Seems to me all the resources spent on new games goes to graphics and not gameplay. They even forgot about people who like playing at home alone and killed off single player mode (why bother designing a fun game with a plot lets just design an engine and put other idiots inside and let them figure out how to play a game, charge them by the month too!). I loved Diablo 1 and 2 in single player mode (purchased the games and add-ons didn't pirate) and they release Diablo 3 as online only no single player..... GRRRR, same with StarCraft II. I spend my weekends just playing the old school 2d Age of Empires 2 :The conquerors online with hundreds of other people instead of something new.

I paid $300 for a new Righteous 3D 3DFX card mailorder (no stores had them) and waited a few weeks for EIDOS to release a patch for the DOS Tombraider to have something to play. The graphics were better then anything out there in console land, this is why people spent big bucks for the next decade gaming on the PC. Now you get some crappy coded for console games that run slow as hell on a $2000 PC, why bother?

Consoles used to be great time killers, load in a simple game that takes 2 minutes to learn to play with no manual and have fun. Now its like the complexity of the old DOS flight sims that had key maps for functions but you have to do it all on a handheld keypad that drives me nuts. At least with my Dreamcast I had a real keyboard and mouse to play Quake3 with. Consoles were cool for developers because they knew exactly what hardware configuration to code for and that the system would be around for a number of years so they could learn how to get every drop out of the system.

I agree with most of the things guys here have said, but I have to disagree on the "graphics is not improving because it is already great" bit. The problems is, the graphics is NOT great. Everything still looks so obviously horribly FAKE that nobody who has remotely healthy eyes can mistake it for actual reality. When I look at my house, I don't see clipping textures and shitty anisotropic filtering, I see actual detail. Same with human characters, they can have facial hair and all yet they still look a lot less realistic than Madam's Tussads vax figurines.

It is easy to say "this is as good as it gets" when there is nothing better in consumer realtime graphics, a quick look at some pathtracing realtime demos http://raytracey.blogspot.sk/ or even just the PS4 Dark Sorceror demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j5xxi6cjjU shows just how pathetic the graphics of most recent games are.

Remember, plenty of guys thought "this is as good as it gets" in the SNES era. Same with later eras, PS2 promised Pixar quality, Geforce 2 promised Pixar quality ... all bullshit. The Xbox Shrek game was hyped to look "just like the movie". Transformers quality scenes took 36 hours to render and Pixar scenes still usually take several hours. No way does a current gen game running at 30-60 fps deliver ANYTHING close to "Pixar level quality", because then I can say that the Jungle level in Goldeneye N64 is "Crysis quality". Pixar quality graphics is a pipe dream until computer development starts being quick again like in the 90s.

I am not some "retro hipster" who jumps on the "new games suck as a rule" bandwagon. I rather think that the 2006-2013 era has been the next "multimedia" 1991-1995 era. Just like 1991-1995 produced dozens of atrocious unplayable FMV games that everyone shuns now yet they were "ooh" and "aah" all over it when it was the "cool new thing" because "A game based on real video. SO FUCKING REAL.", the present day is characterised by shitty military shooters with an atrocious visual style and an overuse of GPU effects, along with MMORPGs that are becoming more of an addictive drug rather than a pastime. There is more than a passing resemblence, as the new shooters are becoming so linear and scripted that they begin to approach Sega CD FMV trainwrecks in terms of lack of interactivity.

My little hypothesis is that it is caused by the same thing that caused the FMV shitstorm in the early 1990s. - one aspect of technology being developed too much while others stayed underdeveloped. In the early 90s, suddenly, 386SX crappy computers and 16-bit consoles with very little CPU grunt got CD-ROMs, and storage multiplied by 100-600x. The question: what to do with it? The answer: let's put hours of shitty 64 color 15 fps video on it and call it a game! Only after realtime 3D rendering became more mature starting with the 3DO/Sega Saturn/Playstation/486DX2 because of increased CPU/graphics power did this 700 MB space became utilized properly.

Same applies to modern day. GPUs are becoming far more powerful than the CPUs that command them, while most games are still DVD sized. Thus, we get games with tons of effects, miserable AI, miserable, linear gameplay and no new ideas.

Let's just hope this era ends just like the FMV game era did; by gamers collectively saying BOO to another new Call of Brofare game (because having a DOG in game with a scar on his ear is so fucking original and fantastic, also, LEAN FEATURE ON CONSOLES)/ another "HD remake"/"gritty reboot" just like the BOOd the FMV shitfest and games like Quake and Magic Carpet started coming out, dooming stuff like Sewer Shark to oblivion.

Another thing to note about that particular generation is the lack of mirrors, water and hair.

Unknown_K wrote:

Consoles used to be great time killers, load in a simple game that takes 2 minutes to learn to play with no manual and have fun. Now its like the complexity of the old DOS flight sims that had key maps for functions but you have to do it all on a handheld keypad that drives me nuts. At least with my Dreamcast I had a real keyboard and mouse to play Quake3 with. Consoles were cool for developers because they knew exactly what hardware configuration to code for and that the system would be around for a number of years so they could learn how to get every drop out of the system.

This is exactly how I feel, except because I'm physically handicapped (hand deformity birth defect) even the keyboard controls for many PC games are needlessly complicated and arcane for me. When I launch a game the first thing I have to do is to redefine the keybinds, because typical WASD controls are absolutely unusable for me.

You start to become old when you refuse to accept the new. Listen, I love my retro games. Always will. But, I will not sit here and say that all modern games suck compared to what we played as kids. Yes, there are many crappy games now. But, I recall many crappy games in every generation. Only the gems really stand out over time and we forget the crap.

As to my comment about Pixar quality. I said "near", not "at". If you look at early Pixar stuff, up to and including Toy Story 1, you have to admit the latest titles are getting closer. I'm mainly talking about on PC with every setting turned up and AA turned up to max. I agree Skyrim is nowhere near, the point remains that it is still a stunner compared to even Oblivion which wasn't that long ago.

The next generation is looking even better. Look at some of the trailers for Knack on PS4. Hot damn the rendering there looks amazing.

So, I guess I am old at 20 and was already old at 16. I don't refuse the new games, I have a hard drive full of them. Is everyone's duty to accept every new trend no matter how ridiculously retarded it is? I find many new games fun, but then, I select, and even then they usually don't make me come back to them. I play through the game and that's it. It is not even about what games I played "as a kid", I actually enjoy the ones I missed out the most.

Yeah guess that I type like an old fart. I bet if you weren't even able to dress yourself without help because of a crippling disability and half of your "friends" turned out to be assholes that were around you only to make fun of you you would be so fucking cheerful. And I am not the only one either, someone from a small town in a country where most people earn around 400 Euro/month is not going to behave like a first-world 12 year old brat whose mommy buys him 60 dollar games for his POS Xbox 360 as easily as if it was nothing.

I don't usually behave this way in real life, hell most people see me as immature and cheerful. I am usually immature and cheerful because I stopped expecting anything from life. Computer games were one of the few things I enjoy even when depressed yet developers have to fuck them up to appeal to "the casual gamer".

m1so wrote:

...

Whoa there. Lot's of anger in your posts, are you sure it's just about the games sucking?

Anyway, I do agree with you to an extent. New games don't wow me either but I don't think it has to do with graphics alone. I think it has to do with the fact that graphics are the only things that seem to have any pull these days. When I walk into a video game store all I see are sequels and prequels to games I've already played but this time with better graphics and easier controls and autosave and ridiculous system requirements.

Coming from humble 16-bit or 32-bit beginnings (I myself started with the Sega MegaDrive and a 386SX) I now feel that gameplay has fallen victim to requirements of narration and graphics. Not that having a backstory or a story in a game itself is bad, but a lot of games aren't exactly games anymore. They're more like interactive movies. I remember sitting next to a friend "playing" the latest Max Payne. I couldn't believe it, but the quicktime events outnumber and outlast actual gameplay! You have to watch 20 minutes of the game engine controlling and talking to itself so that you can finally run around and... press this button to end scene/have Max kill the baddy. "What?!" I thought to myself. Games used to be about combining quick wit and dexterity or problem solving skills. It used to be about the players controlling the environment or aspects of it that made them come alive.

To be fair a lot of the old games sucked. They were hard in the wrong way (frustrating controls for example) but at least the graphics and narration didn't set the limits back then. Now we have all this incredible hardware and the games are stuck in the old mold. I feel disappointment if the only thing about the latest game to buy is that things look more realistic this time around. So what? You still can't dent the car you're driving because the car's licensor doesn't allow it. You can't open a door because that's not where you're supposed to be going. You have to hear this bit of dialog and see these events occur just the way the direc... I mean game maker wanted you to. The realistic graphics imply a realistic world, that's why it's so disappointing to be denied the rest of the package... ...and who said games should be realistic anyway?

Even graphically, you can make things really nice to look at without making them realistic. One of my favorite examples is the PSX game MediEvil. That game nailed graphical design. It looks jagged and the polygons stick out just like all other PSX games, but the creators of MediEvil understood they could use that to convey an artistic style. Sure enough the game looks like it's jaggy and pointy on purpose (there's a very Burtony or gothic feel to it) and has aged considerably better IMO than games that tried to look as real as possible on said hardware. StarCraft on the PC has aged beautifully considering it has a resolution of 640x480 pixels and a 256 color palette.

This turned into a bit of a ramble so I'll just summarize: Considering what was possible on a 7 MHz Motorola CPU with 64 KB of RAM and 1-2 MB of permanent storage the new games fail to impress. Not due to the graphics alone but due to the lack of ambition the developers often seem to have towards actual game mechanics and the scope of the game.

laxdragon wrote:

You start to become old when you refuse to accept the new. Listen, I love my retro games. Always will. But, I will not sit here and say that all modern games suck compared to what we played as kids. Yes, there are many crappy games now. But, I recall many crappy games in every generation. Only the gems really stand out over time and we forget the crap.

As to my comment about Pixar quality. I said "near", not "at". If you look at early Pixar stuff, up to and including Toy Story 1, you have to admit the latest titles are getting closer. I'm mainly talking about on PC with every setting turned up and AA turned up to max. I agree Skyrim is nowhere near, the point remains that it is still a stunner compared to even Oblivion which wasn't that long ago.

The next generation is looking even better. Look at some of the trailers for Knack on PS4. Hot damn the rendering there looks amazing.

I guess I'm already old then at the tender age of 19. Screw Call of Halofield, I'm gonna fire up Quake 3. 😁

Sorry, can't resist, but...

laxdragon wrote:

You start to become old when you refuse to accept the new.

"New", as in newer products vs older products, or "new" as in new experience in life?

I have a younger friend of who has never played DOS games for his life. To him, old games are new experience in his life. When he saw me playing Covert Action, he seemed to be interested at what I was doing (because I was so immersed in the game). Yet, he refused to play the game, saying "it's too complex" and "I'll stick to MMORPG, thank you". So, is he old by your definition?

My previous speakers (no, not the cheapo multimedia speakers, but the one hooked to my stereo) were a pair of Wharfedale Diamonds, which are modern speakers. I've been so used to their "warm" sound that I couldn't initially stand the harsh treble of the JBL 120Tis when they were auditioned using a NAD amplifier. Yet, I dared to try the new experience of using the 120Tis, which is an older speaker model than the Wharfedales. Turned out when I hooked them to the right amplifier, I really love the sharp and accurate treble, despite the whole thing sound much less warm than my Wharfedales. So, am I old, or am I young?

Back to the OP, I guess he's got a point. I took a look at the screenshot, and indeed, the ground look more sharp and detailed in the original than in the "cinematic mod". The weapon in the cinematic mod looks sterile, while the weapon in the original version look "rusty" and "natural". The only object better in the cinematic mod is the chick, which looks like to have more polygon counts on her face.

Things being said, not all old game mods are crap. The Quake 1 Retexturing/Revitalization Project and the normal map add-on looks much better than the original. Quest For Glory II VGA also looks and plays better than the original; not only it has 256 color VGA compared to the 16 color original QfG II, but it also has more combat options that enhance gameplay.

leonardo wrote:

Whoa there. Lot's of anger in your posts, are you sure it's just about the games sucking?

Hey I think I made it clear that you are right, it is about my life sucking in general, but games were one of the few things that I've always enjoyed (they cannot betray you or rat on you for example) yet game developers HAVE to ruin even this. To be honest it is also about some people thinking I must be some bitter old man just because I don't meet their ideas of "normal young person behavior".

Besides, nobody here said "the games I played as a kid rox, all new games suck". Most old games I enjoy I didn't have the chance to play as a kid and I enjoy some new games, it is just that some of them are incredibly mediocre compared to the hype. Sure, there was a ton of shovelware in the past, but nobody expected wonders from games made by some shitty shareware company. What incredibly pisses me off is hyping gimmicks like the upcoming dog in CoD: Ghosts like it is some sort of revolution and saying how decades old features such as leaning are "new". That, and the incredibly slow pace of game and graphics evolution since 2006. Compare Duke Nukem 3D and Quake III Arena, that is just 4 years. Now compare a 2013 game to a 2009 one. Very little difference.

It is getting so tiring. Not just for me either. All the 14yo kids I know play Minecraft, Counter Strike, League of Legends, NFS: Most Wanted and GTA: San Andreas, maybe some World of Warcraft. Everyone talks about the latest and "greatest", but not even those who have good PCs actually play them. They play through them one time and then its back to Counterstrike and LoL.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman has a good point. Most of the old games I like I've never played before. Some of them I was a toddler when I came out and I couldn't have played them "back then". Saying "but there were bad games too back then", so? I have the choice to not play the bad ones. I have this choice when it comes to new ones too, but it is a lot harder for me as most of them are simply no fun for me. There is one category of new games I like and those are the racing ones because new racing games support my wheel.

Do we really want 100% lifelike games anyway, especially the gory 3D shooters? Even if video cards could output reality to the screen the screens are not going to be able to reproduce it like you are looking through a window into reality (at least not the LCD screens we use today).

Picture 30 years from now where consoles can reproduce a real looking 3 dimensional lifelike image of a "terrorist" strapped to a chair (might even be using glasses so you don't even know it isn't real), the sound reproduction is 100% 3d and we have a scent generator so you can even smell the guy in the chair sweating. A 15 year old beta tester shows up to test out the new flamethrower mod and we have a real looking person screaming on in front of you and and can smell burning flesh. Who really wants to play that game?

Unknown_K wrote:

Do we really want 100% lifelike games anyway, especially the gory 3D shooters? Even if video cards could output reality to the screen the screens are not going to be able to reproduce it like you are looking through a window into reality (at least not the LCD screens we use today).

Picture 30 years from now where consoles can reproduce a real looking 3 dimensional lifelike image of a "terrorist" strapped to a chair (might even be using glasses so you don't even know it isn't real), the sound reproduction is 100% 3d and we have a scent generator so you can even smell the guy in the chair sweating. A 15 year old beta tester shows up to test out the new flamethrower mod and we have a real looking person screaming on in front of you and and can smell burning flesh. Who really wants to play that game?

You should design games. I'd buy that.

I would never buy something like that.

Unknown_K wrote:

Picture 30 years from now where consoles can reproduce a real looking 3 dimensional lifelike image of a "terrorist" strapped to a chair (might even be using glasses so you don't even know it isn't real), the sound reproduction is 100% 3d and we have a scent generator so you can even smell the guy in the chair sweating. A 15 year old beta tester shows up to test out the new flamethrower mod and we have a real looking person screaming on in front of you and and can smell burning flesh. Who really wants to play that game?

That depends. How is the writing for that game? Does the plot have any science-fiction elements? How restrictive is the DRM? Is it advertised as trying to appeal to a wider audience? Is it made by those guys, that worked for that company, where they made that one game that wasn't a success at first but was appreciated over time, now they started their own company and this is their premier game?

It is pointless to get upset over this as this is just how life is in general, the same can be said about america and much of europe's golden days being long behind us but the same has already been the same for gaming. All that anyone can do is pick what they like and to hell with the rest. I don't like how modern gamers are my self but I just keep to my self most of the time.

I would play something like System Shock 2 with real graphics. Real graphics, not the atrocious "HD" models that destroy the atmosphere of the game (Cyborg Midwives are supposed to be abominations, not zombies with big boobs).

I would never play a military shooter like that. However, if I was in the goverment and the technology was ripe I would make a game that simulated war realistically (including all the pointlessness, human trauma, bloody guts, crying children and tragedy), not for fun, but as an educational tool to teach people that war is not fucking fun. There are many young people who think war is a good vs. evil tough guy contest and I think games like the recent CoD titles are responsible in a big part (not CoD 1 and 2 through, those portrayed war fairly grimly).

I'm not talking about Jack Thompson stuff, in fact I'd argue stuff like Postal 2 is less harmful than military shooters because everybody knows the protagonist is a psycho and that nobody should actually imitate him in real life.

As for torturing a terrorist with a flamethrower, I would never play such garbage, and I'd argue any goverment that actually does something like that is a terrorist organization itself.

m1so wrote:

And Skyrim? Really, a DX9 game with many textures being original Xbox quality? It is an absolutely amazing game, one that I played 104 hours on Steam, but only someone with vaseline on their eyes would say that it is anywhere near (near being about 1 million light years) Pixel level quality graphically.

You used the default textures???

Lets face it. The golden age of gaming is over..... but some of us got to experience it first hand which is awesome!
Gaming now is NOT about story-lines, plot, gaming mechanics, world physics or graphics.. Its about MERCHANDISING.

Its about selling a product and making as much money as is possible... Its about contracts.

Its about a bunch of suits sitting in a room with behavioral scientists and psychologists working out new ways to turn there product into crack cocaine. That may seem a little out there to some but World of Warcraft comes to mind.......

I do love a good story and an epic sound track in a game and that's probably why I like retro gaming so much and I sit here playing games like Darksun: Shattered Lands or Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos

However I disagree with the OP.

Skyrim was immaculate, polished and an incredibly immersive world.
It doesn't even come close to photo realism but damn it was great!
I must have used 80 mods for 1920x1080+ textures though.

Unknown_K wrote:

Do we really want 100% lifelike games anyway, especially the gory 3D shooters? Even if video cards could output reality to the screen the screens are not going to be able to reproduce it like you are looking through a window into reality (at least not the LCD screens we use today).

Picture 30 years from now where consoles can reproduce a real looking 3 dimensional lifelike image of a "terrorist" strapped to a chair (might even be using glasses so you don't even know it isn't real), the sound reproduction is 100% 3d and we have a scent generator so you can even smell the guy in the chair sweating. A 15 year old beta tester shows up to test out the new flamethrower mod and we have a real looking person screaming on in front of you and and can smell burning flesh. Who really wants to play that game?

Now we are in the realm of The Lawnmower man and TRON..... You might be appalled by the scenario you put forward but I say bring it on....
I hope I get to see some serious VR before I die 😜

Like I said, I like Skyrim, just not for its graphics quality. Morrowind was incredibly immersive for me too despite having much lower graphics quality.

leileilol wrote:

Everything post-Crysis pretty much has been the same thanks to consoles sucking and holding everything back. It's like 2006 HDR insanity graphics, but with added rather-outliney annoying screenspace ambient occlusion. Kinda like most PC games in 1998 were PSX ports, holding those mighty 440BX's back....

You make a good point. I've often wondered why we're stuck in an endless loop of Call of Duty and Gears of War clones. Your analysis makes absolute sense. I love my consoles but it's true the hardware's lagging. Because of the current state of the economy, the next generation of consoles won't see a significant increase in hardware specs either. The majority of people can barely afford the pricing we're at now. It's really a shame.

I have a different view. I can't blame the developers / publishers / industry. Whenever they did make a decent game, not enough people bought it. Heck people talk about Crysis as the "last proper PC game" but when it came out everyone was talking bad about it, pirating it because it wasn't "worth the money".

Most of us here are older and what we need to understand is that the current games aren't for us but for our kids and they love these games. It's like we listened to our parents how much better pac man or space invaders was compared to doom and how those games took real skill, no save games, cheats and all of that and how Doom takes no real skill.

It has all happened before 😀