The BIG problem with modern computer games. What are the best games for gameplay alone???

Ok so I have an yxbox 360 and have owned every console since the nintendo that I have been able to convince my parents to buy me as a kid. I've always loved gaming and had a pc as well for a bit which allowed me to play online which at time was incredible! It was the most entertaining experience ever, where as now its become a bit too regular, but still I enjoy it a hell of a lot.

Despite my love for gaming I rarely find myself as excited as I used to get about a new game and it is partially to me being 24 now as oppose to a young kid. But also because games just dont have as good ideas anymore.

My theorey is this. That games designers now put waaaay too much emphesis on top notch graphics and forget about the most important aspect by a mile which is GAMEPLAY!!!! Now they want to sell their games so making them look good is great for marketing because lets face it you cant get the feel of a game from watching an advert. You can from a demo, but most games are sold due to ther ad campaigns.

One of my favourite old games which I wish they would make into a new next gen version was a game called syndicate wars. The graphics for the playstation version were very average even by the days standard as it was from a fairly overly zoomed out 3rd person view. However this was made up eneormously by its ideas, story and gameplay. I wished it was 1st person, but it still blew me away. The story I loved, they weapons were awsome, the fact it was a sort of sandbox where you could literally demolish buildings for example banks and steal the money even though it wasnt even mentioned in your breifing was amazing to me. Having a tool which converts civiliians so fight for you and follow you around and then police once you have enough 'collective minds' behind you etc. it just goes on the ideas they had.

My point is nowdays ideas are never as good (or very rarely). Take minecraft which has become insanely popular. That game was realeaed a year or two ago and is massive yet it has the worst graphics ever! Its not really up my street but a huge number of people play it because of its awsome gameplay.Similarly I love history and medieval combat and the only games I could find were unrealistic rpgs. Then about a year ago I found mount and blade. Its a game that hasnt had a lot of money behind it, but it has excellent realistic combat medieval style. I couldnt believe that for a tenner I could have such a fun combat game that would run on my crappy laptop. Withtin days I had an army that was beseiging castles and conquering rival kingdoms, raking in money to spend on a host of awsome weapons for my next ruthless campaign! Why has this not been done so well before? Why can I not get such a great game on my 360?!?!?! I would kill for a game like this based around ancient Rome, where I am a legionary hacking and slashing barberians!

But we dont get to see such ideas. FPS's have proven formulas and they make huge bucks so noone wants to try anything too crazy.

Does anyone else think that we are now stuck with games that are all so similar that we literally are just playing similar games over and over with nothing new to enjoy?

And what are some games that you love purely for their gameplay?

And what games would you like to see that havetn been done? Ideas please for games that havent really been done to a really professional level yet.

I prefer strategy games over first person shooter types. They require to think and plan instead of just testing your reflexes. Reflex games do get boring quickly for me. Paintball is much more fun, heck even lazer tag is better. As for the games I like, the Hearts of Iron series is pretty good.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


You know what I always thought would be awsome? Combining fps's with a strategy command and conquer style game. For example you would be a general issuing your troops orders, objectives which they must complete to your standards and particular commands (otherwise they will not get points if they ignore your orders and will then loose) and these units on the ground are each individually played by gamers who to them it is an fps where they recieve orders just like soldiers on a battlefield.

Im not just into fps games I like to plat a bit of everything. I was just using it as an example of a genre that is essentially just the same games with dslightly different ideas behind them.

This is a subjective opinion on what people themselves think is the best games for gameplay. You will never get a right answer or a wrong answer. So If this thread gets anywhere I hope people aren't stupid enough to argue over something so petty like saying "PC>XBOX>PS3"

reply to post by clintdelicious


Dude, Syndicate wars, on playstation, with the playstation mouse.....

Those were the days.

Yeh, you can buy that game over PS3 network. For like 10.00AUD.

GTA's have always been some of my favourites
Rise of nations
Manhunt (purely because it was so bad and different)

reply to post by clintdelicious

Did you ever read Ender's Game? One of my favorite books, though I did not like the rest of the series. Anyway what you said brought the battle room and the various games they played to mind.

reply to post by nahsik


Thast not what im at all asking. I dont even want to argue what games better than what other games. I just ment to ask for examples of games that have the best gameplay and ideas. Possibly older games that could be re made with moder tech to be something that modern games cant compete with which is origanal ideas and fantastically unique gameplay.

reply to post by LightAssassin



Im glad im not alone in loving that game. Warriros on ps2 was also the best street fighting game ive ever played and I have no idea why gta games dont use a similar combat system. Throwing enemies through windows, bottling them etc its gameplay was AMAZING!

Syndicate just had insanely good ideas as well which is what fascinated me.

I always liked gta games but gta4 imo wasnt very good, they made it too serious and took the random silly fun out of it. also the combat wasnt very good. In a game like that fighting unarmed and with melee weapons should be a big thing as its loadsa fun and your on the street. They should have a warrriors style fight mechanic and I felt that they really rushed it. Also looke at san andreas, you could dirtbike up mountains, steal planes and fly around/crash them into whatever and you had area 51 and vegas! So much variety and ideas. In gta4 you could barely go to buildings. You couldnt even rob banks or clothes shops, it was like they took the fun out og the game and made it more linear and I never understood why everyone thought it was so incredible. It was good but dissapointing imo.

Same with red dead redemption. I love westerns and looked forward to it for so long. But there was barely anything to do outside missions, I found myself asking again where is the fun!?!? The small things to do like re take forts where so routine and repetative. Again I was very dissapointed.

reply to post by nahsik


I never said there was or I was looking for a right or wrong answer. I dont really understand your reason to comment. It seems like you were saying everyone was incapable of having a fun, enjoyable conversation reminising about kool old games which is what we are all doing

Originally posted by clintdelicious
reply to post by nahsik

 

Thast not what im at all asking. I dont even want to argue what games better than what other games. I just ment to ask for examples of games that have the best gameplay and ideas. Possibly older games that could be re made with moder tech to be something that modern games cant compete with which is origanal ideas and fantastically unique gameplay.

I'm not directly talking about you when I was posting that. I was stating that everyone has their own opinions on what games are great to play on the gameplay. I'm talking about the people who'll jump on this thread and bash someone else for having their own opinion on what's a good game.

It's obvious that graphics have become a bigger part of videogaming simply due to advances in technology.

In theory it's a great thing for video games but the reality (for me, at least) is it's taken precedent over gameplay with a lot of developers.

I think back in the NES days and before, graphics had obvious limitations and because of that developers were more focused on the gameplay. They had to make games actually fun to play or else people wouldn't buy the games. I don't think that's really the case today, as some people will buy a game for the graphics and will be more likely to forgive or overlook gameplay shortcomings, IMO.

One trend I really don't like is games that try to play like movies, which is a trend that seems to be getting more popular. It just doesn't work, IMO and takes away from the gameplay.

Personally, the golden age for video games for me was the NES and SNES days. I don't think it'll ever be that good again when you factor in where video games are today. Maybe I'm just getting older although I still play video games, just not as much.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


wow Enders game...GREAT book..!!


i would like if they would bring back Battle TECH .. the robot fighting wars game..

play online with my pc.. back in Dial-up days..lol

now with HI-speed internet,,, it would be really coool

I am a professional game designer/developer and have worked on a lot of games you have heard of.

I assure you your worries are felt from within as well.

There is no easy solution.

Keep looking for the diamonds in the rough and enjoy them for what they are... and look for the portions of greatness in the "mass market" games and enjoy them for what they are.

It's the nature of our profit driven society... it's the same reason TV and Movies suffer from similar challenges.

Namaste.

Old games used to be about making a FULL product and releasing that FULL product.

New games are about a couple of new gimmicks, and releasing a half-assed game with those gimmicks.

(See L.A Noire)

Oh man I could go on and on about good old games with good stories, one of my favorite subjects. The one I wish they would remake is Final Fantasy 7, I even want them to leave in the cheese, (made the game great in my opinion hehe) When a game can make me cry, (when Sephiroth kills Aeris gets me, I'm allowed I'm a girl ) you know they've done something right. Squaresoft isn't just Playstation anymore so they could redo it and then put it out on all consoles.
To show the others some love, Game Cube had a horror game out called Eternal Darkness that scared the crap out of me, plus had a surprisingly good storyline behind it. Fatal Frame (for Xbox way creepy), even though it's only from the first gen x box, the newer graphics with that storyline would blow you away. Parasite Eve was another one that even though it already had incredible graphics (for the time), it would be even better redone now.
I don't know if anyone else remembers this but the first Playstation had a game called I.Q. Intellignet Qube, it's a puzzle game that could use some love.

reply to post by ErgoTheConfusion


I think also the demographic has changed also. I know this will make me sound eliteist but a lot of younger gamers have never experienced these older games that had so much mastery in ther gameplay and they are focused on what look good. I really liked the Wii, its not really my thing but it is so much fun to play with other people and graphics really dont at all matter which imo is a step in the right direction.

As a professional what do you think about a game like mount and blade? I really think that a game like that designed for a console would have a huge appeal as to the mass market it would be the first game most people hjave seen that does medieval combat so well and just looking at films in this genre you can see that the audience it there. Im guessing its just the fact that developers are making ridiculously massive amounts of money from titles like those in the the wargame fps genre and whast the point in trying something new when the profits are so high?

I always wanted to be a games developer, I am studying business and am either going into film,tv or gaming. I would loive to be involved in gaming, but I dont get as excited about games anymore though because when I play them it feels like I have played it all before. With a few exceptions like mount and blade.

reply to post by Ranthenae


I never actually played final fantasy games, i always meant to but never ended up giving them a go. I remember for playstation there used to be a ridiculous number of releases, now it seems there are a lot less just with more money behind them. I wish smaller developers could start to make their games available on download on any platform, that would really give a load more variety.

I really wanted to download the warriors for my 360, but they only have a #ty arcade version available now which I almost downloaded by mistake (thank god I tried the demo first). I remember playing resident evil for the first time on playstation, now that was a tense scary and fun experience! I dont feel the same with newer games, the ones based on films are usually pretty bad.

Alien vs predator however was a step in the right direction! Its multiplayer had a great idea that I want in more games where you have 3 teams fighting instead of just two. That is a fun game online, althought its modes are a bit limited and need more development itwas a very entertaining concept and its unique ideas like this that I want to see companies investing in, I also like sports games like ufc undisputed and fight night and these games are always made to look as good as possible, but gameplay mean sooooo much more. I just wish developers could realise this.

I miss some of the old games, although now that I think about it they've redone a couple of the old ones. My favorite was Pittfall, old game kinda sucked, remake totally awesome. Especially getting Bruce Campbell to do the voice. That man is so my hero.

I think one of the most interesting games I ever tried was Revelations: Persona. It was a Japaneese RPG that combined 3rd person, first person, and isometric views. The combat system also had some cool ideas. You could use your melee weapon, your firearm, or a spell. You also had two uniuqe options.

You cold try to "contact" and communicate with the monster trying to attack you. The contact could have multiple outcomes. You could anger the demon, you could scare the demon, you could interest the demon, or you could make the demon joyful. Depending on the outcome the demon might attack, flee, or give you a magic persona card.

Personas were magical were basically your character's alternate personality. It was the magical creature they could summon to attack enemies. You could creat new and unusual personas by combining the cards gained when negotiating with demons.

There were a lot of great ideas in the first game. I would love to have a version for my 360.

The other thing that is ruining video games is the obsession with multiplayer. Instead of spending million of dollars on a new version of capture the flag spend it on increasing the depth of the single player. It just seems that many developers are trying to use multiplayer to hide deficits in the single player game.

I have been disapointed with a lot of the games I have bought in the last few years ( Im 42 yrs old and have been playing vid games since I was 12) the games are either to short or to easy or just retarded, the only game I enjoyed playing last year was demon souls, Wow has become more of a shopping list than a game, war hammer on line is total crap,they should remake some of the old games like blood wych, bards tale, to name 2 of my old favorites, these games were great and would be even better if they were redone with their old story lines and improved game play, early gamers and game developers dreamed of having the graphich we have today and would have created awsome mind blowing games, but thanks to the mass marketing they just hype up a game and people buy it well thats just dosnt wash with me any more I know what I want in a game and cant get it any more