Do They Really Not Make Them Like They Used To?

[megido-rev.M]

So yeah, better looking, more shallow.

Capitalism indeed.

[nstgc]

It's not anymore that you can make one 16x16 texture and use it for 5 different walls in passages from point A to B.

That's pretty close to what they did in Dragon Age II. Of course it was a mind numbing short tunnel as well.

(for those who haven't played DA2: Everything thing looks the same. There is little variety.)

[occasional]

Though most games are crap, there are a few good ones that have great graphics, gameplay, and plot. Older games generally not only looked like crap, but they didn't have much of a plot either.

[zherok]

That's pretty close to what they did in Dragon Age II. Of course it was a mind numbing short tunnel as well.

(for those who haven't played DA2: Everything thing looks the same. There is little variety.)

They wanted to stylize the artwork in order to avoid the sort of generic fantasy look the first game had. But they went with almost but not quite cel-shaded look, so it mostly just meant fairly flat textures with little detail.

What really killed it though was having the entire game set in the same city over a period of like six years. Not terrible in itself, but the fact that the city doesn't change almost at all over that time frame (and then making the majority of the game backtracking over the same cityscape, hell, even the tunnels, caves, and forests you occasionally visit outside the city) in combination with that art style and it came off as incredibly lazy.

I have to say though I'm not sure that they didn't put the work in so much as their choices ended up undermining the work they did do.

Though most games are crap, there are a few good ones that have great graphics, gameplay, and plot. Older games generally not only looked like crap, but they didn't have much of a plot either.

How old are we talking about? There are plenty of games made within the last two decades with more depth than the average modern day AAA title. And to be honest, I'll take a less cinematic narrative if it means more gameplay and less watching how incredible their cutscene department is.

And I'm not sure the average modern title can really claim to even have gameplay anywhere near it's top priorities. They're far more likely to be sequels now, and are probably small iterative steps over the previous titles.

[occasional]

How old are we talking about? There are plenty of games made within the last two decades with more depth than the average modern day AAA title. And to be honest, I'll take a less cinematic narrative if it means more gameplay and less watching how incredible their cutscene department is.

And I'm not sure the average modern title can really claim to even have gameplay anywhere near it's top priorities. They're far more likely to be sequels now, and are probably small iterative steps over the previous titles.

I wasn't talking about the average game, just saying that that there are a few very good ones. I don't think there's ever been a time where there have been games with a good balance of plot, gameplay, and graphics.

I like games that are interactive movies. I basically play games for their plot.

Though I do agree that most games are bad, why that might not have been the case before (if we consider the state of technology of the time). But hey, everything is getting worse; literature, music, everything, so it doesn't really surprise me anymore. The world is going down.

[nstgc]

That's pretty close to what they did in Dragon Age II. Of course it was a mind numbing short tunnel as well.

(for those who haven't played DA2: Everything thing looks the same. There is little variety.)

They wanted to stylize the artwork in order to avoid the sort of generic fantasy look the first game had. But they went with almost but not quite cel-shaded look, so it mostly just meant fairly flat textures with little detail.

What really killed it though was having the entire game set in the same city over a period of like six years. Not terrible in itself, but the fact that the city doesn't change almost at all over that time frame (and then making the majority of the game backtracking over the same cityscape, hell, even the tunnels, caves, and forests you occasionally visit outside the city) in combination with that art style and it came off as incredibly lazy.

I have to say though I'm not sure that they didn't put the work in so much as their choices ended up undermining the work they did do.

That's not the only problem. They also have a single cave/dungeon for all outdoor caves which they then merely open and close doorways. Its either the same city, the same building, or the same cave. There is nearly no variety. Bioware seriously dropped the ball on DA2. I'm not expecting yesteryears' quality, but we could at least have post-sell-out quality. This was just bad cost cutting bull shit.

[zherok]

That's not the only problem. They also have a single cave/dungeon for all outdoor caves which they then merely open and close doorways. Its either the same city, the same building, or the same cave. There is nearly no variety. Bioware seriously dropped the ball on DA2. I'm not expecting yesteryears' quality, but we could at least have post-sell-out quality. This was just bad cost cutting bull shit.

Yeah, the caves with cemented doorways was bizarre.

I liked the party in two though. I think the angle of having people who actually like each other was better done than DA:O's party just having to get along with each other to get the job done approach. And I think they made positive steps with the dialogue system not using a binary morality bar to dictate choices (mostly I just liked being able to be constantly sarcastic the entire game.) Having your dialogue choices change how your automatic dialogue comes out was nice. I didn't think I'd like Hawke being voice acted over DA:O's silent protagonist, but it worked for me.

Too bad the gameplay and setting ruined what they did have going for them. I'm pretty sure I incinerated thousands of bandits and thieves in Kirkwall over the course of the game. Having enemies pop up out of nowhere and attack you every other minute was just lazy padding. I think the story worked, but the way they used the gameplay seemed designed to just prevent you from getting stuff done quickly. I never felt that way about combat in DA:O, because it wasn't used as a brake just to drag out the game length.

[nstgc]

Yeah that whole "ninjas poping out of nowhere like in some fighting scroller game" bit was super lame.

[Bloodfox]

In my point of view, games have never been better, they play, sound and look better than ever before. We get bombarded with great games literally every month and with the rise of digital distribution we now see the return of shorter, arcade style games. Sure there's gonna be a nice amount of bad games but that's always been the case (if it wasn't then the Angry Video Game Nerd's career would have been awfully short).
We had great games in the past and we still have great games now. Every year there are a ton of games that will become the classics for the current and future generations. We had Sonic, they will have Uncharted. We had Doom, they will have Bioshock. We had Final Fantasy, They will have Mass Effect. We had Adventures of Batman and Robin, they will have Batman: Arkham Asylum. We had Metal Slug, they will have Gears of War. And this principle holds true for bad games and games that are just okay but lack that special something. I'd even say that for every bad game from this generation there's around 3 bad games from the 16-bit era.

Also people seem to praise retro gaming for its challenging difficulty but neglect to recall that in most cases that was a result of terrible level and/or gameplay design. By today's standards that crap ain't acceptable anymore, and rightly so, but you can still pump up the difficulty in the majority of games. Try Devil May Cry on Dante Must Die Mode, or to co-op Expert Realism on Left 4 Dead 2 and tell me that stuff ain't hard.

Look, I understand. We all have fond memories of the games we played as children, in the same way we will always cherish the memory of our first kiss, or of that first summer you had after you father stopped drinking. Its Okay to look back and think "Damn World of Illusion was a wonderful game", just don't dismiss everything that came after that.

P.S. Like many pointed out in this thread, there does seam to be a distinct lack of good JRPG's in the current console generation. I cannot argue against this as I only had the pleasure of playing one good JRPG this console generation and that was Valkyria Chroniles. I heard Pandora's Tower, The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles were good but I do not own a Wii so I can't say. I believe there are two reasons for this decline. One being that the JRPG market has become a niche market in the west due to the rising in quality and popularity of western RPGs that arguably usually feature more engaging combat systems. The other one being that Square/Enix (who is supposed to be the biggest supplier of JRPGs) has done practically nothing this generation apart from portable spin-offs of KH and FF and one of the shittiest FF games in memory. And why do anything?! Why go through all the trouble of making a proper KH or FF sequel when they can just keep counting the money they get from people still buying rereleases of FF VI and VII?

Until some studio comes along willing and able to fill the gap left by Square/Enix, the JRPG genre will stay like this.

[nstgc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlL09nriFfk&feature=youtu.be

[Nikkoru]

Look, I understand. We all have fond memories of the games we played as children, in the same way we will always cherish the memory of our first kiss, or of that first summer you had after you father stopped drinking. Its Okay to look back and think "Damn World of Illusion was a wonderful game", just don't dismiss everything that came after that.

I don't accept this. I still have most everything I've played from the Atari 2600 all the way to the PS3, I needn't refer to trite sentimentalism for my criticism, not when I can judge based on available evidence. Even if I didn't have the physical consoles, the internet does not lack for emulators. Not to mention the wide availability of older games on PSN, XBLA, and IOS. The whole reason this thread exists is because we have access to these products, whether the arguments made are justified or not, they aren't grounded in nostalgia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlL09nriFfk&feature=youtu.be

That's... depressing.

[nstgc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlL09nriFfk&feature=youtu.be

That's... depressing.

It really shows the difference in the mentality of the industry. Its no longer about trying to create the best product, but rather to make people buy more.

[megido-rev.M]

That way of doing anything rather infuriates me, to say the least.

[Bloodfox]

I don't accept this. I still have most everything I've played from the Atari 2600 all the way to the PS3, I needn't refer to trite sentimentalism for my criticism, not when I can judge based on available evidence. Even if I didn't have the physical consoles, the internet does not lack for emulators. Not to mention the wide availability of older games on PSN, XBLA, and IOS. The whole reason this thread exists is because we have access to these products, whether the arguments made are justified or not, they aren't grounded in nostalgia.

I'd argue a lot of them are, mate. Make this experiment, pick an emulator and 3 old games with really good reputations that you never played before and see if you feel the same way about these games as you do about the ones you did play when these games came out. I've done this before and while I was able to enjoy the games I picked, I never developed an attachment to these games similar to the attachment I have with games from the same period that I did play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a retro game cannot be memorable or special (nothing could be further from the truth), but nostalgia will always make a game feel extra special.

[Nikkoru]

I don't accept this. I still have most everything I've played from the Atari 2600 all the way to the PS3, I needn't refer to trite sentimentalism for my criticism, not when I can judge based on available evidence. Even if I didn't have the physical consoles, the internet does not lack for emulators. Not to mention the wide availability of older games on PSN, XBLA, and IOS. The whole reason this thread exists is because we have access to these products, whether the arguments made are justified or not, they aren't grounded in nostalgia.

I'd argue a lot of them are, mate. Make this experiment, pick an emulator and 3 old games with really good reputations that you never played before and see if you feel the same way about these games as you do about the ones you did play when these games came out. I've done this before and while I was able to enjoy the games I picked, I never developed an attachment to these games similar to the attachment I have with games from the same period that I did play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a retro game cannot be memorable or special (nothing could be further from the truth), but nostalgia will always make a game feel extra special.

I'm doing this quite a bit now. I downloaded a rom anthology for SEGA, SNES, NES, and Game Boy titles -- I pick a random names or some notable titles off the list and try them. Then there are older PC games which I've pirated recently and have just started now like Planescape, that I'd never had a chance to play when I was younger due to my family computer being work-only for years.

I can compare old to new based on how big a time-vacuum they've become for me and my willingness to go back and play them. Some are terrible or mediocre -- obviously -- while others I simply can't stop playing. I'm actually more impressed with these systems now than I was when I first touched them. That Capcom can produce over a dozen Megaman games from NES to SNES and make me enjoy them all was stupefying.

[nstgc]

I don't accept this. I still have most everything I've played from the Atari 2600 all the way to the PS3, I needn't refer to trite sentimentalism for my criticism, not when I can judge based on available evidence. Even if I didn't have the physical consoles, the internet does not lack for emulators. Not to mention the wide availability of older games on PSN, XBLA, and IOS. The whole reason this thread exists is because we have access to these products, whether the arguments made are justified or not, they aren't grounded in nostalgia.

I'd argue a lot of them are, mate. Make this experiment, pick an emulator and 3 old games with really good reputations that you never played before and see if you feel the same way about these games as you do about the ones you did play when these games came out. I've done this before and while I was able to enjoy the games I picked, I never developed an attachment to these games similar to the attachment I have with games from the same period that I did play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a retro game cannot be memorable or special (nothing could be further from the truth), but nostalgia will always make a game feel extra special.

Ever heard of GOG.com? Up until recently they exclusively sold older games. That place doesn't exist because someone thought "oh I remember that game" and bought it. That alone would carry the company. People buy them and keep buying more. This likely wouldn't have happened if those people bought a game and learned that it was all for nostalgia. The games really are good.

Even so, there were plenty of bad games from that time period, but those games that were good were really good. These days the good games are simply bland in comparison.

[metro.]

I'm not reading 5 pages of posts, so this is related to the topic, not you people's ramblings.


I don't think that they've started making games worse, but they've made them more accessible, and better programmed. Hence, glitches that made games impossible rarely exist anymore, and are patched. Take...Ghouls and Goblins for example. Not a good game, at all. But it's hard, so, by some people's standards, "better".

Remember arcades? I don't, I wasn't around. But the point is that video games were designed to suck as many quarters out of your pockets as they could, be best way to do that was to make the games hard. Nerds spited while keep throwing money at something (lol pay-per-month mmos...).

Some games have gone too far the other direction, so easy it's stupid, while others have made the games challenging, but beatable, and added content (DLC, recent, I know) and achievements for crazy psychotic 100% completionists that thrive on games like Ghouls and Goblins. Some games were "better", Megaman was mentioned I think, and those WERE great games, but it's not like they were the only one to do something like that. Being the first does matter, and so does marketing. Megaman is a simple concept, and it's a great game, but it wouldn't hold up in today's market.

Do you like storylines? The Megaman's I played, lacked them. Mario's storylines, awful. Really, how many times can that bitch get captured. My point is, gaming has changed from a sequence of combination of timed buttons to...whatever it is now.


I'm excluding RPGs from this because they have not changed much aside from graphical upgrades and slight changes to the menu based combat system.

[Bloodfox]

I don't accept this. I still have most everything I've played from the Atari 2600 all the way to the PS3, I needn't refer to trite sentimentalism for my criticism, not when I can judge based on available evidence. Even if I didn't have the physical consoles, the internet does not lack for emulators. Not to mention the wide availability of older games on PSN, XBLA, and IOS. The whole reason this thread exists is because we have access to these products, whether the arguments made are justified or not, they aren't grounded in nostalgia.

I'd argue a lot of them are, mate. Make this experiment, pick an emulator and 3 old games with really good reputations that you never played before and see if you feel the same way about these games as you do about the ones you did play when these games came out. I've done this before and while I was able to enjoy the games I picked, I never developed an attachment to these games similar to the attachment I have with games from the same period that I did play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a retro game cannot be memorable or special (nothing could be further from the truth), but nostalgia will always make a game feel extra special.

Ever heard of GOG.com? Up until recently they exclusively sold older games. That place doesn't exist because someone thought "oh I remember that game" and bought it. That alone would carry the company. People buy them and keep buying more. This likely wouldn't have happened if those people bought a game and learned that it was all for nostalgia. The games really are good.

Even so, there were plenty of bad games from that time period, but those games that were good were really good. These days the good games are simply bland in comparison.

I Love GOG.com, and you are right, I wouldn't say most games on there sell on nostalgia alone. Some games stood the test of time and are still very entertaining today, that's why they are classics. But those that didn't age as well will still sell because people have fond memories of them.

However if you say today's good games are bland in comparison, I'd have to ask: What good games are you playing? Because from my point of view every genre that isn't JRPG is better off. Even Survival horror is doing okay, yes the Resident Evil series has crossed over to the action genre but you now you have games like Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent to fill that gap so we shouldn't be too worried. And yes there are many Grey-Brown shooters this gen, but that is happening for the same reasons we had countless platforming games with cute mascots in the 16bit era. There always were and always will be developers that will try to copy big sellers instead of creating something new. That is not a problem unique to this generation.

[donald1]

one of the things i miss about games is the simplicity, while at the same time, i am happy to see games which are more complex, involved, and have more depth to them. when i pay $65 for a new game these days, i kinda want my moneys worth. games such as the Fallout series, and especially Skyrim are large, complicated games with tons of stuff to do. Skyrim has lots of busy work, unimportant quests for you to do everywhere which have little to no impact on the games' main story. it's just something to do to. the only thing i can complain about is that the game works fine for a long time, but if you play long enough (i mean months, not hours) i notice it doesn't take long for loading times to lengthen, and the framerate slows to a crawl. but at least i got what i paid for imo.

on the other hand, when i played Lollipop Chainsaw, i was having fun with it, but quickly thought to myself "is this all there is to this game?". it is very linear... actually i would compare it to going through a hallway, but i don't have to since that really is what you do in every level. there is literally no place else to go except to the end of the level, which isn't hard to do.

i think we should be thankful that games are not made the way they used to anymore- if anyone has ever played the E.T. game on the Atari, you would know that games had some dark days. games got much better when the NES was introduced, but lets not forget the problems we had with that too. games freezing up at critical moments was a common thing is just one example. i don't see my games freeze up too much, but it still happens.

[Nikkoru]

Megaman is a simple concept, and it's a great game, but it wouldn't hold up in today's market.

I disagree to a degree -- 8-bit and 16-bit games which attempt to emulate such simple creativity are tremendously popular on IOS and PSN.

However if you say today's good games are bland in comparison, I'd have to ask: What good games are you playing? Because from my point of view every genre that isn't JRPG is better off. Even Survival horror is doing okay, yes the Resident Evil series has crossed over to the action genre but you now you have games like Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent to fill that gap so we shouldn't be too worried. And yes there are many Grey-Brown shooters this gen, but that is happening for the same reasons we had countless platforming games with cute mascots in the 16bit era. There always were and always will be developers that will try to copy big sellers instead of creating something new. That is not a problem unique to this generation.

Other than RPGs which are a mixed bag -- Rogues, Action-Adventure, Hack and Slash, Shoot-em Ups, Fighting games, Real-time Strategy, Light-gun/Rail shooters, Platforming, FPSs, and Puzzle games haven't improved significantly in the last decade.

3rd person shooters, stealth, visual novels, any and all sandbox-style games, MMO RPGs and FPSs, Tower Defense, Music/Dance, Party/minigame collections, and sports games are markedly better or simply didn't exists 10 years ago.

Simulation is iffy -- simulation fans are a strange lot who decide quality for themselves.