Was this generation a let down?

the only thing i found disappointing this gen is the huge surge of FPS games. It's not that I have an issue with the genre in general, but it's just that almost every second game that comes out seems to be an FPS with 3 hour campaign which makes the whole game not really worth it (i'm not much of a multiplayer fan)

Actually that's the second thing that disappointed me this gen, the length of games shrunk considerably.
 
Kitschkraft said:
I felt this way as well. It seems like they should be damn near photo-realistic by now, with so little going on, on screen. Obviously, this would create it's own problems (Characters floating up in the air for 3 seconds looks silly enough, the more realistic the games look, it will probably get worse).

Imagine Naughty Dog making a fighting game...would look incredible.
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It already does.

wotw5.jpg
 
I'be been very disappointed by a few things, but in order to not be completely pessimistic, I'm going to mention as many good trends as bad.

Bad things
1. Console hardware reliability - $1000 $999 AUD PS3 lasted 12 months. $649 AUD 360 lasted about the same amount of time. Both unacceptable. Meanwhile Wii hasn't skipped a beat.
2. Publisher hostility towards/contempt of customers . Online passes (Batman, all EA games). Ridiculous DLC both retailer exclusive for promotions, and overpriced tat (Batman, Bethesda, EA, Namco, Activision, Capcom). The war against second hand sales and consumer choice.
3. Nepotism in the gaming press and the complete departure from even attempting to look like there is any objective reporting. See also: all reporting on the Wii, the core/casual false dichotomy, ignoring critical hardware and software failures (Bethesda and Microsoft in particular).
4. Releasing fundamentally broken games and never fixing them. See also: everything by Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian and the complete acceptance of this standard by the gaming community at large and the gaming press.
5. The hype cycle, especially when pertaining to the assertion that all Western games are undergoing a renaissance above all others. Witness to this is the complete dearth of criticism of the lack of creative qualities about such games as Halo 3, Red Dead Redemption, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, GTA 4, Fallout, Call of Duty, Gears of War etc. So much hype, so little game.

Good things
1. Incredibly creative and engaging gameplay from a handful of studios. Some only once-off, others many times. Examples include Valve for Portals and Orange Box, Nintendo for SMG and Skyward Sword, 2D Boy and World of Goo, Namco's Pac Man CE reinvention.
2. Similarly, the emergence of addictive non-retail games that have more replayability than all the big name AAA releases combined. Stuff like Trials HD & MotoHeroz, Braid, Lost Winds, Wipeout HD.
3. Motion controls that improve upon dual analogue for certain examples. Things like disc golf, Skyward Sword sword fighting, Metroid Prime shooting.
4. Portable gaming. Despite the disparity in sales, PSP and DS both really showed that portable gaming can span a vast range of titles in terms of variety and genres. Games like Ouendan, Electroplankton, Lumines, Mario Kart DS, Patapon, Monster Hunter and the amazing array of classic RPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quests, Tactics Ogre, Ys saga etc.
5. Wireless controls and wifi support. Might be simple, might be taken for granted - but after moving house, there is nothing more relieving than not having to find an optimum path for trailing 20m of Cat-5 cable across 3 rooms and a hallway.

I appreciate most of my points here will probably put me in a minority on GAF, but then again I'm getting quite grumpy with a lot of gaming trends and am becoming much more picky with what I choose.

Bonus point: I love the resurgence of retro classics. Virtual Console is a great resource for 8 and 16 bit classics.
 
Average quality of games is way up... ridiculously so. But so are expectations.
If you guys had any perspective, you wouldn't be complaining.
Plus, my all-time favorite series is from this gen (Rock Band) and Trials Evolution will most likely be my GOTF. ("forever" being the approximately 32 years since I first picked up a controller) I loved Excitebike, but I'm not too nostalgic to recognize that Trials makes it look like a mummified turd.


RandomVince said:
2. Publisher hostility towards/contempt of customers . Online passes (Batman, all EA games). Ridiculous DLC both retailer exclusive for promotions, and overpriced tat (Batman, Bethesda, EA, Namco, Activision, Capcom). The war against second hand sales and consumer choice.
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.
LMFAO... In the 8-bit days, Nintendo tried to make game rentals illegal.
 
Well this gen I got Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Dead Rising, a REAL xcom game, A Deus Ex game that was actually good!, and the birth of Digital Games/Indie Games that will hopefully take over for the absolute death of the old risky niche retail games that just cant afford to be made in this HD future now.

However I also got Shadowruin, DLC out of the ass, More of a focus on multiplayer (that as a 30 year old, I look less and less forward to with online communities being largely being about telling you "how big of a homosexual, black, jew" you are.). It also was the death of survival horror imo, altho I did like the condemned, my favorite series Silent Hill just became sad, and resident evil....well that died for me after Remake. And lets also not forget there hasnt been a actually great wrestling game now for almost 11 years and the closest we've gotten is WWE All Stars, and Here comes the pain from last gen.

so I'd give it a yay, I'm more excited about next gen though, it'll force another shift in engines, hopefully UI's designed around at least 720 and mebbe 1080 (hurrah pc ports!), and a maturing digital indie platform that I swear to god if it ever gets around to a Fallout 1/2, Baldurs Gate esque level I'll never need mainstream gaming again.


Mushroomer25 said:
I'm sure it's been brought up at some point in the last 4 pages, but what generation HASN'T been a let down?
Promises for consoles, and their respective AAA titles will always be massive, and they will ALWAYS fail.
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I dunno the 32/64 bit gen was pretty damn amazing.


N64: Goldeneye, Mario 64, Zelda: OoT, Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros, AKI Wrestling Games,
PSX: Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, Tomb Raider, Rise of the JRPGs to america
Sat: Virtua Fighter 2, Capcom 2d Fighters, Nights

Hell if we include PC Games from that era: Starcraft, Diablo 1 & 2, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, Quake 1/2/3, Unreal Tournament, Half Life etc

From like 1996 - 2000 was just OBSCENE in its awesomeness to me, and will probably never be topped.
 
No. Games improved in a lot of ways. The attention to more detail (also in gameplay) and more immersion did make the games shorter, but i don't mind.

A lot of games also got amazing online. That also takes time.

I had a lot of fun this gen.
 
yes it was
-hated motion controls
-lack of 3D platformers
-splinter cell and MGS games sucked this gen
-too much focus on competitive multiplayer
-forced co-op
 
In terms of games, not really. But I think a lot of things have soured this gen, e.g. motion controls, poor console reliability, on disc dlc, higher dev costs killing companies etc.
 
Mr_Appleby said:
simply not true. the return of the "indie developer" (or what we used to call Shareware) has bought with it both a return to older genres and the birth of several new ones.
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Like what exactly? Sounds like building a monument to the past made out of shit. And I don't agree that genres died out completely to the point where only indie devs are making the games and I certainly don't agree with "the birth of new ones".


I honestly find the whole "is this generation good" stuff a bit pedantic. People come to threads like these to rant and grip about their day. Comparing generations always seemed odd to me, and usually comes down to an argument of quantity vs quality, where the great devs are changing shape or disappearing. Some genres have probably seen their best days behind them, you can usually find a thread from the past continuing on.

This generation we got plenty of classics which are among the best in their genres (or even just the extremely interesting, despite flawed). Off the top my head you got stuff like Vanquish, Bayonetta, Anno 2070, Europa Universalis III, Hearts of Iron III, Hard Corps: Uprising, Catherine, SpaceChem, Serious Sam 3, Demon's/Dark Souls, The Witcher 2, STALKER, Alpha Protocol, Frozen Synapse, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Mount and Blade, ArmA II, Total War: Shogun II, Arcana Heart 3, plenty of Cave shooters, doujin fighters, Child of Eden, Devil May Cry 4, Ninja Gaiden II - You get the point. (note: I happened to not name any portable games, and despite that named a bunch of great Japanese games)

I would also say the quality of trashy games(e.g. Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, western 3D action) have gone up and they've become more spectacular than ever. Also have to consider HD ports and new strides in emulation. Hell, I wouldn't even say it has been all bad for JRPGs either(FFXIII is the best Final Fantasy, The Last Remnant is one of the best JRPGs), but I'm not one to agree with that rabble.
 
I thought this generation started amazingly, up untill about 2008. Seems by then most devs figured what worked and what didn't and just stuck with the status quo.
 
In some ways this generation is definitely disappointing.

-sudden lack of split screen in most racing games this gen? It's seriously huge wtf for me. Nowadays I find it a hassle to find a racing game with splitscreen. In the previous gens if there was a racing game that I wanted, I didn't have to look it up on the internet and double check just to make sure if there's offline multiplayer. I know there's a couple that have it which makes me glad but some of those I don't even like :/

-The amount of handholding is a bit ridiculous and annoying nowadays. Now I don't recall previous gens being as bad this and I still do play games from previous gens so I know it can't be nostalgic glasses. Some of these games should ask you as soon as you start if you'd like to go through tutorial or not. I feel like I'm being treated as an idiot if I play an adventure game and there's a button on the floor and a box right next to it then the game has to tell me to push the box on it as if I couldn't figure that out the moment I walked into the room.

-JRPG wise, I'd definitely say is disappointing even though I own all systems this gen(including DS and PSP....). I mean there's definitely a couple of JRPG this gen I might consider being in my top 10 of all time without a doubt, but at the same time the amount of quality JRPGs released this gen is at a much slower pace than last gen. So I can see where most people are coming from when they are disappointed by JRPGs.

These three are really the big ones for me otherwise I really enjoy this gen. This gen is basically the gen where I decided to become more open to other genres so I'm thankful for that. In the past I pretty much just played rpgs, fighters, platformers, tetris, and occasional shooting game every now and then. Now I'm playing pretty much every genre much more than last gen. Oh and this gen made me explore some old PC games some which I was disappointed a lot by and some I really enjoyed.

But yeah, I'd say coming into this gen it was a let down for me for like the first 2-3 years maybe. Like almost every game I played felt disappointing(kind of funny too because I didn't use internet much back then so I definitely didn't get sucked into the hype) but eventually more games started to come out on main consoles that I ended up enjoying a lot.

Edit: This gen also introduced me to the Sins and Punishment games so I definitely love it for that.
 
This was the generation when Steam really took off, so no, for me it hasn't been a letdown.

PC hardware lasts more than ever before, I'm still rocking a ATI4870 in my old PC and this thing plays Deus Ex and other new titles without a hitch (sure, not on the best settings, but I have a dedicated gaming PC in my apartment)

Indie games are easier to find, more varied, cheaper than ever. I can get 3 bundles with 15 games for 3$ if I'd be cheapskate.... That insane. And indie production value has gone through the roof.

Valve polish has made Portal what it is today and made me realize how important storytelling and setting are in games.

F2P has come a long way. Finally there are games who do it right. Tribes Ascend, Stronghold Kingdoms and Settlers are all really fun games, imo.


The most disappointing things this generation are the Wii, because I never once played a game that I felt would have played better without motion controls (not counting games where you need the pointer of course)
DLC and Pre-order boni are the worst shit ever. No Im not going to give you my money without having read any review just because I get some ultra-skin, some badass weapon or anything in that regard. Ir's a horrible practice and should die out as soon as possible.
DLC is only done right if it's free. If you add so much content post release, then call it an (standalone-?)expansion pack like we did before. Especially new maps being DLC is just mind boggling to me. Developers should be encouraged to keep their player base satisfied and not splitting up the community... Only Valve and CDPR get this. Add value for everyone. It keeps your game alive.
 
A gen that made me play, like and appreciate more western developed games. In previous gens my home consoles had atleast 90% of their library from a japanese developer. You could say it's because of the lack of quality japanese games this gen. Atleast their handheld output kept me kinda satisfied.

It's also a gen which made huge steps into online on consoles and handhelds. And of course, the big rise of digital distribution. GOG and Steam are a blessing. I've got to play so many gems and oldies I missed out on, and discovered lots of new genres that I would otherwise not play. I gained alot of respect for indie and east eu developers.

Finally in this gen I could properly call myself a PC gamer while not just exclusively playing mmos, fps and the occasional big release as I did before.
 
RandomVince said:
3. Nepotism in the gaming press and the complete departure from even attempting to look like there is any objective reporting. See also: all reporting on the Wii, the core/casual false dichotomy, ignoring critical hardware and software failures (Bethesda and Microsoft in particular).
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Grrr... I'm at the point where if G4 or certain sites or certain magazines fail and go bye-bye, I'm going to have to restrain my expressions of glee around here.
 
it's been a pretty good generation as far as getting good games. it's been a pretty shitty generations behind the scenes with studios struggling or closing and the huge price increase of everything.
 
If you are a fan of jrpgs this generation was definitely a let down. All you have to do is go on wikipedia and compare the number (and quality) of games released by the big JRPG publishers to see the dramatic difference between the SNES/PS1/PS2 eras and the current PS3/360 era if you don't grasp the difference, because it's monumental.

Yes, there's been a shift towards handhelds in recent years, but even the best handheld games do not compare in length and scope to most traditional console games.

The current landscape really depresses me. Kids today will grow up with memories of CoD instead of great stories like what's found in FF6/CT/CC/Xenogears/FF9/etc. There's definitely something being lost here.
 
I think this generation was actually pretty good. DD allowed indie games to finally get a bit of attention, Steam is awesome, the DS is awesome, many good games and so on. Of course, there have been bad things, but I can live with that.
 
In terms of the depth and breadth of retail releases this generation, a definite let-down. But XBLA and PSN brought something so incredible, that this generation was actually quite the opposite.
 
Finaika said:
Worst gen ever.

- Death of JRPGs.
- Rise of fps.
- Death of Japanese.
- Death of console gaming.
- DLC shenanigans.

Etc.
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Pretty much.

- Motion controls.
- Gritty FPS games dominating the market trying to jump on the Call of Duty bandwagon.
- Paying for online services becoming perfectly acceptable.
- Awful console reliability and customers simply bending over and accepting it.
- DLC, online passes, pre-order bonuses etc.
- Japanese games going the way of the dodo.
- Games being released completely broken with the attitude of "we'll probably patch it later, maybe"
- Region locked handhelds.
- Huge numbers of talented studios closed due to unrealistic publisher expectations.
- Anything that isn't a 3D game with a massive marketing budget being judged as unworthy to receive a retail release.
- Awful PC DRM policies from certain companies.
 
Am I alone in these feelings? Am I growing out of gaming? I am starting to feel like I am playing the same games with new maps. Looking at you Call of Duty. >.> Where's the innovations/new feeling? I notice that lately I'd rather play PS2/Sega Saturn games then PS3 titles. Games like Guardian Heroes, Odin Sphere, Shining Force 3, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Dragon Quest 8 (with the highly improved emulated graphics) are holding my interest to the point where I'm putting the next FF game in my backlog.
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So, to address this point directly, I feel this generation is only a decline if you focus on specific areas of interest.

Like, Japanese developed console games have certainly declined in volume, and have generally declined in average quality. There are some fantastsic stand outs, but they're not especially common.

I would also personally complain about the volume of high quality RTS games we're getting, the nigh complete death of the FPS-RTS genre, the general lack of turn based strategy titles, and the general lack of games that embody what we now refer to as "1999 mode".

However, I would be hard pressed to look at gaming as a whole and actually call this generation a decline. There have been quite a few new and improved genres, indie games are taking off to fill in niche interests and forward the creation of new forms of gameplay, and as the most popular genres start crowding out competitors, we're seeing more high budget games trying to fill in the genres that were left behind.

As a Japanese specific example, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep vastly improves the gameplay found in the Kingdom Hearts series without losing track of what the series is about. That's a great example of game improvement found in a non-traditional location. However, since the game is on PSP, the vast majority of people who bought Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 were never willing to give it a chance.

I feel if I were to limit myself solely to buying retail games on consoles, I would be pretty disappointed, but if you're willing to look elsewhere I think there's a lot to be found.
 
Overall this generation has been disappointing for consoles. But I got my PSP a few years ago and it's pretty quickly become the best system this generation* for me (even though I still wish it was a console and not a portable). I really wish I'd gotten one sooner instead of writing it off.

*PC excluded since it doesn't really tie in with console generations.

And people keep mentioning DLC, but I don't think it's inherently a bad thing. Nickle and diming consumers for content that is on the disc or should have been in the original game is pretty terrible.
 
Best generation hands down. Unless Jrpgs are your thing. Otherwise it doesn't even deserves a debate. Who ever claims otherwise is a nostalgia ill fanboy
 
No fucking way.

The first generation where I truly got into gaming.

Many amazing hours spent on many amazing games that I'll never forget. Lots of great singleplayer and multiplayer moments.

Fuck nostalgia.
 
Always seems people just look at the negatives in threads like this. Hasn't been the best gen, no, but there's been so much good that has come from it. For me, anyway.
 
Globox_82 said:
Best generation hands down. Unless Jrpgs are your thing. Otherwise it doesn't even deserves a debate. Who ever claims otherwise is a nostalgia ill fanboy
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It's more like jrpgs and japanese games in general, as they tend to be more weird,creative and risky (although you will find these type of games are now made by small developers) . Like I said, it's completely unavoidable that the japanese gaming industry will shrink over time given the severe aging population problem in Japan even if you ignore the rising cost of making games and emphasis on multiplayer.
 
Globox_82 said:
Best generation hands down. Unless Jrpgs are your thing. Otherwise it doesn't even deserves a debate. Who ever claims otherwise is a nostalgia ill fanboy
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Every generation has great games though. Not every generation has stupid company policies.
 
I never really liked JRPGs so I haven't noticed the decrease in those. I think this generation has been great, thanks largely to XBLA. Some great new series were born, and online communities got a lot better.

There's been some negatives, sure, but they're easy to ignore and there seems to be something for everyone, almost.
 
Yeah definitely for me.For various reasons:
1)I saw some of my most loved franchises become ghosts of their former past:Final Fantasy,Silent Hill,Tomb Raider were the ones that disappointed me the most.Even Gran Turismo 5 (the initial version) was far from the series usual extremely high standards.

2)Some of my favourite franchises and developers were completely absent with Team Ico and Onimusha being the biggest disappointments.

3)The Fall of the Japanese home console development.

4)The rise of generic First Person Shooters and their oversaturation of the market.

5)The rise of DLC

6)Games being filled with bugs,framerate issues and other let downs,thanks to the "safe net" that is patching.

Thankfully there were also some good things about it like some new and very hopeful franchises/games:Demon's/Dark Souls,Mirror's Edge,Valkyria Chronicles and a couple of others.But still they are not enough to make it up for all the negatives.
 
I disagree pretty severely with those bulletpoints in the OP. Graphics increased in fidelity as much this generation as they did last generation, both in stills and in motion--compare the bottom of the barrel (let's say an unscaled PS2 movie game from 2005) to the top notch stuff, and then compare a 2000 PS2 game to God of War or whatever else you choose, and you'll see a pretty comparable increasing in quality.

Game length hasn't decreased since last generation, at least not that I've noticed. There are plenty of short games this generation. There were plenty of short games last generation. It's true that you can play something like Wanted: Weapons of Fate or Need for Speed: The Run, and those never happened last generation, but most of it has to do with genre shift; I don't think that Enslaved is noticably shorter than, I don't know, Rygar PS2 or whatever. GTA4's campaign takes about as long as the GTA3 games. Resident Evil 5 felt longer to me than RE4 and certainly longer than RE1. Meanwhile, Assassin's Creed II is both a) significantly longer than most action-adventure games, and b) wouldn't have been remotely possible last gen, technologically.

I have no idea what "the end of multiple genres" means. There are many new genres coming out, or stuff that used to be throwaway coming to prominence. We're seeing tons of mechanics that were limited to one genre cross over into others. And the genres that have "ended" really haven't ended.

There were gimmicky controllers last generation. Just because you didn't have the DK Bongos, the Taiko Drum Master Drums, The Rez Trance Controller, the EyeToy, the Buzz Buzzers, etc doesn't mean they weren't out there. Some of those were well suited for the games they used, others were poorly suited, others could not have been done without their peripherals. I lament how many stupid plastic instruments I have sitting in storage, but I'm sure glad they came a long, because I had a great time playing Rock Band.

I've finished, I don't know, maybe 200 games this generation across the 5 platforms. I think a lot of people ignore the depth of this generation and go for the easy "lol all the same" when it's their buying habits that make it bad. I think there are particular tastes who will like this generation more or less, but it's not generally due to some grand sweeping points like what is in the OP, it's just due to the fact that everyone has their own taste and it's really hard to quantify fully. I don't know if I like this generation the best. My instinct is to say that it's better than the PS2 generation and the PS1 generation, not quite as good as the SNES generation, and better than the NES generation. In terms of PC gaming, I don't feel like today's games are really the best ever made, but today's availability of games certainly is, and I'm not scared to play old games, so I'm not sure why I'd be complaining.

I'm reminded of this thread, "Is eccentricity in modern console gaming design dieing?", where I replied with well over 100 video games that would disprove the OP's argument:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=453326
 
For old school (I'm talking pre Nintendo) gamers it has absolutely not been a let down. Probably the best generation to date. I had the Sears version of the Atari and Pong when I was 3 when they first came out, so I have a different taste when it comes to games. I could understand though if video gamers who grew up loving Japanese titles have a completely different opinion. Japanese quality output has been a major disappointment compared to generations past. I never was a fan of their games, but I know a lot are. Western developers have really stepped up though. Games like Skyrim, Batman, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Gears of War, Halo: Reach, Assassins Creed, etc. define this generation for me. It was also the generation where overall, 3rd parties dominated 1st. Reminds me again of the Atari generation when Activision, etc. showed up towards the middle / end.

I will say that motion controls are the biggest letdown for me as a gamer this generation. However, I know that if everything moves in that direction that I can always jump right back on the PC and still get the experience I want from games.
 
I find it hard not to all out love this generation of gaming. I've played games in a way I never thought would with the Wii, that made me love video games like never before.

I've seen the resurgence of the underground and small developer. This generation has made it viable for studios of two people to do what they want creatively, and not have a publisher and USP's to handle.

I've seen my phone and tablet become a amazing place for creative touch based games that could not be done anywhere else.

I've played games with visuals I never believed would ever be real, and have enough games to entertain me for the next year without any problems.

I really love this generation, and if you want to, then yes you can say that season passes sucks and so on, but ignore if you don't like it. Sme people actually like to pay for more content for their games, and it's created a extended life for games which is magical in my eyes.
 
Best generaiton ever
-Online gaming made multiplayer games like Street Fighter have huge replay value for me
-Return of old school games, not only Rayman, NSMBWii and DK Country Returns, but because of PSN/XBLA we got some plenty of old school games

The only negatives I can think of from this gen are lack of JRPGs and the emergence of DLC.
 
Many will probably disagree with me here but I found last gen already disappointing as far as JRPGs go. There was only one great JRPG for me last gen and that was FFXII.
 
Not counting the Wii, this gen we get much waaay lesser flop or shovelware. Maybe with cost of development went way up, the studio are much more careful nowadays with their games. Last gen we see many 4 or 5 in reviews. Now we rarely see them.
 
This is easily my favorite generation. By FAR. I admit, it could be a lot better.. too many FPS, etc.. hope for better and new gameplay next gen..
 
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