Games Scenario.

[Clyde]

Today it would seem that the games industry; isn't about playability and lastability or even originality, and mostly are made to show off MR Smith & Jones's graphics engine which requires a new PC to be able to play them. Or a new sign up with who evers the talk of the town with sports.

One good thing with consoles is it's a bit harder as the games are made around the hardware that is 'as standard', so software houses are slightly more cleverer for achiving things. And theres also new peripherals to interact with certain games. I for one love "Guitar Hero" 

In the 80's early 90's for me, games made you want to replay them - as often they'd offer you bonuses for playing - Sega games were great at this. Where as now all you'll get is a welldone and then a list of credits and if your lucky a new difficulty setting. Off the top of my head, only a few would make for another go, the Grand Theft Auto series springs to mind. I recon that games are made far too difficult and I'd love to know who these games testers are?

What do you recon about the world of games?

Cheers,
Clyde.

[benny!]

Concerning PC games nowadays, I do really like cutting edge 3rd- / First person shooters.
Online tournaments are truely what really did fascinates me 5 to 10 years ago ( I started
playing Duke Nuke'm via direct modem connections ). And it is definately a totally other kind
of gameplay when you play versus another human and not versus a more or less dumb KI.

Speaking of PC games generally, I am not really into it because of few spare time. On the
one hand nowadays graphic abilities really do fascinates me ... but on the other hand I
totally do agree with you that it seems that there are a lot of games which seems to have
a wasty coding style concerning performance. Those producers tend to like to simlpy higher
the system requirements instead of revising the code. But I guess the gaming scene is a
hard market atm.

I really do like the console specification as well. It is like in the old days where you have
a given system / chips and you try to get the best out of it.

Nowadays and because I do not consider myself as an hardcore gamer the mobile
gaming scene really interests me ( for commercial reasons as well ). Furthermore, I am
looking forward to see new kind of games in the mobile sector. I hope that more devices
with GPS for example will come up. I guess there could be some interesting game ideas
realized with it.

I was involved ( just in some planning steps though ) in the following project which has
an interesting gameidea imho ( it wasnt mine idea ) :

http://gps-tron.datenmafia.org/?page_id=5

Hmm ... will see what the future of gaming brings...

[rdc]

This is a topic I have talked about quite often. At the risk of being an ego-maniac, I spoke about this a bit in an interview I did for PCopy!

http://www.ascii-world.com/pcopy/issue30/index.html#rdc

[slinks]

I don't play PC games, the specs are far out of my comps league, and I can only imagine the fun (read: chaos) that would result from an upgrade.

As with the problems of the games industry as a whole, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the gamers and their never-ending cries of 'OMGLOL, Platformers/Exploration/Puzzelers/Celshading/Artsy-games R 4 FAGS ROFL!' which convinces the game companies to flood the market with cookie-cutter online FPS games that play just like all the ones that came before it. Then when something inovative comes along (Shadow of the Colossus, killer7, Airblade, A dogs life, Tombi, No-one can stop Mr Domino, Kula World, Okami ect.) it is at best ignored, or at worst mocked by the fools of the world. The following is a quote from an enlightened individual on Okami's graphics;

Those graphics make Mr.Benn look gen!

Can't you just feel the knowledge flowing into you?

Here's a great one about killer7 (my current fav game);

When I bought this game, I played it for 5 minutes. This is all I need to say that this the biggest disappointment I've experienced in a long time.

I'm sure those five minutes make you an authority on the game then? Moron.

If we want change as far as gameplay and inovation goes, we're going to have to demand it ourselves. tell the companies what it is you want, and then actually BUY it when it gets released, and make sure that halo-fanboys aren't the ones making the most noise. Cause if developers start paying attention to them, every game will end up a halo clone (Don't laugh, it happened to timesplitters 3)!

[Clyde]

Wow RDC, what a terrific interview made great reading and also didnt know you were in the games biz.

[Shockwave]

One word. MAME

That's what anyone who loves games should have.. So many old classics from the arcade can be played perfectly on your PC.

[Hotshot]

I used to have MAME (which got 3,500 games on it from 1960 to now!) but the CD is fucked up....and I am not going to complain as it only Ã,£4 from computer fair LOL

I agree with shocky that you should have MAME on your pc. =)

[TinDragon]

As a big game player I have to say I find alot of modern games are more about the gfx but there are some that have great stories and or replay value among the ones that look great but play like a punctured football.

Take Call of Duty 2, It looks really good on almost any DX9 card with all the normal mapping,bloom etc. and it plays really well as well. You really feel like your fighting a war with a squad from begining to end. I must have played the single player campaign from start to finish a good dozen times already, add to that the array of online multiplayer modes and I have thousands of hours of play from it

Then there's GRAW and RB6 Vegas, again they look fantastic on the right hardware and I really enjoy playing them but they are also very very hard with 1 shot kills and you really have to plan your attacks to complete the missions. For me thats part of the fun but I know others find it very anoying and cant stand to play them.

Then when I feel like playing something for a few minutes just to have a break from all the intense action games I fire up MAME and play some classics, they may not have the uber 3d eye candy or latest EAX 3d surround sound but they are fun and just as enjoyable as they were when I was a kid in the arcades

Much like are computers have got faster and more powerful so the games industry has move towards a different era of games. But at it's heart games like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor are the Commando or Green Beret of today 

[Shockwave]

I play Call of Duty 2 on the xbox all the time.
I also bought gears of war and to be honest, although it is a really great looking game, I found that it was way too tough to be enjoyable for me and I went back to the graphically inferior (if you could ever call it that!) call of duty 2, which is pretty much what tindragon said.

[benny!]

Wow. I visited a friend of mine yesterday. To be honest, I didn't get in touch with
the XBOX360 before. I played a bit with it. One of the game was called GEARS OF
WAR. Apart from its violence content - the graphics and atmosphere was so cool.

Wonder if the PS3 will produce even better graphics ... now I am thinking of buying one.
But, fortunately (in this case) I do not have enough money right now to buy one. I
guess this would stop me from coding for at least half a year or so 

[slinks]

You don't like violent games? Each to his own I suppose, but that's going to limit the game out there for you.

[benny!]

I have no problems with violent games. E.g. I did love Duke Nuk'Em - if you know
that game.

I just wrote "apart from its violence content..." to point out - that I was just
focusing on the technical (graphical) aspects on that game and didn't want to
start a discussion about the violence content of that certain game I mentioned.

[slinks]

Ah, okay, I got'ya.