nowadays games

Mladen Jankovic

Vasily Tserekh wrote:

call of duty, death island and battlefield 3

There's your problem. If you want FPS, play something good like L4D or Serious Sam and if you like sandbox games try Just Cause 2.

GALex

Paul M Watt

There are too many games to choose from, so finding the diamond in the rough is a difficult task. There used to be 3 systems period. No mobile gaming, no cross-platform ports. You either played on a console or the PC. I have mostly played games by indie developers over the last 10 years on the PC. I check out reviews on gametunnel.com. I have found some pretty cool games like Oasis, Defcon and Darwinia. For mainstream games, Portal and Portal 2 were excellent.

All of my software is powered by a single Watt.

BillWoodruff

Vasily Tserekh wrote:

Someone tell me why i dont enjoy games today as i did when I was a child or a teenager

Hi Vasily, Hypothesis: you have mentally matured to some degree. best, Bill

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre, "Nausea"

Septimus Hedgehog

Perhaps you've now grown up? :) If you're getting out more perhaps its time to consider playing rugby. In other words, do something useful with your life. :-D

"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).

jschell

Vasily Tserekh wrote:

Someone tell me why i dont enjoy games today as i did when I was a child or a teenager

Just a wild guess...because you are older? The older you get the less 'gee-whiz' factor there is because with more experience you can anticipate everything more.

jschell

wizardzz wrote:

Also, because there is so much money involved, and so many people working on it, they are created by committee which I am starting to feel more and more leads to mediocrity. Movies and TV's shows written via committee suck compared to one where someone has a clear artistic / creative lead / vested interest.

Errr...there is so much money involved because the games are vastly more complex. Try playing 'hunt the wumpus' (the text one) or 'pong' and then compare that to something like Halo.

jschell

Lloyd Atkinson wrote:

Why would I want to play some crappy game where all you do is simple mundane tasks (E.G. Angry birds, a game I've seen where you throw fruit around and then cut it up, various driving games) Classic games were made to be FAR better than this in less program space and on systems with limited memory and processing power.

Errr...exactly what "classic" games did you have in mind? Pong? Defender? Galaga? Wizardry (1)? Or Monopoly?

jschell

Paul Watt wrote:

There used to be 3 systems period.

Actually at one time there was basically only one system. The Apple. For a couple of years if you wanted to play the most games possible (along with a wider variety of business apps) you bought the Apple because the C64 and IBM didn't have even close to the same market share. The C64 gained some parity in games and only games (but didn't match) before the PC (IBM clones) started to dominate the software market.

parths

I agree that a lot of the big studios with all their resources are somewhat mindlessly pushing at the limits of graphics. That is one of the reasons I've gravitated towards playing a lot of the flash and indie games. I'd dislike the over-emphasis on graphics when it's accompanied with little or not game-play or story elements as well, but I like to think of it as a different aspect rather than a degradation of the quality of the game industry altogether. I disagree with you if you are (and it seems from your post that you are) implying that every game and every developer is going that way. I've found a lot of games which are thoroughly entertaining, most of which have been ones where the platform or the available resources have limited the developers from pursuing the graphics too far. This limitation actually enforces the developers to look into and brings out the creative aspects. A couple of the games I can think of right now are Fantastic contraptions[^] Desktop Tower Defence[^]. And there are many like them who try an interesting idea instead of trying to burn you graphics chip. I recently played Dragon Age Origins (yes I'm this guy[^] :) ) and I thought it gave me enough freedom to develop my character. I also recently came across this[^] interview and the game idea sounds interesting as well. A recent article about Jonathan Blow brought up similar views and resulted in this.[^]

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." -Ornette Coleman "Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently." -Anon.

Paul M Watt

Thanks for schoolin me :thumbsup:. Thinking about it, I was probably referring to the height of my gaming youth which included the NES, Sega Master System, and Turbo Grafx 16. I have played the atari before that, and a few friends C64s, but really had little to know exposure to personal computers until 1988 or so.

All of my software is powered by a single Watt.

Xerantes

After I read the post in reply to this post, I think we are missing on point in the discussion. In the past we had to put in more of our imagination into the games, because they haven't been that realistic as they are today. So every ones experience was a little different. Also, I fully agree, that there is too much money involved today. It is sad, that even the big players would not dare to risk something fresh and new over the next sequel which will most certainly at least return the production cost plus a nice profit. It is futile to rant about that as long as we (and many others) still buy these games and we keep making money the center of our universe (Quit philosophical ;) ). We experience here the same development, which every art, that has been industrialized, has experienced. Mass production (of low quality?) of crowed suitable contend for the quick buck. But I think there is hope for us thriving for another kind of games. Take a look at the indi Games made available by steam or the new possibilities be kick-starting promising games (like double fine).

Lost User

In Ultima Online (circa 1998) you could place items on the ground within the game. Today in RPGs you cannot place stuff on the ground. That is a small example of the change in gaming. The difference is a simulation (UO) vs. a themepark (every game since).

Florin Jurcovici 0

What do you think of 0 a.d.? It's got (or aims to have) wonderful graphics, and no story at all. Still, it's IMO promising.

Alexander DiMauro

Remembering the good old days: How to make a text adventure[^]

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.

Steve Naidamast

The game I had the most fun with was Dynamix's "Red Baron". Now everything is geared towards complete realism in the flight sims or complete boredom in the first-person shooters. You are right, "the magic is gone" because the fun was taken out of everything due to the increased capabilities of technology. This is why I believe that when technologies are used beyond their natural capabilities whatever they touch turns to crap. Games are a perfect example...

Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com

3DPProfessor

Alright, #1 answer: You're old. Remeber when you were young and you looked at your parents and couldn't understand why they didn't "get" the stuff you were into? But it didn't bother you because they were old? Yeah. Now you're the old guy and your inner child is laughing at you. #2 answer: Games are in some very significant ways better than they ever were and in some ways they've gotten worse. Ways in which they are better: Graphics, sound. Ways they are worse: They take more money than ever to make. There's been tons said on this so I'll just to the end: Investors are why every game is derivative and game developers are discouraged from taking chances and trying anything new. Three decades of dedicated study and ludology hasn't been allowed to advance in any practical way. There's still the independent video game scene, a chance for experimentation at the pearl of the technological advances generally speaking. But if you find more value in play than in pretty screen caps on the box art then that's for you.

Visit Cymon's Games for a new program each week!

Sander Rossel

Few things... Graphics over gameplay and story. Many games today give an adrenaline rush for approximately six hours and then it's game over. Some don't even make the six hours... Perhaps DRM takes some of the fun away if you're keen on that sort of thing. If you aren't and you download everything that might make playing the game less rewarding because you didn't have to do anything to get the game (you might as well gotten 100s). The amount of games on the market today. Why pick X over Y? Are they really that different? Most of the time they aren't... Most games today are pre- or sequels to games we played in the 90's and early 00's. We know them by now... It just so happens I have a couple of gaming magazines right here. On average seven out of ten(!) titles on the cover are pre/sequels! I'm currently playing Final Fantasy VII (1997) again, because it STILL is one of the best games ever made. Graphics have their charm, but they're far from todays standard. But this game just has the best story ever and keeps you tied to the screen for HOURS. If any game today would be able to do that you'd finish it in a day. Last christmas I got Skyrim, which I think is a great game, but after about 40 hours of play it all got the same to me. Lack of story. Mass Effect had that amazing story that kept me playing for hours, but I finished it in a couple of evenings (15-20 hours gaming I guess, which is decent today, but nothing compared to the 50+ I spent on many others). Sure, there's some great games out there, but you have to look extra hard for them, because for every great game there's a whole lot more of sucky games :(

It's an OO world.

public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}

MacSpudster

I second what "guesst" posted. It's both "What is it?" and "Who is it?" "Who is it?" comes in with a 80% ~ 99.99999% weight factor ~ Now you're the old guy and your inner child is :laugh: laughing :laugh: at you. "What is it?" comes in with a 0.00001% ~ 20% weight factor. For those who disagree, that's yer inner older self mocking you...

The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac. The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it. ~ my brother Jeff

parths

I had checked out 0AD (you're referring to the open source project right?) a couple (or maybe more) years ago. I thought the graphics were interesting. I think aiming toward innovation in graphics or any part of a game is worthwhile. I'm not a big fan of games that contain excellent graphics and no gameplay, but as a programmer am interested in learning how people do different things. I thought it had died out, but I'll check it out again. When did you last look at it? what is your opinion? [EDIT]BTW, have you played Caesar III? It's one one my all time favorites. Caesar IV (I played the demo, couldn't find a CD in the shops, I guess it didn't do too well), was in 3D and did what I thought was a pretty good job of it. The 0AD guys were trying to achieve a 3D RTS right? Or was it governance?[/EDIT]

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." -Ornette Coleman "Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently." -Anon.

KP Lee

Myst is definitely a tightly scripted game, but I found it very interesting. It's follow-on was so boring to me, I don't recall it's name and I lost interest in an hour. Don't know what makes a game interesting. Maybe I lost interest because the only winning solution to Myst is to walk away after you've found everything you need to know. It pretty early on suggests that may end up being the solution. What I like are challenges. While reading a C++ book, it brought up a knight's move game where you have a chessboard, put a single knight on the board, using chess rules for moving a knight, move to every square on the board without repeating a single move. You're probably yawning already, but I found it interesting enough to make two versions of the game using JavaScript. First I wrote a recursion routine in C++ (The book was covering recursion, which wasn't new to me. Never did read the book's solution.) using it's ideas on not covering every possible solution. I picked the 10 unique starting positions on the board, used the book's "best" pick for the next move and it found a first pick solution, 9 out of 10 times. Since 1 of the 9 solutions I found was 1 knight's move away from the starting point I learned, EVERY position had a solution. So, I went to JavaScript and wrote up the game showing the stats I'd used to pick my "best" pick. I quickly found out that it was really easy to win starting from the position that had failed, even when I started the game by intentionally ignoring the "best" pick. Do I think this game could be marketed? No. Do I find it interesting? Yes. Do I play it often? No. Do I still occationally pull this game up and play it? Yes. Why? I don't know, being reminded of it, maybe?