Gamers Unite!

[CobraJM20]

What happened to the good days of gaming? The days when a game lasted you not for a week but for a year or more. A time when games were fun, now they are like a second job, between the hacking and simplicity in the games, As in the words of Jack Sparrow “Where has all the fun gone?”….Well sort of. The days of gaming might be more popular than ever. But at what cost? Did we sacrifice the soul of gaming itself? Just to make it mainstream? Gamers are more a more frequent now days. But these "casual" gamers buy the games that companies pump out. They are not fun or interesting; they are nothing but generic stories that have been done a million times before. Companies are selling themselves out to the point that. Their drive to produce great games has been completely beat out of them. Games like Halo 2 were played for years on end. And now the latest Call of Duty title or perhaps the latest Battlefield. They are the same games with different guns and characters sure. But at their base they are still the same exact game, with slightly improved game engine and nothing more. There is no innovativeness in them. And their fun wears out quickly. They are a cheap thrill. If you take a piece of s*** and put a new hat on it, you are still left with a piece of s***.

 

Companies care for nothing more than making money now days. The voice of the true gamers is drowned out in the media and the swamp of casuals. The media caused many of controversies in games and negatively affected the entire gaming community. The old grand theft autos were great fun games that allowed for the freedom to do what you wanted. And now the extremely restrictive new installment GTAIV is playing host to a gang of Good bad guys? Whatever happened to the main characters that did what they wanted for their own gain? But no overly conservative people like Jack Thompson scare companies like rock star into producing a less gratuitous game. Or fox news with the mass effect 1 romance scenes. You can see worst things on day time TV or in a fashion magazine. But they had to blow it out of proportion and now Bioware keep the romance scene so G rated they feel like nothing more than a interaction between friends. Mass Effect 2’s romance scenes has a kiss and then a fade to black the worst one was with your crew member Miranda who had some clothed dry humping in it. Games are a fictitious affair. And if the game is rated M, maybe fox news should have been wary of the parents who brought the games for their children. ESRB does a great job branding games for certain age groups. And I think we can all agree when we play gears or halo or the. We don’t want to hear some 5 year old making insults about our mother just because he lost. A part of events that happen “because of video games” could have easily been avoided if the parents took some responsibility as a parent and payed attention to what they buy their children.

 

 

Games no longer have the ultimate bosses or any satisfying battles for that matter. They don’t have the choices that we have come to expect. A good example is Fable. The original was pure genius. Evil was indeed evil and you got a satisfied feeling when you became all powerful. It seems that now days being evil are more of being an ass. Building a brothel is an evil choice in fable 3. That is not evil that is just being a**. Evil is rampaging through a town wantonly destroying and killing everyone, just so that you can buy their houses and rent them out. Evil is shooting the head off a bandit and watching the others cower in fear. And then Molyneux attempted to introduce the concept of love into it. Gaming is not about love. It is about experiencing things that you cannot in the real world and as such adding a dog and the ability to marry your Xbox live friends does not make the game better. He took away the core of fable and made it tailored to those that don’t want what fable is they only want the easy game that is extremely easily accessible. A game with no challenge is no fun it is pointless. Like walking through oblivion with god mode on allows you to plow through the game easily but you don’t really enjoy it. I realize that some would disagree with these points. But I hope that the true gamers out there. The ones that have been playing since the days of pong, and the original Nintendo would understand what I mean.

 

We seem to have lost focus on what makes a game truly great. Games that are remembered and never forgotten. Moments when like you first turned on the PS1 and saw how “amazing” the graphics were. Playing FFVII and VIII, the truly great ones. You could at the time name every character. And now days finding someone who can remember one from the new one is next to impossible. Characters are slowly becoming so generic that you fail to even grow attached to them at all. I am sure everyone remembers the guild master in fable. “Hero your health is low do you have any potions or food”. And yet in the new fable. Can any of us remember a single line that they used? We need to regain our sight all of us. If we keep buying the crappy games they put out then they will keep making them. Why put effort into something that they know people will buy anyway. It is great to see that the Laura croft and twisted metal series and taking steps to improve on their shortcomings, making games that now only appeal to the masses but the hardcore gamers as well. The 3 great B’s Bethesda, Blizzard, and Bioware; seem to be the only ones trying to cling to their roots and keep the heart of gaming alive. So if you are a true gamer, A lover of a time when gaming was great. Then do your part and state your opinion. Let our voices be heard. Help bring us back to the golden age of gaming. We miss it dearly. And to all of those that would love to just flame this post. Realize this. Back when gaming was considered nerdy, back at the times of Mario and Zelda. We were doing exactly are you are now. Just in a much better period for the games themselves.

 

This rant to me is well justified. As an avid gamer for many years now, it saddens me to see what has become of once great companies and game series. Add your views. Say you’re part. But for the love of god. Stop buying bad games!

[WastelandAssassin]

well, i can't say that i know exactly how you feel, seeing as i'm not really familiar with some of the old games you mentioned, but i do understand your point

like you, i am really surprised at how stupid modern games are, and yet how many people buy them, and the status that they gain

 

the perfect example would be the latest CoD games (Modern Warfares as well)

i have played all of these games aside from CoD 1 & 3, and i have to say that the one i liked most was 2

CoD 2 was a classic, and it was just a fun shooter to have

and as the developers worked really hard on making a more challenging experience, they have just made their games stupider

sure, these games are fun when you play them for the first time, but then again, who can honestly say that he doesn't appreciate a few hours of shooting people??

but in the end, you pay a lot of money on a game that will last you a few hours tops, and is not worth a dime

you know what they say: "you can't polish turd"

well, as hard as the developers have tried, they just ended up with a mangled piece of turd, instead of a real game experience

 

now, i don't know about the earlier Battlefield games, as i only got to play the latest one, but to me, the game was actually quite good

sure, the action wasn't perfect, and the game had it's problems, but at least it had a nice story, and the characters were great

the scenes of them talking and fooling have actually made the game quite good, and i found the characters quite relatable and lovable (in their own silly ways)

 

now, it's true that there are still games that really give good gaming experience, but as it appears, most people don't want such games (i don't know if it's true, but it seems that most people are either too stupid, or too e-mature to enjoy such games)

also, if you think about this from the game companies end, most companies wouldn't make real good games

i mean, if they can create an awesome game once every 3 or 4 years, or make 2 stupid games at the same amount of time, which would they choose??

after all, twice the games means twice the money, and the more stupid games seem to get bought the most (ironic, isn't it??)

 

i wish anyone would have been able to make a change in this

i would love to see a thriving industry that creates truly great games, ones that live for years, not get played for a day and then forgotten

and if we can really make this change, then we must do it, for us, and for the youth of today and the future (believe me, you don't want a generation of CoD s**theads, that think that they can kill however they want, whenever they want to)

i can't really see a change coming, but i still have hope for such a change to finally come, and set minds right

[brokenergy]

Gaming companies want to make money :ohmy: ? Have you forgot that first and foremost a company, no matter where they come from is to make money :dry: . It's business 101. If they didn't make money then they'll be out of business, especially since making AAA games costs millions of dollars. Games made bad because of casuals? So you want games extremely tedious like the "good old days" where people have to read giant manuals to play a game? It's frustrating that people come and represent me as a PC player and state that games are being "dumb down" for the casuals (especially with the recent developments to Skyrim and DA2). I would rather play a game that is fun than to play rather a game where I have learn every single rule just to play.

[Flamethrower]

I was growing up when games like Donkey Kong, Grim Fandango, Jack Jackarabbit, etc. were being played (though, I have played some of the pre-millenium games), so I came to this 'golden age' quite late. I do still remember older games, such as The Godfather, and I do remember that feeling of completion and power, once I completed it and replayed it again and again.

And then there's also Evil Genius... what a magnificiant game, truly.

 

I see where you're going with COD series. Personally, I agree with Wasteland Assassin - Call of Duty 2 is a classic. I've noticed how sh***y the series have become. I played Black Ops and I was seriously dissapointed at the un-realism. I know, I know, games are fictions. But to put a SPAS 12 into the Vietnam war and make it shoot "incendiaries" is just plain f*cking ridiculous.

 

I completely agree with the media. I remember when GTA IV came out, the media went made. With Duke Nukem and Bulletstorm on the horizon, I can't wait for the media's reports. Yes, I hate them, but I also find 'em so stupid, it's funny.

But seriously - ESRB ratings aren't there for nothin'. I confess, I didn't abide by the ratings myself, but it hasn't affected me in any way. Probably. I'm no shrink. It's the parents' fault for not spendin' more time with their kids. *sigh*.

 

As far as the characters go, not all are forgetable. I'll never forget Ashley Williams from ME, or Miranda or Mike Thorton from Alpha Protocol (or Westridge from the same game, but that's because he has such a lovely name - Yancey), etc.

 

I think that's most of my views. I'm too tired to write anymore :P

[Vindekarr]

I remember when saying "no cheats please" got responses like "ok" and "meh alright, but next game Im hosting and we use em, K?.

 

Nowadays if you say "no cheats please" everyone immediately abandons your Lobby.

 

I also vividly remember the days when an early rush was an acceptable move-if you do a Baneling uberswarm in SC II, you'll get flamed off the server. Back in SC I, the Zerg(ling) Rush was one of the most popular tactics, consisting of a large tide of cannonfodder to overwhelm the other player's army before it could muster.

 

Still, for some fun, I spend one game simply making only banelings and Nydus worms. Then unleashed my resulting 288 Banelings all at once. Seeing a seemingly endless tide of Banelings come rushing out of the 6 Nydus Worms made me laugh my head off, unfortunately I was also booted from the game.

 

Rushing, Camping, sabotage, they're not much fun to recieve but they're legitimate moves, nobody seems to realise that you yourself can do them anymore. You got sabotaged? sneak into their base an put C-4 on their tanks and helos. You got camped? change spawn and return the favour. You got rushed? machinegun turret time.

 

Dont be upset that they used a particular tactic, everything has it's coutnermove.

[ub3rman123]

I remember back when my brother and I both played Age of Empires (The original) with cheats on to see who could win, since we both had the uber-powerful soldiers (Nuclear troopers vs. guys with clubs). I miss that time.

[CobraJM20]

Gaming companies want to make money :ohmy: ? Have you forgot that first and foremost a company, no matter where they come from is to make money :dry: . It's business 101. If they didn't make money then they'll be out of business, especially since making AAA games costs millions of dollars. Games made bad because of casuals? So you want games extremely tedious like the "good old days" where people have to read giant manuals to play a game? It's frustrating that people come and represent me as a PC player and state that games are being "dumb down" for the casuals (especially with the recent developments to Skyrim and DA2). I would rather play a game that is fun than to play rather a game where I have learn every single rule just to play.

 

I realize that they need to make money. But they can do so without scaraficing the soul of the game. Companies have done this in the past they sure as hell can do it in the future.

[brokenergy]

I didn't know games have souls :dry: . If a developer can't make a game right then it has something to do with their structure. That's why I don't like Obsidian games so much as the developers have really shoddy QA. But hey people like their games and still buy it. The point is a game is a product just like everything else, it doesn't have a "soul". If the developer screws up, it's their fault for not implementing their product properly and if only a few hate what most like, than that preferences. Edited February 16, 2011 by brokenergy

[CobraJM20]

When I say "soul" It is figurativly. The once great game companies have strayed to far from their roots and are making games that are not the least bit fun. And its all companies not just one. It has been a long time since a truly great game has come out. Your snide remarks do not undermine the fact that gaming is going down hill . Considering its more popular then ever the hardcore gamers are losing out due to the large gathering of families gaming now. if they want to play games there is the wii. leave the pc and xbox alone.

[brokenergy]

I'm going to say this once; games are not art, they are a form of entertainment. If anyone says that they are art, I will smack them on the head. "Hardcore" games are going out because they are not accessible to people. Sure "hardcore" gamers will love it, but will "hardcore" gamers support the developer for years to come? They are frustrating and a waste of time in modern life, especially where people have jobs or need to go to Uni five days a week. "Hardcore" games are not accessible to people and it has nothing to do with "lowest denominator".

 

People have different learning curves and need different ways to learn. A game that is too hard is going to fail most people, that's why a simple game like Amnesia, which has simple keys would succeed over Baldur's Gate, which has tons of unnecessary fluff. How the game fairs with sales is different thing entirely but accessibility of games is not a bad thing. You really need to get over "hardcore" thing, why shouldn't there be games for families and kids and games for adults? That's what the industry has split into and obviously there would be more sales for families and kiddy titles than for adult gamers. Games are for everyone to play and if developers want to make it for everyone then that's their choice, not yours as a consumer. If you don't like their direction, move on to another developer, nothing is stopping you from that.