moment even if it is not in keeping with the game. There are many amazing games out there that just don't need a multiplayer tacking on, and constantly telling publishers and devs that their game is worse for not having it reduces the studios who will take risks on purely single player games. EA for example stated that all its future games will have multiplayer, this means that games where it would be difficult or even impossible to shoe horn in a multiplayer will not be considered over those that can be easily incorporated with a multiplayer and story driven single player games are suffering for it.

 

[Terramax]

Give me a JRPG over spunkgargleweewee any day.

Horses for courses really. Personally, I reckon there's more fun to be had in an FPS than a JRPG.

fun gameplay or solid story will always be better in my opinion

But you just said you played JRPGs?

Anyways, whilst I agree that some critics emphasis too much on the wrong aspects of the game, that doesn't mean there's something at fault with the entire industry. Just some bad reviewers.

I too like my action arcade titles, but as I've just mentioned in a similar thread to this, I understand I'm in the minority, and the majority of gamers out there are more interested in either multiplayer FPS games, or JRPGs, hence, it's not surprising so many critics choose to focus on aspects of a game (or lack of) that the majority are likely to find most appealing.

 

[Vault101]

Since when did multiplayer and "good" (by which they mean grey/brown) graphics become the be all and end all of computer games? Give me side scrolling mayhem or a JRPG over spunkgargleweewee any day. Cartoony graphics, no multiplayer and fun gameplay or solid story will always be better in my opinion than a "grey brown kill all the darkies aren't we so serious" game.

hmm?..what? are you telling me all games have brown graphics and multiplayer?

well gee I didn't notice that

also complaing about brown graphics is sooooo 2008...its not even true anyway

 

[Little Gray]

EA for example stated that all its future games will have multiplayer, this means that games where it would be difficult or even impossible to shoe horn in a multiplayer will not be considered over those that can be easily incorporated with a multiplayer and story driven single player games are suffering for it.

They actually didnt specifically say that they would have multiplayer but that all their games would have some online component. They even gave examples saying that things like the facebook? games for the dragon age series or a smart phone app for something like fifa would count.

 

[mohit9206]

I'm a big Sony fan but it's really
disappointing to see them cut backwards
compatibility out of the ps3 and then
start reselling ps2 games as digital
downloads on the playstation store. I'm
sure there are plenty of ps3 owners that
still have San Andreas on a ps2 disc but
will be forced into buying it again in order
to play it on their ps3. A very unethical
cash grab. The whole backwards
compatibility issue was handled very
poorly by Sony this gen. Hopefully it's not
a problem with ps4..oh wait..it is !!

 

[King Aragorn]

I disagree here. I for one must mention that i'm an open advocate of that gaming now a days is actually great, so lets get start:
You're overly generalizing, first of all. Not all games are brown and grey or brown and black. Even shooters, Crysis being a prime example. And also, what is wrong with good graphics? they help add to the game. However, I can appreciate a cartoony art style, such as in Darksiders II, one of my favorite games ever.