Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Lorric on February 21, 2013, 07:48:14 pm
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I've still never spent any appreciable amount of time with a PS3, so I can't say I'm all that concerned about whatever the hell Sony is trying now.
Me too.
PS4...
I feel nothing.
I own 98 PS2 games. Enjoyed the overwhelming majority.
I own 12 PS3 games. One doesn't count as it's a collection of old games, and two were freebies for the hacker scandal, and one came with the machine. And I've got little joy out of many of those which remain. Gaming has gone to the casuals, and it sucks for me. Who would have thought real gamers being seen as losers and nerds without lives would be better than the alternative, this mainstream crap being pumped out to cater for them.
The system doesn't matter anymore. Real games are dying out. The machine isn't a game. What you can do with the machine is irrelevant if you're just putting garbage into it.
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Yeah, I think the whole "hardcore/casual" thing has almost always been bull****, and even more so over the past few years. My whole thing with the PS3 is that there's never been any exclusive title that's made me perk up and say, "Man I need to play that." I mean I know several of the PS3 exclusives are good stuff, but they don't fit into that system-buying category for me. (The Last Guardian's about the only thing that might, but who knows what the hell will happen with that.) The same was largely true for both the original XBox and the 360. Nintendo's the only one of the three that has that sort of hold on me, because hell, you give me Mario and Zelda and Metroid, and I'm set. I know many people give them grief for largely sticking to those same tried-and-true franchises, but sales value aside, I think there's an inherent benefit in having a few properties that are near-universally known and beloved, and that have spanned over so many years. Sony doesn't really have anything that compares...I mean, when was the last Crash Bandicoot game people cared about? Sega did with Sonic, but we all know how that turned out, and Halo has become that for MS, but I can't think of anything truly iconic to associate with the PlayStation brand anymore.
But that's exactly because of the mainstreaming of gaming. Nothing stands out anymore. In the PS2 days, around one such huge, "wow factor" title would come out a year. Creativity and individuality has been destroyed. More than once a year I would feel that excitement looking at a game, now I never feel it at all. The only games which do that for me are old games that I have bought in this generation.
Game developers are there to make money, not incredible games. If they can make more money sticking to a cookie cutter dumbed down formula that requires less effort, then they will. But there's no soul anymore, no creativity. Just mainstream, mass market, all flash and no substance "games".
A whole generation, and for me it's like they've barely got past launch.
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So instead of going to the reasonable conclusion of saying that your tastes have shifted so that mainstream console games are no longer interesting to you, you are saying that the games market has gotten worse?
Bravo, Lorric, bravo.
(The Creativity and Individuality you miss from mainstream titles was never there to begin with, btw. AAA titles have always played it safe, this was no different during the PS2 days. The innovative breakout titles of the past are the indie games of today.)
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But that's exactly because of the mainstreaming of gaming. Nothing stands out anymore. In the PS2 days, around one such huge, "wow factor" title would come out a year. Creativity and individuality has been destroyed. More than once a year I would feel that excitement looking at a game, now I never feel it at all. The only games which do that for me are old games that I have bought in this generation.
Game developers are there to make money, not incredible games. If they can make more money sticking to a cookie cutter dumbed down formula that requires less effort, then they will. But there's no soul anymore, no creativity. Just mainstream, mass market, all flash and no substance "games".
There's a fascinating disconnect between these two paragraphs. One says "nothing stands out anymore", and implies that everything is the same now. But then things changed in amusing way. "Once a year" and "More than once a year". You are saying, directly, that the pace of good games being released got faster. You even admit you thought so.
Then you segue into an argument that gaming's quality decayed.
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So instead of going to the reasonable conclusion of saying that your tastes have shifted so that mainstream console games are no longer interesting to you, you are saying that the games market has gotten worse?
Bravo, Lorric, bravo.
(The Creativity and Individuality you miss from mainstream titles was never there to begin with, btw. AAA titles have always played it safe, this was no different during the PS2 days. The innovative breakout titles of the past are the indie games of today.)
My taste hasn't changed at all. The business has.
I wonder what AAA titles you are thinking of. It would be interesting to see if I actually possess any of them out of my 98 PS2 games.
But that's exactly because of the mainstreaming of gaming. Nothing stands out anymore. In the PS2 days, around one such huge, "wow factor" title would come out a year. Creativity and individuality has been destroyed. More than once a year I would feel that excitement looking at a game, now I never feel it at all. The only games which do that for me are old games that I have bought in this generation.
Game developers are there to make money, not incredible games. If they can make more money sticking to a cookie cutter dumbed down formula that requires less effort, then they will. But there's no soul anymore, no creativity. Just mainstream, mass market, all flash and no substance "games".
There's a fascinating disconnect between these two paragraphs. One says "nothing stands out anymore", and implies that everything is the same now. But then things changed in amusing way. "Once a year" and "More than once a year". You are saying, directly, that the pace of good games being released got faster. You even admit you thought so.
Then you segue into an argument that gaming's quality decayed.
Once a year a title that people would buy the system for. More than once a year a title that was worth getting excited about. In the PS2 days.
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So you're talking about games that are system sellers. Let's see. Over the course of the PS3's life, we've had several such games (Uncharted series, Gran Turismo, God of War, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, even Journey would probably qualify). That short list there covers 9 games, spread out over a 7-year lifespan. I'd say that there are just as many system sellers now as there were before, whether or not they would have been enough to sell the system to you is irrelevant. These are high-quality games with polished stories and gameplay that certainly helped shift a bunch of systems.
Now, you say that your tastes haven't changed. I find that somewhat hard to believe; I know that I am looking for different things in games now than I was 3, 4, or 7 years ago (Not to mention 13 years ago, when the PS2 came out!). Nevertheless, if I assume your assertion to be true, then I would have to ask what games you are looking for, because I am pretty certain that there were no genres left behind in this generation.
Also, as far as I can work out, the average quality of games has risen in the past few years, due to the rise of the Indie scene as a viable market, the increased necessity to deliver experiences that stand out above the sea of facebook and mobile games, the increased awareness that writing is an important part of crafting games, and the increased awareness among players about the hows and whys of game design.
Granted, small and large "innovative" titles occupy a smaller relative share of the market ever since the Call of Battlefield: Duty in Modern Honor Warfare Halos wave, but I would assume that the absolute numbers are still as high or higher than they have been before (this is a completely unfounded supposition, so beware!).
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So you're talking about games that are system sellers. Let's see. Over the course of the PS3's life, we've had several such games (Uncharted series, Gran Turismo, God of War, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, even Journey would probably qualify). That short list there covers 9 games, spread out over a 7-year lifespan. I'd say that there are just as many system sellers now as there were before, whether or not they would have been enough to sell the system to you is irrelevant. These are high-quality games with polished stories and gameplay that certainly helped shift a bunch of systems.
Now, you say that your tastes haven't changed. I find that somewhat hard to believe; I know that I am looking for different things in games now than I was 3, 4, or 7 years ago (Not to mention 13 years ago, when the PS2 came out!). Nevertheless, if I assume your assertion to be true, then I would have to ask what games you are looking for, because I am pretty certain that there were no genres left behind in this generation.
Also, as far as I can work out, the average quality of games has risen in the past few years, due to the rise of the Indie scene as a viable market, the increased necessity to deliver experiences that stand out above the sea of facebook and mobile games, the increased awareness that writing is an important part of crafting games, and the increased awareness among players about the hows and whys of game design.
Granted, small and large "innovative" titles occupy a smaller relative share of the market ever since the Call of Battlefield: Duty in Modern Honor Warfare Halos wave, but I would assume that the absolute numbers are still as high or higher than they have been before (this is a completely unfounded supposition, so beware!).
I was actually talking about PS2 system sellers.
PS3, I haven't played any of those. Funnily enough, I possess Killzone 2. Bought it a few days ago cheaply with 3 other games. Haven't played it yet.
Uncharted, know little about. Gran Turismo, I looked into the game, and have been tempted to buy occasionally, but haven't, it just has flaws I don't like. I have Gran Turismos 1 and 2 for PS1, but no more. Rubber band AI is a big deal breaker for me, but I have other issues with this one.
God of War, I'm just not keen on one man army type games. I also played a demo and it didn't click for me.
LittleBigPlanet unfortunately is in a genre I don't like. It is an impressive game besides that.
I've never heard of Journey.
It is true, because I keep going back to games from all generations. I don't have time to answer this properly, as I have to be somewhere pretty soon, but I can try and answer it later. I'll look through my games, both PS2 and PS1.
I must admit that as far as the indie scene goes, I know very little about it.
I have very few first person shooters, so this has been one of the biggest problems for me. The one shooter that would have excited me, Timesplitters 4, got cancelled.
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Now, you say that your tastes haven't changed. I find that somewhat hard to believe; I know that I am looking for different things in games now than I was 3, 4, or 7 years ago (Not to mention 13 years ago, when the PS2 came out!). Nevertheless, if I assume your assertion to be true, then I would have to ask what games you are looking for, because I am pretty certain that there were no genres left behind in this generation.
Alright, time for this part.
I mentioned about not liking one man show games, and I surprised myself at just how much I have avoided this in my game library. So let me expand on the reasoning behind this. If it’s just you out there, the game will be the same every time you play it. You march into that room with that same group of enemies in. If you have to repeat, nothing changes.
Online gaming does not interest me. At least with strangers. So the march towards online multiplayer and the de-emphasising of single player campaigns has hurt me.
Now, if you have an actual battle with not just you there, the game will change each time you play it. This is what I enjoy. Gameplay closely followed by replay ability are my highest priorities.
Other examples of this would be a racing game. While it’s only you, the other racers will make things different every race. Although there are some on-rails racing games out there, and surprisingly, I don’t have a problem playing these, but prefer it not to be the case. A particular favourite is Demolition derby type racing. This kind of game really seems to have died out though since the PS1, with the exception of a great game for PS2 called Driven to Destruction. Motorstorm would have been nice, but for rubber band AI. Rubber band mechanisms alone won’t break a game for me, but you have to still be able to “snap” the band. If you can’t do that, I’m not interested. Crash Team Racing (an all time favourite) is a perfect example of this. Unlike Mario Kart, which sucks because of rubber banding and the blue shell, CTR has rubber banding, but if you learn the tracks perfectly and race out of your skin you can break free of the pack even on hard, so the game has a strong skill element to it, even though you can still win by luck if you’re not good enough. Mario Kart is basically luck, skill is pretty negligible. Well, unless you’re taking on a staff ghost, but you don’t buy the game for that.
I also have Crash Bash, love that game. Requires skill, but plenty of random elements if you like, to keep things interesting and the replay value high.
Football and other sports would also qualify. Football is one of only two areas I’ve got true enjoyment from the PS3 thanks to FIFA, and that was the reason I bought the console, for FIFA World Cup 2010. I’m not interested enough in club football to buy a regular FIFA, although I bought FIFA 13, because it has an international management aspect. The other is WipEout.
My favourite game series is Dynasty Warriors and it’s spin offs. Now of course these are still going. But they’ve been dumbed down for the masses on PS3. Although I just picked up Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce and that is looking like a real gem. The AI is just braindead. They’ve gone with a formula that on the higher difficulties, you take massive damage if you get hit, but the AI is braindead. But the AI can’t touch me to do that damage. They’ve also dumbed down a lot of things with the game, and ruined the game balance. It used to be that the AI got more aggressive and did strong damage, but not ridiculous damage. Dynasty Warriors 4 combined with Dynasty Warriors 4 Xtreme Legends (for the new Expert difficulty and improved AI) was the best, it’s been downhill from there. This was DW at it’s finest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3vG9HC_8DA
We got Warriors Orochi and Warriors Orochi 2 after that which were awesome games, but the core games started going downhill ever since.
A fine game, in the same mould, is, amusingly, The Warriors. It’s based off the film of the same name however.
I love that type of game where you’re thrown onto a big battlefield, and it’s up to you to swing it. A criminally unknown game called Battle Engine Aquila on PS2 is a great example of this. Freespace 2 and other space combat games also qualify. It’s up to you to get the job done, but try telling your wingmen to depart and see what happens to you. You need them, they need you. Another aspect of why I like these games is the fact you can’t rest, you can’t fall asleep. Because you need to fight for your allies. If it was just you vs. the World, that pressure wouldn’t be there, and you could pick apart the enemies at your leisure.
I like RTS games, but consoles don’t really cater for them. Especially the PS3. PS2 had a handful. PS1 tended to carry some PC ports.
I haven’t played an RPG for many years. Final Fantasy died for me at XII. I know for a lot of people it died at X, but I really like X. I even managed to get some enjoyment out of X-2, though there were times the game made me cringe and I was glad no one could see me playing it. But I think X manages to stand alongside previous titles. X-2 is merely a good game. No more Grandias or Suikodens or Kingdom Hearts or Summoners. I have however got my eye on Ni No Kuni. Ni No Kuni is the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen.
I have very few FPSs. The only ones I have really enjoyed are Perfect Dark (N64 game creeping in there), Timesplitters 2 and Timesplitters Future Perfect. It’s the huge diversity and customisability of the multiplayer sections of these games that made these games for me, although PD and TFP have great single player campaigns too. TS2’s is just decent. They also have a lot of single player challenges set in the multiplayer section of the game. I don’t need another human to get loads of enjoyment out of the multiplayer. I’d have been all over these if they’d made more. And that is it for the FPSs. Oh, I also enjoyed Turok Rage Wars a lot, another N64 title. And that basically is a single player multiplayer game.
Today’s FPSs don’t even have proper single player campaigns. They just serve as a boot camp to prepare you for online multiplayer.
I’ll give a quick shout out to another largely unknown PS2 game that is one of my favourites, Ring of Red.
I can’t understand why they didn’t make a PS3 Star Wars Battlefront. Surely that ticks all the boxes of today’s games, right? It seems an ideal title for today’s market.
I’d like to see someone try and make a fantasy sport game. I absolutely love Speedball 2100 on PS1.
I like my games to have customisability and editors in them if possible.
I think that about does it. I think the greatest game I’ve ever played is Warcraft III. Greatest console game ever is Perfect Dark.
If anyone wants to try making suggestions about games now that you‘ve seen my tastes, feel free to. Also, any suggestions on how to research the World of indie gaming would be welcome too, I know very little about it.
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Then there's me who enjoys pretty much every game I've ever played
Except Conflict: Denied Ops. That **** was terrible
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Then there's me who enjoys pretty much every game I've ever played
Except Conflict: Denied Ops. That **** was terrible
Surely it can't be that simple with you though? What about universally acknowledged crap games? Or do you just choose well? I generally put a lot of research into my game purchases, and before the PS3 era usually chose well.
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It is that simple. If a game looks fun, I'll play it. That hasn't failed me in my hundred game purchases
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It is that simple. If a game looks fun, I'll play it. That hasn't failed me in my hundred game purchases
In a way, it's the same with me. It just takes me a while to determine if a game looks fun. Once in a while I'll know just by looking at something, but that hasn't happened in the PS3 era, that immediate excited feeling.
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Why don't you just say you don't like games from this generation and have a piece of paper with dozens of standards that must be checked off.
What games deliver wow factor to you anyhow? You never did say what makes you go "wow"
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Why don't you just say you don't like games from this generation and have a piece of paper with dozens of standards that must be checked off.
What games deliver wow factor to you anyhow? You never did say what makes you go "wow"
Wow factor games for me? I got the biggest wow on console ever when I first saw Dynasty Warriors, Dynasty Warriors 2 was part of a demo disc that came with my PS2 and I just had to have it. Subsequent games wowed me as well. Burnout wowed me when I first saw that, Final Fantasies 8-10 wowed me. Rome Total War was the biggest wow I've ever had, and made me get my own PC, I was obsessed with owning that game. Freespace 2 actually wowed me, as did some other PS1 space combat games. Battle Engine Aquila wowed me. I think Ridge Racer Type 4 wowed me. Warcraft III certainly did. I know the old Road Rash games did. Why the hell don't they revive those?! Grandia II wowed me. I'm pretty sure Crash Team Racing and Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat did. Speedball 2 back in the old days was one of the biggest wows ever. Perfect Dark and Timesplitters 2 certainly wowed me. Soviet Strike may have. I know the old Jungle Strike did which was my first taste of that series, another series I wish would have continued. Those are the quick wows anyway, others have become my favourites without wowing me, while not all of those are among my top games. Oh, and Mario Kart despite what I said about it wowed me on seeing it. My first look at F-Zero did this also. I'll probably have missed something, but that's a good enough list I think.
EDIT: Oh, probably my most recent and surprising wow, Langrisser II of all things. A friend gave it to me like 2 years ago, the fan translated English version.
Edit 2: Paradroid and Star Paws on C-64, along with the game that started it all, Operation Wolf.
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I mentioned about not liking one man show games, and I surprised myself at just how much I have avoided this in my game library. So let me expand on the reasoning behind this. If it’s just you out there, the game will be the same every time you play it. You march into that room with that same group of enemies in. If you have to repeat, nothing changes.
My favourite game series is Dynasty Warriors and it’s spin offs
(http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/264/reactionface3.jpg)
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That's a nice picture, who is that? One of yours?
You do most of the work in Dynasty Warriors. Not all of it. You're the main man, but part of a team. As with most games where you have allies. Warriors Orochi, Warriors Orochi 2 and the Empires spin offs your allies play a much larger role.
EDIT: Oh and Destiny Mode in Dynasty Warriors 5 Xtreme Legends, where you start out as just a soldier and have to do a lot of work with your unit to begin with.
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I should've rephrased my question
What ASPECTS of games make you go wow? Not a list of games, but a description of what makes you go wow
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I should've rephrased my question
What ASPECTS of games make you go wow? Not a list of games, but a description of what makes you go wow
I don't know how to answer that.
Why are you asking? If you want to know what "makes me tick" when it comes to games, isn't what I said about my taste in games enough for you? That information is more reliable anyway than an initial wow impression. Many of my favourite games didn't wow me. Looking at the list of "wow" games, I see a common trend is a sense of grand scale and immersion into the game World.
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This conversation is getting a little out of hand.
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I should've rephrased my question
What ASPECTS of games make you go wow? Not a list of games, but a description of what makes you go wow
I don't know how to answer that.
Why are you asking? If you want to know what "makes me tick" when it comes to games, isn't what I said about my taste in games enough for you? That information is more reliable anyway than an initial wow impression. Many of my favourite games didn't wow me. Looking at the list of "wow" games, I see a common trend is a sense of grand scale and immersion into the game World.
I'm asking because I want to see if you can physically put into words what is "wow" rather than "Here's a game I find 'wow' with no indications as to why!"
I don't know what about these games made you go wow, and yet you say I should be able to figure it out by your tastes. I'm not inside your head. I see these games differently than you
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I should've rephrased my question
What ASPECTS of games make you go wow? Not a list of games, but a description of what makes you go wow
I don't know how to answer that.
Why are you asking? If you want to know what "makes me tick" when it comes to games, isn't what I said about my taste in games enough for you? That information is more reliable anyway than an initial wow impression. Many of my favourite games didn't wow me. Looking at the list of "wow" games, I see a common trend is a sense of grand scale and immersion into the game World.
I'm asking because I want to see if you can physically put into words what is "wow" rather than "Here's a game I find 'wow' with no indications as to why!"
I don't know what about these games made you go wow, and yet you say I should be able to figure it out by your tastes. I'm not inside your head. I see these games differently than you
Have you read my first post, the large one, on this page? If that's not enough I'm going to need you to break this down as to what exactly you need, because I'm not sure. I know you want to understand, but I don't know why I'm not getting through. It would also be better to talk about my favourite games rather than the ones that wowed me initially. Or maybe you could choose a specific game for me to talk about. Anyway, what do you want to know for? Are you trying to help me?
I like my games to be "alive", if that makes sense. That things would be happening regardless of what the player is doing, as opposed to the game reacting only to the player. As in a fight raging around the player rather than just the local enemies reacting to the player. A race would proceed whether the player was racing or not. And I want to be challenged by games. And it's always nice to feel like you're part of something, and get sucked into the World the game makers have created. A good example for instance would be right here with Freespace 2. The Colossus cutscene. They could have just told you about it, but they went the extra mile, they detailed it's construction length, it's reason for existing, and even created a bunch of fake corporation logos that designed and built the Colossus. I love that cutscene. A game where it would be the same every time I can get nearly as much out of watching someone let's play it. A game where it's not the same can be enjoyed again and again.
This conversation is getting a little out of hand.
Why?
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Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".
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Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".
Well it's not as if people are trying to talk about the PS4 and I'm getting in the way. The point will be valid if the PS4 talk picks back up.
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Thought that might happen. Fair enough.
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Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".
Luckily, I have a solution for that conundrum.
EDIT:
BTW, Lorric, have you tried Guild Wars 2? Seems to me that that game with its very alive world would be right up your alley.
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I'm surprised then that you haven't ever bothered with GTA either
People keep walking, cars keep driving, and cops keep taking down criminals even if you're just watching the traffic. The world reacts when the player does something out of the norm.
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I'm surprised then that you haven't ever bothered with GTA either
People keep walking, cars keep driving, and cops keep taking down criminals even if you're just watching the traffic. The world reacts when the player does something out of the norm.
I have a few of the games, but they've never hit it with me. I haven't gone far in any of them, I've got GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas, and each one has received less attention than the last. I did give GTA III a decent go though. They just don't sustain my interest.
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We don't remember the forgettable, crap games. There were so, so many PS2 games that sucked balls, but there were so many PS2 games in general over its extremely long run that by sheer force of numbers a lot of gems stood out. There are fewer PS3 games, and thus fewer good PS3 games, because development costs more. This has little, if anything, to do with "mainstream gaming" taking over the market. It was becoming mainstream before the PS2 was released.
That said, it is difficult these days for small developers to come up with decent releases on consoles. This was the same in the old days, but now the big studios are gradually becoming less inventive so it's a net loss.
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We don't remember the forgettable, crap games. There were so, so many PS2 games that sucked balls, but there were so many PS2 games in general over its extremely long run that by sheer force of numbers a lot of gems stood out. There are fewer PS3 games, and thus fewer good PS3 games, because development costs more. This has little, if anything, to do with "mainstream gaming" taking over the market. It was becoming mainstream before the PS2 was released.
That said, it is difficult these days for small developers to come up with decent releases on consoles. This was the same in the old days, but now the big studios are gradually becoming less inventive so it's a net loss.
I wonder how fewer. 98 PS2 vs 14 PS3 (I know I said 12 earlier, I've realised the two new ones I haven't played yet were still in their bag and not in the pile when I counted them) is a huge difference. 7X more to be exact. Are there 7X more PS2 games than PS3 games? Also, you'd think a superior system would be a factor in the PS3's favour, that overall quality would be higher, when it's not the case.
EDIT: Hey, you're not too far off the mark actually, at least according to wikipedia. 772 PS3 games as of January 14th vs 3,857 PS2 games as of May 2011. I think if any more were made it would be pretty negligible, and probably cancelled out by the PS3's new games since the 14th January.
So the ratio is almost 5 to 1 in the PS2's favour, and 7 to 1 in my game collection's favour. Interesting. I had no idea the numbers were that big. I thank you for that.
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I decided to check out the PS1 as well.
Wiki says 2,418 games.
Now for the count...
I possess 74 PS1 games.
so I have about 1 in 32 PS1 games. For the rest...
I have about 1 in 55 PS3 games.
And I have about 1 in 39 PS2 games.
EDIT: And for the PSP, there are 802 games and I possess 10 games, so 1 in 80.
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Oh my god, how do you come up with this stuff.
First of all: Developing a game on 360/PS3 is vastly more expensive than developing a game on PS2/XBox was. This, naturally, means that fewer games are developed, and of those that are developed, most will be in categories that are known to sell well. That does not mean that there is no experimentation, just that the experimental bits are relegated to smaller titles, or introduced iteratively in sequels.
A few unreliable numbers off of Wikipedia: There are about 3800 games released on the PS2 over its lifetime, or about 300 per year (taking into account the entire lifetime of the console, from its release in 2000 to the end of production in 2012).
For the PS3, Wikipedia lists 772 games, or a rate of roughly 110 per year the console has been in production so far.
So, there are 5 times as many PS2 games as PS3 ones.
EDIT: Because you found these things out for yourself, bravo
And no, the relative power of the console has little if anything to do with the average quality of the games released on them. I would like to think that games as a whole have become better over the years, due to a concentration on fewer titles and a realization that good games sell better, but the truth is that the majority of games released is still rather mediocre.
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Oh my god, how do you come up with this stuff.
First of all: Developing a game on 360/PS3 is vastly more expensive than developing a game on PS2/XBox was. This, naturally, means that fewer games are developed, and of those that are developed, most will be in categories that are known to sell well. That does not mean that there is no experimentation, just that the experimental bits are relegated to smaller titles, or introduced iteratively in sequels.
A few unreliable numbers off of Wikipedia: There are about 3800 games released on the PS2 over its lifetime, or about 300 per year (taking into account the entire lifetime of the console, from its release in 2000 to the end of production in 2012).
For the PS3, Wikipedia lists 772 games, or a rate of roughly 110 per year the console has been in production so far.
So, there are 5 times as many PS2 games as PS3 ones.
And no, the relative power of the console has little if anything to do with the average quality of the games released on them. I would like to think that games as a whole have become better over the years, due to a concentration on fewer titles and a realization that good games sell better, but the truth is that the majority of games released is still rather mediocre.
I got there first. :D
But thanks for putting up the numbers anyway.
Didn't expect the information to be so easy to come by.
Cut the condescension please. Why should I suppose the PS3 would be different when the PS2 has significantly more games than the PS1, and I have more PS2 games? Even though I didn't have the numbers, what I do know is until this generation, the number and quality of games I have owned for the systems has increased generation on generation. Plus, loads of people, not just me, complain about gaming going to the casuals and the dearth of creativity in the industry today.
Of course the power of a console is important. My favourite series, Dynasty Warriors, would have been impossible on the PS1. And it pushes the PS2 to the limit.
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Of course the power of a console is important, but the thing is that the advances made possible by having that power available become smaller.
As an example, when the PS1, Saturn, N64 came out, lots of new games were possible that were previously very difficult to do. The jump from 2D to 3D graphics was a complete paradigm change for the industry, as was the availability of mass storage on CDs.
When the PS2 and XBox came out, games didn't change fundamentally. There were only very few games that could be done now that were previously impossible; Dynasty Warriors being basically the least impressive of those (Because similar games could have been done in 2D on previous hardware). The only thing that the PS3 and 360 did that was previously not there was easy multiplayer access; everything else was just an iterative improvement on what the previous generation was already able to do.
With this new generation, there is quite literally no improvement that enables radically new gameplay or other features; we're basically going to get more of what we have already gotten in the previous one, except faster and at a higher resolution. Now, what I hope is that the increase in development cost is not going to be that big going into this generation, so that we can get more developers (and thus more games and more ideas) into the market.
Now, the thing is, you said that you own about 1 in 36 of all games released on the PS1 and PS2, but only 1 in 55 of all games for the PS3. Has it occured to you that you have limited your sample size rather radically? I mean, I get what you are saying about not being as excited about new games as you used to, and thus less inclined to go out and purchase them, but condemming an entire generation of games, and assuming that the next generation will be even less interesting strikes me as a bit of an overreaction.
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Of course the power of a console is important, but the thing is that the advances made possible by having that power available become smaller.
As an example, when the PS1, Saturn, N64 came out, lots of new games were possible that were previously very difficult to do. The jump from 2D to 3D graphics was a complete paradigm change for the industry, as was the availability of mass storage on CDs.
When the PS2 and XBox came out, games didn't change fundamentally. There were only very few games that could be done now that were previously impossible; Dynasty Warriors being basically the least impressive of those (Because similar games could have been done in 2D on previous hardware). The only thing that the PS3 and 360 did that was previously not there was easy multiplayer access; everything else was just an iterative improvement on what the previous generation was already able to do.
With this new generation, there is quite literally no improvement that enables radically new gameplay or other features; we're basically going to get more of what we have already gotten in the previous one, except faster and at a higher resolution. Now, what I hope is that the increase in development cost is not going to be that big going into this generation, so that we can get more developers (and thus more games and more ideas) into the market.
Now, the thing is, you said that you own about 1 in 36 of all games released on the PS1 and PS2, but only 1 in 55 of all games for the PS3. Has it occured to you that you have limited your sample size rather radically? I mean, I get what you are saying about not being as excited about new games as you used to, and thus less inclined to go out and purchase them, but condemming an entire generation of games, and assuming that the next generation will be even less interesting strikes me as a bit of an overreaction.
I see what you're saying. Would DW have been possible on PS1 though? I can't think of anything on PS1 on that scale, even if the graphics are limited. Unless you mean really tiny models like in a RTS.
Anyway, that part isn't too important. Even if I owned 1 in 36 PS3 games, I'd only have 7 more games. I think the industry has limited me, rather than the other way around. Like has been said, with it being seemingly much harder to make these games, it's more about the money and less about creativity. So the number of games I'd want to by per bunch of games has got worse along with the total number of games available. So many shooters when you look at a rack of PS3 games. You didn't really see many shooters looking at a selection from previous generations, it was diverse. I got some pleasure just going through the shelves and looking at them all. Now, it's just meh, meh, meh... even games I knew I wouldn't buy before made me look at the screenshots and read the back. Jumped out at me and made me want to look at them. That doesn't happen with the PS3 games. I don't have a single PS3 game that I saw for the first time in a store. Mainstream just doesn't do it for me.
You could be right about the overreaction, now with this new information about the number of games produced for the PS3. I've paid no attention at all to the PS4, but I did notice the general talk in this thread about seemingly the PS4 being easier for developers to work with or something. Maybe that's a positive under the circumstances. Any idea if it will be less expensive for developers to make a PS4 game? If that is so, it might allow more games and more creativity to flow into the market, especially if it's easier to work with. I'm not optimistic though. I guess I'll just have to sit and watch and see. I do that anyway, I wait for the price to go well down before buying a new console, even if I really want to play the games.
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Personally, I believe that development costs will remain about the same as they were in the previous generation, maybe a little higher. The thing with these new consoles is that they're much much easier to work with since they're not relying on gimmicky architectures, so the amount of unique code that needs to be written to make a game run on a given platform is minimized (Well, maybe not the actual code. But the engines can all be structured in a very similar way at a conceptual stage, making it easier to produce unified designs).
In addition, both Sony and MS are acutely aware of the competition from below (Android/iOS) and from above (PC); both platforms where we have a mix of big-budget titles and low-budget indies, and they've changed their procedures to make it possible for games like Minecraft (which rely on frequent updates) to exist on their systems, which I think will mean that we're going to see more experimental stuff on these devices.
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Personally, I believe that development costs will remain about the same as they were in the previous generation, maybe a little higher. The thing with these new consoles is that they're much much easier to work with since they're not relying on gimmicky architectures, so the amount of unique code that needs to be written to make a game run on a given platform is minimized (Well, maybe not the actual code. But the engines can all be structured in a very similar way at a conceptual stage, making it easier to produce unified designs).
In addition, both Sony and MS are acutely aware of the competition from below (Android/iOS) and from above (PC); both platforms where we have a mix of big-budget titles and low-budget indies, and they've changed their procedures to make it possible for games like Minecraft (which rely on frequent updates) to exist on their systems, which I think will mean that we're going to see more experimental stuff on these devices.
Do you (or anyone else) know if development costs took a huge jump between the PS2 and PS3 then? And why did the PS2 manage to produce more games than the PS1?
If it's both easier to make games for it and also more flexible in what options you have, I wonder if it could see some new people coming into the business too.
Another big worry I have is the big fish devouring all the little fish and everything that allowed those little fish to come to the attention of the big fish with them. I don't understand why the big fish don't let the little fish just carry on with what they were doing before, and take the money. Instead, they do little or nothing with the companies they absorb. I wonder if they're more interested in just removing the competition. I've seen so many companies get swallowed up and the games they made that I liked with them. I miss Psygnosis the most.
I'm still feel pessimistic about the PS4, but certainly not as much as before. The number of PS3 games vs PS2 games was a big eye opener, and if there are elements in the PS4 that could encourage more creativity and ease of producing games, that can only be a good thing surely.
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According to this article (http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs), the average budget for a PS1 title was between 800.000 and 1.7 Million USD. PS2 titles were made on 5 to 10 Million dollar budgets, PS3/360 titles generally cost 10 Million and upwards.
Regarding the number of titles released on the PS1 vs the PS2: Remember that the videogame market literally exploded in that generation. While the PlayStation managed to establish itself as a household brand in the PS1 days, it was only during the PS2/XBox generation that consoles were found literally everywhere and gained wide acceptance, so the potential market for games was orders of magnitudes larger.
As for development studios getting bought out and then going under: Well, that's business. It's not designed to be fair; and while there are instances of this process going badly, there are also examples of these things going well (See also: Volition, Naughty Dog). It's just a thing that happens; it's not a good idea to get too attached to a particular developer.
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Don't forget that around the PS2-era is when porting started to get out of hand. I'm sure that contributed a great deal to the increase in its titles.
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Just a question, Lorric: how much have you looked into the digital-only titles delivered via the PlayStation Network (PSN)? You talk about not being satisfied with the big blockbuster PS3 releases you pick up and look at, but keep in mind that those sorts of titles (the term "AAA" really is silly, isn't it?) are just a certain fraction of the games being released on that platform. The sort of games being released on the PSN would be those from smaller and/or independent developers, the same type that frequently get released on Steam (and indeed there's a lot of cross-over of titles between those services). I don't have the numbers to back it up, but based on The E's point about game budgets, I get the impression that a lot of these sorts of titles might have seen a physical release back in the days of the PS1 and even PS2, when development costs weren't so steep. As it stands, disk-based releases are reserved for big-budget titles, which tend to play it a bit safer as a rule in order to recoup their large development costs, while the smaller titles stick with digital releases.
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I don't believe he has Mongoose as he hasn't ever heard of Journey
Which would lead to me believe he hasn't heard of flOw or Flower either
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According to this article (http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs), the average budget for a PS1 title was between 800.000 and 1.7 Million USD. PS2 titles were made on 5 to 10 Million dollar budgets, PS3/360 titles generally cost 10 Million and upwards.
Regarding the number of titles released on the PS1 vs the PS2: Remember that the videogame market literally exploded in that generation. While the PlayStation managed to establish itself as a household brand in the PS1 days, it was only during the PS2/XBox generation that consoles were found literally everywhere and gained wide acceptance, so the potential market for games was orders of magnitudes larger.
As for development studios getting bought out and then going under: Well, that's business. It's not designed to be fair; and while there are instances of this process going badly, there are also examples of these things going well (See also: Volition, Naughty Dog). It's just a thing that happens; it's not a good idea to get too attached to a particular developer.
I noticed it says the PS2 games were averaged from well over 100 games, while the PS1 games from a single title. I wonder which one, that will make a huge difference. Most of the sample sizes are very small, except the PS2 one. So it's hard to know really what the difference is between PS1 and PS2.
I don't necessarily get attached to the developer, I do, but it's more the games that get shut down due to the takeover. I know it's not supposed to be fair, but it seems stupid to me on the part of the big fish not to make best use of the little one.
Just a question, Lorric: how much have you looked into the digital-only titles delivered via the PlayStation Network (PSN)? You talk about not being satisfied with the big blockbuster PS3 releases you pick up and look at, but keep in mind that those sorts of titles (the term "AAA" really is silly, isn't it?) are just a certain fraction of the games being released on that platform. The sort of games being released on the PSN would be those from smaller and/or independent developers, the same type that frequently get released on Steam (and indeed there's a lot of cross-over of titles between those services). I don't have the numbers to back it up, but based on The E's point about game budgets, I get the impression that a lot of these sorts of titles might have seen a physical release back in the days of the PS1 and even PS2, when development costs weren't so steep. As it stands, disk-based releases are reserved for big-budget titles, which tend to play it a bit safer as a rule in order to recoup their large development costs, while the smaller titles stick with digital releases.
Very little. I kind of had an assumption that there wouldn't be much worth bothering with there. And yes, AAA is kind of silly, I haven't even really heard the term until on here I don't think. We'll all have our own personal definition of "AAA", what makes a game special for us. You've already seen plenty of insight into mine.
I did buy Eufloria. You can make the PS3 game count 15 if you think that counts, but I don't really see it as a PS3 game. I'm sure it would run easily on a PS2. I liked everything about it, except one thing: It's too easy. It would be a great starting point for someone to play their first RTS.
I don't believe he has Mongoose as he hasn't ever heard of Journey
Which would lead to me believe he hasn't heard of flOw or Flower either
I have heard of Flower actually. I saw it in some video about games. Not FlOw.
I looked up Journey, and while I only read I think the wiki, it makes me think "what's the big deal" from what I read. It sounds like you cross a desert, go through a ruined city, climb a mountain... and that's it.
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I looked up Journey, and while I only read I think the wiki, it makes me think "what's the big deal" from what I read. It sounds like you cross a desert, go through a ruined city, climb a mountain... and that's it.
I kind of had an assumption that there wouldn't be much worth bothering with there.
Maybe you should stop having bad assumptions
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Just play Journey Lorric. Don't assume, just play
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Just play Journey Lorric. Don't assume, just play
I may try watching someone let's play it.
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Just play Journey Lorric. Don't assume, just play
I may try watching someone let's play it.
Not the same. Trust me when I say this, just play it. You can get the collection of flOw, Flower and Journey as well as three minigames for cheap
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Just play Journey Lorric. Don't assume, just play
I may try watching someone let's play it.
If it's genuinely a good game then this won't work. A good game requires you to play it. That's why it's a game.
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I just watched this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKqeD7ojynw
I think I'm going to go with the let's play. Short games really go against everything I look for in a game, I like to really get my teeth into games, and this looks like possibly the shortest game I've ever encountered. The thing about meeting others in the game was intriguing, but the visuals, which I guess is the main selling point on this game, just don't grab me.
I'm bringing up the Playstation Store though, just in case it's really cheap, I am a year late to the party...
£9.99, I'm not paying that. There is a demo to download though, so I'm gonna take that. Let's see if it can make me want to buy it.