[Karunamon]

This is going to make me sound like a ranting old curmudgeon, but I am having a hard time thinking of much that's an improvement in modern games except for art style/graphical limitations.

There's not much innovation anymore. Modern AAA titles are rife with handholding, patronizing, unimaginative and focus-grouped-to-hell stories (because those sell the best), DLC bait, and other such tiresome tropes.

I remember the 90's being a time when there was a lot of innovation and experimentation because nobody had it down pat what would sell the best. You'd never see a Mister Mosquito[1] or a Vangers[2] or an Urban Assault[3] nowadays. You might see an indie homage or two, but that's totally different from having a large studio throwing resources at the wall and seeing what sticks.

It's a time I dearly miss. You want to know what the most memorable game in recent memory was to me? Undertale[4] . A retro-styled indie RPG with graphics that could probably have been pulled off 20 years ago on the SNES, but in spite of that limitation, its story and sound design is absolutely top shelf and is, in my mind, one of those games that everyone should play at least once.

Commercialism ruins everything. Sure, the usual response to this is "but there are more games than ever, and it's easier for anyone to jump in", which is true, but it still feels like as if there's some magic that was long since lost, only occasionally recaptured by a clever group of developers.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mosquito

[2]: http://store.steampowered.com/app/264080/

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Assault

[4]: http://undertale.com/about.htm

[HCIdivision17]

Here's the really cool bit: today we can have both. I get to play Chrono Trigger - a masterpiece of artfully taking a system to its limits - and I can play The Witness - a gorgeous game that would lose so much if it couldn't be rendered so well.

To me, the only hope is to have lots and lots and lots of games made. Whenever we wax philosophical about old games, no one ever mentions the absolute piles of junk that were made. And then some were good, but not great (compare Super Monkey Ball to Marble Madness) I loved Marble Madness as a little kid but couldn't really wrap my head around the controls, whereas SMB was fun right off the bat (and I was still terrible at it - but for actual gameplay reasons now).

Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? The whole game felt rock solid and hand crafted. The 3D version added the ability to ride. But the world was so much less pretty. By contrast, look at the evolution of 3D in the Myst series; the game was supposed to be played like Uru, but computers could only handle HyperCard at the time. And contrast again with Into the Manhole, which really ought to be flash cards (or like flipping pages in a book - I remember the animations surprising and delighting me as a kid).

TL;DR: don't worry, it's not all bad. Some games need constraints, and people will build engines just for that. And some don't. But the important thing is: more games! (So more amazing ones trickle out).

[jjoonathan]

If I wanted to give "old school" games a shot, which few should I try? I haven't played many -- Sonic as a kid, I watched FF7 and Symphony of the Night on youtube -- so I don't really have a good basis to judge from, but nothing I've seen obviously meets (let alone exceeds) the bar set by my favorite modern games, e.g.

Soma: Story, Atmosphere, Thought Provoking

Deus Ex HR: Story, Atmosphere, Thought Provoking

BioShock 1: Story, Thought Provoking

DragonAge 1,3 / MassEffect 1,2,3: Story, Characters

Witcher 3: Story, Characters

Portal 2: Story, Mechanics

Undertale: Story, Mechanics

Alien Isolation: Story, Atmosphere, Mechanics

Mirror's Edge: Mechanics

Braid: Mechanics

Dark Souls / Bloodborne: Mechanics? (Haven't played)

Blood Dragon: 1980s simulator

I can identify the "commercialization" trend that you're talking about if and only if I focus my attention to a single franchise or a single aspect of a single franchise. Example: Mass Effect lost its hard SF edge in 2, 3 but the characters and mechanics got better. Starcraft lost its story and character edge in 2, but the mechanics got better. Bioshock lost its philosophical depth in Infinite but the story and characters got better.

Overlaid on top of this is a trend of increasing production value. Every franchise gives you some facet to point at and say "devs don't care about X, only production value, boo." This ignores the boring explanation that it's hard to churn out sequels that exceed the original in each and every possible point of comparison. Sequels need to be evaluated on their own merits and the industry needs to be judged as a whole. Otherwise everything is guaranteed to look like it's going downhill.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Let me know your favorites and I'll promise to give at least one a try.

[adwf]

Try playing Pillars of Eternity. It's a modern take on some of the old RPGs, by the guys who made the old classics.

Then there's Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2. Between those you have some of the best western RPGs ever made.

I find a lot of modern gaming to be incredibly shallow. Good for a single play session, but I put the game down and never return.

It's a bit of a shame really; these companies spend a fortune on fancy graphics and it just doesn't matter one bit to me. I'd rather play Dwarf Fortress in all its ASCII glory than play Destiny or The Division.

[jjoonathan]

Baldur's Gate 2 is on my list of things to try, I'll add Pillars of Eternity. That said, I've got reservations:

> I find a lot of modern gaming to be incredibly shallow.

Sturgeon's Law.

> Good for a single play session but I put the game down and never return.

You seem awfully quick to ascribe this to game quality even though there are significant confounding factors: growing up and having more demands on your time, the opportunity cost of abundant digitally downloadable games, youtube's ability to let you explore alternative choices without spending many hours on a replay, etc.

Just so we're on the same page, though, have you played modern BioWare or CD Projekt Red titles? It's not uncommon for them to gate entire alternative chunks of the game behind player choices. 10x so with low-production-value assets. If someone can look at Witcher 3 and call it shallow and not replayable then I'm pretty sure that we're never going to see eye to eye on the subject of game quality.

> It's a bit of a shame really; these companies spend a fortune on fancy graphics and it just doesn't matter one bit to me.

That is a shame. Are you sure you're actually trying to appreciate the artwork, though? Being dismissive of graphics is certainly the "hip" position in most nerd circles I've been in -- something I became keenly aware of back when I was doing CG in academia and considering it as a career path. I can still picture the sneers on my friends' faces and hear their dismissive snorts when I would start to go on about the artistic accomplishments in this or that title. It sucked, although it wasn't what drove me away (the shit wages and working conditions did that on their own). There's nothing wrong with appreciating other facets of a game more than graphics, but if someone gives graphics 0 or negative weight then I tend to suspect they're primarily trying to build "nerd cred" rather than trying to enjoy games. Like the kid after a movie who can talk about nothing but loopholes.

> I'd rather play Dwarf Fortress in all its ASCII glory than play Destiny or The Division.

Are these unbiased samples or are you comparing your favorite from one era to a mediocre pick from another? How many of the games on my favorite list (addendum: I forgot Spec Ops: The Line) have you played and found wanting compared to your favorites from previous eras? In particular, would you apply the word "shallow" to any (in the facets I marked as strengths)?

I'm genuinely curious as to whether our difference of opinion is due to different tastes or having played different titles.

[kbenson]

> That is a shame. Are you sure you're actually trying to appreciate the artwork, though?

Well, it depends on your point of view. Some people don't play games to appreciate the art at all. For some, the art is purely a functional part of the puzzle that allows for immersion (such as in my case).

For example, I recently started playing Dark Souls (which I'm head-over-heels for, by the way), and while the visuals could be described as "gorgeous", even at the low-res and detail I'm playing at to keep it responsive. But when I see amazing vistas in the game which include castles and bridges and turrets, those are places I actually get to visit in the game, and not through some weird warp, but by slowly working my way there, usually in a very circuitous route.

Are there games which advance the state-of-the-art with regard to graphics and art? Undoubtedly. Could I point them out to you? Not a chance. I don't have the prerequisite knowledge or experience to even notice in most cases, much less know where to begin in a task such as that. But I do appreciate that there is good art in the games, to the degree that it helps my immersion in the game. Sometimes that means lovingly crafted pixel art, sometimes it means detailed models and textures. It really depends on how it's integrated.

[adwf]

Well there are modern games that can consume whole days of my time. Crusader Kings 2, CS:GO, Cities: Skylines, Factorio, Pillars of Eternity etc. So I don't think it's about having less time to play.

My comment about the graphics was really about how a lot of these assets are only on screen for a few minutes. Some art team has spent days working on a boss character and I'm through it in 10 minutes or so. So much development time spent on such little effect, given that I really wouldn't have noticed the difference if they'd spent half the time. Whereas the games that really captivate me (like CK2 or Factorio) have relatively simple graphics, but really deep gameplay that keeps you coming back.

It's about priorities in development, I wish they spent more time on gameplay!

I've played almost all the games on your list, some of them are great (favs: Portal, Deus Ex, Dragon Age). I notice you didn't list Dragon Age 2, that game sums up a lot of my feelings about modern game development. I would also lump Mass Effect 2 in there for similar reasons. ME 1 was a great RPG with good gameplay mechanics, ME 2 was a beautiful looking cover based shooter (boring!) with mediocre RPG mechanics. That's what the game industry has come to, because it's far easier to churn out mediocre gameplay with fancy graphics than it is to actually make a truly great game.

But yes, some of them are still lacking. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are still fairly simplistic in gameplay compared to Baldurs Gate 2 (or the old Final Fantasies), and simplistic in story compared to Planescape. Bioshock was beautiful and had a great story, but System Shock 2 still had far better gameplay. Likewise with Deus Ex HR and Deus Ex 1.

Mirrors Edge is one of the few that truly stands out as having tried something exceptional with the gameplay, I've been dying for a sequel for a long time!

*

I guess you could sum up my point like so: Graphics are great when there's good gameplay underneath them. FF7 was both a beautiful game for its time and also had great gameplay. Likewise Chronotrigger, BG2, Deus Ex, Sim City, etc. But a game with great graphics and mediocre gameplay will forever be consigned to the dustbin of history.

[technomancy]

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI both have excellent stories and character development coupled with the best game soundtracks ever composed.

The Marathon trilogy starts off a bit slow, but it's got some great sci-fi writing (if you like sarcastic AIs that are constantly making opaque references to classical literature) and twitch action.

If twitch action is your thing though, it's hard to beat Descent and Descent II.

I'm currently playing through Planescape Torment, which is less like an RPG and more like an avant-garde fantasy novel.

[mikeash]

If you look beyond the AAA games you can find a lot of great stuff. My favorite is Kerbal Space Program. It's fun, it's educational, it has personality, the challenge scales up with player skill to an almost unlimited degree and entirety organically, you can set your own goals or have them given to you... I could go on.

What really amazes me is looking at the players and seeing a lot of people going into aerospace careers because of it. And not only that, but finding that they have a huge leg up on their classmates because they've already learned so much from the game.

The magic is still there, you just have to find it.

[techdragon]

Urban Assault, now there's a nostalgic flashback. I got hooked on the demo that came on the CD with one of the PC magazines, but never had the money to get the full game. They did a damn decent job trying to merge two very different genres and I'm really saddened by how few games since have done anywhere near as good a job.