I recently finished Bioshock Infinite and I can honestly say it disappointed me. It just didn't feel like the game Levine was making it out to be. Sure, the story and atmosphere are amazing, but there was one very important element that left a sour taste in my mouth. What's that, you ask? The actual gameplay...
I figured I was perhaps the only one to feel like this, so I discussed it with a couple of friends on TeamSpeak. To my surprise, they actually agreed with me that Infinite's gameplay simply wasn't that good. At first I couldn't exactly figure out why, because it was years since I played the original Bioshock. There was just something about that game that felt better.
I did the most logical thing and reinstalled it to find out what that was. It took me only ten minutes before it hit me like a brick: the gameplay doesn't hold you back. Infinite limits you in every way possible. Only two weapons, two active vigors and four pieces of clothing. In the meantime, Bioshock allows tons of active weapons, multiple plasmids and a shitload of tonics.
This made Infinite feel like a major step down, in fact, dare I say it, casual. This is somewhat confirmed by Infinite's boxart, as displayed above. Irrational Games stated they went for this one to appeal to the shooter market. That's fine and dandy, but not only does it look like the game is for the average shooter player, it actually is for the average shooter player.
I can complain about the lack of diversity amongst enemies and how vigors are barely used against you, but I do not wish to bore you any further with a rant about Infinite. Instead, I wish to propose a question that popped up in my head after playing said game. Is the quality of games declining?
Now, this is not the first time I have asked myself this. Last year was the worst gaming year for me in... well, years. Diablo III wasn't exactly what I expected it to be, Borderlands 2 was plagued with issues (particularly on the PC), Mass Effect 3's ending was... "interesting", Battlefield 3's DLC couldn't keep me interested and I can think of more examples where I simply didn't enjoy the games I was looking forward to.
Now, that also begs a different question. Am I myself perhaps tired of gaming in general, making it harder to actually enjoy games? Could very well be, but I recently discovered Warframe and I can't stop playing it. Simply because it's so much fun to play. That's what I feel is lacking in games nowadays: the fun factor. You know, the reason we are playing in the first place.
After the Minecraft 1.5 update came out I was once again hooked to that game. Why? Because it's fun to play. I'm noticing more and more I am falling back on games I am having fun with and they tend to be years old. Examples are Killing Floor and Team Fortress 2.
I have seen so many games come and go in the past couple of years and I can only remember a handful that really grabbed me by the balls. So yeah, is it me being an "old" fart or are games declining in quality?
Duuro says: "I think the idea behind the movement is cool, but on the other hand, the execution and clear limitation of the platform somewhat undermine the whole thing."
"The Wakefield-based (the UK) indie games publisher and developer Team 17 and indie games developer Ernestas Norvaišas, are today very proud and excited to announce that the full version (v1.0) of their train-led city builder “Sweet Transit”, is now available for PC via Steam and EGS." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Review - If you are a fan of intrigue in your stories then The Mildew Children on Xbox will be well up your street.
Thanks for the approval. :)
This generation, it wasn't really anything great to begin with.
You can argue with Halo, uncharted, killzone, everything.
I love those games, but can they come close to the games from previous generations? Never.
Just like you said, The games of the previous generations didn't have good graphics ( from today's standard ) and were limited by many ways in the gameplay, but they had a certain.... Feel to them which the games of this generation failed to produce ( for a completely unknown reason to me. )
Completely agree with you. I have a 5yr old niece that plays games (got her started at 3!) And she'd rather play older games like Crash Bandicoot, Mario (SNES ones), Donkey Kong Country instead of today's games. She doesn't find most current games appealing for very long. But she also enjoys DKC Returns, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and Tomb Raider (Yes, the newer one. She's made it to ~35% on Normal difficulty, which goes along with the idea that games are getting easier).
The point is that games really were more fun. I find myself playing SNES and PSone games I've never played and having more fun with them than today's games. There are as lot of good ones, like Ni No Kuni, GoWIII, LBP1&2, but mostly today's generation of games lacks soul. I think the passion that most devs had is gone. Look at Rare. Or Squeenix. Or EA (during PS2 days. Remember EA Big?).
It's all relative honestly. I grew up with the NES, Sega Master System and those early consoles, and when I go back and play most games on them, the games are bad, they play bad and are really difficult.
That isn't to say that there weren't some quality games, but back in the 80's and 90's exclusives really mattered because third party games for the most part weren't up to par.
Now third party games are better then ever, but we have a new breed of gamer's who are never happy with anything and feel entitled to everything! I've never seen so many complaints in my life, that has been the biggest disappointment for me personally this generation, not the games, but rather the gamer's themselves, or the vocal minority.
Yes, I'm more excited for some of the Kickstarter games than the AAA releases.