Old school gaming Vs New games : Thoughts

[Whisper]

A lot of old gamers should consider one of the reasons we find modern games easy is because we're older gamers. After X number of years, you become kind of good.

an absolutely brilliant point.

i know it's fashionable to hate on modern games, extolling the virtues of "the good old days" of gaming... you could say that Sudoku is the best game ever made, citing that it's a deep puzzle, infinitely new and extraordinarily difficult for humans to engage with. but would you be correct in your evaluation? no. Sudoku is not a great game as an art form.

it's a mental exercise, it's a task requiring the development of a rigorous algorithm for solution, but it is not a GAME. it is not a task which engages the user with feedback, risk and reward. it isn't entertainment, even if it does occupy your time. Sudoku is, qualitatively, not a game, it is merely pointless exercise.

i haven't played Mass Effect, so the attempts to assail its virtues and thereby assault the merit of "modern gaming" as a whole is even more obviously stupid.

modern games have clear advantages over games in the early '80s. they're capable of being serious art, telling serious stories. the systems for engaging the user's attention have become more sophisticated, more rewarding, less frustrating -- as they should be! sure, modern games cover a wider spectrum from pure entertainment to art form, but modern games have become better at being fun. you know, the fun? the thing which makes them games?

i'll cite the fact that game creation, as an industry, has absolutely exploded since the '80s. games dominate and pervade modern culture in a way that cinema and radio never did. if modern gaming just isn't as good as "old school" gaming, how do you explain this?

One short video to make every point you just made - invalid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

[Greco]

i'll cite the fact that game creation, as an industry, has absolutely exploded since the '80s. games dominate and pervade modern culture in a way that cinema and radio never did. if modern gaming just isn't as good as "old school" gaming, how do you explain this?

Back in my time gaming was mainly focused on PCs and amiga. Then consoles (xbox, ps3, nintedo) came and changed everything. At first ther was a booming. Better graphics, better sound, more games, and some innovative ideas. But then the financial factor ruined everything. Studios bacame bigger, smaller game studios were acquired by giants, and that was the end. Innovation was put aside, and what drove the market, was money. Studios found out that FPSs sell, so they said let's make FPSs. The discovered 3D modelling, and they said, let's make everything in 3D (after all 3D engines can be reused without cost). Diablo sold like hot pancakes, so they transformed every rpg to a diablo clone. Seriously, nowadays we have only 1 game type: 3D (first of third person perspective aka FPS or Diablo clone), lets add sports game as another category to make them 2. Puzzles were also completely removed probably to ease gamers in playing and reduce time to market period. Personally, I don't play games as I used to play in my youth (I am 37), I don't have much free time as I used to have, but also because I rarely find a worth-playing game. Looking back in the last decade games that I played and credit as worthy are very rare. If I had to mention some these would be: Dragon Age origins (fantastic story), Limbo (an exceptional puzzle platformer, recommended to everyone), Machinarium (fantastic puzzle adventure), some adventures from daedalic (whispered world) and now Grimrock. I also had the chance to get Grim Fandango and play it, which I had missed back in 2000. A great game indeed.
To sum I think once again that modern games are visually superior than their predecessors, but just like movies better visuals do not go side by side with quality, and when I mean quality I refer to those elements that make you feel satisfied when you complete a game. As i said before the key factor is summed in the word chalenging. In real life games like basketball or football, when you play with inferior teams it's not challenging. So winning does not make me feel satisfied. When you play with a better one, though, even if you don't manage to win in the end the level of satisfaction is far greater. That's the case with computer games also. No challenge means no satisfaction on completion. And me personally find little challenge taking a gun and shooting everything or just clicking on every enemy on the screen. For people who want to spend their free time away from routine, this is OK. After all, and in the movie industry pop-corn movies (aka blockbusters), are those that sell many tickets. But are they quality movies (some of them are indeed).
Regarding your parallelism with cinema and radio, I would say, that you deliberately forgot Television. TV dominates and pervades also modern culture, just as you imply about modern games, just as movies did some 40-50 years ago. But the real question is: Does TV offers more quality than offered by movies in 60's and 70's. Personally, I watch movies of these periods when they show them on TV, why? Simply because they are good movies and find them entertaining. But in some 40-50 years from now, will you watch a modern serial, or a reality, or a tv movie, if it will be shown on the future TV. And I say if, because probably they will never shown (with a few exceptions), since they won't last for so long.

[Greco]

A lot of old gamers should consider one of the reasons we find modern games easy is because we're older gamers. After X number of years, you become kind of good.

an absolutely brilliant point.

i know it's fashionable to hate on modern games, extolling the virtues of "the good old days" of gaming... you could say that Sudoku is the best game ever made, citing that it's a deep puzzle, infinitely new and extraordinarily difficult for humans to engage with. but would you be correct in your evaluation? no. Sudoku is not a great game as an art form.

it's a mental exercise, it's a task requiring the development of a rigorous algorithm for solution, but it is not a GAME. it is not a task which engages the user with feedback, risk and reward. it isn't entertainment, even if it does occupy your time. Sudoku is, qualitatively, not a game, it is merely pointless exercise.

i haven't played Mass Effect, so the attempts to assail its virtues and thereby assault the merit of "modern gaming" as a whole is even more obviously stupid.

modern games have clear advantages over games in the early '80s. they're capable of being serious art, telling serious stories. the systems for engaging the user's attention have become more sophisticated, more rewarding, less frustrating -- as they should be! sure, modern games cover a wider spectrum from pure entertainment to art form, but modern games have become better at being fun. you know, the fun? the thing which makes them games?

i'll cite the fact that game creation, as an industry, has absolutely exploded since the '80s. games dominate and pervade modern culture in a way that cinema and radio never did. if modern gaming just isn't as good as "old school" gaming, how do you explain this?

One short video to make every point you just made - invalid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

Hilarius and straight to the point!

[Kadaeux]

I enjoy the occasional hard game like this one but I am glad not all games are this hard. A big reason they used to make all games hard was to make the game last longer. Nowadays they make games last longer with massive game environments, massive dialogue options and 10 times as many quests.


I like hard games and easy games. I hope I continue to get both.

Gah, accidental submit.


BUT, now not that I'm dissing your point but

SpoilerShow

*here comes the dis i'm not dissing :p*

but what?

Except for a rare few games 99% of "modern" and current games aren't longer. They're shorter, usually significantly so. Ten years ago finishing a game in 6 hours or less was grounds to return the thing to the store and demand your money back. Today you have people boasting about 6 hours as a "long and fulfilling game experience".

Sure you have exceptions. But don't pretend most modern games are anywhere near as long as their old counterparts.

[Spathi]

I preferred Simpsons Doom to Quake, quake sort of sucked after a few hours with a network cable to my next door neighbor, lol. I think I liked Hexen.. if it was the one with swords and axes and you could run up walls, not sure, forget.

There are a whole stack of new games that are pretty decent, so it is pretty cliché to say new games suck more. For every 1000 games there was only ever one good one, has always been that way.

My favorite all time was quazatron. googled and they remade it (I will have to have a go)! ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK-cpmGW02A
but anyway the original is a zxspeccy rom, but you can convert it to an exe. Still play it once every few years.

also Subspace, Starcon 1 and 2, wing commander, privateer, freelancer, some of the later M&M, Lords of the Realm 1&2, dune, c&c, warcraft 1&2, Dark Messiah + some of the rpg's people mentioned already. Few others but I forget

Top of my list for newer games would be L4D and DefenseGrid (if that is new), MTG2012... the demo for the new mass effect was pretty amazing fun on the PS3, still need to finish the old one though which is only just above average, but fun.

Probably forgot heaps, or some which are just a given, such as blockbusters like Skyrim, only played to the first town and up a hill so far.

RE:mass effect 3, sure it routes you, but if I want a puzzle challenge I will play something else, the cover system in mass effect is pretty polished like Uncharted and the story is pretty.

You could perhaps argue that there is more to new games than meets the eye, I seem to have a growing pile of "gotta play that one day", where as I used to get through testing out most of them.

[Lmaoboat]

I enjoy the occasional hard game like this one but I am glad not all games are this hard. A big reason they used to make all games hard was to make the game last longer. Nowadays they make games last longer with massive game environments, massive dialogue options and 10 times as many quests.


I like hard games and easy games. I hope I continue to get both.

Gah, accidental submit.


BUT, now not that I'm dissing your point but

SpoilerShow

*here comes the dis i'm not dissing :p*

but what?

Except for a rare few games 99% of "modern" and current games aren't longer. They're shorter, usually significantly so. Ten years ago finishing a game in 6 hours or less was grounds to return the thing to the store and demand your money back. Today you have people boasting about 6 hours as a "long and fulfilling game experience".

Sure you have exceptions. But don't pretend most modern games are anywhere near as long as their old counterparts.

I don't know about CRPGs, but I would bet a lot of old games would be a lot shorter if you didn't have to start the game over after running out of lives.

[Kadaeux]

I don't know about CRPGs, but I would bet a lot of old games would be a lot shorter if you didn't have to start the game over after running out of lives.

Not talking about Mario types :p (Well i'm not, but games with a 'lives' mechanic, I don't doubt you're right.)

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the crap out of modern games, except for beat-em-up types and, lately, most shooters.

Personally, Shooters have suffered the most over the years. The gameplay has gotten more complex, but at the same time is all just beginning to blend into a single bland formula. And if you don't like multi (like myself) said games don't have little replayability value. They flat out have none at all.

[xdeath]

This may answer some of the questions in this topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFzFsHc75U

[Bokonon]

Back in my time ...

Very true!

[NakedGranny]

One short video to make every point you just made - invalid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

A snarky work of pure satire does not count as evidence. Go back to school, unless you're an American, in which case you should emigrate first.

edit: mechanical per correction