Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Wired on March 28, 2012, 04:20:24 am
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Maybe I'm not alone in this but as I'm getting older I can't help noticing that my motivation for actually playing games seems to be decreasing more and more. Nowadays I spend more time reading about games than actually playing them and in the rare instances that I actually start playing one I easily lose focus and decide to take a break. These "breaks" then invariably stretch on for days, then weeks and eventually months which means that I eventually forget what the hell the game was all about. Which means I usually never go back to it.
The thing is I haven't been able to pin down why this is happening, it's not as if I have other interests that take precedence, and it's not a matter of a lack of spare time. I'm single without any real obligations so in theory I should love gaming damn it!
Maybe it's just a phase or something, I'm 32 and have been playing games in one way or another for as long as I can remember. Although I think part of the problem is that nothing feels new or fresh any more, by this point I can't help feeling like I've seen it all and then some. Long gone are the days when I felt any real excitement for a new game, I mean it's just the same old crap repackaged slightly.
Or maybe I'm just getting old ;)
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I noticed this many years ago. These days I'm lucky to finish a game before I become utterly bored of it. By the time I reach last third of a game, it has become a chore to finish, it is no longer fun. Games which I finish with smile and actually want to keep playing even after finishing it have become increasingly rare.
I'm not sure whether this is because I've grown older or whether games these days suck more than they used to. Indie games have proven that developers and publishers don't need to spend millions to develop a good game.
Creating a game that is sufficiently long without becoming repetitive and boring is an art form in itself. Some games lack that despite being a hyped up AAA+ title. Fun, engaging and well developed gameplay can overcome other bad qualities in a game like poor writing or voice acting. If a game is not fun to play, no amount of great writing, voice acting, graphics and sounds is going to help.
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I agree with everything you just said, the more I think about it the more I suspect a big part of the problem is that everything seem so formulaic. Mostly everything feels like a variation of the same thing, with new visuals... so personally I find it hard to care too much. Sure there's exceptions but they are few and far between.
Actually nowadays Indie games has me more excited than the latest and greatest "AAA" game more often than not. At least amongst them you can find games that isn't afraid to take some chances and break the mold.
I'm also cautiously optimistic about Kickstarter, I think that could be a platform to get games that would never get a chance otherwise made. Wasteland 2 is an example of what I'm talking about.
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Could it simply be because games these days rely more and more on this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-skinner-box ?
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I have boxes and boxes of games I have started to play and never finished, ones I think when I am truly bored of whats out there, I will return to and play. Unfortunately as technology moves on, the games are no longer compatible (yeah I know about DOSBOX but it's a PITA to set up).
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wut ?
Dropbox Dosbox is probably the most straightforward emulator to set up ever. Just install and start. What kind of issues are you experiencing ?
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox) and the compatability issues usually stemmed from setting up GLIDE type games, always got lots of artifacting and display errors.
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I myself went through a period of time where I'd rather just watch Netflix on my PS3 than actually play any games
And as of late, I've only sunk 50 hours into Skyrim, skimmed a bit of LA Noire, haven't gone back to Dead Space 2 or Saints Row 3
But what did I do instead? I got Super Mario RPG and have been playing that for the past fifteen hours
I don't think it's anything to do with being bored with the games. It's just getting tired of overly complex things. I started playing Spiral Knights too. It's free, simple, spend a little bit of time on it, done. 250 hours later...
Download an emulator, and grab some of the oldies, or oldies you wanted to play but never did. You'll probably end up sitting there going at it forever
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I've got game's still wrapped in cellophane, FFXIII 2 for instance. Actually, i should finish FFXIII at some point first.
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox) and the compatability issues usually stemmed from setting up GLIDE type games, always got lots of artifacting and display errors.
Dropbox is a file / group sharing website / software, with (very) minor SVN capabilities. It is not an emulator. :P
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@OP:
I feel the same way sometimes, and find it is due to 2 of 3 issues.
#1. Things (usually slowly) suck more as you get older. This is fact.
#2. Games (, the majority of them,) actually are getting worse with every "generation". You can prove this to yourself by: (a). Missing titles when they come out, and (b). playing new releases before the ones you missed.
#3. So. Much. Filler. Game's nowadays are so much slower, and have so much more combat to the area explored that it can take (I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins) hours to complete one area, without increasing the 'reward' to account for the time spent.
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#1. Things (usually slowly) suck more as you get older. This is fact.
No. As your taste in media becomes more firmly based as you age, the eternal progression of media content will move beyond you. By the time you're an old man, you won't know what the **** is going on, and hate every second of it. If only these people had any taste and did things the way they did it years ago.
#2. Games (, the majority of them,) actually are getting worse with every "generation". You can prove this to yourself by: (a). Missing titles when they come out, and (b). playing new releases before the ones you missed.
No. Again, you losing interest in games =/= games getting worse. There have been some phenomenal titles this year, and last year, and the year before that. Yes, there's more **** out there nowadays than when I was a pup, but that's because the industry is expanding. We're seeing both ends of the bell curve expand outwards.
#3. So. Much. Filler. Game's nowadays are so much slower, and have so much more combat to the area explored that it can take (I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins) hours to complete one area, without increasing the 'reward' to account for the time spent.
No. Games have always had filler. Yes, current industry trends have resulted in a significant amount of padding in games to extend play, but if anything it's been a bit on the downslope thanks to the rise of online multi. After all, why justify that AU$100 price tag with a 20-30 hour single player experience when you can just as easily make it a 6-hour campaign with online multi to "pick up the slack". :doubt:
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Maybe I'm not alone in this but as I'm getting older I can't help noticing that my motivation for actually playing games seems to be decreasing more and more. Nowadays I spend more time reading about games than actually playing them and in the rare instances that I actually start playing one I easily lose focus and decide to take a break. These "breaks" then invariably stretch on for days, then weeks and eventually months which means that I eventually forget what the hell the game was all about. Which means I usually never go back to it.
The thing is I haven't been able to pin down why this is happening, it's not as if I have other interests that take precedence, and it's not a matter of a lack of spare time. I'm single without any real obligations so in theory I should love gaming damn it!
Maybe it's just a phase or something, I'm 32 and have been playing games in one way or another for as long as I can remember. Although I think part of the problem is that nothing feels new or fresh any more, by this point I can't help feeling like I've seen it all and then some. Long gone are the days when I felt any real excitement for a new game, I mean it's just the same old crap repackaged slightly.
Or maybe I'm just getting old ;)
Word.
I never finished Skyrim.
JA: BIA is also on hold.
Both games are still installed, still waiting.
I got several games on my gamersgate account that I havn't touched yet.
Not enough time, not enough motivation... I have things to do, games to mod, stuff to write. It's kinda sad.
There are games to which I have returned numerous times over (BG 1&2, Outcast, JA2, X-Com, ID 1&2, FS2, Crysis, etc..), but I do notice they are mostly older games...
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox) and the compatability issues usually stemmed from setting up GLIDE type games, always got lots of artifacting and display errors.
Dropbox is a file / group sharing website / software, with (very) minor SVN capabilities. It is not an emulator. :P
I never said it was, MatthTheGeek did. I just thought it was an updated version of DOSBOX because of his reply!
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play bastion
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I don't think games suck more or less than when I was young(er), in fact some of the best games ever has been released this generation. But I think as I get older I have less and less patience with frustration and boredom. No matter how good a game is there's usually a point where it might drag on or is frustrating for whatever reason. This is exacerbated since most games by nature are very similar (hello FPS #12415612) and seem rather afraid to try new things.
When I was younger this wasn't a problem in the same way since my means were very limited, I couldn't afford to simply say "to hell with it" and get another game. However now that I'm an adult this isn't a problem, so it's easier to simply stop playing and look for something else. By this point I have well over a thousand games and I don't think I've even tried half of them ;)
Which in itself is a problem, so hard to decide what to play so I've mostly stopped trying lol
I've played Bastion, bought it when it was released but you guessed it, took a break ;)
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox)
Sorry, I typo'd.
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i was in a gaming decline of sorts up until around starcrack 2 came out. now i play games at least a couple hours a day.
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox) and the compatability issues usually stemmed from setting up GLIDE type games, always got lots of artifacting and display errors.
setting up glide games on windows just requires finding the correct wrapper. i play **** like carmageddon2 and mw2 under glide. id love to play carmageddon 1 and descent 2 under glide, but both being dos games makes it impossible to run in dos natively without a voodoo card. it was actually pretty badass running games written that close to bare metal and having 3d acceeleration as well. everything was smooth as ****. there was a dos emulator with glide support called glidos or some such, but they wanted money for it. if its possible to run dosbox with glide, let me know.
fortunately the glide era was short lived and very few games required it exclusively (many could also use d3d or opengl, freespace 2 supported all 3 apis). but ive had far more problems running directx 6 games than i ever did running glide games.
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Apparently there's a couple of methods, look here: http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/glide.html and here: http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide <- which also links to the first patch
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Same here, the problem for me seems I start a game, get a hold of it and when I discover almost everything about the gameplay and stuff I just ditch it away because there's nothing more to discover after all, nothing new coming...nothing interesting.
It's weird, it's now even happening with games that have good story and all, before when a game had a intriguing storydriven campaign I used to tag along to see how it ended at least.
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I'm going to move on with this under the assumption that all of the hostility I was seeing was based solely on my mood, and thus a misinterpretation of the text as it was meant to be understood.
#1. Things (usually slowly) suck more as you get older. This is fact.
No. As your taste in media becomes more firmly based as you age, the eternal progression of media content will move beyond you. By the time you're an old man, you won't know what the **** is going on, and hate every second of it. If only these people had any taste and did things the way they did it years ago.
As the discussion was based on the subjective perception of and the related interest in games, I figured it was implied. But I'll go ahead and edit it so it's easier to pick up my meaning.
#1. [Your perception of] Things (usually slowly) [will have said things appear to] suck more as you get older. This is fact.
So.... Yeah.
#2. Games (, the majority of them,) actually are getting worse with every "generation". You can prove this to yourself by: (a). Missing titles when they come out, and (b). playing new releases before the ones you missed.
No. Again, you losing interest in games =/= games getting worse. There have been some phenomenal titles this year, and last year, and the year before that. Yes, there's more **** out there nowadays than when I was a pup, but that's because the industry is expanding. We're seeing both ends of the bell curve expand outwards.
Second sentence, don't ignore it.
#3. So. Much. Filler. Game's nowadays are so much slower, and have so much more combat to the area explored that it can take (I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins) hours to complete one area, without increasing the 'reward' to account for the time spent.
No. Games have always had filler. Yes, current industry trends have resulted in a significant amount of padding in games to extend play, but if anything it's been a bit on the downslope thanks to the rise of online multi. After all, why justify that AU$100 price tag with a 20-30 hour single player experience when you can just as easily make it a 6-hour campaign with online multi to "pick up the slack". :doubt:
#1. Wait. What? Did you just agree with me, then contradict yourself to disagree with me?
#2. Most online multiplayer is padding. Adding more padding != less padding. And furthermore, plenty of games that don't have multiplayer (e.g., the example I listed) are the worst offenders.
#3. Wow. You guys really take the shaft on game prices. :eek:
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TBH it's been a while since I used DOSBOX (never heard of Dropbox) and the compatability issues usually stemmed from setting up GLIDE type games, always got lots of artifacting and display errors.
Dropbox is a file / group sharing website / software, with (very) minor SVN capabilities. It is not an emulator. :P
I never said it was, MatthTheGeek did. I just thought it was an updated version of DOSBOX because of his reply!
The smiley was directed at him. :P (@ you, this time)
I simply had the description as a response to your quote because you stated that you had never heard of it before.
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games are a lot cheaper today than they were in the 90s from the consumer end
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I know I read an article on this a while ago, probably on The Escapist, that covered this. What it really boiled down to is...those of us who are growing older, we have to realize and accept that we are NOT the target audience for games anymore. 12-17 year old males are still the target for most games made by anything resembling a mainstream company and a lot of us are way outside of that age range now.
There has always been crappy filler in games and there have always been a lot of crappy games. Remember all the terribly broken, unplayable, hair-pullingly frustrating NES games?
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Mhhh wondering... have you started the Witcher 2 or Alpha Protocol?
Like a good novel... I found them very hard to put down.
But yeah... most mainstream games (looks at Skyrim, Assassins Creed, etc.) I found to become a chore long before you finish them.
I know I read an article on this a while ago, probably on The Escapist, that covered this. What it really boiled down to is...those of us who are growing older, we have to realize and accept that we are NOT the target audience for games anymore. 12-17 year old males are still the target for most games made by anything resembling a mainstream company and a lot of us are way outside of that age range now.
For the "mainstream" that may be true... but for games in general it couldn't be further from the truth. There are plenty of games for different (and more mature) audiences.
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Last game I owned that held my interest for any length of time was Supreme Commander 2, and that was only till I reached the Cybran campaign.
Nowadays, other than Dwarf Fortress, I don't really play much. Would like to get back into Minecraft, but it's too much of a time-sink right now, maybe in a few weeks :)
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I'm only 19 and I've found myself using my pc primarily for reading and playing SNES games. I've played so many retro RPGs that I think that I could beat Lavos, Akuma and the face on the Moon.
Though there are three xbox games I keep on finding myself playing.
*Way of the Samurai 3
*Soul Calibur 4
*BlazBlue
And as much as I loathe to admit it, I'm rather looking forwards to Naruto: Generations, if only for the large character diversity and graphics.
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I love my games
(http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7418/gameshi.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/576/gameshi.jpg/)
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play Bastion
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Last game I owned that held my interest for any length of time was Supreme Commander 2, and that was only till I reached the Cybran campaign.
Hehe I played Supreme Commander 1: FA for years literally... still loading it up sometimes for multiplayer... and found Supcom 2 to be incredibly meh... limited and dumbed down compared to the first game :)
So ... maybe check out Supcom 1. If you liked the 2nd part, who knows, you may be delighted. If you like it... then that might prove that at least with some games it's not the gamers age but the fact that the newer game sucks lol.
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Mhhh wondering... have you started the Witcher 2 or Alpha Protocol?
I have both Witcher and Witcher 2. Never finished either of them. Despite better writing and story than in your average game, they got boring half-way through.
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Last game I owned that held my interest for any length of time was Supreme Commander 2, and that was only till I reached the Cybran campaign.
Hehe I played Supreme Commander 1: FA for years literally... still loading it up sometimes for multiplayer... and found Supcom 2 to be incredibly meh... limited and dumbed down compared to the first game :)
So ... maybe check out Supcom 1. If you liked the 2nd part, who knows, you may be delighted. If you like it... then that might prove that at least with some games it's not the gamers age but the fact that the newer game sucks lol.
I actually completed Supcom 1 some years ago, and the expansion, might well drag it out again because it was indeed a better, deeper and more epic-scope game than the sequel and, oddly enough, the old AI seemed to be considerably smarter than the new one, which just seems to throw aircraft at you like there's a sale on...
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I love my games
(http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7418/gameshi.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/576/gameshi.jpg/)
I know someone who rivals your list
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For the people that mentioned DOSBox: D-Fend Reloaded (http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/Download.html) (DOSBox Frontend Reloaded) - makes DOSBox easy as pie, comes with a multitude of preset game configurations, and includes a recent version of DOSBox with the installer (IIRC it also has a method for you to manually specify a DOSBox install).
D-Fend Reloaded also has more configuration options than you can shake a stick at.
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To be truthful, I have put PC gaming off for now. The wife bought me a PS3 for Xmas and I have been playing that loads now. She bought me a number of games, some I have had a quick shufty at.
Deus-ex Human Revoution, Prison Break, Assassins Creed - Brotherhood, Forza Motorsport 4 (IIRC), Fight Night Round 4 and some other Anime sword fighting game that I haven't even looked at yet. But the game I have played the most over the past couple of months is Fallout 3. Just loving that game at the moment! Maybe when I get a new laptop I might look into that D-Fend Reloaded, I do after all have boxes of old PC games, some of which I have never played (anyone heard of a game called Psychic Detective? It comes on 6-8 Cd's and has intrigued me since I picked it up at a car boot sale but have never managed to get it working due to it being a DOS game)
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To be truthful, I have put PC gaming off for now. The wife bought me a PS3 for Xmas and I have been playing that loads now. She bought me a number of games, some I have had a quick shufty at.
Deus-ex Human Revoution, Prison Break, Assassins Creed - Brotherhood, Forza Motorsport 4 (IIRC), Fight Night Round 4 and some other Anime sword fighting game that I haven't even looked at yet. But the game I have played the most over the past couple of months is Fallout 3. Just loving that game at the moment! Maybe when I get a new laptop I might look into that D-Fend Reloaded, I do after all have boxes of old PC games, some of which I have never played (anyone heard of a game called Psychic Detective? It comes on 6-8 Cd's and has intrigued me since I picked it up at a car boot sale but have never managed to get it working due to it being a DOS game)
Your wife is epic.
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To be truthful, I have put PC gaming off for now. The wife bought me a PS3 for Xmas and I have been playing that loads now. She bought me a number of games, some I have had a quick shufty at.
Deus-ex Human Revoution, Prison Break, Assassins Creed - Brotherhood, Forza Motorsport 4 (IIRC), Fight Night Round 4 and some other Anime sword fighting game that I haven't even looked at yet. But the game I have played the most over the past couple of months is Fallout 3. Just loving that game at the moment! Maybe when I get a new laptop I might look into that D-Fend Reloaded, I do after all have boxes of old PC games, some of which I have never played (anyone heard of a game called Psychic Detective? It comes on 6-8 Cd's and has intrigued me since I picked it up at a car boot sale but have never managed to get it working due to it being a DOS game)
Your wife is epic.
I know, that's why I married her! ;)
Small Caveat.......She can't pick PC games for toffee, she once bought me a fighting game that you couldn't use a gamepad for, keyboard only and the 2d sprites could only push out their legs or arms to attack. Mind you, that was so long ago now and she has become more game savvy since then, she loves playing Juiced 2 on the Xbox with me (a previous Xmas gift).
We now own a PS1, PS2, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and a Ninitendo DS and two smart phones (Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Ace). We had two laptops at one point but she tends to throw them when in a temper (we've been through three in the last eighteen months) so at the moment I am PC-less, (I'm typing this in my lunch hour on my works PC).
I shall have to buy another laptop soon though seeing as WCSaga has just been released and there have been a couple of other FS campaigns been released lately that I haven't had a chance to play. I am missing my Freespace :sigh:
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Get those laptops that you can supposedly run over, drop off a cliff, etc... Toughbooks? I can't remember.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=toughest+laptop+tests I read the first result; there are other tests, reviews, and recommendations.
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yea, now find me a laptop that can both stop a bullet and play crysis.
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The last game I completed was Deus Ex HR. The last one before that was Fallout 3, but just barely. It's hard for me to play any RPG after you hit level cap, no matter the story.
I recently abandoned a game of Oblivion, because my super-wizard Argonian had hit the cap, and I had barely gotten into the main quest. I just finished the Kvatch gate, and the thought of going through even one more Oblivion gate made me find something better to do.
It's probably why I only got partway through Derelict before taking a break from FS2, stinkin' protesters in your made-of-paper Zod cruiser, why won't you liiiive *shakes fist*.
I think that as we age, our perception of time and its value changes as well. I just can't stomach the grind any more; if something is going to take too long without any sort of reward, I'll give up and do something more interesting. Pacing is much more important than a lot of developers seem to realize.
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The last game I completed was Deus Ex HR. The last one before that was Fallout 3, but just barely. It's hard for me to play any RPG after you hit level cap, no matter the story.
I recently abandoned a game of Oblivion, because my super-wizard Argonian had hit the cap, and I had barely gotten into the main quest. I just finished the Kvatch gate, and the thought of going through even one more Oblivion gate made me find something better to do.
It's probably why I only got partway through Derelict before taking a break from FS2, stinkin' protesters in your made-of-paper Zod cruiser, why won't you liiiive *shakes fist*.
I think that as we age, our perception of time and its value changes as well. I just can't stomach the grind any more; if something is going to take too long without any sort of reward, I'll give up and do something more interesting. Pacing is much more important than a lot of developers seem to realize.
Yeah, pacing is becoming a huge problem these days when everyone wants "sandbox" worlds to screw around in AND demand a story worth telling. It's really, really difficult to combine the two, because a good story requires good pacing, and good pacing practically requires a certain amount of linearity. A great example, to me, is COD4. I'm the first to bash annoying FPS clones but I actually thought COD4 was excellent (if now suffering from major sequel-itis). A lot of people complained that it was linear, but I think they were chronically missing the point. It was supposed to be linear. You were supposed to be doing exactly what the game wanted you to do, when it wanted you to do it - some people may not enjoy being coerced but I'm willing to accept the game on its terms, IF and only if it gives me a good reason. In COD4's case, the set pieces were a good reason, and I found it compelling and exciting.
Oblivion...eugh. I left the irritatingly unskippable and tedious tutorial area designed by people who hate character indecisiveness, wandered around for a while, killed some wolves, and found myself thinking, "Where am I supposed to go now, and why should I care?" The game gave me absolutely no sense of urgency, despite the fact that supposedly the world was screwed because the gates of hell were open or something. If the story of Oblivion were personified, it would have been an extremely meek individual with a soft whisper of a voice, prone to saying, "Um," a lot. I knew, in the back of my head, that I was supposed to care, but the game didn't give me any reasons to do anything in particular. And there have been a ridiculous amount of games like this lately. ObliviSkyrOut 3 Vegas (it's the same game with different skins), Saint's Row 2/3, GTA 4...at least Minecraft doesn't even pretend to have a story so as not to take away from the true sandbox nature of the game.
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It's rare for a game to catch my attention these days and keep me playing to the end, but it does still happen. In that case I go through the game very thoroughly and it keeps me busy for a while. I have been playing Fallout New Vegas for over two months now, and did the same with Deus Ex HR six months ago. However, I hardly played anything else at all in between, or for a long time before then. I spend a fair amount of time with old games and mods for them though, including many that I come across for the first time. Some recent ones that come to mind are Murphy's Revenge (unfinished sequel to the classic Mac game Infotron, but seems mostly complete) and the Army of Haloon campaign for Descent 3.
As for the linear/sandbox issue, I like both types of games but the latter ones are usually far more interesting and memorable if I can get into the game at all. My favorite games in the last few years have been the semi-nonlinear ones where you have a well-defined context and objectives, but the game puts you in a big, open world and lets you go about things in your own way, while reacting to your actions all the time. I want to feel like I'm playing a game, not just being told a story.
Mhhh wondering... have you started the Witcher 2 or Alpha Protocol?
Like a good novel... I found them very hard to put down.
I started playing Alpha Protocol a year ago but only got past the first mission, and have never felt motivated to play it again. Maybe it was the lack of saves. That always gets on my nerves, especially in a game that isn't strictly linear.
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I'm definitely not a general fan of those pseudo-"sandbox" sorts of games myself, to the point where I just avoid playing them. It's hardly a new phenomenon, though...I'm playing through the GBA port of Final Fantasy VI for the first time, and while the first half of the game is fairly linear in flow, the second half opens up into something of a "do whatever you want next" scenario (which I understand is somewhat common to the series). I mean, there are tasks to do, and the game does give you decent direction as to where you should be looking, but there's no real drive to get there. And all the while, Kefka sits in his tower doing whatever, waiting for you to choose when you actually want to complete the game. I wound up getting bogged down and putting the game aside for a long while; it's only recently that I've taken it up again in an attempt to plow through the rest of the side-quests and finally beat it.
In retrospect, it's funny how Chrono Trigger, a JRPG from the same era (and company) which I also first played only recently, handles the same genre differently. The game is much more linear and story-driven as a whole, with the only real side-quests appearing right near the end of the game. Strangely enough, you have far more choice in this game in when you choose to do the final battle (hell, with a New Game+, you can even do it right at the beginning), but it works far better...the whole game's about you hopping through time, and since you normally beat the boss in one given time, it makes sense that there would be no external pressure to get there.
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Starting to feel the same way myself... approaching 30. Less interest and value that I'm getting out of games. I used to love them... I still play but almost entirely out of boredom.
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I've lost interest these days because...... I feel like the same games are being released over and over.
And games that I DO want sequels for don't get them.
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Hm..It could be a wave of depression and nostalgia I've been feeling these last few days that's causing the dwindling interest.
Or it could be that I'm getting older (hitting 31 soon)... Or that work and other worries are sapping the pep out of me.
...
Damn you word!
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i quit playing for the most part when i was about 34. But thank god for freespace, because I enjoy building. I amm not very good at creating things, but i really do enjoy it more than playing. To me, creating is playing.
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You know, I completely agree.
:D
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I think that someone earlier said "I've seen it all."
It's the same thing just rehashed and regurgitated. So really what's the sense? Cool is building the things. We search and strive for something original. For Christ's sake give me something original, anything!! So we learn to build, looking for something original.
Take two viagra and build it.
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If you haven't played any of the wildly original campaigns that came out in the past couple years, no wonder you think it's the same thing rehashed and regurgitated.
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I didn't say campaigns...i meant games.
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I personally find (and I've echoed this over many times before) that few things or games from major publishers interest me any more. And this is unfair, because there are certainly great games coming from the publishers (or there is at least an appreciable selection). But I don't think any of those publishers offer anything, or anything without baggage (such as DRM), that I'm willing to spend money on.
Paradox is a good house, and the last game I bought was Mount and Blade. That game itself was produced by a small team, and while not the prettiest game, delivered more entertainment value than I think I could have possibly derived from something from a major publisher with a substantial team. I think the reason for that is genuine care for the product being made, and then delivered. The quality of the game is in the spirit of the game. I got a lot of that spirit for only 30 USD, which I'd say is money well spent.
Great games, furthermore, do not necessarily need to be pretty. They do need to hold themselves together with a coherent art style, but at the end of the day, the inside of the game is what counts. Board games, to make a very interesting example, rely on this entirely, making you use your mind to fill in the gaps which the simple mechanics of the game itself cannot provide. There's interpersonal mechanics, which are a step above what any game can present, of course, but you would not play the game itself if the core mechanics did not suit your needs. That said, some of my favorite isometric RPGs will not stun you with their visuals, but they have a set of core mechanics - story, gameplay, and value, that all the flash in the world will not do any more or less justice to. There's simply no substitute for that kind of quality, and I've seldom seen any major game publisher put out those kind of games lately - fortunately, there's plenty of indie devs out there that do.
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MOst of what Thaeris said is what i was trying to say. He's just so much better with words.