Games All Downhill Since Pong?

[wraggster]

In a recent article Nolan Bushnell laments the current state of gaming, stating that modern games are nothing more than a "race to the bottom" resulting in complete and utter trash. In order to combat what he sees as the downward spiral in game quality he continues to work on his new dining experience uWink that features tabletop games and a "reasonably priced meal". RPS weighs in on the subject arguing that, while the unhealthy obsession with Halo 3 might be a bit misplaced, there are plenty of gems to be found amidst the flotsam and jetsam.

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/22/2331220

[Emulation_Chief]

Hello:

I agree with Bushnell's statement. Each generation of gaming platforms comes with lots of crappy games. Finding an enjoyable game is rather difficult these days. But I think it is not a downward spiral what happen to the industry. Like any other technology that comes available, is more of a roller coaster effect than anything else.

Think of last generation. They focus too much efforts in bringing jaw-dropping gfx and awesome sound that they forgot the reason for a game to exist: the fun factor. And Nintendo knows that and rethink its new machine to add the fun factor back.

On Xbox 360 and PS3 case, you will find more enjoyable experiences in games, thanks to the high budget of those projects, but still they're not memorable enough to play it again and again.

Mario, Halo, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear can't be the only games than can create an enjoyable experience to play it again and again. Hope that now the developers can bring much better games to classified as enjoyable by most of users and not just a first-played only experience.

[acn010]

Metal Gear was part of nintendo. . . . and its really old around the age of mario for nes

[r2works]

Since pong is quite a stretch, I would say since Dreamcast

[armyStrong]

I don't agree at all...It's so easy to be grumpy and vent about the "good old days" when games were simple and quirky...but there's no way you can convince me that the game industry is on a downward spiral...

I mean, sure a lot of the "original" games were great...but a whole lot more were awful.

The staples like Mario, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter will always be there in all likelihood, but think about all the new series that have blown our minds over the past two generations: Disgaea, God of War, Gears of War, Halo...

And now think about the series that keep getting better or at least more interesting with each new title: Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto, and the list goes on...

This really just sounds like a grumpy old man...we all can respect and appreciate what this man has done in the past for games...but I'll never understand humanity's obsession with gloom and doom.

[Accordion]

Metal Gear was part of nintendo. . . . and its really old around the age of mario for nes

no

[acn010]

no

oh yes yes :rofl: it wasnt called metal gear but there was a game for nintendo

[ROCKMODE]

This is just a grumpy old man. Its hard to appreciate newer versions and models of something you used to be apart of.

He goes about how families don't play games together like they used to? Nothing like Monopoly he says. What crack is he talking about? The Wii rings any bells? Even every Hasbro game has been ported to a videogame.

These are ramblings from a old man, I know he was apart of the building to what videogames are today, but he never had an effect that Nintendo and Mario did. I like pong, but atari 2600 sucked. Video games are growing, yes it takes advantage of the consumer as does any other medium of entertainment, but that will never cease to stop people from playing them.

Metal Gear debuted on the MSX2 computer, it was ported to Nintendo because of the consumer market. It was in no way part of Nintendo, Konami just released the game on the system.

[pibs]

http://www.gamespot.com/nes/action/metalgear/index.html
Metal Gear was a Nes game I remember haha

that article is bull plop! lol

edit: Metal Gear was first released on the MSX2

[Shadowblind]

no

yes

[Accordion]

yes

half

[pibs]

was konami owned by nintendo? if so then id agree that metal gear was part of nintendo, other than that id say it was just a game ported for it. as for it being old, yep its pretty old lol. im not sure if thats what u mean accordian?

[Shadowblind]

half

true

[mike_jmg]

I don't think this is true
My videogame addiction began with the nes, so pong meh!
Every consoles generation is full of crappy games, only a few had been great, it has been the same all time.

There are only about 20 to 30 memorable nes games, around 25 for snes, like 20 for N64 (yes I was a nintendo fanboy hehe), another 20 to 25 good ps2 games, and now I've liked like 12 psp games (now I'm sony consoles fan)

And I can bet that between these 5 consoles there are around a thousand games total, from wich I've liked like a hundred games.

So this is the same as it has always been, not the downside spiral and I bet this is the way it will always be.

[Veskgar]

I don't think this is true
My videogame addiction began with the nes, so pong meh!

Same here! NES and then SNES created this gaming junkie. You make some real good points about picking out the best games for every platform throughout the years. I'm a little less critical and could probably name 40-50 NES games if I was looking at a complete USA game list. I mean just name Mario, Ninja Gaiden, & Zelda and that's 10 right there.

[madcupid]

if the gaming industry is going down like that i bet you guys the homebrew scene will save it!!! hehe

[Broadus]

I like a lot of those crappy cookie cutter games! My favorite games that I'm most addicted to are all war games or other such explosive business that couldn't be accomplished "back in the day".