honeymaker on 1/12/2003 at 19:57
Excellent thread. :thumb: I paid $50 for Call of Duty, and promptly finished it in one afternoon. WTF happened to getting your money's worth?! What's worse is that the game received great reviews and sales! This will only encourage developers to continue the ridiculous pattern of short gameplay. It's sad, but I think games like Thief and HL are a thing of the past. :nono:
doctorfrog on 1/12/2003 at 21:51
Bah, we've simply exited a golden age of gaming. This period is one where developers and gamers need to sort themselves out after several years of amazing innovation and imagination. Now that everyone is paying attention to gaming more than ever, it is beginning to suck. There are old timers, like many on these forums, who have already tasted the best that a gifted few programmers can dish out, who aren't impressed, and don't want to be, by the newer games, ones with massive production values, huge teams of programmers, and great graphics that cover up an empty, soulless experience.
Note I say "a" golden age, not "the." Gaming has reached one or more golden ages in the past. The days of Rogue, 2D Mario, 2D Zelda, etc. has passed, and for a while, nothing really impressed (me). Then the days of Doom, Thief, Fallout, online deathmatches, War/StarCraft came. They too have passed. A golden age has passed, and we are in bronze mode now. You can be nostalgic, and play the old games again. You can go back to games of earlier ages and play and enjoy them. You can succomb to hype and play today's games, many of which are good. You can bitch about them and stay the hell away. You can wait for the next golden age. Hell, you can do all of the above. Its what being a gamer is, baby.
So, I say, criticize the crap out of every game coming out. You have the right. Defend the new games and embrace them with an open mind and enjoy them. You have the right. Stare down everything new with a lens of nostalgia over your eye. Play every new game that comes out and declare it the best thing yet. Above all, game! Have fun with something.
JonahFalcon on 1/12/2003 at 23:52
Again - there's a reason DX2 is short -- new engine. The fact that Thief 3 is taking long is making me think it's going to be a long game.
Blackjack on 2/12/2003 at 00:19
... or a better engine. :p
JonahFalcon on 2/12/2003 at 01:36
Probably just a slightly modified engine. Deus Ex 3 will probably be far longer, since they'll have plenty of development time with the engine done.
Amorpheus on 2/12/2003 at 02:45
It would be good if they could divert more programming hours to the AI department - it needs to be better for the kinds of games IS is making, and work on AI done now will pay off for all games built on the engine. Since Unreal tech is very modular, it should be possible to use it even if(when) they decide to give the engine a complete overhaul.
JonahFalcon on 2/12/2003 at 02:56
The AI is better than DX's.
ESpark on 2/12/2003 at 03:31
Quote:
Now that everyone is paying attention to gaming more than ever, it is beginning to suck.
Translation: Since computer gaming is becomming more marketable to the non-gamer, 'Gamers' aren't as important to pander to. The games are fine ; you are simply no longer the primary market. You
won't see a sequal to System Shock 2. Or Fallout.
heywood on 2/12/2003 at 04:07
Retischal wrote:
Quote:
I'd agree with this statement -to an extent- but I'd still say that by running through Half-Life (forget Quake, yawn) as fast as possible you'd be miss out on a lot of the fun things in the game. First up you might miss hard to reach areas, secondly you'd miss out on the multiple ways you can get past many areas. Furthermore, by running through them really quickly I think that it may spoil the atmosphere.
I agree about spoiling the atmosphere, at least through most of it. Through the first 2/3 of the game I was hooked and didn't want to miss anything or stop playing. And at first I thought Xen was cool. But ultimately I found the Xen levels to be linear, Quake-like, and borderline tedious. And then there was that awful boss battle, and a lame ending too. When I completed Half-Life, I was actually happy to be done with it. When I completed Deus Ex, I was sad to reach the end and wanted more.
Burdcheese wrote:
Quote:
Unreal was a long game and had a surprising amount of depth to it...
Well, I don't know about depth (more than Quake, but that's not saying much). But Unreal was long and had some incredible levels. Even if the gameplay was forgettable and there wasn't much in the way of plot, I still felt quite satisfied.
I didn't play Unreal 2, but it does seem like developers are giving us less and less content in sequels. I recently played NOLF 2 and I could swear I finished in half the time it took for NOLF 1. There was a good variety in environments & levels, but they were mostly over too quick to be memorable. I hope DX:IW doesn't end up like that too.
Gingerbread Man on 2/12/2003 at 04:07
Quote:
Originally posted by JonahFalcon Again - there's a reason DX2 is short -- new engine. The fact that Thief 3 is taking long is making me think it's going to be a long game.
Okay, I've read that a few times and I still don't understand what the fuck a new engine has to do with the length of the gameplay, or what development time has to do with length of gameplay.
I suspect you are talking out of your ass, or that I am more retarded than usual today. Either is possible.
