Do you think retro will one day be enough for your tastes?

[mobiusclimber]

You guys must be kids. I remember buying Phantasy Star IV when it first came out for over $80! (I bought it used, it cost $100 new.) So I really can't complain too much about the price of new games. There were plenty of expensive new games when I was a kid. (Heh, you wanna talk expensive? Look up Neo-Geo prices when the games were new.)

The problem isn't so much how much the new gen games cost so much as that they aren't WORTH that price. For instance, I'm playing Eternal Sonata and I'm enjoying it, but if I'd paid $60 for it, I wouldn't have felt the price tag was justified; whereas, I was more than happy having shelled out all that cash for PSIV. The game was totally worth it.

I wish I could put my finger on why this is, but I really can't. I've certainly had more fun playing retro games than new ones... Probably the last great game that I played when it was still "new" was Tales of Symphonia. I know with the older games it can't be nostalgia, I'm playing games now that I didn't own as a kid, and in some cases, playing them on systems I never owned. Heck, I didn't have an NES growing up. But beyond that I just got a PC Engine CD and I'm loving the hell out of it. How is it that most new games can't hold a candle to a game released that long ago? I wish I had the answer.

I think in some respects a lot of the new games are going for realism and this is partially what's killing them. For instance, try comparing the fishing game in Zelda: Twilight Princess to the one in Breath of Fire or Breath of Fire 2. The one in Zelda is much more realistic, but way less fun. No one wants to sit around bobbing a rod trying to catch a fish for an hour.

Another thing I've noticed is the desire to smash together a lot of different play mechanics. Sometimes this just brings a game to a screeching halt. Gears of War was hardly a good game to begin with, but it was passable and actually enjoyable for awhile. But then they decided that having you run around shooting things was getting too old and boring (no, it really wasn't, guys, honest). So they threw in a driving segment. Did it do anything besides piss anyone off? The damn vehicle handled like shit! And what was the point of learning how to control it properly if, after ten minutes, they were just going to switch you back to something else! I guess the problem really wasn't that they threw that in there, but that they didn't take the time to figure out if it was fun or just needlessly complicated. Again with the PSIV example, that game had driving segments in it but they were a freakin blast! You didn't have to drive for ten seconds, then pop your head out, try to find freaky bats, blast to hell the freaky bats, then go back to driving again.

I dunno, I think games just don't know how to ramp up difficulty anymore. Instead of the one main thing getting more and more harder (like Castlevania, you whip shit the whole damn game, it just gets more difficult), they switch up the play and throw in different things. Don't puss out like that, just get more difficult!

Or maybe I'm off-base. Like I said before, I really can't pinpoint why games today aren't as fun as older games were. I just know they aren't. There might be a few that stand up and will some day be considered classics, but I find it really odd that certain "retro" systems have so many classic titles and this current gen just can't even muster enough to think of.

[Gamerforlife]

You guys must be kids. I remember buying Phantasy Star IV when it first came out for over $80! (I bought it used, it cost $100 new.) So I really can't complain too much about the price of new games. There were plenty of expensive new games when I was a kid. (Heh, you wanna talk expensive? Look up Neo-Geo prices when the games were new.)

The problem isn't so much how much the new gen games cost so much as that they aren't WORTH that price. For instance, I'm playing Eternal Sonata and I'm enjoying it, but if I'd paid $60 for it, I wouldn't have felt the price tag was justified; whereas, I was more than happy having shelled out all that cash for PSIV. The game was totally worth it.

I wish I could put my finger on why this is, but I really can't. I've certainly had more fun playing retro games than new ones... Probably the last great game that I played when it was still "new" was Tales of Symphonia. I know with the older games it can't be nostalgia, I'm playing games now that I didn't own as a kid, and in some cases, playing them on systems I never owned. Heck, I didn't have an NES growing up. But beyond that I just got a PC Engine CD and I'm loving the hell out of it. How is it that most new games can't hold a candle to a game released that long ago? I wish I had the answer.

I think in some respects a lot of the new games are going for realism and this is partially what's killing them. For instance, try comparing the fishing game in Zelda: Twilight Princess to the one in Breath of Fire or Breath of Fire 2. The one in Zelda is much more realistic, but way less fun. No one wants to sit around bobbing a rod trying to catch a fish for an hour.

Another thing I've noticed is the desire to smash together a lot of different play mechanics. Sometimes this just brings a game to a screeching halt. Gears of War was hardly a good game to begin with, but it was passable and actually enjoyable for awhile. But then they decided that having you run around shooting things was getting too old and boring (no, it really wasn't, guys, honest). So they threw in a driving segment. Did it do anything besides piss anyone off? The damn vehicle handled like shit! And what was the point of learning how to control it properly if, after ten minutes, they were just going to switch you back to something else! I guess the problem really wasn't that they threw that in there, but that they didn't take the time to figure out if it was fun or just needlessly complicated. Again with the PSIV example, that game had driving segments in it but they were a freakin blast! You didn't have to drive for ten seconds, then pop your head out, try to find freaky bats, blast to hell the freaky bats, then go back to driving again.

I dunno, I think games just don't know how to ramp up difficulty anymore. Instead of the one main thing getting more and more harder (like Castlevania, you whip shit the whole damn game, it just gets more difficult), they switch up the play and throw in different things. Don't puss out like that, just get more difficult!

Or maybe I'm off-base. Like I said before, I really can't pinpoint why games today aren't as fun as older games were. I just know they aren't. There might be a few that stand up and will some day be considered classics, but I find it really odd that certain "retro" systems have so many classic titles and this current gen just can't even muster enough to think of.

I don't hate when games mix genres, because some games can pull it off well. However, most of the time it feels tacked on and gimmicky. Like the god awful platforming you see in games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. Stick to the action, that's what those games do best. At least in the original Ninja Gaiden games on the NES, platforming was blended into the action. In Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, it's like you fight a bunch of guys, fight a bunch of guys and then all of sudden the game turns into Mario. You get through some platforming nonsense with a guy that clearly isn't designed to handle that, then the game gets back to what it actually DOES do right, which is action. In the NES games, Ryu was built to handle platforming and it was not treated as separate from the action(i.e. not tacked on)

Also, to use your Gears of War example, I hated how in the original Halo the last section of the game was a long driving sequence. I didn't mind so much the warthog driving in Halo, it was fun. However, most of the time it was optional and I don't think the game ever trained you enough in its use to expect you to be up to the task of doing this really long, really difficult, timed driving obstacle course that they stuck at the end of the game. Plus, Halo was a damn first person shooter. You don't end a first person shooter with a fucking driving level. It's like that stupid jet ski part at the end of Resident Evil 4, or that stupid airplane sequence at the end of Devil May Cry(are you paying attention Capcom?)

I do think genre-mixing is too rampant in today's games. Like I said earlier it can be done right, but it has to be more naturally blended into the game and not tacked on. Plus, don't make players play through something awkward that could be easily relegated to a cut scene(like the afore mentioned jet ski and air plane scenarios)

I could do a LONG rant on how dumb game designers are these days. And yes, that is one more reason why I like retro gaming

[Gamerforlife]

Re-reading that last post it sounds like I'm bashing those games. They are actually great games, but I just pointed out some stupid things about them that seem to be a symptom of modern game design

[MrPopo]

...snip...

I'm completely with you on the price comment. I played the SNES back in its heyday, and games were expensive. $70-$80 for a new game, at times.

I think you might be on to something, though, with the observation on game types being mashed together. It seems like a snowball effect has occurred. Initially, a game just does one thing, and it does it well. Sure, there's variations, like how you have the underwater level in a platformer, but it's still part of the same overall play mechanic.

Then you start seeing games experimenting with adding stuff from another genre. Goldeneye had a couple of tank sequences. Red Faction had a couple of vehicle sections. Now the competition adds on their own vehicles in order to not fall behind. And now when you develop a new game, it's "expected" that it will have a vehicle section. If not, people will get upset, right? Same thing happened with quick time events.

As for the realism, I do think realism is having a negative impact at times, but not necessarily for the same reasons you do. I think realism has its place. You tend to see it in simulator style games, whether it be a great flight sim, or that really hardcore driving game. That is a category where realism is praised. At the same time, that realism will drive away a large portion of the consumer base, as they don't want it to be that realistic (and difficult).

The problem is that with these next generation systems with their next generation graphics, developers have been pushing for more and more realistic graphics. I think this is causing developers to feel the need to make gameplay mechanics more "realistic". For example, the recent no health bars trend (though when you think about it, a health bar probably models things better than the cower and full health method we get now) and the no HUD trend we're starting to see (makes sense in Mirror's Edge, but in a third person shooter I think the HUD is a good thing). Or look at the vehicle physics in GTA4. The thing is, realism has a few problems.

The first, the uncanny valley. Get too realistic and it starts causing issues. There's a reason that all the good 3D movies have human characters with exaggerated features, instead of going for realism like in Spirits Within (which was a trainwreck simply by attaching Final Fantasy to the name of an original story).

The second, development costs. This ends up being the bigger issue, in my opinion, as it leads to a lot of problems. The bottom line is that you sink a lot of money into your art assets, which then requires your game to sell well in order to recoup that investment. I feel this causes the trend of making a game that is designed to appeal to the broad audience. So you have your little dollops of different gameplay mechanics here and there, maybe you dumb it down a little (*coughBioshockcoughOblivioncough*), and viola, a game fit to make money.

Whereas back in the day, development costs were a lot cheaper, so you could sell to a small demographic and still make money.

[ott0bot]

...snip...

I'm completely with you on the price comment. I played the SNES back in its heyday, and games were expensive. $70-$80 for a new game, at times.

It was so pricy back then I had to put Mortal Kombat for the genesis on layaway. $80 bucks for that bucket of crap.

[mobiusclimber]

Aw cool I'm not the only one who remembers some of the insane prices for games back in the day.

And I guess I should have clarified this point: realism for certain types of games is great and, in fact, expected. Flight simulators, Gran Turismo... that's all well and good. It's just that it seems like everything has to be realistic these days. Or at least swapping out one unrealistic facet for another.

[JD!]

The first time I payed big money for a game was Dues Ex which was in 1999. So yeah, guess that makes me a young-in. I actualy got my original MDII while it was on it's last legs.

[MrPopo]

The first time I payed big money for a game was Dues Ex which was in 1999.

That's definately a game that's worth every penny, though.

[mrtie]

That is a big No for me. I don't even truly buy into this idea of retro, I mean the game were fantastic new, and have withstood the test of time, just like the classics of tomorrow will do. I'm a Gamer, not arcade gamer, or console gamer, or retro gamer, or online gamer, or PC gamer, etc. I can find something enjoyable in nearly all systems, time periods, genres. So for me the idea that one day in the future my gaming will be limited to Classic titles only, seems like a cop out. I game to celebrate the past, present, and future.

[Flak Beard]

The first time I payed big money for a game was Dues Ex which was in 1999.

That's definately a game that's worth every penny, though.

I keep meaning to get around to playing this. Although, I've considered just going straight into Invisible War.