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In the past year or so there have been so many triple-A games titles that have received a bad reception from fans of their respective series. Whilst SC2 has been really a huge success, the pre-existing Starcraft fans always maintain that SCBW is a better game. However SC2 is far from alone in this. Halo Reach has gone down terribly with Halo fans and MW3 is not enjoying much favour with CoD fans. Mass Effect 3 has generally provoked a negative reaction. Even BF3, which has generally been received well, has frustrated some long-time Battlefield players so much that they have gone back to Bad Company 2.
Today I played Halo Reach for the first time in I don’t know how long because I just felt like playing some horde mode. I always thought that Reach was a very high quality and good game, and I still do. It’s really great value for money, with a good campaign, a very fun horde mode and extremely solid multiplayer. Lastly the custom map-making “forge” is probably the most powerful customisation tool on any console game. Having said that, the game is going to go down in history as a huge flop. The one that brought the community to its knees.
So what was the massive turn off with Reach? Well, it was basically everything that they changed from Halo 3. People hated the new armour abilities and they hated the “bloom” on the new gun. That’s about all I can think of really. I know that a lot of my friends found it hard to get into coming from CoD because everybody has so much health and armour.
To me these sound like ridiculous reasons. If these things had been a part of Halo 3 then nobody would have had a problem with them. It’s only because people aren’t prepared to take each new game at face value that they find such things to get annoyed over.
On the flip side of games that change too much is games that change too little. MW3 is getting to be little played by people on my friends list, and it’s not that a particular thing is wrong with the game, it is simply that they are getting bored of playing it.
It is this balance of changing the game vs. not changing it that I think is a fine line which is almost impossible to tread. There is absolutely no answer to the problem that I can think of, and it is a problem that complete over-writes any other improvements that are made to the game. Let me tell you something that 99% of people will disagree with. Almost all the latest versions of games are the best versions that have ever existed. If you released CoD4 at the same time as MW3, everybody would play MW3. If you released SC2 at the same time as SCBW then everybody would play SC2. Modern games are just better in (almost) every single way. Standards are higher now, such that classic games simply would not cut it these days.
So my answer to the question, is no, modern games are better than old games, but it has become impossible to satisfy fans of a particular franchise with a sequel. My solution to this is simple. Instead of making so many sequels, developers should make many more new games titles, which do not come with preconceived ideas from the game playing audience. That’s it really, the point that I want to make. Halo 4 is absolutely doomed to fail, and CoD is on a severe down spike that can’t go on for more than 3 or 4 more years.
The time is ripe for new games with new ideas, because the times they are a-changin’.
 
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The problem with that, is they lose the power of the franchises name in attracting the more causal (and bigger) crowds.
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On April 08 2012 08:40 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
The problem with that, is they lose the power of the franchises name in attracting the more causal (and bigger) crowds.
How about if the brand was the games company instead of the actual game. I'll pretty much buy (or try) anything from some games developers.
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Well, a lot of old game praise comes from not only nostalgia, but the fact that those games pushed the boundaries of what was possible to create. I started out with computers when 3d cards were a nonstandard piece of hardware, and let me tell you, seeing quake 2 maxed out for the first time blew my mind more than crysis ever could. Gothic was a game riddled with bugs and ui troubles, but the sheer size of it and the freedom of choice it gave you still etches it into my memory and a game like skyrim couldn't replace it. Sure, modern games push the envelope when it comes to sheer quality of work (apart from rushed releases) and they are in many ways superior to old games, I just know that some of the best feelings I've had in front of a computer screens can never be relieved with new titles.
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On April 08 2012 08:48 m00nchile wrote:
Well, a lot of old game praise comes from not only nostalgia, but the fact that those games pushed the boundaries of what was possible to create. I started out with computers when 3d cards were a nonstandard piece of hardware, and let me tell you, seeing quake 2 maxed out for the first time blew my mind more than crysis ever could. Gothic was a game riddled with bugs and ui troubles, but the sheer size of it and the freedom of choice it gave you still etches it into my memory and a game like skyrim couldn't replace it. Sure, modern games push the envelope when it comes to sheer quality of work (apart from rushed releases) and they are in many ways superior to old games, I just know that some of the best feelings I've had in front of a computer screens can never be relieved with new titles.
I agree with you, but this doesn't explain why new sequels are rubbished even by young players. Also, I think that as long as you have this perspective you can enjoy new games with a fresh perspective. It's when people don't identify that it is themselves that have become hard to please, and not the games that have got worse.
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i agree that a lot of criticism for new games comes from glorifying the old ones.
but for me personaly there is one big thing that bugs me the most about sequels nowadays. even when the first title of a franchise was a big success, developers tend to change the concept of the game so much in the following games,so that those often feel like complete new games.
i dont want to say that progress is bad,but it sucks when the gameplay of franchises that already were succesfull(which means that people enjoyed their gameplay) like Dragon Age,Splinter Cell or Command and Conquer,get complety changed to be "more accessible to a wider audience".
in most cases that ends in sequels beeing way too different compared to the original
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On April 08 2012 08:44 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 08:40 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
The problem with that, is they lose the power of the franchises name in attracting the more causal (and bigger) crowds. How about if the brand was the games company instead of the actual game. I'll pretty much buy (or try) anything from some games developers.
Should be doable with good marketing. I blind bought Chantelise because it was made (and localized) by the same guys that did Recettear. "From the creators of..."
The reason, I believe, that people say old is better than new (not only games, but movies, music etc.) is because they are comparing the average game of today with the best games of a decade ago. When a mediocre movie or game comes out, people go see it and go "blah, waste of money, not memorable at all." 5 years later, since it was so unmemorable, they... well... don't remember it, and have only memories of the gems and the total failures.
As for milking sequels due to name recognition, this has always happened. Capcom is notorious for this. 6 Mega Mans for the NES, all of them essentially the same game (and thus all 6 were awesome). How many times has Street Fighter 2 been released? Final Fight? And it wasn't just Capcom. You have the Castlevanias, Ninja Gaidens, Double Dragons, Ninja Turtles, Dragon Quests etc. Notice I listed series that are all regarded as friggin awesome. I believe series like Halo (personally haven't played the series) and ME will be looked at as great series down the road.
You do get the brilliant original title here and there, but you get that today too. Bastion was awesome, I'm pretty sure 100% of people who have even touched the game can agree to that. Games like VVVVVV, Super Meat Boy, Braid etc. the list goes on and on.
The problem is that people compare the random generic Wii shooters of today to the Goldeneyes of yesteryear. Let's be fair here, bad games shouldn't be compared to Goldeneye. They should be compared to the Superman 64s and Atari ETs.
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I am honestly losing a lot of interest in video games, it seems like a lot of games now a days lack creativity, not i mean like players can make halo reach maps or say a call of duty emblem with a street gang symbol to resemble what the person is interested in. but it seems like the people who made the games just slapped it all together for money. look at bobby kotick the guy that's killing e-sports practically making it social and casual and not serious games and letting him get more money for it is plain stupid. i just liked back in the day i could get on brood war or age of empires and make my own little campaign or little cities, that's what i always loved about video games my own creation.
And that's why i only like sc2 for non stop play, its a game i could get bored of and come back to and play over and over and try and copy pros builds or just try and make my own little timings that abuse certain aspects of builds or timings. even if blizzard does fail the hardcore social aspect in hots like they did wol i would still play the game but only on the sole purpose of pure gameplay!
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I disagree.
In my opinion we have basically two different eras of gaming for most established genres:
Development era and modern era. Basically development era games are the roots of all modern games, these were the titles that worked out a successful formula and gameplay. There are some fun games from these times, but what held many of these games back was a combination of simply not being able to provide a great experience due to technological limitations of the time, and a lack of successful genre examples providing an idea of the optimal way to provide certain features. Some examples of development era problems would be older console shooters who still hadn't worked out how to provide a decent aiming system, or games like the first Battlefield, where they just didnt have to tech to provide the scale and immersion of more recent titles. Once the technology catches up to the concept of the genre, it doesn't really matter if the game is 10 years old or 1, the game could be just as great.
Different genres achieve modern era gameplay at different times due to the tech requirements of providing the basic gameplay of the genre. For example, we havent seen a significant change in gameplay in FPS's since fucking forever, counterstrike is just as good as COD barring cosmetics, because they technology at the time was perfectly acceptable to provide exactly the gameplay the designers intended. Calling MW3 better than COD4 is purely an opinon not based on time, as the technology and know how to provide the experience of MW3 was around when COD4 was made. If the games are different it is purely a design decision and not the fact that anything amazing has come up in the intervening years with FPS development.
Plenty of genres have been in modern era for fucking ever, like platformers, driving games...etc, and some genres arent anywhere near leaving development era, such as MMORPGS and Open World. We are seeing huge leaps in the tech and gameplay of these genres all the time, and older ones are very likely just flat out worse than newer efforts. For example, I'm sure the designers of Morrowind or Everquest would have absolutely loved to have the immense worlds and smooth interactivity of Skyrim or Tera, but the technology to accomplish this immersiveness was simply not available. Gameplay of MMO's is making huge strides right now, moving from turn based point and click into a more freeform combat style more akin to FPS's or fighting games.
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Well I'm not sure exactly how you would expect FPS gameplay to change more than it has. There are a wider variety of weapons and customization options in new games. Also, the technology has improved and continues to improve to provide a good lag free game with good hit detection. There is also map design and respawning AI to consider, as well as new game types.
The fact that technological developments have allowed developers to create what was once impossible is exactly my point. You say that in some genres that developments are not continuing to happen, but I would say that is incorrect for all types of games that are still popular (you know aside from platformers), and especially in FPS games.
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To repeat what other people have said, the games which receive flack for being worse than their originals more often than not is because they were dumbed down. Dragon age to dragon age 2, Supreme commander to supreme commander 2. There are plenty of games which their sequels however were on par in terms of their depth and consequently didn't receive much if any flack; demon souls to dark souls, Oblivion to skyrim (although I do know some people who played 1-3 like neither 4 or 5, the point is the people who started with oblivion liked skyrim).
Your post mentions cod/halo/bf none of which I have that much experience with so I can't comment. As for ME3, people didn't like the ending, not the game itself. Apart from a couple of minor complaints (no game is perfect) of the inventory system and the lack of a vehicle people praised ME1 to ME2.
No one would want to play some sport for a long time and then have someone barge in saying they are making the hoops three times the size in basketball so people with bad aim can score or have football/soccer turned into just a series of penalty kicks so people don't have to run around.
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On April 08 2012 08:36 deathly rat wrote:
In the past year or so there have been so many triple-A games titles that have received a bad reception from fans of their respective series. Whilst SC2 has been really a huge success, the pre-existing Starcraft fans always maintain that SCBW is a better game. However SC2 is far from alone in this. Halo Reach has gone down terribly with Halo fans and MW3 is not enjoying much favour with CoD fans. Mass Effect 3 has generally provoked a negative reaction. Even BF3, which has generally been received well, has frustrated some long-time Battlefield players so much that they have gone back to Bad Company 2.
Today I played Halo Reach for the first time in I don’t know how long because I just felt like playing some horde mode. I always thought that Reach was a very high quality and good game, and I still do. It’s really great value for money, with a good campaign, a very fun horde mode and extremely solid multiplayer. Lastly the custom map-making “forge” is probably the most powerful customisation tool on any console game. Having said that, the game is going to go down in history as a huge flop. The one that brought the community to its knees.
So what was the massive turn off with Reach? Well, it was basically everything that they changed from Halo 3. People hated the new armour abilities and they hated the “bloom” on the new gun. That’s about all I can think of really. I know that a lot of my friends found it hard to get into coming from CoD because everybody has so much health and armour.
To me these sound like ridiculous reasons. If these things had been a part of Halo 3 then nobody would have had a problem with them. It’s only because people aren’t prepared to take each new game at face value that they find such things to get annoyed over.
Okay, I stopped here first because you're making a huge assumption: people dislike bloom and armor abilities because they're new, and that's it. Period. I think that's an erroneous assumption which is un-falsifiable. For one, neither of us are able to prove it by inserting armor and bloom into halo 3, go back to a time before halo 3 came out, and re-sell it. Furthermore, from what I've read, Halo players dislike bloom because of how random it is, not because that it's new. They dislike it because it makes the multiplayer less skill-based and more luck based. It's less consistent. That has nothing to do with time or the nostalgia factor you seem to be arguing for. You can't even prove that nostalgia factor in the first place.
On the flip side of games that change too much is games that change too little. MW3 is getting to be little played by people on my friends list, and it’s not that a particular thing is wrong with the game, it is simply that they are getting bored of playing it.
It is this balance of changing the game vs. not changing it that I think is a fine line which is almost impossible to tread. There is absolutely no answer to the problem that I can think of, and it is a problem that complete over-writes any other improvements that are made to the game. Let me tell you something that 99% of people will disagree with. Almost all the latest versions of games are the best versions that have ever existed. If you released CoD4 at the same time as MW3, everybody would play MW3. If you released SC2 at the same time as SCBW then everybody would play SC2. Modern games are just better in (almost) every single way. Standards are higher now, such that classic games simply would not cut it these days.
You're making way too broad statements here with no support whatsoever. Can you release CoD4 at the same time as MW3 and prove it to me? Can you release SC2 at the same time as SCBW and prove it to me? I don't think you can. And you also fail to really define what you're arguing.
Standards are higher in what sense? The games are best in what sense? Graphics, surely you're correct. Size? Yeah, you're right. Content? I'm not sure. Fun? You're definitely wrong. Why? Because I've play BW, and I play SC2, and I find one more enjoyable than the other. There's no nostalgia factor. It's still current. I just happen to like BW more. Another example: I played the old Deus Ex, and I can honestly say it's an incredible game that I could not put down. Can I say the same about Deus Ex Invisible War even though it came out later? No... Deus Ex was a superior game, despite being older, simply because it was more fun to me. And I first played it in 2011, 2012. I never even heard about it in 1998. Nostalgia had nothing to do with it. Age had nothing to do with it.
So my answer to the question, is no, modern games are better than old games, but it has become impossible to satisfy fans of a particular franchise with a sequel.
So my answer to you is maybe it is for you, but not for me. I don't know how exactly you're judging better because I simply judge it as more fun, and that's subjective. Halo, for me, was more fun than Halo Reach. Partially it's bloom. Partially it's the armor system, but it's also because of the broken shotgun that did enormous damage over a huge range. It's also because of the plasma pistol that shot faster than a plasma rifle. And maybe it's because of the simplicity rather than complexity of the game itself. Those add up to make, for me, a more fun experience in Halo than Halo Reach. Can I objectively say Halo is better? No. But can you say the opposite? No.
So I think your claim is unsupported. You're essentially calling people unsatisfiable whiney bitches for no reason. :/ Seems kinda harsh.
My solution to this is simple. Instead of making so many sequels, developers should make many more new games titles, which do not come with preconceived ideas from the game playing audience. That’s it really, the point that I want to make. Halo 4 is absolutely doomed to fail, and CoD is on a severe down spike that can’t go on for more than 3 or 4 more years.
The time is ripe for new games with new ideas, because the times they are a-changin’.
The problem is people recognize old ideas rehashed under new names. See Hollywood.
Now, on the flip side, not all new games are perceived as worse. People loved Mass Effect 2 just as much as Mass Effect. People loved Baldur's Gate II just as much as Baldur's Gate. People loved Pokemon Gold and Silver just as, if not more than, Pokemon Red and Blue. I think in the end, it all comes down to subjectivity, and trying to objectively force your opinion of which is better on people just doesn't work. :/
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speaking as a long time halo fan, for reach the problem wasn't the bloom for me, it was the way the shields worked and that grenades were way too powerful and pretty much any serious game (mlg game or competitive MM game) became a nade spam and that just isnt fun in any game imo with the title update that came out a little while ago halo reach is actually the game i had wanted (FINALLY) and the story was okay but ignored some of the halo lore for no reason almost like bungie never cared about the story they had created with their games
not to mention that the reach "beta" was a waste of time because they only made one change while their forums were alight with issues (like the grenade strength and shield mechanics being the exact opposite of what 9 years of halo had taught us) and the posts went largely unanswered and seemingly ignored by bungie to the point where many fans stopped caring because the company that made the game seemed not to care anymore soo why did we?
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Well my experience is that most single player games have difficulty settings, and if you set it to hard, it really is hard. As for multiplayer games, it is as difficult as the opposition you are playing. I know that modern games often have a lot less mindless "farming" or leveling up sections, and they cut to the chase, but I think that is generally a good thing.
With Reach they really did care. You can see it in the quality of the game and how polished it is. I really think they thought ppl would get used to the changes, because ppl always resist change they have to ignore some criticism because of this.
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United States47024 Posts
On April 08 2012 09:56 ghrur wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 08 2012 08:36 deathly rat wrote:
In the past year or so there have been so many triple-A games titles that have received a bad reception from fans of their respective series. Whilst SC2 has been really a huge success, the pre-existing Starcraft fans always maintain that SCBW is a better game. However SC2 is far from alone in this. Halo Reach has gone down terribly with Halo fans and MW3 is not enjoying much favour with CoD fans. Mass Effect 3 has generally provoked a negative reaction. Even BF3, which has generally been received well, has frustrated some long-time Battlefield players so much that they have gone back to Bad Company 2.
Today I played Halo Reach for the first time in I don’t know how long because I just felt like playing some horde mode. I always thought that Reach was a very high quality and good game, and I still do. It’s really great value for money, with a good campaign, a very fun horde mode and extremely solid multiplayer. Lastly the custom map-making “forge” is probably the most powerful customisation tool on any console game. Having said that, the game is going to go down in history as a huge flop. The one that brought the community to its knees.
So what was the massive turn off with Reach? Well, it was basically everything that they changed from Halo 3. People hated the new armour abilities and they hated the “bloom” on the new gun. That’s about all I can think of really. I know that a lot of my friends found it hard to get into coming from CoD because everybody has so much health and armour.
To me these sound like ridiculous reasons. If these things had been a part of Halo 3 then nobody would have had a problem with them. It’s only because people aren’t prepared to take each new game at face value that they find such things to get annoyed over. Okay, I stopped here first because you're making a huge assumption: people dislike bloom and armor abilities because they're new, and that's it. Period. I think that's an erroneous assumption which is un-falsifiable. For one, neither of us are able to prove it by inserting armor and bloom into halo 3, go back to a time before halo 3 came out, and re-sell it. Furthermore, from what I've read, Halo players dislike bloom because of how random it is, not because that it's new. They dislike it because it makes the multiplayer less skill-based and more luck based. It's less consistent. That has nothing to do with time or the nostalgia factor you seem to be arguing for. You can't even prove that nostalgia factor in the first place. On the flip side of games that change too much is games that change too little. MW3 is getting to be little played by people on my friends list, and it’s not that a particular thing is wrong with the game, it is simply that they are getting bored of playing it.
It is this balance of changing the game vs. not changing it that I think is a fine line which is almost impossible to tread. There is absolutely no answer to the problem that I can think of, and it is a problem that complete over-writes any other improvements that are made to the game. Let me tell you something that 99% of people will disagree with. Almost all the latest versions of games are the best versions that have ever existed. If you released CoD4 at the same time as MW3, everybody would play MW3. If you released SC2 at the same time as SCBW then everybody would play SC2. Modern games are just better in (almost) every single way. Standards are higher now, such that classic games simply would not cut it these days. You're making way too broad statements here with no support whatsoever. Can you release CoD4 at the same time as MW3 and prove it to me? Can you release SC2 at the same time as SCBW and prove it to me? I don't think you can. And you also fail to really define what you're arguing. Standards are higher in what sense? The games are best in what sense? Graphics, surely you're correct. Size? Yeah, you're right. Content? I'm not sure. Fun? You're definitely wrong. Why? Because I've play BW, and I play SC2, and I find one more enjoyable than the other. There's no nostalgia factor. It's still current. I just happen to like BW more. Another example: I played the old Deus Ex, and I can honestly say it's an incredible game that I could not put down. Can I say the same about Deus Ex Invisible War even though it came out later? No... Deus Ex was a superior game, despite being older, simply because it was more fun to me. And I first played it in 2011, 2012. I never even heard about it in 1998. Nostalgia had nothing to do with it. Age had nothing to do with it. So my answer to the question, is no, modern games are better than old games, but it has become impossible to satisfy fans of a particular franchise with a sequel. So my answer to you is maybe it is for you, but not for me. I don't know how exactly you're judging better because I simply judge it as more fun, and that's subjective. Halo, for me, was more fun than Halo Reach. Partially it's bloom. Partially it's the armor system, but it's also because of the broken shotgun that did enormous damage over a huge range. It's also because of the plasma pistol that shot faster than a plasma rifle. And maybe it's because of the simplicity rather than complexity of the game itself. Those add up to make, for me, a more fun experience in Halo than Halo Reach. Can I objectively say Halo is better? No. But can you say the opposite? No. So I think your claim is unsupported. You're essentially calling people unsatisfiable whiney bitches for no reason. :/ Seems kinda harsh. My solution to this is simple. Instead of making so many sequels, developers should make many more new games titles, which do not come with preconceived ideas from the game playing audience. That’s it really, the point that I want to make. Halo 4 is absolutely doomed to fail, and CoD is on a severe down spike that can’t go on for more than 3 or 4 more years.
The time is ripe for new games with new ideas, because the times they are a-changin’.
The problem is people recognize old ideas rehashed under new names. See Hollywood. Now, on the flip side, not all new games are perceived as worse. People loved Mass Effect 2 just as much as Mass Effect. People loved Baldur's Gate II just as much as Baldur's Gate. People loved Pokemon Gold and Silver just as, if not more than, Pokemon Red and Blue. I think in the end, it all comes down to subjectivity, and trying to objectively force your opinion of which is better on people just doesn't work. :/
Pretty much said all that I wanted to say.
The OP is basically presuming that the only driving factor in a gamer's preference for older games is nostalgia and lower standards, when this is not the case. There are a lot of older games that, nostalgia notwithstanding, I find to simply have better gameplay than their descendants, and this is corroborated by the many people that I've introduced to games like Baldur's Gate and BW that simply prefer their gameplay to their newer counterparts, despite never having played the games when they originally came out.
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Average quality of games is much higher than 10, 15 years ago. While there were many great games that are still the some of the best of all time, the amount of shovelware on older systems was pretty staggering.
Now most games are actually pretty decent but few become a true masterpiece. Like others have said it is likely because developers are focus on creating a game that can reach many audiences they fail on creating a game that is both incredibly complex and incredibly engaging.
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I can somewhat agree with you on MW3. I was a huge fan of MW2 (lol) but for some reason, I just can't get myself into MW3. It just feels boring to me. I have about 10 or so hours on it, and I haven't played it in a few months now. I think the reason might be is that the friends I played it with have stopped playing.
We're all into Fifa 12 now (:
Your blog was a nice read. I think I'm going to play some M-dub 3 now.
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United States47024 Posts
On April 08 2012 10:15 setzer wrote:
Now most games are actually pretty decent but few become a true masterpiece. Like others have said it is likely because developers are focus on creating a game that can reach many audiences they fail on creating a game that is both incredibly complex and incredibly engaging.
I think it's worth noting that this is not something exclusive to gaming as a medium. This sort of thing happens/has happened in pretty much every other artistic medium. In attempting to reach a mainstream audience, artists/musicians/game designers/etc. have to distill certain themes from past content in order to create content that will reach a wider audience. What this means for us is that if you're interested in more innovative content, the place to look is independent design/development (indie gaming has really picked up in the past few years).
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there is no way mw3 multiplayer is better than cod4. cod4 was so balanced, the new cods and most games have so much shit flying on the screen like TRIPLE KILL! DOUBLE XP! RANK UPPPPP with loud ass effects. not saying cod4 doesnt have some of that but it was clean and simple... and balanced.
the vast majority of people will say me3 > me2 > me1 yeah the ending sucked but theyve refined that game to such a high level making playing the first game so bland.
Realistically the only things that have improved with time are graphics and controls, everything else older games do better (with some exceptions.)
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There is no way you can say that CoD4 is balanced. Martyrdom? 3 nade spam? M40? Stopping power/Juggernaut?
@ghrur yes, some of this is my opinion. I'm not trying to prove anything here, but I'm saying that i'm seeing a trend. IMO there is nothing wrong with the DMR, saying it is luck based is bullshit.
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games were wayyyy harder back in the day
we grew up on the idea of , game play > graphics
unfortunetly a lot of the main companies prefer the opposite
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On April 08 2012 08:57 mewbert wrote:
its 90% nostalgia
No it's not, it's because games today are catered towards casuals and are therefore excessively dumbed down. The idea of nostalgia doesn't even make sense for video games. Once you buy a video game you can play it whenever you want. So people are directly comparing Game A vs Game B instead of Memory of Game A vs Game B.
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On April 08 2012 10:43 deathly rat wrote:
There is no way you can say that CoD4 is balanced. Martyrdom? 3 nade spam? M40? Stopping power/Juggernaut?
@ghrur yes, some of this is my opinion. I'm not trying to prove anything here, but I'm saying that i'm seeing a trend. IMO there is nothing wrong with the DMR, saying it is luck based is bullshit.
I never said it was luck-based. I said it was less skill-based, which is true with bloom due to randomization. Halo players have said it too.
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On April 08 2012 11:12 ghrur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 10:43 deathly rat wrote:
There is no way you can say that CoD4 is balanced. Martyrdom? 3 nade spam? M40? Stopping power/Juggernaut?
@ghrur yes, some of this is my opinion. I'm not trying to prove anything here, but I'm saying that i'm seeing a trend. IMO there is nothing wrong with the DMR, saying it is luck based is bullshit. I never said it was luck-based. I said it was less skill-based, which is true with bloom due to randomization. Halo players have said it too.
how is "luck based" not the same thing as "less skill based due to randomization"? Managing Bloom is there as a skill based mechanism. You can fire more quickly the closer you are to your target. It's actually an extremely common mechanic in FPS games, just Halo ppl never had to consider it before.
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On April 08 2012 08:57 mewbert wrote:
its 90% nostalgia
Nailed it. My oldest brother (who is 10 years older than I am) talks about how music is such crap now, even the music I listen to (although I would think that if he actually listened to it, he wouldn't say that), but what he is really saying is that he likes the music he grew up with, because he has memories attached to it - therefore making any other music that is NOT that music sucks.
So yeah, almost all of it is pure nostalgia, and the lack of willingness to submit oneself to the new trends. There's nothing wrong with that though - well, at least there's nothing wrong not liking new things. But not liking them purely because their new is a different story.
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On April 08 2012 10:43 soullogik wrote:
games were wayyyy harder back in the day
we grew up on the idea of , game play > graphics
unfortunetly a lot of the main companies prefer the opposite
What are you talking about? Companies have been pushing graphics since Day 1. And we were just as sucked in back then as are now. Or did you forget just how cool it was to see an N64's 3d graphics for the first time? Or Final Fantasy 7's first cinematic movie?
The problem is that as we get more experience with more content, the less that's new and exciting. If you were someone who touched Pong when it was first created, it was absolutely mind blowing. For most of us here, Pong just has a novelty factor.
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On April 08 2012 10:43 deathly rat wrote:
There is no way you can say that CoD4 is balanced. Martyrdom? 3 nade spam? M40? Stopping power/Juggernaut?
@ghrur yes, some of this is my opinion. I'm not trying to prove anything here, but I'm saying that i'm seeing a trend. IMO there is nothing wrong with the DMR, saying it is luck based is bullshit.
2v2s were incredibly fun there was rarely a time when you blamed the game
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On April 08 2012 08:36 deathly rat wrote:If you released CoD4 at the same time as MW3, everybody would play MW3
Yeah right, I'd definitely give up dedicated servers, promod, and non retarded killstreaks for a few pretty graphics.
CoD4 only CoD.
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Cod4 is vastly superior in every way than MW3.
You've probably never played it if you're saying MW3 is better.
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On April 08 2012 08:36 deathly rat wrote:
Let me tell you something that 99% of people will disagree with. Almost all the latest versions of games are the best versions that have ever existed. If you released CoD4 at the same time as MW3, everybody would play MW3. If you released SC2 at the same time as SCBW then everybody would play SC2. Modern games are just better in (almost) every single way. Standards are higher now, such that classic games simply would not cut it these days.
an appeal to hypothetical popularity?
wtf
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" If you released SC2 at the same time as SCBW then everybody would play SC2."
This actually might in fact be true. But this is akin to saying Lady Gaga is "better" than Mozart since everyone (or most) would rather listen to her than Mozart. It may have more mass appeal since it has catered to the lowest common denominator, but that's all there is to it.
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Modern games suck because there is no diversity anymore. It's RPG or FPS, nothing else, which is what is. Modern Warfare 4,5,6,7,8,9,10 will always sells millions of copies even though it's THE SAME GODDAMN GAME. It's the same in all industries in America. All movies are re-released in 3D or remade. All sitcoms are the same laugh tracks and the same jokes. All primetime dramas are the same fucking story! Murder, running, shooting, whodunnit, the trial, the controversy, the love sub-plots, it's the same damn thing, and no on cares! Everybody just wants something predictable and reliable. All they have to do is remake it and sparkle up the package with exclusive offers, sparkles, and useless gadgets, or bigger tits.
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This is a result of video games becoming a product for a wider demographic.
Hopefully funding paradigms like Kickstarter will fix this, c.f. Wasteland 2
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On April 08 2012 11:19 deathly rat wrote:
how is "luck based" not the same thing as "less skill based due to randomization"? Managing Bloom is there as a skill based mechanism. You can fire more quickly the closer you are to your target. It's actually an extremely common mechanic in FPS games, just Halo ppl never had to consider it before.
Most of the Halo community (myself included) was actually very excited when we first saw the DMR. The hardcore community actually wanted a more skill-shot weapon as the problem with the Battle Rifle was that if only 1/3 shots hit the dmg was still the same as all 3 bullets hitting. The BR was also extremely random in H3, the inconsistent and random spread made it so that medium and far ranged 1v1's were decided on luck rather than skill. What players wanted was a BR that either had 0 spread, a consistent/controllable spread, or a single shot weapon. What the community got was a single shot weapon, but with the same bs inconsistencies of the H3 BR.
Bloom/recoil I feel is a great addition to FPS's. It increases the skill-gap significantly, punishes players that are inexperienced and panic, and rewards players who have trained to stay calm and react more on instinct in tight situations. The problem is is that bloom/recoil is often implemented poorly. CS 1.6 is the obvious example of perfect bullet spread/bloom and gun recoil. The learning curve to the guns alone are enough to scare away any newcomer as Players who have been playing for 15+ years will not EVER lose to a new player. They actually know how the guns work in the game and know how to manipulate recoil to aid them. CSS however, is the "newer" version of CS, but in terms of the hardcore crowd it has 0 merit. The recoil is random, the spread is uncontrollable and unpredictable. The skill gap is still large enough for experienced players to dominate, but if there were still professional CSS tourneys today you'd get a lot more random undeserving upsets because of the recoil and bloom system.
Halo Reach's Bloom is comparative to CSS, but to an even greater extent. There is very little skill to it. You can control the bloom a little, but it is still extremely random and trying to control it actually hurts you. Spamming as if there was 0 bloom just praying youll kill the other person first often worked better then controlling it for a lot of reasons.
- The bloom resetting rate was way to long for the guns ideal controlled fire rate.
- Somebody in the MLG community did tests, and proved kill times were barely faster for a perfect 5-shot kill by the DMR compared to just spamming the trigger ( the only difference was at far range)
- THe same guy proved that spamming did have small, but way too high of a chance that a spammer could 5-shot (resulting in a MUCH faster kill time)
- Bloom wasnt halo. Now I don't know how to describe it to someone who didn't play halo2/3 hardcore. The way Halo works, the speed of the game, the map control, the teamshooting, the close quarter combat battles, it just wasn't Halo.
On another point, anybody giving the nostalgia excuse is just kidding themselves.
The biggest game that comes to mind for me is the Smash bros series.
Sm64 was an awesome game, i still don't personally view it as anything competetive but it was, and still is, awesome to get a few friends over and have a blast with it.
SM:Melee was SM64, but just better. It was the same game, but with a ton of new characters and 1 additional move. Additionally the tricks the community found made the game unbelievably depth. Melee is a top level fighting game when played at it's best. The amount of timing, precision, finger dexterity, and defensive maneuvers make it such an amazing game it is still played competively in NA, Mexico, Europe, and Japan even today. After 4 years of not touching that game the past year this is all me and my friends play when we get together because we have yet to find a game that is as fun, as depth, and as social as Melee.
Brawl is... what current gaming is. A casual player's dream. The game is fun, and essentially the same game as melee and SM64, but it doesn't have the depth melee or even 64 had, the removal of L-cancel, wavedash, SHFFL'ing, really hurt the game. Even the changes to move balancing has made the game more boring and easier then it should be. There is even a character that cannot be beaten (Metaknight) at high level play and it was a DECISION to have him in the game. Combine this with the addition of tripping and the gimmicky final smash and you get the current game design philosophy. Have the game be easy to pick up, easy to master, reward players with item unlocks instead of a personal achievement of getting better, streamlined, linear, etc etc...
That's not saying games today are bad. MOst are fun and enjoyable. But when compared to the games of yesteryear when games were fun, enjoyable, challenging, thought provoking, puzzling, and had actual depth. I personally find it laughable that you say current versions of games are "the best they'll get".
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Like many others in this thread have stated, I think that modern "AAA" games are not as good as previous games due to their desire to attract a wider userbase.
I've played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. When I played them each, I wasn't thinking of the others. In effect, I was playing them in a vacuum. I enjoyed them all within their separate vacuums. In my eyes, this implies that they all had their merits. However, when I compare them to each other, I find that Oblivion < Skyrim < Morrowind. If you notice, they aren't ordered by age. This is a very subjective measure of quality, though. Not much can be asserted from my observations alone. If a very significant portion of others who share my experience agree with me, however, that might change the validity of the argument that one is better than another.
In short, you're being very subjective. What makes a game good? What makes it deserve "AAA" status?
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Here's my take on the situation as to why games today get so much flak:
1. They aren't as hard as they used to be. Compare a franchise as simple as Mario. Super Mario Bros. for the NES was quite a long game if you played it start to finish without warps, and even with warps was still pretty difficult to the point of getting a game over. Looking to a game like Super Mario 64, despite the fact that progress could be saved, I've personally rarely seen anyone get a game over, and even though, you get to start back from the last star you had. Imagine if game over = losing all your stars, not only would it be more challenging, but also a more rewarding experience.
2. They experience isn't as good as used to be. Now, this isn't necessarily the result of current games having a bad experience, it's just the same bullshit recycled experience over and over and over. Take a game like Goldeneye. One of the most hallowed games to ever grace the N64, and why? Well obviously the multiplayer, but it was the experience of getting to play as James Bond during the single player and smashing your friends in multiplayer (or getting smashed in multiplayer if you weren't that good :D ). Look ahead to game like Call of Duty which you mentioned in your post. The original CoD was an excellent game, great story, multiplayer, an overall excellent experience as a franchise. As a shooter fan, it started as "meh, another fps in WWII", but quickly found it's place for me as a title of its own. Now look to the recent games starting from MW. It's all essentially the same experience. Sure you get some new maps, new guns, new perks, but its all details, the core of the game actually never changes...ever.
3. Less originality. As I know at least one other poster pointed out, much of the games being released today follow what seems to be the current prevalent business model of repackage what's worked in the past with some new/fixed things on top and sell it as something brand new. Again, the CoD series comes to mind right off the bat, with Halo coming in at a close second. You know why a lot of people don't like Reach? Halo was originally planned to be a sequel, Microsoft realized they could still milk money from gamers so they throw some shiny armor and some bloom on their already existing models with some new maps a working single player and VIOLA! Instant cash cow. Look at all the big "blockbuster" games that were announced during the "Big 3" conferences at E3 last year. Pretty much all sequels. You wonder why gamers get mad? Cause they aren't playing anything new. This may be my only point where I don't blame game developers. I blame gamers, as consumers, for buying the same repackaged shit over and over.
4. Game developing is no longer an art (for the large studios). Back in the early stages of gaming, when even the technology of hooking an external device up to your tv was newish, game developers used to pride themselves on delivering the best product possible as not only a game, but as an artistic expression. As the business side and popularity of gaming has increased, the creativity games needed to succeed in the past are no longer needed since there's a formula that works. This is another reason why we're seeing less original games from big studios.
5. Parents are dumb. Now this is probably where I feel my strongest argument lies, however I'm sure most people will disagree with this point entirely, and those that agree probably will not that it's a major point, but here goes. Many of the people who complain about games being too easy, unoriginal, lacking detail, are the gamers who grew up on the older consoles like the Commodore, Atari, NES, and I'd even lump in SNES and Genesis. Growing up on variety, originality, and challenge were the reason video games were so great in the first place. With many of the newer titles, that same sentiment is now lost. These should (hopefully) be the same gamers that do not buy every new iteration of a game that came out. Now, what does that have to do with parents being dumb? Well, assuming the older gamers are not buying these titles, it leave the new generation of up and coming gamers. These are the gamers that know only of CoD, Halo, and all the other major franchises. This is the majority of the gaming population. Interestingly enough, this segment of the gamer population is the largest, but also has no income. Then how do these gamers get the games in their hands? Parents. Now ask yourself, if your parents bought a gun last year (CoD:Black Ops), and were then contacted a year later by the gun manufacturer saying, "Hey, we know your gun still works and all, but we've got this new model coming out this year and it comes with a flashlight! And you can even get the gun in different colors if you want! (CoD:MW3)" Would said parents purchase the new gun? Probably not. I'd hope most people would question, "But if it's just a flashlight and the gun works the same, why can't I just buy the flashlight?" Bringing this back to games, the reason parents deny the upgrade on the gun and permit their child to have the latest installment of a game, I'd imagine a large part of this would be because the parents just do not understand exactly what they are purchasing. If I was to show a gameplay demo (without the HUD) of Black Ops and play it side by side with a MW3 demo, I'd venture most parents would not be able to tell the difference. Tell the parent that the game on the left is the one their child currently owns, and that the one on the right is the one they are asking for, I think you'd have less parents buying CoD games every year for xmas. What I'm hoping is that now the original generations of gamers are becoming parents, we'll start to see more pushback from consumers to create real quality products.
I could probably go on with a larger section on DLC, but if you're a gamer and still thinks DLC is good as far as additional content for games, you're just plain dumb if you haven't seen what it's already done to the industry.
TLDR: Games aren't as hard, are less engaging, less original, and bought up dumb parents who don't realize they're buying the same repackaged garbage for their kids every year. DLC also sucks, and I think you're a fool if you think it doesn't.
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I can't say they're worse, but they usually don't live up to my standards. You can argue all day long about what would be if the same designers created the games with today's technology.
IMO, the main difference really comes mainly from the different markets. At times when only a few people owned a PC/console those were usually adults. And if you want to sell your game to a 25+ community and a 15- community, the games better be different. I'd be interested to see the age distribution for games like PST and Diablo 3.
From what I've observed, it stands out pretty clearly. And I'm almost certain that if a similar comparable games were to come out now, the distribution would be similar. The teenage gamer doesn't want a challenge. He wants to feel like a mastermind and a hero without putting in any effort + graphics. If he gets stuck in a certain point in the game, he calls the game bugged or stupid and quits playing it.
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EPT
