karsten's Videogaming Talks: What modern Videogames will always miss

[karsten]

The article text was edited thanks to Kevin's work and now should be easier to understand for english born speakers.

So, i never tought to be so fast in writing this article... i guess i already had it written in my mind since long ago, and i'm honored to be the first posting it since this section renaming. This might be the start of "karsten's Videogaming Talks" it'll be (if enough people will find it interesting) the first of a serie of Talk topic i might make in the future to spread consciousness on changes in videogames market and world or just to make the forums more lively :D. Please Post as many comments as you want, but also try to keep the topic clean.

by the way, i can understand people finding this read awfully boring :D but please don't flame it ok?

(the edit starts HERE)

Karsten's video game talks Vol.1
"What modern games will always miss."

Lately I've noticed that I keep coming back to older and older games, as if my tastes cannot
adapt to the "videogaming evolution". I've always been a "nostalgic" kind of gamer, but I've never
dug deep inside that feeeling until now. I started thinking that with so many people interested in
older games (retrogaming), I can't be wrong.

So I started to think of what was wrong in these "modern" games; sure, many suck (same in the past)
or have little innovation or fantasy in them, but the masterpieces seem to always have:

-beautiful colorful graphics
-astonishing doby surround audio and tracks
-voice acted scenes
-online multiplayer
-expansions, sequels, editors to bend the game to your will.
-exotic (idiotic?) control with webcams, add-ons, or a-la-wii

Nothing seems wrong, but what is it that makes everything seem different and not as good as the old games?

I suddenly realized that perfect 3D graphics, with characters almost perfect to the point of being impossible
to tell from reality, perfect sound, music (echoing now from the right, now from behind, you while you walk in the
virtual city, and everything else were giving me a great experience that was missing JUST ONE THING.

I'm not required to use my immagination anymore.

Not at all, not even a little. The robot is perfect in all details, and so is his pilot (that young green haired girl).
The music is perfect, recorded in live perfomance from an orchestra, but I'm just SITTING and PLAYING.
In the old school games, you were imagining your robot as perfect and to tastes YOU HAD MADE OUT.
Same for the young pilot, sure she's green haired, but nothing was forcing you to think that she looked
exactly looking like the classmate next to you.

In all the (older) game situations, you had to imagine; give people voices, facial expressions, feelings, everything.
I could see in my mind the SPRITE called Kefka (from FF6) laughing and poisoning Doma with great delight.
I was imagining the scene: Kefka's voice and laughter, the surroundings, the face of the other soldiers around him,
their dress, smells, everything. This is what videogames have lost (forever?) nowadays. Nothing is left to your
imagination, everything is perfectly detailed, shown, heard.

Videogaming no more exercises of imagination than an interactive film. Everything that you see in modern games
was already imagined for you by someone else; already chewed you, just have to swallow it. This explains why I keep
returning to old SNES classics and similar: I'm the kind of gamer that loves to use his imagination while playing.

Now I can explain why I somehow enjoyed Unlimited Saga even thought it's a damn poor game. It still retained
some charm due to his absence of acted scenes (everything is text) , and even thought there is voice acting,
there's nothing to look at beside the character's still face (so you have to imagine his face, despair, rage). Even a
damn poor game had some attraction to me because it made me use the imagination I had not used for so long.

Will ever modern games allow you to use your immagination like old ones?
Is everything dead, cloaked in wonderful graphics and perfect 3D models?
Will I keep playing snes games until I'm old, and am I the only one feeling like this?

Let me hear your thoughts and ideas, what is YOUR experience?

karsten

[kammedo]

W00t!
Very nice! :)

[DRussian]

I was excited when this topic was created and now even more so, hopefully you will continue this as a series and others will create their own articles.

I completely understand where you`re coming from and if you feel that we are completely being spoon fed games experiences however if you think about the way in which story can unfold in film or any other medium the narrator or creator can leave in or out as much as he or she likes therefore allowing you to use your imagination as you please. But that is just when you`re looking at the narrative.

I think this generation and the hardware that has come about in the last say five years has really given the developers the tools to create new and exciting games with new exciting possibilites(wii control schemes). They must take heed though as every game does not have to angle shoot looking for a new innovative way to present itself (wii control schemes).

All said and done like you, me and most of people over 18 we will always go back to our roots. XBLA etc has brought old games to a new generation of gamers and has made it easier for me to play Bomberman, SOR2 and lots of other titles which will clock more hours on my 360 than the current gen titles will. A lot of games these days lack replayability.

[karsten]

i'm glad to hear some comments, and see that at least other 2 people more or less agree with me. At least now i knoe that i'm not alone feeling that videogames without your imagination in are somehow losing part of their soul...

the only thing that surprises me is the total uninterest torward the topic... i guess too many people are playing PES8, Halo 3, COD4 and Assassin's creed right now :D

[babu]

I mostly agree (especially on the FF6 part), just didn't have anything to add ;)

[Nicola]

I've always tought that the the difference that I feel, regarding old VS new, is much similar to reading a book VS watching a movie.

Kudos to Karsten!

[s1xty]

I've always tought that the the difference that I feel, regarding old VS new, is much similar to reading a book VS watching a movie.

Kudos to Karsten!

I think so too. I get the very same feeling when I watch a movie and often get disappointed when I see how characters look like compared to what I imagined them to look like when reading the book.

It was a good read Karsten, and I totally agree that todays games are much more realistic and therefore require less imagination. Nowadays we get everything very detailed, no matter if its a view of the countryside or pieces of brain splattering the wall in FPS. Back then we would imagine what the forests look like when walking through the lame green tilesets in Final Fantasy, or imagine how the enemy must look like after we splattered them apart with our BFG9000. Now we get everything spoon fed, in every detail.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
When thinking back, I never had as much fun again as with the SNES, playing it with my cousin every Sunday, leaving it on because there was no save option! But then again, I still got goosebumps when playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time, because it was so realistic and detailed.

Something is missing in todays games indeed, I'm just not sure if this is it or if I just grew older and gaming just became a distraction from the rest of life. The childish innocence is gone, where all I had to do was go home, say "fuck homework" and totally get soaked into games. Sadly that feeling will never come back. :katamari:

[madhatter256]

It was alright. Try harder with the English grammar as it turned me off a lot when I was reading it.

I do agree with it, but I also think that is what made us want the graphics and technology we have today. I always wanted a 3D Sonic game and we eventually got one that was pretty good.

That's the thing. 3D is still evolving from the 16bit textures we had in the PlayStation days all the way to high resolution textures, higher polygon counts, pixel shading, etc. Making things closer and closer to what we imagined. A lot of the games out there are pretty much the same as they were in the 16bit days. My theory is that we are still in a graphical revolution, and will still be in one for a few more generations (although Wii is by far a true evolution in gameplay). So, we will still continue to see same old gameplay, but shinier graphics than before. The transition from 8bit Atari all the way to 16bit consoles, and even 32bit consoles we saw both graphical and gameplay evolutions. That is why many see those eras as the golden age of videogames. Back then, companies were willing to take risks on gameplay ideas, as well as graphical, but now, not so much as the price has gone up in developing them and making a return on an investment now takes much longer than before.

[karsten]

It was alright. Try harder with the English grammar as it turned me off a lot when I was reading it.

I do agree with it, but I also think that is what made us want the graphics and technology we have today. I always wanted a 3D Sonic game and we eventually got one that was pretty good.

That's the thing. 3D is still evolving from the 16bit textures we had in the PlayStation days all the way to high resolution textures, higher polygon counts, pixel shading, etc. Making things closer and closer to what we imagined. A lot of the games out there are pretty much the same as they were in the 16bit days. My theory is that we are still in a graphical revolution, and will still be in one for a few more generations (although Wii is by far a true evolution in gameplay). So, we will still continue to see same old gameplay, but shinier graphics than before. The transition from 8bit Atari all the way to 16bit consoles, and even 32bit consoles we saw both graphical and gameplay evolutions. That is why many see those eras as the golden age of videogames. Back then, companies were willing to take risks on gameplay ideas, as well as graphical, but now, not so much as the price has gone up in developing them and making a return on an investment now takes much longer than before.

Nice to hear your ideas, Mad.
Actually i too, consider the period from the last games of 8-bit NES up to the first years of saturn/playstation/3do/cd-i/Jaguar/N64 as the "golden Age" of videogames. An incredible time (IMHO) in which so many companies jumped in the gaming business and, believe it or not, each one of them (nevertheless how badly they failed or succeeded) gave something to the Videogaming history, wheter by concept, innovation, or special gameplay. I'm planning to write a future article on this topic when i'll have some extra free time...

What i do not agre with you is about the wii. I don't really see so much of evolution; the controls are not accurate enough and most games would play better or the same with regular PADS... Twilight princess is an example of a game uselessly using the wiimote... also i personally found ridiculous that the wiimote is not calibrated on fixed points... that would have improved the accuracy by 100000 times. But this is another topic and it's better to let it be!


oh, by the way could you address me all the errors i made, please? I'm always wilingly to improve it to express my ideas in a better fashion.

Obviously i'll edit my post afterwards to avoid other people not being turned off by my english :P

karsten

[Fonzie]

Perfect answer to me (thought the same thing some years ago at dreamcast era)... imagination and abstraction... thats the key.
Too bad i'm busy at the moment... but yeah, great subject!

[karsten]

awwww. i hoped to get some feedback from the "forum authorities" too... also i guess that madhatter found the text too bad to be corrected :D

[ASSEMbler]

Karsten I commend you on writing this.

I read your ideas, and they made a lot of sense. I myself do not play many games newer
than psone, and the new games are mostly on PC where you can customize them.

What you voiced was your personal thoughts, and I cherish other's views.

I would suggest some important things you do in the future when you write.
They will make your ideas easier to understand and show pride by making a
finished product. By skipping things like page breaks, capitalization, and
punctuation, you are giving a great idea a poor paint job. Take the second or
so to go over what you write and polish it a bit (but don't try to perfect it,
it's impossible, this I have learned).

I am no great writier; I must spell correct, check for flow and make sure it's
an interesting read. I limit myself to three edits as policy, so I don't go crazy.

Karsten, your effort is even more commendable as you are writing in english!
I hope people realize what he is trying, to do in ENGLISH.

I hope you don't mind but here are a few pointers.

1. Pace your article and break it into smaller bits.
2. Write it and proof read it a few times. Then publish it.
3. Use carriage return so that your text makes paragraphs, not full page sentences.
I am on a 30 inch screen, so your text is nearly unreadable as it stretches the full
width of the screen.
4. State the main idea or arguement within the first three or so sentences.
5. Clearly state the proof of your discussion. ( I feel this way because of this)
6. Never discredit your own work. (never!)

People have short attention spans , and at the most will read the first five sentences before they decide to
continue or stop. Try to get across your main idea in those few sentences, then invite them to read more
by offering explainations in the next paragraph.

I did a small edit of what you wrote just for flow and clarity of the main idea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karsten's video game talks Vol.1
"What modern games will always miss."

Lately I've noticed that I keep coming back to older and older games, as if my tastes cannot
adapt to the "videogaming evolution". I've always been a "nostalgic" kind of gamer, but I've never
dug deep inside that feeeling until now. I started thinking that with so many people interested in
older games (retrogaming), I can't be wrong.

So I started to think of what was wrong in these "modern" games; sure, many suck (same in the past)
or have little innovation or fantasy in them, but the masterpieces seem to always have:

-beautiful colorful graphics
-astonishing doby surround audio and tracks
-voice acted scenes
-online multiplayer
-expansions, sequels, editors to bend the game to your will.
-exotic (idiotic?) control with webcams, add-ons, or a-la-wii

Nothing seems wrong, but what is it that makes everything seem different and not as good as the old games?

I suddenly realized that perfect 3D graphics, with characters almost perfect to the point of being impossible
to tell from reality, perfect sound, music (echoing now from the right, now from behind, you while you walk in the
virtual city, and everything else were giving me a great experience that was missing JUST ONE THING.

I'm not required to use my immagination anymore.

Not at all, not even a little. The robot is perfect in all details, and so is his pilot (that young green haired girl).
The music is perfect, recorded in live perfomance from an orchestra, but I'm just SITTING and PLAYING.
In the old school games, you were imagining your robot as perfect and to tastes YOU HAD MADE OUT.
Same for the young pilot, sure she's green haired, but nothing was forcing you to think that she looked
exactly looking like the classmate next to you.

In all the (older) game situations, you had to imagine; give people voices, facial expressions, feelings, everything.
I could see in my mind the SPRITE called Kefka (from FF6) laughing and poisoning Doma with great delight.
I was imagining the scene: Kefka's voice and laughter, the surroundings, the face of the other soldiers around him,
their dress, smells, everything. This is what videogames have lost (forever?) nowadays. Nothing is left to your
imagination, everything is perfectly detailed, shown, heard.

Videogaming no more exercises of imagination than an interactive film. Everything that you see in modern games
was already imagined for you by someone else; already chewed you, just have to swallow it. This explains why I keep
returning to old SNES classics and similar: I'm the kind of gamer that loves to use his imagination while playing.

Now I can explain why I somehow enjoyed Unlimited Saga even thought it's a damn poor game. It still retained
some charm due to his absence of acted scenes (everything is text) , and even thought there is voice acting,
there's nothing to look at beside the character's still face (so you have to imagine his face, despair, rage). Even a
damn poor game had some attraction to me because it made me use the imagination I had not used for so long.

Will ever modern games allow you to use your immagination like old ones?
Is everything dead, cloaked in wonderful graphics and perfect 3D models?
Will I keep playing snes games until I'm old, and am I the only one feeling like this?

Let me hear your thoughts and ideas, what is YOUR experience?

karsten

[oldengineer]

Will ever modern games allow you to use your immagination like old ones?


First off, great article, I totally got your point and your point was logical and indeed 'personal'

Now I'm gonna get 'ageist', which I can do, as I'm an 'old git', like it or lump it, this is yet another personal view, just like Karsten expressed.

I've lived through every age of video games and, yes, I will always agree that 'old' games were usually:

More difficult to complete.
Required you to use your brain.
Thought provoking.
Time consuming (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not)However decent 'modern' games (whatever they may be) still allow you to use your imagination.

I'll show a few case in points relating to some of 'todays' modern titles:

Forza 2: I get to drive some of the fastest 'realistic' cars in the world around some of the worlds most demanding and 'realistic' race tracks, I don't have to fill them up with petrol, I don't have to service them, I don't even have to wash and wax 'em! In my imagination I can race damn fast and not have to worry about crashing them. This makes me want to play a game like this again and again. (not forgetting that DLC can enhance this experience)

PGR 4: I can muck about in some of the worlds fastest cars, in my imagination I imagine that I'm pretty good, the adrenaline rush backs this up.

Half-Life: I imagine I'm Gordan Freeman, seriously. The game and its off-shoots is so damn 'deep' it plays on your imagination.

Bioshock: Where do I start? The whole game is a pure endorfin rush, it delves deep into the imagaination at damn near every turn, forget the gfx and sound (if thats possible) the story and scripting is beautiful to play and after all 'play' is all you are doing, its not real-life, it's nowhere near, its a game that could have been made 20 years ago, or tomorrow.


...I've seen numerous old games that have translated perfectly to new H/W, Outrun being an obvious candidate.

Xbox Live Arcade (and it's equivilents) have shown that theres more than enough room and interest for both 'old' and 'new'.

Personally I'll try never to label 'old' and 'new' games as we are all getting older and games will always merely be just games, no more, no less!

[karsten]

Karsten I commend you on writing this.

I read your ideas, and they made a lot of sense. I myself do not play many games newer
than psone, and the new games are mostly on PC where you can customize them.

What you voiced was your personal thoughts, and I cherish other's views.

I would suggest some important things you do in the future when you write.
They will make your ideas easier to understand and show pride by making a
finished product. By skipping things like page breaks, capitalization, and
punctuation, you are giving a great idea a poor paint job. Take the second or
so to go over what you write and polish it a bit (but don't try to perfect it,
it's impossible, this I have learned).

I am no great writier; I must spell correct, check for flow and make sure it's
an interesting read. I limit myself to three edits as policy, so I don't go crazy.

Karsten, your effort is even more commendable as you are writing in english!
I hope people realize what he is trying, to do in ENGLISH.

I hope you don't mind but here are a few pointers.

1. Pace your article and break it into smaller bits.
2. Write it and proof read it a few times. Then publish it.
3. Use carriage return so that your text makes paragraphs, not full page sentences.
I am on a 30 inch screen, so your text is nearly unreadable as it stretches the full
width of the screen.
4. State the main idea or arguement within the first three or so sentences.
5. Clearly state the proof of your discussion. ( I feel this way because of this)
6. Never discredit your own work. (never!)

People have short attention spans , and at the most will read the first five sentences before they decide to
continue or stop. Try to get across your main idea in those few sentences, then invite them to read more
by offering explainations in the next paragraph.

I did a small edit of what you wrote just for flow and clarity of the main idea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karsten's video game talks Vol.1
"What modern games will always miss."

Lately I've noticed that I keep coming back to older and older games, as if my tastes cannot
adapt to the "videogaming evolution". I've always been a "nostalgic" kind of gamer, but I've never
dug deep inside that feeeling until now. I started thinking that with so many people interested in
older games (retrogaming), I can't be wrong.

So I started to think of what was wrong in these "modern" games; sure, many suck (same in the past)
or have little innovation or fantasy in them, but the masterpieces seem to always have:

-beautiful colorful graphics
-astonishing doby surround audio and tracks
-voice acted scenes
-online multiplayer
-expansions, sequels, editors to bend the game to your will.
-exotic (idiotic?) control with webcams, add-ons, or a-la-wii

Nothing seems wrong, but what is it that makes everything seem different and not as good as the old games?

I suddenly realized that perfect 3D graphics, with characters almost perfect to the point of being impossible
to tell from reality, perfect sound, music (echoing now from the right, now from behind, you while you walk in the
virtual city, and everything else were giving me a great experience that was missing JUST ONE THING.

I'm not required to use my immagination anymore.

Not at all, not even a little. The robot is perfect in all details, and so is his pilot (that young green haired girl).
The music is perfect, recorded in live perfomance from an orchestra, but I'm just SITTING and PLAYING.
In the old school games, you were imagining your robot as perfect and to tastes YOU HAD MADE OUT.
Same for the young pilot, sure she's green haired, but nothing was forcing you to think that she looked
exactly looking like the classmate next to you.

In all the (older) game situations, you had to imagine; give people voices, facial expressions, feelings, everything.
I could see in my mind the SPRITE called Kefka (from FF6) laughing and poisoning Doma with great delight.
I was imagining the scene: Kefka's voice and laughter, the surroundings, the face of the other soldiers around him,
their dress, smells, everything. This is what videogames have lost (forever?) nowadays. Nothing is left to your
imagination, everything is perfectly detailed, shown, heard.

Videogaming no more exercises of imagination than an interactive film. Everything that you see in modern games
was already imagined for you by someone else; already chewed you, just have to swallow it. This explains why I keep
returning to old SNES classics and similar: I'm the kind of gamer that loves to use his imagination while playing.

Now I can explain why I somehow enjoyed Unlimited Saga even thought it's a damn poor game. It still retained
some charm due to his absence of acted scenes (everything is text) , and even thought there is voice acting,
there's nothing to look at beside the character's still face (so you have to imagine his face, despair, rage). Even a
damn poor game had some attraction to me because it made me use the imagination I had not used for so long.

Will ever modern games allow you to use your immagination like old ones?
Is everything dead, cloaked in wonderful graphics and perfect 3D models?
Will I keep playing snes games until I'm old, and am I the only one feeling like this?

Let me hear your thoughts and ideas, what is YOUR experience?

karsten


many thanks for your corrections and suggestions, really. i think that dividing everything in chapters like you suggested will be a great help.
i know that sometimes i ask too much from my english, so any suggestion is really welcome.

by the way, i didn't mean to discredit my work as you stated, but i'm just a kind of man that takes efforts in improving himself, so any correction made on my texts are welcome, and even more your re-write of it. I always try to get better to be able one day to express my idea without any fault in my english.


First off, great article, I totally got your point and your point was logical and indeed 'personal'

Now I'm gonna get 'ageist', which I can do, as I'm an 'old git', like it or lump it, this is yet another personal view, just like Karsten expressed.

I've lived through every age of video games and, yes, I will always agree that 'old' games were usually:

More difficult to complete.
Required you to use your brain.
Thought provoking.
Time consuming (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not)However decent 'modern' games (whatever they may be) still allow you to use your imagination.

I'll show a few case in points relating to some of 'todays' modern titles:

Forza 2: I get to drive some of the fastest 'realistic' cars in the world around some of the worlds most demanding and 'realistic' race tracks, I don't have to fill them up with petrol, I don't have to service them, I don't even have to wash and wax 'em! In my imagination I can race damn fast and not have to worry about crashing them. This makes me want to play a game like this again and again. (not forgetting that DLC can enhance this experience)

PGR 4: I can muck about in some of the worlds fastest cars, in my imagination I imagine that I'm pretty good, the adrenaline rush backs this up.

Half-Life: I imagine I'm Gordan Freeman, seriously. The game and its off-shoots is so damn 'deep' it plays on your imagination.

Bioshock: Where do I start? The whole game is a pure endorfin rush, it delves deep into the imagaination at damn near every turn, forget the gfx and sound (if thats possible) the story and scripting is beautiful to play and after all 'play' is all you are doing, its not real-life, it's nowhere near, its a game that could have been made 20 years ago, or tomorrow.


...I've seen numerous old games that have translated perfectly to new H/W, Outrun being an obvious candidate.

Xbox Live Arcade (and it's equivilents) have shown that theres more than enough room and interest for both 'old' and 'new'.

Personally I'll try never to label 'old' and 'new' games as we are all getting older and games will always merely be just games, no more, no less!

thanks for your compliments, really. But actually it's difficult for me to compare the "immagination" required in forza 2 or PGR4 or half-life with old times. I mean the effect you had on half-life is a kind of YOU identificating with the main hero.

That is great and actually one of the most important aims for a videogame, but a completely different immagination work. i'm also playing forza 2 but i'm, not immaginating anything about the driver, while i could in the old F-zero...

i mean that at least in MY case better graphics = less immagination work...


lastly i have to agree with you about live arcade games and outrun. maybe there's some hope for a old taste player like me in the future :) I hope more and more games in the future will manage to keep that much hidden of their main characters.

many thanks to all the people who read this, really.

in the next week i'll write (and check for better quality ;) ) another article on my view on videogames world. If you would like to have me debate some specific topic, feel free to propose me by PM or even better in one of these topics.

thanks,
karsten

[AlbinoLove]

I'm by no means an old gamer. Truth be told, I don't even play games that much any more. I agree with everything that's been said. I do think, however, that greater graphics gives greater power to the developers to deliver the story that they want to tell.

I don't know how many of you have read Nabokov's Great Readers and Great Writers, but it discusses how a great writer should be able to create for his (or her) audience a world in which everything is there for the reader to explore and derive meaning. A great reader is one who interprets the world through the framework that the author has provided. That means no outside influences such as background of the writers past, or other works. This same exact theory can be applied to video games.

I'm sure we all like the freedom we had in imagining our various fantasies about our favorite games, but we truly weren't experiencing the artist's vision. Writers are confined by vocabulary and intelligence--not the material they have to work with. Artists are limited by skill and imagination--not by the canvas they are working on. What I'm saying is, in an ideal world graphics, sound, everything would be perfect if that is what the designer desires. If they want to take their creation back to 8-bit graphics they should be able to do that, but if they want everything to be photo realistic, that shouldn't be out of the question to them.

It feels sort of weird saying this, but video games aren't created for us (The good ones that is. Madden can lick my nuts). Real video games, real pieces of art are representations of the feelings and philosophies of the artist behind them.

[karsten]

nice point, really. but i used to think of a certain kind of videogames (expecially RPGs), a little like "interactive books"; a book that you read but have the chance to alter and move in atwish. In a certain way, keeping up to your example, i was a great reader of videogames :D

[oldengineer]

If they want to take their creation back to 8-bit graphics they should be able to do that, but if they want everything to be photo realistic, that shouldn't be out of the question to them.

Real video games, real pieces of art are representations of the feelings and philosophies of the artist behind them.

^ Spot on, nicely put m8 :clap:

[ASSEMbler]

Some day when graphical power is not an issue, such artistic porjects will be more common.

I play DS a lot beause I prefer that style of graphics that I grew up on.

[karsten]

I play DS a lot beause I prefer that style of graphics that I grew up on.

this is really an interesting point. more or less true for me since i started with NES but love SNES games the most. might it be because of this that i love so much old style games?

i'd like to hear if it is true for other people in the forum...


if you start gaming with 3d, will you love it more than 2D? and viceversa?

post your experience.

karsten

[graciano1337]

I gotta say, I've really enjoyed reading this thread, even though some of the posts are kinda long... jay slash kay.

The initial article by Karsten was nice and a good read. And I like the fact that there's been some actual intelligent responses for once. :)

I recently read an article about a "one-console future" and I hope to discuss that soon on the forum. However, I gotta do some searching and make sure it hasn't be discussed before.

Great article Karsten! Keep up the good work!

[karsten]

many thanks graciano1337. i'll start working on something else when this topics will lose interest.

[Jamtex]

Most modern games do seem to be basically the same game with slightly better graphics. When Tomb Raider came out I loved it, everything within the game seemed to make sense, from the going back and forth to the exploring and finding the routes and most importantly the game felt open enough to give you the sense of freedom and you always imagined what was round the corner, playing this game in the dark and seeing T-Rex for the first time made me jump. The AI wasn't perfect but you did feel like that the creatures and people were intelligent.

Fast forward to the now and the PS3 and what do we have? Uncharted, and admittedly I have only played the demo but the demo just felt like a game of tomb raider with prettier graphics, stupid ai and stupid gaps that a normal person could get through but you obviously can't. The game just felt like hand holding me all the way to the end of the level. On the basis of the demo, I felt no need to go out and buy said game, even if a number of websites are claiming it to be on of the best games of the year.... Tomb Raider Leg Ends although being the same game seemed to lack something.

Go back even further to the late 70s and early 80s and one popular genre which is now dead was the equivilent of the paperback novel and that was the text adventure game, one game that did require you to use your imagination much more then games today. Take the excellent Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_nolan.shtml) You get

You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can't.
It is pitch black.

Which requires you to imagine a room you can see spinning around, which sounds much like a bad hang over. :icon_bigg

As the game goes on, > look under bed
There's nothing there. Well, there are a few soiled handkerchiefs, a book you thought you'd lost, a couple of foreign coins, and something else which can't be fully described in a family game, but nothing you'd actually want.

I miss these paperback type games, although it could be frustrating to play these games as the pharser will probably not do what you want. Give a teenager the HHGTTG game and most won't even get out of the first room...

Some games do get better, playing pole position, you can imagine you are Nelson Piquet but nowdays you can imagine you are Michael Schumacher or even Takuma Sato. Some genres like sports and racing do fire up the imagination even with high resolution HD widescreen graphics. It's easier to imagine you are driving around Suzuka if it looks like Suzuka rather then a track in a large expanse of green and it's easier to imagine a golf course if you can see the green from the tee rather then some fuzzy lines. Most people probably wouldn't play the original F1 game on the playstation over F1CE on the PS3 (well they might if they hate James Allen) but they might have quick blasts on old console / arcade racing games.

However one of the best selling PC Games in the UK is Football Manager and that does take imagination to play as there aren't no flash graphics, just lots of stats and text messages. You do feel like you are a football manager because watching looks of circles run across the screen makes you imagine a player running down the pitch, dodging three defenders, crossing the ball inch perfectly and your useless striker putting it into row Z.

Wii Sports is a good example of an game that uses your imagination as you first do a Mii that looks a little like you, although Nintendo hate people with beards and moustaces. Then playing the game you can imagine you are bowling a ball rather then sitting on your backside pressing a button in time so you feel part of the experience. Just a pity that some games feel like the control method has been shoe horned in rather then being part of the experience.

[karsten]

i agree with you 100% and the example you made is really fitting. i mean everything beside PES :D try the full version at hard difficulty in master league... play a couple of hours and you'll see the difference!

[karsten]

another article is about to come... it'll be another long read, that i hope will move the waters even more than this topic and get more views and replys

[Anonymous]

One Dollar spent in Graphics

is

one dollar less spent in Interactivity.

This is what I miss in all games.

I woul like to have N64 graphics, but virtual worlds hundred times
bigger as Morrowind, with no loading times.
Just Interactivity. Imagine a Silent Hill as big as Oblivion with a
coop mode. With interactivity from Shenmue.
Quests, less enemies, walking, searching, exploring...


Instead most games are:

Man / Woman
Gun / Knife
Fake Gameplay
4 - 8 hours
better shadows / textures
open end - Outro.
(with a "3" in the title of course)

[funkstylez]

I miss the intensity of old arcade games, mainly the beat em ups, 2d fighters and vertical shoot em ups.

[karsten]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

this topic touched the 1000th visitor!

i'm getting a little more intereste in writing the next article now :)

[graciano1337]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

this topic touched the 1000th visitor!

i'm getting a little more intereste in writing the next article now :)

do it! they're always an interesting read. and i love how they produce intelligent responses.

[karsten]

i'll be working on something nice soon ;)

[alphagamer]

thanks for the read, it confirms my point of view for most parts.

im looking forward to reading more.

[Bluehaze]

I think that you have a good point Karsten. However, I wonder if this is just the result of an upbringing that will partly define our generation, rather than an aspect that defines human nature as a whole. Let me clarify what I mean with an example.

My old friends and I often times find ourselves reminiscing about the days of the SNES. We find ourselves talking about our feelings as children and the experiences we all had imagining, as you said, the sensory flavor of the game. Thus, our childlike imagination comes not from the act of imagining itself, but the relationship that arises when we think about imagining video games and our childhood. To simply put it: to think of 'imagining' for our generation (and older) is to think of the bliss of childhood. That is a relationship that we have created through our video gaming. Yet, as described in your post and as most older gamers find, newer games take away from the child's ability to imagine much of the sensory flavor. Thus, it may be that when the youth of the PS2+ generation grow up, they may not have as much shared experiences reminiscing about how they used their imagination. What their experiences have in common may be of a different nature than ours, and I believe that is an interesting question to think about (i.e. What will the commonalities of their experiences be and in which ways will they differ from ours?).

Is there anyway to 're-invent' our childhood experiences? To view them in new ways that enable us to somehow appreciate today's video games in a light that we can realize we did actually experience as children? Or are we doomed, figuratively speaking, to living under the auspices of our shared experiences as Imaginers...?

[90s Gamer]

Great article, good points. What do modern videogames miss? Well, i guess everything that made games of the 80s and 90s unforgettable. What sprang out to me was the usage of certain colors. Especially the games by Namco. Compare the bright, highly saturated Tekken 2 with todays fighters and you'll know what i'm talking about. The usage of certain colors in the PlayStation era gave the games a 'warm' kind-of-feel that's quite difficult to describe. WipEout 2097 (XL in the U.S.) is another great example of this.

Modern games also use larger data carriers/mediums. Did it expand the games' overall playtime and replay-value? No, in fact many games of today feel rather short, and most do not have any replay-value whatsoever; most space is used up by the massive amount of texture data that constitutes the game's attention to detail, instead of other potential content. I'm not a major fan of trail & error games like Super Ghouls & Ghosts or something like that, but modern games are also way too easy in my opinion, you walk through them as if you're merely watching a movie. In fact, a lot of today's games are designed as if they are movies. Games back in the day may have been 'short' in the sense of containing fewer levels or fewer tracks, but there was always something in a game that made up that 'flaw', like the tons of unlockables, secrets, extras, different endings. Super Probotector/Contra III has less than 10 stages, but it's so fun and so varied that you'll forget that while (re)playing the game...it is just fun to pick up and play...

It seems that certain limitations (in terms of hardware capabilities) brought out the greatest creativity among developers. I.e., if you're capable of 'doing almost everything' possible, then you're past a certain level of genuine interest. Who wants to play a game that is almost 'life-like'? The whole idea of playing games, is to be able to 'immerse yourself into another world', where things look totally different. That's why the worlds of the Mega Mans and Sonic the Hedgehogs remain in the minds and hearts of millions of people...

There is of course the whole issue regarding violence in videogames which i will not go too far into right now. But i find it quite horrific that a vast majority of currently released titles are merely first person shooters that glorify war and excessive violence. Most people cannot make the distinction between the different modes of violence. It's as if you're into violent games or not, which is absolute nonsense. It's one thing to play through a game (as a hero) trying to save yourself from hordes of zombies or, being merely a mindless soldier 'killing' virtual soldiers or even innocent virtual civilians. There is also a satirical mode of violence, contained in games like the Grand Theft Auto series; these games can be seen as a social critique on modern culture. There's also 'comedy violence', contained in games like Mortal Kombat; games that are so exceedingly over-the-top that they cannot be taken serious in that sense.

Games should be fun and challenging again, instead of overly realistic and 'short'. There are exceptions of course. A game like Donkey Kong Country Returns springs to mind, but generally speaking...

The Wii will be the last 'new' console i ever bought, cause i'm gonna stick with buying old (unused) games.

No, nothing will match the 90s.

[Dopesoner930]

this is sick and so true, dont get me wrong im a huge fan of modern games but there was and is something special about old school gaming. No matter how far gaming comes along i think that people will still preserve and love the games that started it all