Why have video games become so borring?

[Eviltaco64]

Bleh, I hated halo, R6V2 annoyed me, and CoD4 just bored me. The surface is bleak, thats for sure. but GoW Bioshock TF2 and the RPGs keep me going. Too Human, Fable 2, Ninja Gaiden 2; you don't have to be a FPS fan to get going on those m8. RPGs like Lost odyssey and Eternal Sonata are amazing. I can't wait for MGS4 though, that should aleive your boredom.

I miss the n64 days...the single greatest console i've ever played. PS2 next.

Yeah I played the Bioshock demo and it was great.
Although I dont really look to the 360 for RPGs.
Id stick with the Wii/PS3/DS/PSP for them.
But one title I'm really looking out for is Banjo Kazooie 3.

And yeah, PS2 was really good as well.
Id say that PS2, SNES, N64, Gamecube, and GBA were some of the more memorable platforms...

[Ewan]

Never had an N64, but I've been pulling out my Dreamcast, Saturn and Genesis the past week or so. Nice to get back in touch with "old friends".

I totally agree on the "lack of originality" lately. I have several fun games for the 360, but many of the "staple" games from years gone by are ... gone by.

If you don't have a Sega Saturn, and have enough cash to get the good titles anymore, check it out. Games like Panzer Dragoon Saga are worth checking the system out for. And if you like the Capcom 2D stuff, you can find literally "arcade perfect" renditions that run smooth as silk for the Saturn.

[Emulation_Chief]

Hello:

Certainly, video games become less inspiring. More powerful machines definitely delivers more powerful experience. Unfortunately at the cost of the fun factor, which is the reason they are called GAMES.

If we believe there is a guilty for this, I think of hardware developers. Creating machines like PlayStation or Xbox, both very powerful, increase the necessity for software developers to increase size, capital and marketing to release and sell their products. These statements limits the creativity of the game companies, big and small.

The most obvious answer is the constant release of sequels, sports games, and RPGs with very obvious plots and twist. Still, some companies try to release original games. Others, enter to the casual game arena. Simpler and fun games to play than the big budget partners with better results in sales than the others. Just look at the Wii.

Still, you can find very fun and addictive games on the Xbox and PlayStation. I didn't find one for PS to mention, but you can include your favorites in this forum. For 360 I can mention BioSchock; Ninja Gaiden and Jet Set Radio Future for Xbox.

What's your favorites?

[Broadus]

New games suck and game companies never try anything new or think outside of the box. The simplest, completely undone ideas are constantly passed-by in exchange for the same old crap that was in the games of yesteryear.

[Eviltaco64]

Never had an N64, but I've been pulling out my Dreamcast, Saturn and Genesis the past week or so. Nice to get back in touch with "old friends".

I totally agree on the "lack of originality" lately. I have several fun games for the 360, but many of the "staple" games from years gone by are ... gone by.

If you don't have a Sega Saturn, and have enough cash to get the good titles anymore, check it out. Games like Panzer Dragoon Saga are worth checking the system out for. And if you like the Capcom 2D stuff, you can find literally "arcade perfect" renditions that run smooth as silk for the Saturn.

You're right about the Saturn. I remember seeing the Japanese import of Street Fighter Zero 3 and they called it more of an arcade perfect port than the Dreamcast one. It also had the ability to have Tag Teams in Xmen vs Street Fighter/MSHVSF (I'm a BIG fan of these games) because the Saturn's more 2D based architecture and extra ram. And Panzer Dragoon Saga? One of the greatest games ever made but unfortunately they "lost" the source code to it years ago

Sega always had an appeal that I liked (the fast paced arcade style), all the way through (primarily the Genesis-Dreamcast era as the Master System wasnt that big over here in the States).

Nintendo was excellent (and still is), but the American Mario Sunshine commercial kinda..just...made me dislike Nintendo for awhile (2002-2006ish, whenever Mario Strikers on the Cube came out it changed my mind, watch that commercial xD).
It really shows that bad advertising can be a black mark for a company.

Sony's approach was make some high-quality first party games and get a lot of 3rd-party devs (kinda opposite of Nintendo's approach). They're doing well and I've always liked them. The 3rd Party titles are actually worthwhile (and I know for a fact that PS3 is going to become big). So many exclusives and great games keep me liking the Playstation brand.

Microsoft...what can I say? Xbox was a great console. Good games (Halo), great online (Halo 2), and best of all, the available modifications (even softmods are amazing). Although it was good, and powerful, it really changed the community. FPSs didnt really get big until Xbox, and that "N00B OMG WTF LULZ" thing didnt wasnt really big until Live got big. Another thing Im not really big on is that you have to pay for almost anything. You wanna put a movie on your Hard Drive? Too bad! Go buy it on the Live Marketplace in a few months when your Xbox gets back to you because it got the red rings! And when it comes to creativity, 90% of the time it relies on it's 3rd party developers (the other 10% is Bungie [who's now a second party] and the Fable Team).


All in all, Xbox 360 has good games, but not many revolutionary titles (aside from Bioshock and COD4).

So I guess when it comes down to it, Nintendo and Sega (and Atari, you gotta give them some recollection) take the cup, with Sony trailing VERY CLOSELY behind them.

And once this is posted, I'll have MS fanboys giving me lists of all the good games coming out for 360.
A lot of the time the sequels are the exact thing as the original Xbox game, with enhanced graphics and a few more weapons.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Enjoy reading this painfully long post,
-Eviltaco64

[The EX]

New games are amazing, you're just stuck in the 20th century.

[Eviltaco64]

New games are amazing, you're just stuck in the 20th century.

Well when I ranked the consoles, that was more in innovation.
And to tell you the truth, I like 20th century games better, myself. At least you can play the same copy of Super Metroid on the same Super Nintendo you did 14 years ago...none of this hardware failure $#@!.

And new games are amazing technologically, but there's no inspiration. Nothing new except for enhacned graphics.

[bah]

I think you're just growing up man.
I still love games, but I find myself often not that excited by the 'latest and greatest'. Most of the time I spend on the PSP is playing ports of older games or emulating old systems I played when I was say 16 and under.

Kids these days are probably just as excited by today's games as you were about the current games when you were younger.


I guess some of it can be attributed to the tendancy of many games these days to try to be 'reality simulators' rather than just focusing on being a fun game.
I was a teenager as 3d games were just becoming mainstream (the voodoo 3d card for PCs and the super-fx chips in snes games/ps1/N64). 3d seemed 'the coolest thing ever' and 2d was 'old hat' and boring.

While there are many great games that also have fancy graphics these days, Its almost as though the ability to simulate realism and the expense of making modern games leads less developers to try something different.
There are still great new games, I very much enjoyed playing the game Crush for PSP which has fairly good 3d graphics but the gameplay is what really makes it stand out.



As for emotional connection I'm not sure about the real reasons behind that. I can remember almost tearing up over the end credits of sonic 2 when I was young and that had almost 0 story and no real character development. Just some midi style music and still cartoon depicting the story after you had been so absorbed by playing the game was enough.


I think when a story/game is more abstract or less 'realistic', the human mind tends to attribute traits it feels appropriate to the characters and think of them as a much more solid character than they really are (if the game/level/sprite/animation design is good enough to make the game fun/interesting).

When you move into the cinematic gaming of today we end up associating with characters more in the way we do to stars of a movie/tv show where their persona is defined by how well written the story/dialogue is an how well it is delivered.
As such we almost expect A grade hollywood style storytelling/acting, which is not easy even for a film, where the director has complete control over what you see and how you see it to push the story in the right direction.

An example would be games where you have a 'friend' that you just cannot shoot, does not die when you shoot them or you have to restart the level if you do. Having a 'friend' for the lead character in a movie normally works great, but when the game gives you control of the main character then restricts your actions to ensure the static plot of the game is not corrupted, it makes the whole experience feel somewhat hollow.


Simple games leave much more to the imagination which can be a good thing.

I know in this era of kids hardly ever reading a book but instead watching a LOT of TV it sounds strange that those kids may well enjoy games that lead their mind to develop its own back-story more than one with a fairly well produced movie-style plot. But I think the idea still carries weight.

Partly I guess it's just that kids generally get absorbed into stories better than adults.

[Shadowblind]

Well when I ranked the consoles, that was more in innovation.
And to tell you the truth, I like 20th century games better, myself. At least you can play the same copy of Super Metroid on the same Super Nintendo you did 14 years ago...none of this hardware failure $#@!.

And new games are amazing technologically, but there's no inspiration. Nothing new except for enhacned graphics.

have you ever played Ninja Gaiden, or seen a trailer for Too Human or Fable 2? And just wait for Tales of V. If your talking about lack of innovative games, only Nintendo does that. Sure that all have discs that you have to put it in consoles, but thats about where the similarity ends. If you want something now, Bioshock was as unique as any FPS could come. or get Naruto Rise of a Ninja. The freeroam combat system was something I never saw.

[____anders____]

i also agree, they did better games in the past, but now, i think that nintendo does the best job, with mario kart wii, SSBB and super mario galaxy, 3 major releases for the wii, nintendo consoles will always be the best, N64 rules too, mario kart, super mario 64 and vigilante 8 second offense, just to name a few, are really fun, alot more fun than my xbox..