Are Next-Gen Games Underwhelming??

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Oh and just gonna drop this here If anyone wants to know more about star citizen.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

One thing to come from this is the renaissance in the indie gaming scene. Developers are able to make games they actually want to make and games they would play, without having to worry about pressure from the publishers.

This can hopefully lead to a whole new model in gaming and reduce the amount of influence companies like EA and Activision have.

a reply to: cj6

I totally agree. I think a few things are playing out here.

1) On the big name titles you have dozens of programmers being pushed to release a game early that isn't ready and loses interest so fast cause it wasn't complete....or they spend so much time on graphics that they forget gameplay and story....so what are some of these programmers doing instead: Making apps. Make an app and sell it for a buck or free and make money off adds. Some of these guys are making more money turning programming back into their hobby than a full time job. Money has killed the gaming industry.

2) Hardware: what else can they really make that is better. People are buying up tablets now instead new top of the line computers.

3)Originality: Everyone is afraid to try something bold. So we are seeing "Call of Duty 14" and crap like that. AFter day z and minecraft got some success you saw like 200 clones of it pop up and all 200 clones had absolutely nothing in content compared to the others....which were already lacking in content. But I love that an idea like minecraft was successful.

As for future games: No Man's Sky looks promising but im afraid it will lack content. Star Citizen looks good. There are several Baldurs' Gate style games cmoing out that look amazing....I think one is called Pillars of Eternity.

But ya I agree.....gaming feels like its dying. I actually play more games on the tablet now than the computer...and I don't even own a console cause its a waste of money if you have a computer (just my opinion).

We should probably all stop preordering as a start.

originally posted by: Lysergic
We should probably all stop preordering as a start.

Preordering is an enormous waste of time!!! That coupled with season passes are just 2 more examples of how developers are lazy. They create these "optional" extras to look like bonuses when really they're outright scams. Most preorder bonuses are available for purchase within weeks so it's pointless, plus you're not really getting anything that's truly beneficial to the game. The preorder bonus for Dragon Age: Inquisition was a joke. I payed 10 extra bucks for a damn chair and a couple of mounts lol and season passes promise all the dlc at a discounted price but then they release a bunch of dlc that is NOT even included in the season pass and you have to pay extra for it...I'm looking at you WWE 2k15!!!

I got my boys a jtag xbox 360, which is pretty awesome. It is pretty convenient and if you don't want to download it you can always just go to red box and get the latest new game for 2 dollars and save a copy forever. One hitch, online multiplayer, is an issue. I know there are some workarounds but it is a hassle, even for a genius 10 year old.

The trend that has turned me personally off from gaming (not hardcore but deff MLG on ANY car racing games), is the loss of story in trade for multiplayer (only online, can't have 2 players on the same console!?) online play.. Oh yeah (all Ben Stein) another Shooter with capture the flag. More kids can turn circles and call them trick shots! Oh Baby a Triple! Or, more zombies, ... again. What happened to a good campaign, a good story?!

Though I feel there has been a decline in quality of gaming in the above mentioned ways I would be far from calling next gen underwhelming. I almost died spending right at $700.00 for a "Last of Us Remastered" Ps4, a 2nd controller, 3 games, Online membership, and a couple of DLC's. It makes the $2.00 trip to redbox look pretty sweet. The new Controllers are awesome with the speakers and touchpad. I like how the controller rings when your character is getting a call in a game and things like that. The maps are HUGE, the menus are countless and confusing. I got "The Crew" and don't understand half of whats going on, but I do know I drove from Chicago to St Louis without it lagging or needing to reload, like the 360 would have required several of. I'm actually really impressed with the performance of the ps4.

I see another trend I'm not really sure how I feel about. It seems game makers are putting out things kind of weak and half assed and then know that they're going to sell a DLC later oh and another DLC in another DLC, so they can add the epic later, or bail if it isn't popular. I really like to pay for a game only once but that's not the way they do it now marketing is changed. I help my son with the DLC called paper trail on Infamous Second Son, that was crazy overwhelming it was nuts, you had to take photos in the game that you sent to a website (an actual website) then you had to go to your computer and pick up clues, solve riddles and try to figure out this murder by literally hacking into a made up detective agency website that is actually there on the internet, and, printing out stuff to get the next clue. I loved it, I almost brought it to the ATS Codebreakers, I thought it was very innovative, and creative, and deep. Kind of the opposite of underwhelming.... Give it some time, and I'm sure you'll get a return on your investment.

originally posted by: wastedown
I see another trend I'm not really sure how I feel about. It seems game makers are putting out things kind of weak and half assed and then know that they're going to sell a DLC later

Exactly! Yet another example of how developers are getting lazy. With dlc they no longer feel the need to put too much effort into making or even fully completing a game when they can release patches to fix bugs or glitches and release dlc to complete the story or add something they missed. Maybe it's dlc that's ruining the state of video games? Maybe they wouldn't be so underwhelming if dlc wasn't an option?

a reply to: cj6

Game publishers are the culprit behind that. No game developper worth their salt would ever ship a game with the intention of a day one patch or DLC. But Activison/Blizzard, EA as well as other major publishers push for development cycles that are far shorter than a AAA title require these days.

Like I said it used to be that the average cycle for a game was about 18 months from concept to disk printing. Now it's over 3 years.

~Tenth

Yeah, I'm also going to pile on to the group that's been underwhelmed. I bought an Xbox One and so far the only game I really play on it is NBA 2K. Ryse is graphically beautiful but the game gets dull after an hour or so. I was hyped for Dragon Age 3 and found that the combat system is still too childish (like DA 2) so now that sits on my shelf.

If nothing new and exciting is in the pipeline then I'd like to see some old classics redone with modern game engines and graphical capabilities. For example, you could do Oblivion (or some of the other Elder Scrolls titles) with the Skyrim engine. Or how about Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights redone with today's technology? Another game I played for hours on end was Pirates! The list goes on.

Unfortunately the gaming industry has become so lucrative I fear the big software houses have gone from "what kind of gaming experience can we bring" to "how much money can we make?".

a reply to: cj6

To be absolutely fair, the difference between Final Fantasy 7, and every Final Fantasy game made after, with the exception of 8 to a greater degree, and 12 to a lesser degree, ought to tell you everything that is wrong with modern games manufacture and design.

Simply put, good games have great stories, great graphics for their period, and they are directed well. Many modern games only focus on the quality of directing and graphics, and place little importance on things like script writing for the dialogue, character development, and the pacing and storyboard of the overarching plot. I have played ONE series of games that matched equal qualities of imagery, directing, and plot, and that was the Borderlands series. Now, I realise that the writing was not exactly award winning, and that the graphics for the games are of a cartoony sort, but in combination with one another the elements which comprised that game, made it a GREAT game in my opinion.

Those are becoming rarer with every generation of machines.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I love Borderlands but it's also a great example of lazy game developers. How? On the surface it seems like it's packed with content, but pay more attention and you'll see that most the missions are basic fetch quests designed to appear as something important but it's really just filler outside of the main missions which are very few. It doesn't drive the story forward it's just to detract from the fact that there isn't much to the game at all. With that said....I will be purchasing the Handsome Edition for ps4 when it comes out

All I play anymore are my obscure ps1/2 RPGS. I've never liked FPS, RTS, or sports games, & haven't found a game worth playing since PS2 except PS3 dark souls, & the only reason I'm thinking of getting PS4 is for bloodborne. There's literally not another single game I would even want for the PS4, & ive ever understood the draw towards Xbox.

The next-gen consoles aren't much of a step up, that's why people are underwelmed. I was underwelmed when the PS2/Dreamcast came out. It wasn't much of a step up from PS1; compared to the step up from 16 bit 2d games of the Amiga 500/Snes/Megadrive/Genesis to PS1/Saturn. But the PS3/Xbox 360 was a step up into HD games.

The true next-gen is 4k gaming and virtual reality.

I haven't bought a PS4 or Xbox One. There simply is no point when there is a huge cheap catalogue of games for 360 and PS3 that offer a slightly worse experience. I look at the new consoles as comparing the PS1 to N64.

a reply to: cj6

Thats brutal a season pass that doesnt cover all the dlc, wtf scamsters.

originally posted by: Lysergic
a reply to: cj6

Thats brutal a season pass that doesnt cover all the dlc, wtf scamsters.

Yup and what's worse is they never give you details on what the season pass includes, it's always a vague description with something exclusive to the season pass in order for you to fall for it. Then later they say "here's some dlc but sorry it's not included in the season pass you have to pay an extra $6.99" I fell for WWE 2k15's season pass only because they were offering Paige as an exclusive for the season pass....so worth it though

a reply to: cj6

That would be why I don't buy games day 1 unless it's some RPG that will provide 50 hours + content before I get bored.

Otherwise I'm waiting on the full season pass or GOTY editions.

~Tenth

Games so far, period, have been lacking in much of content.

It's almost like we've reached a plateau in creativity. So to make up for it, we're going for shiny, rather then anything else.

I agree, there really is no engaging story-lines anymore. Advanced Warfare was crap, Ghosts was interesting, but not anything terribly ground-breaking.

Far Cry 4, pretty decent, good content, etc.
Dying Light, the same, good content, etc.
A lot of games on steam are meh, lately, and I don't mind retro, but, it's a little too rampant there lately. if I wasn't 8 bit, I'll pull the IBM 8088 out of the basement.

My biggest disappointment, so far tho, has been Blizzard's World of Warcraft expansion released end of last year..

I wonder if Augmented reality games will be the next big thing.. Like Google's Ingress..

originally posted by: Prezbo369
One thing to come from this is the renaissance in the indie gaming scene. Developers are able to make games they actually want to make and games they would play, without having to worry about pressure from the publishers.

This can hopefully lead to a whole new model in gaming and reduce the amount of influence companies like EA and Activision have.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I was going to.

Indie games are where you go for the stuff that's "out of the box." Sure they don't have the great visuals of the AAA titles, but they make up for it by being all the things those other games lack - mainly creative.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

At most I buy maybe one or two full price titles per year. So I fully understand what you're talking about.

a reply to: cj6

But you know why the games are fun don't you? Because the gameplay, the characters, the hilarious comments from the psychos, the absurdity of the quests, the way those fetch quests are written and set pieces developed to enliven them, have been worked out to be as fun as possible to experience. That level of thought, that understanding of how simple things, and even simple concepts, can be made GREAT, is what separates good and great games, from mediocre ones.

You add all that to a gorgeously drawn, lovingly coloured, vibrant, and intrinsically interesting game space, plus the violence of course, and you have a winner.