Games All Downhill Since Pong?

In a recent article Nolan Bushnell laments the current state of gaming, stating that modern games are nothing more than a "race to the bottom" resulting in complete and utter trash. In order to combat what he sees as the downward spiral in game quality he continues to work on his new dining experience uWink that features tabletop games and a "reasonably priced meal". RPS weighs in on the subject arguing that, while the unhealthy obsession with Halo 3 might be a bit misplaced, there are plenty of gems to be found amidst the flotsam and jetsam.

Comments

Wii

[David Nabbit]

Has Mr. Bushnell played Wii? The article is pretty vague on what exactly his beef is with modern video games, but Nintendo seems to be aiming to do the same thing he is with his interactive restaurant games (minus the food of course).

Can't agree

[Stormie]

"Pong" is a little before my time, I've only got about 23 years of experience as an avid gamer. And, in my opinion, this is just bunk.

Back in the good old days? There were fantastic, innovative, fun games, and there was also immense quantities of absolute garbage.

And now? There are fantastic, innovative, fun games, and there is also immense quantities of absolute garbage.

Any claim that games were "better" in the old days is just so much nostalgia and selective memory. Think a bit harder, you'll remember those games you pirated on the C64 that were so bad that you'd spend 2 minutes waiting for the game to load and then only 30 seconds playing it before you tossed the tape back in the case.

Re:Hmm, OK...

[Junior J. Junior III]

The original pong did not have a CPU; it was made out of discrete logic circuits soldered together on a logic board.

What's the proposed alternative... uWink? PASS.

[mookie-blaylock]

So, great, he's a father of the industry.

Ever been to uWink, his latest idea? It's godawful. Imagine the most tired, re-tread, uninspired, and dull fare you could get from the unholy collision of an Applebees, California Pizza Kitchen, and PF Chang's. The hook? You get to use a touch screen to order your food! Wow, touch screens! You know, like you use at the airport, your ATM, the occasional gas station, and about 500,000 other places. Plus they've got incredibly dull table games... Oh, and for kicks, the touch sensors on the screen are so comically inaccurate -- so make sure to double check that you're getting what you've ordered.

The decor is kind of like chromey mid-90s meets that bar in Star Trek 3, only people look like they're having a lot less fun. Basically, imagine any "futuristic" concept hacked out by any of a dozen subpar ad agencies or architecture firms around 1997. The Century City food court is 10x more self-consciously "futuristic" in its design and seems less ridiculous.

And the last bit of fun: Anything that's actually edible on the menu will be sold out. Ditto for any beers worth drinking. So enjoy that exotic pepperoni pizza and bud light...

Nope, sorry, give me Mario Kart, Guitar Hero, GTA, Final Fantasy 4, Katamari Damacy, Civilization, X-Com, Star Control, or any other of about six dozen games that are brilliant or brilliantly fun. If I wanted to go someplace and be bored while surrounded by awful overpriced food and where touch screens pass as a killer app, I'd hang out at the airport.

Agreed

[Kadin2048]

Up until a few days ago, I probably would have agreed with TFA. I played my share of console and arcade games as a kid, and a computer game here and there (I even gave WoW a shot, and it admittedly keep me going for a few months), but I just don't generally find games all that engaging. Either they're too simple and I get bored, or they're too frustrating, and I get annoyed and bored. It just feels artificial -- if I want a challenge, there are enough projects on my to-do list to keep me busy for several lifetimes, and if I want escapism, there are a lot of books. I'm not denigrating people who do like games (we all have our hobbies), I just didn't really get the draw.

But that was before a few weekends ago, when the S.O. and I were at a friend's house and saw Wii Sports in person for the first time. I'd heard of it, of course, but had never really played it. Overall, I'm not sure it'll go down in the annals of videogames as more significant than Super Mario Brothers, but maybe it should: I saw more non-gamers pick up and have a good time with that game than I've ever seen before, on any system. Lots of people who normally would have just tuned it out as annoying background noise ended up taking a turn. And perhaps more significantly, we weren't the only couple leaving that night and saying "wow, we have got to get one of those" to each other. It's a video game system that doesn't feel like a 'video game' system -- it felt like poor-man's virtual reality. And a week later, despite living with one of the most anti-video-game people I know (and at their insistence, no less), I found myself rearranging the living room furniture so that there's more room to play Wii Tennis.

As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo should let Sony and Microsoft fight over the established market: they're creating a whole new one, or at least bringing a lot of people whose last console system was an NES back into it. The major question for them is whether they're going to be able to continue to produce games that maintain the very high bar for playability and group fun that Wii Sports does (so far, most of the third-party titles we've picked up from Blockbuster have been a bit disappointing). The question of whether the Wiimote is revolutionary or just a novelty will ultimately depend on whether they can get more games that use it effectively and intuitively, instead of just using it to emulate traditional controls or as an addon, rather than the platform's core and distinguishing feature. At least in my opinion, if you play it sitting down, somebody missed the point.

I've played Halo 3, and yes, the graphics are pretty amazing (it's probably the first game I've played where the flamethrower looked borderline convincing). I suspect, based on the hardware, that the Playstation's are even more impressive. But there's nothing there that makes we want to run out and drop half a grand. (When they're selling for $100, I'll buy an XBox3 so I can play through Halo for the plot.)

Wii Sports (and the ensuing sore arm) was pretty much worth $250, just for the sake of watching people whose knee-jerk response to any console system is "I don't do video games" change their minds and start to enjoy themselves within a few seconds of handling the controller.

Games are not dead. I think that the game publishers and the hardware developers just went though a very risk-averse phase where nobody wanted to take chances, and so they ground out basically the same product, to the same audience, over and over. If you liked that product and its evolutionary improvements, it was great. But if you didn't, there could be pretty long dry spells. I'm not sure whether the Wii is the beginning of something different, or just a temporary oasis, but you'd have to be an idiot not to enjoy it either way.