Games 1994-2002 vs. 2002-2008

Is it just me or do newer games just suck as far as creativity compared with the 1990's?

I recall great games like the whole Jane's series of flight simulations, Descent 2, MechWarrior 2, Starcraft, Diablo 2, RTCW, Battlezone 1&2, civilization 2, Freespace 1&2, Falcon 4, Operation Flashpoint ....

And while there's been great games in the last five or six years, nothing seems as spectacular even though graphically things have improved dramatically.

Recent games of note are Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Company of Heroes, C&C Generals/C&C 3, Battlefield 2, Oblivion, Company of Heroes.

I just feel games are so much more graphically based an losing originality of a decade ago.

 

Yea. I know what you mean. Becuase of this, graphic technology has to grow pretty fast. Yet, replacing a GPU is the last thing we wanna deal with in notebooks...

 

Its the same with all innovation and technology. Eventually things get stale. "Its all been done". Everythings going to be recycled before we get something great, just like music.

 

The videogame industry is so much bigger today than it was 10-15 yeas ago. Just take a look at how many new games are released every week or month. The number is insane. It's hard to see something fresh when hundreds of games are released every year.

Also don't forget games are a lot more expensive to make today as opposed to 10 years. Some games on average cost 25 million to make for the PS3 or Xbox 360. The only companies who can absorb the risks and investment are your huge publishers. That cuts down on innovation as the small developers don't have that type of money to compete.

Another factor is, the large developers are going for the safe bet and return on their investment. That means more games for mass appeal. Another reason it's tough to find innovation and fresh ideas in this new environment.

 

Totally agree with you htwingnut. We live in sad, sad times.

 

Agreed on all counts. There are a few creative games out there (Portal comes to mind) but it's not nearly as varied as it used to be.

Rodknee is probably correct. Since games are so much $$$$ to make, they need to appeal to a wide audience, so all we seem to get is tons of bland, safe, "mainstream" games designed to attract the largest demographic possible. Genres like hardcore flight-sims, wargames, point+click adventures, etc are all getting either dumbed down, or simply not made.

 

I beat Portal in one sitting
I LOVED the idea and LOVED the game
they did such a good job putting it together and the story line was even fun =]

I miss the games with creativity who cares about graphics
I want something fun and interesting that can captivate my attention
I don't want a story of a guy fighting for some girl or the worlds about to end so lets get a group of 8 of us and kick ass
I want something original but interesting
And yet no companies or producers seem to be doing this as they are scared of the chance of their product failing
whereas I believe it would be a success because it WAS something new

 

I've been playing some of my favorite old NES games over the past couple days, and that's when I sort of realized why everything feels so samey these days.

It's all supposed to be either photorealistic, or a stylized sense of photorealism. Frankly, there's too much logic in how they're designed.

I've been playing the Adventure Island games on the NES, where you play as a fat Hawaiian guy in a grass skirt and white baseball cap, and you collect fruit while riding a skateboard on clouds. In the first game you threw tomahawks at frogs and spiders; in the second and third you're riding dinosaurs and climbing trees and crap.

I'm not saying I dislike the realistic and violent modern games we've all come to enjoy, but the sense of whimsy and raw bats*** craziness seems to be sorely lacking anymore. Whatever happened to the era where you had to use your imagination? Whatever happened to games that were clearly produced with some kind of chemical assistance?

 

Right now I am also playing childish games like "Putt-Putt" and "Freddi fish"

I miss the old days(more like 12 years ago)

Hey can DOS games run on Vista???

 

Try the Sherlock Holmes games. The Sly Cooper games for PS2 were probably the best platformers I have played in a very long time. Get away from FPS & RTS and you might find some unique titles. How about Psychonauts or Sam & Max? Look up some indie titles there are lots out there.

I totally agree there are a lot of formula games out there for reasons explained by Rodknee but if you are truly looking for something new... you may have to look beyond the top shelf at Best Buy or the front page of Gamespot.

I think it's hard to do something really new right now. In FPS games it's all about realism, open environments and better AI. Other than that it's the same old. Run around and shoot at stuff. RTS too. It's all kind of the same thong over and over with a bit of a twist on mechanics and/or management here and there.

Bionic Commando is coming, that looks fairly interesting. Hmm what else... Prototype might be cool? Alone In The Dark (IIRC) could be a cool horror survival. I think devs are getting that the market is a bit stale but the changes won't be overnight.

Or maybe get away from PC all together and buy a Wii. Force Unleashed with the Wii controller looks like it'll be pretty sweet!

 

I agree.

Diablo II sucked me into it's storyline. It was pretty much the first of it's type, dark and scary.

There are a few unique and creative games made today, as someone said before, Portal.

But for the most part, we're stuck with crap like Crysis.

 

Sounds like you all need to buy Wiis

 

You know, everyone mentions Psychonauts, so I downloaded the demo on Steam and was worlds beyond unimpressed.

Psychonauts has the same aggravating problem that Super Paper Mario did: it's just too pleased with its own story and shoves as much story and writing as it possibly can down your throat. If I have to wade through a crapton of story just to get to the game, only to have the game routinely interrupted by MORE STORY, I start to wonder why I didn't just watch a movie or read a good book.

 

Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time were the golden ages

Oh well, guess it's off to Crysis now.

 

Don't forget Halo 3---a shooter even more bland + popular than Crysis

At least the old ones had character----Duke Nukem, Redneck Rampage, Outlaws, Blood....all so different from each other. Everything today is either WW2, Aliens, or Government conspiracies....sometimes all 3

 

I agree with every that has been said here, but I would also like to offer my own view on this.

In 1994, Video game isn't mainstream, in fact it has just started to catch on, therefore, most of the games that came out around that time are considered innovative, new, and entertaining. Oppose to today, gaming industry has grown considerably, all there is to make/try has already been done. It is hard to come up with new idea now than it was a decade ago.

 

TF2 I think was a breath of fresh air into the online shooter genre, stylistically it's more of a throwback feel.

 

Agree that new ideas are difficult, they always have been, but video games have been mainstream ever since Atari sold tens of millions of VCS/2600s back in the early 80s.

That's the whole point of consoles----computer games for the mainstream consumer / mass market.

The problem is that the games business has become like the motion picture business. For every independent, low budget, clever movie (like say, Primer) there are dozens of million dollar blockbusters that frankly, are garbage.....but they sure sell well. The aforementioned Halo 3 comes to mind.

If you feel I pick on the 360 too much, look at most of the PS3 exclusives to see what I mean....A bunch of games with incredible, multi-million $$$ production values, and yet, are as bland, derivative, and "safe" as can be.

 

Yea, truly good games are few and far between now a days. Not to mention they are heading in the wrong direction as well. In-game advertising, pay-to-play, downloadable content (kind of a double edge sword, but I want everything that makes a game great in the original release), and higher production costs. Also, with the exception of the Wii, companies are playing it safe instead of risking new gameplay mechanics and other innovative features. Examples of developers playing it safe, i.e. Turok, Kanes Wrath, Halo 3. Think of how much potential those games had that was obviously wasted. There were just so many more choices back in the day.

 

the games were way deeper and didn't rely on eye candy and graphics as much as they do today. imo

 

Look at the things that come out of the GDC student competition or the IGF. As has been pointed out, the innovation happens on the fringes in smaller games where the break even is lower, so they can take more risk. Also, let's not forget things like Spore, which has great potential.

The games industry is maturing, fragmenting, and stratafying. Truely innovative stuff is hard to find right now, but I have a feeling that just like the movie studios all have indie labels under the umbrella of the blockbuster labels, in 5-10 years, you will start to see semi-independant incubator indie sub-publishers at all the major places like EA and Atari. Also, keep in mind that your standards are probably way higher today than they were back in the day. If most of the hits from 1994 were to be released today, they would probably be roundly mocked.

 

So if some 1994 hits like say, Super Metroid, X-Com UFO Defense, System Shock, or Tie Fighter were released on modern platforms (and running on modern HD or 3D engines) they would be mocked?

I tend to think they would be declared the best games of all time. Hint---all of those 1994 hits are STILL at the top of many "best of all time" lists.

To say nothing of Doom 2, Warcraft, Final Fantasy 3/6, etc,etc......1994 was a GREAT year for gaming.

 

Tony, I totally agree that they were amazing games, and still hold up well, but they have 1994 user interfaces, and I'm not talking graphics. These days, if they were released as they were made then, people would probably be saying, "awesome concept, but underrealized". Go back and play any older game, trying to ignore the nostalgia factor. I bet that within a few hours, you will be wishing for a modern interface. Hell, after playing SupCom, even games released afterward that didn't have the global zoom of SupCom felt like they were missing something.

The games from back then were amazing from a high concept perspective, but from a UI perspective, they were pretty poor, really. People's expectations are stratospheric these days compared to back then. I'm not saying that those games were bad in any way, just that things have to be put in context.

 

Actually the industry is undergoing consolidation and has been for a while. Electronic Arts has been on a buying spree the last 10 years. They've purchased independent companies like Maxis, Criterion, Pandemic jsut to name a few and recently they're in the news for a hostile takeover of Take 2 the publisher.

Companies such as EA have begun to consolidate licenses for specific genres in this case Sports genres where if you want to buy a licensed NFL, Soccer, NCAA basketball game you have to buy it from them. They have made no bones about being the only provider for all sports games. This cuts down on innovation as there's no competition.

The videogame business is a lucrative business that now rivals and in some cases exceeds Hollywood. Except now only the big players are in a position to make those games. Meanwhile Mr. Joe Blow with the very cool idea for a innovative videogame doesn't stand a chance of making a game because it cost too much. He doesn't want to risk the investment or can't come up with the capital. He has no chance to advertise his game in magazines or get floor space at Gamestop. Hell just like the recording business he now has to sell his idea to some suits at Electronic Arts or maybe Sony or even Microsoft just to find funding for his idea.

And if he's so lucky to find some interest there's a 80% chance that his original idea for his game will not turn out as he envisioned it after the corporate suits have their say.

 

I think one of the big game devs or publishers need to encourage originality by offering game development kits to make it easier for the average Joe to build a game. I know there's lots of people out there with great ideas that either don't have the time, money, or skills to make their game a reality.

If there were an easy to use development kit that used basic building blocks to make a game with little knowledge required for programming, it might spur a bunch of new concepts that while these "lego" like games won't be spectacular in terms of graphics or mechanics, it can offer some great ideas that EA, Ubisoft, or any of the other major publishers may be able to run with.

Considering the little guy can't compete with the multi million dollar budgets of big devs and publishers, I think a lot of people don't even try any more. Too much time spent that won't get recognized.

 

It's called XNA which is a Microsoft tool/idea to fund indie type of developers with a shoe string budget. This is how they are trying to find the next "Rare, Bungie, or Ensemble Studios" etc.

The only way to find such new indie developers is to be part of Xbox Live which is part of the Xbox 360 service. To their credit Microsoft is the only large Publisher doing this at the moment.

 

Rodknee, I should have clarified what I meant. Yes, EA/MS/etc are buying up lots of devs and consolodating, but the fragmentation I was talking about is represented by things like the split off of casual games, and entire companies devoted to making just casual games. I probably should have said segmentation. Companies are targeting specific markets alot more, where as in the old days, I think alot of studios just made whatever type of game caught their fancy at the moment. In other words, its much more of a buisness now.

As to the "corporate suits" ruining everything, to some degree, that is true. However, I think alot of independantly minded studios (including at least one I've worked at) these days are charting a different course. They are doing contract work for big companies to gather financing, then saving a surplus so that they can work on their own title. With services like Steam and to a lesser extent XNA, there are ways around the traditional monolithic distrobution paradigm represented by the "suits".

As to htwingnut's comment, this is another direction I think we will see more and more of in the industry. I think that the future of games depends on it, in fact. We will see more and more standardized APIs for commercially available sub-systems (think graphics engines, physics engines, etc) and more pre-built plug-and-play sub-systems (think game logic systems, dialog systems, etc). The way things work now, it's like if every movie director had to independantly develop from scratch the technology for film stock, movie cameras, and every other element they use in production. It just isn't a financially sound model; it is too inefficient.

I think within the next 10 years, we will see standards come out for graphics engines (think ANSI/ISO type standards), and more companies that don't actually develop games, only the sub systems. I think this is the only way that the industry will be able to get spiraling development costs under control.

 

The industry as a whole is targeting the casual homogenized market. The play it safe, let's include everyone so we can get our investment back. Peter Moore recently said that he wants to make Madden Football more accessible to the average gamer. The industry is being forced in that direction because of high development costs.

Nintendo to their credit has always tried to appeal to the mass market audience. The name Wii was created by Nintendo to represent two i's which then represents to people playing together and is meant to imply "We play together".

I do agree that not all studios are defined by what the suits upstairs tell them to do but what percentage is that really? Maybe 5% of all developers. Bungie is one example of a developer who broke from their publisher Microsoft. But look how long that took. Look at all the hard work and the time it took for Bungie to make itself a household name which became synonymous with Halo and not their PC RTS games which first used a 3D engine and pushed the envelope of of the then Voodoo graphics card.

The only company who I know that calls it's own shots is id software. Again a powerhouse in the industry that gained it's fame from Wolfenstein and then the mother of all first person shooters Doom. But then again "id" is different because not only do they make games but they have unarguably the finest software engineer in John Carmack. They also produce game and graphics engine which other companies buy to use in their future titles.

As you can see the list is very small and I may have even left some out. The majority of software houses have to answer to Electronics Arts, Take 2, Activision and so on. It's only a select few who actually call their shots and produce what they set out to do initially.

 

Yes, but most of the studios are populated by people that don't want to be doing cookie cutter games. They build financing by making such titles with the goal of building a nestegg so they can support developing at least one title independantly.

 

True but that's not what I was referring too. Most software developers will pick and choose the projects they feel comfortable working on unless times get really lean. What i'm saying is that when a developer is working on a title they chose to do. They are at times subject to what the Publisher wants out of that title. Hence decisions could be made on their behalf to omit or include ideas the developer may or may not have a choice but to accept whether it pleases them or not.

 

Thankfully in all those years beer still tastes the same.

 

Yup, and it is quite unfortunate. If anyone knows how to pander, it is a publisher. They love to design by focus group.

 

Sooo, your list of "creative" games is.... A f'ing list of sequels?
You don't find that a teeny bit silly?

I'd say Dawn of War (and Company of Heroes) was a pretty vast change in RTS games. HL2 was pretty big in FPS'es, wasn't it? And Civ4 is far more innovative than 2 was.

There's always been a lot of crappy games being made. But after 10 years, you only remember the good ones.

Diablo 2 might have been a fun, well polished game, but it wasn't exactly groundbreaking. It was more of the same, in a bigger setting and with more items.

Company of Heroes (And Dawn of War) completely reinvented the RTS genre.

 

One of the most recent creative/innovative titles was called Eternal Darkness developed by Silicon Knights and published by Nintendo for the Gamecube. One very creepy game that was the first game of it's kind to "play the player". I'm replaying it and it's still very creepy to this day.

I remember freaking out when in the game while I was losing my sanity, watching the system reboot or the mute button coming on. One other time I jumped when all of a sudden the volume on my TV jumps to 100%. Talk about a freaky moment. The game had several hundred of these random variables written in the game.

Today the videogame industry sadly has become much like the recording industry and they almost mimic one another.

 

Good call. I remember that game. I have never played it but a friend of mine has it and still goes on and on about it. I almost bought a gamecube just to try it - lol.

Yes all the entertainment industries have come to a nice happy place where they cookie cutter everything and make boat loads of cash. Sad I know

 

well im happy nintendo brought me the DS although most games nintendo comes up with are everything but original i love their gaming systems. Plus the DS allows me to play NES and genesis roms always amusing to play old games.

Also there are still some pretty original games now and then.. the only thing i miss in newer games is a good story and depth in a game. A game like assissin creed it had a great story great graphics great game play but then they forget to hire someone to think up some good mission to fit in the story... its just like they didnt had enough time and thats with alot of games. EA even makes a sport of it bringing out games full of bugs and fixes them while they already sold a million copys. Publishers are fixing to much on making money and games have to be made fast so that goes of cost of alot of creativity i gues.

We can only hope some company notices there there are gamers with diffrent needs and start making diffrent games then the mainstream. But i think for PC none such thing will hapen because of all the illigal coppies

 

You can play Eternal Darkness on a Nintendo Wii. It's 100% backwards compatible with all Gamecube games.

That's how I play it or should I say plays me.

 

No it wasn't. There was another game, you may have heard of it, called Diablo.
Funny thing is, Diablo II was essentially the same as Diablo, only (a lot) bigger, and with prettier cutscenes. Perhaps you liked the storyline better, but I wouldn't call it "first of its type" just because of that.

 

People really love overstating the importance of Half-Life 2. The only things Half-Life 2 innovated on, really, were physics and cinematic story presentation.

The core gameplay itself, however, is basically just Doom with scarcer ammo, and I personally don't think the Source engine really came into its own until Episode Two. Half-Life 2 had great character models, but it's really easy to see where they cut corners to get performance. Likewise, Episode One was just HL2 with HDR pasted on.

This is really true. While there are classics from every era we all enjoyed, I'm pretty sure no one's waxing nostalgic about Dash Galaxy or ET for Atari 2600.

 

True, but also don't underestimate it. HL2 brought something different: variety in the game. And by that I mean that you have the walking with your weapons, then the vehicles and run from Antlions, to throw the antlions on the enemy and finally the all-mighty gravity gun.

Just my two cents on the game. =)

 

Well I understand what you're saying, but in these cases, the sequels were massive improvements on the originals that were already great games.

 

well sometimes games actually get better because of the new graphic possiblitys just take a look at the GTA sequal and the revolution GTA 3 Started

 

3D GTA and 2D GTA are different games. I would not call 3D GTA better than 2D, just different. Honestly, in many ways, I found the 2D one more fun.

 

I just have to say that there are so many good games that if they have stuck to the same engine or formula, they wouldn't have died so quickly or they could have been more successful.

1.Mechwarrior - died after microsoft killed it, when they totally took it away from pc.

2. Diablo - Wheres our Diablo 3??? and i hope they don't hope on to the mmo wagon which many already have said blizzard will.

3. Baldur's Gate and Icewind dale series - i still play them old school pc versions, the new ones on ps2 sucks so much, story used to be soooo damn good.

4. After Red alert 1 - they started to make things with a 3d perspective, and cartoon-alise all the units.

5. Heroes of might and magic - HOMM3 is so good with the upgrade on graphics the lushes 2D spirites still look awesome today in my opinion, HOMM 4 was a total piece of crap which again tried to 3d perspective the game(sigh) , HOMM5 tried to listen to what fans but still missed a lot of important stuff, still same towns, only 2 upgrades , even smaller battlefield ? (wtf ?)

I know theres more.. add more later lol

 

I couldn't agree more. I hate to see great games end with just that game. Like the case of Half-Life 2, I would be happy to see the sequels released every six months if they just used the same engine.

Games like F.E.A.R. is a good example of what they should do. Use same engine, but come up with a few sequels extending the story. Just make it affordable.

 

I wanna play Pajama Sayummmmm!

 

Want To Tell That To The 9 Milloins Of People Who Play WoW)

 

Gameplay wise, its more of regress than lack of progress. It is amazing how much features these old games had. Gameplay-wise, Ultima 6 had much more to offer than Oblivion, and U6 fit in 2 FDDs! And yeah, IMO rising development costs is to blame. I wish if we can undo all these "development" in 3d technologies. They did no good to gameplay.