One could definitely say that the Bit Wars came to an end about two generations ago. With the Dreamcast and it's eventual murderers, we got a list of stats to compare instead of a single number, and graphics were still viewed as the primary way that gamers judged a console and it's library. I don't know any other way to say it than those people are idiots.
I've been playing games for a long time, and I can't honestly see any reason why graphics still matter. I've played games that are photo realistic, cartoony, pixelated, full of textureless polygons, and even games with full out vector graphics. I've even played games where they weren't much more than interactive movies. Point and click, side scrolling, first person shooting...
Let's just get on with this and say that I've played a lot of games in my little bit of time on earth. Hundreds even, ranging all the way back to the Atari 2600 and a couple of the home pong consoles. I'm not saying I'm a better gamer for it, but I can say I'm at least entitled to have an educated opinion, which is more than they typical forum dwelling COD playing fanboy can say. And what is that opinion you might ask? Well, I'm getting to it, you impatient fool, and I'm also getting back to what I was talking about when I started this free form typing exercise which is keeping me awake in the absence of espresso.
I'm of the firm belief that these so called "advanced consoles" are killing the video game industry. Between the astronomical budgets, overhyped/underplayed titles, and lack of creative diversity, our happy little cut throat industry is putting itself into a grave, lined with first person shooters and open world adventures where you do little more than grind the same boring quests ad nauseum. Sure, every once in a while we get a Half Life, or a No More Heroes out of it, but usually it's just more and more of the same.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that technology has reached a level of sophistication that we can do these things. However, I'd be very happy if we got something new out of it as well. But it seems that they've killed all aspirations of doing that by digging into "well, this sells better" category of game design, and just hit cut and paste on the whole bloody thing.
So, I've been playing older games as of late, and realized a couple of days ago when the Xenosaga announcement was made, that I don't like newer games as much as I do old ones. Gritty sprites and jagged edges. Pre-rendered environments. Rough controls that made you really learn the game. I've been spoiled senseless by the modern games, and now I can barely make successful runs on games of my youth anymore. My fifth grade self was quite the skilled gamer, in retrospect.
Anyways, the whole graphics=/= quality thing was obvious in the late nineties, when the Playstation, an underpowered console, was dominating the market, holding all of the big names that Nintendo didn't own, and making an name in gaming based off of the quality of titles produced. Nintendo could barely hold it's own that generation, keeping afloat through a few key exclusives starting with M and Z. And oddly enough, in Sony's third generation, they are suffering similarly (but not to the same degree) with the PS3. Instead, the Wii has held the badge of honor this generation, but many of the games produced for it are also garbage. The third generation seems to be the one that hurts a corporation the most. The N64 was a bit of a mess when it came to finding high quality third-party titles, and the PS3 has faced similar problems in the past. Sure, dev's have found their way around on the hardware now, and are making up for their previous errors, but it was a bumpy road for Sony in the beginning. That and the horrific marketing did very little for the appeal of the console beyond it's use as a way to watch movies instead of playing videogames (see the old ScrewAttack Top 10 PS3 games vid for more on this).
What I think I'm trying to get at, and have been so for months now is that I'm not satisfied with the current gaming climate. It's a giant mess of games that I'm not the least bit interested in, and I don't see it changing. I will be jumping into whatever Nintendo does next, as they still try to make fun games instead of shelling out the latest in dark moody shooters. The 3DS will bring out some new and interesting concepts eventually, and in the meantime will give me an excuse to pay for StarFox 64 again. When their next home console drops, they will do something great with it, and I'm sure people will still complain.
And complaints are part of the reason for this dark age in video gaming. Creativity is stuck in the indie market, good games get rehashed for nostalgia's sake, and big franchises are increasingly dull. Meanwhile, the peanut gallery cries out that they want the big franchise stuff and the nostalgic stuff, but never anything new. When something new does get released, it's either ignored or bashed into submission, where it takes the right time and effort to dig it up and play it. For example, I'd never heard of Wiz n Liz on the Genesis until this week. I picked it up on store credit, and it's an absolute pleasure to play. It's simple, fun, bizarre, and addictive. It's everything that people needed in a game fifteen to twenty years ago, and the sooner we get back to having fun, the better off we all will be as gamers.
I've been playing games for a long time, and I can't honestly see any reason why graphics still matter. I've played games that are photo realistic, cartoony, pixelated, full of textureless polygons, and even games with full out vector graphics. I've even played games where they weren't much more than interactive movies. Point and click, side scrolling, first person shooting...
Let's just get on with this and say that I've played a lot of games in my little bit of time on earth. Hundreds even, ranging all the way back to the Atari 2600 and a couple of the home pong consoles. I'm not saying I'm a better gamer for it, but I can say I'm at least entitled to have an educated opinion, which is more than they typical forum dwelling COD playing fanboy can say. And what is that opinion you might ask? Well, I'm getting to it, you impatient fool, and I'm also getting back to what I was talking about when I started this free form typing exercise which is keeping me awake in the absence of espresso.
I'm of the firm belief that these so called "advanced consoles" are killing the video game industry. Between the astronomical budgets, overhyped/underplayed titles, and lack of creative diversity, our happy little cut throat industry is putting itself into a grave, lined with first person shooters and open world adventures where you do little more than grind the same boring quests ad nauseum. Sure, every once in a while we get a Half Life, or a No More Heroes out of it, but usually it's just more and more of the same.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that technology has reached a level of sophistication that we can do these things. However, I'd be very happy if we got something new out of it as well. But it seems that they've killed all aspirations of doing that by digging into "well, this sells better" category of game design, and just hit cut and paste on the whole bloody thing.
So, I've been playing older games as of late, and realized a couple of days ago when the Xenosaga announcement was made, that I don't like newer games as much as I do old ones. Gritty sprites and jagged edges. Pre-rendered environments. Rough controls that made you really learn the game. I've been spoiled senseless by the modern games, and now I can barely make successful runs on games of my youth anymore. My fifth grade self was quite the skilled gamer, in retrospect.
Anyways, the whole graphics=/= quality thing was obvious in the late nineties, when the Playstation, an underpowered console, was dominating the market, holding all of the big names that Nintendo didn't own, and making an name in gaming based off of the quality of titles produced. Nintendo could barely hold it's own that generation, keeping afloat through a few key exclusives starting with M and Z. And oddly enough, in Sony's third generation, they are suffering similarly (but not to the same degree) with the PS3. Instead, the Wii has held the badge of honor this generation, but many of the games produced for it are also garbage. The third generation seems to be the one that hurts a corporation the most. The N64 was a bit of a mess when it came to finding high quality third-party titles, and the PS3 has faced similar problems in the past. Sure, dev's have found their way around on the hardware now, and are making up for their previous errors, but it was a bumpy road for Sony in the beginning. That and the horrific marketing did very little for the appeal of the console beyond it's use as a way to watch movies instead of playing videogames (see the old ScrewAttack Top 10 PS3 games vid for more on this).
What I think I'm trying to get at, and have been so for months now is that I'm not satisfied with the current gaming climate. It's a giant mess of games that I'm not the least bit interested in, and I don't see it changing. I will be jumping into whatever Nintendo does next, as they still try to make fun games instead of shelling out the latest in dark moody shooters. The 3DS will bring out some new and interesting concepts eventually, and in the meantime will give me an excuse to pay for StarFox 64 again. When their next home console drops, they will do something great with it, and I'm sure people will still complain.
And complaints are part of the reason for this dark age in video gaming. Creativity is stuck in the indie market, good games get rehashed for nostalgia's sake, and big franchises are increasingly dull. Meanwhile, the peanut gallery cries out that they want the big franchise stuff and the nostalgic stuff, but never anything new. When something new does get released, it's either ignored or bashed into submission, where it takes the right time and effort to dig it up and play it. For example, I'd never heard of Wiz n Liz on the Genesis until this week. I picked it up on store credit, and it's an absolute pleasure to play. It's simple, fun, bizarre, and addictive. It's everything that people needed in a game fifteen to twenty years ago, and the sooner we get back to having fun, the better off we all will be as gamers.
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