Are New Games ( Post 2003) Crappier Than 2003 and before games?

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Are New Games ( Post 2003) Crappier Than 2003 and before games?

Perhaps but It is not my job to work out the engineering details.

They`ll take up whatever they think they can do, and reject the rest.

Part of the reason for the sorry state of gaming is simply put, most Triple A studios never take any risks and except for graphics their games have been less interesting then those made 10 and 20 years ago.

Is that not reasonable to ask for innovation?

 

[wisdom000]

Are New Games ( Post 2003) Crappier Than 2003 and before games?

less interesting then those made 10 and 20 years ago.

Is that not reasonable to ask for innovation?

Are you on crack?

Were you even old enough to play video games in the early 90's?

Sorry man, but I have had a home console since Pong was first available, I have grown up as it were along side the video games industry. At the time of each realease, the games got better and better. But because they could do more and more with games, not just graphicds wise, but with what you could actually do with the games, then the games became more complex... and the games story started mattering.

With the Atari era, controllers had a joystick with functionally one button. And that was all that was needed. There was never any soty that mattered. Sure some tried to include one, dungeon quest, or superman, things like that, but it was pretty threadbare stuff.

NES started introducing stories, and gave us a second button. But the majority of games still just involved some pretty basic gameplay, when there was a story it was basic, straightforward, and usually a bit bizarre. They introduced Videgame RPG's, which ahd more involved stories, but suffered tremndously in graphics and gameplay... and were just really fucking boring....

And the trend continued... more buttons, better graphics, more complexity, deeper stories...

Only now, on what is effectively the 9th generation of video games, are we now n the verge of being able to actually have video game rpg's that can tell a great story, have remarkable amounts of freedom, choice, and complex gamplay, and have incredible graphics.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Ok fine Grandpa. You are a veteran gamer. We get that. Except

20 years would be 1994. That's not the NES, that's the SNES era.

That's the year FFVI was released. 1995 was the year Chrono trigger was released. 1997 FFVII came out. Hardly the one-button RPGs which I've never mentionned and that you drone about.

if anything, successful games have come to rely less on a story then things like exploration, graphics, etc.

The high points for video games were 1997-2003. It's been downhill ever since.
The ONLY thing that is better about modern games are the graphics.

Tell me: How come Morrowind have been dumbed down to the level of Oblivion and then Skyrim?

How come Fallout 3 included big green giants and BOTTLE CAPS then tried to pass its main plot as a tragedy of all things?

What happened to games like Beneath a Steel Sky?

This line from Bloodlines highlights the EXTREMELY bad writing that can be found in modern games:

(paraphrased) "Communism could definitely work except with vampires."

A line made extremely cringeworthy and painful by the fact it was delivered in an entirely serious manner.
Uttered by a member of the "Anarchs" no less. I kid you not.

Graphics are much better, that much is true but that's hardly the first criteria for a good game.

What limits story-driven games today is not technology (it never was). It is the intellectual and creative limitations of the people at the helm.

All there is is an industry that is now mainly filled with people pleasing wannabe Hollywood directors.

 

[wisdom000]

Ok fine Grandpa. You are a veteran gamer. We get that. Except

20 years would be 1994. That's not the NES, that's the SNES era.

That's the year FFVI was released. 1995 was the year Chrono trigger was released. 1997 FFVII came out. Hardly the one-button RPGs which I've never mentionned and that you drone about.

if anything, successful games have come to rely less on a story then things like exploration, graphics, etc.

The high points for video games were 1997-2003. It's been downhill ever since.
The ONLY thing that is better about modern games are the graphics.

Tell me: How come Morrowind have been dumbed down to the level of Oblivion and then Skyrim?

How come Fallout 3 included big green giants and BOTTLE CAPS then tried to pass its main plot as a tragedy of all things?

What happened to games like Beneath a Steel Sky?

This line from Bloodlines highlights the EXTREMELY bad writing that can be found in modern games:

(paraphrased) "Communism could definitely work except with vampires."

A line made extremely cringeworthy and painful by the fact it was delivered in an entirely serious manner.
Uttered by a member of the "Anarchs" no less. I kid you not.

Graphics are much better, that much is true but that's hardly the first criteria for a good game.

All there is is an industry that is now mainly filled with failed wannabe Hollywood directors that wishes to please rather then explore their medium to the fullest.

Um.... or maybe you just dig different games... nothing wrong with that, but I would take GTA V or Fallout: New Vegas over any game you mentioned as being "good". To me they are the epitome of where I want games to go, and what I am willing to spend money on.

Personally I think all final fantasy games are crap, exceedingly boring and repetitive and the main male characters are all way too feminine and sissy, but again, thats me.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

No. It's not the just the fact that I dig different games.

you said:

But because they could do more and more with games, not just graphicds wise, but with what you could actually do with the games, then the games became more complex... and the games story started mattering.

Ok so you're the grandaddy of all game players. You have the right to ask people if they're on crack but let me ask you this:

Where were you during the 90s where Adventure games dominated PC gaming? Did the story not matter back then or did the fans simply enjoy solving non-sensical puzzles?

The fact is the attraction of today's game is simply not the story. If you just removed the story from Skyrim and NV, you could play them as straight action games and they would still be considered great games if only because they are the only games in their category. Namely, a game where you can do virtually anything.

so really...

it's the fact that modern games have crap stories. You didn't try to defend vampire communism or bottle caps economy (and never will) because no sane soul can. It's simply terrible writing that is indefensible in its own right.

You can say you hate adventure games and Final Fantasy or even Morrowind (!) but I would surmise that you didn't play the former or the latter nor did you fairly compare them to Skyrim and Oblivion or even NV.

But to pretend that today's games do better in terms of writing and stories then the games of yesteryear. ... Just no.
You may have a lot of choice in today's games but that is completely irrelevant to telling a finely crafted story. What you end up with is a bad Choose-your-own-adventure book.

 

[Sardukhar]

The high points for video games were 1997-2003. It's been downhill ever since.
The ONLY thing that is better about modern games are the graphics. .

Woah. No.

Witcher 1 and 2.

World of Warcraft.

Bloodlines, ( I could point you to the monster amount of articles praising the writing, but will instead point out that you didn't even quote correctly in your "bad writing" example...)

STALKER and Call of Pripyat

Fallout New Vegas

The Sims - superb at what it does

Minecraft - same

Half-Life 2 - not my favourite, but justifiably great at what it is.

Portal.

Knights of The Old Republic 2

CoD: Modern Warfare

The Walking Dead

Dark Souls

The Last of Us

I could go on and on...but these are some truly excellent games and in no way inferior to their predecessors.

Of course, given your perspective, I'm sure Cyberpunk 2077 will also fail to impress you sufficiently. It's so post 2003.

So. Back on topic, maybe?

 

[waciuk]

What you end up with is a bad Choose-your-own-adventure book.

Was there ever really a good one?

 

[wisdom000]

No. It's not the just the fact that I dig different games.

you said:


Ok so you're the grandaddy of all game players. You have the right to ask people if they're on crack but let me ask you this:

Where were you during the 90s where Adventure games dominated PC gaming? Did the story not matter back then or did the fans simply enjoy solving non-sensical puzzles?

The 90's, no, by and large story did not matter at all. Premise did, but story was still generally pretty damn weak. Tomb Raider, the biggest game franchise of the 90's had almost no story to speak of. Honestly the only games I remember where the story made even the slightest impact on me were Bladerunner and Snatcher, and both were incredibly weak on game play and replayability.

The fact is the attraction of today's game is simply not the story. If you just removed the story from Skyrim and NV, you could play them as straight action games and they would still be considered great games if only because they are the only games in their category. Namely, a game where you can do virtually anything.

so really...

it's the fact that modern games have crap stories. You didn't try to defend vampire communism or bottle caps economy (and never will) because no sane soul can. It's simply terrible writing that is indefensible in its own right.

Um.... as Sard said, Nevas, Last Of Us, the latest Tomb Raider, GTA 4, Sleeping Dogs, GTA V, Metro, Uncharted.... these games had great stories, and most of them had at least decent gameplay, with GTA and Sleeping dogs combining great stories with fantastic gameplay and without having to rely on rails to keep the players in check.

You can say you hate adventure games and Final Fantasy or even Morrowind (!) but I would surmise that you didn't play the former or the latter nor did you fairly compare them to Skyrim and Oblivion or even NV.

Um... no, I haven't played morrowind, nor have I played skyrim or oblivion, I don't dig fantasy games. I did try playing a few of the final fantasy games because my brother loves them, and I have had to watch him play just about all of them... and yeah, they all sucked, boring as shit, horrible repetive gameplay, and sissy main characters.

But to pretend that today's games do better in terms of writing and stories then the games of yesteryear. ... Just no.

Nothing pretend about it, in todays market the story actually matters. Even bioshock infinite, a game I hated, tried to tell a pretty interesting story, they just fucked up the ending. With the money to hire dedicated voice actors, who actually act, instead of just reading lines, writers who aren't just programmers with a premise, and the technological advancement to give the characters weight and emotion, story matters now more than ever, which is why you see more games today with stories and characters you remember.

You may have a lot of choice in today's games but that is completely irrelevant to telling a finely crafted story. What you end up with is a bad Choose-your-own-adventure book.

Well, you are half right. Gameplay has nothing to do with the story. Of course that has nothing to do with waulity of story. And Story aside a choose your own adventure sandbox is far preferable to riding on rails, as no matter how good the story is, if there is nothing to the game but the story, then it's not worth my dime, and certainly not worth my 60 bucks. Last of Us moved me to tears, but I don't own the game because once played there was no point in playing it again.

 

[Sardukhar]

The 90's, no, by and large story did not matter at all.

See, now, this THIS is what I expect. I recommend going back on topic or, you know, starting a new thread and SOME people post a page-long rebuttal almost completely off-topic anyway.

Oh, you kids.

Now to go into Wisdom's post and edit out every vowel.

 

[wisdom000]

See, now, this THIS is what I expect. I recommend going back on topic or, you know, starting a new thread and SOME people post a page-long rebuttal almost completely off-topic anyway.

Oh, you kids.

Now to go into Wisdom's post and edit out every vowel.

Making you happy is only a side effect of ignoring everything you say as a mod Sard

 

[Sardukhar]

Making you happy is only a side effect of ignoring everything you say as a mod Sard

This feeling I have for you..it is not love.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Fuck I have typed out a huge response and now I've lost it.

 

[dragonbird]

Fuck I have typed out a huge response and now I've lost it.

Consider starting a new thread on it in Off Topic instead. That would make Sard very happy.
You really, really want Sard to be happy.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

The 90's, no, by and large story did not matter at all. Premise did, but story was still generally pretty damn weak. Tomb Raider, the biggest game franchise of the 90's had almost no story to speak of. Honestly the only games I remember where the story made even the slightest impact on me were Bladerunner and Snatcher, and both were incredibly weak on game play and replayability.

Then you just didn't play a large swat of games Grandpapa. The fact is in the mid-90s the mainstay of PC gaming was adventure gaming.Story and writing was THE driving force of the game.

Consider trying to pass vampire communism or big green monsters with miniguns as tragedy (points that you conveniently and --smartly I hasten to add for it cannot be defended--- avoid)... Just imagine if someone tried to introduce this subplot into a movie. You would laugh at how bad the plot is and you would walk out.

Why do we not tolerate this in movies but tolerate this in games? I don't, why should you or the rest of the market?

They are junevile and laughingly stupid plots, there's no escaping the fact.
Make no mistake: junevile and idiotic plots sell.

But it is regrettable to the extreme.

Um.... as Sard said, Nevas, Last Of Us, the latest Tomb Raider, GTA 4, Sleeping Dogs, GTA V, Metro, Uncharted.... these games had great stories, and most of them had at least decent gameplay, with GTA and Sleeping dogs combining great stories with fantastic gameplay and without having to rely on rails to keep the players in check.

C'mon man.

Great stories, in relation to what?

Saying that Sleeping Dogs had a great story would be like saying Schwarzenegger's Commando had a great story. I remember Commandos' story, it serves its purpose ,but it doesn't mean it's a great story. Sleeping Dog's had a cartoon plot copy/pasted from Hong Kong B-movies. There's a huge difference between a plot that is an excuse to ass kicking ( and thus a delay to the administration of said ass kicking) and a plot that can stand on its own two feet without explosions.

And GTA IV man. There's so much wrong about this game it's not even funny. Roman, anyone? Why do I have to go on a date with Vivian or whatever to get a bonus? That's considered gameplay nowadays? And why should a give a shit about some old gangster that got out of prison?

Instead of trying to be a 50 cents movie, can't they aspire to be something better?

I said it was downhill since then, it is true.It's like sports. In any eras, you will find interesting matches, but there are some eras that stand out more then others. The current era of gaming is WEAK and its only saving grace is technology.

There are good modern games. BUT they are largely evolutions of pre-2003 games or indie games from smaller studios.

Um... no, I haven't played morrowind, nor have I played skyrim or oblivion, I don't dig fantasy games. I did try playing a few of the final fantasy games because my brother loves them, and I have had to watch him play just about all of them... and yeah, they all sucked, boring as shit, horrible repetive gameplay, and sissy main characters.

Well, there you go. You haven't played the best selling RPG series (game? minus call of duty) in the last decade.

Chances are you don't play FPS,adventure or strategy games either because your gaming is purely about pretending to be someone else/playing a role/whatever.

Perhaps not, and please correct me if I'm wrong but it would explain a lot so I'm just going to roll with it for now.

You said "Deeper complex gameplay", but the truth it is a laughable statement. Every RPG because it relies on stats have repetitive gameplay.

You could argue that Fallout is different, but it tried to be an FPS with RPG stats and as a result became a subpar FPS. If you compare it to RPGs before fallout, the gameplay is better,but if you compare it to FPS and other games, it is much weaker.

Here are games with DEEP and COMPLEX gameplay:
Hearts of Iron <<--- by far. By far. The most complex game of the modern era.
Europa Universalis

I do agree with you that in general the RPG genre has gotten better in terms of gameplay, but gaming has to be taken as a whole. RPG gameplay if you stop and think about it is still about grinding to gain XP and the most repetive/worse of all genre.

Fact is the RPG has to rely on the story to move it forward, story which is sorely lacking in quality in most case.

The sad part is that a lot of game franchise outside RPGs such as
Operation Flashpoint 1
Ghost recon
Rainbow six
Elder's scrolls.
Diablo (or so I heard)

have all been watered down to please the casual crowd.
A crowd with:
No reflexes.
No brains.
ADD.

It explains things like

regenerating health,
Partner revives
arrows to objective

Do you deny that the industry have watered down games to please a casual market?

And no. It's not about imagining yourself to be someone else and customizing your gear or what not.That's not gameplay. That's play pretend. Akin to playing with Barbies. Before I got on this forum, I didn't even know that people "role played" in video games except for D&D nerds on MMO servers.

Nothing pretend about it, in todays market the story actually matters. Even bioshock infinite, a game I hated, tried to tell a pretty interesting story, they just fucked up the ending. With the money to hire dedicated voice actors, who actually act, instead of just reading lines, writers who aren't just programmers with a premise, and the technological advancement to give the characters weight and emotion, story matters now more than ever, which is why you see more games today with stories and characters you remember.

Hahaha!

Yeah i do agree that story kind of matters today.

NOT.

It doesn't mean that it is more faithfully rendered that it is necessarily better. Else all B-movies would be enjoyable.

Your POV pretty illustrates everything that is wrecking the industry today and overreliance on graphics. The tools have become replacement for the artist.

Starcraft 1 & 2 is illustrative. The first Starcraft was largely told through briefings. The second had all the tools to "give the characters weight and emotions".

I loved to see Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay bash Marines in live(!) cinematics, but the plot was awfully simplified and a copy/paste of Warcraft III.

While Emperor Mengsk was a wily politician in the first one, he was reduced to a bumbling simpleton with the naievete of Jimmy Carter in the second. A stock character/dictator. The subtle storyline of betrayal and political maneuvering of the first gave way to a junevile fantasy in the second.

If you have a bad story to start with... No tools is going to replace it. Your statement that the tools alone can give weight and emotion to character is ridiculous.

By this logic, literature could never have taken off as a medium. You do not need technology to achieve this, especially not technology that do not have photorealistic graphics.

Can't we have the games of old with the graphics of today? What would be the harm in bettering the story and gameplay?

Well, you are half right. Gameplay has nothing to do with the story. Of course that has nothing to do with waulity of story. And Story aside a choose your own adventure sandbox is far preferable to riding on rails, as no matter how good the story is, if there is nothing to the game but the story, then it's not worth my dime, and certainly not worth my 60 bucks. Last of Us moved me to tears, but I don't own the game because once played there was no point in playing it again.

Do you complain about replayability when you read a novel or buy a DVD?

Morrowind and GTA III were pretty much just as open as their successors.Except for graphics, how did GTA IV improve on its predecessor?

They added strip clubs. oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

Dating. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

BOWLING. OOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooh.

All so I can pretend to have a fake social life.

Why would I care if you do not want to spend 60$ on a game? Play pretend is not gaming.
That's irrelevant to the equation.

 

[Sardukhar]

Fuck I have typed out a huge response and now I've lost it.

Poet, next time check the button on the bottom of the reply box - you should see a "Restore Auto-Saved Content" option. It's saved me a few times.

You really, really want Sard to be happy.

I LOVE HAPPY.

Edit: Hey look, I think I'll start a new thread and move your guys' stuff over! Maybe.

 

[Sardukhar]

Are New Games ( Post 2003) Crappier Than 2003 and before games?

So we are having this discussion in the new thread. And it needs it's own thread! And a poll!

Vote, comment, elect me dictator-for-life, etc.

 

[Davunk]

The walking dead, Heavy rain, and Beyond Two souls are very story driven. You see a lot of very abstract games today as well like Journey that tell an interesting story that you can interpret yourself. I can't argue on this subject at all though considering I wasn't alive for half the nineties.

 

[dragonbird]

Serious(ish) response.

I think that any view that older games (or music, or movies, or TV) are better is largely influenced by the fact that we have selective memories. When looking at the older examples, we only remember the good ones and forget about all of the absolute garbage that came out in in the same period. When we look at the modern examples, we see the crap. If you compare the best of the '90s to the average modern game, then yes, the older ones may be better, but if you compare the best to the best, then you'll find plenty of modern games, many of which have been mentioned already, that are as good as the older ones.

The second factor is just that gaming is a mass market now, and the sheer number of games released each year is so high. Again, the comparison is probably to music. In the 19th century, you couldn't really become a professional composer unless you had a fair amount of talent, and the potential audience was limited and was probably fairly critical and demanding. By the 20th, music became available to everyone, so much more was produced and the percentage of it that was any good would have dropped, but in absolute terms, there was a lot more good music being written. By the 21st century, anyone with a computer could publish their music, so the percentage of good to bad will have got even lower, but, again, this accessibility means that in absolute terms, the amount of good music in any one year has increased.

Gaming is going through a similar evolution. We're now at the mass-availability stage, so there are a lot of games coming out that're designed to appeal to a mass audience and will be forgotten very fast. The impact is that we see a decline in the percentage of good games to bad, but that doesn't mean a decline in the absolute numbers of good games, nor do I think that it will.

I'm deliberately not mentioning specific games, partly because I'm too lazy to look them up, partly because many of the examples have already been given, partly because whether a specific game is good or bad is largely subjective anyway.

 

[vtmb]

wisdom will be shaved
and some blood is going to be shed or whatever

 

[Suhiira]

I honestly don't think games themselves have gotten any worse.
The problem is the handful of marketing companies (i.e. EA) don't really give a damn if the game is any good, or even finished, just how much money can that make how fast.
They only look at how many copies can they sell how fast and don't care that they could potentially sell twice or three times as many over the course of a few years. People still buy Neverwinter so they can access the community content that's been put out over the years.