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Are Neo-Retro Game Releases a Fad?
With modern console technology making it easy to develop and distribute small games, more and more companies are taking advantage of gamers' nostalgia to re-release decades-old hits, and to create entirely new titles in older styles. Gamasutra takes a look at what the retro game fad has become, and where it can go from here. What old games or series do you think would translate well onto today's consoles?
"Many gamers who bought Mega Man 9 did so because of the game's inherent nostalgia, or because they never had a chance to enjoy the older games on the Nintendo Entertainment System when they were younger. Mega Man 9 is very much a product of its context. Its gameplay is fantastic, but it too is a product of the time period in which it reigned supreme. It suggests the question: can neo-retro games stand the test of time? Will games that mimic or lampoon the 8-bit era remain relevant and interesting to the masses long after its original audience has disappeared?"
Well they won't keep making recreations of NES era games when nobody remembers NES anymore. They'll make recreations of newer games that people still remember playing as a kid.
Making old-fashioned new games is nothing new.
In the '60s Star Trek gave us 3-D Chess.
In the '70s gave us Sudoku, similar to Magic Squares number puzzles.
The 21st century is giving us modern versions of Monopoly, which uses pre-real-estate-market-crash valuations.
Me? I like Pong.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The Retro games often have some staying power that newer games lack. When the new video games are more like interactive movies and less like a game, it creates a niche market for people who actually want to play the games, the old way with simple controls and not having to remember hundreds of key combinations to use all the features. But in terms of releasing them using the old 8 bit graphics I see that dying out as the people who plays them die out. Unless they reincarnate them in dirt cheap hardware for budget use, aka Happy Meal games, The fact that it is just as easy if not easier to code for higher end system and do better graphics then it does to do an 8 bit game in assembly would mean the nostalgia effect of the game will die out. However I see Pac Man coming back perhaps slightly updated every generation or so as a classic eat the dot game.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You know what? This whining that there hasn't been a decent new game in years is getting seriously old. There have been TONS of good new games in the past, say, 5 years. I don't know if gamers like you are jaded, stuck-up, or what, but you are so wrong about this mythical "quality of games has gone down the tubes" bullshit.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I'm not sure of the definition of 'neo-retro.' If this means creating 8-bit games just for the sake of nostalgia, then they'll probably die out. But games that build on and improve old styles of gameplay (here I'm thinking of the Castlevania series for the DS) will, I hope, always have a place in the video game universe.
Here's hoping for Super Paper Metroid.
I for one re-played (in an emulator) Phntasy Star 3 because yeah it has ancient graphics and music but the gameplay kicked so much ass in its time, other games couldn't even come close. Even today it at least ties some modern games when it comes to size of the world and the fight system. Other older games completely beat their modern counterparts in gameplay. Starcraft's online play still beats modern games and that's why it's still sold in stores today. The only usual downfall for older games is AI but that doesn't always affect every game.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Does anyone else feel like Nintendo dropped the ball with the Virtual Console? There aren't that many channels, Wii Ware selection is still sparse and uncompelling, and the titles released from old console systems don't interest me, partly because what they have put out is crap that didn't sell in the first place.
I've had 2500 Wii points sitting unspent waiting for the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior titles from the NES and SNES. The only reason I can think of preventing this is some licensing issue with Square Enix or possibly Sony. Any insight on that?
One phenomenon that I think we'll see a lot of(aside from simple "Hey, we paid to develop this game in the early 90's, slap an NES emulator on the sucker and any sales are pure profit!" cash ins) is the obsolescence/nostalgia response curve.
New stuff is love or hate: Either it is new, improved, shiny, and exciting, or shoddy crap that ruins the original.
Current stuff is ok: You can see the flaws and have some ideas about what could use fixing; but it is familiar and mostly comfortable.
Old stuff blows: It is largely the same as current stuff; but the flaws that used to be merely niggling are horrific now that you've been using stuff that fixed them for a few years(I got into shooters pre-mouselook; but I'll be damned if I could go back).
Quite old stuff is awesome: It is so far from memories of practicality that its defects are part of the charm, and most of the worst elements(remember all the NES games that aren't timeless classics?) have either been forgotten about or are now old friends.
The above is quite vague, I admit; but it fits my experience of how the desirability of things like tech toys and video games change over time. Cutting edge PCs are cool, and fun to read about/drool over occasionally. My current rig is adequate; but unexciting. The couple before that suck, exactly the same feel as the current one; but slower, louder, and more expensive. My old-school Compaq portable rules, even though it is only really good for doing stupid basic tricks, I don't actually have to get any use out of it, so its limitations are quaint and endearing rather than annoying. Games are similar in many respects.
Now, this is just a general outline. Some things are genuine classics, most things sucked from day one. I think, though, that it fairly well explains the current pattern in retro gaming. 8-bit is big because it has a lot of nostalgia for many of us, and because it is qualitatively different than current games.
A little while back, I gave GoldenEye a try again. It was horrific. I don't know how I ever enjoyed it. The experience was qualitatively equivalent to a modern 3D shooter; but with gaping holes where all the stuff we've improved between now and then should have been. Same thing happened with Dune II. A true classic of the RTS genre; but all I could think about was how Dune II's interface was missing all the refinements that it had picked up by the time Red Alert was released. It's like picking up an old Pentium machine, it's exactly the same deal as whatever beige box is under your desk now, none of the exoticism of an old C-64 or apple or amiga, but it's a zillion times slower, you can't get RAM for it, and you had completely forgotten that it predated ATAPI CDROMS.
It has something to do with walking to school uphill both ways in 16 feet of snow while carrying our siblings in a burlap sack, all with two broken legs and... HEY YOU KIDS! GET OF MY FSCKING LAWN!
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
Those of us who didn't have consoles as kids, and are enjoying these titles and genres for the first time!
It's true. Recent games aren't games so much as simulations. Simulations can be fun at times but they don't have the same game play value as a real game. It's the difference between running around in a field with a paintball gun or playing Scrabble. Both are entertainment but only the later is really a game under that meaning of the word.
Most current games aren't designed for gamers - they are designed for people who want to spend a huge amount of time involved in complex simulations. Most of us don't have time or energy for such complex simulations and have satisfying enough lives that we don't need pretend ones so this sort of game doesn't appeal to us. It's just not the same sort of beast that classic video games were.
ie. I have a real wife, a real child, real friends, and a real job so I don't need or want to waste 16 hours a day playing Sims or WoW but I'd still sit down and play a classic platform scroller for 30 minutes every now and then.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
It's a shift in content. Back in days of yor, anyone with a meager budget or some artistic ability could max out the console's video system. In the last five years there's been a real push towards adding as many eye catching extras in game as possible. While the newer games are more interesting to watch, older games forced producers to create content. Who today would build a game watching a plumber bend over to eat mushrooms, now in "High Def". They where strange, unique and had simplicity that seems lost in modern games. I hope flat-land gaming lives on past the nostalgia.
I think I just cashed out all my cool points.
It was a fun simulator. I'd love a copy that would run on one of my current machines.
Bingo. Games used to be fun because of their interesting mechanics, not their realism. We used to have such wonderfully varied genres ranging from platformers, side-scrolling shooters, space combat, point and click adventures, "arcade" games (e.g. QBert/Donkey Kong/Galaga), action-puzzle games, shmups, etc. Once gaming went down a path of realism, the lines between games started to blur more and more. Some of the genres that were once popular got lost in the transition to greater realism. Pretty soon the only genres left were First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters/Platformers, and Racing.
Some of the newer games are trying to differentiate themselves with interesting mechanics (e.g. Using a cyber-arm to swing around, gymnastics, portals, vertical climbing and gravity effects), which does occasionally make the games more compelling. But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Woah, your lawn does that? I always have to check for errors by hand...
All your base are belong to Wii.
Especially since they're smaller and faster to develop, that means that, as long as more crap, we're also likely to recieve, on average, more /good/ games than when compared to the multi-year, multi-million dollar mega development 'modern' games.
I'd rather play a new 2d Metroid, Sonic, or even just basic /fun/ 2d game than the latest 'FPS Hero Guy' game any day.
Console downloads are just the latest way for companies to make money from old titles. I have been an emulator junkie for years and playing the games I grew up with in the eighties has been a passion since I first discovered emulators in the late nineties. When I show the old games to friends my age who played those games with me in the arcades they have the same amount of nostalgia I do but when I show them to my nephew I get no interest. He just wants to go play a Halo death match and calls my games budget or pov (his slang for poverty). When I show them to friends my age who don't play games I get comments like, I remember Frogger, do you have Galaga? There are plenty of games that I have fallen in love with from playing emulators that I never played in their time so for me it is not all nostalgia, but it seems that kids who were first exposed to 3D games have no interest in the 80's classics. They will probably be playing Halo or Guitar Hero in 15 years as their retro games.
One thing I love about the old school games: their simplicity. You don't need a manual to play them. It's not difficult to pick up the controller and find out what the 2/3/6 buttons do, then proceed to play. There's only two basic functions in a side-scroller: jump and fire. Add a few more buttons, maybe get a couple more ways to attack or move. I miss that in the newer games.
And people wonder why Hollywood keeps retreading the same old stuff...
There's always going to be a market for retro games, but the definition of "retro" will change depending on the market.
8-bit games like MegaMan 9 will be big with the set who remember playing them back on the NES. As will parody games, like Strong Bad's Snake Boxer 5 and Alge-bros. (:
I never owned a NES (only console my parents ever sprung for was the Intellivision); I spent my halcyon youth playing Sierra games. So stuff like the VGA remake of Quest for Glory 2 by AGD Interactive are like gold to me.
As time goes on and gamers grow up, each generation of kids will hearken back to their favourite generation of game console.
Soylens viridis homines es
"You know what? This whining that there hasn't been a decent new game in years is getting seriously old."
It's not that there hasn't been a decent new game in years, it's that there hasn't been a decent IMPROVEMENT in the new games in a franchise, in years! I can count MANY games who after their first sequel or two started going downhill and just sputtering around. There are tonnes of games that never live up to their potential and I am not the only one who feels this way. I can name a tonne right off the bat:
-Mario kart Double dash and Wii (not as good as original, MK64 and the one for the DS) ... and that is just the beginning of my list, I could go on.
-Zelda's after OOT started going downhill. OoT > Majora's mask, OoT > Twilight princess > Wind waker.
-Mario Sunshine, Mario 64 > Sunshine, Mario Galaxy > Sunshine.
-Final fantasy series FF4, FF6, FF7 > FF8, FF9, FF10
-Streetfighter2+, Street Fighter 2 > many from the SF Alpha series (can't remember all of them)
-Megaman X, Megaman X and X2, > others in the series
-Original Megaman, MM1, MM2, MM3 > most of the rest practically
-Chrono Trigger, Chronot trigger > Chrono Cross (Chrono Cross totally f'd up the chrono universe, I'm not the only one who feels this way AGHHH!!)
-Castlevania after Castlevania IV (SNES) and SOTN (PS1), sputtered out, CS4, SoTN > Most if not all of the 3D castlevania's
Sometimes I have to wonder how out of touch many people are, and especially some of the people who work at game companies.
Galaga
Wing Commander, Duke Nukem I & II, BioForge, Command and Conquer, Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity, Secret of Monkey Island, System Shock, Sim City, The Incredible Machine, Where in the [World|Time|Space] is Carmen Sandiego?, California Raisins, Space Quest, Prince of Persia, King's Quest, Myst, Doom, X-Com, Under a Killing Moon
Just to name a few. :-P
I miss Gaming Goodness(TM) and all the pointy sticks that went with it. *sigh*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Simple, the new age of gaming is about making it look nice at the cost of everything else. Its easy to make a game look good (as in its just money + time) which is why its now the industry standard. You cant calculate,graph, or project profits on creativity, so that's out the window.
Fortunately companies like Nintendo,Valve, and Blizzard still do there best to put out games that focus on story and game play.
Ahhh memories. Yes I did miss a few. :)
The newest games are great -- but stuff like PacMan and Galaga have timeless appeal to middle-aged/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B/^B^Bwisdom-endowed foks like me imho... on a cell phone you can't beat these games to pass a couple of minutes with some good, brainless fun...
{ { while true ; { yes "Finally a great use for a Windows hard drive!" } ; done ; } >/dev/hda 2>&1
Personally, I just wanna play games I'll have fun playing. I don't care if it's retro or not. Mega Man 9? I like shooting stuff and jumping around, so why not? I'm not gonna spend my time asking if it's fad, I'll load it and have fun, maybe even nostalgia.
...that was plugged on slashdot recently. It's very 80's-arcade style. I can't even tell that it's about emacs and vi (no, keep reading! seriously!) when I'm playing it.
What I do know is that it has a heavy metal soundtrack, explosions, wireframe graphics, spaceships, lasers, shit blowing up left and right, and MORE.
I haven't been able to get more than, like, a minute into the first level, but just playing it cracks me up. The geekiness of it (e.g. bumping into "kernel space" at the top of the screen) makes it funnier too.
http://wordwarvi.sourceforge.net/
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
"long after its original audience has disappeared"
I'm part of the original audience, you insensitive clod!
But there will always be a small minority group of classical gamers who will act akin to Shakespeare lovers. Imagine 100 years from now people are lying back in their Matrix-style brain boxes chatting about the beautiful simplicity of Pac-Man.
Imagine the professors of late 20th century gaming who fight with the professors of early 21st century gaming about how the 21st century was just a dumping ground for mindless copies of the true classics. Mario Tennis is after all just a graphical update for Pong. Fallout 3 is really just a graphical update for Bezerk.
Imagine the angry depressed loners with digital fingernails and LED hair who fight about how ET for Atari was the best game of all time.
And, of course, there will be people like me who still write text adventures for the yearly ifcomp. (If you've forgotten, check out ifcomp.org. This year's contest ends on the 15th of November!)
Cow Cube
Oh PLEASE remake Atari 2600's "Adventure" with today's technology. Holy shit! The Red Dragon! Run muthafucka, run!!!!
Some games just aren't as good or are totally different games in 3D. Sonic, Mario, Metroid, Secret of Mana, etc... Seriously, who wouldn't want to play a good Super Mario World 3? And let's not forget the atrocities that happened when Capcom brought Mega Man into 3D (X7, X8)...
Total Annihilation was the best RTS ever for gameplay. Quake still has the best deathmatch environment.
I still play Alpha Centauri, Birth of the Federation, and Ancient Domains of Mystery a couple months a year. Every year. And they can still trap me at 3 am with the obsessive "just one... more... turn..." mindset.
I really miss the Microprose classics like Airborne Ranger and F-19 Stealth fighter. Not to mention Star Control 2 and Stars!
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I periodically get nostalgic for the old days of gaming, and decide I'll fire up something like Quake II, Fallout, X-Com, Duke Nukem 3d, play for 10 minutes and find only disappointment. Not only is the gameplay simplistic but the graphics are ugly and the sound is rubbish. It has plenty of charm and if your a real gamer you care about the fun factor not the wow factor, but at the end of it a gamers brain today is starved for input by old games.
You is you remember these games better than they really are because a bit part of the thrill of playing these games back in the day was seeing some incremental advancement in technology that made the new game you just bought and dumped into your 4x CD drive freshly immersive compared to what you had been playing previously. That thrill is all but gone when you go back to the old school after playing todays titles. When it comes to remakes even with a spruce up and a modern graphics engine, some how the old game doesn't shine through with that same something it had back in the day. Sure some of the gameplay of old games still holds its own today, you simply do not get what made the game great at the time.
In some cases, taking a nostalgia trip you realise that old games, compared to todays can dreadfully unbearably shit. And retro game fad only serves to prove that the game industry is dangerously close to stagnating on the new ideas front (some would argue it would have). We've gone from seeing revolutionary change, to incremental change, and despite a few leaps forward (Wii etc) the last thing the gaming industry needs to do is go the way of hollywood: Rehash old sure-bet ideas.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Who cares if it stands the test of time? If I enjoy it now, and it is cheap, isn't that a winning combination? It isn't like I'm paying $60 for Mega Man 9 and expecting it to stand up against Gears of War.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Andy
It is worse then that. A real simulation at least is interesting because it is complex and allows many different ways how things can interact together and most importantly because it gives you plenty of freedom to act, todays games however seldomly go in that direction. Instead most of them go more into the direction of a roller coaster ride, they are flashy and noise, but ultimately they are repetitive and pointless, because the player really doesn't have all that much to do in them. Its always the same: point at enemy, pull trigger, rinse and repeat. There aren't decision to be made, characters to interact with or stories worth to listen to.
Now I don't expect games to be full of deep meaning, but I want at least some descent player involvement, if that means learning boss patterns in a MegaMan or making moral choices in a deep storyline I don't care, at least both of those keep me involved. But the roller coaster rides that most of todays games provide, which are so easy that you never have to remember much of anything, are getting really annoying.
look at the sheer number of games released in the 80's and 90's, and you'll find that a lot of the ground breaking stuff was released pretty sporatically. Games NEEDED realism, or atleast, better graphics. Comparing the boss fights from Mega Man 1-6 to MegaMan 7 and 8? Or From 1-6 to X, Z, and ZX? Bigger screen real estate, better sprites, and 3D graphics *did* something for gaming. Portal wouldn't be Portal if it was a 2D platformer, Mirror's Edge would be no fun if it was top down. Metal Gear would be no fun if it started with:
"You are on Shadow Moses Island, you are being lifted up to the surface by a cargo elevator. You see several guards and you are armed with a SOCOM Mk.23 pistol."
> Use gun on man"
there is unique flavor with 2D gaming, and while it's gone, it's not gone forever. Braid, LBP, and any number of platformers, fighters, shooters or puzzle games that have come out in the last 12 years since the original PlayStation was launched really prove that. I mean, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix is slated for this month! Street Fighter 4! King of Fighters 12, Raiden 4, Mushihime-sama, and god knows how many other "old school" style games are being released with with modern twists. SSF2THDR is getting a 1080p make over, KOFXII is 1080p and so is SF4(which is also 3D rendered on a 2D plane with 2D game mechanics), etc.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
The problem is that a "good game" is something different from a game I care to play. I fully agree that many of todays games are very solid and would be plenty of fun, however most of those games come from the 'been there, done that'-land and feature the same old gameplay that already got boring last year or the year before. I mean, just look at the weapons in a shooter genre, pistol, shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher. I have already played with those weapons back then 15 years ago in Doom1, I don't care to repeat that experience over and over and over again. It stopped to be interesting long long ago, not because there is anything fundamentally bad with that game mechanic, but simply because it has been done to death before. Games today have become far to stale and far to tightly locked into their genres to be much of an excitement for me any more.
The reason why old games are still fun is not because they are necessarily a better kind of game, but for most part simply because they are something very different from the big titles that dominate todays market.
What it's become is an easy way to make money. Why make a new Megaman and sell it for $10, rather than emulating a bunch of older, tried and true games? Why doesn't Sony create a way for volunteers to develop retro/homebrew games for the PS3, and then distribute them freely/cheaply over the PSN? It's all about money.
With digital purchasing made easy on the consoles, the potential for an endless profit stream is huge. Realize this, and you'll start seeing that it drives everything the console makers do, especially Sony. I saw them selling a bonus character for Soul Caliber IV (a Mortal Kombat style game) for $5. Paying $60 for the game wasn't enough? Add-on content, online movie rentals, downloadable small games that cost little to develop, all these things are easy money.
Now, I really like my PS3. It can even do some things that don't make money back for Sony, such as web surfing, watching videos (if they're encoded in a certain way), and even running Linux in a sandbox environment. (I don't list playing Blu-Rays because Sony is making money on those discs.) But I'll be watching out to see just how greedy they become.
I think it's backlash against 3D gameplay. I'm not talking about 3D graphics, but rather 3D gameplay and interacting with things in a 3D world.
In 2D, you can do a lot of really cool things because you don't have to think about depth, like how far you have to jump to get to a platform. In 2D, it's obvious. You also don't have to worry about camera angles, which have gotten better in the last 10 years due to improved AI, but they still pretty much suck. I hate backing against a wall in a 3rd-person platform game and seeing the camera go berserk.
I also believe that 2D games, especially platformers, give you more freedom to goof around. If a game has a good "feel", you can go all kinds of cool chain-reaction moves which are pretty much impossible in 3D games. 3D games have usually been more procedural due to the interface complexity. I can jump off a platform, smush rows of goombas, and punch a brick to get a coin in one shot. With a typical 3D platformer, you pretty much do one thing at a time -- walk up to something, jump, move again, pick something up, shoot, walk, talk, then walk some more. That's my theory as to why the Wii's 3D controller is wasted on waggle games. Thinking in 3D is actually very difficult.
Of course, style matters, too. 3D graphics often lacks the color and graphic power of good 2D. I like remakes of old games, but they cannot either be exact replicas of the old games, or use too much technology. Geometry Wars is a real favorite of mind, as it brings back the old arcade feel, but still offers a pretty fireworks show. Games like Mega Man 9 really turn me off. I have fond memories of 8-bit gaming, not 8-bit limitations.
Final fantasy series FF4, FF6, FF7 > FF8, FF9, FF10
I almost agree with you, but I thought FF9 was fantastic -- the core gameplay mechanics were better than FF7 or FF8 (mostly due to the dearth of long-ass summons), the art and music were bright and colorful, the cutscenes were spectacular, and the story was acceptable. Now I kind of want to get it back out and play it some more.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if a game is fun and challenging it will win no matter how sophisticated (or "unsophisticated") it is.
So if "fun games" is a fad then fuck it I'm on the fad bandwagon.
crazy dynamite monkey
Woah, your lawn does that? I always have to check for errors by hand...
Hands???? Luxury!!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Saturday night at midnight, they're going to be re-releasing the original Battletoads (ie THE greatest NES game of all time) on the Wii. They signed an exclusivity deal with Gamestop, so be sure and call to reserve your copy before you go since they'll run out fast.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
The biggest thing about the whole realism thing, is that people WANTED more realism than the 8-bit eras. There's a reason adventure games don't get made much any more, and it's because of the lack of realism. Realism is the reason why FPS have replaced the adventure game...
What is an adventure game? A maze, or freeform level, where you collect objects, and use them to progress further, and advance the storyline... What's a modern FPS? The exact same thing, but in a first person view.
The problem that FPS are facing now is the same that adventure games dealt with... Puzzles and themes are overdone and repetitive, stories are too thin, or too far-fetched, and interfaces are too cumbersome to do everything that you want/need to do in order to play your game.
So, FPS and adventure games are similar. they both started out with simple controls. Adventure games were Text based games like the infocom games, FPS were really 2 dimensional with Wolfenstein. More realism was needed to keep interest, and people NEVER STOPPED with pushing realism. Adventure games got graphics with "Mystery House", and then Animation with "King's Quest". FPS got Depth with Doom, and 3D with Quake. Plots for both were simple, and linear. People wanted more Drama. Adventure games got more and more story driven, or more and more rediculous with puzzles. FPS did something very similar - More map complexity, and more movement/jumping/physics puzzles. All the while, the focus on making games "Prettier" than the last, was always a driving force, which eventually overtook as the measure of Quality for which the industry stood upon, instead of gameplay. Doom3 Engine versus Source/HL2 was one useless fight, just like Sierra's SCI1+ interpreters versus LucasArts SCUMM interfaces. Simplification was a key point at several points... LucasArts brought point 'n' Click, just as "Quake 3" did away with ladders, secondary attacks, and other extraneous controls such as leaning, etc... We now sit in a market which is flooded with FPS, just as the market used to be flooded with Adventure games... And everybody is looking for the next "Big Thing" to replace the FPS....
Then comes this game, where you can pretend to be a rock star, and all you have to do is mash 3 - 5 buttons, and flick a switch back and forth. Game play is fun and simple to understand. It doesn't require 100 buttons, and has no plot to worry about. "Guitar Hero" makes a bunch of people realize that fun games are more than just pretty graphics, are more than walking around and shooting things, and are more than just puzzles that don't really make sense... And OF COURSE people are going to realize that in all the hype of "who's prettier?" and "Who looks more real?", somewhere we lost the concept of fun and entertainment as the standards of a good game.
Now, we have a resurgence of old games, neo-retro games, and unique new games which really could have been made 15 years ago, had corporations not had their heads up their Wazoos, trying to cash in on previous Intellectual properties, and jumping on bandwagons to create the prettiest FPS to win the FPS war. There's still the old school, such as the Crysis team who pumps out a gorgeous looking game that's as forgettable as most FPS' on the market. The indy-game developer is still at work trying to get their innovations to market, and finally, there's the new crew trying to resurrect the old and market as new, because it really is new to a whole generation. Net result? An new generation and appreciation for old gaming, which will likely last a short period of time before someone tries to out-tech and out-spec the rest.
Already, we are starting the same progression with Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... Who has the more realistic guitar? Hey, lets add drums, and make them more complex... I'm waiting for the day where you need a webcam and you get scored for how close you dressed up like the band you're playing. Imagine - Dressing up like RHCP in their sock-donning glory of the late 80's early 90's... Good ol' Family fun!
Has there been a new game in the same genre as Deus Ex with even 90% of its awesomeness?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Woohoo, now I can even pay twice for my games, along with buying dvds (and nowadays blu-rays, of course) of my old vhs tapes and mp3s of my cd and vinyl collection.
A classic from the TI-99 days.
http://www.dreamcodex.com/todr.php
Bollocks. Stop focusing on what's getting the headlines, which has been the latest photo-realistic FPS for at least ten years; look through the aisles at the store rather than the big stand, and you'll find all the variety there used to be is still alive and well. Yes, the quirkier "gamier" games get less exposure than the "realistic" ones, but guess what? They don't sell as well.
I am trolling
The good games keep you coming back. Whereas in the 8-bit days games were cheap you could keep buying new ones, I was shopping yesterday and all the new PS3 releases were 60-70e (about $100). Probably ok value for money considering all the work that has gone into them but no longer in the realm where you can play for a couple of days and then forget about it. The retro games fill a good niche for a bit of variety in between the more 'serious' purchases. My favourite 8-bit game was Elite, and I recently discovered Oolite which was some very fun retro-gaming for me.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Of course it's a fad. If it was a fad the first time, why wouldn't it be a fad this time?
Oh, you're saying it's some fundamental change in human existence? That people, now and forever, will want to play eight-bit games?
You do realize that after a few generations come along that did NOT grow up on 8-bit games, they will become as popular as quoites.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Its a very good game. Kids really love it. People go crazy for games. Harry Intelligent SEO
Dude.. go open a terminal and type "man lsck" right now. If you don't have a manual for it, try nabbing a copy from your local repository.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
Has there been a new game in the same genre as Deus Ex with even 90% of its awesomeness?
Well Fallout 3 is quite similar and it even has moderate amounts of awesomeness. Not 90% but close.
It is very bad if my car breaks when I try to brake.
Some of the genres that were once popular got lost in the transition to greater realism. Pretty soon the only genres left were First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters/Platformers, and Racing.
Just because you don't see the games doesn't mean they don't exist any more... you need to look beyond the top three games of the quarter.
It is more a matter of different target audiences. Back in the NES days, Megaman was a top-of-the-line action game. Games borrowed a lot from the arcade games of the time, short levels, playable in little bursts, instead of hundreds of hours epic sagas. Then again, back then, wasting $20 on Deadly Towers didn't hurt as bad as blowing $60 on the latest life simulator today.
It would be interesting to see what you young punks who started playing video games around the Playstation days (CDs were the death of the old-time games) think of something like Megaman 9. Do you throw it aside after failing the same level twenty times, or do you keep chugging along?
A lot of us are still very enthusiastic about classic games. For example: see AtariAge, DigitPress RetroGaming Roundtable, ClassicGaming, etc. There is a community out there alive and well with fans of every type of classic gaming console, old computer, and classic game. And don't forget to do a Google Blog Search for your favorite classic console (atari 2600) or old computer (Apple II) (get the feed...). Classic gamers are buying news products like the Classic USB Joystick Controller (Atari 2600-style) and in the past few years there were a flood of products like the Atari Flashback 2, C64 TV Games, a bunch of Jakks TV games, etc. The classic gaming market will always be around, but I think it will change and update as we get older where newer "old" systems get a chance for the spotlight.
Really? When I think of "simulations" I think of flight sims, racing sims, mech sims, or any type of game that's designed for hardcore enthusiasts that want to make an experience as real as possible--the kind that would make their PC desk look and act like an airplane cockpit just to make the simulation better. Or at the very least, the kind that refuse to play driving games without a racing wheel.
Your average game is very much a game, as lots of compromises are made in realism to make the gameplay more manageable. Sure the models have super high res textures and a million polygons or whatever, but if all you have to do to pick up a gun is walk over it, what kind of simulation is that?
So are pockets, shoes... Florescent dyed hair..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because a bunch of pretty ( and expensive ) graphics with pathetic game content does not qualify as a "good game", which is most of what has been coming out for YEARS.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
True - and I believe the really good games; no matter the era, will stand the test of time and remain popular. Fun games capture the player and make them want to play; and are not necessarily complex or graphic intensive. Tetris springs to mind, as does an ancient ASCII based DOS air traffic control game I used to play on an ancient Compaq sewing machine portable with a tiny green CRT (6 or 8" I can't recall).
The challenge for computer games, unlike the more traditional board or non-computer based games is that you need the computer and OS to run the game. You can't pick it off a shelf, dust it off, read the rules and start playing, unlike a 20 year old Scrabble game.
As a result, unless companies commit to emulation and continue to make code available many great games will die as systems they work on disappear. Copyright complicates matters since the Scrabble game I mentioned is still playable by the owner or can be shared since it is a tangible item; unlike a computer game whose code disappears when a company goes bankrupt. I realize there is a vast collection of old games; but few companies have chosen to make their old code free (unlike say, Beagle Bros) so even if you have the code it is not possible to build a viable business out of it to make it available without risk of lawsuits.
Now, if companies realized not only the economic but cultural values of old software then maybe we'd at least see some historical archiving and plans to make them at least playable in the future.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"but I thought FF9 was fantastic "
The thing I didn't like about FF9 was the art direction and the fact it was caught between sci-fi and a bad disney movie, the game itself was ok, but the art direction really ruined a lot of it for me. Especially the tin man guy and the monkey boy, the main hero, and the fat greenish queen... ugh. That and they took the black mage and cutified him to the maximum extent (vivi?? wtf?), I was hoping FF9 would take the world thematically right back to it's roots in FF1, but that was not the case. So FF9 for me was quite a let down in that regard, although I have to say over all it was a decent game, but still nowhere approaching the earlier games.
It just seems to me the people at square have some real issues sticking to a thematic vision, their games after FF7 started to go all over the place. I remember one of the big boss men taking his teams to task recently in comments I read about "making games for gamers, not the ones you want to make!" which is absolutely necessary, especially if you don't know how to design a gaming experience.
Just because they have the skills to make a game, does not mean they know how to design a gaming experience! as I like to say. The bossman apparently agreed.
Yeah, saying there hasn't been a good game in 5 years is getting old, but mostly because we've been saying it since 5 years after Doom. For 15 years we've just been getting the same old crap with upgraded graphics.
Do you understand that this is largely about preferences, which differ from person to person? Oddly enough, no one else in my family thinks *any* of my music is any what good while I like it all quite a bit. IMO there's only been a handful of decent games since the turn of the millennium, largely because the market is turning away from what I like in games. Or do you also believe that the change of focus from PC to console games is because I'm stuck up as well?
There is a large number of perfectly healthy, sane people such as my self who feel the videogame market is going the wrong way and dislike most games coming out these days. Get off your own high horse, and get it off our lawns.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Consider all the people who play games on cell phones and portable platforms, as well as apps on websites such as social network games. Those usually have limited graphic capability that are close to 8-bit era, or marginally better. This is because of a very simple fact: good gameplay trumps good graphics every time! Have you ever played a game with awesome graphics that you put down quickly because it was simply no fun at all? (I'm looking at YOU, Monster Hunter Freedom!)
Um, you should really compare 1-6 to X to Z. Better graphics almost invariably mean bigger sprites. Bigger sprites almost invariable means *smaller* screen real estate. With the Zero games, this is especially obvious, as the GBA screen is smaller than either the NES, SNES, or Playstation screens.
The end result is having boss fights in Zero that are often two screens across. On the one hand, that ups the challenge factor. On the other, it just makes the game much more frustrating, as you can't watch the boss nearly as readily to counter attacks. There's also a high tendency to make the top and bottom of the screen still a ceiling and floor. Even more generally, having your sprite occupy a significant percentage of screen real estate makes the game world seem even less expansive.
As much as I welcome better graphics, there's something to be said for having an expansive world. That's the real element that I see in Mega Man 9 and more "8-bit" graphics. This is where having HD resolutions could really be useful. Unfortunately, I believe too many are fixated on HD resolutions for 3D graphics. Perhaps the XBox 360's download service will leave room for those with more thoughtfulness.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
You may not be the only one who feels that way, but your opinion isn't exactly the majority viewpoint, either. Mario Kart, for example, has got better with every iteration. People loved Chrono Cross. FF8 and 10 were fantastic games (FF10 is my second-favorite in the series, behind 7). Twilight Princess was even better than OoT (it was essentially the same gameplay as OoT but with better graphics).
Call of Duty 1 and 2 were kind of OK games in my opinion, but Call of Duty 4 was amazing, and was a big step forward for the franchise. People loved Half-Life 2 just as much as, if not more than, Half-Life 1. Mario Galaxy was acclaimed by people as being a worthy follow-up to Mario 64. Games are still going strong, and most of us are still enjoying them a great deal. That's what I'm saying, is that this "new games aren't cutting it" BS is the minority opinion, but gets spouted like everyone knows it's true.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
playing games like Star Control 2, Total Annihilation, Tribes 1 & 2, and Quake 2 & 3. I am not sure if I could survive another round.
The fan community has redone SC2 and released it as Ur-Quan Masters - http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ (great remake btw). Total Anni has been remade as Spring - http://spring.clan-sy.com/ but I still find the original modded with TAMutation more fun.
The gaming community has changed considerably though. Gaming is bigger than it ever has been and a massive casual gamer crowd has entered the market. Anything that mainstream is bound to have it's share of mediocrity. There are still great titles out there. You just have to wade through more crap to find them.
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
TankWars/Bomb.exe, Warlords II, Jones in the Fast Lane
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Hard to think that MAME is just a fad.
Then again, wait until all the people who grew up in the 80s can't play, and ask that question again.
By that time, WoW will be considered "retro".
--Toll_Free
This whole thread has been a nonstop parade of misinformation, but I have to stop it here. There is a Portal 2D version, and the levels created there have even been translated back into Portal map packs, and picked up as part of Portal: Still Alive for the 360.
And Metal Gear has changed a few times ("Uh oh, the truck have started to move!"), and I dare say people hated how Solid DIDN'T really use the 3rd dimension and retained a lot of the usual 2D gameplay.
ah yes, the CD. having available "silly" amounts of space for cheap moved the focus away from stuffing as much playability as possible into a small package...
instead one could go overboard with video sequences and 3D models that would have given the previous gen of platforms cold sweats.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
the big diff between adventure and fps is the twitch aspect.
timed elements in adventure games where more or less verboten. they just didnt work.
in a fps on the other hand, you should not think, just act. if the game wants you to think, there will be a locked door behind you and a door in front of you and something blocking your path thats not packing a weapon.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I like 'em...and I keep "chugging along"
On second thought, let's not go to the internet. 'Tis a silly place.
I agree that there have been many good and even a few great games in recent years, and I also think that a fair amount of time people over-idealize old games.
I think sometimes it's nostalgia, but there's something else too. To drag in a movie analog, I saw the Matrix again recently, and I realized that part of my attachment to it was that I remembered how revolutionary it was at the time. The actions scenes blew away everything that came before, and that fact is lodged in my brain to a degree that when I watch the Matrix, I still think it's cool in a way that someone coming to it new, having seen movies of recent years, might not really appreciate it. I think that's different from nostalgia, but I'm digressing a little here.
Over-idealization aside, I think there is another problem that people are seeing and expressing as "they don't make good games anymore", where the real problem isn't that they don't make good games anymore. It's that people don't make games of the sort that they like anymore.
My point is that, although the new games are good, money has had a normalizing effect on game development. There have been a couple genres that have continued to do well, like FPS, RTS, and MMORPG, and most of the good games that are released are just variations on the theme. Isometric RPGs, adventure games, and side-scrollers, for example, have become rare. The only puzzle games you find are usually little Flash games with practically no budget. "Arcade games" of the sort of Pacman or Space Invaders are pretty much dead.
So if you go looking for a great new arcade game or side-scroller, you aren't going to find much. Most of what you'll find are unimaginative Flash games that are very derivative of past games. There are a few gems out there, but what people may be missing is a sense of diversity over the spectrum of popular games.
Yes, but Portal as released by Valve software wouldn't be the same Portal that came out with The Orange Box, particularly if GLaDOS was a text box instead of a fucked up voice in your head trying to kill you.
While MGS is primitive, MGS2, 3, 4, and the remake The Twin Snakes did use three dimensions to great effect.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Had Valve released that with The Orange Box, gamers would've strung Gabe Newell by his toes and hung him out to dry.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Elite on the BBC micro was the first game I obsessed about - and I can still indulge my passion gratis on my PC today (http://oolite.org).
I guess I'm not really a 'power' gamer since the games I still like to play are Rogue (albeit in it's Nethack guise), DOOM, Warhammer:Dark Omen and Diablo.
All of these games are 10 years old +, yet I still enjoy playing them. Whilst many modern games offer huge improvements in eye candy, I haven't found any that improve on the fundamental game play. As a bonus, I can play all these games on modest hardware which gives me a pretty high fun per Watt ratio.
That's what I thought when I first got glasses.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
They still tried it though... The Mini-game is all about twitch, which is why we have car chase/track shooting in Sam'n'Max, and it's why we had Astro Chicken in Space Quest 3.... Which is what makes "Super Turbo turkey Puncher 3" in Doom 3 a perfect example of how FPS Development history follows Adventure game development history, even if it was meant to showcase how ridiculous mini games were in FPS....
You picked a terrible example with Metal Gear considering that IS a 2D game. Maybe you mean Metal Gear Solid or are you really arguing about downgrading 2D games into text-only games?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I concur. This whole thread is full of people that don't realize there's an entire universe of games out there. If only I had time to play them all. :(
But seriously people, learn to look past the latest installment in the GTA series (not that that is a bad game, though I liked GTA 1 best, honestly). This thread manages to be both hilarious and extremely sad at the same time.
Have you actually gone back and played any of those old games. Mario Kart SNES version is terrible. I liked it at the time, and it was a great game, but it can't hold a candle to MK Wii. I think the only thing I wish they would bring back, was the leaf, so that you could do high jumps. Other than that, I have to say that MK Wii is by far the best Mario Kart of all time.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
But they aren't selling very well - they're being pirated. That's what they keep saying anyway.
My friend was waiting for Spore for ages, and when he finally got it, he said it was boring.
I wonder how many copies of Spore are the local pirate stores managing to sell. Might pop by and ask one.
The problem is not realism, the problem is maturing. The gaming industry mtures and becomes more and more like the music and movie industries: Averse to experimentation and focused on ROI. Modern games are immensely expensive (because everyone expects superb graphics and cinema-level sound) and thus nobody wants, to quote a panel from this years' GCDC, to make a steampunk MMORPG about the French wine industry.
That's why every game has to be first-person or over-the-shoulder: Those games sell best so who cares about the bird's view fraction? The same applies to difficulty: Very few games can afford being really hard. Most people don't like that - and since things that force you to be careful and think a lot are especially hard that's what gets tossed out first. The result are games like BioShock - in System Shock 2 you were constantly worrying about the state of your weapons, ammunition, where to find nanites, whether to learn how to handle the crystal shard or how to repair your assault rifle... Even the individual actions were harder; hacking/repairing occured in realtime while enemies might sneak up on you and might leave you with no chance of success at all. In BioShock they got rid of most of that so that you can focus on shooting things. Realism actually took the back seat here gameplay-wise.
It's also the reason why I think that the Nintendo DS has a vastly superior lineup compared to the current-gen consoles: The NDS is very limited, so games have to make clever use of its assets rather than just throw pixel shaders at the problem. At the same time it's powerful enough for careful ports of last-gen games like Disgaea.
So yeah, realistic presentation does get in the way of creative games simply because it makes games hellishly expensive and nobody wants to burn ten million dollars on an experiment. Unrelated to that, most games try to be quite forgiving so as not to alienate anyone by being too hard.
At the same time the indie developers continue to release whatever they can come up with (giving us titles like World of Goo) and portables still aren't quite powerful enough to abandon clever design in favor of graphics. So that's where you find interesting games not desperately wanting to be like Halo.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
(CDs were the death of the old-time games)
Play Earth Defense Force 2 (PS2) or 2017 (360) and say that again.
Megaman 9 suffered from instadeath-overload like recent MMX games. There's hardly anything to shoot at but there's loads of things that will instantly kill you. Death from HP depletion is rare outside of miniboss and boss fights and just to be sure you can buy a crapload of E tanks which might be the reason why there's so many spikes. The old MM games weren't like that.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Dude, pick up Team Fortress 2. Super active community, loads of fun. It was underrated when it was reviewed when it first came out, and with it's massive content patches, it's easily a 95/100.
moox. for a new generation.
I agree completely. Ppl just say games have gone down hill cos they either don't get new games or they find them too difficult. Games nowadays let you do or become anything you want! If you want button bashing then stick to ur gameboy.
If you're looking for an example of a loving parody that outlasted the original... they're not too hard to find.
"Don Quixote" is a reaction to the trashy novels about knight-errants that everyone was reading in Cervantes' time. Nowadays, most people have never even heard of Orlando Furioso, but a new translation of the Quixote still makes the NY Times bestseller list.
The trick is to make your parody or throwback so good that it's worth reading/playing even after the nostalgic context has faded.
"Bingo. Games used to be fun because of their interesting mechanics, not their realism."
Exactly. This is how the Nintendo Gameboy lasted from 1989 to nearly 2000 without updates, despite much better systems out there like the NeoGeo and Atari Lynx. The gameboy had games that were fun to play.
I loved the original top down Final Fantasy games and Zelda A Link to the Past was amazing, I'd like to see more games in those series created like that rather than all the 3D crap they have now.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I don't have time to read TFA, I'm too busy playing solitaire.
TA was the best for GUI (back then) but the gameplay wasn't designed with much thought about balancing and units ended up being useless or OP and overall the games played out in ways that probably weren't intended.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Because a bunch of pretty ( and expensive ) graphics with pathetic game content does not qualify as a "good game", which is most of what has been coming out for YEARS.
To be fair, It's mainly EA that does that.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That does look like a neat game. You can always play the original if you have DOSbox.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Part of the charm of FF9 for me was the music and art direction. It was a homage to the older games.
"Part of the charm of FF9 for me was the music and art direction. It was a homage to the older games."
I know but they could have done a way better job, I would have loved FF1'ish world remade with a modern FF story, FF1 had some of the best thematic art for boss, characters and monsters.
I call bullshit. I remember the 90s when PC Gamer would package shareware CDs with its magazines, and there were adventure games, flying sims, first-person shooters, RPGs, RTS games, and more. Now, it's all first-person shooters or sports games with an occasional mass-appeal title like The Sims or World of Warcraft. It's all looking and playing very similar now. Even Deus Ex 3 is getting a fucking regenerating health meter, for crying out loud.
While the nostalgia element of "neo-retro" games is fun, the real appeal is that they mimic the pick-up-and-play mentality of older games. Today, I have to sit through cut scenes, prologues, introductions, tutorials, and story progressions. However, when you press start in Super Mario Bros., you're plopped into level 1 and already playing. There's no ridiculous setup to get to the game. I like that because I'm an extremely impatient person.
Today's games require more time commitment, and that's why people say they're appealing to a more hardcore market--in other words, creepy nerds with a lot of time on their hands because they don't have real lives. I can play a quick game of Mega Man 9 without having to feel like I have to schedule a whole evening to get into it. Compare that to, say, Fallout 3.
You missed the point, I was talking about each game being better and 'more exciting' then the last, few games really are. MK Double dash was a slap in the face.
"FF8 and 10 were fantastic games..."
FF8 was ok, but FFX was not "fantastic", it was ho-hum, I hated the lack of variety in enemies, the sameness of it all. FFX had too many points where you could just 'check out' for 10-15 or more minutes at a time not doing anything - that totally sucks. FFX had the least customizable characters in the FF series! Armor and weapons were gay as hell... how you could say FFX was the best is just seriously in question when you consider the gameplay flaws of FFX.
After FF7 with its graphics whorefest it attracted a lot of stupid people into the RPG fold. I would easily class FF4, FF6, FF7 > FFX. FFX had the really forced and horrible voice acting, trynig to fit it to japanese voice animated models, I really hope some day companies get a clue and include Japanese Voiceovers with english subtitles.
"but your opinion isn't exactly the majority viewpoint,"
Which means absolutely nothing, many gamers are drooling idiots, many of whom have no prior gaming experience or who's tastes are shitty as many games and their sales prove. As gaming became more mainstream gameplay started to take a backseat in certain genres in certain games, ironically you point out RPG's which are some of the worst offenders when it comes to having grown stale in the gameplay innovation department.
"Call of Duty 1 and 2 were kind of OK games in my opinion, but Call of Duty 4 was amazing, and was a big step forward for the franchise."
I agree some games buck the trend, I wholeheartedly a gree CoD4 was better then the other first 3, but I was never a big CoD fan, CoD seemed to come out of the "FPS mass market" churn machine for quarterly profits IMHO. I was pleasantly surprised by CoD4, the first CoD game I actually really dug.
I agree also that Mario galaxy reclaimed some marioness and is par with M64, but after sunshine I was not looking forward to another mario game so that kind of sapped my energy. Sunshine really killed the experience for me at the time.
Twilight princess could have been a hell of a lot better, there were times in windwaker that easily outshone Twilight princess, TWP felt really forced in parts and because TWP was for the most part a gamecube game, it suffered graphically. TWP is the game the gamecube really needed but never got. Also the ocean in Wind waker was what really killed windwaker for me and a lot of others, that and the lack of dungeons. Windwaker had all the elements of a good game, but was missing the content and the stupid design decision to have the boat and the ocean play a major part was what messed up the game.
I think he chose an incorrect term. Instead of simulation, he should have used "immersion." That's what today's games are obsessed with--trying to be some immersive studio production that feels like a movie.
Meanwhile, games like Portal and Mega Man 9 come out and wow people with good, challenging gameplay.
rather than post-neo-retro games is hopelessly behind the curve.
Balance is overrated. Games these days are designed with spreadsheets for chrissake. Gameplay shouldn't be about precisely aligning two sides of a scale, it should be fun. That's why Quake is still the top in my mind for deathmatch. It's unbalanced as hell, if you're using anything but a rocket launcher without a specific reason (AKA strategy), you're toast, but the FEEL of it is just really fun, especially when it's half a dozen guys in a one room LAN. Same with TA, put half a dozen people in a room and it's about the best RTS there is, because it's layered and fast-paced, and the units are very open ended, which results in surprising strategies. When you look at an over-balanced game like StarCraft where units are locked into roles of x can shoot y but not z (and shoot anything through any barrier because the engine SUCKED), there's no room for innovation, it's just rock, paper, scissors. Not to mention all the thousands of 3rd party units for TA that would make games crazy.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
It's not that people want to play 8-bit games. It's that they want games that don't require hours of investment to enjoy. Something you can pick up and play. The success of the Wii shows that people want simple fun, and games that are easy and quick to get into will only become more popular as mobile gaming takes over. Adding layers of complexity and hardware requirements only appeals to the super-hardcore who have nothing better to do in the world but play games.
In truth, neo-retro is really an excuse for developers to go back to more accessible gameplay under the guise of appealing to the nostalgia market without admitting that they've made things overly complicated and expensive.
As an active member of AGNA (American Grammar Nazi Association) I feel I must apologize publicly to my fellow members.
I failed to properly proofread my post and neglected to notice that I lack the word 'off' between the words 'get' and 'of'.
I have already sent my check to the home office to cover the fine, along with a letter pleading for leniency.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
With a typical 3D platformer, you pretty much do one thing at a time -- walk up to something, jump, move again, pick something up, shoot, walk, talk, then walk some more.
You've probably played at least one of Wild 9 (PS1), Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64), Adventure Mode of Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN), Viewtiful Joe (GCN), Mega Man X 8 (PS2), and The Subspace Emissary of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii). Are these 2D platformers with 3D graphics, or are they 3D platformers confined to a plane?
A 3D Defender has already been done:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/home/561519.html
But they aren't selling very well - they're being pirated. That's what they keep saying anyway.
"They"? What publisher says games, in general, are not selling very well?
Lots of people not buying games and playing them anyway (and revenues being down on what they could be as a result) doesn't prevent games from selling well - the two are not always mutually exclusive. Illegal copying is problem, but on consoles at least it's not bad enough to prevent games from being financially successful. It just means that retailers, publishers and developers ultimately make less money - an inconvenient truth for some.
Copying is a much bigger problem for PC titles however as it's much easier to copy games on PC's. PC games sales are generally much smaller in number than sales on consoles and this makes the PC games market even more vulnerable sales lost through illegal copying.
Of course in fantasy pirate land, content creators only benefit from piracy, because it engenders positive mindshare that somehow ultimately translates into enough new sales that they outweigh the lost potential sales....somehow (for some reason no one ever goes in to detail about how the economics of that are supposed to work).
The point of balance is to allow a variety of strategies and actions instead of forcing everyone onto a narrow path of choices where every deviation means a loss. The LAN situation is mostly untrained players that don't know the game well, once you get at least one experienced player into the game anyone trying to be creative is toast in five minutes, crushed by an onslaught of more cost effective units. There is an "over-balanced" version of TA in the mod Balanced Annihilation for Spring and everyone who played that agrees it's better.
A lack of balancing also makes a game very hard to learn without having someone tell you the secrets. You pretty much have to play the game in a way that wasn't intended and you can be sure the manual won't tell you about that. A balanced game plays closer to what the manual describes.
The worst example of imbalance would be imbalanced factions, it means a player is practically guaranteed to lose if he picks the wrong option in a drop-down box before the game even starts. Some people have the misconception that balance is boring and means everything is the same, it really just means out of the options you have there's not one that's best and the rest that make you lose. The factions can very well be different as night and day but balance means you actually have an equal chance, no matter which faction you pick.
Balance allows MORE creativity because you can be pretty damn sure creativity takes you off the prescribed path for exploiting an imbalance and makes you fight that imbalance head-on, putting you at a disadvantage. With balance you at least don't wreck your chances automatically but only by doing something that just doesn't work.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Ppl just say games have gone down hill cos they either don't get new games or they find them too difficult.
Except of course that todays games are far easier then games of the past. Games todays have grown in complexity, not difficulty, no longer is left/right and jump going to do much, now you need at least two analogsticks and a dozen buttons to get anything done. Those people that can handle that have little problems making it through all of todays games and well, those that get irritated by it won't even start playing those games.
Games nowadays let you do or become anything you want!
Well, yeah, as long as you want to be a muscular marine with lots of guns... Games were you solve your problems without the use of guns are extremely rare these days and no, Tetris doesn't count. That of course doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with guns, but a little change of pace would be nice every now and then.
And while at the topic of guns and weapons, one thing I found quite disturbing is that most PS3 games I have played so far involved the execution of unarmed men (GTAIV, CoD4, AssassinsCreed, Uncharted). I don't mind much fighting of an alien invasion, but being forced to do things that I don't like in games starts to get a little annoying.
No, plenty of good games have been released, you just need to know where to look. And I get more good games from Indie developers than the big studios nowadays (except Telltale, they are AWESOME).
I am not devoid of humor.
It's true. Recent games aren't games so much as simulations. Simulations can be fun at times but they don't have the same game play value as a real game.
Amen to that. I've been playing Star Wars: Battlefront II and discovering all the many fuckups in that game, but the biggest one is the inclusion of only one seriously unpolished and stupid single player campaign. (Number two is the lack of modding ability. That game could be improved in almost countless ways.)
I find it hilarious that people allegedly bought Mega Man IX because they "missed" the old games. Have kids these days really not heard of emulators?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
TA was the best for GUI (back then) but the gameplay wasn't designed with much thought about balancing
TA was very well-balanced when it was released, but they caved to pressure from users and the two sides ended up being virtually identical in some ways, and yet unbalanced in others. Restricting to the original unit list can be rewarding.
overall the games played out in ways that probably weren't intended.
Art imitating life? Sound the alarms!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Really? When I think of "simulations" I think of flight sims, racing sims, mech sims, or any type of game that's designed for hardcore enthusiasts that want to make an experience as real as possible--the kind that would make their PC desk look and act like an airplane cockpit just to make the simulation better.
What you are missing on your ivory tower is that Indianapolis 500 on the Amiga 500 was a simulation game and is still one of the most realistic Indy simulations available - but it looks like poop.
The "true" simulation gamer wants simulations which are as true-to-life as possible. All the window dressing (like a cockpit etc) is secondary, although many require it for full enjoyment. If the physics aren't good, no buttons or dials will improve the gameplay experience.
Of course, let's face it, "Quake" is a simulation. Granted, it's not amazingly realistic, but it's still a simulation. It's also a game.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No ivory tower around me--I prefer unrealistic games to simulations. And I already made the point in my previous post that graphics != realism.
The main idea of my post was that a simulation strives for realism--that's why shooters aren't called "soldier sims" and role-playing games aren't called "medieval mercenary sims." Quake may have been revolutionary with its physics, but it's very much a game and not a sim. You use WASD to move your avatar at 50km/h, jump off cliffs with no disabling injury (i.e. you don't limp,) you fire weapons that never overheat, jam, or need reloading and wield a rocket launcher that can apparently fit 60 rockets snugly in its body. In short, that would be akin to saying Mario Kart is a racing sim. Quake is fun, Quake is gritty, but Quake is NOT a sim.
Fine, the super-realistic cockpits aren't necessary to enjoy a good sim. I simply make the argument that very few AAA games coming out right now are true "sims." Developers are in love with realism, but often not at the expense of making the game inaccessible or un-fun to their target audience. That's why there's so many super-detailed games with decidedly video game-looking trappings.
maybe so, but how many of those games from the past 8 years ('ll raise it up and say "games from this decade" not just the last 5) have you had the desire to go back and replay over and over? because i still whip out my NES, SNES, and Genesis, and they're still fun. but i haven't gone back and played through many of the games from this decade once I'd beaten them. I think that replay "over the years" is a better measure of gaming goodness than "hey, there's been tons of games that you liked and had fun playing." there's something missing from modern releases.
Oops. Meant MGS. Although MG2: Solid Snake's crouch ability arguably makes it psuedo 3D
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Metal Gear would be no fun if it started with:
"You are on Shadow Moses Island, you are being lifted up to the surface by a cargo elevator. You see several guards and you are armed with a SOCOM Mk.23 pistol."
> Use gun on man"
You're right. Since Metal Gear isn't any fun anyways converting it to a text based game wouldn't help it very much.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry