Modern Gaming

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

Is there anyone else who feels that gaming went sour some time ago?

 

I'm talking about pre-ordering, exclusives, dlc, cinematic games, online only, lack of content, stripped content, downgrades, lies, cancellations, censorship of forums, closing of forums, support moving to useless platforms like twitter and so on....

 

wth is up with the industry and why are so many games touted as AAA titles but turn out crap these days?

 

 

i'd like to know peoples thoughts.

 

 

my biggest gripe is why games these days have to be so cinematic? i love movies, but i like my movies to stay just that, on film. I don't want that world seeping into gaming as it;

 

makes games shorter, easier, boring, annoying to play (post processing), repetitive, not fun and you feel like you got ripped off for buying an interactive movie.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2017 by Slarlac249

[Jub]

In my experience this has always been the way of the industry. I think it's a mix of overambitious studios and pressure from publishers to deliver. That and, of course, the fact that games now are a billion times more complex in absolutely every aspect, from physics to dynamic events and player choices affecting the narrative.

 

Despite this, I think many games today are incredible.

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

I'd have to disagree, maybe i'm just getting older, i haven't been wowed by anything since crysis 3, that's like 4 years ago. Everything just seems so average these days, i gave up playing battlefield as the cinematic visuals ###### me off.

 

lately i've just been making stuff / modding stuff on the cryengine sandbox editors, where i can pretty much do anything and not have to put up with bs visual effects and other annoying gameplay elements.

[game_over]

I mostly agree. I hate overly cinematic games, particularly quick-time events and characters on rails.

 

Watching a cinematic and being instructed to mash a button to progress through the scene is not fun. Most modern games have one path, you just move from A to B.

 

Because of this I rarely play new games single player campaigns. I use my PS4 for major online games like FIFA and classic remakes like Resident Evil. I also have a Nintendo for more challenging gameplay.... they tend to have a small retro aspect to them (less modern) and require more thought. You also get full games and DLC is an actual expansion, rather than the rest of the original game, and it's not as rammed down your throat as other consoles.

 

You should look into a Wii U or Switch if you want to break away from the PS4/XBOX rubbish. Despite only having a handful of games, I've found them to be the most exciting, enjoyable, challenging and rewarding games I have ever played.

 

I do like Twitter for support though, companies tend to do well replying to their customers.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Twitter is great for support, you issue gets good visibility which usually makes support look into/resolve things much faster. 

 

My opinion is mixed on DLC, there are some great examples of DLC that I'd happily pay for, but things like maps for the Call of Duty games...I think should I really be paying for this. 

 

@Slarlac249I someimes feel your pain though, but also put it down age as well. 

[TPreston]

IMO it went sour when i was told that i had to install software on my computer just to play a game.

[Draconian Guppy]

4 hours ago, Slarlac249 said:

I'd have to disagree, maybe i'm just getting older, i haven't been wowed by anything since crysis 3, that's like 4 years ago. Everything just seems so average these days, i gave up playing battlefield as the cinematic visuals ###### me off.

 

lately i've just been making stuff / modding stuff on the cryengine sandbox editors, where i can pretty much do anything and not have to put up with bs visual effects and other annoying gameplay elements.

I miss "will it run crysis"  

[dadwacker]

It's all about the money, they have captured the whole millennial generation of lazy kids and convinced them into nagging their parents to buy every turd on the shelf because 'pewdiepie' plays it or something extremely mental like that

[Louisifer]

27 minutes ago, Sensi said:

It's all about the money, they have captured the whole millennial generation of lazy kids and convinced them into nagging their parents to buy every turd on the shelf because 'pewdiepie' plays it or something extremely mental like that

I think Gen Z's are pewdiepie's demographic, Millennial's are the ones footing the bill.  

[dadwacker]

16 hours ago, Louisifer said:

I think Gen Z's are pewdiepie's demographic, Millennial's are the ones footing the bill.  

I know, i'm wrong in saying that lol Millennial in my eyes is every kid from year 2000 onwards not the 80's

[Vandalsquad]

It's gone south since the horse armor. Everyone remember the crud fight when that was first introduced and the slippery slope it would be? And developers promising it wouldn't be? Thanks Bethesda.

[Mando]

meh, triple A titles and shareholders are to blame, long live the indie developers! 

 

Indie titles are about the only thing keeping my gaming interests these days.

[exotoxic]

Avoid the big publishers like EA and UbiSoft.

[DConnell Member]

On 6/20/2017 at 5:34 AM, Slarlac249 said:

Is there anyone else who feels that gaming went sour some time ago?

 

I'm talking about pre-ordering, exclusives, dlc, cinematic games, online only, lack of content, stripped content, downgrades, lies, cancellations, censorship of forums, closing of forums, support moving to useless platforms like twitter and so on....

 

wth is up with the industry and why are so many games touted as AAA titles but turn out crap these days?

 

 

i'd like to know peoples thoughts.

 

 

my biggest gripe is why games these days have to be so cinematic? i love movies, but i like my movies to stay just that, on film. I don't want that world seeping into gaming as it;

 

makes games shorter, easier, boring, annoying to play (post processing), repetitive, not fun and you feel like you got ripped off for buying an interactive movie.

 

 

I agree completely. <Fires up vintage Atari 7800 and plays Berserk.>

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

when i try out a new game, i always start off at the video settings (if they exist) most console ports tend have little to no settings or the devs just put in the usual settings to please us pc gamers but leave out all the settings that can make a game less annoying to play.

 

my biggest gripe with games is post processing.

 

vignette - dark screen corners - bf3, bad company etc

colour tints - battlefield 3+, gta 5 and probably other games

bloody screen when shot - too many games to list

film grain - many games

depth of field - many games

motion blur - many games

lens flares / glare

bloom / hdr

 

vignette, i find this destracting in games, supposed to draw view to middle of screen, i just find it annoying

 

colour tints, can result in ugly looking / dull game worlds, see battlefield 3 without it, looks soooooooo much better, never forget blue metro....

 

bloody screen when shot, the most retarded and annoying thing to be added to any shooter or 3rd person shooter game, are we so dumb we need blood splatter all over the screen to know our player health is low??? what was wrong with health in hud??? if i can't disable it i just give up on X game or just play it in very short bursts.

this stupid effect made completing the cod games a pain the butt, no replays as it was just so annoying.....

 

film grain, just annoying, hated it in bad company 1

 

dof, motion blur, i prefer a clear screen, i don't like blur of any sort, i find it distracting and annoying, way too much of it in gta 5, i ended up making a postfx off mod, basically edited as much of the game files as possible to disable all post processing, only things i couldn't disable was postfx in the cutscenes

 

i disabled things like the colour tints when switching characters, all the blurs, including explosion blur, the screen effects when travor does a rage thing,

pause screen colour tint, curved fish eye effects when looking at doors at certain angles, desaturation and so on......took several days to disable all the effects i could find and it make the game much more easy on the eyes

 

lens flares, glare, bloom, lens dirt and rain on screen, all annoying, i found metro 2033 and light light quite annoying to play with the constant gasmak mosture, cracked gasmak, lens flares and other screen effects obscuring my view, great games but the post processing was overused.

 

all the bs effects in battlefield since bad company 1 ended my interest in that series after bf4, i just couldn't stand it anymore. curse the art director!!!!

 

maybe i'm just picky but i hate games that force all that crap on you, they make a lush game world but then ruin it with pointless post processing because they think it makes the graphics look better, developers need to stop thinking like they are making movies....it's still possible to have a nice looking game and be a joy to play.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2017 by Slarlac249

[ichi]

Big publishers, that's what happened.

 

It's a double edged sword because it implies both that games get into superproduction scale, and also that there's an expectation of maximizing returns in every single way with as few risks as possible.

 

That latter point is where you get screwed: copy/pasted formulas, crappy DLCs, microtransactions, cheap gameplay mechanics, release-whatever-you-have-on-deadline-even-if-it's-crap, etc...

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

yep, which is why i haven't purchased a game in a while as the gameplay videos on youtube speak for themselves, yet people continue to support developers who keep churning out the same old junk again and again but just give them new names and change a few things here and there....

 

install 50+gb game > sit through a load of intro videos and warning crap > play intro / tutorial mission with scripted stuff you wish you could skip > sit through cinematic > enter main gameplay and perform repetitive tasks > kill some baddie at end > uninstall and think is that it?

 

that about sums up most games atm.

 

used to be install game, play game and have loads of fun

[Mando]

2 minutes ago, Slarlac249 said:

yep, which is why i haven't purchased a game in a while as the gameplay videos on youtube speak for themselves, yet people continue to support developers who keep churning out the same old junk again and again but just give them new names and change a few things here and there....

 

install 50+gb game > sit through a load of intro videos and warning crap > play intro / tutorial mission with scripted stuff you wish you could skip > sit through cinematic > enter main gameplay and perform repetitive tasks > kill some baddie at end > uninstall and think is that it?

 

that about sums up most games atm.

 

used to be install game, play game and have loads of fun

go Indie  they Triple As rehash it because, they sell in bucketloads. Low risk, high ROI

[Nick H. Supervisor]

The only part I disagree with is the cinematic cutscenes. If I think about the Metal Gear series, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider (at least, the later games)...all of these games I was playing as much for the story as the gameplay. The only time I've considered it to be a pain is if I've hit a wall with progressing which means I need to sit through an unskippable cutscene over and over and over and over...just let me skip it, I know what happens!

 

For me, the downfall of AAA gaming has come in the form of DLC and pre-orders. It used to be that you got a complete game, and after a while there would be an expansion pack to keep you engaged. But you weren't required to buy the expansions. Now quite a lot of AAA titles seem to be half of the game on the main disk (still being charged at full price, mind) followed by DLCs to access relatively simplistic additions for an added cost of £10. And what was with the idea of having a pre-order from one store get you a certain pre-order bonus, but ordering it from another store got you a different bonus? It effectively meant that without paying for the full game several times over you would never have a truly complete game.

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

don't forgot a lot of so called dlc isn't dlc, it's just locked content already on the disc / game download, remember the far cry 3 bonus missions which could just be unlocked by modifying files.

 

so there's a real big grey area surrounding dlc, sometimes it's dlc and you actual download something substantial and sometimes it's a few kb...which doesn't really make it proper dlc, i remember bits of dlc on xbox 360 for some game and it resulted in a download of a few kb just to unlock some bonus crap....

 

it's just a ploy to get you to spend more for basically the same stuff as the standard edition but with some extra junk like a crappy art book, some postcards or some poorly made action figure etc

 

i've been consoleless for months now, as i can't justify having one when there's only a small trickle of decent-ish console only games, that and the games are just so expensive...

i'm at the stage where i have a decent pc for gaming in pretty much every room in the house now as i've saved money by not bothering with any more consoles or getting a smart tv, which i don't regret. can do a lot more on a pc / htpc than with a big chunky console.

 

still have pc gaming at heart as always, am still looking out for something to fill the void that battlefield 2142 left.....battlefront just doesn't cut it as dice runined that and i'm not expecting the new game to be any better as they say there's not going to be a conquest mode now....which just sucks.

 

[Mando]

im the same buddy re: DICE titles, with each release it has drifted further and further from what made DICE titles so entertaining. Battlefront I was the last straw for me, i certainly refused to buy BF1 battlefront with gas masks.

 

Nothing is fiilling the voide left with DICE titles for me, its quite sad.

[LaP]

I the last 7 years or so i've been mostly playing indie games. Big titles just don't interest me anyone. It's just copy paste these days. Moar content. Moar buttons. The more content you have the less time you can devote to design.

 

Most of the big AAA titles feel very uninspired these days. Specially the CoD games and the Tom Clancy's games. Average level design. Unimpressive gfx. Lot of polygons, vaselin and bump mapping and all those things but for the most part unimpressive environmental effects and design. Sound is worse than it was couple of years ago. Games used to have outstanding environmental sound effects but these days it's pretty much non existent. When it comes to sound design Sanitarium still kill anything new coming to the market these days including the uncompressed 40GB of raw sound effects from Titanfail.

 

When it comes to design the walking simulator Dear Esther beats hands down any big AAA titles released these days. It's not even close it's an easy victory for Dear Esther. That walking simulator is old but still impress me with its design and environmental effects every time i start it.

 

The few AAA titles i enjoyed the last couple of years are Alien: Isolation, The Witcher series and Dishonored. Enjoyed Borderlands too. Metro 2033 was a great technical accomplishment. Other than that i've mostly been playing indie titles or smaller titles like Life is Strange or Legend of Grimrock. The first The Witcher could be considered a smaller title it was not AAA by any means.

 

I've build my PC 10 years ago so it could run Crysis. Never expected it to be able to run new AAA games 10 years later. Never expected to not care about it being able to run new AAA titles 10 years later.

[LaP]

2 hours ago, Nick H. said:

For me, the downfall of AAA gaming has come in the form of DLC and pre-orders.

The worst offenders are without any doubt Paradox Interactive and either 2k or Gearbox. The whole Borderlands 2 game probably cost over 200$.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, LaP said:

The worst offenders are without any doubt Paradox Interactive and either 2k or Gearbox. The whole Borderlands 2 game probably cost over 200$.

This is the one that always shocks me:

 

 

Although to be fair I do seem to remember that The Sims expansion packs normally did introduce more features and options rather than just reskinned models.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

2 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

This is the one that always shocks me:

 

 

Although to be fair I do seem to remember that The Sims expansion packs normally did introduce more features and options rather than just reskinned models.

Wait til you see Train Simulator