Classic Games FTW
I can't believe how blinded I have been. Playing Baldurs Gate has made me realise that most of today's games are not true games. Since when was a bland shooter where you spend long hours killing people a fun and absorbing game? Nearly all of the games you see in stores today just don't provide the experiences that older games can. They are mostly a sad excuse for a game, that is flat and boring, and were made by multi-million gaming companies in order to get a bit of cash, because they just don't care about the gamer anymore, just the cash in their pocket. It is rare that you can find games now with the complexity of Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment, with the huge world of The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, or with the exploration of the first two Fallout games, the depth of Ultima or the atmosphere of Diablo. They are true masterpieces, before the gaming industry became incredibly competitive and greedy. Those games were born from imagination, and forged with sweat, tears and hard work, whereas most of today's are born from business meetings and cash-hungry businessmen. It may not be a "computer game" but look at the old Dungeons and Dragons groups that would be a social event and an enjoyable evening together. Today's substitute: cloned shooters that lack adventure/atmosphere, with not a thought spared for the experience it provides, instead all eyes are on the cash. Great graphics or advanced technology dont make a great game, its the experience and adventure that does. Classic and vintage games are the best games, in my opinion.
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I think we are all aware that they are plauging the game industry. I never was really big fan of a that genre, but I recall playing some good fps in the past. Quake, AvP2 etc... I think that the only modern shooter I somehow enjoyed was AvP 2010, but that's it. Nowadays what do we have?
Another copy and pastes CoD games.
Aliens: Colonial Marines (I have predicted a failure. Yahoo!)
Duke Nukem forever
Etc..
So yeah. I agree about companies making games just for cash while not caring about quality of their games. But that's partially customers' fault. Why would companies making games that nobody would buy? There would be no point in making medicore games. But, customers apparently require less and less from games industy, hence they [industries] are allowed to keep on making avarage games.
Not to mention gaming industry has changed as well. For example, nowadays almost every-freaking-game that has levels, experience and inventory are considered rpgs, while role-playing games without role-playing is just paradox. Things like that also affect what kind of games are released.
There is also factor of different tastes, Since people are like different things, different games ought to be made. But, majority is content with shooters, hence many copy-paste shooters are being released. Simple as that, thought it still my opinion on the case.
Still, there are good games nowadays, and there are still some games I am looking up to play.
Similar gameplaying style is not problem however not trying to create the worlds is the bad thing methinks.
For me game is great way to tell player a creator's idea and way of thinking. By playing games I interact think and see what developer intended to.
Not every these days game bad and vice versa.
No more reason to show things with constraints since resources are plentiful, like graphic and sound cpu power......
It became looking good however became lacks imagination and lifelikeness, I mean I don't think playing game but felt doing some kinda work sometimes.
Maybe Its because I like things which makes me to think.
In conclusion, I mostly agree with you @SirHables.
Most of Classic games were good indeed. It worth play again.
Also why you are comparing shooters to RPGs is beyond me. It is also silly to only factor in blockbuster games in an age where it has never been easier to support smaller developers and even developers who made "classic" games.
There are plenty of good games being made today.
There were a heck of a lot of crappy, unfinished buggy, and unplayable bad classic games too.
A more accurate statement would be good games ftw
ee cummings disagrees with your paragraph
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There were a lot of unoriginal games back in the 80's and 90's just like there are today. There are always will be. It is because we no longer remember the clunkers that the older era seems like it was such a higher standard of quality but finding the true classics has always been a matter of separating the wheat from the much more numerous chaff.
Different genres cater to different styles of gaming; they all have their own formulas, and some will appeal to an individual gamer more than others. It doesn't mean that any of them aren't "true games," though.
Sometimes I wonder what makes this "inevitable decline of gaming" narrative so enticing to gamers. Is it a Jeremiad intended to put the fear of god back into the industry, or are you eagerly awaiting the Gaming End of Days, where the true gamers will be vindicated and the false gamers cast into the fire?
Had the DLC come out three months after, they could've used the defense that it was still being worked on, but this is just greed and a total disrespect of the customer. I am aware of the 'don't like it don't buy it' phrase and support it completely, but this is about *what* they cut, not about the cutting itself. I expect to have to pay extra for a surround sound system when I buy a car, I do not expect the backseat to be taken out and sold seperately.
That said, the way Obsidian handled DLC with Fallout: New Vegas was quite excellent; loose adventures that tagged onto the main storyline and expanded the background, providing new weapons and levelups/perks along the way.
Lair of the Shadow Broker was very good for Mass Effect 2, as was Overlord (ignoring its interpretation of 'autism'). So it can be done right.
IRT Topic
Old games, new games, both have their merits. Old games were easy to make huge because of nearly unlimited capacity for text and easy graphics. They also often had unintuitive and backwards GUI's, non-euclydian statistic screens and assumed you would smack your head against a solid wall of difficulty for hours on end because you had nothing better to do (I'm looking at you, Battletoads!).
New games are shorter and with increased graphics come a slew of games that favor presentation over substance (Like Hollywood at times) but practicly any game that comes out can be played without going over 100 pages of instructions. Some make it too simple, some keep it simple without thinking it's the same as easy.
Regardless, these are good times, as we can both play the new and the old so we can keep everyone happy.
Except the bitter cynics, but eh, whatever.
You see a decline in gaming; I see a renaissance in gaming driven by indie developing combined with a market larger than it's ever been thanks to AAA games with mass appeal (and yes, part of that larger market is realizing that gamers are more diverse than they have ever been). I've been gaming for more than twenty years and some of my best gaming experiences have come from games released in the last five.
As for the part about games "becoming" monetised products, they were always monetized products. As the ever-abrasive Jim Sterling (Warning: Language) points out, the games industry started as a way to make money. They've always been about making money. You have developers who wanted to make money by selling good games, but they still wanted a paycheck and enough success to justify their continued employment.