How do you feel about this gen's games?

[Dexter]

The image was a picture of the game Sheep Raider for PS1.

It was a Looney Toons game where you played as Ralph Wolf, a coyote who is trying to steal sheep away from Sam Wolf-Dog.
The entire game was puzzle-based in which you used different objects, paths, and tricks to sneak past Sam and steal a sheep, and every level got harder.

You don't see that kind of whacky level design and intuitive game concept on console games anymore.

Thankfully there have been indie developers that have tried some interesting things, like Fat Princess and Flower and Pixel Junk Shooter, but besides indie games, big-budget console developers just are NOT taking enough creative innovation with their games.

If you get games like Naughty Bear that could have been something new or whatever, they're usually of pitiful quality and don't sell well.

So it's a dead-end road.

Well it's more due to the publishers resistance than anything else. They don't want to risk losing money, on something that could potentially sink them.

That's why developers like Tim Shafer has been developing more in the indie circle of the world (xbla, psn, steam). It's less of a financial risk that way.

 

[khphantom97]

Well, there were SO many good games for the last generation, but there are almost as many great games this generation. I have to admit, there is a LOT of fluff this generation, but I'm interested in seeing what games come out, and how people will remember this generation.

 

[Orion]

Also how had Bioshock, or Mass Effect gone unnoticed? Bioshock alone sold 4,000,000 copies, which equals around $16,000,000 in revenue. Mass Effect has also sold incredibly well. Uncharted 2 was one of the best selling games in 09.

Yeah but you don't see them saturating the market or being talked about avidly by hundreds of thousands.

 

[Wehrmacht]

Dogen, I love you for mentioning Sheep Raider. That's seriously one of the only good games I had during grade school The game was essentially Metal Gear Looney Tunes, which is a very strage combination that ended up working really wel.

I'd have to mostly agree that the industry is stagnating. The last game I've played that struck me as particularly innovative was Shadow of the Colossus from late 2005, which completely redefined what a "boss' is in videogames with the Colossi and gave you an unprecedented emotional experience through the absolute minimum of characters, dialogue, and story.

 

[Dexter]

Dogen, I love you for mentioning Sheep Raider. That's seriously one of the only good games I had during grade school The game was essentially Metal Gear Looney Tunes, which is a very strage combination that ended up working really wel.

I'd have to mostly agree that the industry is stagnating. The last game I've played that struck me as particularly innovative was Shadow of the Colossus from late 2005, which completely redefined what a "boss' is in videogames with the Colossi and gave you an unprecedented emotional experience through the absolute minimum of characters, dialogue, and story.

No offence but if you believe the gaming industry is "stagnating", then you've obviously haven't played that many games. Uncharted, Demon Souls, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, etc. So many games that have not only innovated, but created experiences like none other.

 

[Wehrmacht]

No offence but if you believe the gaming industry is "stagnating", then you've obviously haven't played that many games. Uncharted, Demon Souls, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, etc. So many games that have not only innovated, but created experiences like none other.

Saying that the industry is stagnating is different from saying that there haven't been good games the past few years. I'm talking about innovation. You don't need innovation per se to make a compelling game, you just need a formula that works and someone who knows what they're doing. Donkey Kong Country Returns is not revolutionary in the least, but it's still an ingeniously designed platformer and a very fun game. Though now that you brought up Mario Galaxy, I guess I can count that too since I don't remember another game that had similar gravity mechanics (although Galaxy 2 is way better).

 

[Leonard]

One definitely positive thing about this gen's lineup is how indie games have started to flourish, because nowadays it is much easier to get them to the public. It gives the market a whole flurry of individual and interesting titles, that aren't as bound to mainstream interests as genre's like the FPS genre have become.
See Minecraft or all the artsy platforman games, for example.

 

[Coffee Lover]

i find the copious amounts of gifs in dogen's sig more entertaining than this thread

actually this applies to most threads because they're actually really amusing

but if you didn't get what i was trying to say, this thread is shitty.

Why? Because I posted it? I am so sick of the staff of this forum. Apparently, they have a problem with me and I've haven't done a damn thing to deserve it!

I'm gone, permanently.

Bye.

 

[Vayne Mechanics]

i don't even know who you are lol

 

[Dogenzaka]

No offence but if you believe the gaming industry is "stagnating", then you've obviously haven't played that many games. Uncharted, Demon Souls, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, etc. So many games that have not only innovated, but created experiences like none other.

Uncharted 2 was a great game, but it did absolutely nothing new. It just INCREDIBLY polished elements from games we've seen before and put it in a good package. It was the "generic action movie game", after all. Super Mario Galaxy wasn't particularly innovative either; it was just 3D Mario again, taking inspiration of a "space" theme like Ratchet and Clank, Sonic Adventure 2, etc. Its quality came from its polish.

Heavy Rain aspired to do something kinda new through its "multiple-endings story" focus or whatever, I'll give you that, although it was still wrapped up in a faulty presentation and filled with unpolished elements of things we've seen in other games. Same with Alan Wake.

Red Dead Redemption wasn't a fresh idea in any way whatsoever, it was just really good. We've played old west games before. We've played Grand Theft Auto before. We've played with guns before. It was just never tied up as well as it was in RDR.

Demon's Souls I'll give you some credit for, although, if it were not for its difficulty and innovative multiplayer experience, it would be pretty dry bones and cliche'. It's a generic dark-fantasy RPG almost in its entirety...just done in a new, polished way.

5/7 of the games you mentioned use a gun as a primary weapon.

When I say that I feel the industry is not innovating enough, I mean there are not enough games out there that completely break the conventional ideas of gaming. Where you don't have to use swords, cars, guns or conventional cutscenes to have fun or tell a story. Games like Flower and LittleBigPlanet for example, who legitimately tried something fresh for the console market. We don't have enough games like that this generation, meanwhile the past 2 gens I feel had a lot more creative endeavors taken by studios.

This is probably partially because of the fact that game development costs have skyrocketed, and not many studios have the funds to support making a video game now, and if they do, they want to play it safe.

 

[Oberon]

Considering I haven't been an active participant in this gen's video games, I kinda grew out of games in terms of spending many hours at a time playing them. So my experience is skewed/bias. :v

But the games I have played, I liked a lot. Since I spent more time on last gen's games, I do prefer those a lot more. Kingdom Hearts, GBA/early DS titles, Dance Dance Revolution, Sly Cooper, Ratchet, Jak (and all the other platformers), and others I can't remember right now. lol Those were my favs.

 

[FASTMONEY]

although, if it were not for its difficulty and innovative multiplayer experience, it would be pretty dry bones and cliche'.

I laughed at the funny phrasing of this scentence. Of course any innovative game that has its innovations taken out will cease to be innovative.

 

[Delsan]

No offence but if you believe the gaming industry is "stagnating", then you've obviously haven't played that many games. Uncharted, Demon Souls, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, etc. So many games that have not only innovated, but created experiences like none other.

Meh. Super Mario Galaxy is nothing new. They did it before with Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario 64. And Red Dead redemption is like GTA in the wild west.