Discussion Forums > Gaming
Do They Really Not Make Them Like They Used To?
nstgc:
--- Quote from: Bloodfox on August 04, 2012, 08:10:17 PM ---
--- Quote from: Nikkoru on August 03, 2012, 03:46:30 AM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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.
--- End quote ---
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:
--- Quote from: nstgc on August 06, 2012, 05:02:50 AM ---
--- Quote from: Bloodfox on August 04, 2012, 08:10:17 PM ---
--- Quote from: Nikkoru on August 03, 2012, 03:46:30 AM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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.
--- End quote ---
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.
--- End quote ---
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:
--- Quote from: metro. on August 06, 2012, 06:00:08 AM ---Megaman is a simple concept, and it's a great game, but it wouldn't hold up in today's market.
--- End quote ---
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.
--- Quote from: Bloodfox on August 06, 2012, 09:22:21 AM ---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.
--- End quote ---
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.
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