The Year in Gaming

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money's Game Over column looks at some of the gaming trends of 2004, including the prevalence of sex and sequels. Writer Chris Morris provides some follow-up as well, discussing the sad, sad sales numbers of "Singles," "The Guy Game" and "Leisure Suit Larry"; the odds of another Playboy magazine video game girls layout and whatever happened to the ApeXtreme." Gamespot has a nice Year in Review piece as well, and we've already previously mentioned Grimwell.com's MMORPG Year in Review.

Comments

So... modern

[AtariAmarok]

So, here we are at the end of 2004, and the hottest game trend out there is those tiny self-contained units that play C-64, NES, Atari games.

That is what the videogame revolution has brought us: the ability to run the old 8-bit games from 1988 on our TV but with smaller hardware.

Re:So... modern

[boarder8925]

So, here we are at the end of 2004, and the hottest game trend out there is those tiny self-contained units that play C-64, NES, Atari games.

That is what the videogame revolution has brought us: the ability to run the old 8-bit games from 1988 on our TV but with smaller hardware.

Exactly. People who grew up in the early days of video games are jumping to buy their childhood memories again, either for themselves or their children. Hey, those games are pretty addicting. =)

"What's old is new again," my friend.

Re:So... modern

[AtariAmarok]

"Hey, those games are pretty addicting. =)"

Seriously, way too many modern games on all platforms look pretty bad: so many have just about everything in colors that vary little from dark gray. The "muddy look" reigns. Not all games suffer from it, but many do.

Re:So... modern

[demo9orgon]

If someone wants to make serious money they'll develop these joystick games with things like "The Bards Tale", or "Alternate Reality: The City/Dungeon", or "Elite", or a good collection of 8-bit RPG's/flight sims. That would absolutely rock! It wouldn't be any challenge at all to give them a usb/ps2 keyboard port--or just make a keyboard/joystick combo, something small. Save your game info to a stick or run a hub and use the keyboard to control it and save things to a stick. Either way, it would beat the snot out playing something on a gameboy advance (mud, it's just hand-held mud). Although these 8-bit games may seem a step backwards, every time I get into a modern 3D game of any kind it feels like we're doing everything the hard way and getting it wrong...collisions, splining...it's like "good enough" was let out of the lab and everyone just accepted it. There's one thing to be said about the non-rendered 8-bit stuff: nobody ever became sim-sick from 8-bit computer games.

Re:So... modern

[hal2814]

It's because most newer games have adandoned any notion of simple, addictive gameplay. When's the last time you played a game that could be played with one or two buttons and a joystick? These classic games are a nice diversion to showcase what's missing from today's games. I'm not saying that gaming should revert to its one-button-plus-joystick glory, but it's nice to have a few fast, simple games to play from time to time.

Re:So... modern

[ChibiLZ]

That is what the videogame revolution has brought us: the ability to run the old 8-bit games from 1988 on our TV but with smaller hardware.

Sounds good to me. MAME, emulators, all these things I can cram on my computer, or Xbox. And my Xbox is certainly smaller than my NES, SNES, Genesis, C=64, and a bunch of arcade machines all together.

Re:So... modern

[Planesdragon]

When's the last time you played a game that could be played with one or two buttons and a joystick?

last time I turned on my gamecube.

Dont forget!

[Richie1984]

Gamespot failed to mention the continuing trend in game related court action, such as blaming game developers for all sorts of evils in society, and while this isn't unique to the 2004 gaming year, the rise in both subtle and blatent sexual/violent overtones in games, mentioned by Slashdot, can only help to fuel this trend. Even though the sales numbers for games with heavy sexual content are remarkably low, I doubt it'll stop any parents groups from using them as a scapegoat sometime soon.

OK, so...

[Atrax]

... Gimmicky 'guy' games are a no-no, and sequels (HL2, Halo2, Doom3) rock

I thank you. for future summaries, please drop me some paypal cash to....

Sequels

[alphaseven]

But new franchises? I could only think of one that wasn't tied to a film: Namco's "Katamari Damacy."

This is an often repeated point and generally agreed point about the prevelence of sequels, but he left out some major games such as Fable and Farcry... and even though it was tied to a movie franchise, Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was a very original take on the FPS genre. But yeah it's probably like 80-90 percent of games selling are sequels.

Re:Sequels

[ChibiLZ]

Well, he could only think of one, at least he thought of the best. 3 cheers for Calamari Dinosaurs!

Seriously though, I thought it was one of the 3 best games this year. I want the sequel now.

Re:Sequels

[superpulpsicle]

I wish the industry would stop calling games by sequel numbers. Doom 3 didn't have to be called Doom 3. It could have been Doom 2004 or Doom Mars in Hell, etc.

As soon as marketing gets lazy and start naming games 1,2,3 people complain about too many sequels. If sports titles did this, there would be a million sequels.

Alienware Discover System

[sesshomaru]

It seems that Alienware is still marketing ApeXtreme type systems:

http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/DHS_ 5/dhs_5_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-DHS5&SubCode=SKU- DEFAULT

Obviously, these things can't replace an Xbox, though, they are too expensive...

The year in speed runs

[Radix37]

Some highlights from this year in speed running games:

Half-Life in 0:45:45
Half-Life 2 in 2:14:58
Super Mario 64 in 0:20:56 (only 16 stars)
Zelda: A Link to the Past in 1:44:45
Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 5:04
Pikmin in 9 days with only 50 pikmin
Super Metroid 100% in 0:55
Metroid Prime 100% in 1:28
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in 2:11
Mega Man X 100% in 0:41:36

I wonder what next year will bring?

Re:The year in speed runs

[MilenCent]

Hey, I've done Pikmin in 9 days, though I had 114 guys when I did it. I was inspired by a well-written GameFAQs text. But man, I don't think I'll be doing THAT again.

People want adult games

[aka_big_wurm]

Whats wrong with that, I like adult games they are funny. In Japan there is a huge market for them but here there are only a hand full. Is it better to help Doom guy blow some heads off or is it better to help Larry get some.

The average age of gamers is now 18+ so whats wrong with getting quality adult theamed games, and how diffent is it from going and seeing an American Pie movie.

I aways thought an adult add on for sims would have sold really well.

Re:People want adult games

[Anonymous Coward]

That day will come, but I think that the Japanese still have a jump on us in that regard. For instance, you're not going to seee the average american guy wanting to see some anime-style porn. No, we want to see full video with recognizable porn-stars and the industry just hasn't progressed to that point yet. There ahve been games like that in the paste, but they all pretty much failed. Why would you want to go out and buy a game that you have to play through/hack in order to see some money shots when you can just go rent a movie or order pa-per-view? But, invariably, someone will make a game that acomplishes this and it will be well known and highly praised, much like how we are able to have movies like American Pie and they are widely accepted and acclaimed. It's just a matter of time until "Dormroom Detective" is spinning in the PS3's of every frat house in America.

Leasure Suit Larry

[jonwil]

I think one thing affecting LSL is the negative press it got in various places as well as the fact that classification bodies around the world classified it very higly (for example, last I checked, it is banned in australia).

This means that advertising and marketing for it is difficult and getting it out there for gamers to see and play is also difficult.

Guy Game - noun. spawn of Satan

[Mozillabird]

Game developers need to realize that people could easily get a magazine for the kind of garbage in "guy games". Focus on fun games that normal people will buy.