Anyone else here feel like devs just don't cater to you?

V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
This is something that's been on my mind a while now and it comes up every single time we have GOTY voting or a "Greatest Games of All Time" thread or something similar. Namely, how little in common my tastes in games are to the majority of posters here on GAF and just how few of the "big" games that get announced I actually get excited over.

Partly, I'd wager it'd be because I find so many of the most popular game mechanics utterly unappealing. For instance, I find shooting in 3D space to be tedious and disorientating (unless I'm on rails, ironically), I find the repetitiveness of looping around a track racing games to grate on the soul, don't see the draw of open world sandboxes, don't have the reflexes for fighting games and dislike competitive multiplayer in most of its forms. Even in Metroid Prime and Bioshock, both games I enjoyed, I loved them right up until the moment I had to actually fight something.

That leaves what, for me, exactly, in the world of gaming?

RPGs are good, but some of the best ones are on consoles, so it's hard to find the time to play them (all praise the DS). Puzzle games are nice, but they tend not to engage me for long periods. Same with SHMUPs. Platformers are yummy but there are so few of them being released. Ditto for adventure games. Music games can be all sorts of awesome, but they seem to have passed their heyday. I really enjoy Zelda-likes, but again, they're thin on the ground and suffer from the console RPG problem - they require a lot of time to sit down and play, so to really get my money's worth, they need to be handheld or be something truly extraordinary.

Prior to the start of this gen, I hadn't owned a video game system since the SNES. Then the DS came out and it was so refreshingly different that seemingly overnight, I'd built up an insane backlog of quality games. Then the heady early days of the Wii came along and all the promise that its new control scheme held and the future seemed bright for me and my "kind". Now, on the back-end of the generation, the era of experimentation and weird new concepts has died down, meaning that while the DS is still king, it's merely a shadow of its former self. Gone are the days that spawned Ouendan and Brain Training. Though the system is still great for the kinds of releases I like, the embarrassment of riches of earlier years has given way to a form of equilibrium.

The Wii, unfortunately, hasn't fared as well. It seems that it wasn't experimented with enough at the beginning and now devs are locked into a pattern with it. You could blame this on the lack of third party support, but even Nintendo hasn't come up with an Ouendan or Kirby's Canvas Curse to Wii Sport's Nintendogs. Don't get me wrong, it's a great system, but I can't help but feel it could have been so much more. Untapped potential is the system's tragedy and it has been ignored in favour of known, established quantities by developers. Also, the lack of a wiimote enabled Pokemon Snap is a damn crime.

Perhaps I've always been a borderline non-gamer, but I can't help but feel that my needs are being met by the majority of developers. I feel that the majority of what makes GAF run isn't relevant to me. Perhaps it's too much to ask. Maybe my needs are too specific.

Anyone else on GAF feel this way? Will it just get worse as time goes on? Will gaming just be something I briefly flirted with in my 20s and abandoned because nobody was catering to me? Let me know I'm not alone, GAF.
 
SEGA stopped making consoles so their whole philosophy died thus there hasn't been a console that has appealed to me in years. I hate how systems can either be "lite for women and kids" or "hardcore for bros". SEGA got them both.

The Nintendo DS was so close to fulfilled but the system didn't have enough AAA top tier third party games.
 
The industry focuses on what sells. I know that's a super obvious statement--but shooters, both third person and first person and open world games seem to be the big flavor of the moment, and where the big budgets are going to.

I'm grateful the Wii has seen a small revival in 2d platormers, a genre that seemed destined to portables and downloable offerings sadly.
 
I feel like my favourite game-series cater specifically for me :lol Grand Theft Auto, one of my all-time favourite game series, it always hit the right 'note' for my playstyle. When I was young, it had the crazy over the top thing going and as I got older and was looking for something more mature and authentic, GTA IV comes along and it feels tailor made for me.
 
FootNinja said:
And then I play Demons Souls and Pokemon.
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He says he doesn't have the time to sit down for a Console RPG, then you imply he should play Demons Souls?

The last year or two has had very few games come out that cater to my tastes, but I just look around and find something to dig into. No problem with playing some older games.
 
Right now I wish devs would cater to a class of gamers that don't want any handholding. You get to a certain point as a gamer and the couple of hours of tutorial really get to you.

Where's my old skool Zelda, where you start off like Zelda I with a sword and "fuck you" for directions?

Where's my 2d exploration, no narrative, alien and difficult Metroid Dread game?

Will The Last Guardian be the only game this generation that spares you from overly tedious plot explanation?
 
The biggest gaps this generation are turn based Japanese rpgs, and mascot platformer/adventures in HD. This generation could use a lot more Ratchet and Clank Future, and less Modern Warfare.
 
As a developer, I frequently feel like the audience is not catering to me. Especially the NeoGAF audience. Hope it makes you feel better.
 
I think the current direction of the gaming industry is total garbage, so I guess that means I agree.
 
OP, how picky are you when it comes to the genre and types of games? I know someone who is similar to you. Are you the type who needs a game to be absolutely perfect and has to have everything catered exactly to your needs? If so, then you might need to find another hobby.
 
Guevara said:
Right now I wish devs would cater to a class of gamers that don't want any handholding. You get to a certain point as a gamer and the couple of hours of tutorial really get to you.

Where's my old skool Zelda, where you start off like Zelda I with a sword and "fuck you" for directions?
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3D dot game heroes.
 
Drkirby said:
He says he doesn't have the time to sit down for a Console RPG, then you imply he should play Demons Souls?.
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The thread says you, so I figure he was implying that he might agree until he plays those games himself. Maybe it is the same for the OP.
 
Putting up the mental wall "shooting in 3D space does not work and isn't fun" just seems so arbitrary to me. There are so many shades of grey and variables in that space, forcing colour-blindness on yourself seems counter-productive. I usually consume things with a mentality that usually resembles "ok, here's what they were trying to do, here's why they made this level in this way, here's why all these people think this is fun, let's see how I react to it" and then work my way up from there (eg "oh, I get it. this isn't my favourite thing in the world, but I get it and am now having fun") if its a genre I'm unfamiliar with. Maybe I'm just easy to please. I can usually have fun with just about any genre of game that is generally well-recieved within the community, with some David Cage-shaped exceptions.
 
I believe industry(mostly) still targeting for typical audience and not aging with me. I am 30 this year and i start to lose interest to a game after an hour even if it is the mega super uber AAA title had been in development for zillion years.

I have plenty of time for gaming lately cuz i freelance and sit at home whole day and sometimes i got nothing to do for 3-4 days. But todays games are so SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

I tried to play AS2...It takes like 1-2 hours to pass the stupid introduction scenes and then game starts to get to a normal place but its fucking slow for me. Why it cant start right in the middle of something. I am sick of games where it teaches you how to play for hours and hours even tho it plays same as another game released few months ago....
 
I know what you mean. Games are basically made now to sell to as wide an audience as possible. Its actually quite annoying compared to the film or music industry, because there is no middle ground of profitability. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to submit a left wing plot against activision, but the fact that COD is the success it is may be a detriment to the industry. Not in terms of profit, but thinking. I say, Activision, sell as many copies as you can. But the problem is that every game is now meant to sell like COD. In film, you can have small films which have low budgets, and sell less tickets, but still are successes. In music, not every band is as big as (god, who is big, I feel so old) Lady Gaga, lets say, but they still get airplay and do alright. Its not bad to have a blockbuster, blockbusters usually do well because they ARE good. At some point, you have to say, x millions can't be wrong completely. Even Avatar, whose plot is lackluster, had very good effects, which may be worth seeing, just for the spectacle. But every game doesn't need to be COD, nor should they be. Gaming needs to find a balance, where they can make games which sell 100,000 copies, and that's ok. Otherwise, they may have so few games made, that the hardcore audiences spend a lot less money, which would be a detriment from which they may struggle to recover. Its nice to sell 50 million wii fits to everyone, but the casual audience is not easy to predict. Who says they will buy the next wii gizmo? If you put out games for the core, they almost certainly will snatch it up.
 
I`m at the other end of the spectrum I`m a white male in my late twenties, with a large amount of disposable income and love dudebro games. This is the golden age for me one that I hope never ends :)
 
Yes, I feel that the majority of western games never appeal to me. The Japanese games tend to appeal to me much more.

But yeah I see what you mean. I haven't played a good racing game in years, and on a whim just bought NFS Hot Pursuit on the PS3 today.

I'm really bored of games like God of War and Castlevania, which is why I didn't even bother purchasing them after playing the demos. The graphics all look the same, it's almost like the games are copy & pasted to each other with just different characters (all usually close to middle age or scruffy)

I also wish games saved more often.

I just like the artsy looking games and cute & cartoony games like Mario Galaxy. They just appeal to me more for some reason. I also enjoy rail shooters but there aren't any ones that are long enough (besides the RE rail shooters)
 
I hate games that take themselves overly serious and forget they're just video games.

This is why I exist with a Wii, DS and a PC just fine playing Nintendo first party, Popcap games, Valve FPSs, and Bethesda RPGs. They make me happy, are fun to play, and don't try to be super epic gazillion hour games with 90% QTEs and cutscenes. All of those games also always make me feel like I'm in control of where my character goes, and how I play the game. Not like on-rails shooters masked as being open and free.

I just don't find modern style "hardcore" games fun, sorry :(
 
It does seem like your tastes are extremely specific. I don't feel like developers ignore my tastes/needs but more like I don't fit with the mass appeal. I don't enjoy a lot of popular titles and have had a lot more fun with games like Timeshift or Enslaved compared to Gears of War or many popular WRPGs. I don't think I have to worry about developers leaving me out in the cold - as much as we can say gaming is becoming distinctly hardcore vs casual there's actually plenty for everyone when you look around.

Flying_Phoenix said:
SEGA stopped making consoles so their whole philosophy died thus there hasn't been a console that has appealed to me in years. I hate how systems can either be "lite for women and kids" or "hardcore for bros". SEGA got them both.

The Nintendo DS was so close to fulfilled but the system didn't have enough AAA top tier third party games.
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I feel like Sony does a good job of covering all of their bases. There isn't as much personality or charm but I find solace on PS3.
 
I'd have to say it sounds like you've defined yourself into a corner. It seems like you turn up your nose at whole swathes of games because of a simple thing. Not all open world games are the same. Not all driving games are the same. Not all shooting games are the same.

For example, I would argue that if you love platformers so much, there will be at least a few arcade racers that you enjoy. They are such similar genres, and to paint them all with the same brush of "looping around a track" is ridiculous and a little bit ignorant. You should give Trackmania DS a shot to see what I mean.


Edit: Leave it to Rez to beat me and say it better than I did.

Rez said:
Putting up the mental wall "shooting in 3D space does not work and isn't fun" just seems so arbitrary to me. There are so many shades of grey and variables in that space, forcing colour-blindness on yourself seems counter-productive. I usually consume things with a mentality that usually resembles "ok, here's what they were trying to do, here's why they made this level in this way, here's why all these people think this is fun, let's see how I react to it" and then work my way up from there (eg "oh, I get it. this isn't my favourite thing in the world, but I get it and am now having fun") if its a genre I'm unfamiliar with. Maybe I'm just easy to please. I can usually have fun with just about any genre of game that is generally well-recieved within the community, with some David Cage-shaped exceptions.
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No offense intended to the OP, but I'm glad I'm not you or have the same problem. I try to keep an open mind with all games, and if they capture my imagination I go along for the ride. Sucks that your tastes preclude you from playing so many (imo) great games.
 
MidnightScott said:
I also wish games saved more often.
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OH GOD THIS. I feel like the ONLY reason I've been able to get through the console Zeldas is because they allow you to save anywhere. The only exception being Majora's Mask and even then, it wasn't too much of a hassle because you can quicksave at warp points.

Contrast that with something like FFX where you can go for hours without even seeing a save point, so you're forced to sit down and play for hours at a time. I don't know about you, but monopolising the TV and partaking in a solitary activity when you live with a non-gamer just isn't on the cards. I love RPGs, but this sort of thing has got to stop.
 
jonnybryce said:
I feel like Sony does a good job of covering all of their bases. There isn't as much personality or charm but I find solace on PS3.
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No. Sony and 90's Sega are two very different companies.

I agree that Sony isn't as heavily skewed as say Microsoft, but it's no Sega.

To be fair though Sega did have a heavy concentration on the "teen" market.
 
Nope. I'm in my late twenties, own all the current gen consoles and both handhelds and could not possibly have enough time to play everything I have or enough money to buy everything I want.

Most of my gaming is on psp and it's been an amazing year for this little handheld and will only be better with Tactics Ogre in a few months

viciouskillersquirrel said:
OH GOD THIS. I feel like the ONLY reason I've been able to get through the console Zeldas is because they allow you to save anywhere. The only exception being Majora's Mask and even then, it wasn't too much of a hassle because you can quicksave at warp points.

Contrast that with something like FFX where you can go for hours without even seeing a save point, so you're forced to sit down and play for hours at a time. I don't know about you, but monopolising the TV and partaking in a solitary activity when you live with a non-gamer just isn't on the cards. I love RPGs, but this sort of thing has got to stop.
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Most rpgs I've played in the past few years don't have this problem. FF13 has tons of saves, as did FF12 (just to compare games within the series).
 
viciouskillersquirrel said:
This is something that's been on my mind a while now and it comes up every single time we have GOTY voting or a "Greatest Games of All Time" thread or something similar. Namely, how little in common my tastes in games are to the majority of posters here on GAF and just how few of the "big" games that get announced I actually get excited over.

Partly, I'd wager it'd be because I find so many of the most popular game mechanics utterly unappealing. For instance, I find shooting in 3D space to be tedious and disorientating (unless I'm on rails, ironically), I find the repetitiveness of looping around a track racing games to grate on the soul, don't see the draw of open world sandboxes, don't have the reflexes for fighting games and dislike competitive multiplayer in most of its forms. Even in Metroid Prime and Bioshock, both games I enjoyed, I loved them right up until the moment I had to actually fight something.

That leaves what, for me, exactly, in the world of gaming?

RPGs are good, but some of the best ones are on consoles, so it's hard to find the time to play them (all praise the DS). Puzzle games are nice, but they tend not to engage me for long periods. Same with SHMUPs. Platformers are yummy but there are so few of them being released. Ditto for adventure games. Music games can be all sorts of awesome, but they seem to have passed their heyday. I really enjoy Zelda-likes, but again, they're thin on the ground and suffer from the console RPG problem - they require a lot of time to sit down and play, so to really get my money's worth, they need to be handheld or be something truly extraordinary.

Prior to the start of this gen, I hadn't owned a video game system since the SNES. Then the DS came out and it was so refreshingly different that seemingly overnight, I'd built up an insane backlog of quality games. Then the heady early days of the Wii came along and all the promise that its new control scheme held and the future seemed bright for me and my "kind". Now, on the back-end of the generation, the era of experimentation and weird new concepts has died down, meaning that while the DS is still king, it's merely a shadow of its former self. Gone are the days that spawned Ouendan and Brain Training. Though the system is still great for the kinds of releases I like, the embarrassment of riches of earlier years has given way to a form of equilibrium.

The Wii, unfortunately, hasn't fared as well. It seems that it wasn't experimented with enough at the beginning and now devs are locked into a pattern with it. You could blame this on the lack of third party support, but even Nintendo hasn't come up with an Ouendan or Kirby's Canvas Curse to Wii Sport's Nintendogs. Don't get me wrong, it's a great system, but I can't help but feel it could have been so much more. Untapped potential is the system's tragedy and it has been ignored in favour of known, established quantities by developers. Also, the lack of a wiimote enabled Pokemon Snap is a damn crime.

Perhaps I've always been a borderline non-gamer, but I can't help but feel that my needs are being met by the majority of developers. I feel that the majority of what makes GAF run isn't relevant to me. Perhaps it's too much to ask. Maybe my needs are too specific.

Anyone else on GAF feel this way? Will it just get worse as time goes on? Will gaming just be something I briefly flirted with in my 20s and abandoned because nobody was catering to me? Let me know I'm not alone, GAF.
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Dude. Your missing the point of games. They way you break it down to its most basic concepts takes away the fun, the enjoyment. The game is more than the sum of its parts. It's like breaking a conversation down to "speak" "listen" "respond".
 
Yeah, I don't see much of a future for me as a gamer. I mean, I have a multi-year backlog of games and I'm sure there'll always be something I want, but let's look at some of my favourite games of all time:

* Alpha Centauri
* Baldur's Gate 2
* Planescape: Torment
* Earthbound
* Final Fantasy Tactics
* Deus Ex
* Thief
* good space sims (TIE Fighter, Freespace 2)
* Star Control 2

Basically, the industry is now incapable of delivering anything that'll top any of these (with the possible exception of Deus Ex 3). Even if publishers and developers wanted to, I don't think they have the design talent any more. Like, look at Looking Glass, for example. They were a bunch of MIT grads. What do we get now? Lots of mediocre, unambitious people. And even the smart ones seem ignorant of stuff outside the world of nerd-dom, and ignorant of too many of the great games and gameplay models of the past.

Even genres that I like and are still being made (FPSes and JRPGs, to name two) seem generally dumber or shallower; in terms of gameplay for FPSes, and in terms of story for JRPGs.

There are bright spots, certainly. This year was amazing for platformers, for example. But most of the stuff the industry is good at nowadays is stuff I don't care much about.
 
I dont know what systems you have or not, so I will throw a few ideas out there of some of the more original games that seem to not fall into the categories of games you dislike. Hopefully I havent misread anything.

Portal is the first game I would suggest trying out. It has no shooting (of guns) and is essentially a giant 3D first person platforming game set within MC Escher's nightmres. I would say that this game is one of the more interesting and amusing games of the generation so far. If you have a PC or a 360, try it out (PS3 version runs poorly).

World of Goo on WiiWare is a great puzzle game which is essentially an engineering game where you build trusses and bridges out of gelatine. So inevitably everything goes wrong and you lose and retry. The tone and atmosphere is what makes this game though. It's almost like a Tim Burton aesthetic. I really enjoyed it.

Pixeljunk Monsters is another, on PS3. It is a desktop tower defence style game. You have a turtle dude who has to protect his home + offspring from advancing monsters. You build arrow firing towers, cannons etc in place of trees. It looks like it were set on a pacific island, its very colourful, very hard later on and has some of the most relaxing music too.

PacMan CE (or CE DX) is one of the most addictive retro remakes Ive played. It takes classic pacman, adds a coat of neon paint and turns it into a race against the clock for points (5 minute time limit in one of the modes), plus there are several variations to play around with. The point of the game is nothing more than high scores, but it is really really fun.

I dont think any of the games above cost more than maybe $10 or $15. And have given me more enjoyment this gen than any fps/3rd person action adventure blockbuster 'AAA' multi-million seller game has. Try them out if you havent already. :)
 
Long tutorials and turning every genre into a "sandbox" really drains any enjoyment I could possibly have from a lot of games coming out these days.

LBP can do a billion and one things, but the "physics" are uncomfortable to me. I love me some "linear" Super Mario Galaxy 2.

RPGs took a really big hit this gen, too. Most DS RPGs worth playing didn't make it stateside, and those that did.. are usually shallow imitations of games of yesteryear.

Not to say I'm not part of the problem. I own every Mario Party game that Nintendo put out. I would continue to buy every game they put out. But instead of the online Mario Party 9 I was salivating for, I waited, and waited, and Nintendo finally caved and gave me Wii Party instead. Mario Party was free money. What is Nintendo smoking? I just don't even know, anymore.
 
Chairman Yang said:
Yeah, I don't see much of a future for me as a gamer. I mean, I have a multi-year backlog of games and I'm sure there'll always be something I want, but let's look at some of my favourite games of all time:

* Alpha Centauri
* Baldur's Gate 2
* Planescape: Torment
* Earthbound
* Final Fantasy Tactics
* Deus Ex
* Thief
* good space sims (TIE Fighter, Freespace 2)
* Star Control 2

Basically, the industry is now incapable of delivering anything that'll top any of these (with the possible exception of Deus Ex 3). Even if publishers and developers wanted to, I don't think they have the design talent any more. Like, look at Looking Glass, for example. They were a bunch of MIT grads. What do we get now? Lots of mediocre, unambitious people. And even the smart ones seem ignorant of stuff outside the world of nerd-dom, and ignorant of too many of the great games and gameplay models of the past.

Even genres that I like and are still being made (FPSes and JRPGs, to name two) seem generally dumber or shallower; in terms of gameplay for FPSes, and in terms of story for JRPGs.
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Alpha Centauri was lame in that it used the same unit images for different units. But I remember there was a ridiculous unit customization system. Thief was too steam punk, but the lighting, the sneaking was cool. Deus Ex was alright.
 
it isn't that they're not trying to appeal to me, it's that they're trying to appeal to everyone else aswell.

by and large, aaa games have to cast their net too wide to really to do attempt anything interesting. while this can have its vapid, guffawing moments of retard exhilaration (just cause 2 creeping up my steam playtime for instance), if you're getting your most memorable gaming moments from giganto first-party exclusives and multiplatform xmas-eaters, churned out by enough asset designers and animators to build a pyramid, chances are you are a very average person who will likely have a very easy life.

the rest of us will just have to throw our bony fists up in despondent outrage, before crawling back to our myopic eastern-european alcoves where game designers still aren't afraid of the word "specialist".
 
something is wrong with you.

I have pretty eclectic taste too and I'm able to find plenty of games that interest me.
Some recent ones I've enjoyed

Flower
Uncharted 2 (mainstream but really well done)
Motorstorm Pacific Rift (ditto)
Afterburner Climax
Folklore
Yakuza 3
Wipeout HD
Elder Scrolls 4
Vanquish
Normal Tanks
Heavy Rain
PSN Home


The selection is better than ever, IMO.
If you can't find something in todays lineup then yeah something is wrong with you.
 
Let's put it this way: I like exploration and slow paced fighting with the occasional exciting boss fight. I like 2D space. So, I like Metroidvania. I even like the average titles. I'll probably play them to the day I die, when we are at the 30th release. That's how much I love the whole concept (and every Metroid style game).

@OP: Actually, I feel your needs are too unspecific. You said all the stuff you dislike but what do you like? You seem lost in that regard. Aside from "new and frsh stuff that feels experimental". From what I gather, you like a little more slow paced stuff while most games are pretty fast. But you hate repetition aka no MMOs. Have you looked at smaller Console and PC games? Titles like Plants vs Zombies are loads of fun when you want a nice challange that goes at a slow pace. Or adventure games like Machinarium. Trine might be up you alley and it's beautiful.
"I wanna be the Guy"... wait, that game is your worst dream :-P

I feel that if you can formulate what you actually like in games, GAF can point you in the right, general direction.
 
I've had exactly one RPG this gen where the writing wasn't utterly tiresome, the plot was unpredictable, and the characters were interesting and went through growth. So yeah, I feel a bit ignored. There's still lots of fun stuff to play though.
 
1. If you haven't gone through Wikipedia (Japanese and English), GameFAQs, Hardcore Gaming 101, and the like, you cannot complain. My gaming tastes were completely restructured after this generation bored me in 2005 and 2006 by doing the same. Why? Because this:

Rez said:
Putting up the mental wall "shooting in 3D space does not work and isn't fun" just seems so arbitrary to me. There are so many shades of grey and variables in that space, forcing colour-blindness on yourself seems counter-productive. I usually consume things with a mentality that usually resembles "ok, here's what they were trying to do, here's why they made this level in this way, here's why all these people think this is fun, let's see how I react to it" and then work my way up from there (eg "oh, I get it. this isn't my favourite thing in the world, but I get it and am now having fun") if its a genre I'm unfamiliar with.
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quickly converts into genuine appreciation. I thought that I didn't like fighting games. Virtua Fighter converted me and Romance Of The Bakumatsu/The Last Blade utterly convinced me. I thought that I didn't like many action games. All of a sudden, Treasure and Strider (2, in fact!) got me on the road. Racing was boring until the Outrun series. Now, I play potentially irritating stuff like Enthusia. I went from snob to general fan, even though my tastes remain odd.

2. I still don't feel represented by, literally, anyone in video games, but I accept that I'm a person out of time on that count. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Orhan Pamuk, Les Murray, and Yuichi Seirai, but I don't think any authors or poets "represent me" in 2010. Movies? Nope. Popular music's the closest (in musical, not lyrical, terms), followed by art/classical music. You learn to deal with it by appreciating the present, building the future, or researching the past.
 
Chairman Yang said:
Yeah, I don't see much of a future for me as a gamer. I mean, I have a multi-year backlog of games and I'm sure there'll always be something I want, but let's look at some of my favourite games of all time:

* Alpha Centauri
* Baldur's Gate 2
* Planescape: Torment
* Earthbound
* Final Fantasy Tactics
* Deus Ex
* Thief
* good space sims (TIE Fighter, Freespace 2)
* Star Control 2

Basically, the industry is now incapable of delivering anything that'll top any of these (with the possible exception of Deus Ex 3). Even if publishers and developers wanted to, I don't think they have the design talent any more. Like, look at Looking Glass, for example. They were a bunch of MIT grads. What do we get now? Lots of mediocre, unambitious people. And even the smart ones seem ignorant of stuff outside the world of nerd-dom, and ignorant of too many of the great games and gameplay models of the past.

Even genres that I like and are still being made (FPSes and JRPGs, to name two) seem generally dumber or shallower; in terms of gameplay for FPSes, and in terms of story for JRPGs.
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While I actually agree with you, I do note you list Final Fantasy Tactics, which is actually guilty of your charge - it was a massively dumbed down version of Tactics Ogre. (Which ironically is getting a remake, or enhanced port anyway, which is a bit dumbed down over the original, but still superior to FFT in every way imaginable).

Still, I've really mourned the loss of turn based strategy games. The beer & pretzel sort. You still get a few, but it's pretty much a dead genre on the PC as even the ones that do come out today aren't too my taste (too East European) or rehashes of the same damn game...
 
ghst said:
it isn't that they're not trying to appeal to me, it's that they're trying to appeal to everyone else aswell.

by and large, aaa games have to cast their net too wide to really to do attempt anything interesting. while this can have its vapid, guffawing moments of retard exhilaration (just cause 2 creeping up my steam playtime for instance), if you're getting your most memorable gaming moments from giganto first-party exclusives and multiplatform xmas-eaters, churned out by enough asset designers and animators to build a pyramid, chances are you are a very average person who will likely have a very easy life.

the rest of us will just have to throw our bony fists up in despondent outrage, before crawling back to our myopic eastern-european alcoves where game designers still aren't afraid of the word "specialist".
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I'm thinking all his salvation could be found on the PC.
 
OP, what systems do you have? On one hand you mention playing Bioshock, but then the only systems you specifically 'assess' are the DS and Wii and the only other games you mention by name are all by Nintendo. You go on about how you love handhelds and like playing RPGs on them, but have nothing to say about PSP, which has a superb library and has been killing it as far as RPGs in particular are concerned?

I may be off-base, but the impression I get is that you're not giving other companies and consoles much of a fair shake, you're writing them off as "not for me" without actually wriggling your toes in them.
 
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