Do you think videogames will ever be as good as in the 80's and 90's

[anthonyaudi]

Hello it's a LONG time I don't post here.
So to start off HELLO!
So I was just listening to a song from Chrono Trigger (The forest theme) and I started to wonder.

Does anyone believe that one day the minds of those brilliant people at Square would ever reemerge?
Does anyone believe that the gaming of today is geared towards "Lets finish a game quickly so we can sell a lot of them fast"
Lets make it look pretty so we can divert the attention away from the lack of everything else?

Basically what I'm asking is, do you guys ever think that this newer generation of gamers would ever long for a "Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 and 7, " type game? Where the games actually had meaning and story.
I'll just use the Square games as an example but I guess you know what I mean.

Remember the days when games actually lasted 50 hours because that was the actual game and not a total of 50 hours including side quests? Remember a time when you played a game and go so into the story you didn't care at all about how bad it looked?

Does anyone remember a time when you were playing Chrono Trigger and you said to yourself, "Let me save it now and choose this answer and see where it brings me, then I can go back and choose a different answer later"

Is it just me or has gaming come to a point where the attention span of this generation is limited to "GTA type games". Where we aimlessly drive around and shoot people because the game really has nothing else going for it.
Or the Resident Evil 5 and 6 where the games became so detached from the originals that they aren't considered part of the franchise anymore. The only things keeping them connected to the originals are the titles.

Does anyone remember the Lufia 1 and 2 days where you went down the dungeon as the New Game Plus and got to basement 90 and died and had to restart?

I'm just wondering if the days where gaming would come back to a time where people actually put thought into a game and put out a title that would be remembered 20 years down the line. Or if it will continue to become more and more mindless.

Thoughts!

[Lacquer Head]

Big companies: noep Indie games: yup

Well depends on what you like, if you like the same game constantly remade for $60, seems like a good time to be you.

[loaf]

Yeah games today are just as fun if not more fun. Games in the 80's lasted 2 seconds, beat the game, play it again.

I don't get how you say today is all about get the game finished quickly and then release it. If you must know majority of the games in the 80s and 90s did not take over a year to make.

I remember playing Chrono Trigger, I don't remember saving it to do another answer. That's what New Game Plus was for. I only know 3 friend's who are GTA type gamers, the rest aren't so that might be the people you know.

[anthonyaudi]

Yeah games today are just as fun if not more fun. Games in the 80's lasted 2 seconds, beat the game, play it again.

I don't get how you say today is all about get the game finished quickly and then release it. If you must know majority of the games in the 80s and 90s did not take over a year to make.

I remember playing Chrono Trigger, I don't remember saving it to do another answer. That's what New Game Plus was for. I only know 3 friend's who are GTA type gamers, the rest aren't so that might be the people you know.

That's actually not true FF6 was a long time in the making. If I recall correctly FF7 took 3 years to make. By today's standards that's almost the lifespan of a console.

Most adventure scrolling games lasted 2 seconds I agree. But then again I don't think we would ever see a Wonder Boy or an Adventure Island type game ever again. I think those days may have come and gone. Granted the technologies have changed now everything is 3d and such I agree.

But the type of games that came out back in the day were so much better than Halo or SOCOM.

I can't understand how people say games today are better than yesterdays games. Obviously it's a matter of opinion for sure. I'm just thinking that those people who made those games because they sat down and brainstormed to make a killer game did it because they understood that a game that made the mind happy was something that would be remembered.

Also, games today take so much longer to make because
A) The hardware is so much harder to work with
B) There are huge teams (RE6) that all have a different say in the game.

They need to make the game visually appealing so people can understand the power of the console.

You have to get your moneys worth.

Sega / Genesis / Nintendo / SNES were limited in their GFX so people had to make due with what they had. And that was story. That's why the games were so much better, simply because they didnt have to worry about the 10 year olds complaining that the characters practically don't attack them out of the screen.

[Xanatos]

My biggest issue with huge amount of old, often popular games is how difficult they were, and not in a good way. A lot of those games required abnormal reflexes and forced you to memorize every level to it's tiniest detail (something developers had to do since games back then were short as ****), which, and this may come as a shock to some of you hipsters, is not fun or innovative for that matter. Aside from aesthetics, a lot of games under same genre were downright identical, beat em up genre being way ahead in that regard. Then there's lack of storytelling and character development, tons and tons of truly terrible games, but people tend to forget these issues...

in day and age when we have so many quality games, so much so one with all the free time in this world couldn't possibly handle, I have no sympathy or understanding whatsoever for nostalgic ****s who bitch and moan.

[anthonyaudi]

My biggest issue with huge amount of old, often popular games is how difficult they were, and not in a good way. A lot of those games required abnormal reflexes and forced you to memorize every level to it's tiniest detail (something developers had to do since games back then were short as ****), which, and this may come as a shock to some of you hipsters, is not fun or innovative for that matter. Aside from aesthetics, a lot of games under same genre were downright identical, beat em up genre being way ahead in that regard. Then there's lack of storytelling and character development, tons and tons of truly terrible games, but people tend to forget these issues...

in day and age when we have so many quality games, so much so one with all the free time in this world couldn't possibly handle, I have no sympathy or understanding whatsoever for nostalgic ****s who bitch and moan.

See that being said. Difficulty is what makes a game challenging. Agreed FF5 was impossible. FF4 was even worse. I'm not talking about the remakes you would most likely refer to because those games were a little before your time (that is in no way a bash at your age). Why would you not want to have a game that tests your dexterity? Fun and innovative are subjective. What is fun to today's crowd are games that shoot and shoot and kill and kill. Innovation is determined by what a console can do that the other can't. Which is fine, because honestly, what is there left to do. Everything has been done in terms of games. They were invented in the 80's (I'm not talking Pong and whatever).

You talk about how games were hard in the day. Have a look at the Resident Evil franchise. RE1 gave you puzzles. If you couldn't figure it out well too bad. If you stopped playing for a week and you forgot where you were, that's your problem. Look at Resident Evil 5 and 6. There are no puzzles. And the puzzles you have are spoon fed to you. They practically give you the answer all you need to do is follow the yellow brick road.

My point is the definition of "hard" in games today is so much different because the attention span of the gamer is so low they get bored quickly. Why spend time on a game when there are tons more to play which would give you the cookie in your hand. The notion of working for things is extinct.

Games have no replay value, look at Diablo 3. It flopped, to make it better they introduced so many useless things because gamers simply don't like it.

Also you refer to games that are downright identical. How is that different from today's games?
Resident eveil 5 /6 and Left for Dead, Dead Space and so on . The games are different but have the same roots. Halo and every other shoot em up game at their roots are Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, and so on.

I couldn't agree more, there were countless terrible games in the 80's and 90's. They out weighed the good ones by tons. But then again, can you possibly argue that you have more "outstanding games" today than terrible ones?
You cannot tell me that "Wii Golf" will be remembered over Super Mario Kart.
It's impossible to say there are better games today than worse ones because there are so many more games to choose from.

The Squaresoft and Capcom and Blizzard North of back in the day are long gone. All the innovation they brought with them disappeared.

That being said it is a little like arguing with a teenager that television today mindless and yesterday's tv is better. It's hard to argue with someone who doesn't know the past. You can't tell a 20 year to get a Walkman is when they grew up with an iPod.

BTW Xanatos awesome name. (I'm referring to the Gargoyles character!)

For the record, I might sound like a 100 year old man with these posts but I'm not much older than the 2 other posters heh.

[Lacquer Head]

My biggest issue with huge amount of old, often popular games is how difficult they were, and not in a good way. A lot of those games required abnormal reflexes and forced you to memorize every level to it's tiniest detail (something developers had to do since games back then were short as ****), which, and this may come as a shock to some of you hipsters, is not fun or innovative for that matter.

There were shit games and there were good games. There are plenty of GOOD difficult games for "older" consoles. Idk why your only example extends to the NES, when most people will attest that the quality of games started last gen.

Aside from aesthetics, a lot of games under same genre were downright identical, beat em up genre being way ahead in that regard. Then there's lack of storytelling and character development, tons and tons of truly terrible games, but people tend to forget these issues...

Yes, this isn't an issue today at all. No wait, it's the BIGGEST issue with popular gaming today. A lot of the shitty games from early systems were made by shit companies. As for console gaming, there are a lot less companies and more monopolies. There are still some indie companies, but they don't last long, that's just capitalism for ya. As soon as a big company sees a smaller company with potential, it's time to buy those ****ers out and exploit them for all they're worth.

in day and age when we have so many quality games, so much so one with all the free time in this world couldn't possibly handle, I have no sympathy or understanding whatsoever for nostalgic ****s who bitch and moan.

aren't you just reversing what they're doing? >_>

[Fluffy]

Chrono Trigger? What's that?

Sorry, after I played Xenoblade, I forgot all about it.

Will they ever be as good as the 80's and 90's? I sure hope not, because there are already better games.

Just kidding about Chrono Trigger, by the way. I replayed that just recently. I suggest you take the nostalgia goggles off already.

[Lacquer Head]

Not really nostalgia goggles when you witness the trends happening >_> when i first got a PS2, I remember thinking it was the shit, and then games just started going downhill when it grew closer to next gen. Of course there are a still good games, but they get raped by exploitation as well.

[Fluffy]

Well I'd say the greatest games of today are many times better than the greatest games of back then. So to want games to be like back then sounds like nostalgia to me.

I was going to say leave it to opinion, but I can't even call it opinion. The games are simply better. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. Better storytelling, better sound, better graphics, bigger games. Everything about that says "better" to me.

[Xanatos]

See that being said. Difficulty is what makes a game challenging. Agreed FF5 was impossible. FF4 was even worse. I'm not talking about the remakes you would most likely refer to because those games were a little before your time (that is in no way a bash at your age). Why would you not want to have a game that tests your dexterity? Fun and innovative are subjective. What is fun to today's crowd are games that shoot and shoot and kill and kill. Innovation is determined by what a console can do that the other can't. Which is fine, because honestly, what is there left to do. Everything has been done in terms of games. They were invented in the 80's (I'm not talking Pong and whatever).

Final Fantasy IV & V, Final Fantasy games in general are easy as it gets, grinding is pretty much solution to each and every problem. I'm referring to games such as Battletoads, Contra III: The Alien Wars, TMNT... well known for their cheap, irritating difficulty, or in other words over 50% games on NES, SNES, SEGA and so on.

You talk about how games were hard in the day. Have a look at the Resident Evil franchise. RE1 gave you puzzles. If you couldn't figure it out well too bad. If you stopped playing for a week and you forgot where you were, that's your problem. Look at Resident Evil 5 and 6. There are no puzzles. And the puzzles you have are spoon fed to you. They practically give you the answer all you need to do is follow the yellow brick road.

As far as Resident Evil goes I'm next to you on this one.

Games have no replay value, look at Diablo 3. It flopped, to make it better they introduced so many useless things because gamers simply don't like it.

I have to disagree, majority of games today burst with content, there's so much to do past singleplayer, I'm not sure how mindlessly repeating and going through same stages/games beats that as far as replay value goes.

Also you refer to games that are downright identical. How is that different from today's games?
Resident eveil 5 /6 and Left for Dead, Dead Space and so on . The games are different but have the same roots. Halo and every other shoot em up game at their roots are Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, and so on.

There are so many great games today why even bother with the bad ones, even more so since there are so many ways today to see, try and in the end buy video game of your liking.

I couldn't agree more, there were countless terrible games in the 80's and 90's. They out weighed the good ones by tons. But then again, can you possibly argue that you have more "outstanding games" today than terrible ones?
You cannot tell me that "Wii Golf" will be remembered over Super Mario Kart.
It's impossible to say there are better games today than worse ones because there are so many more games to choose from.

Have same roots, though as you yourself said different nevertheless, sadly same can't be said for way too many old games.

That being said it is a little like arguing with a teenager that television today mindless and yesterday's tv is better. It's hard to argue with someone who doesn't know the past. You can't tell a 20 year to get a Walkman is when they grew up with an iPod.

I'm 23 years old, my first console was Atari 2600, you could say I was there right from the start, I'm pretty sure we're on even grounds here.

BTW Xanatos awesome name. (I'm referring to the Gargoyles character!)

David Xanatos is indeed the one I took this name from, Gargoyles was and still is one of my favorite cartoons.

There were shit games and there were good games.

Bingo. Remember this line next time you start to preach how modern games are all shit and whatnot. Of course difference being, you have more means today to see wheter you like a specific video game or not before you decide to buy it, ergo less chance to burn yourself.

Yes, this isn't an issue today at all. No wait, it's the BIGGEST issue with popular gaming today. A lot of the shitty games from early systems were made by shit companies. As for console gaming, there are a lot less companies and more monopolies. There are still some indie companies, but they don't last long, that's just capitalism for ya. As soon as a big company sees a smaller company with potential, it's time to buy those ****ers out and exploit them for all they're worth.

I see you pretty much crossed other issues, that's fine, we'll get to it later. As far as identical games go, it was an issue before as much as it's today, true, but hop with me on this crazy bandwagon and lets point it only in modern video game industry as often as you tend to do.

[Lacquer Head]

Well I'd say the greatest games of today are many times better than the greatest games of back then. So to want games to be like back then sounds like nostalgia to me.

I want them to be like they used to be in one way, unique and new.

I was going to say leave it to opinion, but I can't even call it opinion. The games are simply better. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. Better storytelling, better sound, better graphics, bigger games. Everything about that says "better" to me.

Better storytelling is subjective, not everyone likes higher quality sound, which isn't even a proper argument for the music, which would STILL be subjective, not everyone cares about graphics, bigger how? Games like Dragon Quest VII were ****ing massive.

Final Fantasy IV & V, Final Fantasy games in general are easy as it gets, grinding is pretty much solution to each and every problem. I'm referring to games such as Battletoads, Contra III: The Alien Wars, TMNT... well known for their cheap, irritating difficulty, or in other words over 50% games on NES, SNES, SEGA and so on.

Battletoads depended on the port, it was still difficult as hell, but not as buggy. As for TMNT...those games were just awesome because of the over the top difficulty. Some people just like games with silly levels of difficulty, it's a challenge with a sense of satisfaction.

Bingo. Remember this line next time you start to preach how modern games are all shit and whatnot. Of course difference being, you have more means today to see wheter you like a specific video game or not before you decide to buy it, ergo less chance to burn yourself.

Seeing doesn't mean shit. A game can look cool and play like shit. Today we have emulators to test older games out.

I see you pretty much crossed other issues, that's fine, we'll get to it later. As far as identical games go, it was an issue before as much as it's today, true, but hop with me on this crazy bandwagon and lets point it only in modern video game industry as often as you tend to do.

Well, older games aren't relevant because they AREN'T BEING MADE RIGHT NOW. But I still personally enjoy the good games of the past more so than today by far, up to the PS 2. The difference is that the bigger companies were releasing cool games. We're basically getting clones with better graphics and lamer stories, but companies still hold onto their cash cows. Instead of new and unique games, we get Pokemon White 2, Resident Evil 17, CoD Black Ops 5, Super Mario Multiverse, etc etc. Back when these games were they, they WERE game changers, but the companies just keep milking them and milking them, utilizing large amounts of funding for this shit.

[Fluffy]

Games are still unique and new. Already mentioned, but there was plenty of sameness back then, too.

But anyway. All those games mentioned aren't all that great. I'm not hating on those game; those are pretty much all my childhood favorites mentioned up there in the OP. They have really poor story and characters. Chrono Trigger, for example, completely ignores your inactive party. The characters have pretty much nothing good or unique to say outside of their character arcs. And the protagonist is silent. Like a silent protagonist all you want, but it's generally a poor storytelling technique.

The "choices" mentioned in the OP that this game offers are pretty much non-existent. Most choices are an illusion. It doesn't matter if you choose yes or no, the outcome is forced upon you. It has one major choice that I can think of, and that's for an optional character.

Half of the "story" of most of those games mentioned are spent wandering through pointless dungeons that have nothing to do with the main plot. Lufia II is a big culprit on this front. "Go find others" the game tells you, and you then spend half of the game wandering through dungeons saving lost little boys, stopping quakes in a village, and stopping some incompetent thieves (multiple times). This game at least treated its characters pretty well in its rather limited script.

Also, unlike is mentioned in the OP, pretty much none of these games lasted 50 hours, sidequests included. Chrono Trigger is about 20 hours in a normal playthrough, 25-30 if you do everything. Lufia 2 is about 25 hours. Final Fantasy VI is about 30. FFVII comes the closest, with around 40 hours. Meanwhile, games of today are often 50+ hours of a normal playthrough, with 100+ when you include all sidequests. Recently, the minimum I've played in an RPG's main story is about 40 hours.

And... I'll just leave it at that.

[Xanatos]

Better storytelling is subjective, not everyone likes higher quality sound, which isn't even a proper argument for the music, which would STILL be subjective, not everyone cares about graphics, bigger how? Games like Dragon Quest VII were ****ing massive.

If storytelling is subjective as you say why the hell do you claim newer games have lamer stories in last paragraph pointed to me.

Seeing doesn't mean shit. A game can look cool and play like shit. Today we have emulators to test older games out.

Indeed, unless you try it out as well, you know, demos, pirate bay, at friends home... lots of way to try out a game these days.

Well, older games aren't relevant because they AREN'T BEING MADE RIGHT NOW. But I still personally enjoy the good games of the past more so than today by far, up to the PS 2. The difference is that the bigger companies were releasing cool games. We're basically getting clones with better graphics and lamer stories, but companies still hold onto their cash cows. Instead of new and unique games, we get Pokemon White 2, Resident Evil 17, CoD Black Ops 5, Super Mario Multiverse, etc etc. Back when these games were they, they WERE game changers, but the companies just keep milking them and milking them, utilizing large amounts of funding for this shit.

You can't point out flaws in newer games, though at the same time keep a blind eye at the same flaws if not worse of those you compare them to, so yes, older games are indeed relevant to this discussion, otherwisse you're just another hypocrite. You seem to forget just how many video game series were milked by the time PS2 was still kicking, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Dragon Quest, Contra, Mario, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, MegaMan, Castlevania, Need for Speed, FIFA, Crash Bandicoot, Dragonball, Star Wars... this shit was huge back in the day as well, it's another thing entirely you wish to ignore it. As for newer games, tons of new IP's (I do suggest you check out some short list of newer games that came out these last few years), tons of great sequels (some even better than originals, hard to believe, I know), tons of bad games of course, shame though you spend more time moaning about those instead of trying few good ones.

[Lacquer Head]

Games are still unique and new. Already mentioned, but there was plenty of sameness back then, too.

But anyway. All those games mentioned aren't all that great. I'm not hating on those game; those are pretty much all my childhood favorites mentioned up there in the OP. They have really poor story and characters. Chrono Trigger, for example, completely ignores your inactive party. The characters have pretty much nothing good or unique to say outside of their character arcs. And the protagonist is silent. Like a silent protagonist all you want, but it's generally a poor storytelling technique.

The "choices" mentioned in the OP that this game offers are pretty much non-existent. Most choices are an illusion. It doesn't matter if you choose yes or no, the outcome is forced upon you. It has one major choice that I can think of, and that's for an optional character.

Half of the "story" of most of those games mentioned are spent wandering through pointless dungeons that have nothing to do with the main plot. Lufia II is a big culprit on this front. "Go find others" the game tells you, and you then spend half of the game wandering through dungeons saving lost little boys, stopping quakes in a village, and stopping some incompetent thieves (multiple times). This game at least treated its characters pretty well in its rather limited script.

Also, unlike is mentioned in the OP, pretty much none of these games lasted 50 hours, sidequests included. Chrono Trigger is about 20 hours in a normal playthrough, 25-30 if you do everything. Lufia 2 is about 25 hours. Final Fantasy VI is about 30. FFVII comes the closest, with around 40 hours. Meanwhile, games of today are often 50+ hours of a normal playthrough, with 100+ when you include all sidequests. Recently, the minimum I've played in an RPG's main story is about 40 hours.

And... I'll just leave it at that.

and they're silly grindquests and fetchquests. I've never played chrono trigger myself, I think I started it once and never got into it. But that's more or less the same for any game, plenty of games have multiple endings, but they're usually like "bad ending, decent ending, good ending" the good ending when you end a game perfectly. Most people don't go for the bad endings...unless they are pure evil...

If storytelling is subjective as you say why the hell do you claim newer games have lamer stories in last paragraph pointed to me.

Because this is a subjective thread \:3/

Indeed, unless you try it out as well, you know, demos, pirate bay, at friends home... lots of way to try out a game these days.

you can try out ps3 games on tpb? o.O how often do you see demos? playing games at friends houses have ALWAYS been possible ffs.

You can't point out flaws in newer games, though at the same time keep a blind eye at the same flaws if not worse of those you compare them to, so yes, older games are indeed relevant to this discussion, otherwisse you're just another hypocrite.

they're irrelevant because we're discussing the FUTURE of gaming, not the past.

You seem to forget just how many video game series were milked by the time PS2 was still kicking, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Dragon Quest, Contra, Mario, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, MegaMan, Castlevania, Need for Speed, FIFA, Crash Bandicoot, Dragonball, Star Wars... this shit was huge back in the day as well, it's another thing entirely you wish to ignore it.

Not sure how I'M ignoring it when it was the point I made. I said that the last gen is when it exploded.

As for newer games, tons of new IP's (I do suggest you check out some short list of newer games that came out these last few years), tons of great sequels (some even better than originals, hard to believe, I know), tons of bad games of course, shame though you spend more time moaning about those instead of trying few good ones.

>IP

see:

Big companies: noep Indie games: yup

now who's ignore points? lol

[Xanatos]

and they're silly grindquests and fetchquests.

way more than that in fact, although it varies from game to game. Take Assassins Creed Brotherhood for instance, it has huge amount of different sidequest, from simple ones such as races, collecting feathers, to assassin contracts and destroying Leonardo's devices and schematics, you can train your own assassins and send them to missions, loot around the city, explore entire Roma, invest in it and rebuild it... and I dare not to mention just how much content and replay value you have in games such as Dragon Age Origins. All optional stuff, you have material to double/triple your singleplayer campaign, and often enough there's even a multiplayer.

Not sure how I'M ignoring it when it was the point I made. I said that the last gen is when it exploded.

In other words we had as much as milking back then as we do now, we had tons of bad games back then, perhaps even more than good ones... interesting.

Big companies: noep Indie games: yup

I'm not entirely sure which part of my quote are you referring to so I'll just take a wild guess...

no new IP's...

Catherine
Dead Island
Dishonored
Dragon's Dogma
Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning
L.A. Noire
Mirrors Edge
Persona 4 Arena
Rage
Shitload of new JRPG's, be it for handheld or home consoles
Sleeping Dogs
Street Fighter X Tekken
The Last Story
The Walking Dead
World of Tanks
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

... just few recent ones, not to mention those still fresh that just bloomed over the last few years, such as Assassins Creed series, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Uncharted, Torchlight, Shift, Dead Space, Little Big Planet, Lego games, Bioshock, Guild Wars, Borderlands, Portal, Batman Arkham games, ...,and the upcoming ones, Watch Dogs, Cyberpunk 2077, Remember Me, The Last of Us, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale... although yes, big boys are not concerned with new IP's (sarcasm).

I'm kinda curious. Does it really matter if it's a sequel to a long time series if the end product is superb (in most cases it is in fact, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 & Peace Walker, Gran Turismo 5, Forza Motorsport 4, Tekken 6... just to name few)? If you're truly bothered by such petty things I'm afraid you're missing out on a lot of fun.

you can try out ps3 games on tpb? o.O how often do you see demos? playing games at friends houses have ALWAYS been possible ffs.

As far as I'm aware, Steam, Origin, XBox Live and PSN are full of demos, not to forget other two solutions I offered. I almost forgot there's also option to rent a game.

[Martin]

no new IP's...

Catherine
Dead Island
Dishonored
Dragon's Dogma
Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning
L.A. Noire
Mirrors Edge
Persona 4 Arena
Rage
Shitload of new JRPG's, be it for handheld or home consoles
Sleeping Dogs
Street Fighter X Tekken
The Last Story
The Walking Dead
World of Tanks
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

... just few recent ones, not to mention those still fresh that just bloomed over the last few years, such as Assassins Creed series, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Uncharted, Torchlight, Shift, Dead Space, Little Big Planet, Lego games, Bioshock, Guild Wars, Borderlands, Portal, Batman Arkham games, ...,and the upcoming ones, Watch Dogs, Cyberpunk 2077, Remember Me, The Last of Us, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale... although yes, big boys are not concerned with new IP's (sarcasm).

You're mostly right there Xan. But BioShock is a spiritual sequel to System Shock, Persona 4 Arena is.. well part of the Persona series so not a new IP, and XCOM is part of the XCOM series. Kingdoms of Amalur basically bankrupted their studio (and the state of Rhode Island took a hit too with their $75m loan) so I wouldn't expect to see another one of those anytime soon. I actually agree with your point though.

My two cents: It's all relative. The games you played when you were younger were great because you were less cynical and you had less choice. It's nostalgia and that, my friend, is opium for old people. You were just enjoying the games you played more back then, it doesn't make them better. Games in my opinion will always be the same.

[Xanatos]

You're mostly right there Xan. But BioShock is a spiritual sequel to System Shock, Persona 4 Arena is.. well part of the Persona series so not a new IP, and XCOM is part of the XCOM series. Kingdoms of Amalur basically bankrupted their studio (and the state of Rhode Island took a hit too with their $75m loan) so I wouldn't expect to see another one of those anytime soon. I actually agree with your point though.

I'm ashamed to say I totally forgot about older XCOM games, the first one is still pretty epic. Persona 4 Arena is there for the same reason I would place Dissidia games, yes it's a part of a series, but on a completely new ground and pulling it off. As for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it's one of the best hack and slash games I ever played, shame it didn't meet it's sales quota.

It's as if the games on the systems today are made for people who have very low attention spans. In the sense that, if it does get to hard, there is a cheat to pass it. Or if for some odd reason a puzzle is too hard then just Youtube the answer. Or if you die too often just put god mode on.

In most cases you have several levels of difficulty to chose from, so I wouldn't say games themselves spoon feed lazy gamers as much as you have an option to chose your ideal difficulty. Walkthroughs have always been there, I would even dare to say they were quite popular back then because not every bloke knew you had to combine a paper tissue with a penguin (wink to oldschool adventure games) unless you tried every combination out there which is nothing more than plain guessing, that and video games in general were pretty much straight forward, you didn't really need a walkthrough for Sonic, Mario or Street Fighter.

I find that todays gamers expect to be spoon fed if it gets too hard. (Let's not make a reference to Game genie on the cheats, I know it was available)

Cheats were available back then as well, so much so they were pretty much encouraged by video game magazines, but lets not mention those for some reason lol

[Mystyrion]

Hello it's a LONG time I don't post here.
So to start off HELLO!
So I was just listening to a song from Chrono Trigger (The forest theme) and I started to wonder.

Does anyone believe that one day the minds of those brilliant people at Square would ever reemerge?

I believe some of them are still there

Does anyone believe that the gaming of today is geared towards "Lets finish a game quickly so we can sell a lot of them fast"

No, not really. I mean when something new comes out that captivates the market, then yes, some people trying to make a quick buck will cop the idea and put their little spin onto it. But that isn't with everyone.

Lets make it look pretty so we can divert the attention away from the lack of everything else?

Graphical powers of a video game wouldn't deter me and lots of other from trying a game (look at the success of minecraft), but that doesn't mean it can't help the experience.

Basically what I'm asking is, do you guys ever think that this newer generation of gamers would ever long for a "Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 and 7, " type game? Where the games actually had meaning and story.

Tons of games today are very story driven.

I'll just use the Square games as an example but I guess you know what I mean.

Remember the days when games actually lasted 50 hours because that was the actual game and not a total of 50 hours including side quests? Remember a time when you played a game and go so into the story you didn't care at all about how bad it looked?

Back then that was good looking. People raved about how awesome OoT & FF7 & Perfect Dark looked when the released. 50 hour games just aren't as accomplishable with other genres. No one would want to play a 50 hour Halo game. Gameplay would get stale no matter how well the story was written.

Does anyone remember a time when you were playing Chrono Trigger and you said to yourself, "Let me save it now and choose this answer and see where it brings me, then I can go back and choose a different answer later"

Nah I never played like that. I was more gung-ho about it.

Is it just me or has gaming come to a point where the attention span of this generation is limited to "GTA type games". Where we aimlessly drive around and shoot people because the game really has nothing else going for it.

A lot of people like freedom, while you had some freedom in the older days it wasn't quite as open world as GTA is. You literally can do anything at any time except for you know skipping parts of the story. It appeals to people.

Or the Resident Evil 5 and 6 where the games became so detached from the originals that they aren't considered part of the franchise anymore. The only things keeping them connected to the originals are the titles.

No one wants to play the same game over and over (see Call of Duty, especially after the uprising of MW3), change has to come at some point or else it gets predictable. Now I don't defend that Crapcom is taking the right direction, but at least they are trying.

Does anyone remember the Lufia 1 and 2 days where you went down the dungeon as the New Game Plus and got to basement 90 and died and had to restart?

Never played either of those. I hardly ever do new game+ anyways.

I'm just wondering if the days where gaming would come back to a time where people actually put thought into a game and put out a title that would be remembered 20 years down the line. Or if it will continue to become more and more mindless.

There are loads of games that fit what you are looking for. There is nothing mindless about Fire Emblem or StarCraft II or Halo or hell I could name anything. If you hadn't noticed there has been a exponential inflation of gamers in the two decades preceding the last one. With that inflation it brings a lot of different mindsets on what is fun and what isn't. A huge reason online multiplayer games are in there "golden age" is because of the competitiveness it brings into gaming that was never there before.
You obviously prefer the more story driven games, might I recommend Lost Odyssey? Its raved as one of the best RPGs on the current generation of consoles, dont have a 360? Thats okay, I'll name one for each system.
Xenoblade & Last Story (Wii), Eternal Sonata (PS3), Lost Odyssey (Xbox), Mass Effect (Multi Plat).

Thoughts!

Above

[Andromeda]

Does anyone believe that the gaming of today is geared towards "Lets finish a game quickly so we can sell a lot of them fast"
Lets make it look pretty so we can divert the attention away from the lack of everything else?

I work at a video game company. So I can say that is certainly not the case. The people working on the video games are trying the best to make the best product that they can with the time, money and manpower available to them. How does Ubisoft put out an Assassin's Creed every year? They have 600 people from multiple studios making the game. Activision has two or three studios that swap out their CoD games with each studio doing like a two or three year development cycle. Games take time to make or a lot of people to cram it out quickly.

As for comments about the rest. Play a Persona game, they have 70 hours or more and that is doing everything in the game. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are games praised for great design and difficulty while having tons of replay value. Record of Agarest War has 100 hours even speeding through the game. There are plenty of games out there doing well. The PS2 has tons of amazing games.

[Lacquer Head]

way more than that in fact, although it varies from game to game. Take Assassins Creed Brotherhood for instance, it has huge amount of different sidequest, from simple ones such as races, collecting feathers, to assassin contracts and destroying Leonardo's devices and schematics, you can train your own assassins and send them to missions, loot around the city, explore entire Roma, invest in it and rebuild it... and I dare not to mention just how much content and replay value you have in games such as Dragon Age Origins. All optional stuff, you have material to double/triple your singleplayer campaign, and often enough there's even a multiplayer.

I was referencing RPGs (not sure why) yet...all of those are grind quests and trade/fetch quests >_>

In other words we had as much as milking back then as we do now, we had tons of bad games back then, perhaps even more than good ones... interesting.

>more

lolque, I'm not saying there weren't bad games, but my comparison is between good games back then and good games now. the "good" games of today are just clones of clones. Back in the day, this shit was original, N64 and PS 1 use similar formulas, but 2D to 3D was a major jump. I will admit though...old school gaming gave us Superman 64, and that's not ****ing cool.

I'm not entirely sure which part of my quote are you referring to so I'll just take a wild guess...

That was my first post in this thread, I was saying that the future of indie gaming will be great, but these bigger companies will die. But it will just start again, as the big companies of today die, the smaller companies will become giants. But big gaming seems to be what most people are referring to, which is what I refer to. Personally, I find consoles to be the problem as well, at this point, releasing "generations" is just stupid, they're basically computers, either allow us to just upgrade or switch to PC gaming completely. Consoles are just more ways to milk money.

I'm kinda curious. Does it really matter if it's a sequel to a long time series if the end product is superb (in most cases it is in fact, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 & Peace Walker, Gran Turismo 5, Forza Motorsport 4, Tekken 6... just to name few)? If you're truly bothered by such petty things I'm afraid you're missing out on a lot of fun.

It's superb because it's an old game with a different label. I can understand sequels being similar when they're story oriented, but stuff like Mario and Zelda? That's just blatant cloning. When ever you have series of games like this, they get stagnant and lose ideas.

As far as I'm aware, Steam, Origin, XBox Live and PSN are full of demos, not to forget other two solutions I offered. I almost forgot there's also option to rent a game.

Demos still aren't enough for me to make an informed decision. I mean, take Ocarina of Time for instance, you play a demo and think "BEST GAME EVER" then you make it to the water temple...

I work at a video game company. So I can say that is certainly not the case. The people working on the video games are trying the best to make the best product that they can with the time, money and manpower available to them.

The actual people working on games are great, it's the out of touch owners that don't really care about the finished product and just want their damn profit. So many things end up getting rushed, movies and television have the same problem. It sucks because the people making the game take the bad rap, and not the big companies. It's even worse now that incomplete games just get pushed out these days to make money, then patches and DLC come later...

[Xanatos]

I'm not saying there weren't bad games, but my comparison is between good games back then and good games now. the "good" games of today are just clones of clones. Back in the day, this shit was original, N64 and PS 1 use similar formulas, but 2D to 3D was a major jump. I will admit though...old school gaming gave us Superman 64, and that's not ****ing cool.

When Wolfenstein 3D came out wasn't every FPS just a copy/clone after that, yes even Doom. You could say Doom perfected the formula, had different setting and weapons, though in truth that can be said for a lot of shooters since then. It has always been perfecting the formula with few groundbreaking games in between. Jump from 2D to 3D was impressive to say the least, as was full motion gaming when it first appeared few years ago, video game industry still comes up with new stuff. What people fail to notice is just how much new games perfected the formula and are still pushing forward, multiplayer, story telling, music, and graphics in particular. What I'm trying to say, don't slam a great car just because it isn't as groundbreaking as the very first one, it's still a pretty great car if you know what I mean.

It's superb because it's an old game with a different label. I can understand sequels being similar when they're story oriented, but stuff like Mario and Zelda? That's just blatant cloning. When ever you have series of games like this, they get stagnant and lose ideas.

There's nothing wrong with perfecting a formula, granted you bring something new on the table (I feel a lot of sequels do more than that), I'm pretty sure that's how things work in general. I'm with you on Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy 2 however just might surprise you, give it a go.

Demos still aren't enough for me to make an informed decision. I mean, take Ocarina of Time for instance, you play a demo and think "BEST GAME EVER" then you make it to the water temple...

I'm pretty sure you're winding me up by this point.

[anthonyaudi]

I work at a video game company. So I can say that is certainly not the case. The people working on the video games are trying the best to make the best product that they can with the time, money and manpower available to them. How does Ubisoft put out an Assassin's Creed every year? They have 600 people from multiple studios making the game. Activision has two or three studios that swap out their CoD games with each studio doing like a two or three year development cycle. Games take time to make or a lot of people to cram it out quickly.

As for comments about the rest. Play a Persona game, they have 70 hours or more and that is doing everything in the game. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are games praised for great design and difficulty while having tons of replay value. Record of Agarest War has 100 hours even speeding through the game. There are plenty of games out there doing well. The PS2 has tons of amazing games.

In my first post I should have wrote things a little clearer.
Taking things into perspective. It is absolutely normal (and expected) to have a 70+ hour game on BR-DVD or Dual Layer DVDs. You just have more space to pack more into the game.
That being said. It's almost impossible to compare a game where companies have more than 20GB to play with over games that were 8MB at the time. It's expected to pack in all that content. If you don't then something is wrong.
As far as people making games with the time and resources they have available to them I'm not shooting down the developers. Because they are doing what they can. What I am saying is the creativity isn't there like it was before. It's not hard to pump out a game every year when you use the same engine over and over. Not saying that it didn't happen in passed games because it did. The companies pump out countless spin offs of games because they know that the game will run well. It just piggy backs off the name. The perfect example is Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. The game is a complete fail but it didn't do that bad because it carries the RE name.

I'm not saying games don't do well. If they didn't then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

It is true that the systems grew with the times and SNES was graphically superior in the day. Today it's a PS3 or Xbox.
I believe that the companies today put out games based on how much money they can make with it.

In my opinion, which is just an opinion, I find it much more difficult to invest in a game today (like Assassins Creed) than it was back with older systems. AC is slow and boring. I just find that before graphics and sound weren't available like they were today and you had no choice to enjoy the game for the gameplay value. Today the games can be terrible but still be visually appealing and work.

It's as if the games on the systems today are made for people who have very low attention spans. In the sense that, if it does get to hard, there is a cheat to pass it. Or if for some odd reason a puzzle is too hard then just Youtube the answer. Or if you die too often just put god mode on. I find that todays gamers expect to be spoon fed if it gets too hard. (Let's not make a reference to Game genie on the cheats, I know it was available)

[Fluffy]

In my opinion, which is just an opinion, I find it much more difficult to invest in a game today (like Assassins Creed) than it was back with older systems. AC is slow and boring. I just find that before graphics and sound weren't available like they were today and you had no choice to enjoy the game for the gameplay value. Today the games can be terrible but still be visually appealing and work.

It's as if the games on the systems today are made for people who have very low attention spans. In the sense that, if it does get to hard, there is a cheat to pass it. Or if for some odd reason a puzzle is too hard then just Youtube the answer. Or if you die too often just put god mode on. I find that todays gamers expect to be spoon fed if it gets too hard. (Let's not make a reference to Game genie on the cheats, I know it was available)

Well, you guys have fun. I think I'll take my leave.

[Lacquer Head]

When Wolfenstein 3D came out wasn't every FPS just a copy/clone after that, yes even Doom. You could say Doom perfected the formula, had different setting and weapons, though in truth that can be said for a lot of shooters since then. It has always been perfecting the formula with few groundbreaking games in between. Jump from 2D to 3D was impressive to say the least, as was full motion gaming when it first appeared few years ago, video game industry still comes up with new stuff. What people fail to notice is just how much new games perfected the formula and are still pushing forward, multiplayer, story telling, music, and graphics in particular. What I'm trying to say, don't slam a great car just because it isn't as groundbreaking as the very first one, it's still a pretty great car if you know what I mean.

A more accurate description would be saying you invented new chess, instead of red and black, the board is green and blue with chess pieces!!! But I've always been really cynical with first person shooters, there are some good ones that actually TRY to be innovative...then you get Halo 4

There's nothing wrong with perfecting a formula, granted you bring something new on the table (I feel a lot of sequels do more than that), I'm pretty sure that's how things work in general. I'm with you on Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy 2 however just might surprise you, give it a go.

I'm one of the few people that thought the idea behind the wii was pretty cool...though when i hold the controllers, i look like michael j fox...so i'm not exactly good at wii games. As for mario...meh, burnt out on it, though one of the zelda games would be interesting...though i don't see much innovation after twilight princess

I'm pretty sure you're winding me up by this point.

I'm just very paranoid >_>

You're mostly right there Xan. But BioShock is a spiritual sequel to System Shock, Persona 4 Arena is.. well part of the Persona series so not a new IP, and XCOM is part of the XCOM series. Kingdoms of Amalur basically bankrupted their studio (and the state of Rhode Island took a hit too with their $75m loan) so I wouldn't expect to see another one of those anytime soon. I actually agree with your point though.

1. I remember this...and it's no surprised they bankrupted their studio...75 million goddamn dollars

2. Why in the hell did a state feel it was appropriate to loan money to a gaming studio...especially the smallest state in the country

My two cents: It's all relative. The games you played when you were younger were great because you were less cynical and you had less choice. It's nostalgia and that, my friend, is opium for old people. You were just enjoying the games you played more back then, it doesn't make them better. Games in my opinion will always be the same.

Nah, I didn't play many games as a kid, pretty much just mario and pokemon, I've only recently began playing a lot of older games.

It's as if the games on the systems today are made for people who have very low attention spans. In the sense that, if it does get to hard, there is a cheat to pass it. Or if for some odd reason a puzzle is too hard then just Youtube the answer. Or if you die too often just put god mode on. I find that todays gamers expect to be spoon fed if it gets too hard. (Let's not make a reference to Game genie on the cheats, I know it was available)

No, cheats are awesome, and they're one thing that's improving, especially with hacking. It's just epic to twist games to where they never should have been. Hell, hacks of games are actually creating pretty amazing games in their own right, google pokemon brown, that game is epic.

[Martin]

A more accurate description would be saying you invented new chess, instead of red and black, the board is green and blue with chess pieces!!!

Nah, I didn't play many games as a kid, pretty much just mario and pokemon, I've only recently began playing a lot of older games.

No, cheats are awesome, and they're one thing that's improving, especially with hacking. It's just epic to twist games to where they never should have been. Hell, hacks of games are actually creating pretty amazing games in their own right, google pokemon brown, that game is epic.

Firstly, Chess isn't played on a red and black board. That's a Checkers board. Chess should be Black and White. Secondly I'd assume that that is your personal standpoint and I'd say on this board at least you'd be in the minority, and that my point kind of still stands. Thirdly I abhor cheating to advance in games. Cheat coding that is deliberately left into the game as a means to have a bit of fun (GTA and the like) is all well and good but hacking games is pointless. A video game is a concept from a designer - they have an idea and the game is the finished product of that idea. It is to the detriment of that idea to 'twist to where they never should have been'. If it was a good idea, major game companies would make the game to begin with.

[Martin]

Kind of a brash reaction don't you think? You didn't really get the point I was making. I'd say you were in the minority of people on this board who didn't play a lot of games as a child. It was never a question of whether it was good or not..
also that's personal opinion again. I gave mine, and there's no need to take it so harshly. If you like cheating fine, I however don't. I think it detracts from the experience of the game and I don't think it's fair to be spoken down to because of it. Not all games are there to make a profit. Indie game publishers do not make titles for money - read their press releases and their interviews.

[Lacquer Head]

I didn't realize I WAS talking down lol and when you give some one something for free, it's to do with whatever you want with it vOv I find using cheats to get through a game to be pointless myself, but I'm talking about things like giving yourself the ability to fly in Banjo Kazooie or something, or unlocking certain beta shit that was never removed, like a battle with Professor Oak in Pokemon Green or an X Wing enemy or whatever it was in Ocarina of Time.

[Odin1199]

Biggest problem with games today is that they have to be very mainstream to appeal to as many people as possible to have good sales. That means throwing difficulty in the trash can, so little school boys won't start smashing their poor consoles to pieces and rage quit afterwards. That also means the games have to be way more linear and have unnecessarily big amount of cut scenes to glue it all nicely. Big companies are too greedy nowadays to allow games to be creative and good. It's all about stapling as many games as possible and making as many sales as possible. If it ain't mainstream, it doesn't bounce.

One good example is Borderlands 2. Devs promised way more guns, but what did they do? Made less varieties, less backpack and bank space. Why? Because the consoles would start glitching because of less ram than pc's. Forget about innovation or making something better. Market dictates everything. If the game will suffer on consoles, then the pc version will have to be crappy as well.

[Xanatos]

Biggest problem with games today is that they have to be very mainstream to appeal to as many people as possible to have good sales. That means throwing difficulty in the trash can, so little school boys won't start smashing their poor consoles to pieces and rage quit afterwards.

Considering that over 70% of video games today offer several levels of difficulty for you to choose from, higher ones being indeed hard, I find your statement rather funny. If you need to smash your console/controler over a measly game it usually means the game itself is not really fun, and if you recall controllers were smashed often back in the day, although I have to agree, kids today have far less patience and tolerance

That also means the games have to be way more linear and have unnecessarily big amount of cut scenes to glue it all nicely.

In a day and age when more and more developers are leaning towards sandbox approach, offer more content next to singleplayer campaign, to call video games linear is downright stupid. As for the cutscenes, you do realize you play Final Fantasy.

Big companies are too greedy nowadays to allow games to be creative and good. It's all about stapling as many games as possible and making as many sales as possible. If it ain't mainstream, it doesn't bounce.

Remember Nintendo vs Sega (vs Atari, lol) = purely due to money. Remember all those shity consoles, useless add ones (goddamn we had more of these than we have today) and tons of shitty games = money again. For God's sake Nintendo ditched Sony all due to few bobs, and we already established video games were milked huge back then. In other words, companies have always been too greedy, it's another thing entirely you either don't remember or don't want to.

One good example is Borderlands 2. Devs promised way more guns, but what did they do? Made less varieties, less backpack and bank space. Why? Because the consoles would start glitching because of less ram than pc's. Forget about innovation or making something better. Market dictates everything. If the game will suffer on consoles, then the pc version will have to be crappy as well.

Yes, lets forget all those things they actually improved over Borderlands, which would be nearly everything. I actually agree with you on PC vs consoles part, it's all due to consoles PC gets huge amount of shitty ports.