Quite simply this blog is text of anger and frustration over the confused state that the game industry appears to be in. Previously, I, Cajun Chicken have typed about the lack of Platform games and a few other small subjects previously in my blog. This time this is a pure, absolute, complaint.
To be filtered down
1. Competitive First Person Shooters:
Specifically online. Once, I used to love online multiplayer FPS games, but I just feel that a lot of FPS these days are pretty much the same rules, same gametypes with different names. Not to mention they basically have the same type of weapons.
Levelling up also annoys me, because people should be able to jump in a game and have the same chance as anyone who has played the game for over a month unlocking perks. I don't think this shows skill at all in a game, I think skill is more having a twitchy trigger finger. Which is why I prefer jumping in online games such as Quake 3 and the UT series and have a deep love of singleplayer games like Serious Sam and Painkiller. I'm deeply looking forward to Psychokentic Wars, I only have a short amount of time to go on online games and I want a good as chance as anyone that has had the game longer than me.
2. Downloadable Twin Stick Shooters
I really like games like Geometry Wars, Everyday Shooter and SuperStardust HD. Problem is, people saw how great those are and no-name developers just keep on making them, its come to a point that I've started ignoring all these types of games. They just keep on coming and coming and having less than average gameplay not improving or moving on the genre at all. Just look at how many people are poorly trying to copy this type of games on XNA Community games.
3. Zombies
Zombies are the new space marines. All of a sudden for a game to be 'awesome' and 'cool' they have to have zombies in them. Now, call me a hypocrite, (I am a huge fan of Burn Zombie Burn) but I don't want ALL of my games having zombies and zombie modes. Zombies stay in zombie games.
4. Duck and Cover - Recharging health
Recharging health is the new bullet time. Everyone is cutting corners of unique game mechanics and making games more accessable with rechargable health. The biggest insult of this is Resistance 2 to me. Resistance: FoM had a perfect original health system and R2 effectively ruined that.
Recharging health is another thing in many games these days and is put in a lot of games that actually don't NEED it. It seems to only be put in because of making the game easier and to me dumbs down the game in cases. At least put in a difficulty that adds medipacks instead of recharagable health, that would be welcome.
In movies if Bruce Willis got shot, if he runs away to cover, the bullets in his flesh didn't automatically fall out, he got health packs and bandages. This ruins the realism in a game for me.
5. Guitar Hero/Rock Band and clones
Guitar Hero is a big fat cash cow. Still to this day, I ignore the idea of Guitar Hero as it sounds like a game that should be specifically in gaming arcades.
Since Guitar Hero has moved on this gen, a little bit of an oxymoron has happened. Everyone probably thought that DLC would keep on bringing new song packs all the time and all of a sudden BAM!
Guitar Hero and Rock Band make editions and editions of EXACTLY THE SAME GAME just with different music. Do the game mechanics really change?
Its the same game! Just with different music. This type of edition of a game just should be done in expansion packs, not full games.
This is like buying a new version of Tetris because the blocks have a tartan pattern over them instead of just being coloured, oh, and with a 'Jump' by Van Halen to play along with and the background has 80's-ish squiggly lines.
6. Map packs
Back to online FPS games. I hate paying for map packs. Why does 2 to 4 new maps bring a whole new life to a game? Fact is these maps are so tiny and probably take such a short amount of time that I don't believe these map packs are worth the money. All that these map packs cause is for everyone to move away from the disc based maps and everyone moves onto the new stuff meaning those who pass buying map packs miss out on all the players which have moved onto pastures new. Besides, map packs used to be free on PC and I believe to this day, still are. Shouldn't have to pay for something so insignificent to a game, in my opinon.
MMOs
I don't think these are going to be as big as the industry expect them to be on consoles.
Achievements/Trophies
These aren't really as big as a deal as people make them out to be.
How can you seriously mark down a game because it basically doesn't have good 'house points'? You still at primary school or something? Still 10 or 11, need to be rewarded all the time for following instructions?
To be focused on more
1. Puzzle Games
Its been a while since a really good, unique puzzle game has appeared these days. All we get is re-releases a lot of the time. However, in my opinion, the PS3 has had the best luck for puzzle games recently with Echochrome and Cubiod. What happened to all these kind of puzzlers? Why is no-one making them anymore? Why just rehashes?
2. Platform games
Yada, yada, yada. I've said this before, refer to old blog. You can hardly count the amount of platform games a year on one hand and the ones you can are awful versions and reboots of Spyro, Sonic and Crash Bandicoot. We need a new challenger approaching.
3. Real Third Person Shooters
Okay. Once third person shooters meant the like of MDK. These type of games don't really exist anymore and in my opinion, Planet Moon totally defined the third person shooter with Giants and Armed and Dangerous.
I'd like manic third person shooters back. EDF2017 is the finest TPS for years.
4. Lightgun Games
The PS3 has a lightgun. It has all but ONE lightgun game, Time Crisis 4. Sure, the Wii currently has all the lightgun shooters. But with the PS3 actually having a lightgun, what the heck is stopping more lightgun games on it? Why no next gen Point Blank? In fact, why no downloadable Point Blank with seasonally updated DLC?
5. Old school FPS
Serious Sam, Painkiller and the like. Very much games that play as hectic as the original Doom games just with basically overloading of enemies, powerups and shooting. No stealth. Health packs!
6. Lives in games
Nothing is more satifying in an old game than earning an extra life, either points or just picking up a power up. We are now in the age of games that we are allowed to continue and continue with infinite lives. Sometimes to me, this takes away the difficulty and makes games a lot shorter in legnth. We should have more games with lives. Or at least an option or unlockable like in CoD4.
Think, theres probably kids out there right now, who have never had a 'game over' screen and probably the same ones that complain about games being too short.
7. Camera Games
Both the PS3 and 360 both have camera pepherials. Both have very little camera based games. Wasted opportunity, just look how many games were in the Eyetoy range.
8. Fighting games
Okay, okay. This year we've finally been getting some. But I want more!
9. Split Screen in games
Pretty self explanatory. Give me back the ability to play games with a friend on the couch and heckle them once I crash into them or frag them. A rare amount of games support this now.
Anyway, over time I'm sure a lot of things will be addressed, people (gamers) can get very bored easily and move onto the next thing. Heck, the industry just gets bored. But that's my overview of gaming this gen so far and what should be filtered down and what should be focused on more. But again, my opinion, what does everyone else think?
Japanese developer is launches its latest VR epic, futuristic brawler Soul Covenant for Meta Quest, PSVR 2 and PCVR headsets tomorrow.
Games such as Mad Max, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Batman: Arkham Knight desperately deserve a modern-day revisit.
Microsoft has 'let Blizzard be Blizzard' following the acquisition of the veteran developer according to World of Warcraft's executive producer.
Diablo 4 storefront being a cash grabbing shitshow does unironically attest to that, kudos.
Okay i will be interested if they become old Blizzard but might as well be dead.
Shame most of the people that made Blizzard what they were, have already left a while ago.
I was about to say this. How can they be blizzard when they're no longer blizzard from yesteryear?
I hate rp-fps's. I want a fps that is based on skill only. Everyone gets the same rules. None of this "Oh goody, I get a red dot" or "I am the only class that gets to use a sniper rifle". F all of that. Learn to be better without special bonuses. Equal playing field for all!
Totally agree with the last point, too many games have co-op only on system link or online. I'm looking at you Crackdown!
#1
I totally agree... Online first person shooters are ALL EXACTLY THE SAME. I wish people would wake up and see this. Charge in, shoot people, die, repeat. Every innovation or variation on this formula has been done before, and is usually quite minor at that. Levelling up should unlock purely customisation options - so there's an incentive for doing so, but you don't lock beginners out of all the options. Still, I disagree with the current trend towards giving the player exactly what weapons he wants when he spawns. Weapon pickups are so much more balanced and it means you can get good killing sprees going.
#4
Again, spot on here, although the first game I saw that did this was "The Getaway" and it didn't catch on until later. Likewise, Resistance 1's health system is almost exactly the same as the one in "Red Faction 2". It's not any more or less realistic than using health packs. If they are going for realism, this isn't the way to do it. I dislike the gameplay mechanics it creates. Having health means that, even if you can just get one shot off on the enemy, you've hurt them and that's going to stay with them. With regenerative health, you NEED to go in guns blazing and finish them off. It promotes reckless play over strategic play.
I will also say a word about respawns since I am on the subject. Respawns in an objective-based game NEED to be sorted out. The tactics they create are ridiculous. In order to assault a base to capture it, or to take a flag/object from it, one would expect that I would have to weaken the defenses first. Not true. The best strategies are to -
1) Have numerous people rush in, steal the objective, and rush out again
2) Lure the enemy away so that your teammate can charge in and knab the objective
3) Weaken every enemy but don't kill them. This could involve depleating their ammo, their health. Then charge in.
If you just try to take them out, you can't, because they'll respawn either right in the objective, or they'll run straight there. It's really irritating and turns most games into a game of chance if defending is too easy.
#5
I hate guitar hero and rock band. Minimal development effort, same rehashed game, effectively all it is is pressing buttons as they come up on screen. I don't find that fun, and frankly, I can't understand why anyone would.
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#2
There are too many platformers to count... sure, not many kiddie platformers, or "pure" platformers, but what is? A platformer has to have some other mechanics - fighting or shooting - and in "pure" platformers these are just not fleshed out... look at the original crash, spyro. Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, Infamous, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed all rely heavily on platforming/free running. Uncharted probably has about the same mix of shooting/platforming as Ratchet & Clank does so there you go...
#4
No more peripherals, thanks. What was it you said about "should be kept in the arcade"? Lightguns are older than I am.
#6
Yeah, I don't see what's wrong with this, BUT think about it this way - as soon as you introduce lives, you introduce stupid mechanics/gameplay tactics like reloading your save so that you can pass a level with fewer deaths, replaying levels to get extra lives etc. I'm not too keen on the FPS checkpoint system we have now, much prefered the "save anywhere" system.
#9
It's getting better. But I expected all games to be loaded with features by now. Split-screen is hard to do right. Most games NEED bots/AI opponents/online split-screen or they're no fun for offline MP. KZ2 is the latest casualty. The stupidity of the devs to not realise that this is a much-wanted feature probably cost them a load of sales.
Agree with FPS. I've said before, I don't think it's a bad genre, but the market is absolutely saturated with them. Despite that, they're hugely popular and the majority of consumers are happy with a new coat of paint and multiplayer. Again, the genre itself isn't crap, but I think it could use some serious renovation.
I feel that this gen has all the focus placed on online components and fail to recognise the fact that when you bring a freind home there are only a finite amount of things you can do with your friend, most commonly this involves video games yet almost every game released lacks this function and there is really no excuse for spending 2 extra months fixing that functionality or adding it in a patch or whatever, no excuse but laziness. I also stronly agree on the platformers, we need more games like ratchets & clanks.