Modern Gaming Sucks!!! Or Does It?

[Phoenixmgs]

How much environment could you interact with on the SNES?

What more can you do in new God of War that you couldn't do in an SNES game? I was pretty disappointed you couldn't use those exploding sap? balls on anything other than the very specific predefined objects. Like you can't use it to break those pots you have to throw the axe at for example. Why doesn't like every AAA game have systemic game elements like a immersive sim? The last Zelda finally added such elements.

 

[CriticalGaming]

What more can you do in new God of War that you couldn't do in an SNES game? I was pretty disappointed you couldn't use those exploding sap? balls on anything other than the very specific predefined objects. Like you can't use it to break those pots you have to throw the axe at for example. Why doesn't like every AAA game have systemic game elements like a immersive sim? The last Zelda finally added such elements.

My guess is that it has to do with the way the map is created. Assets that are freely destructible are not nearly as detailed as assets that are. Those assets in things like God of War that can get destroyed are really only destructible in a specific way due to how the animation and asset is made. Doing something dynamically requires physics sims to be running under the hood just in case the player blows some shit up which would also likely fuck with the games performance, especially on the older gen hardware.

The thing is there is nothing wrong with a curated experience, the same way there is nothing wrong with a free flowing experience. Different games will do different things. That destructibility you crave stems from you enjoying it in one game and wanting it in all games, which isn't going to happen.

For all we talk about player freedom and creativity in video games, games will always be limited by what the developers can both think of AND program into the experience. Not to mention the time frame of development limiting them to making an experience that fits and works together in a(mostly) reasonable timeframe. I'm sure after all this money and time Star Citizen will let you do absolutely everything and anything your heart desires. But not many games are made with a billion dollars and endless time.

But let's compare things directly. Taking your Zelda example.

Breath of the Wild is regarded as one of the best Zelda games ever made. It is pretty clear that it's bigger, more open, and certainly more mechanically tight than any Zelda game ever made before it. How far back would you go before you would say there was an objectively better Zelda game (if it exists). Nostalgia might tell you Ocarina of Time, or Link to the Past. But in terms of objectively "better" could you realistically argue that any other Zelda was made bigger and better than BotW?

What about Mario Odyssey? Surely that's the best Mario game ever made, at least in the 3D era right? Expansive levels, tons of creatively hidden moons, mechanically polished and allows for skill to truly shine in much the same way Mario 64 speedrunner skill shines in that title.

My question for you would be, if BotW and Odyssey are not the best games in their franchises, which ones are the best and how are they better in ways that aren't just "It was my first" Or "I played it as a kid and it stuck with me" aka nostalgia.

 

[Eacaraxe]

For all we talk about player freedom and creativity in video games, games will always be limited by what the developers can both think of AND program into the experience...

Yeah, but on the flip side games can and have been developed to be so open-ended, gameplay itself ends up artificially restrictive.

Look at Red Faction: Guerilla. Being it was kind of the point of the game I can't fault it, but for all the different vehicle and weapon options in the game, the single most effective way to play was to just identify structures' load-bearing elements, infiltrate, demo the structure, and mop up what's left standing. The Battlefield: Bad Company series had a similar thing going for it, in that demolition was so overpowering that losing cover and vantage points in key positions could put a team in a death spiral from a match's opening minutes. If you had good map knowledge, you knew which structures to target for demolition before ever trying to push an objective or start bleeding the other team's tickets.

In a similar vein, look at MGSV. The stealth mechanics in it were so suboptimal, the only time a player might be tempted to engage with it were on the minority of extraction missions or when scouting for Mother Base recruits. The only thing that would have incentivized consistent stealth play -- the awareness and tactical readiness mechanics -- was removed from the game before release, so there's really no reason to engage with it outside those two objectives. Meanwhile, MGS3 forced one to play stealthily, but the range of options for how one might achieve that end were so vast the ludicrously complex camo mechanic was barely an afterthought.

 

[sXeth]

My guess is that it has to do with the way the map is created. Assets that are freely destructible are not nearly as detailed as assets that are. Those assets in things like God of War that can get destroyed are really only destructible in a specific way due to how the animation and asset is made. Doing something dynamically requires physics sims to be running under the hood just in case the player blows some shit up which would also likely fuck with the games performance, especially on the older gen hardware.

The thing is there is nothing wrong with a curated experience, the same way there is nothing wrong with a free flowing experience. Different games will do different things. That destructibility you crave stems from you enjoying it in one game and wanting it in all games, which isn't going to happen.

For all we talk about player freedom and creativity in video games, games will always be limited by what the developers can both think of AND program into the experience. Not to mention the time frame of development limiting them to making an experience that fits and works together in a(mostly) reasonable timeframe. I'm sure after all this money and time Star Citizen will let you do absolutely everything and anything your heart desires. But not many games are made with a billion dollars and endless time.

But let's compare things directly. Taking your Zelda example.

Breath of the Wild is regarded as one of the best Zelda games ever made. It is pretty clear that it's bigger, more open, and certainly more mechanically tight than any Zelda game ever made before it. How far back would you go before you would say there was an objectively better Zelda game (if it exists). Nostalgia might tell you Ocarina of Time, or Link to the Past. But in terms of objectively "better" could you realistically argue that any other Zelda was made bigger and better than BotW?

What about Mario Odyssey? Surely that's the best Mario game ever made, at least in the 3D era right? Expansive levels, tons of creatively hidden moons, mechanically polished and allows for skill to truly shine in much the same way Mario 64 speedrunner skill shines in that title.

My question for you would be, if BotW and Odyssey are not the best games in their franchises, which ones are the best and how are they better in ways that aren't just "It was my first" Or "I played it as a kid and it stuck with me" aka nostalgia.

Funny, because I'd say both Mario and Zelda SUFFER the more open they get.

The baseline concepts of Odyssey or BotW are not terrible, they aren't poorly executed (although both have an obsession with insane levels of effectively pointless collectathonning, where they clearly wanted more numbers then they actually had ideas for puzzles/platforming/mechanics.)


As a "MArio" game (setting aside how broad that gets with spinoffs and brand-stamping sports games lol) Odyssey is massively lacking in a lot of fluid design. There are ~283873784 platforming challenges in a "level" sure, but they don't connect together and form any kind of chained experience. You can have large levels, even open worlds, but in a game as a platformer, its lacking a lot of actual curated routes and feels more like someone just tossed rice in the air and shoved power moons wherever it landed (and if they had time, maybe put some brief puzzle or platforming trick related to it..


AS far as a favorite Super Mario game goes, probably Super Mario World. Though theres at least one or two of the newer ones I could pick as well but the names have basically become a smear of indistinguishable nonsense at this point.

BotW is just... weird. Zelda has, for its entire lifespan, essentially been a Metroidvania (even though it was first, IIRC) where you traverse a large open map and collect powerups to unlock secrets and eventual forward progress. And aside from some combat gameplay that ranges from eh... "Serviceable" to moderately good, predominanty set itself up as a puzzle game often using these mechanics, with dungeons usually themed around a specific one (and one or two major dungeons that might incorporate multiple tools).


BotW throws out the gadgets entirely, and the dungeons, and the metroidvania "unlocking" the world aspect. And replaces it with?.... teen thousand collectibles, maybe 40 of which have some kind of puzzle so you can play with the physics toy they gave you at the start. The bulk of which are simply finding an odd spot of map or doing the 100th iteration of "spot the difference" Korok seeds. Slams in a bunch of grindy Runescape esque crafting mechanics. And (further backed by the DLCs they chose to make) seems to want to draw its main gameplay on the combat, which.... didn't really leap up and excel to get over the rest of the series particularly much,. Arguably it even took a downturn since they took out the gadgets which could also diversify combat.



Link to the Past or Minnish Cap (which right out the gate, if thhey could remaster it with functionality for more then 2 buttons, one of which had to be your sword, lol) may be janky AF due to age or the Gameboy limits. And Twilight Princess has its own share of quibbles (like the nigh pointless wolf mode which is used for totally on rails platforming), but they never feel like someone just splattered Zelda skins on their otherwise shallow ocean of an open world game with none of the series mainstays.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

My guess is that it has to do with the way the map is created. Assets that are freely destructible are not nearly as detailed as assets that are. Those assets in things like God of War that can get destroyed are really only destructible in a specific way due to how the animation and asset is made. Doing something dynamically requires physics sims to be running under the hood just in case the player blows some shit up which would also likely fuck with the games performance, especially on the older gen hardware.

The thing is there is nothing wrong with a curated experience, the same way there is nothing wrong with a free flowing experience. Different games will do different things. That destructibility you crave stems from you enjoying it in one game and wanting it in all games, which isn't going to happen.

For all we talk about player freedom and creativity in video games, games will always be limited by what the developers can both think of AND program into the experience. Not to mention the time frame of development limiting them to making an experience that fits and works together in a(mostly) reasonable timeframe. I'm sure after all this money and time Star Citizen will let you do absolutely everything and anything your heart desires. But not many games are made with a billion dollars and endless time.

But let's compare things directly. Taking your Zelda example.

Breath of the Wild is regarded as one of the best Zelda games ever made. It is pretty clear that it's bigger, more open, and certainly more mechanically tight than any Zelda game ever made before it. How far back would you go before you would say there was an objectively better Zelda game (if it exists). Nostalgia might tell you Ocarina of Time, or Link to the Past. But in terms of objectively "better" could you realistically argue that any other Zelda was made bigger and better than BotW?

What about Mario Odyssey? Surely that's the best Mario game ever made, at least in the 3D era right? Expansive levels, tons of creatively hidden moons, mechanically polished and allows for skill to truly shine in much the same way Mario 64 speedrunner skill shines in that title.

My question for you would be, if BotW and Odyssey are not the best games in their franchises, which ones are the best and how are they better in ways that aren't just "It was my first" Or "I played it as a kid and it stuck with me" aka nostalgia.

I'm not asking for literally everything to be interacted with or be destroyable. Why can't you use explosive stuff to damage/destroy things that are already programmed in to be damaged/destroyed? I'm pretty sure in Link to the Past, you could damage enemies using bombs even though there were only predefined walls that you could blow up with the bombs. In God of War, you can't use that explosive tree sap stuff on anything but literally the predefined things (we've literally gone backwards). Something as simple as being able to destroy doors (in the Divinity OS games) feels so great because of how video game-y the aspect of needing a key to open a door that you know you can just bust down in real life is. It's usually the little things that makes a game feel that much more immersive like an ice spell that doesn't merely do cold damage to enemies (and thus only matters for weaknesses) but causes enemies to slip on the ice as they are moving towards you.

Star Citizen is basically a scam at this point. For the Zeldas and Marios, I couldn't tell you if the new ones or old ones are better as I haven't had a Nintendo console since SNES. I know of how all the weather and elements in BOTW interacts with each other and I know the fun you can have with that. None of that stuff would be out of place in a remake of say Link to the Past.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I hate to break it to the "everything was better back when I was a kid" crowd, but the only reason developers didn't do things like live services and microtransactions back in the day was because they couldn't. Instead we got things like Action 52 for the NES and E.T. or Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. (And as a side note, everyone who wants to whine about Steam letting porn games be sold there might want to look up Custer's Revenge, also for the 2600.)

In short, a message to that crowd: Everything was shit then just like everything is shit now, and you don't remember it because you were little fucking morons back then.

Action 52 wasn't actually licensed by Nintendo. A better example would probably be LJN's sea of garbage.

What more can you do in new God of War that you couldn't do in an SNES game? I was pretty disappointed you couldn't use those exploding sap? balls on anything other than the very specific predefined objects. Like you can't use it to break those pots you have to throw the axe at for example. Why doesn't like every AAA game have systemic game elements like a immersive sim? The last Zelda finally added such elements.

Show me any AAA game that you can organically interact with the world and it's systems only 20% as much as Noita. It doesn't exist.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Show me any AAA game that you can organically interact with the world and it's systems only 20% as much as Noita. It doesn't exist.

That's my point. AAA focuses on trying to make the same games look better and bigger, 'wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle' basically. Development isn't spent to make games more interesting to interact with, you know like the key aspect that makes games different than any other medium.

 

[Drathnoxis]

That's my point. AAA focuses on trying to make the same games look better and bigger, 'wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle' basically. Development isn't spent to make games more interesting to interact with, you know like the key aspect that makes games different than any other medium.

I know, I was agreeing with you.

 

[Worgen]

Ugh, no with modern gaming, gaming is at the best its ever been. We have control schemes figured out, we have figured out how to use controllers with almost all games, there is a massive indie scene and if you want to play the games of yesteryear you can easily emulate most of them. Even with the AAA space and I would argue that the AAA games we have now are pretty damn good, the only real problem with them is that they tend to be a known quantity and we are tired of them, but you take almost any COD game as a standalone and its mind-blowingly good.

 

[BrawlMan]

We have control schemes figured out, we have figured out how to use controllers with almost all games, there is a massive indie scene and if you want to play the games of yesteryear you can easily emulate most of them.

Not to mention most retro games and arcade games are on digital stores or on compilation packs you can get physically.

Even with the AAA space and I would argue that the AAA games we have now are pretty damn good,

Barely. AAA still has a long way to get back to how it was before mid 7th generation. AA and Indie are still kicking its ass. Nintendo and Sony are fine, but Sony has to do more than 3rd person narrative driven action games with forced walking sections. I know there are some exceptions, but they can do better than that. Microsoft has one good exclusive for their Series X, and it's a PS2 style game with modern aesthetics and fundamentals, but blends in the old-school design so well. It ain't fucking Halo doing the job. Micosoft's major flagship franchise!

We still have major AAA companies trying to screw consumers over with Season Passes, cheat them out of cosmetics, and the whole 10-year plan/road map shit they keep trying to push and fail. The only reason why it's finally backfiring after so many years, is because consumers are finally starting to take notice for once or realize "I don't have the time in the world to dedicate to three different live service games!" These guys still have money from their other schemes and underpaying their developers, but it's always never enough. Not to mention the massive layoffs just to meet a fucking quota. The only AAA devs and publishers worth a damn are Capcom, Sony, Nintendo, Namco, SNK, THQ Nordic, Tango Gameworks, Grasshopper, and Platinum.

you take almost any COD game as a standalone and its mind-blowingly good.

I disagree heavily. Most of CODs that came out by the mid 2010s are either average, boring, or just plain shit. Even as standalones, they fail against retro FPS games (from the 90s or 2000s pre-COD4) and game design or fail against most of the throwback shooters that came out recently. There's only so many times "Get to cover or else your screen gets covered in red jam!" wears out its welcome. That goes double for a majority of Gears clones too. Even shooters that took some elements from COD, but still did their own things like Crysis 2 & 3 have aged better in gameplay or do something interesting. Give me Titanfall 2, Bulletstorm, Singularity, or Resistance 3 any day over the "realistic" military shooters that came out during the 7th generation and early 8th generation. COD's main problem is oversaturation and loss of identity. The over focus on MP and making the single player a throw away element thinking it doesn't matter anymore.

 

[Worgen]

COD's main problem is oversaturation and loss of identity.

This is LITERALLY what I am talking about. If COD wasn't a yearly series but only 1 or 2 had come out, pretty much take your pick which ones, they would be lauded, but familiarity breeds contempt, so despite being some of the best selling games of any year, they are also the yearly punching bags.

 

[BrawlMan]

f COD wasn't a yearly series but only 1 or 2 had come out, pretty much take your pick which ones, they would be lauded, but familiarity breeds contempt, so despite being some of the best selling games of any year, they are also the yearly punching bags.

Which is why the series needs to take a nice long nap! This series, it's publishers especially, and so many imitators took away what was once loss from great FPS level design and formatting. COD deserves to be the punching bag when it stopped trying a long time ago, yet still expects the audience to respect the series, when the franchise itself has not done the same since Black-Ops. Insulting their target audience, yet expecting them always bend over and say "Thank you, may I have another sir/madam!" with a smile on their face. Plenty of people did of course, regardless of whether they knew it or not.

These videos I have up for a good reason everyone. Look what was lost for a long time. What we've only gotten back recently. I never wanna see a massive trends like COD or fucking Fornite ever again, taking up unnecessary space in a entire console generation. I want to see games strive for more than just another military shooter, BR, or live-service NFT bullshit. Thankfully, we all can, but a majority ain't coming from the AAA. I give proper credit where it is due. I've stated this time and time again.

​

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Action 52 wasn't actually licensed by Nintendo. A better example would probably be LJN's sea of garbage.

Show me any AAA game that you can organically interact with the world and it's systems only 20% as much as Noita. It doesn't exist.

I still gotta play Noita. Remember reading about it and all the cool dynamics it has with various elements interacting with the environments, but also that it’s a pretty deep rabbit hole learning all of what does what. One of these days.

I think what makes it possible is the simplicity in its art design, and everything being pixel based. In terms of AAA game production, the “realism” factor inevitably takes center stage, and that requires shit tons of time and money to replicate digitally. Being that Star Citizen will probably never see a full release, there’s nothing else that really accomplished this.

Maybe RDR2 is the best example of a mainstream AAA release that has tons of stuff you can interact with around the world. Like with different foods and drinks that can be physically picked up in the wild, stores, bars, etc. -

Spoiler

Or animals -

But perhaps the biggest collection would be the unique character interactions. Otherwise yeah, in terms of having dynamic environmental stuff there’s only so much that can be done on any budget or time table. Maybe whenever rendering technology gets more efficient for physics and geometry.

 

[wings012]

I wish videogames went the way of EDF rather than the whole chasing graphic fidelity, realism, better effects or whatever.

Like y'know. We have better hardware. Instead of making better looking things, what if we just had..... more things?

And one random ass developer decided to have fully destructible cities and hundreds of goddamn ants and ridiculous ragdoll physics.

Honestly, injecting some artistic style instead of chasing realism will go a long way in making your game not look like a dated piece of shit. Hardly anybody looks back on the 'realistic' games of yesteryear and go, dayum, these sure are some nice looking games today. Instead we're all like dayum, this shit sure is brown and uncanny looking.

There's also all that aggressive monetization of everything that has put a damper on a lot of games.

Anyway strictly speaking its hard to say modern games on a whole are worse. If we do straight comparisons, there are a lot of improvements. Even setting graphics aside, the higher frame rates, responsiveness, more fluid controls etc. etc. But I will agree that modern games are kinda worse in 'spirit'. All the homogenization, monetization, corporateness, it's all so meh bleh weh.

But I will also concede that I've kinda gotten rather old and grumpy.

Anyway games should just look more poo, and have more ragdolling ants. E!! D!! F!!!

 

[BrawlMan]

I wish videogames went the way of EDF rather than the whole chasing graphic fidelity, realism, better effects or whatever.

As much as I like and respect EDF, even it can use a little change up to game design. Keep the large and destructible environments and crazy bits, but add some modern sensibilities. Checkpoints, let the pick-ups automatically come towards the player after killing the giant monsters. Instead of having to run across the large open map and pick them up one by one. Everything else is great though.

Even low budget franchises like Oneechanbara needed a change up at some point. Tamsoft realized they've been literally making the same PS2 game since 2004. Hence why they decided to go into a sightly new direction with upgrading the combat to be more DMC/Bayonetta-like instead of this weird mishmash between Dynasty Warriors and DMC. The Z duology is the DMC4 (with a little bit of DMC5 in hindsight) of the franchise by introducing new characters, because the previous characters already had their story arcs and development (what little there was). Though Origin, the remake of the first two games, fixes that issue for Aya and Saki. Origin even got a total visual overhaul and went for a complete anime art style, over the realistic design of the previous games. I do hope the franchise sticks with this for now on, and I want to see Kagura and Saaya in this type of art. They might as well be the leading ladies for a while as there is nothing left for Aya and Saki at this point.

Anyway strictly speaking its hard to say modern games on a whole are worse. If we do straight comparisons, there are a lot of improvements. Even setting graphics aside, the higher frame rates, responsiveness, more fluid controls etc. etc. But I will agree that modern games are kinda worse in 'spirit'. All the homogenization, monetization, corporateness, it's all so meh bleh weh.

But I will also concede that I've kinda gotten rather old and grumpy.

No, you have not gotten old and grumpy. You have a big point with the problem of many AAA companies. Corporate homogenization and pleasing the investors too much. Fuck the investors. All they know how to do is be vultures. This Slightly Something Else video is highly relevant.

​

 

[Dreiko]

The only context I can sorta see someone thinking games suck nowadays is if they didn't play anything past the snes era and are confused by the complexity of games nowadays and aren't used to cutscenes so they're looking for this very narrow gameplay focused experience but don't know where to go to find it so they try big name popular stuff and get turned off.

Games keep getting better, and old-style games keep getting made all the time too. Just the last month I played Chained Echoes which is a literal 16bit Jrpg timewarped into the present day. Anyone who is nostalgic about that time has a TON of current day games to enjoy available to them, they just should not listen to other people about what to play and find what they like themselves.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

AAA Games Need to Stop Chasing Trends and Start Making Them

AAA video games spend years in development chasing trends that have passed by the time they release: They need to be trendsetters instead.

www.escapistmagazine.com

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Even with the AAA space and I would argue that the AAA games we have now are pretty damn good, the only real problem with them is that they tend to be a known quantity and we are tired of them, but you take almost any COD game as a standalone and its mind-blowingly good.

I only ever played COD4 back in the day (the OG, I think they remade it recently) and that wasn't THAT good. The single player was a solid ride but that wasn't due to some great gameplay but mainly the presentation. The multiplayer always had quite a few issues, I did play it for at least a few hundred hours (it was one of the earliest online shooters I played so I didn't really know better), but I never went back to the series because they never fixed any of the issues I had with the multiplayer. Medal of Honor Warfighter completely obliterates COD in multiplayer gameplay quality. I don't think there's a better FPS multiplayer since Warfighter from a gameplay standpoint.

That's a good idea for Witcher 3 difficulty. However, 2 of the witcher signs in that game allow to brute force it; quen and axii are super broken and really just allow you to fight cheap as hell and forgo actually being a "witcher". CDPR is talented from a writing and presentation standpoint but not really in actual gameplay systems. Bayonetta is a great example of qualitative difficulty where the enemies don't get more health (maybe slightly more) but the game merely takes away the witch time ability more and more and forces to use mechanics like dodge offsetting to beat enemies, and I know the enemies are more aggressive as well (vs just damage sponges).

 

[Worgen]

These videos I have up for a good reason everyone. Look what was lost for a long time. What we've only gotten back recently. I never wanna see a massive trends like COD or fucking Fornite ever again, taking up unnecessary space in a entire console generation.

Then you should stop playing games all together since that will never happen. When something is big, it will have imitators and lots of them, just look at Vampire Survivor. Really the exception to that rule is the Souls/borne/ring series, there are some but no where near as many as would be expected from how big they are.

 

[Worgen]

I only ever played COD4 back in the day (the OG, I think they remade it recently) and that wasn't THAT good. The single player was a solid ride but that wasn't due to some great gameplay but mainly the presentation. The multiplayer always had quite a few issues, I did play it for at least a few hundred hours (it was one of the earliest online shooters I played so I didn't really know better), but I never went back to the series because they never fixed any of the issues I had with the multiplayer. Medal of Honor Warfighter completely obliterates COD in multiplayer gameplay quality. I don't think there's a better FPS multiplayer since Warfighter from a gameplay standpoint.

LOL, oh wow, you are so full of it. Everything you said here is just wrong.