The quality of video games has declined over the past 10 years.

[entrerix]

i agree that crysis is an awful awful game.

 

and I agree that bioshock is great, its not as good as system shock 2, but its a great game on its own (not everything needs to be directly compared with similar games, slowtrain)

 

i just think that most people who unequivocally bash portal are doing it to be contrarian. It sounds like you (boo) are not completely bashing it though so i'll consider your opinion/criticism valid (unlike volourns amazing post, which I have to say is one of the funniest posts i've read in weeks)

 

though just because you personally are tired of ai gone rogue stories, doesnt mean that portal shouldnt still be objectively commended for presenting it in the best way since system shock 2

Edited October 22, 2010 by entrerix

[RPGmasterBoo]

i just think that most people who unequivocally bash portal are doing it to be contrarian. It sounds like you (boo) are not completely bashing it though so i'll consider your opinion/criticism valid (unlike volourns amazing post, which I have to say is one of the funniest posts i've read in weeks)

 

though just because you personally are tired of ai gone rogue stories, doesnt mean that portal shouldnt still be objectively commended for presenting it in the best way since system shock 2

 

Probably. Portal is by no means a bad game but its possibly overhyped. I think it got overhyped because its an experimental and different game made by a large company - which gave it more than a niche audience (which is what it would have got if it was made by an indie dev).

Edited October 22, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[entrerix]

its definitely very hyped. maybe overhyped too. same goes for braid, its a fantastic game, but its maybe overhyped. if only planescape torment had gotten the attention of portal or braid when it was released...

[greylord]

This thread is a load of ****.

 

PC gaming isn't dying. In fact, it's thriving. And Valve is at the forefront of it.

 

The guys in charge of STEAM which sells 25% of PC game sales today...

 

But that 25% of sales today is equal to 2% of sales yesterday?

 

Meaning the market for 100% of the sales today is less then 10% of the sales yesterday?

 

Oh yes... I see how Valve is at the forefront of it...the forefront of the crash that is...

[entrerix]

making up numbers is awesome.

 

did you know that 120% more kids do drugs today than they did in 1928?

 

its because of soda. in 1928 the average kid drank only .4 litres of soda a fortnight, in 2021 the average child will drink .4 gallons of soda a day.

 

the rise of soda drinking clearly is the cause of the rise of drug use!

[Violetta]

Oh come on, surely you must all agree that 1998-2001 was a golden era for PC gaming. At least give me a counterexample of groundbreaking either story-based games or strategy games that were released after this era.

 

I would agree to that it's blatantly obvious that more original games were released then - if we agree on there being a limit for the number of truly unique ideas you can implement in a computer game. Around 1998-2001, gaming had grew but the original companies which made games throughout the nineties were the same, the same as when programming games had not included investing that much money. Then a lot of companies went bankrupt or were assimilated by larger companies, and we got the more monopolized market we have today. What we're really missing are the companies who were neither industry giants nor indie.

What about Descent games? Or Total Annihilation, which won the "greatest RTS game of all time" award.

[greylord]

making up numbers is awesome.

 

did you know that 120% more kids do drugs today than they did in 1928?

 

its because of soda. in 1928 the average kid drank only .4 litres of soda a fortnight, in 2021 the average child will drink .4 gallons of soda a day.

 

the rise of soda drinking clearly is the cause of the rise of drug use!

 

Actually, I believe it's higher than that for the drug use.

 

People keep putting their heads in the sand about the state of PC games...it's amazing how much in denial many are. Steam can make money due to the cutting out of middle men, but the numbers are pretty bad in relation to what they were many years ago for the PC gamer.

 

It's still pretty healthy for consoles though.

[Rostere]

Oh come on, surely you must all agree that 1998-2001 was a golden era for PC gaming. At least give me a counterexample of groundbreaking either story-based games or strategy games that were released after this era.

 

Portal with about 0.01 seconds of thinking about it.

 

Also: why are you limiting the criteria to only story based and strategy games?

 

Because those are the only games I regularly play.

 

Of course there are counterexamples. Portal was pretty fun, and it's one of the few new innovative games that is not a sequel. After 2001 we've got very few new games that are not sequels or spiritual sequels to old games. The reason is not really the different market to such a high degree, but the failure to utilize our computer power to create new game mechanics. Portal is one example that actually did, with it's 3D puzzles. Most games released today could have been made with crappier graphics in 2000 (and most of them were), that is the simple reason newer games seem less original.

[Maria Caliban]

Oh come on, surely you must all agree that 1998-2001 was a golden era for PC gaming. At least give me a counterexample of groundbreaking either story-based games or strategy games that were released after this era.

 

I would agree to that it's blatantly obvious that more original games were released then - if we agree on there being a limit for the number of truly unique ideas you can implement in a computer game. Around 1998-2001, gaming had grew but the original companies which made games throughout the nineties were the same, the same as when programming games had not included investing that much money. Then a lot of companies went bankrupt or were assimilated by larger companies, and we got the more monopolized market we have today. What we're really missing are the companies who were neither industry giants nor indie.

 

Excellent games:

 

Silent Hill 2 - 2002

Tom Clancy: Splinter Cell - 2002

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Edited October 23, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[Gorth]

Zork (1980)

Sword of Fargoal (1982) (dungeon romp, like 20 years before IWD2)

Matrix (1982) (Gridrunner on LSD)

Fort Apocalypse (1982) (Choplifter go home)

Reach for the Stars (1983) (my first real xxxx game)

Oil Barons (1983) (yes, it was an effin big box with maps, counters and all)

Archon (1983) (battlechess, go home)

Jumpman (1983) (most fun platform game evar)

Boulderdash (1984) (addictive as...)

NATO Commander (1983 first "real time" strategy game. Bloody awesome too if you had the disk version)

Summer Games (1984) (slayer of joysticks)

The Lords of Midnight (1984) (first humongous open/sandbox world 1st person crpg and strategy game hybrid I remember)

Ultima IV (1985) (Not the shiniest graphics, but an interesting plot and a large world to explore) (sadly, I don't have my map and ankh anymore)

Racing Destruction Set (1985) (racing was never this fun before, nor after)

The Way of the Exploding Fist (1985) (still having seen a combat/action game that beats the "feel" of the moves and blocks)

Little Computer People (1985) (yes, Activision invented "The Sims")

Populous (1989) (being a god is quite fun)

 

and so forth and so forth...

 

Could probably write 3 full pages of games. A lot of the stuff by Epyx, Activision, EA, Ocean, Broderbund, Firebird etc. was pure genius pre-1990.

 

From where I'm sitting and watching, the gaming industry has been in a constant decline since 1989

[Rostere]

Excellent games:

 

Silent Hill 2 - 2002

Tom Clancy: Splinter Cell - 2002

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

[kirottu]

Hentai games have really improved over the time to gracefully animated boobies and fully voiced "ooh"s and "aah"s. So this thread is full of poo.

[greylord]

Hentai games have really improved over the time to gracefully animated boobies and fully voiced "ooh"s and "aah"s. So this thread is full of poo.

 

 

I don't really follow that portion of gaming...so I guess you are right? In that light maybe PC gaming has really taken off for one segment of society...

[Blodhemn]

There's just too many games out where every company is trying to make money off of what everyone else is doing. Too many sequels of the same game and too many sequels of the same games that copy the other guy's games. Most games are just redundant, with the tiniest gameplay or feature enhancements.

 

I just installed PS:T for the first time, and even though 99% of the dialogue isn't voiced, the characters have so much more character in them than any game of today. It seems story telling is pretty much a lost art. Vampire:Bloodlines is about the only more modern game that had truly great dialogue, that I can really remember, and the game is replayable as hell because of it. Mass Effect 2 was presented really well, but it was so flashy, the story and characters leave very little lasting effect.

 

Everything is just too immediate and in your face nowadays. Boring..

[Volourn]

"Zork (1980)

Sword of Fargoal (1982) (dungeon romp, like 20 years before IWD2)

Matrix (1982) (Gridrunner on LSD)

Fort Apocalypse (1982) (Choplifter go home)

Reach for the Stars (1983) (my first real xxxx game)

Oil Barons (1983) (yes, it was an effin big box with maps, counters and all)

Archon (1983) (battlechess, go home)

Jumpman (1983) (most fun platform game evar)

Boulderdash (1984) (addictive as...)

NATO Commander (1983 first "real time" strategy game. Bloody awesome too if you had the disk version)

Summer Games (1984) (slayer of joysticks)

The Lords of Midnight (1984) (first humongous open/sandbox world 1st person crpg and strategy game hybrid I remember)

Ultima IV (1985) (Not the shiniest graphics, but an interesting plot and a large world to explore) (sadly, I don't have my map and ankh anymore)

Racing Destruction Set (1985) (racing was never this fun before, nor after)

The Way of the Exploding Fist (1985) (still having seen a combat/action game that beats the "feel" of the moves and blocks)

Little Computer People (1985) (yes, Activision invented "The Sims")

Populous (1989) (being a god is quite fun)"

 

Kiddin' right? there's *maybe* 3 or 4 games on that list I'd considered even good let alone 'classics'. L0LZ

[Slowtrain]

System SHock --> System Shock 2 --> Bioshock --> Bioshock 2.

 

The decline of contempory gaming in a nutshell.

[Morgoth]

I found SS2 better than 1.

 

I also found BS2 better than 1.

 

But then again I'm always in the minority when it comes to game tastes.

[HoonDing]

Adventure game genre is only genre where present games are generally better than the old guard, courtesy of the genre disappearing from the mainstream around 1995 (with a few legendary games like The longest journey and Syberia that managed to even reach the mainstream) and a few publishers supporting teams to do their thing without focus on profit.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Adventure game genre is only genre where present games are generally better than the old guard, courtesy of the genre disappearing from the mainstream around 1995 (with a few legendary games like The longest journey and Syberia that managed to even reach the mainstream) and a few publishers supporting teams to do their thing without focus on profit.

 

Err, what? What are these new adventures better than Grim Fandango, Monkey Island etc. Forget that, name me one landmark adventure in the last 5 years and you win a cookie.

[HoonDing]

Err, what? What are these new adventures better than Grim Fandango, Monkey Island etc. Forget that, name me one landmark adventure in the last 5 years and you win a cookie.

I doubt I could post anything that would appease your personal definition of "landmark".

[RPGmasterBoo]

Err, what? What are these new adventures better than Grim Fandango, Monkey Island etc. Forget that, name me one landmark adventure in the last 5 years and you win a cookie.

I doubt I could post anything that would appease your personal definition of "landmark".

 

Give me anything. Because every adventure game I've played in the last few years has been low budget formulaic misery.

IMO if there's a genre that has become a heap of cheap unplayable knock offs its the P&C adventure. Shooters seem innovative by comparison.

What are these games that better than the P&C classics? How exactly are they better?

[greylord]

Adventure game genre is only genre where present games are generally better than the old guard, courtesy of the genre disappearing from the mainstream around 1995 (with a few legendary games like The longest journey and Syberia that managed to even reach the mainstream) and a few publishers supporting teams to do their thing without focus on profit.

 

Err, what? What are these new adventures better than Grim Fandango, Monkey Island etc. Forget that, name me one landmark adventure in the last 5 years and you win a cookie.

 

Beyond Good and Evil was considered pretty landmark, different approach than many of the more recent ones though with a more cartoony approach.

[Humanoid]

You could call Ultima Underworld a direct precursor to System Shock too - both in concept and technologically.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Adventure game genre is only genre where present games are generally better than the old guard, courtesy of the genre disappearing from the mainstream around 1995 (with a few legendary games like The longest journey and Syberia that managed to even reach the mainstream) and a few publishers supporting teams to do their thing without focus on profit.

 

Err, what? What are these new adventures better than Grim Fandango, Monkey Island etc. Forget that, name me one landmark adventure in the last 5 years and you win a cookie.

 

Beyond Good and Evil was considered pretty landmark, different approach than many of the more recent ones though with a more cartoony approach.

IMHO BG&E is not a P&C Adventure. Acronyms FTW!

[Purkake]

Neither was it released in the last 5 years...