Are we setting our standarts too high?

[GarryIsTheHero]

Taking and idea from a game and re-vamping it too make in work in your game is a great idea, but it happens to often! Game companies have become lazy, Bioware (who are my favorite company ironically) Use the same dialogue trees, combat systems, "good & evil" meter and general gameplay in most games, which is just plain lazy! But, I digress. I don't think peoples standards are too high I just don't think modern games have been meeting our expectations. I blame this on fans of mega popular franchises e.g CoD, WoW etc. If they release a new Cod for example, with minor game-play changes and short, crap single player campaign with the depth of a wall and just make the multiplayer good people will buy it! The games industry is supplying what the masses will buy, Which is a God Damn shame!

 

[jonyboy13]

Hard Reset was pretty good, the relatively low score is due to the crap story and short campaign.
Space marine is a horrible game, saying it's average is an undeserved compliment. It fails as both shooter and hack & slash by trying to combine them both.

If anything, the standards are low from all the disappointment in games for the past decade.

 

[Racecarlock]

If I'm not having fun, I'm not playing the game. Simple as that. Why should I suddenly have to start liking games where you go to work repeatedly or drive a city bus? Why should I lower my standards, when the developers and publishers are the ones responsible for the quality drop? Why should I suddenly have to like "artsy" and "deep" games when they do nothing to entertain me, but still prop themselves up on pedestals while saying "Like me, I'm artistic!". Well, no dice. I want to have fun and that's the game type I'm aiming for. I like participating in hollywood style police chases or races with tons of crashes or battles of yavin. I like base jumping and huge, epic dogfights. I don't like games that go out of their way to make me feel depressed. I got enough depression in school, so I'm pretty much done with that fucking terrible feeling. And no, I won't lower my standards because someone told me to. That's not how it works. I could try to lie to myself, but I'd rather commit suicide than lie to myself.

 

[boyvirgo666]

I enjoyed Space Marine, i wish the health system hadnt gotten me killed 8/10 times i tried to use it when i really needed it but hey whatever. My standards for games is pretty low as long as it does a few things right. It needs to look good(to me. doesnt meant good graphics that means it has to be art consistant), it has to have good mechanics for whatever is core gameplay has to be(in this case that was combat), the story has to be tolerable or at least make me feel like a badass, and last the game must have decent length to cover for the games cost and not pander to multiplayer(ok this games campaign was...ok length? better than homefront was at least).

The thing is i went into space marine knowing it was going to be a mindless game. Space marines are not known for thought provoking tactics and all that. But some things in thi game did bother me. The one glaring one only came up once. WHY THE HELL ARE THE IMPERIAL GUARD SALUTING LIKE US SOLDIERS?! HEY ARE IMPERIAL GUARD MAKE THE SIGN OF THE AQUILA THIS IS A 40K GAME NOT A MODERN MILITARY ONE! Sure its not a huge error but if you actually like the story of that fake world then it kinda broke the immersion factor.

 

[Netrigan]

To the OP.

It's a long established trend that people are far more likely to complain than compliment. Most popular games are enjoyed by the vast majority of it's purchasers. But the guy who doesn't like Call Of Duty is much more likely to start a thread about all the things wrong with it than a Saints Row 2 fan will start a thread about how awesome it is.

And there are always, always, always people who legitimately don't like something. Their disappointment is real and they often vent.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

It's funny because Stan's generally the one who throws too high when we play darts, but always hit below the 20.

 

[scar_47]

Your standards should be high especially when your paying 60 dollars for a game, of course its going to be subjective and comparing to a known quantity makes reviewing much easier I could write a paragraph explaining the controls or simply say their like god of war, the whole point of a review is to objectively look at a game to do that things perceived as flaws need to be pointed out.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Cthulhu's writhing tentacles, no. If anything, our standards are too low.

 

[boyvirgo666]

Taking and idea from a game and re-vamping it too make in work in your game is a great idea, but it happens to often! Game companies have become lazy, Bioware (who are my favorite company ironically) Use the same dialogue trees, combat systems, "good & evil" meter and general gameplay in most games, which is just plain lazy! But, I digress. I don't think peoples standards are too high I just don't think modern games have been meeting our expectations. I blame this on fans of mega popular franchises e.g CoD, WoW etc. If they release a new Cod for example, with minor game-play changes and short, crap single player campaign with the depth of a wall and just make the multiplayer good people will buy it! The games industry is supplying what the masses will buy, Which is a God Damn shame!

Sir i must say that just means you misunderstand how game development works. See that good/evil meter is not lazy its part of the engine bioware developed. Much like the source engine always having the same ammo counter and save system, the odyssey engine which bioware uses has things like this too, and it works for them. if you want every game to look dramatically different then release times would be much longer since you would also have to write new framework for said game. Which takes much much longer to do. This is why most games by the same company look the same and why most shooters now look alot like half-life, because engines are whatmake the entire game industry easier.

Edit:for reference, bioware is now using the eclipse engine which is similar to the odyssey engine since it was based upon improving the old one. Which is what they did for the engine for neverwinter nights 2 who's engines name i forget right now.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I get how people will have different opinions on what does and doesn't make a good game. What I don't get is why almost every single opinion I here when it comes to gaming is so... extreme.

Nobody ever 'likes' or 'dislikes' a game anymore. Instead you have one camp that cry's "ZOMG THIS GAME IS SOOOOOOO AWESOME! I WOULD TOTALLY BUTT FUCK THIS GAME IF IT HAD AN ARSEHOLE!!!" and then you have another camp that wails "WTF THIS GAME SUCKS SWEATY BALLS! I'D RATHER HAVE HORSE SHIT RUBBED IN MY EYES FOR 6 HOURS THAN PLAY IT AGAIN!!!" just because 1 aspect of the game did not totally conform to what their wildest dreams.

Since when did every point of opinion in gaming become this love it or hate it line in the sand with no middle ground. It makes no sense.

 

[C95J]

Definitely I think. All I see now is people complaining about every little detail...

 

[Aprilgold]

(To focus on something that specifically irks me) Have you seen some of the shit people label as good writing and/or storytelling in games?

People's standards definitely aren't too high, and its a problem.

I concur that another problem is people ONLY think ONE game is a specific game that started a series and thus any game with the same formula that makes it fall into the same genre is a clone. As with the OPs post, its Warhammer Space Marine. You can look at ANY FPS now in days and people will claim its a rip when its not, like Home Front, it was bad for A LOT of reasons, but isn't a rip.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't think our standards are high. We want intuitive and fun gameplay, a compelling story that makes sense, a finished product that doesn't freeze, crash or run at 5fps at a decent price. Some developers give us exactly what we want, some even give us more, and some give us less or nothing. Most of the time those who give us less or nothing are the richest companies out there. So why the fuck are you still buying their games? I'd say that it's because gamers buy shitty games, our standards have lowered over the years.

 

[Imbechile]

snip

Hell no! Our standards are quite low. Because of that gaming is shit these days.

 

[Strife17O7]

I..think I mostly just play what I like. Granted I don't always think outside a sort of box as much as I used to these days, but I think that's mostly because my wallet's a lot thinner than it used to be for this sort of thing than in past ages. So...yes, I've been more selective...but only out of necessity. Not because of any particular disrespect for the smaller release. /:> Besides, there are a number of games in the past that are derided into the ground, but I still enjoy from time to time. (Perfect Dark:Zero, Over-G Fighters, etc.)

 

[somonels]

No.
For $50? I expect quality in multiple areas, including some originality. Your game does not have that? Lower the price.

 

[senordesol]

I don't think standards have been set too high, I think the focus for devs is off.

I played Chrono Trigger for the first time when I was in college (for perspective, CoD4 and ES:IV:Oblivion also came out while I was in college) and I loved every second of it. The sound was jarring at first, but I got over it. The battles were fantastic, the story was interesting, and the characters felt like dear friends. AND IT JUST KEPT GOING. After the battle with Magus, I thought 'Oh, OK that was a pretty good game; guess we're done now.' NOPE! There's another 40 hours on this roller coaster, my friend.

The point is that our standards are LOWER now, not higher. Sure, we demand the prettiest graphics now and perfectly balanced multiplayer, as well as realistic scripts and mocap -all of which takes years worth of development. But for a campaign to be as long as CoD4's or MW2's or Homefront's or Medal of Honor's or Dragon Age 2's would have been an INSULT just 10 years ago.

And the thing was: developers weren't afraid to try new concepts and then refine them to the point where they actually worked. I can't help but get the feeling that, while we're still getting very high polish games, we're lacking in high *quality* games.

We're due for a gaming renaissance. When smaller developers, in an effort to get someone to notice them, create titles that take risks and pay off in ways we never new games could.

 

[BRex21]

Just because something isn't universally popular does not make it a failure, it depends so much on personal taste you probably won't find anything universally accepted as good. Quite frankly i think that the quest for universal popularity is what is holding the medium back. Firefly was not popular outside of its niche audience yet you will find very few people here who wouldn't praise it, why? Because we were the target market. If game manufacturers focused on there targets and said to hell with the people we aren't trying to reach we would see much better more focused efforts, but instead manufacturers look at what made money in the past and try to clone it with better graphics and whatnot in some sort of lame plot to make money.
I think if we raised our standards people would either need to focus on their target market or find ways to make games better and more universal, however, so long as the things im finding are fun, i don't really care.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

High standards need to be maintained, or the entertainment industry will be ruined.

There's a reason the crash of '83 happened.

 

[random_bars]

What? Our standards are utterly incredibly low. When was the last time a game was released that:

- didn't directly rip off another game's mechanics
- was made with the intent to do something new, to tread where no game has trodden before in at least some aspect or other
- was well designed and structured
- had a variety in its locales and gameplay and visuals
- was well written, with lots of interesting characters and dialogue
- took its concepts just as far as they needed to go and then stopped, ending the game when all that could have been explored was explored but before it started to get repetitive

I actually... Well, I'm not actually sure I can think of ANY games like that. I can think of several that did most of that, but within the last few years, there's maybe, one...? Two possibly...?

No, we are setting our standards way, way too low, and giving games huge amounts of credit for doing nothing more than being polished, which is extremely unimpressive considering any game can be polished if you throw enough money at it.