Anyone else share my feelings on the current generation of games?

(Before reading please note, in this rant, the term "next gen", "next generation", or "this generation" refers to my shiny new xbox360. The term "last gen", or "last generation" refers to my beloved and still-hooked-to-my-tv-and-not-in-the-closet PS2. All views in this rant are strictly my own and is not meant to offend any fanboys. Flame - on anyways, if you so desire...)

Three months ago I decided that it was finally time for me to put my PS2 to rest and hop into the next-gen world before it passed me by. I was excited, nervous, and eager all at the same time. I've heard all the hype and I had to see what this generation was all about. I decided to go with the 360 just because I've read many developer blogs saying it's easier to program for than PS3, meaning it would have more games to choose from. Fanboys please remain calm. I got home, ripped it out of the box, hooked it up to the ol' boob tube and strapped in for what I thought would be the ride of my life. While I wasn't severely dissappointed, my socks remained snug on my feet as they were not blown off by this supposed (laser and explosion sound pew pew pew ka-booooooooooom) NEXT GENERATION (ation ation ation). In fact my experience so far has been rather lackluster. Not to say that this generation doesnt have great visuals in games, but at the end of the day, I can remember several last-gen games that I will never forget. Games such as Final fantasy X, Shadow Hearts Covenant, Tony Hawk's Underground, Beyond Good and Evil, Ratchet and Clank, the list goes on. These were games that during thier prime felt like the true future generation of gaming. So my question is this: Where are the games that will truly make me believe that all the hype about this genration, isn't just hype?

For example, I got GTA IV when I bought my system. I read several website reviews and they said it was far and beyond any other GTA title in terms of graphics, gameplay, story, and structure. Indeed I think it looks incredible, but it still just feels like more of the same. You steal a car. You go to a mission contact, who then tells you to go kill someone or steal a car for them. Ummm ok. This is different from last-gen how? Oh, because you get a cell phone? Umm...ok. I like the game, I just don't love it. I have read in probably about five reviews that the story is the best ever. I respectfully disagree. Some badass is new in town and starts off with nothing and ends up with all kinds of money and places to live (spoiler free story review =P.) I like that story the first time I heard it, when I was playing Vice City. I do like the game, but It will never give me the same feeling that Vice City did. I applaud the developers. The game plays really nice, and looks amazing. Is it revolutionary? In my opinion, no it is not.

Next example, Mass Effect. I think this game is great. Sick graphics. Insane gameplay (love the biotics XD) and a masterful storyline with superb voice acting. I do however have one major gripe about it. There are really only five or six full-fledged levels in the game (not counting the uncharted worlds which arent really levels so much as really big maps full of nothing and the occassional two or three room laboritory, which is basically the same stage on every planet.) An rpg with six levels? This game was hyped by saying one could "explore the entire galaxy." Well, not really, yeah there are a lot of planets, but most of them you can only read about, and not actually land on. Mass Effect? More like Mass Let-down, in that respect. While the voice acting is great, it seems like Bioware put more time into the conversations than they did into the levels. BUMMER! I think the conversation choice system is fantastic, and was pulled of with a high level of ninja-mastery, but when it comes down to it, gamers would rather spend more time shooting aliens, and less time talking to them. A little more combat/ and exploration would have really done this game a lot of justice, and given a sense of balance to the seemingly endless conversations. A great game yes, worth the NEXT GENERATION (ation ation ation) hype? No. Close, but not quite.

That brings me to my final example; a good fighting game called Soul Calibur IV. It looks great, it plays great, but it feels like the key components that make a game unbelievably awesome, are missing. Aside from its breathtaking graphics, nothing about this game screams next-gen. The single player mode has really nothing to offer by way of pure excitement. The Tower of Lost Souls is about the only mode worth playing in single player, and it gets so frustrating the I had me literally screaming at the top of my lungs, screaming into pillows, punching my couch cushions, and calling my ex-girlfreind just to pick a fight with her and tell her how rotten I think she is. I thought next-gen was about the futre, so why am I digging into my past? I would like to have seen more depth in the single player mode. Maybe something as simple as adjustable difficutly in the arcade mode, or a story mode that actually tells a story that I can remember forever. I think the most next gen thing about this game outside of the graphics was the customization mode, which I have never seen done before to that degree in any game. This game had some very strong points, but as far as being a next-gen mind blowing experience, it fell short.

In closing, I leave anyone willing to answer, with a simple question. Where the fark are all the killer games? The bright-flashy-light-25-30-40-60-hour-quest-backflip-supermagic-power-make-me-want-to-laugh-and-cry-storyline-worth-every-penny-of-the-$60-dollars-I-paid games? I understand that developing a game is not easy and is not cheap. But I still can't help but feel a little slieghted by the industry I have supported throughout my entire life. I realize that because these games are so hi-def and polygon/texture heavy that it takes developers longer to make them, and in any business, time is money and budgets are budgets. The problem with that is; by the time developers pack in all those polygons and textures, are we really left with the essence of what makes a great game what it is, an immersive story with great gameplay and a fun, lengthy, challenging experience? Developing games is probably one of the most diffucult things to do in the modern age. I would rank it right up there with brain surgery or rocket science. It takes time for our developer friends to work out bugs and master thier code and really learn the ins and outs of ever-improving hardware. The sad fact is however, that once developers really master these systems and are ready to make killer, Killer, KILLER games, this gen will be over and we will all have to march to the store and buy the next console, only to be let down again, because now programmers and artists will have to learn how to create and code on completely new hardware. I just wish a game would come out and really wow me the way Mass Effect did, except it would have more levels. By the way, dont get me started on what a bull-shart scam this so called "episodic content" is. I mean come on, if we are gonna pay $60 for a game, we should get a long quest and lots of unlockables and goodies for that money. I think Mass Effect should have had at least two more complete levels. Then, I would've been happy pay extra for levels after that. But it just seems like development studios purposefully make games short/ leave content out of games/ lock content on the disc until you pay extra for it (Soul Calibur IV) just so we will feel compelled to buy episodic content. Thats not fair. If they are gonna do that, then the dvd or blu-ray of the game should not cost more than $35 dollars.

Okay, now that I feel I have identified my problem, here are my proposed solutions.

1. Go to every development studio in the world and kick the door open. March up to the head honcho, grab him by the wrist, twist his arm behind his back while simultaneously delivering an epic roundhouse kick to three of his employees. Then do a tripple backflip-to-handspring and cast a lightning spell. Then Summon a great monster to swoop through the studio and pick up everyone's staplers and start launching them after they are engulfed with magic fire. Then as everyone is left wondering WTF, I will say, "now that's what this-gen should be about, 40 hours of that and I will be happy!"

2. Seriously, I think developers should set up open door websites where players can suggest ideas and share thoughts. since everyone has ideas and there is no way a dev can read all the suggestions, a system could be implemented where average-joe type of gamers could submit and/or read through ideas and vote on them, the ideas with the most votes get read by, talked about by, and hopefully put into games by the said developers. Kinda like a forum but it would be a forum that developers actually read and react to. One thing I think developers need to start doing immediately, LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS! We know what we like, and we want you to give it to us!

3. If you buy a game (especially a mega-hyped game) that doesnt live up to your expectations, e-mail the developers. Be nice to them. Point out what they got right, but also don't be afraid to say "hey, $60 for a 10 hour game? WTF?" (I'm talking to you, Tomb Raider Underworld >=/ )

4. If you are young, play football or some sport so you can get a scholarship and go to college, learn C++, directX, and OpenGL and go on to make games better than this generation of devs ever thought possible.

Gah, who am I kidding? There is no real solution. All we can do is sit back and hope. Hope that when this generation is over (in two years) we can look back at our "last-gen" (meaning this gen) stack of games and say, "Man, what a wild ride!" Instead of "meh , a $600 pile of overhyped mediocrity."

P.S. When the PS3 was launched Final Fantasy XIII was hyped in order to tempt gamers. Its almost as if they were trying to make us think it was a launch title or year-after-launch title. Two years later, who knows where the bloody hell it is.

And as far as the lifespan of consoles goes, lets do some estimation and math.

-The Crystal Tools engine (which enables a game like FFXIII to run hi-def CG quality in real time) took three years to build (educated guess, correct me if I'm wrong), and god only knows if its even finished or close to finished.

-At best Square can complete the story, models, animations and music for FFXIII in three years.

3 + 3 = 6

-Average life span of a console = 5 years

-So if it takes 6 years to build a game, but the console its designed for only has a lifespan of 5 years, something doesnt add up. We are left with an anomaly that could very easily rip a vortex in the z axis of the space time continuum, and cause a polar shift, rendering all things past and present, tangible or abstract, non-existant. This leaves a clear possibilty that Bahamut will forge a hole in the sky of planet Krypton and he when lands on the ground he will probably puke up a Sega Genesis and start playing Dreamcast games like Super Mario Party and Battletoads: The Light Saber Duels.

I'm joking of course. All the lovely people at Square, please, take your time, get it right, and knock my socks off!

The term next generation means exactly that: the next console generation of hardware and games. The rest of the stigma attached to this term is mostly mental masturbation and people getting uptight over the vernacular. It's all quite meaningless.

That said, your attempt to eviscerate this current generation is inherently flawed because the three games you employ to support your thesis are hardly indicative of this generation as a whole.

SCIV, while vastly improved from SCIII, still adheres to the genre and its many conventions. If you expected to play something completely divergent, you shouldn't have popped in a game that is the fourth installment of an established franchise. Citing SCIV as proof of stagnation is fallacious logic considering that the fighting genre and the franchises within it usually only see incremental advancements in terms of mechanics, and for good reason. I'm not really sure what you expected when playing SCIV because while the game is quite good it's still a one-on-one fighter, which is not exactly the place to look for radical innovation.

Mass Effect is also an odd choice to support your theory given how divided people have been over the game. It's a generally well received title but most agree it fell somewhat short of it's full potential so I would hardly place it on some sort of pedestal as the apex of this generation. Regardless, the game achieves many things, both in terms of presentation and scale, that simply wouldn't have been possible last generation, so again, I'm not really seeing a correlation between Mass Effect and a lackluster generation.

Ironically, GTAIV is actually a prime example of the leaps and bounds this generation has seen but unfortunately, those advancements are often lost on the more pedestrian mindset that permeates many of the enthusiasts of this medium. What Rockstar did with GTAIV was to pull back the reigns on content and style and approach this game with a more nuanced, deliberate approach. They refined the core mechanics and literally drenched their virtual world with a minutia that is literally without equal. Unfortunately, people mistake quantity for quality and because GTAIV lacks all of the modes, missions and variety of GTA: SA, some people have labeled it a misstep even though it is actually a large leap forward for both the franchise and for gaming in general.

Even more interesting than your picks is what you omit, which is just about everything else. You make no mention of MGS4, Gears of War 1 and 2, Mario Galaxy, Dead Rising, and a plethora of other amazing titles, most of which couldn't be done on older hardware. Frankly, your assessment of this current generation is pitifully uninformed, as illustrated by the games you cite as some sort of cross section of current gen gaming. If you're going to make broad strokes and generalizations, the least you can do is take a bit more time and include some of the true AAA games as well as some of the more divergent, innovative titles.

What's really wrong with this medium is that too many people feel the need to wax intellectual and espouse long-winded diatribes about how mediocre and disappointing everything is. However, that philosophy is hard to stomach when I'm playing beautiful, innovative games like Little Big Planet, Fallout 3, and Mirror's Edge.

Honestly, if you can't recognize why this generation has already been a resounding success, you're wasting your time and indulging in the wrong hobby. This Fall alone has seen the release of some of the best software I've ever played so color me unimpressed with your "solutions" to fix something that isn't even remotely broken.

TRUTH Grammaton-Cleric

This is the fourth such argument I have read in this forum alone. I find it interesting that the game is so intricately linked to the console in the arguement. I quit buying after playstation 3 and its contemporaries. Polygons are pretty but I'd rather GAME, myself.

Each of these arguments led me to decide I am going to stockpile all those 'antiquated' systems / games that the rest are tossing aside, (I can finally afford those!) and continue to play games that have stood the test of time, regardless of console and amount of polygons. As long as I don't have anything else to do for a couple hours....

I'm out of money, ignore my responsibilities all too much, and nothing is worth the price that involves. I can't ignore life for hours on end anymore...sigh.

Yes- new games are pretty, but consoles that sell them costly. Yes, games are kind of boring today, but life goes on beyond them.

Let the argument continue- I'll play what I already found to be enduring-but I can't pay for any more than that...

What's really wrong with this medium is that too many people feel the need to wax intellectual and espouse long-winded diatribes about how mediocre and disappointing everything is. However, that philosophy is hard to stomach when I'm playing beautiful, innovative games like Little Big Planet, Fallout 3, and Mirror's Edge.

 

Honestly, if you can't recognize why this generation has already been a resounding success, you're wasting your time and indulging in the wrong hobby. This Fall alone has seen the release of some of the best software I've ever played so color me unimpressed with your "solutions" to fix something that isn't even remotely broken.

Grammaton-Cleric

That is sig worthy stuff. Kudos. OP, when I get tired of a hobby, I find a new one. I suggest you do the same.

a great response.Grammaton-Cleric

I hear what you are saying. I'll be sure to check out the games you recommend and the reassess how I feel about the state of things. Just for the record, I really like all the games I mentioned.

The term next generation means exactly that: the next console generation of hardware and games. The rest of the stigma attached to this term is mostly mental masturbation and people getting uptight over the vernacular. It's all quite meaningless.

That said, your attempt to eviscerate this current generation is inherently flawed because the three games you employ to support your thesis are hardly indicative of this generation as a whole.

SCIV, while vastly improved from SCIII, still adheres to the genre and its many conventions. If you expected to play something completely divergent, you shouldn't have popped in a game that is the fourth installment of an established franchise. Citing SCIV as proof of stagnation is fallacious logic considering that the fighting genre and the franchises within it usually only see incremental advancements in terms of mechanics, and for good reason. I'm not really sure what you expected when playing SCIV because while the game is quite good it's still a one-on-one fighter, which is not exactly the place to look for radical innovation.

Mass Effect is also an odd choice to support your theory given how divided people have been over the game. It's a generally well received title but most agree it fell somewhat short of it's full potential so I would hardly place it on some sort of pedestal as the apex of this generation. Regardless, the game achieves many things, both in terms of presentation and scale, that simply wouldn't have been possible last generation, so again, I'm not really seeing a correlation between Mass Effect and a lackluster generation.

Ironically, GTAIV is actually a prime example of the leaps and bounds this generation has seen but unfortunately, those advancements are often lost on the more pedestrian mindset that permeates many of the enthusiasts of this medium. What Rockstar did with GTAIV was to pull back the reigns on content and style and approach this game with a more nuanced, deliberate approach. They refined the core mechanics and literally drenched their virtual world with a minutia that is literally without equal. Unfortunately, people mistake quantity for quality and because GTAIV lacks all of the modes, missions and variety of GTA: SA, some people have labeled it a misstep even though it is actually a large leap forward for both the franchise and for gaming in general.

Even more interesting than your picks is what you omit, which is just about everything else. You make no mention of MGS4, Gears of War 1 and 2, Mario Galaxy, Dead Rising, and a plethora of other amazing titles, most of which couldn't be done on older hardware. Frankly, your assessment of this current generation is pitifully uninformed, as illustrated by the games you cite as some sort of cross section of current gen gaming. If you're going to make broad strokes and generalizations, the least you can do is take a bit more time and include some of the true AAA games as well as some of the more divergent, innovative titles.

What's really wrong with this medium is that too many people feel the need to wax intellectual and espouse long-winded diatribes about how mediocre and disappointing everything is. However, that philosophy is hard to stomach when I'm playing beautiful, innovative games like Little Big Planet, Fallout 3, and Mirror's Edge.

Honestly, if you can't recognize why this generation has already been a resounding success, you're wasting your time and indulging in the wrong hobby. This Fall alone has seen the release of some of the best software I've ever played so color me unimpressed with your "solutions" to fix something that isn't even remotely broken.

Grammaton-Cleric

I agree completely... The TC's pick of games are the problem, minus GTA4... which I thought was an obvious examle of what this new gen has offered...at least from a technical stand point. GTA4 is one of the biggest games out there.... and the way they pulled that off with only minor hitches, along with the music, and sound effects intergration was astounding... How quickly people forget.

As just stated: TC also left out some core modern gen games that might have changed his/her mind had they played them...

SMG, oddly enough, even though it's only on the Wii showed quite a jump in gameplay for this gen, as the Wii did in general. Gears offered a gameplay experience that was never fully perfected before... Last but not least, LBP which single player was a little too short imo, was obviously a new gen/ old school hybrid, that has offered so many things new.

My advice to TC is go try these games... plus a handful more then come back and give us an update.

Icouldn't agree more with the OP, thatg is almost entriely how I feel.

Although, while GTA4 wasn't revolutionary, it was fun as hell, and still is for me. That is all a game needs to do in my opinion. 

Icouldn't agree more with the OP, thatg is almost entriely how I feel.

Although, while GTA4 wasn't revolutionary, it was fun as hell, and still is for me. That is all a game needs to do in my opinion. 

Un_Pro

I don't see how people's taste in videogames can stop at a generation or an era as games are constantly improving in almost every single way. You want new gameplay designs you have the Wii. GTA IV compared to GTA VC is like comparing New South Parks to old ones. GTA IV was a game with such polish and care in crafting a story/characters that it makes the older GTA's look like toilet humor. Dead Space is to videogames what Alien is to movies. Fable 2 is everything Peter M promised Fable 1 was going to be. Fallout 3 is a more than worthy succesor to an WRPG great like Morrowind.

I'm not saying all these games are better than everything we've seen before. There are no doubt classics in every generation and I think in the 2-3 years of this generation, it has produced a lot of high quality games that, if not considered classics by everyone that played them, they will be remembered 10-20 years from now.

I don't see how people's taste in videogames can stop at a generation or an era as games are constantly improving in almost every single way. You want new gameplay designs you have the Wii. GTA IV compared to GTA VC is like comparing New South Parks to old ones. GTA IV was a game with such polish and care in crafting a story/characters that it makes the older GTA's look like toilet humor. Dead Space is to videogames what Alien is to movies. Fable 2 is everything Peter M promised Fable 1 was going to be. Fallout 3 is a more than worthy succesor to an WRPG great like Morrowind.

I'm not saying all these games are better than everything we've seen before. There are no doubt classics in every generation and I think in the 2-3 years of this generation, it has produced a lot of high quality games that, if not considered classics by everyone that played them, they will be remembered 10-20 years from now.

smerlus

I am firmly in the 'now is better than then' camp.  There are plenty of old games that are good, but I was looking at my collection this morning and I was amazed at just how good this "gen" has been over the course of just 2-3 years.  The best part, is that I think things will keep improving.  I think games are finally coming into their own as a medium.