It's Too Loud (Because I'm Too Old)

[samsonguy920]

I think we can rest assured the game will be nothing like the trailer. I gotta admit I found a few bits in there rather cool, but I agree with Andy, it would be nice to see a thinking man's fantasy game, instead of the usual action trash that publishers would rather sell overpriced.
There is a Half Life 2 mod called Research and Development, where you get no guns to use in your fight against the combine, instead using your noggin to defeat soldiers, antlions, even tanks and antlion queens. You do get your own Gravy gun about halfway through, but even acquiring that is a brain twister. Maybe there would be less fuss from parent's groups if there was more emphasis on using your brain in games, instead of just doing shootemups? Maybe that's why Half Life 2 hasn't been targeted so much for being overviolent?
And Andy, I don't know what the kids are listening to these days, but my heart sings when my station plays Bohemian Rhapsody.

 

[westx207]

An excellent article, especially when referencing such excellent brews.

I'm totally picking up what you're laying down, but I don't think that it's a bad thing. It doesn't seem that you do either, but it's a reality an long time gamer must face: our medium has become profitable, and will be marketed as such. I don't see any way around that.

Of course, once the game itself starts being marketed to people who don't give a shit about the community (read: Modern Warfare 2 minus a server browser), then I start to become concerned.

Great writing though, all pessimism aside.

 

[LewsTherin]

So, you're all willing to pass judgement on a game based on the trailers? Back in MY day, games didn't even have trailers. We had to wait until launch day and walk to the video store in the rain and three feet of snow...*grumble grumble*kids these days*grumble grumble*

 

[PPB]

Pretty interesting read, I've been feeling a bit like this lately.

As far as Dragon Age goes, I didn't read much about it until very recently (got all hyped up back in 2004 when it was announced, but it soon became obvious that it was a long way off so I decided to take some steps back). I've honestly been really disappointed by recent trailers (the latest being something I'd expect to see for a Korean MMO) and previews, which, like someone said, reek the cheap straight-to-DVD action movie (something that in my opinion was also the case with Mass Effect). There's a saying in the newspaper industry (at least around here) which states that in order to sell the paper, you have to include three things: blood, sex, sports. Dragon Age has been marketed around the first two. (For the record, I'm not a follower of Thompson. But I find it disappointing to see that BioWare is swooping this low.)

That being said, I'm buying it for one reason: the toolset. I have high hopes for this. Neverwinter Nights (also from BioWare) started out as a very bland game. But once players started building modules for it with the toolset, the value of that game soared incredibly high. If Dragon Age can gather a strong community like NWN did, I'm sure it will be awesome. Of course, this only applies to the PC version though. I'll obviously reserve my final opinion until I've played the game, but so far I don't expect too much from the core campaign.

 

[_Nocturnal]

I'd hug you all but you kind of smell funny, heh.
Me, I wonder what I'll be playing in my 50s.
Sad thing is, games in the form we know them will probably be obsolete by then.

*sob*

You know all those motion control games? Natal and such?
How the hell are old people supposed to play them?

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I'd hug you all but you kind of smell funny, heh.
Me, I wonder what I'll be playing in my 50s.
Sad thing is, games in the form we know them will probably be obsolete by then.

*sob*

You know all those motion control games? Natal and such?
How the hell are old people supposed to play them?

Don't worry, soon they'll invent cyber helmets to let us play with our minds.

 

[SimuLord]

Now that I'm past 30 I've had gaming largely ruined for me because what used to be novel and interesting is now compared against previous examples of whatever it is the creator's trying to accomplish.

Take, for example, the new Tropico 3. Apparently Haemimont Games has turned out the first good game in their otherwise worthless lives (consider the execrable Imperium Romanum and Glory of the Roman Empire which managed to make Rome unfun(?!), if the early reviews are anything to go by. But everything I see of it makes me think "Why would I buy a remake of Tropico 1 when I still have Tropico 1 and still consider it the fourth-best game of all-time (behind Rome: Total War, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations)? It's prettier? Modern graphics? But the old ones had a charm that still endures eight years later."

I'll probably buy it anyway. But I probably would've enjoyed it more if Tropico came out when I was, say, 14 and I was 22 now for Tropico 3 rather than 24 and 32 as things currently stand.

 

[PlasticTree]

The trailers are horrible for pretty much every gamer who appreciates games for more than the space marine action and the gore. Dragon Age will very likely be a delicate, awesome game, and anyone who knows how good that might taste, the 'look at me, I'm not a boring complicated rpg!'-trailers make you want to rip your eyes out. Has nothing to do with your age.

Personally, I've watched the gameplaytrailer about that dragonlady, which made Dragon Age a must buy for me. Every other trailer made me regret I watched it.

 

[Capo Taco]

What a boring trailer. Most of the fighting moves ripped directly from the movie 300, which isn't exactly an obscure source and the only emotion these characters are showing is... stinky grit? Their faces look like someone just farted. But then from the penny arcade dragon age comics I got the distinct feel that these heroes aren't necessarily really heroes.

I'm 25. Your taste is not that old, but it may be that refined.

What I don't understand is that they make faces that realistic if they can't animate them realistically. It's like they're trying to unsuspend your disbelief.

 

[Falseprophet]

See, I just watched the Dragon Age trailer yesterday, and was also less than impressed, but for slightly different reasons. It was basically an action movie trailer. It was pretty and impressive, but it didn't tell me a thing about the gameplay or the story.

More to the point, it had no tension. I watched a group of five badasses mow down a horde of orc/zombie things, then take down a dragon, all without breaking a sweat. Not once did I feel the heroes were in any actual danger.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I've been playing the same games for 10 years, and while I go in and out of phases of liking games, I still appreciate the crazy over the top blowing upness of modern gaming. I actually quite like generic no tension gore a thons. I am the modern incarnate of the spectacle gamer.

And I've always liked puzzle games, they're just a little bit more fun.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

Im only 21 and I totally understand the whole, taste in games maturing as you age

I dont know why, but the baldurs gate/icewind dale/nwn games always fixated an element of maturity and class into what is essentially electronic versions of those nerdy D&D models that you see in Games Workshop and you see the geeks all around the table rolling dice, moving their hobgoblins into spell range....eurgh

Dragon Age is a waste, the 'world' of baldurs gate (was it called alber-toril?) was chock full of fantastic lore, locales (underdark) and characters (the infamous Mr Do'Urden) and as Dragon Age is set in a different world (i think) i just cant be bothered immersing myself in a completely new lore sphere

Current age graphics could have really put a cinematic experience on the franchise that we all know and love, as it stands, this will just be another mass effect, while if I dug deeper, im sure the game will be stooped in the kind of lore that gets me a little bit aroused at times (see the whole Bhallspawn story, OMG), but I simply dont have the time and the patience to really get into a game when im constantly thinking 'hang on a second, who is she the god of? he is the king of what-now?'

Maybe this is just a case of not doing my research before posting, and dragons age is set in the AD&D universe, just a different franchise...which is fine because NWN was also very good, aside from the Jar-Jar Binks-esque characters in NWN 2. Actually come to think of it, its characters like that that make me think if they made a BG3, they would reduce Minsc to a babbling joke-buff that would just make me want to jump out of a window

I know what you are all thinking, and you are right, i AM just a baldurs gate fanboy

 

[ben---neb]

Ahhh, I am in two minds about buying Bioware. On the one hand its Bioware and on the other is the pathetically purile marketing campaign that accompanies it. But my heart is crying out for a good story based game and I'll I got is Mass Effect, urgh, its not bad but definietly overated.

Maybe I should install my old KOTOR games but apprently its hard to get them to run on Vista. Looks like I'll be buying Dragon's Age out of desperation more than anything else.

 

[coldfrog]

As a crotchety beer drinker and crotchety game player, this has basically summed up my sentiments of the current game industry in a way that a thousand dry old-man rants ever could.

Lets hear it for micro-brews and indie developers!

 

[HK_01]

Are you talking about the Sacred Ashes CG trailer? Yeah, it sucked. They present the game totally different than it supposedly is. I don't get it. It turns off the old fans who want a good old RPG and the action fans who might be tempted to buy it will be very disappointed when they get to play the actual game...

 

[Andy_Panthro]

I'm just glad I saw a brief glimpse of the actual gameplay (and top-down camera) in a developer video months ago. I can't find the video on the website anymore... which is a great shame.

The only vids they have now are... uninspiring.

I really liked the D&D games Bioware did, and I'm disappointed they couldn't continue. The quality had been dropping more recently though, NWN2 was poor, and it took the expansions MOTB and SOZ for me to enjoy the game (especially SOZ, which felt almost like a "proper" D&D game to me).

They're marketing this as a "dark fantasy RPG" and yet it doesn't even get to the level of the Witcher (which wasn't marketed as anything other than an RPG).

The marketing really makes me confused. This game is supposed to be like BG, and yet it's being marketed like an action game. This means you'll either get lots of annoyed action fans, or lots of annoyed RPG fans. Or more likely both.

 

[Gaias]

I tried real hard to like this last big trailer that Bioware had offered to the consumer, but failed. But this [http://www.maxim.com/girls/girls-of-maxim/84692/exclusive-girls-idragons-agei.html] is something that boggles the mind when it comes to the choice of the magazine. I mean, at Playboy at least has a reputation of some class of trying to be other than. Getting to old I guess.

 

[AvsJoe]

Well, I'm not in the same boat, but I *am* in the same ocean. It hit me hard when I discovered a couple of years ago that there was someone younger than me in the NHL (for instance, I'm older than Patrick Kane by a couple of months). It won't be long before I'm older than the youngest NFL and MLB player (heck I probably am already).

Now, I'm still young. Very young. 21.7 years old is far from an advanced age. But I'm no longer a teenager so I have to change accordingly. Soon I won't be "in my early twenties" and will have to change for that one. Then I will be "approaching thirty" and that will require drastic changes. It's amazing just how fast we age and how quickly the next age-related societal milestone approaches. Stupid life...

 

[bjj hero]

Now that I'm past 30 I've had gaming largely ruined for me because what used to be novel and interesting is now compared against previous examples of whatever it is the creator's trying to accomplish.

Take, for example, the new Tropico 3. Apparently Haemimont Games has turned out the first good game in their otherwise worthless lives (consider the execrable Imperium Romanum and Glory of the Roman Empire which managed to make Rome unfun(?!), if the early reviews are anything to go by. But everything I see of it makes me think "Why would I buy a remake of Tropico 1 when I still have Tropico 1 and still consider it the fourth-best game of all-time (behind Rome: Total War, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations)? It's prettier? Modern graphics? But the old ones had a charm that still endures eight years later."

I'll probably buy it anyway. But I probably would've enjoyed it more if Tropico came out when I was, say, 14 and I was 22 now for Tropico 3 rather than 24 and 32 as things currently stand.

Being a 30 next year gamer I take your point. I compare everything to something I played years ago. "Its not as good as Druid the Enlightenment" or "I prefered the strategy in laser squad" comes up quite a bit.

I must have missed Tropico though. The first I saw of it was a 2 page add for tropico 3 in a gaming rag. Looked like theme park and civilisation with added Castro. Is it worth a gamble?