Gaming... it's coming back!

[Gurm]

My apologies if this belongs in The Lounge.

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Gaming is making a HUGE comeback, yes it is.

I am one of those people who for several years has been bemoaning the state of gaming. Well, I'm here to say that the last $150 I've spent on games has been well worth it. Let me elaborate:

The Dark Years, Part 1 - The PC:

This started with... Phantasmagoria. I remember the scenario well... Games had always come on several floppy discs (or one floppy disc if the programmers were good enough). But soon it got out of hand. 8, 9, 10 floppies was a bit much. Especially with the quality control on floppy discs in decline. So they started shipping games on 1 CD.

Game designers went into a frenzy. "LOOK AT THE SPACE!" they exclaimed. "We can put like 8 hours of crappily rendered 100x100 avi's on this disc!"

Some companies took the high road. Sierra made the same games they had always made, only now the audio was all digital.

But even the mighty must fall. Soon, Sierra released "Phantasmagoria". This game came on not one, not two, not even 5... but 8 DAMN CD's! Now, it's ALMOST forgivable. Nobody had an MPG decoder on their PC yet, since it didn't ship with Win3.1 or Win95. So they were stuck with uncompressed AVI's. So their 12 hours of medium-res video took up 8 discs. Ok. But it set an ALARMING precedent.

Since then, we've seen the rise of games that ship with so many bugs that they are unplayable (Ultima 9), games that ship with bugs that ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE (Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor), and games that run like crap on even the "recommended" system configurations (Unreal 2).

The Dark Years, Part 2 - The Console:

Consoles used to be fun. You played games that the PC couldn't do. You didn't play FPS or RTS or anything like that. You played side scrollers that capitalized on the strengths of the dedicated GPU.

The Super Nintendo was a GREAT console. The TurboGraphix 16 was an AMAZING console that never sold. The NeoGeo never sold either, but GOD DAMN IT WAS AMAZING.

Then came the PlayStation. And the Sega Saturn. And thus began the inexplicable PC-izing of the console.

Imagine playing Street Fighter 2, and waiting a full minute and a half to start a fight. C'mon - where I'm from, you go through 3 opponents in a minute and a half!

And the game quality declined, too. As if some crappily rendered polygons would distract us from the fact that the games sucked.

And Sony began their horrific "let's try to make Nintendo look bad" marketing campaign, which consisted primarily of giving every idiot with $500 a development system and distribution license.

Then Sega followed suit with their "let's keep anyone from actually releasing GOOD games in the USA" plan.

Nintendo took the high road, releasing fewer games - but better ones. For the most part.

A couple months back, part 1 - the PC

Things were horrible. The BEST new game out there was C&C: Generals. A game so blindingly simple-minded that beating it on any of the first 3 levels took an hour and a half, but it was impossible to beat at all on the higher levels. Unreal 2 debuted, bringing new meaning to the word "garbage". 99% of the games at Electronics Boutique SAID "Pentium3 500 or better required, 700 or better recommended" but wouldn't run on anything less than 1GHZ.

A couple months back, part 2 - the Console

XBox Online debuted. Yippee. I can pay through the nose to get high latency and crappy remakes of perfectly good PC games. No thanks. If I wanted to be bent over I'd go to the adult bookstore, thanks.

Such amazing games as "Bloody Killers 15: The newest of the new batch" came out. It featured fighting directly ripped from Street Fighter, an array of anatomically incorrect and impossibly proportioned fighters, lots of blood... and no actual gameplay whatsoever.

Oh, and let's not forget our favorite import - "Battle Raper: Hyperfighting". Yeah, whatever.

The Only Good Thing About The Last 3 Years of Gaming

Gameboy Advance. Yes, every good game on it is a remake of a good game for Super Nintendo, but let's face it - that was the best mass-market console of the last 10 years. And who DOESN'T want to play Super Mario World with digital audio and extra levels?

A Glimmer of Light!

There have actually been some good PC games. All is not lost. Dungeon Siege was very good. Warcraft 3 was very good. Unreal Tournament 2003, despite being made by the same people that brought you the crapfest that is Unreal2, was very good. Return to Castle Wolfenstein, although absurdly easy and too short, was very good.

And there have always been holdouts making good console games. Squaresoft can always be counted on to release one mind-numbingly beautiful (yet impossibly long and filled with utterly monotonous fight sequences) Final Fantasy game each year or so... and a few other miscellaneous titles in between. Kingdom Hearts really made me a happy person for the better part of a week.

The Past Couple Months

I picked up a GameCube a couple months back. Mario Sunshine was beckoning. And hot damn that game is amazing. A few other half-baked titles on the system. Luigi's Mansion was great but short. Super Smash Brothers... *shrug*

So on a whim I took my friend's advice and actually rented Dark Cloud 2. After 5 minutes, I copied it. After 5 hours of playing the copy I bought it. I actually BOUGHT a console RPG that wasn't made by Square! This game is so damn good that you forget that you're playing on a PS2. You forget that it's 100% linear with zero plot deviation whatsoever. All that matters is that you fight like Zelda, you build towns like Settlers/Simcity, you modify and upgrade your weapons like... like... I dunno like what, it's like Diablo2 on steroids. This is the greatest game since ... since ... I dunno when.

Then the preorder for Zelda came in. JOY! I could now play Ocarina of Time (and the amazing Master Quest version) on my new console! And it was VERY good.

Then the new Zelda came out. Can I just say that I never thought I could have so much fun playing a console game? Ever? And the cell shading, although a bit bizarre at first, really grows on you, especially when you realize how FAST and FLUID it is, and how seamlessly really cool effects are built in.

Then I find Tierra Entertainment, and start playing remakes of really good PC adventure games. All hope is not lost!

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Ok, I'm done ranting. I have to get back to my TV. Link is almost through the Forgotten Fortress. Just one more pig-guard to sneak past before I get my sword back...

- Gurm

[Nowhere]

but Gurm, imho there were more very good games on PlayStation than on N64...MUCH more!
Of course this is due to the effect of scale, but either way, I like to have a choice...(and don't like n64 style games as you can guess...)
same for snes/psx I guess...I don't agree fully (though there are many wonderful games on snes...)

Either way, I have to agree with conclusion - maybe good times will come again (I mean, there wasn't a game for some time that woul force me to replace g400 with something faster...)

[Gurm]

There was nothing compelling on the PSX that I couldn't play a better version of on my PC. *shrug*

Maybe a few things that Julie liked.

- Gurm

[3dfx]

I liked that post Gurm a very enjoyable read
Although I think you can be a little harsh on the xbox at times ..lol it is not a glorified PC as it has a lot of great games that make the console stand on it's own. For instance Panzer Dragoon orta, KOTOR, Halo, DOA 3 and xtreme beach volley ball ..hehe and what about Project GOTHAM! Live is great to and I mean the chance to play fighting games with ppl around the world is a dream. Proper 5.1 on a console I mean most ppl dont even have that on their PC

[treilanin]

In all honesty I feel that the commercial game industry is still on a decline. Thanks to the great costs of actually developing a video game be it console or PC, all games have been derivative and evolutionary rather then original and revolutionary. It is quite evident when you walk into a store there are such an insane number of sequel titles that it is practical mind numbing. Publishers are just not willing to plunk down 3-4 million on a game that doesn't have an established franchise (movie or game sequel) or isn't a copy of the so called hot genre.

I know the last few games that I have bought have totally bored me to death.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein - > Boring... though the multiplayer is fun.

Medal of Honor : Allied Assault -> Was just another boring shooter... minus the well done Normandy Beach invasion level.

Dungeon Siege -> Was so so for the first time through it.

Diablo 2 -> Kept thinking how could I have enjoyed Diablo when Diablo 2 is so boring

Warcraft 3 -> Well done but I kept thinking "man I would rather play Starcraft" or "Haven't I played this before in 2D"

The last few really good games that I not only enjoyed, but found engrossing and enjoyable were :

Homeworld
Counterstrike

It's just a real pity that the independent developers have practically disappeared off the face of the earth. I really just wish there was the next iD software sitting out there making a killer game....

[Nowhere]

Gurm, first, not true...from my point of view (games I played) at least...
second, I really liked then (and still do) having the oportunity to play in front of tv, on couch, good controller, etc....
btw, for me it was little irritating then that pc versions (games generally...) were thought because of graphic effects (bi/trilinear filtering mainly...wchich I hated then, because it was applied to low-res textures and made everything blurry...heck, I don't like it even now) and high resolutions as "better". Simply put, to me they were awful (most of them, not all of course). Except 2d games - too bad they're dissapearing (can I have Fallout 3 in 2d, please?).
Apparently I like more the 'non-filtered', 'dithered', 'low colour count' world of many good PlayStation games than 'high-res', 'ultra sharp', 'millions of colours' world...
I like when world of the game is raw, non-polished and a little pale...like reality in some part...

oh well, must be my weird estetic sense...

[UtwigMU]

I believe the problem is like with movies, only worse and as other pointed out:

In order to release a game it takes lot's of money, in order to make that back, game industry relies on mass market.

A few years ago I donwloaded spectrum emulator. Despite 2-bit 8 colour graphics, I actually spent a few hours playing Defender of the Crown and Renegade (due to emulator's ability to save state of the machine, I was finally able to finish it).

Now remember the advent of cheap 32bit multimedia PC with VGA card:

All the games we are seing the sequels of now, were developed then:

CIV1, Simcity and Simcity 2000, Dune2, Warcraft, Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem, Reunion (25MB @_@, it took about 13 floppies ARJ-ed), Master of Magic, Master of Orion, various quests (Leisure suit Larry, Police/Space Quests, ... - I was never much a fan of quest games), 3D Rallye, NFS1

Now scroll to now: Civ3, Unreal II/Doom III, Simcity 4, MOO3, Hot Pursuit 2 (aka NFS3 II - a sequel of a sequel), most of adventures gone. Diablo 2 - in the days of GHz CPUs, 100s of Megabytes of RAM (I had much of early 90's games installed on 120MB drive), Gigabytes of HDD, we see the most linear story ever.

I was never much into consoles, so I won't comment on those.

But I'd say the game (not industry, the playability) is in decline.

[Novdid]

ahardjan...damn, you have high standards.

Lately I have given up on the quality of games, gaming wise. Nowadays I find myself always looking more and more on the graphics than concentrating on how the game plays, it's actually kinda sad.

I want to have the same feeling I had when played the original C&C the first time...

[treilanin]

It seems like the game publishers still fail to understand that Graphics != game. Nor do they understand that Gimic != game. Fundamentally at the core of any game, it must be playable and fun. If it isn't then what is the point of buying it?

All time the most played game that I have ever played and enjoyed has got to be Tetris Attack for the SNES. It was fun, different and very playable.

Anyways I have pretty much stopped purchasing new games hoping and waiting for some new and fresh to come along.

[Byock]

Yup, I hear ya. The old days, games were original, fresh, The graphics were not the best, but they were always fun to play. Now it is the same thing, with slightly different graphics. COME ON! Give us a fun new game please!!

[Gurm]

Originally posted by 3dfx
I liked that post Gurm a very enjoyable read

Danke.

Although I think you can be a little harsh on the xbox at times ..lol it is not a glorified PC

No, I never said that. I said it was a "baby PC without any useful hardware". I stand by that assertion. Were it not for MS's encrypted DVD's, I could play any XBox game, better and faster, on my PC.

as it has a lot of great games that make the console stand on it's own. For instance Panzer Dragoon orta,

An exclusive. That alone might prompt me to rent the system, I loved Panzer Dragoon on my Saturn.

KOTOR,

Haven't played this one yet. But another exclusive, IIRC.

Halo,

Halo is Tribes2 on a console. Tribes2 is Tribes with prettier graphics. Tribes is a cheap ripoff of Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, which was a vastly superior game in every way, but was released by Looking Glass - which means it was targeted at today's technology but released in the late 90's. This is why Looking Glass is out of business. LOL.

DOA 3

A fighting game. Nintendo has Bloody Roar, which I find substantially more compelling, and enjoyable - since it uses the familiar SSF2 combo system.

beach volley ball ..hehe

Titties do not make a compelling game, so sorry. BMX XXX will also fail utterly.

and what about Project GOTHAM!

*shrug* I found it unrealistic, and if you're going to play an unrealistic racing game, there are hundreds. If you want realism, you play Gran Turismo, which is a Sony Property.

Live is great to and I mean the chance to play fighting games with ppl around the world is a dream.

Possibly. But if the Unreal online setup is any indication, Live sucks ass for a great majority of people. The latency alone is a nightmare.

Proper 5.1 on a console I mean most ppl dont even have that on their PC

*shrug* nForce audio will do that for ya. But again I fail to see the point for 99% of games. The only reason you need anything beyond Pro Logic II is for FPS, which suck ass on consoles, XBox included.

- Gurm

[Gurm]

I want that C&C feeling too.

I want the feeling I got when I first played Civilization.

Or when Steve Wilbur sent us the first playable alpha of Doom.

Or the first time I fired up Dune 2.

Or King's Quest.

Or Prince of Persia.

I could go on and on, but things ARE getting better. Like I said, the new Zelda is un-****ing-believable, and Dark Cloud 2 is a masterpiece.

- Gurm

[UtwigMU]

I second that. I spent proabably the most time of my gaming on Civilization. Now CIV3 has been sitting on the shelf for weeks and I even didn't bother to finish the tutorial.

[Sethos]

Well I've been out of the gamming for quite some time, but am now comming back...I've started off with CS and am now ready to move in to BF 1942 and C&C Generals (I've heard mixed reviews of this game, but I'm willing to go for it unless I hear massive protest against it...)

Now the game that I'm really waiting for is Star Wars Galaxies Anyone else here heard of this yet??? It sounds absolutely amazing!!

~Sethos

[Gurm]

You and the rest of the known world. It's been delayed... again.

- Gurm