Lots of fun...

It was definitely a golden era for computer gaming and it will never revert back to that which is a shame. I've made many posts about this so I won't rant AGAIN since you've all been through it enough

I think what games lack is meticulous attention to character and story. That's all been replaced with cutting edge graphics. Not that I have anything against a game that looks great, but it should never supercede the roots of the story.

If i may be so bold, i believe a recent release on the PC and 360, Bioshock fufils these requirements.

It has an awesome narrative and well rounded characters (with amazing voice acting). You also feel that you're in the game world. It also contains beautiful graphics and art direction and the gameplay touts a 'play the way you want to' feel which is quite satisfying and fun.

I imagine many on this board would be averse to the title as it's a shooter (and a first person one at that), but it really is a breath of fresh air in the games industry this year (and Game of the Year hands down in my opinion).

/rant off

I have played a few games since tex that I thought had perhaps 40% of its indepth gameplay.


Yeah I miss the days when 75% of games were orginial. Now all I ever see is basicly 2-4 games and 20+ knockoffs.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a trend that has come about in which a lot of new games released are really just based on movies? I mean, we have Pirates of the Caribean (sp?), Harry Potter, and the other Disney stuff to name a few. I don't have anything against these games at all, and I have never played one, so I don't have anything nice or bad to say about them, but...

What ever happened to ORIGINALITY?? The plus about the games we know is that they weren't based off some movie. Tex Murphy, Zork, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and numerous others we all know of were NEVER based off a story of another media (ie: movie).

I don't know...just seems like that's what the majority of new games are these days, an interactive version of a movie...

They have been making games based on movies since the Atari. It's just an easy way to make a mediocre game and get people to buy it just because of name recognition.

I think a lot of it has to do with risk management. Game ideas only get the green light if ....

1. Is a sequal to a top selling game of the last 24-48 months
2. Movie tie in game which is party funded by the studio, and gets lots of free pub from the movie.
3. part of an established franchise that always performs (l.e madden)



Companies are so risk sensitive due to cost, its like the movie industry they dont care a filp about how good the product is only about how well it will do. The decision makers arent gamers they are suits who look at number charts and tables.

freepizza wrote:They have been making games based on movies since the Atari. It's just an easy way to make a mediocre game and get people to buy it just because of name recognition.

I guess it just seems like that's almost all I ever see anymore. It used to be that besides the Movie Games, you had those other original titles out there to choose from. It just feels like whenever I look around at the video games these days, the movie games are the only things out there.

I read an in depth article once about this issue, and basically the gist of it was more or less, they use the licensed popular titles to make money to put into making their original titles. Gotta have money to make money, and what better way to make money than to cash in on an already established property? It makes the money to put into those original IPs.

Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy in the US) was also a breath of fresh air. It had a whole new way of interacting with the story (which was also good), and in my opinion should've had GOTY awarded to it. But alas.

Bioshock is a breath of fresh air, yes, but it IS still a first-person shooter at heart. I forgave it being what it is in favor of the way it makes me feel. The failed ideology, the rich background story, the characters, the plot... the plot-twist...

I'm kinda waiting for Mass Effect now, seeing as how I'm such a space opera nut.

-Fred

Fred Buer wrote:I'm kinda waiting for Mass Effect now, seeing as how I'm such a space opera nut.

You and me both. If it turns out anywhere near as good as it seems I'm going to be in gaming heaven (or well, in outer space at least). Until then I've got yet another Stanley Cup to win.

I think what games lack is meticulous attention to character and story. That's all been replaced with cutting edge graphics. Not that I have anything against a game that looks great, but it should never supercede the roots of the story.

I don't know if any of you are Dr Who fans, but it is a good example of a series in which much more attention is payed to character and story than to special effects.

In the early days of Dr Who, the budget for an entire episode was only on the order of a few hundred pounds. You can't shoot a whole lot for that, so the episodes main strengths had to be with the characters and the story. And what a resounding success it was and still is 40 years later.

I love FX, but...give me that old-time story and character.

I'm a Dr Who fan.

But I don't hide behind the sofa when the Daleks appear

-Fred