Not too long ago, I was convinced that the modern day gaming world was a rather empty and shallow one. If you grew up with games like The 7th Guest, the Keen series, Metroid, adventure games like Monkey Island or Full Throttle, and so on, more modern games seemed to have little to offer, besides yet another nameless hero in a grey space suit killing aliens in a grey world with the same set of twelve weapons. However, a little speck of hope was flickering on the horizon, a game seemingly made by people who could read my mind; a game about a post-apocalyptic wasteland, filled with quests and epic stories, where you were free to do whatever you wanted. Yes, I looked forward to Fallout 3, and since my computer was too old to run any game more recent than Wolfenstein, I decided to buy a game console. Read on to see how my venture into the world of modern gaming turned out.
I decided to settle on the XBox 360, mainly because it’s so much cheaper than the PlayStation 3. The Wii was obviously not an option because Fallout 3 won’t be ported to it, but apart from that, I think the Wii is an overhyped useless gimmick – and yes, I’ve played with it a lot. A few of my friends have one, and they all seem to agree that while the Wii was kind of fresh and cool when it was released, it lost its shine pretty quickly. The Wii-mote motion sensor thing is fun when you first use it, but when you realise that every game that uses it basically amounts to frantically waving a plastic rod in front of your face, it quickly loses its novelty factor. One of my best friends – die-hard Nintendo fan – sold his Wii in favour of an XBox 360. And it snowed in hell that day.
The XBox 360 itself is a nice device, convenient with its wireless controllers, albeit ridiculously loud fan-wise (luckily my audio/video cabinet covers everything with black glass). Connecting the XBox 360 to my HD TV via HDMI, and to my scary Pioneer VSX-709RDS digital receiver via optical cable enables games to really suck you in via the high definition graphics and the digital surround sound. Considering that the last console that I actually used extensively was the NES, you can imagine the leap forward that I made.
I played Fallout 3 rather meticulously. The gameplay, the setting, the storyline, the fantastic graphics, the impressive scenery, and the funny and well-written dialogues with the NPCs really sucked me in, sucked me in so deep it started to scare me. I remember a Sunday evening, after a whole day of frollicking about in the DC Wasteland, when I left my house to visit my parents, and the first thing that popped into my mind as I shut the front door behind me was “duck, and where’s my Chinese assault rifle?”. That’s how immersive Fallout 3 is. Still, it left my with a feeling of incompleteness.
After being done with Fallout 3, I bought several other games for my XBox, and as I finished each one of them, I slowly started to realise that gaming today is seriously crippled because of a number of different factors. I bought some of the major XBox 360 titles, and all of them – including Fallout 3 – left me with a serious sense of not being done, of leaving obvious things out. Let me explain what I’m missing in modern games in more detail.
Content
Reviewers more or less unanimously agree that Fallout 3 is one of the best games in a long time. They went on and on about the immense sandbox you can play in, and all the various choices you can make that will affect the way you play the game. They went into great detail to explain all the things you can do in the game, and how it will keep you playing and exploring forever and ever. Bollocks. I think all those reviewers are either 14, or paid by Bethesda. Let me explain.
Fallout 3 takes place in a large square playable area known as the DC Wasteland, an area so large you’d need to pack some extra crisps and coffee if you want to venture from one side to the other without using the fast travel option. There are tons of sights to discover, tons of buildings to explore, and lots of beautiful scenery to drool over. Yet, there’s absolutely bugger-all to do.
As I was marching up and down the Wasteland, I could literally think of hundreds of possible quests and NPC storylines, but yet, Bethesda chose to only include like 3 quests, and then hoped that we players would never grow tired of killing the same 4 enemies over and over and over and over and over again. The problem with that is that as a gamer looking for depth and story, you will quickly start to feel bored. Maybe I’m too old (I’m just 24!) for this stuff, but killing the same party of raiders or super mutants 25 times in a row gets real old, real fast. VATS saves the day somewhat, but there are only so many ways you’ll enjoy blasting someone’s head off with a shotgun in slow motion. Maybe 14 year olds never get tired of this, but I do.
Fallout 3 lacks content. It actually only has 17 side quests, which is simply too little for such a huge playing field. The main quest is well-written, but also isn’t particularly long or difficult. This means that most of the time exploring the wasteland you’re just wasting your time, because there’s no story to be found anywhere. Some might say that writing good quests is hard, but I disagree. All quests in RPGs basically come down to “you are at location A, now go to location B, and grab object C. Oh, and there’s a whole boatload of baddies between A and B”. It’s really not that difficult to come up with vast numbers of stories to drape over this basic skeletal structure.
The end result is that in Fallout 3, there a lot of locations that seemingly only exist for the sole purpose of housing the same types of enemies over and over. Fallout 3 really lacks in the different types of enemies, and this only reinforces the repetitive nature of the story-less wasteland.
This is what I mean by modern games lacking content. Games have great visual and audio presentation, but lack in the story and depth. This works great for arcade-style games like Ninja Gaiden 2, but for games that call themselves RPG, I expect an in-depth story, with so many sidequests you’re almost drowning in them. In something like the DC Wasteland, every character should have a story, something to tell me, some errand that I can run for them. Sadly, most NPCs in modern RPGs are absolutely pointless and only seem to exist to mindlessly walk in between the barrel of your laser rifle and the face of the nearest baddie.
A very good example of a game with astonishing visual presentation, but a total lack of content is Bioshock. Praised as the second coming of Christ, I finished this game in 10 hours (try that with the Bible), without being in a hurry. Remember, I’m new at this whole thing, I barely know how to hold a controller – yet, Bioshock was so easy and so short, it left me totally unsatisfied. They give you this great underwater city, this interesting concept of Adam and gene splicing, yet they fail to capitalise on it by actually giving you anything to play with.
And I just have to mention Assassin’s Creed as the epitome of form over function. Best graphics ever, but there’s no gameplay at all.
Sure, you say, but isn’t the character customisation and good/bad karma thing of many modern games in-depth enough? No, it isn’t, and this brings me to my second point.
Replay value
Fable II was high on my list of games to buy. The idea of being able to influence yourself and the people around you by the decisions you make in a game seemed right up my alley. Again, this game has an awesome Burton-esque presentation, yet failed to deliver anything in the sense of wanting to play it over and over again. The main quest is easy (the final “boss” is literally killed by two (2) gunshots!), and the whole good/evil aspect is utterly pointless because it affects zero-nada-squelch. No matter if you’re good or evil, the game remains essentially the same.
Fallout 3 has the exact same problem, and the same goes for Bioshock. Sure, you can choose to be either good or evil, but in the end, nothing of value actually changes because of it. In Fallout 3, no matter if you’re good or evil, you’ll play the same main quest, find the same side quests, the same NPCs, the same weapons, the same environments, and you’ll have the same possibilities. The only thing that seems to change is the karma indicator on your Pip-Boy. So, after my slightly evil character Fiona (don’t ask) finishes the main quest, and I sit through the 5-picture slideshow that apparantly was the ending sequence that is supposed to be my reward for countless hours of gameplay, why would I want to play it again? Just to do the exact same 3 quests all over again, but this time without the surprise and comedic effect of the dialogues? Just to get 5 different pictures in my ending sequence slideshow?
Fable 2 is no different, except for the fact that the world around you actually changes based on your moral decisions. Still, this doesn’t actually change the game and the storyline, so while everything may look a little darker when you’re a bad girl, you are still playing the same game as when you were a good girl (in case you’re wondering, yes, when given the choice, my character is always female). And don’t even get me started on Bioshock’s moral decisions, which affect even less aspects of the game than Fallout’s.
So, reviewers and game makers may claim that you have a choice in modern games, that you have a sandbox filled with sand out of which you can shape and build the game, but it’s all merketing fluff and nonsense. Games today are still as linear as they were 15 years ago, they just look better. Your choices ultimately do not affect the outcome of the game.
If a game’s good/evil thing were to really have any effect, it would mean that being good unlocked different quests and items than being evil. It would mean that after having finished the game as a good girl, you’d be all excited to play the game again, but this time as a bad girl, because you’d know you’d unlock all sorts of new quests and items, and that the main storyline would be completely different. Yet, this doesn’t happen, and as such, the good/evil thing is a useless marketing gimmick that offers little in the sense of additional gameplay.
This brings my to another point on my list, which is gratification.
Gratification
When I devote countless hours, and not to mention Euros, to a game, I expect it to reward me when I finally finish it. I played Fallout 3 for round and about 140 hours (mainly because I was out looking for quests that weren’t really there), and when I finally deciced to embark on the final quest, I expected a battle against-all-odds, frustrations, do-overs, and flying controllers. What I got was something completely different.
I more or less inferred I’d be fighting the Enclave during the final stages of the game, and this made me a little excited, because those bastards are pretty tough to fight when in groups. I expected a load of new enemies as well, so I made sure I was stocked up on stim paks and ammo before I started the final quest. And then everything went tits up.
The final quests consists of following a massive MechWarrior-esque robot who basically does all the killing and fighting for you. All you have to do is stay behind him and collect the loot of the dead Enclave soldiers – loot you’re not going to need anyway, but hey, in an RPG, grabbing loot is a reflex. You then shoot a few Enclave baddies in a building, flick a switch, and the game ends. It was so easy I kept on telling myself this was just an intro to a massive battle.
When I realised I had actually finished the game, I was all ready to grab some chips, and make me a nice pot of tea, but before I even got up off the couch, the ending sequence was already over. Five pictures slid by, with the voice over telling a three-sentence story, and that was it. The end. That’s your reward for 140 hours of gaming and 64 Euros. A sepia slideshow.
Bioshock wasn’t much better, with that game’s ending sequence lasting like five seconds. Fable 2 was a little bit better, but it was still short and wholly unfulfilling. Oblivion at least had a fight between two huge monsters, but it was again rather short, and you could only look at the battle – not play with it. All in all, quite meager. Since games are so expensive, I believe I’m well within my rights to demand a final quest/stage that is actually difficult, and one that triggers an ending sequence that effortlessly blends in with the actual game, and that lasts longer than a friggin’ sneeze.
The cause
The world of gaming today is flooded by unimaginative, boring, thirteen-a-dozen games like Halo and Gears Of War, which sell by the millions but offer little in the sense of originality or new gaming concepts. The few games that try to be a little bit different, that at least try to offer something new either don’t sell more than three copies, or have glaring faults that make the games very disappointing (Fable II and Bioshock, mostly). Why is that so?
I believe that there are two causes. You’re not going to like at least one of them.
The first reason has to do with competition. Gaming studios – like any other type of company – need to compete with one another in order to stay alive. This means that publishers will put pressure on developers to get their products out on the market as soon as possible, because you don’t want your competition to steal your thunder – especially not during the holiday season. If the pressure is high enough, gaming studios have only one option: rush the development of the game. I don’t need to explain what this can lead to; it usually means narrowing the scope of the game in question in order to meet the deadline. This generally means less story, and therefore, less depth.
However, competition isn’t nearly as big a problem as you.
Wait, what? Me? Yes, you. You, gamers, are, in the end, the people that decide which games get made, and which games don’t. Mindless shooters like Halo and Gears Of War sell by the millions because of you, and because of you buying these games, game studios will only make more of them. Sure, you can make an astonishingly great and jaw-dropping game like Grim Fandango, but if people don’t buy it, nobody is going to make something like that again.
Basically, if a game doesn’t present its players with either violence, tits, or both within the first 5 minutes of playing the game, gamers aren’t going to buy it. And even though I personally don’t have a problem with either tits or [animated!] violence, the amount of attention and detail going into these two elements is just mind blowing. I remember a time when games had nor tits nor violence – yes! – but they were still good. Keen didn’t have tits or violence (or a 3rd dimension for that matter), but it still runs circles around just about any game made today.
There’s a lot of hipocrysy in the minds of many gamers today. Almost every gamer I talk to tells me they want games with depth, carefully written storylines, and maginificent scenery – yet they camp out in front of game shops whenever the next game featuring a nameless space marine killing aliens/Russians/Chinese/terrorists comes out. I’m trying very hard to stick to my guns (you have to admit, that’s a good one) when I say that I like games which at least promise me depth and decent storytelling – and I try to buy only those.
Let me assure you that despite my epic rant above, I still enjoyed the games mentioned. It’s just that I can’t shake the feeling that the people behind those games had intended for their projects to be so much more, only to be thwarted by their publishers and even more so by the realisation that their audiences care only about how detailed the exploding bodies are, or about how bouncy the tits are.
Frankly, I don’t think gamers are to blame. The gaming population 10 years ago was much smaller, now every grandma plays games. So millions of people buying mediocre games are not the main reason for these cheesy games. There’s different demographics at work, and much greater temptations. 10 years ago you had gaming enthusiasts making games, now you have corporations.
You can compare this to the movie situation: studios versus indies.
Furthermore, in a mass market population, you can’t come with top notch content and sell it at an average price without going under. Imagine Ferraris being sold for the price of Fiats…
So, you do the cheap part first, and maybe later on you can come up with some content.
Baldur’s Gates’ don’t grow on trees, you know?
Edited 2008-12-21 21:54 UTC
Hear, hear! I have stopped playing games since the mid ninetees. I bought a Playstation 2 with some of the ‘blockbuster’ games, but I was completely bored with it after two weeks. The only game I keep going back to is Darwinia, which has a totally different feel and different gameplay than most well-funded games. Not surprisingly, it is developed by an enthusiastic indie gaming company. I can’t wait until Multiwinia is released for Linux or OS X
.
As someone else who grew up with gaming in the mid 80s and 90s, I have to say the PS2, is the greatest games console to come out since the SNES. Games like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, Killer 7, the Persona series, Okami and many others can all easily hold their own against games from both earlier and later generations.
Baldur’s Gate is the perfect or possibly the best example of the type of depth that has not been repeated since the late 90s/early 2000.
To supplement the complaints, I should add that creating a masterpiece work of writing such as dialogues or a story with the proper characters, the proper climax, and the proper ending all coming together as well as a game such as Baldur’s Gate achieved, is no trivial task. Perhaps it’s also appropriate to say that “Writers” who can create Baldur’s Gate quality level work don’t grow on trees.
I would not call this true, the funny thing is the gaming industry has gone the way of the mainstream, do not expect too much depth coming from the big ones, and I call Bethesta to be one of them. Although for Bethestas standard they have almost outdone themselves with Fallout (I cannot agree with the original post Fallout 3 has a lot of depth if you dont run through the main quest) anyway. If you want depth don´t look at Bethesta look at others.
Personal favorites since 2000: Arx Fatalis, which is probably Ultima Underworld 3, Gothic 1 and 2.
For RPGs, also I have to look at the Witcher we gets huge praise by many but others say it stinks, so lets see!
Also if you want real hardcore RPG the old style look at the latest Black Eye game Drakensang (probably Dragons song or son in the translation)
Totally! Wholesomely! Spoken out of my heart!
Words are not enough to express just how much I agree.
Now, it could be argued that the value of such a game isn’t in its end sequence it’s in the 100+ hours put into it. But as said in the article , that time was spent basically looking for something to do or happen.
Game developers should take a good look at the SNES era games, like Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Chrono Trigger and all similar ones.
Granted they too followed mostly the same pattern and there was a lot of grinding. But they had boss fights that actually were hard and thus very gratifying.
But I guess the kids and gamers today just can’t stand having to try beating a game.
Yeah, Chrono Trigger. I just was about to mention it, too. That was an awesome game with an complex storyline. A game I also like very much is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. A thing they both have in common is the really good music! If the game music annoys me I can’t enjoy the game.
However, there is a relatively new game I like very much: Portal. Well, if it just wasn’t so extremely short!
For me games should be like interactive movies.
Lots of story and not much grind or repetitive stuff.
So if a Game only lasts 6 hours (like Halo3), but the story is good and it has lots of content for 6 hours I am totally OK with that.
Playing a game for 140 hours is just stupid in my book. Insane waste of time.
And regarding the Xbox360: I got mine on Saturday and on Sunday I finished Halo3. Now I don’t really need it anymore. All other games are not good enough in my book. And that frickin’ thing is soo damn loud. Amazon is getting it back.
I want to play MGS4 on the PS3 now. Nothing else is good enough.
I do indeed think that many games are dark and shallow. However games like Pokemon Snap, and others, possibly Mario, and the like, show that one can make games without violence, and still be attractive. Peace.
From TFA:
All quests in RPGs basically come down to “you are at location A, now go to location B, and grab object C. Oh, and there’s a whole boatload of baddies between A and B”
Talk is cheap, game development isn’t. If we game developers did what you say, we’d be bashed for “wasting the player’s time with an averload of similar quests” or something like that.
I find pretty amusing when people say “X developer should’ve done this or that” because most don’t realize how much work making a game is, specially a huge, open world RPG like Fallout 3.
And congratulations on your purchase, you’ll have loads of material to bitch about
Thom,
maybe you expect too much of games.
I agree with you on all your points, but I still manage to squeeze loads of fun out of many of the games I play. Notably, Deus Ex (keep coming back to that game), Thief 1 and 2 (idem), and (more recently) Mount&Blade.
Mount&Blade is worth mentioning, ’cause it contains a shallow (if not nonexistent) storyline and a load of stupid quests, but it keeps me hooked
You have to have played this game to know the gratification of thundering over the battlefield on a heavy hunter, couching your lance and making Swadian Knight-sis kebab 
but…
I would suggest you keep your console out in the open, with plenty of air flow around it. The Xbox does tend to get really hot and you keeping it inside an enclosure behind black glass is honestly asking for it to melt down on you…
Thom,
Try de Blob on the Wii, Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3 and Braid on the XBOX360.
de Blob was a breath of fresh air for me and MGS4 has all the storyline depth that you seek. The problem is that most of the this depth is connected with the previous games on the MGS franchise.
Have fun!
Edited 2008-12-21 23:11 UTC
I enjoy a first person shooter as much as the next person, but games with engrossing (at least moderately complex) stories will always come first in my book.
Too many rpg’s these days just seem like work instead of fun. Some games like final fantasy usually (for me) have some form of payback in terms of story (plus the main quest is usually quite long…makes me feel as if I’m getting my money’s worth). Far too many games have single player campaigns/stories that are too short and whilst one can have a heck of a good time playing with friends and online any sense of accomplishment quickly fades.
So basically I’ll invest in games like FF and Heavy Rain, everything else comes from bargain bin.
p.s. Grim Fandango is the best game EVAR
Edited 2008-12-21 23:12 UTC
I’ll second your complaint about too many RPG’s seeming like work these days. Unfortunately, recent installments of the Final Fantasy series are just as guilty as any other (and I don’t say that lightly as FF is far and away my favorite RPG series besides Fallout).
I mean, all that grinding and leveling up just to make sure you don’t get waxed by the next boss can get really tedious. And I’m all for having sidequests but there has to be a limit to the difficulty; I don’t want things so damned easy that I could do the whole thing blindfolded but, then again, a BradyGames game guide should not be a requirement for finishing a game, either. Clues or hints in which you have to exercise the mind for a solution are what I’m talking about here, not stuff that you’d never know existed without having to purchase a $20 manual.
Edited 2008-12-22 01:53 UTC
I think graphic and sound technologies have advanced rapidly in the past ten years – AI and plot resources have not. How exactly do you program a good plot? How do you make the computer anticipate a player’s strategy and ratchet up the competition? I’m not sure.
I feel your rant – I was always disappointed with the real lack of coop capabilities in games. I don’t understand why any of the Halo games setup a true survival mode – six players against waves of hundreds of aliens. But the problem is that above – computer AI has a limit. On the other hand, multiplayer does not – since we humans can learn new things, try new strategies, and challenge each other.
And another aspect is time and skill. At some point, does a game become less fun if it is too hard? Shouldn’t a game instantly be fun to play, rather than requiring some amount of time invested? And so are you asking for games that anyone can play – or games that are for serious gamers?
The biggest thing that changed from the 90s to our era of games? You. Your age. (Mine too!) Yeah, you are 24 – you want more depth games. Congratulations for growing up. One option is to expand your interests beyond games and into challenges that we really face in the world. Games can still be fun to play, but life has pretty rewarding plots and challenges to face that go way beyond anything a computer could ever be programmed to do.
I agree that that both FO3 and Bioshock are lacking in some areas, namely content and story. However both games provide an amazing immersive experience and I think that was the main goal of the developers. That being the case, the people who prefer story over immersion are going to feel that something big is missing. Very few games have successfully delivered both immersion and a good story. Oddly, many of the games that do it right end up losing in popularity (Planescape: Torment, Omikron).
Being a PC gamer I feel that the release content of Fallout 3 is only the beginning. The community created content is what will eventually give the game longevity. Developers shouldn’t rely on community development to make the game good however.
An aside: I have found myself spending more time playing retro games than I do modern games. It’s cheap and their are plenty of games to choose from. I could probably spend the rest of my life finding great games from the 80s and 90s to play for the first time.
Edited 2008-12-21 23:24 UTC
You may like to say all wii games are the same, but they aren’t, here’s a few you may like:
-Mario Galaxy
-Zelda, Twilight Princess
-Metroid Prime 3
-Wario Ware
-And the best games to play wuth friends don’t involve that much wiimote wanking: Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party Wii, Mario Strikers, etc..
“literate” PC/360/PS gamers often seem to bash nintendo brands because of “mario brand abuse” while forgetting that nintendo is definitely the favorite game studio out there amongst most gamers (even before the wii) and has the highest standard of quality.
Certainly it is true that those games are extremely well put together and are fun for everybody.
However I really would like to know if Nintendo would ever succeed in making a game purely for mature players, like FO3 or Bioshock. None of their games have ever had a particularly good story or depth of characters. In my experience I have always had superficial fun with nintendo games (not necessarily less just not something that hits me on many levels).
I get the feeling that nintendo stays in their comfort area hence the continuous rehash of their franchises
also:
“most gamers” depends on your definition
Edited 2008-12-21 23:35 UTC
What is a game for mature players? A game that has violence, gore, nudity, sex, religion, realistic firearms, etc? Being “mature” doesn’t necesarily mean willing to see that kind of stuff.
Nintendo games are just for picking up, playing and having fun because the game mechanic is fun and creative to play, just by itself, and doesn’t really “need” a complex story or mature themes to be fun.. you can find those in books or movies.
This is why they are the most succesful game studio (I’m not even talking about being hardware vendor), as they gather gamers from all ages.
Actually I would call that kind of game games for the male teen crowd. There is a time in life of ever male teenager when this stuff matters it usually is the time between 13 and 22 later this stuff does not matter but it is not an annoyance either.
So putting as much violence and gore into games is definitely not making them for an adult audience it gathers more to teenage guys who find this stuff cool (because it is cool for them due to being labeled being adult and due to the testosteron level they have 🙂 )
I am in my late 30s and already way out of that phase and I personally have a different feeling of what I would consider a game for an adult audience. For me an important story, a good setting, excellent non repetetive gameplay mechanics are the most important stuff nowadays!
Back when Final Fantasy was made for the Nintendo consoles, those games had a certain degree of “maturity” about them while maintaining a sort of family-friendly atmosphere. In my opinion, Final Fantasy III had one of the best storylines (and scores) in all of gaming history, though I didn’t have the patience (and probably skill) to beat that game without cheats. And I’d say also that the Zelda games have always had a good storyline, not been some sort of surface, superficial game, and had some sense of maturity about them that other Nintendo games lacked. I’ve played a few of the Wii games, though, and aside from Twilight Princess, the ones I played (Mario Kart, Smash Bros., and some Sonic game) all seemed not very well put together and rather boring. I’ll still try them out since I’ve only played very little, but I’ll not be buying one anytime soon. I’ll be sticking to the Game Cube and my old SNES emulators for a while, assuming I ever get time to play them.
Edited 2008-12-22 19:49 UTC
They did, the metroid series is probably the perfect examples.
Btw. I personally hate if mature always is connected to extreme violence and gore.
But if you want to go to that extreme: Nintendo has released a Survival Horror game on the cube and to my knowledge another one is in the works for the Wii.
But this is simply not their main stuff, their main stuff is family friendly stuff, that does not mean it is not hardcore to the ground, which in many cases it is!
I think wii sports is the best game ever. We were able to teach our 4 year old niece how to use it and she can now throw ‘strikes’ and ‘spares’ in bowling. I can play baseball during the winter. It really is the virtual reality.
I don’t like using a controller; would much rather use a mouse and keyboard.
Try getting Omikron: Nomad Soul. It’s a PC/Dreamcast game from 1999. You won’t be disappointed. Storyline, immersion, great soundtrack (David Bowie as in-game music band!). Just the sound of opening metal doors made shivers run down my spine. It’s that good.
Btw, you could have warned about the Fallout 3 spoilers, I’m only 45hrs into the game!
i agree, and try Fahrenheit too (rel. sep.2005 known as Indigo Prophecy in the United States and Canada), comes also from “Quantic Dream”. It doesn’t have much diviation but game does change according to your actions, and u can even have sex with ur ex-girlfriend, if u do it right when she comes to pick up her things, yammi 8)
Wow omikron, that game got such terrible reviews. I remember because I got it as a present from someone and immediately looked it up and thought it would be a terrible game, but reviews can be wrong like it was for fall out 3.
While I did have a blast in fallout 3 it was nothing compared to playing Oblivion or Morrowind. The quests were not there the end game wasnt there, there was nothing to keep you playing after you finished it, nothing. I tried and tried to do things after I beat it, but it had nothing to do.
If you really really do want to have a blast in a game with tons of side quests I suggest you pick up oblivion, even though most rpg fans think of it as a bad game because of the way leveling works(mobs level with you). The amount of fun quests are way out there. For example there are quests to be a theif, a mass murder, a wizard, a knights just about anything you desire even being a gladiator.
I recall omikron getting high 80s in pcgamer… quite good by all accounts
in the article.
It is Commander Keen!
heehee
:b
Your right games lack any real depth. My brother wonders why I play Car racing games. I only do that to get my gaming fix.
I feel time is wasted if you expect and an adventure and it doesn’t deliver. In saying this, I feel the games you described like Fallout 3 are made to look like they are for an adult audience but are really made for teens.
Edited 2008-12-21 23:36 UTC
I just bought Persona 4, Eternal Poison and Mana Khemia. They should keep me occupied for a while, and next month Ar Tonelico 2 will be out.
I always was saing (long before Fallout 3 by Bethesda) that this will be shit, something like Oblivion with Guns(TM) and nothing more, unfortunelly I was right.
Lets face the truth, cRPG is dead today, what is the last cRPG game with great plot, hard different quests charismatic NPCs and so …
The only names here that I recall are Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate I + II, Icewind Dale I + II (less but still counts), Temple of Elemental Evil, Lionheard (not so bad really) …
So cRPG generally died about 2003 AD (Anno Demoni) …
The only choice is to play them again and again from time to time, with unofficial addons like Fallout Megamod / Shattered / Restoration, Dark Side of the Swoard Coast (BG2), Tales of the North Coast (BG1) and so on … at least I do that.
I played Fallout 3, but the only word that comes into my mind is “is taht a joke or a parody?” but unfortunelly all today’s games are like that, shit in one word.
RIP Black Isle.
Maybe in the west but Japanese RPGs are alive and well. Just go out and buy Persona 4 for the PS2, it was just released earlier this month.
You probably remember them because Baldurs’ Gate I & II were out in ’97/’98 when a lot of us were already out of university degrees and working in the field(s) and/or married.
Well, I’m 24, same as Thom, I got my university degree about a month ago
That explains it. I was suffering as a consultant working at ATT Wireless when those games were released.
Which is why I’m going for games driven more and more by player interaction and less by the environment, i.e., PvP MMORPGs. Right now I’m playing Warhammer Online because of its PvP focus, and I’m waiting for Darkfall’s release because it completely does away with such things like questing and leveling and brings MMO PvP to a whole new level along with a new physics system. I also like to FPS multiplayer games although I’m currently not playing any and looking for some good ones (any suggestions welcome!).
On another note Thom, you should give Wii games a try – they still have the classic rewarding and fulfilling feeling of a game but with excellent graphics and sounds.
To a large degree, I sympathize with Thoms views on today’s gaming. I think, Merkoth was a bit harsh retorting up there, as I can’t see any reason why not to be dissatisfied with gaming affairs these days. Yes, gaming is a huge commercial enterprise, bigger than movies, but there’s no reason why gaming should follow in the footsteps of the movies business. At least, the ‘Powers that Be’ of movie makers [think Big studies; Management] actually has a sense of how diverse peoples tastes are, and will gladly support a ‘narrow’ film.
Now, we must understand, making games these days is seriously ressouce-demanding, in terms of manpower and manhours. This is mostly due to the fact that Graphics have become so incredibly more complex and advanced as opposed to graphics in games 15 years ago – and so need far more work to fulfil the expectations of gamers today.
The reason I mention this, is that in my opinion, the complete gaming business is completely graphics driven! People are getting better and better graphics for their PCs and their Consoles, and the work needed to produce game-graphics which will satisfy peoples investments into better looking PCs and consoles, is escalating. So, naturally, the gaming studies and especially publishers, want to make sure, they can cash in on a new game, as each game published represents a HUGE investment, which they want to secure a proper return on.
So, whenever a game publisher and -studio decides to produce a game, gameplay and ‘intelligent’ content is gradually toned down, the pre-release ‘hype machine’ is all about how fantastic the game will look (” Yeah, i’ve got this new $399 graphics card | this new $499 console, I can now justify spending 50 bucks on this new game!]. Gradually toned down to the point of none-existence, because it simply DOES NOT SELL – at least not in the minds of the game producers.
Actually, The Wii tried to remedy this, but not many gaming studios are geared towards that kind of thinking (where gameplay/having fun is above beautiful graphics), and so it seems to have failed. Yet, it sold – and is still selling – very good, because of that very promise of letting people ‘simply have fun playing games’.
In essense, my point is, that most gaming studies are soo hardwired culturally and productionwise to producing games with high visual aesthetic value that making good, fun, lasting games a bit more challenging than the typically empty shoot’em ups seems very hard and outright ridiculous.
Yes SOME (the vast majority stink to high heaven) of the wii games are fantastic. But to me they simply lack the depth that I’m accustomed to from earlier (Deus Ex) pc gaming, even xbox360 and the ps3 are dumbed down, but not to the level of the wii. For serious gamers the attraction to the wii is less to the platform but more to one or two games (mostly those by nintendo).
I agree on most parts, BioShock had a very poor story and athmosphere, nothing compared to System Shock 2. Fallout3 in contrast has a very good athmosphere, a lot of potential for exciting stories in cities like Megaton and Lamplight Caverns. In addition, the game got much too easy in the end, with tons of perfectly repaired weapons, Tesla armor and companion. The end is too easy and experience points are ‘Max'(?!?!) long before all attributes are maximized.
Oblivion had a lot more quests, also some more complex ones.
I find it interesting that you included Full Throttle in your list of “games you grew up on”. I thought Full Throttle sucked. There were no side quests, and the main quest was entirely too easy and way too short. It had no replay value, and it took me less than one day to beat the game.
Definitely would not go on my list of good adventure games.
Oblivion’s main quest was a little short, I agree. But there are tons of side quests. Like the Mages Guild, and such. And if you find it too easy, just crank the difficultly level up. I assure you that if you crank the difficultly level up, you will really need to be careful playing the game
Also, Morrowind runs under the XBox emulation on the 360, and was quite a bit better than Oblivion as far as the story lines, the number of factions you can join, etc. It’s also more difficult as you don’t automatically recharge magicka and such in Morrowind like you do in Oblivion. When it’s gone it’s gone, and you only get it back with potions or by resting.
And of course, if you really want hard core, ADOM and Nethack are free, and run on virtually any hardware no matter how old.
Edited 2008-12-22 00:41 UTC
Remember Asylum, Gruds in Space, Hobbit, Critical Mass, Masquerade, Borrowed Time, Nine Princes in Amber and so on… (all at least for Commodore 64)?
Yes, those were the days…
Ain’t it true! I’ve started using my C64 quite a bit over the past year. There is something to be said about the simpler games of yore.
I mentioned just graphic adventures – but wasn’t Elite perhaps the biggest “hit” of all 8-bit times? Many afternoons (and even nights) spent flying across the universe, accomplishing another mission…
And what about “pure text” adventures made by Infocom (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Zork-s and so on)?
And all that arcade games, like Zaxxon, Raid over Moscow (are the Carver brothers still in business?), GI Joe, then tactic & strategy (like those made by SSI)… memories.
And what the modern games offer? Better graphics and sound – but in 8-bit days my own imagination was enough to play text adventure. What next?
Call me old school, but the human brain is the most powerful gaming platform ever created. 25 years later, and I’m still waiting for a game that can keep me as enthralled as Zork (and many of the other classic Infocom titles) did.
Though, I will admit, Myst did capture my imagination when first released. But then that broke new ground at the time, as well.
But still waiting…
Ah, zork and the rest of those text games. Now, those made you think, and I mean really think. Granted, there’s no graphics, and no audio in most of them, but perhaps that’s for the better, as puzzles were far more important in those games–remember trying to get the third (I think it was the clear) crystal sphere in the original zork? Or how about that time puzzle in Sorcerer, or the vault in Spellbreaker? The only problem was most of them didn’t have a lot of replay value as far as completing the game differently, though seeing some of the odd results when you performed an action it didn’t expect could be pretty amusing. And of course, there were some of the very creative ways to die, which were usually just as funny as the rest of the game. Hell, even dying was fun in those games.
A good and valid point, and I don’t disagree. But I also think the really good interactive-fiction games were almost like good novels; you would enjoy them, put them on your shelf, and then go back to experience them again some time down the road.
Unless, of course, it involved poor Floyd in Planetfall… That scarred me in my developmental years almost as much as Disney’s brutality towards Bambi’s mother or Old Yeller…
Yes, you’re right: some newer games for PC were enjoyable as well: Myst was very interesting, I like Legacy (adventure) very much, then Darkseed, but the Might & Magic series as well, and f.e. several AD&D titles (starting from Pool of Radiance). And what about Sierra’s adventures, like Space Quest? And Sid Meier’s titles (Civilisation first, of course)? Just to name a few.
But look: still talking about older titles…
so, the most important is IDEA – much more important than astonishing graphics…
Yes, I was really into infocom back then aswell. Lurking Horror was probably my favourite but they were all great. ‘The pawn’ was the first text adventure where I thought graphics actually enhanced the experience somewhat. Anyway, most of the old games that I remember fondly and have been able to run nowadays in emulators have scored high in nostalgia but not so high in actual playability (not counting text adventures which still holds up). So for me it’s perhaps not that I think the games were so much better back then, but that they (apart from graphics and sound) generally aren’t much better nowadays.
That said I’m not much of a gamer, basically the only games (not counting emulators) I’ve really played the past 6 years has been Starcraft on the PC(it never gets old!), Pro Evolution Soccer on the PS2 and Mario Kart and Wii Sports on the Wii. Games like WOW etc holds little to no interest for me since they demand a huge investment of time.
Now that’s a nice screenshot.
Actually I liked Gears of War which you described as a “mindless shooter”. Just because you didn’t like it (or haven’t played it yet) doesn’t mean that it’s “mindless”. There’s a reason it was the top selling game for XBox 360: People liked it and I think that’s what matters in the end. Game Studios aren’t out to satisfy just your needs neglecting what millions want. And actually the game did score highly positive reviews on most gaming websites and that also might mean that most hardcore gamers approve of it.
GOW is a good game, but not a great one. It has some interesting storyline and minor plot twists and they managed to do it just right to keep even non-FPS fans interested long enough.
It’s not a cult title tho. It’s nowhere near System Shock (either one) for example (yes, different genre, but both can be seen as FPS).
I mostly agree with Thom, today’s games lack character in most cases. You can “feel” the commercialism behind them, the “we’re doing this coz the boss said so” approach. Games like Ultima Underworld [2], System Shock [2], Baldur’s Gate or even Morrowind had “it”.
I think the “it” is the extra piece of love from it’s developers. Like the endless supply of mysterious historical puzzles in Morrowind, or the fabulous movement and physics system in System Shock 1 (leaning, laying down AND body physics in 1994? WOOT? Doom is teh sh*t!), or the great NPC interaction of Baldur’s gate (“Evidently so..”).
Arguably the last great game for me was Morrowind, although I must say Shivering Isles had something special as well.
Edited 2008-12-22 07:19 UTC
That is the truth games now a days, are so boring it is harder to find a decent game. I hated when “Working Designs” folded but some of those people went into Atlus. So now more good games are coming from them. I remember the games Wing Commander 3 and Wing Commander 4 which your choices really did affect the outcome of the game somewhat.
I’m not a huge gamer. The only two games I’ve ever been really into being Neverwinter Nights (I used to be really big into D&D, NWN satisfied my urge for such things) and, more recently, Half-Life 2. I found this game to be spectacular. Not because it was open ended, and of all the “choices” you could make. Because it had solid gameplay, and a structured and compelling plot.
More to the point. Open ended games SUCK. They get boring quickly, which anyone with an I.Q. higher than 30 who has played Grand Theft Auto will tell you. Maybe they can be good, but it would take some incredible game design that I just haven’t seen.
I have to disagree. Seeing you focused on Fallout 3 I’ll stick to discussing that. Some very minor spoilers ahead (although you did spoil the ending sequence.. so ..whatever).
While you cite that there are just 17 side quests, you don’t note that some of these are only available to bad people, and some to good. Further still, there are far more “quests” than that in the game, but they are, as you say you wanted, simple errands for NPC’s. A very early example: before you leave the Vault, you are asked to save a character’s mother. If you do it, you get experience, and a special item – it is basically a quest. But it’s not called a quest because it’s so short. The only experience you get is from killing things you wouldn’t have otherwise found. There’s a suicidal man in Rivet City. You can talk him down if you want. There’s a polygamist who holds phoney elections in an isolated town. There’s a town of cannibals. There are broken pipes in Megaton. There are a ton of little stories lying around, all of which would be the equivalent of a quest in the old Fallout games, but they are not numbered amongst the quests. By saying there should be lots of little NPC errands, and then only mentioning the number of tasks big enough to actually be called “quests”, you’ve created a false impression over how much there is to do.
I will admit though that there definitely didn’t seem to be 140 hours worth of content. The main quest can be finished in about 20 hours – I got my fill in 40 and checked out as soon as I could no longer find specific side tracks to explore, because once you hit the level cap killing creatures loses all value.
“If a game’s good/evil thing were to really have any effect, it would mean that being good unlocked different quests and items than being evil.”
Here’s an example of this exact demand in Fallout 3: You can complete a quest to free the slaves at Paradise Falls and kill the slavers there, or you can join them and become a slaver yourself. This decision effects how you gain access to Little Lamplight, it effects how all the kids in there regard you, and it effects whether the escaped slaves living at the Temple of the Union will give you the time of day. Given that there are specific quest threads associated with the Temple of the Union and Little Lamplight, how you deal with Paradise Falls effects your play experience in a divergent way. It is simply inaccurate to say your actions have no effect on the content in Fallout 3.
Another example is the bomb in Megaton. You can disarm the bomb, or, if you’re a bad character, detonate it for lots of cash. In this case, you lose access to a couple of quests, characters, and leads on your main quest because of your decision. If you disarm the bomb, you get a house in Megaton, and the goodwill of its citizens (who give you gifts). Again, it is simply false to say there is no functional difference between these outcomes.
The dialogue is tied to your karma, meaning that people treat you differently, and your actual options for speaking to people change, based on your actions. If you play the game as an evil character, NPC’s will treat you differently than if you are good, so you will not go through the same dialogue. There are bad people and good people in the game, and they won’t treat you the same way no matter which way you swing, it’s that simple. Your opportunities to enlist cohorts are also tied to your karma. A character in Megaton for example, is a bad person, and told my character that I was too much of a good person to travel with. Funnily enough, it turns out he’ll only join an evil character. Other cohorts have similar requirements, and that makes three specific examples of your request. There are plenty more but I’ll move on. My suspicion is that the game flows seemlessly enough that maybe you just didn’t notice the degree to which you were responsible for your own experience.
In complaining about “modern games” specifically you seem to be speaking nostalgically about old games, as if they were completely free from the constraints of computing power, and it used to be that every NPC had a life story they could recite on command. You need to keep in mind not that only is there a ton of divergent dialogue in Fallout 3, but also that every single line in the game has been recorded by an actor. Bethesda claimed during development that there are over 40,000 lines of dialogue in Fallout 3. Now, I wasn’t counting how many lines I heard, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was about a third of that. Apparently Fable 2 has a similar amount, with about 45,000 lines of spoken dialogue. This is not what would typically be described as a lack of content. Complaining that developers only managed to fit about a day and a half’s worth of characters talking into their disc, however, could probably be described as “spoilt” or “whiney”.
By comparison, older RPG’s usually had a few thousand lines each, Fallout 2 had approx. 2000 lines of dialogue, while Baldur’s Gate 2 had about 3000 lines. But I wouldn’t say these games lacked content either – they were great too. In any case, it is not the case that modern games have less content compared to older games from equivalent genres. Typically the opposite is true. But I’m not sure if you were complaining because you think old games were better, or if you were just complaining because nothing is ever good enough for you.
So not only is there a huge volume of content in Fallout 3 in comparison to older RPGs, but replaying is in fact necessary to see all of it. That addresses two of your complaints – your remarks about gratification are mostly subjective measurements, so I’ll leave them be. However, the way you’ve described “the final quests” seems to skip straight to the ending sequence, and omits the difficult fight at Raven Rock right before it. That seemed to me to be the climax of the game. But maybe you managed to talk your way out of that fight. That place happens to be yet another instance where good/bad characters have access to different outcomes, a feature you claimed was a gimmick with no functional effects on narrative. Sorry, I felt that needed repeating.
The weirdest thing about complaining about Fallout 3 specifically is that you seem to be aware you’re demanding a high spatial density of content across the map of a post-apocalyptic wasteland without a hint of irony, as though such a place should be teeming with life and opportunity. These games are set in a world still completely ruined hundreds of years after a nuclear war, full of mutated creatures and people, practically everything is irradiated, and practically everyone is sick with radiation poisoning; everyone is scrounging, scavenging, starving, using broken equipment, bartering or using bottle caps for currency, enslaving people, killing people, in some cases eating people, and you’re like “So what do you guys do for fun in this hellhole? Jeez, what a drag.”
Edited 2008-12-22 04:08 UTC
A lot of talking != interesting dialogue.
Maybe they had good dialogue rather than a lot of it.
While I do love older games I don’t entirely buy this whole “games were better in the old days” thing either. There have always been a lot of crappy games (Bionic Granny, anyone? ET? The FMV craze?) we just tend to forget them since, well, they weren’t very good.
Also, we were much younger then and in an impressionable age.
I sorely miss adventure games though.
Edited 2008-12-22 17:35 UTC
Actially from the usual standards of Bethestha Fallout 3 is excellent. Bethestha is one of the companies which gets better every game maybe in 10 years they will reach Bioware level and in 20 Black Isle level 🙂
But seriously. Fallout 3 is a good game but it is probably not the game people expected, well it is hard to fill the shoes of probably two of the most beloved RPGs ever. For some strange kind of reason Bethestha did not hire the original team which applied for a job for Fallout 3 at Bethesta to work further on their baby. That probably was the biggest mistake in my eyes for the game.
Try out Civ4: BTS + Fall From Heaven 2. Or Silent Hunter 3 + GWX 2.1. Just a couple of suggestions from my list of favorites from the past few years.
During my second undergrad in CS a friend moving on to a Neuroscience Ph.d, a friend from my M.E., field and another friend in Physics all loved them.
Hell, we even had an English major for a roommate who got a kick out of it and we would work together and solve the puzzles with girls and friends who came over for what we always called, “prefunctorials.”
Of course, we also played a lot of DungenQuest and my best friend who was an Artist designed an expansion that took an average game of 2 hours to 4 or 5 hours.
There always was the various parties to crash and bars to shoot darts and whatnot, but there were plenty of hours spent with games that carried you off into adventure.
DOOM, Quake and the rest get freakin’ boring, very fast.
You should have got a PS3 its whisper quiet and feels like a quality product. Unless you need to play Gear of War in which case buy both.
I grew up on Kings quest and other such games (summer games, load runner, etc) on the apple IIe.
I remember when streetfighter II came out on the SNES I thought to myself “man, a came just CAN”T get better than this”.
Fast forward to now. I have an xbox 360 which I enjoy using but I don’t use it that often. The only game, that blew me away was Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, also from Bethusda . That game is pure escapism bliss. You can make moral choices, which I suspect don’t effect the main quest but they do affect the sub-quests (of which there are seemingly hundreds).
Anyway, I pondered the fact that I was no longer into games as much as I used to be. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I’m a bit older now and gaming just doesn’t have quite the same appeal that it used to. The games of old we remember so fondly are only good in our memories- don’t go back and play them again, trust me….
Lastly, some very good and rather funny articles about gaming that originally appeared on pointlesswasteoftime.com
http://www.cracked.com/article_15748_gamers-manifesto.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games…
…you really shouldn’t have bought an XBox.
Message ends.
Exactly.
This is the reason I (usualy) don’t buy games.
I have some gamer friends, and if i want to play, i come over. Today’s games cost to much and offer little in return, i don’t care (much) about graphics and sound, as long as the gameplay is good.
My most favorite game to this day is Super Mario World
It’s a game you can play over and over again.
Really i think the wii is great, my favorite games are tennis
)) and Mario Galaxy, and ofcource, games like SMW, SMB etc… (old nes/snes games).
This topic has much to do with (movie, game) piracy
People don’t want to buy games only to find out that the game is sh*t. The same goes for movies.
Some games i like/would really recomend:
Metal Gear Solid 4 for PS3 (and Metal Gear Solid 1 to 3)
Braid for Xbox360 (and hopefully soon on PC)
World of Goo – i really downloaded this game from piratebay, and after a few levels i found this game to be really really good, so much good, that i could play it over and over again… so i bought it. ( still waiting for a level editor and level packs
then there’s LineRider 2.
And, maybe* GTA 4
PS: Quake 3 is the best online shooter still.
It’s easy to think that when you buy a game,you are buying something that belongs to you: one good game, your game, a game you can play forever.
In fact that’s the last thing you’re doing. In reality you are making a down payment on a franchise rental. No company can exist selling one-offs. A company needs to get you on the upgrade crack pdq, whether it be more games in the series or on that platform or from that maker via their proprietary download system; or more hardware, newer graphics cards or mice or controllers, online gaming fees, whatever. It all adds up to be surprisingly expensive. But then the gaming industry these days is huge and the hardware makers want a return from all the money they invest in gaming, too. They want your money and they want it now.
So games aren’t designed to last or to be the best. They are designed to be good enough for long enough, maybe six months or so. Add to that the humongous cost of developing a game these days, and there’s even less chance of a truly original off-the-wall number. Developers have to stick to safer ground in the mass market (aka the moron market) to ensure a large enough audience from which to recover costs.
There’s nothing unique about this. Most other industries work in the same way – cars, white goods, electronics generally, fashion, et al. Call it capitalism. If you want something truly different, then sell up, do without modern technology, build your own pub so you can entertain yourself at home, and learn to play the ukelele.
Fallout 1/2 was the best RPG is the best RPG and will be the best RPG.
Game developers now only care how to push DX x (x>=10) to limit not about game. Nowadays there is no RPG there is no turn-based games. We have only lots of FPS games with some nostalgic elements from other genres.
ONLY one new game really worth playing from huge number I tired is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Sad.
I put all my hopes about future gaming into Blizzard: Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.
I’m quite surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but if you’re looking for an RPG with an immersive storyline and plenty of interesting quests, may I suggest you give Mass Effect a shot?
It’s rather good, the first I thoroughly enjoyed playing (and was sad to finish) in quite a while. Soon after finishing it I played Fallout 3, and I can say that I didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much.
Perhaps it was the big void in decent games prior to coming to Mass Effect, but it was quite a relief to find a decent game to play after all this time.
I’m planning on buying it today (assuming its price is acceptable). Keep an eye on my blog [1] if you want to know how I feel about it.
[1] http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com
Edited 2008-12-22 12:39 UTC
I recently decided to buy a Xbox 360. Not because Wii is not a great console, but I know I will like to play damn big complex games and Wii is obviously not the right machine for that (though success of its control system must be acknowledged. That’s just a different kind of machine than Xbox and PS). I never bought a console because I liked to play PC-type games (two different kind of games). But got tired to keep up with my PC upgrades to play as I wanted to use a notebook for both work and personal matters.
Bought that version with Gears of War 2 bundled and didn’t regret that. GoW 2 is basically amazing. It’s a very hot game to play with lots of damn hot graphics (I’m enjoying it in HD mode). And gameplay is not that limited when compared to other titles.
However, I know I’ll miss PC-type games. I will never be the usual console gamer (and bought Command & Conquer 3 to take a breath of fresh PC-era games…). Many games are graphically impressive but poor in gameplay. However, I guess the trick is to try to switch genre sometimes. For example, from GoW 2 to Last Odissey: two different kind of games.
It’s a known fact, however, that console games have a different target than usual PC games. And it’s a known fact that today most games try to achieve superior graphics because that matters.
However, let me say one thing: anyone who played Monkey Island saga or Populous or Sim City, knows very well that time 7 games out of 10 being released sucked. I mean, they were completely useless piece of garbage.
Average quality is much better now and I’d say that 8 or 9 games out of 10 being released can provide a few hours of fun. Quality improved a lot and while we don’t have such a quite good difference among games we enjoyed in 90s (most console games are basically the same gameplay brought to a different, and usually weak, story…), I’d say that most of them can provide a few days of fun.
Of course, when you play 10 hours per day everyday, you will soon find yourself finishing all games very fast. But that’s not my case.
I’m a good deal older than you (48), so I have had the feeling you express for longer than you. My best gaming experiences were on my BBC micro and some old PC games (such as Masters of Orion 2). Newer games have much more eye candy, but not much more game. Modern RPGs don’t really differ much in gameplay from Angband or Colossal Cave, but have replaced ASCII graphics and text with 3D graphics with animated blood-splatter.
That said, I have changed too. I used to spend countless hours playing Elite on my BBC, but trying it again now doesn’t bring anything like the old feeling: I can more easily see the limited scope in spite of the huge game world. But Elite was made on an 2MHz 6502 with 32KB of RAM, of which 10 KB was used for the screen bitmap and a couple more for the OS. Compared to this, the scope of Elite was huge. With more than 10000 times as much RAM, huge disks and fast CPUs and even faster graphics cards, you would think the scope would grow. But it seems like all you use the extra space and power for are graphics textures and soundtracks.
I know that content takes time, but when you consider that Elite was made by two people, why can’t teams of dozens of people create more content? Maybe game companies hire too many graphics and sound designers and too few story tellers? Even when games are made from movie titles, the story in the game is typically radically simplified and more repetitive, in spite of the fact that you will tend to spend more time in the game than you do watching the movie. And I’m told that making a major game costs more than making a Hollywood movie — even an animated movie. So where does all that cost go? Not to AI, which typically sucks. I know that a good AI is hard to make, but with the budgets major games have, it could be much better. Also not for story lines or freedom of action, as this is typically limited as well. There are too few meaningful choices in games: Either a choice doesn’t matter at all, or you die immediately if you choose incorrectly.
Now, I don’t claim I can do better. My speciality is in programming languages, and though I have done a bit of game design, graphics and AI as well, I wouldn’t be hired by a game company for these limited competences. But game companies should be able to cherry-pick the best talents in these areas. But only the graphics seem to show.
Knights of the Old Republic 1, is easily the best RPG ive ever played. Ive been role playing for 10 years and played lots of games.
Fallout 1 is very good also.
Baldurs Gate series too.
I’m a hardcore Nethack and Collosal Cave player and find Fallout 3 a masterpiece.
All past time wasn’t better, it just looks better. If you think Fallout 3 isn’t that good, I could recommend famous, game of the year titles that would change your mind by mere comparison; titles from 2008, 1998 or 1988.
Well I think one of the problems is that creating games takes so much money and time now. Compare that with game-developement just more than 5 years ago.
This is one of the reasons some very large companies have evolved with all their mechanics (how they work).
I myself like to play “clever” games from time to time but also enjoy the brainless games –> instant fun.
Imo one of the best games ever and one of the few RPGs I actually played through and watched the long outro is Anachronox. Great story, fantastic dialogs, great locations and great story and these dialogs (eg. when they are stranded in their ship).
It’s a pity that there won’t be an Anachronox 2 while I’m bombarded with the nth Call of Duty title.
Other games that are really fun are imo Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil. Planscape Torment is good, but was too time consuming for me.
What I don’t like though if games act like if they have a story but don’t provide you with information. You are left with a lot of questions and the feeling that you missed some videos that explained stuff. A lot of the “current” (in my time span the last few years) adventures I played do it that way like Broken Sword — even more than the old titles.
Yet I have to say that out of the 100s old games I have I would say that less than 10 are really great, basically similiar to the situation now. Maybe we simply (only) got older.
Not sure about where you purchase your consoles, but in the end, the PS3 tends to be cheaper. The PS3 sells for $350, but includes a Blu-Ray player, no online tax, 40GB hard drive, etc. It allows ANY Bluetooth device to be paired with it (keyboard, headset, mouse, etc), any hard drive to be connected (unlike the Xbox which requires Mircosoft’s $100 20GB hard drive) and such. The Xbox is more modular than the PS3, yes, but these are common things that lots of people get anyways. Why restrict what hard drive you can place in your console or restrict what devices you can pair with it? Thats’ right, they need to be Microsoft branded which means paying an arm and a leg for.
I thought this needed to be pointed out, as many people fail to notice this.
I don’t really play games all that much and when I do it, it is mostly those simple time wasters or some old classics on emulators for half an hour or so. The genre that I like the most – fighting games – is not as popular as it used to be and with SNK folding, the best fighting game series of all time, The King of Fighters, has not received the love that it deserves. Playmore did a good job bringing it to 3D, even keeping some of the touch that made the original series so amazing, but there is something to be said for good 2D sprite animation that simply doesn’t translates that well for 3D.
I still play its newest versions on the PS2 though, but I prefer to run the earlier versions – KOF94 all the way through KOF 2003 – using emulators on the PC (GnGeo rules!).
When I’m playing on the console I really enjoy simpler games. The Guitar Hero series is a huge hit at home. My wife and my 6 yrs old daughter are addicted to it and the 3 yrs old daughter is starting to show some interest…
When we’re not playing that, we like car racing games such as Burnout Revenge, or a classic fighting game such Tekken 5 or Soul Calibur 3 and recently I started to enjoy an adventure game called Shadow of the Colossus. Now that’s a great game!
It doesn’t take more than a PS2 to keep me entertained and I’m pretty sure that I’d love to play with the Wii. I will grab one as soon as it enters my affordable price range…
Having said that, I’m really looking forward for the latest incarnation of the Street Fighter series on the PS3 and the XBox 360 and since future releases of Guitar Hero will be exclusive to these consoles leaving the PS2 out, I will have to consider putting down the money to get one of them sooner or later.
Seriously, thank goodness for emulators. Just dug out my mame fighting game collection I had stored away on an external hd. Ah man, nothing beats some serious fighting games, KI and KI2 along with all the early MKs and of course, Street Fighter (SFA series is the best, imo).
SFA is playable by the blind?
Yes, indeed it is. Just about every fighting game is, actually, if you learn how to play based on sound effects.
Reviewer buys single player games and wonders why there’s no unlimited replay value.
Reviewer then mocks two of the most popular multiplayer game series that are known for their replayability and finely tuned control mechanics, citing lack of innovation.
Don’t quit your day job.
I understand about Bioshock. 50$ (at one time) 10 hours to complete… and no replayability… your point works here, but………………..
You people are spoiled. 100+ hours of gamming and you’re bitching about it. WTF? It can’t be your girlfriend. Did you play commander keen for hundreds of hours? Really? You’re just pissed your drug has run out. Go back to your dealer and pick up Oblivion. Also, if you had gone the PC route, you would also have access to user created content. (Hey, your PC might be able to run NWN or NWN2.) Or maybe your should do some multiplayer games… WOW or maybe a MUD would be a better fit for you.
Also, if games were so great back in the good old days, go replay them… sometimes it’s fun to kick those games around for like 10 min… then you remember why you moved on. (sorry, singleplayer text games suck) You’re never going to drink your first beer or have sex for the first time again. (ok some of you have yet to get laid) It’s like saying the internet sux cuz you don’t stay up all night on it like you did the first time.
PS Your reward was 140 hours of entertainment for 64 Euros, not a slideshow.
> then you remember why you moved on. (sorry,
> singleplayer text games suck)
Do novels suck compared to films? Because they are “text only”? Damn, you are narrow minded. Were you even around back during the days of text only games?
Single player text games DO NOT SUCK, as long as they have a decent story line, decent plot, and are engaging. God forbid you might actually have to use something called “imagination”. You know, that’s the thing we used to do before 1080p 3D graphics and such, when we actually had to imagine what the world looked like. After thousands of years, text and imagination are still a fine medium to communicate an awesome and engaging story–one that is often far more engrossing than any amount of 3D graphical wizardry can be.
What DOES SUCK most of the time though, are typical multiplayer online games. I’ll take an intelligently designed computer controlled NPC over a sub-intelligent online gamer kiddie typing things like “1 pwnd ur @$$!” any day.
There are too many jerks in most online gaming communities, and it ruins the experience for me. So I rarely do it and prefer well designed computer controlled NPCs instead–even if those well designed NPCs only interact with you in text mode.
Edited 2008-12-22 17:31 UTC
“Do novels suck compared to films? Because they are “text only”? Damn, you are narrow minded. Were you even around back during the days of text only games?”
So you’re using a text based browser then. Good for you, less exploits.
(edit- added the quote at the top)
Edited 2008-12-22 17:50 UTC
That’s comparing apples and oranges. And here’s why. With a browser, I am often getting news about the REAL world or something. So then pictures of real events that actually happened are important. In an adventure or RPG game however, that is not usually the case. It’s usually a fantasy world that doesn’t really exist in reality. And so sometimes text only is the best way to convey it since it leaves the visualizations up to the player or reader’s imagination.
And I find it interesting you quote a question from my post, and then instead of answering the question, you change the subject.
So do novels suck compared to film? Do they? Because they have no graphics?
(edited to expand more on why it’s apples and oranges)
Edited 2008-12-22 17:59 UTC
Your question is a distraction… misdirection, we’re talking about games. Lets compare text game sales last year to graphical games.
> Your question is a distraction… misdirection,
> we’re talking about games. Lets compare text
> game sales last year to graphical games.
It’s not a distraction at all. And you might want to take a class on rhetoric. Since what you are doing right now is a classic example of a logical fallacy when it comes to argument. You are avoiding a legitimate question by attempting to change the subject.
The reason you are avoiding it is obvious. Because you can’t answer it in a way that would support your original argument without making you look like a fool.
Do novels suck compared to films cause they are text only? Do they?
You are avoiding this question like it’s some kind of plague or something. Why can’t you answer it?
I got Fallout 3 for the PC when it was released. It’s graphically gorgeous. The character creation is novel and fun. The first time. The third time, it’s a little tedious. I think that sums up the game pretty nicely, which is sad. Anything you do the first time is cool – but after the third time, it’s becoming rote and boring. All raiders look and act the same, and they all have the same lairs. Are they a cult or something? I thought they were opportunists who were a little low on social responsibility, not some frigging Chaos cult from Warhammer 40,000.
It might be billed as an RPG, but it’s not. There’s no role to play – if you’re a messianic do-gooder, you get a couple of different options, and a group of mercenaries who occasionally track you down and try to kill you. If you’re a Vault Boogeyman, you get a couple of different options, and a group of ‘regulators’ occasionally track you down and try to kill you. What’s the difference?
When I get a house in either Megaton or Tenpenny, why don’t I even get a dialog option to offer any of the NPCs a place to stay? Why is the limit of the affection of my ‘spooky girlfriend’ in Bigtown her giving me random gifts of junk, instead of what she was hinting at? Why is it when I pay a prostitute in Megaton 120 caps, I don’t even get the goofy Fable “oohs and ahhs”? I thought this was a ‘Rated M for Mature’ game? My girlfriend was carded when she bought me the collector’s edition, for Grod’s sake. I thought ‘M for Mature’ would allow me pull the same kind of BS that I did in Fallout 2 – seducing the drug lord’s wife in New Reno, that sort of thing.
The ‘ownership’ of junk in the game is another ridiculous notion. Say I kill an NPC, for example, Lucas Simms. I get the key to his house from his body, but I can’t sleep in his bed, because he “owns” it. I get a karma drop for stealing his stuff. He’s dead! And for that matter, what is up with the NPCs whom you can’t kill? I can’t kill his son, who still talks to me even though he watched me shoot his dad in the back, because apparently that isn’t covered in ‘M for Mature’. Before I torched Megaton from Tenpenny, I walked through the town and killed every person I could see. I couldn’t kill Moira, because apparently she has to survive in case you ever go back to Megaton to visit the highly-radioactive crater. In Rivet City, there is a boatload (pun definitely intended) of NPCs you cannot kill. What is this crap? I thought my actions mattered? Aside from the random kill teams of mercenaries/regulators who are pursuing me for being too good or bad, my behavior has very little impact on the game. Oh, people’s little vocal blurbs are different when you walk past them, but the actual dialog choices are the same, every time.
Honestly, I wish Bethesda had focused more on lines of text dialog, versus all of the spoken dialog. Perhaps they could’ve included more interesting content that way. Lady Killer or Black Widow should’ve opened up some really interesting dialog with NPCs of the appropriate gender. Instead, it’s just a bonus to kill the opposite gender, and a couple of heavy-handed options in very few dialogs with a couple of NPCs.
And speaking of railroading – once you actually get into DC-proper, you actually have very little choice in how you get to your destinations. You can’t just slog overland through groups and groups of Super Muties, if you so desire. No, you need to go down this subway, and connect with this other subway, and then walk through this plaza, and then down another subway, etc. Bullcrap. The wasteland area is full of openness, but the DC Metro area is absolutely not. You definitely are following a route (which your map helpfully shows you as you wander through the maze) that is designed to keep you ‘on-track’ for the main quest. The dialog with the NPCs is horribly limited, very clumsy, and frequently references situations you haven’t encountered yet. Aside from the selfish use of skills such as Repair, Medical, Barter, etc. There isn’t a whole lot you can do with them. I thought this was an RPG – why can’t I repair people’s broken equipment for money? Why can’t I become a trader through Canterbury Commons? Why can’t I charge people for healing? My only option for profession is being a stone-cold killer. Every other skill exists to enable me to do that job better.
Fallout 3 is a bastard hybrid of FPS and RPG, and it’s no good as either. You can’t play it as a shooter, without becoming frustrated as hell (even using VATS: are you going to tell me that you honestly think a raider should take 3 head shots from an assault rifle?), and it’s not an RPG by any stretch of the imagination. I think that Fallout 3 could be a great framework for some awesome RPG building, but it certainly fails in its current form. It looks like it’s going to be immersive and deep, but after only a few hours of playing, you realize it’s incredibly shallow.
You, sir, get it.
Fallout 3 is absolutely awesome. However, it could – and should – have been so much more. The potential for depth and story and possibilities is oozing out of every NPC, every location, every building, yet most of them have little additive value to the game.
And that’s sad.
Edited 2008-12-22 17:08 UTC
Because it’s no more an RPG than most RTS have anything to do with strategy (“build-build-build-assault.”, Command & Conquer how a loath thee).
A lot of RTS should be re-filed under RTT: Real Time Tactics.
Exactly right, and why they have such shallow depth:
Real Time Tactics: Deep reflexes
Real Time Strategy: Deep reflection
if you want to play a game with good story (these are going ot be older games) ejoy a few recomendations.
Breath of fire 3
Shining force 3
xenogears
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Final fantasy 7
those are just a few but that should keep you busy for teh next month
Edited 2008-12-22 18:19 UTC
if you want an excellent RPG play The Witcher awesome game, lots of contents 🙂
Edited 2008-12-22 18:32 UTC
I like your review overall. I think there is a lot to be said for the imagination capturing the essence of a story far better than Super-superlative graphics, but I think that debate has been mirrored before with regards to Books vs. Movies. The main problem with your review is that you don’t really take into account how the internet has changed gaming. I used to have an easier time finding live gaming groups (D&D, Traveler, Star Fleet Battles, Axis and Allies, etc.) in the 80s than today’s which are almost always online. While I played a lot of single player games (Rogue – known today as NetHack, 3Demon, Kings Quest, Ultima, Empire I and II, etc.) I was more satisfied in sharing a story or adventure with other players. Today I find I play a lot of Multiplayer games, from RTS’s such as Company of Heroes, FPS such as Call of Duty 4/5 and BF2, to MMORPGs such as City of Heroes and EVE Online. But there has to be kept in mind that certain games are more geared towards Single Player vs. Multiplayer. BF2 and City of Heroes have absolutely no Single player aspect. But both vary deeply with regards to purpose: one is a multiplayer war sim while the other is a multiplayer RPG with story lines.
In my opinion many of the best single player RPGs can be best found coming out of Bioware’s house. I greatly enjoyed Neverwinter Nights, but found I played player created worlds far more than the single player game which certainly was not lacking for to-dos and side quests. The player mods carried NWN for years up until WoW hit. Bioware appears to be seeing the ‘singleplayer/multiplayer MMO light’ and will be jumping into producing MMORPGs with the new Star Wars MMO they are working on. Given their previous releases and experience with KotOR, it will certainly be no Star Wars Galaxies. Sure, you pay $$.$$ a month, but the support, expansions, depth, content, and player base promise to be worth it.
Single player games can be pretty fun without a strong story line: Descent II and III (though III was far better with regards to Multiplayer offerings than the story line). Freespace I and II were great story driven games, but again, like Descent revolved around flying, twitch combat, and a do or don’t continue story line. Privateer was certainly a favorite of mine (sorry to say I never played Elite) and Privateer II suffered a serious bug that was not fixed (if it ever was) before I lost the discs but looked like it had some potential as a sequel.
I am afraid that a lot of time spent making a game ‘deep’ and ‘complex’ with regards to AI, story morphing, and quests/missions is going to be absent from many current offline Single Player games due to Corporations looking at what will give the best return (much like the Music Industry – why do you think so many ‘artists’ sound like so many other from the Big Labels?) and given the oddities of the market place and the need for an ROI, who can blame them from hesitating on the new, fresh, different, and otherwise potential loss of money they face if they don’t go with what appears to be popular? Then there is the fear of piracy costing the loss of sales which again drives developers and publishers away from riskier titles to moving to subscription based formats where you ‘pay to play’. I think you will find less and less investment in story lines in non-pay to play gaming and more and more pay to play games presenting the story lines you seek. It is the logical direction for gaming developers who want to make a living in the profession to take who write stories vs. those who design the great next Shooter or Hack n’ Slash.
Imagine if Fallout 3 were and MMORPG?
P.S. – if I make little sense, I blame an inner ear infection that is making me woozy.
The games I have enjoyed most had a great sense of humour. Malcolm’s revenge was lots of fun with the laugh track and snappy one liners… “what are all these idiots doing here”. Monkey island had that scene where the parents appear as skeletons and start singing “the arm bone is connected to the … bone”. What a laugh. I’m not opposed to death in games, in grim vandango you are dead from the start but the game still has a nice warmth about it.
The Wii isn’t “just waving a plastic remote around”. If it was, I wouldn’t play it.
Sure, there are a lot of cheapo games for the Wii. But there are some that held my attention for a long time. Bully on the Wii is the best version because of the great motion controls, and it took me over 30 hours to “finish” (finish the main storyline, that is; I never really tried at the minigames). You can’t make moral decisions in Bully, but it’s a great storyline and there’s a lot of humour. Lots of side quests too.
Mario Kart Wii. At first glance, this looks like a kiddy racing game that uses a dumb gimmick. But despite having Mario Kart Wii for six months I’m still playing it; the online play is always thrilling and nail-biting, and masses of fun. Just do us a favour and use the classic controller as it’s the best way to play. With a game like this, you don’t need storyline; it’s just fun. And isn’t that what gaming is about?
Serious games, or games with full immersion are not beyond the Wii. When done correctly, motion controls enhance the immersion of the gameplay and allow for more control over the action – take a look at PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) on the Wii and see the level of control that the Wii remote and nunchuck allows players.
If they give you too much content in one game, you would not buy another.
I think that high graphics standards are knocking smaller vendors out of business. If the game is able to present great visuals, there must be people, a lot of them, who will design those visuals. That raises development costs. Bigger players have less competition, so they can afford themselves to screw the buyers.
Thom Holwerda – Really? You picked the Xbox360 over the PS3 and Wii? What a shock. You are an absolute brown noser to Microsoft so of course you would pick that instead of the better system. One clue, it’s not the 360. Try to drop a little of your bias in your articles. It would also be nice if you posted your bio about how tied up with Microsoft you are.