Games just seem so different now

Maybe its becasue im getting older (age 19) but eventhough i still love the games we get now such as assasins creed, bioshock. I just think that over the years, games are kinda losing their fun factor, and also it seems like the standards for a good game are rising very quickly.

Look at games like Crysis, that has really set a high level of standards for games and i wonder how can developers come up with new ideas and make games even better.

But more to the point of this topic, games nowadays are very good, but do seem to be swamped with these hollywood sort of effects, and Assasins Creed is a good example of this, games seem to be very cutscene driven.

Im not complaining as such, im just voicing my general view on games today.

Ive seen games change massively over the years. They are certainly more focused on an interactive movie like experience than pure fun these days. Still some great games out over the last few years but they are "different".

Thank goodness that they are different. I don't know what kind of films do you watch, what kind of music do you listen to or what kind of books do you read, but I know that I would label very few of my all-time fave films, albums and books as 'fun'. The majority of games even today still revolve around that same childish denominator they did 20 years ago, but I'm very glad that some developers are starting to step away from that. Gamers push for 'fun' which is ok, I like fun too, but I also crave something more than that. Honestly, it's high time for change.

I feel that they're "different". I think that super mario on the SNES was the best game ever and I continue to play it to this day because it's so fun. The games back then where loads of fun, but so are the ones of today. Today you can do so much more than back then. You can play online, edit your own levels, play in huge, visually stunning 3D worlds. Both eras of gaming are good in there own ways. Ghost_702

i agree. games today have much more to offer as well like achievements, and downladable content while the games of the past were fun cuz of the simplicity of them

I hear that. Remember when games took skill? 2D fighters, run and guns, and SHMUPs. That's where it's at. Now we get generic FPS and sports titles most of the time. Even the most fun games of this generation aren't particularly challenging.SmashBrosLegend

Try God of War if you want challenging.

Movies nowadays, even with all their technological splendor, aren't any better than movies made 50 years ago. The same logic goes for games.

Technology changes, but great gameplay doesn't. A great game is one that keeps you so hooked to the screen that you keep saying to yourself "just one more level" or "just a few more minutes" and then you just can't put the controller down no matter how many times you say that.

[QUOTE="SmashBrosLegend"]I hear that. Remember when games took skill? 2D fighters, run and guns, and SHMUPs. That's where it's at. Now we get generic FPS and sports titles most of the time. Even the most fun games of this generation aren't particularly challenging.nVidiaGaMer

Try God of War if you want challenging.

Thank goodness that they are different. I don't know what kind of films do you watch, what kind of music do you listen to or what kind of books do you read, but I know that I would label very few of my all-time fave films, albums and books as 'fun'. The majority of games even today still revolve around that same childish denominator they did 20 years ago, but I'm very glad that some developers are starting to step away from that. Gamers push for 'fun' which is ok, I like fun too, but I also crave something more than that. Honestly, it's high time for change.

UpInFlames

Fun means enjoyment or amusement, and I think this should be the main goal for videogames (or any other kind of game). Various elements create this sense of enjoyment: gameplay, storyline, presentation, character development. Everything should work together to create an enjoyable, fun experience. I'm kinda curious, what more besides "fun" do you crave for videogames?

I feel that they're "different". I think that super mario on the SNES was the best game ever and I continue to play it to this day because it's so fun. The games back then where loads of fun, but so are the ones of today. Today you can do so much more than back then. You can play online, edit your own levels, play in huge, visually stunning 3D worlds. Both eras of gaming are good in there own ways. Ghost_702

Exactly...but I´m missing the old 2D-Games.Almost all tries putting 2D-Games in 3D-Gameplay were awful.I didn´t even like the Marios and Zeldas...the only games I think that succeeded pretty well ha been Sonic Adventure 1+2 because the Level-Design was outstanding.

I think that games used to be more fun as well (back in the SNES - PS1 era). The majority of game developers have forgot about gameplay and instead are focusing on its visuals. Games are still fun but they have lost a "special something" over the years.nVidiaGaMer

Riiiight... this is very uninformed, shallow and downright wrong!

[QUOTE="nVidiaGaMer"]I think that games used to be more fun as well (back in the SNES - PS1 era). The majority of game developers have forgot about gameplay and instead are focusing on its visuals. Games are still fun but they have lost a "special something" over the years.Kev_Boy

Riiiight... this is very uninformed, shallow and downright wrong!

No he's absolutly right especially if you own all sony consoles, you'll see how dev's focus drifted from making games with rich and challenging game-play to games which are" a good graphical showcase to the system" Heavenly Sword, Uncharted and almsot every ps3 titled is stamped with that phrase.

And please don't accuse someone of being wrong without providing reasons.

Heavenly Sword and Uncharted are both as fun to play as they are gorgeous to look at, so thats wrong as well, actually. This myth that games today are all graphics and no gameplay has no basis in reality, (nor the myth that all most games are samey M rated FPS, which is an outright lie) it's all in the minds of people desperately looking to justify their console purchases of the present in some way, and who apparently haven't been gaming very long. The good to crap game ratio is SMALLER now than it was in the NES and SNES era. (and PSone to Xbox 1 years) People get older and make posts like this just before their twenties all the time, I made such posts, most people will. We get older and have new priorities and responsibilities, and our view on things in general change, including games.

Heavenly Sword and Uncharted are both as fun to play as they are gorgeous to look at, so thats wrong as well, actually. This myth that games today are all graphics and no gameplay has no basis in reality, (nor the myth that all most games are samey M rated FPS, which is an outright lie) it's all in the minds of people desperately looking to justify their console purchases of the present in some way, and who apparently haven't been gaming very long. The good to crap game ratio is SMALLER now than it was in the NES and SNES era. (and PSone to Xbox 1 years) People get older and make posts like this just before their twenties all the time, I made such posts, most people will. We get older and have new priorities and responsibilities, and our view on things in general change, including games.

VegetaJr

Heavenly Sword was void and there was nothing you could beside slashing a million solider. If that was enough for you then it wasn't for me at all. As for Uncharted, we've been promised more. But I shouldn't put both games in the same category cause Uncharted offers alot more than pretty graphics but it definitly should have had more. Perhaps I'm missing the games where the fun in it equals the quality of graphics but I'm sure the this ratio applies to 70% of games today. Assassins's Creed is another good example for this... wtf happend to the team when they finished working on the first mission?

Its kind of pointless to claim that games have declined and then point to a game or three one didn't like.

I've been playing videogames for 30 years and there is a wider variety of games than ever on offer. The industry is healthy enough that even niche games can be profitable and all of the systems and distribution models out there only add to the variety. Right now game makers from all over the world are putting their best foot forward on consoles (lots of PC developers seem to be jumping into the console arena) and stuff such as XNA and LittleBigPlanet are or soon will be widening the circle of game designers even more.

Yes but books, movies and music are not created to be a game. These are video games, not interactive stories. A video game by its very definition is a game. Now I am not against exploring new themes, making games that tell important stories cause they can do that, as long as it never becomes the focus. This entire industry is built on making something that is fun, that should always be the main goal of this industry, to evolve the level of fun while expanding the topics and such.dvader654

I don't want the entire industry going one way or another, I just want more diversity. When it comes to intelligent, engaging, emotional, mature storytelling, the game industry is drawing a blank. Sure, there are a handful of games with truly great storylines, but they're exceptions to the rule than anything else.

But I'm not talking just about storytelling, I'm talking about stepping away from the notion that every game has to be 'fun' first and foremost. It really doesn't. I don't know about anyone else, but I really wouldn't label games like Manhunt, Condemned, The Witcher, Mafia, etc. as 'fun'. I mean, just take a look at the very meaning of the word - it implies amusement, jokes, playfullness...the notion that every game has to be 'fun' acts as a crutch for games. There's so much more games can offer (just like other forms of entertainment) - that sticking to mere 'fun' above all is almost insulting to me as an adult.

Fun means enjoyment or amusement, and I think this should be the main goal for videogames (or any other kind of game). Various elements create this sense of enjoyment: gameplay, storyline, presentation, character development. Everything should work together to create an enjoyable, fun experience. I'm kinda curious, what more besides "fun" do you crave for videogames?woogity

Why exactly should 'fun' be the main goal for videogames? Why should every game strive to evoke a 'Oh my God, I'm having so much fun' response above all else? Why pigeonhole games? If every other form of entertainment is beyond that, what makes games so different? Because they're interactive? In my mind, that is the very reason why they shouldn't be tied to 'fun' - by making the player able to directly take part in the experience, the possibilities become virtually endless.

As for what I personally want to see is simple - something thought-provoking, something I can relate to on a personal level (April Ryan from The Longest Journey is a prime example), something that makes me reflect on my life, my surroundings, the world I live in and the people that inhabit it, other worlds and their peoples. It's the human factor that makes things that much more compelling.

If every single game I've played can do nothing more but to evoke the same basic sensation of having 'fun' then I would consider that a complete failure of the medium. Happily, that is not the case, although the journey has only begun.

I still think that the sandbox genre is the future of gaming. Unless a game has an epic story that I am in love with, I expect it to be free-roam.

So how will developers improve? Look at what Fable 2 is doing, giving us an extremely dynamic and living world. I can buy anything and do whatever I want. There is a main quest I can follow but I can do whatever else I want as well.

Look at games like Crysis, that has really set a high level of standards for games and i wonder how can developers come up with new ideas and make games even better.

Chris_53

Woah, Crysis set a high standard for you? Crysis actually forced me to lower my standards because it made me aware that no one seems to care about making genuinely non-linear, consistent, and clever games anymore. Even the game's vaunted "lawl graphics" seemed pretty questionable. Since equivalently pretty graphics could be found in UT3 which ran much more reliably.

I enjoy both old games and newer games...Why try and convince yourself that older games are better than newer, or vice versa, HL2, Bioshock, ME, KOTOR, WOW, Warcraft, NGB, are all amazing games and will be regarded as classics. Just as the games of the SNES/Sega era

Why is it that when anyone questions if games are art they immediately point to whatever game is closest to a movie or have distinct art stylle what the hell does that have to do with gaming. The art of a game is its gameplay, you want an example of why gaming is art, look at Super Mario Bros., just look at the beautiful design of that game. Look at Zelda how it creates this grand adventure for you to play. Look at Half-Life at how it weaves a narrative with gameplay nearly flawlessly. Thats the art of a game for me, thats what this industry is about.dvader654

These all demonstrate things in games that are well crafted, and demonstrate a high level of skill in the craft of game design/production...but I try to draw a hard line between craft and 'art', with the latter being more reserved for the medium being used as a vehicle for commentary on things like society, ideas, or even other works within games and other media. In fact, I don't like labelling things as being 'art,' but pick the more neutral indicator as a work that 'contains artistic expression.'

The reason why I make this distinction is to remove the importance of whether or not games that are made are deemable as 'art' or not. If you want examples of games that contain artistic expression, you got the likes of, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which contains commentary from the standpoint of being an obvious hommage to Scarface, and also in its commentary/satire of 80's American culture, though this is a relatively simple example one can draw.

At any rate, my simple obvservation is that of course games are going to seem different now - It's being made by people who grew up playing games, who have better equipment, larger teams, and larger budgets than people 10-20+ years ago had. Genres are more complicated and convoluted, people are still trying to figure out how to balance different aspects of production and development, and unlike other media, the technology shifts cripple and disrupt the growth of craft so repeatedly that for every few steps forward made, it feels like there's a little stumble as new tech comes into play.

And the growth of that craft is more important than anything else...though no matter how well crafted something is as a game, simply being well crafted isn't enough for this poster to deem it 'art' in any capacity (then again, a game doesn't have to be good to be 'art,' either. ;) ).

Thank goodness that they are different. I don't know what kind of films do you watch, what kind of music do you listen to or what kind of books do you read, but I know that I would label very few of my all-time fave films, albums and books as 'fun'. The majority of games even today still revolve around that same childish denominator they did 20 years ago, but I'm very glad that some developers are starting to step away from that. Gamers push for 'fun' which is ok, I like fun too, but I also crave something more than that. Honestly, it's high time for change.

UpInFlames

I don't read or watch sci-fi, fantasy, or action movies or books. I prefer to read books that I can relate to my life and my experiences... which btw rarely involves shooting people, zombies, dwarfs, aliens, knights, nor does it involve the overthrow of corporations or governments with evils plans for a doomsday device or genetic mutation.

Heavenly Sword and Uncharted are both as fun to play as they are gorgeous to look at, so thats wrong as well, actually. This myth that games today are all graphics and no gameplay has no basis in reality, (nor the myth that all most games are samey M rated FPS, which is an outright lie) it's all in the minds of people desperately looking to justify their console purchases of the present in some way, and who apparently haven't been gaming very long. The good to crap game ratio is SMALLER now than it was in the NES and SNES era. (and PSone to Xbox 1 years) People get older and make posts like this just before their twenties all the time, I made such posts, most people will. We get older and have new priorities and responsibilities, and our view on things in general change, including games.

VegetaJr

That's not entirely true. I'd say the good/bad game ratio has increased much more since the old days. I don't know about you, but when I walk into a Gamespot and take a look around, 90% of the shelves are filled with shovelware (the DS especially), and licensed garbage. Gaming has become such a massive industry that everyone is trying to cash in which is flooding the market and is putting more trash on the shelves than decent games. I've been playing since the Atari 2600 in the early eighties (now THAT was garbage), but during the 16 bit era, there were more decent games than bad compared to today.

Speaking of which, the 8 and 16 bit days were the prime days of gaming. The restrictions of hardware lent many elements to the games that to me made them more memorable. Example: since the visuals were so archaic and primitive, it allowed my imagination to fill in the rest of the game world. Games today are missing this, and consequently nothing is open in a sense. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was younger and that imagination came easier combined now with a dose of nostalgia, I don't know. Maybe this is why people feel that games today are not as good as the old days and that people feel that visuals seem to be more important than gameplay? I've always held the belief that if you show people a lot of flash and explosions, they will ignore what is important and come to expect less. The bimbo Hooters girl that everyone slobbers over, until she opens her mouth.

I totally agree that priorities change things, however I will always find time to play an outstanding game. I'll always game to an extent (as I've grown older, I've come to prefer PC gaming actually), but in the end this hobby is so irrelevant in the larger scheme of things it's not even funny.

That is until I can afford a PC to play Crysis...:)

You are looking at the word fun in the sense of like childish playfulness. No when I refer to fun in gaming I mean entertainment value, even if I am watching a depressing story unfold in a game, if the game is good, I am entertained. Again these are GAMES, as the very word implies its first goal is to provide us with something we can play. I have no problem with some games becoming more story driven or cover different topics but they must first and foremost never forgert what they are, GAMES.dvader654

Entertainment and fun have very different meanings for me. Sometimes I feel that gamers are too often abusing the word fun when describing games. Yes, saying a game is fun/not fun might have worked for every game 20 years ago, but these days it doesn't - and it shouldn't. I fully agree that games should never forget that they are games - but they shouldn't be afraid of growing up either...we grew up, it's their turn.

If you dont want them to be games, then all you want is an interactive movie or an interative book. This industry does not have to be more like other industries just to be legitamate, everyone wants games to be just like all the other medias, why must that be the way for this industry to grow. Did movies have to become more like books to grow, no, it paved its own way. Why is do so many want games to be something else.dvader654

Where did I say I don't want games to be games? Besides, what's wrong with games meshing with movies? You are thinking in absolute terms whereas I am not. I want kiddy games, I want game games, I want serious games, I want interactive storytelling experiences...I want it all. I want diversity.

Again I am all for exploring many more topics than we have now. Games dont need to always be about shooting aliens, or killing zombies, it can cover other topics and still be playable in a meaningful way.dvader654

I'm not sure what are we arguing about here because it seems we fundementally agree.

I disagree with basically everything that was said here. I might tend to agree if I had seen even one example of a game doing a better job of thought provoking story telling than what could be done by another medium, but I have not.ymi_basic

Didn't I already acknowledge that? Games are still in their infancy (the medium is barely 30 years old) and considering that you don't even need any kind of storyline whatsoever for a game to be great, isn't it unreasonable to expect games to exceed literature and film in the storytelling department at this point? I suppose the difference between us is that I firmly believe that the potential is there. It's not a matter of if, but when.

I disagree with your entire philosophy when it comes to games so it does not surprise me that you disagree with mine.

I don't read or watch sci-fi, fantasy, or action movies or books. I prefer to read books that I can relate to my life and my experiences... which btw rarely involves shooting people, zombies, dwarfs, aliens, knights, nor does it involve the overthrow of corporations or governments with evils plans for a doomsday device or genetic mutation.ymi_basic

Well, wouldn't it be awesome if games actually covered themes you can relate to on a personal level?

Very well said, explained yourself very well, I guess we have different views on art. To me I do see SMB or Zelda as something beautiful that came out of Miyamoto's amazing brain, same goes with any game designer.

dvader654

Yeah, this is getting a bit deep. ;)

[QUOTE="ymi_basic"]I don't read or watch sci-fi, fantasy, or action movies or books. I prefer to read books that I can relate to my life and my experiences... which btw rarely involves shooting people, zombies, dwarfs, aliens, knights, nor does it involve the overthrow of corporations or governments with evils plans for a doomsday device or genetic mutation.UpInFlames

Well, wouldn't it be awesome if games actually covered themes you can relate to on a personal level?

An example of a recent book that I read is "Into the Wild" (which has also been made into a movie). It's the story of an idealistic young guy who wanders the country trying to live off the land in a minimalist way and eventually finds himself dying in the Alaskan wilderness. Here, I can see some possibilities for a game in that the guy made hundreds (if not thousands) of crucial (and minor) decisions about what to do to survive. However in the end, he makes several bad choices that cost him his life. If the story was interactive, I don't think anyone would end up in his predicament. While that might be interesting to some, I can't believe it would be nearly as compelling as the true story as it was written by John Krakauer (sp?).

For me, I find books (and to a lesser extent, movies) so vastly superior for story telling that I have completely given up on game story lines. In fact, I just find them annoyingly intrusive in games.

For me, I find books (and to a lesser extent, movies) so vastly superior for story telling that I have completely given up on game story lines.ymi_basic

There's no need to phrase that as an opinion. Those are hard facts. However, I don't see why give up game storytelling because of it. Literature has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Film over a hundred. Games are still in their infancy and they are not dependant on storytelling unlike literature and film. Even so, I think games are progressing much faster in that area than both literature and film. What did the first 30 years of film bring that was so compelling? Absolutely nothing.

If developers just concentrate in making the game with good graphics and all that stuff, games result badly. Developers that concentrate in the fun factor, suceed in making good games, IMO. There are still plenty of games that still have the fun factor I mean.Thiago26792

I'm really hoping we'll hit the point where graphical advances won't be an option in the future due to sheer technology limits. Then developer might have to *gasp* make genuinly original titles that might even have that fabled and mythical feature, depth!

Many of the issues raised here seems to stem from the fact that games are and have been for a while suffering from an identity crisis. It seems obvious that many developers are trying to make games with compelling stories, with social or political commentry, in short trying to expand the medium's horizons. The problem is they are struggling to find the tools and experience within games to express themselves fully, that is why there is has been a greater influence from movies and literature over the past ten years and more recently even music has been utilised to better aid designers visions, just look at Lumines and Rez.

Hopefully in the future advancements in artificial intelligence will give developers new tools with which to experiment. Videogames are still growing up and I for one am pleased with the breadth of experiences that videogames have to offer these days and in the future I hope that videogames can cement itself as a viable medium for various fun, compelling and moving experiences.

[QUOTE="ymi_basic"]For me, I find books (and to a lesser extent, movies) so vastly superior for story telling that I have completely given up on game story lines.UpInFlames

There's no need to phrase that as an opinion. Those are hard facts. However, I don't see why give up game storytelling because of it. Literature has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Film over a hundred. Games are still in their infancy and they are not dependant on storytelling unlike literature and film. Even so, I think games are progressing much faster in that area than both literature and film. What did the first 30 years of film bring that was so compelling? Absolutely nothing.

The final point is the biggest one, imo. In the example of "Into the Wild," I see an RPG of this story turning into a massive exercise in "What if?" ... What if the main character had taken a proper map? What if he had gorged himself on the few animals that he killed instead of just taken what he needed at the time? What if he had arrived at the river at high water? .... That exercise would only take away from the power of the story because the whole point is that things didn't happen that way.

i ... have been a gamer since games was white dots on a tv. i could never had kept the interest if it was still small white dots today. :)knut-am

I like this quote the best. It sums up this thread nicely.

Of course games today are different than they were. It doesn't mean the past games are bad. For instance, there is some PS2 game (I think it's a racing game, not really important) that uses Pong as a loading screen. I was amazed one day when two kids who were around 8 years old wanted to sit there and play the Pong loading screen instead of getting on with the PS2 game. A good game is a good game, even if it is just two white lines and a dot. And kids today can enjoy the same games that kids enjoyed 30 years ago.

Still, just because you can have fun with a white dot, doesn't mean that you stop there.

Also, I don't get this distinction people keep trying to make about the old games that were supposedly all about the "fun" and newer games that are supposedly all about "realism/graphics/cut-scenes." For the record, games have always been about the graphics. That goes way back to at least Atari vs. Colecovision and probably earlier. Better graphics has been a main selling point for each generation of consoles and there has always been hype about game graphics. Many games that are outdated today were touted as cutting edge graphical masterpieces in their day.

Moreover, I don't think gaming was, is, or ever will be just about "fun." I always thought that the point of gaming was actually the interactivity - making the player as much a part of the fun/action/story/simulation as possible. For example, and I'm not meaning to pick on anybody, but genres like ship simulators have been around for a long, long time, some people find them engaging, but can you really say that they focus on the fun?

I'm also going to have to disagree with the poster upthread who said that poorer graphics left more to the imagination and so made games more engaging and the posters who believe that the restrictions of simpler graphics made the game developers focus on gameplay and thus produced better games in the past.

I think that better graphics are better able to engage the player and so have a natural tendency to produce more interactive/better games. The fact that there are examples of games that have excellent graphics, but are not engaging is not a sign that better graphics = bad games. It is just a sign that those particular games aren't living up to their potential.

Also, I find it hard to accept the argument that past game developers were not focusing on producing the most cutting edge graphics that they could at the time. I don't see why such a focus was not detrimental to games in the past but is detrimental to games now.

As to this "new" trend of games as interactive movies - wasn't that a fad a long time ago, i.e., CD-ROM games like Night Trap, Phantasmagoria, some Zeldas, etc. Didn't it fail? Seriously, I don't get all this talk of new games being = to interactive movies.