PSX5Central
Playstation/Gaming Discussions => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Living-In-Clip on November 25, 2004, 09:00:18 PM
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Alright, list trends in gaming that you find annoying.
[1] Any driving sequences or vehicles in a first person shooter (FPS). I think it ruins the pacing of the game . Take for example, I love Half-Life 2, but I cannot stand the driving sections of the game. Not only do they annoy me, but they take me out of the experience the game has tried so hard to create.
[2] Collect-a-thon\'s. I think the biggest offender of this is Rare. Don\'t get me wrong, a good platformer will always have stuff to collect, but when you do the collecting, a big part of it is the gameplay it is being built on. The game has to be solid on it\'s own, the collecting should be nothing more than a diversion for the player. It should not be the main focus. Take for example, Mario 64, a game that was great, but also had an added bonus, you could collect stars for a special bonus. You didn\'t have to collect the stars to feel like you got your money tho\'. The game was already long and fun. Now take most of any Rare platformer and you will find yourself going around collecting stuff, just for the sake of colleting stuff.
[3] Pay to play. I recently got into City of Heroes, a MMORPG (massive multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). As with most of these games, you pay your $50 for the game and then you pay a monthly fee. While I would not complain about this, due to server costs, I do have to say I hate the fact that this game and many other MMORPG\'s have no offfline mode. Which means, if you decide you want to cancel your account, you have a coaster CD / DVD. It\'s wrong. It limits the game in so many ways and in the end, the player is the one who is being screwed. For example, I would love to pick up EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft, but I don\'t want to pay monthly bills on both those plus City of Heroes, so what can I do? I could cancel my CoH account and pick one of the others, but that means a game that I enjoy, CoH is rendered useless until I decide to start paying again. This could all be solved with a simple offline mode, where you have bots for team or the option to solo.
[4] Steam.. \'Nuff said.
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Limited number of lives leading up to a game over. It\'s something that should be left at the arcade.
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Whats your beef with Steam?
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Originally posted by Ginko
Limited number of lives leading up to a game over. It\'s something that should be left at the arcade.
Im guessing you werent too keen on the older generations huh ginko? :p
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Originally posted by The Hurricane
Whats your beef with Steam?
The fact that after I purchase a game I still have to go online to activate it? The fact I still have to have Valve unlock it? The fact they can take my right away to play the game at any time? The fact that people have been banned from using the game for simple cd-hacks? Or maybe the fact that a lot of college kids purchased the game but could not play it because Steam could not access Valve\'s site due to a firewall? Or maybe it was the fact it took me four hours to actually get me game up and running simply due to Steam.
Steam\'s a bad idea with even worst execution.
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Kinda like what Ginko said, i hate when your playing multiplayer and you have 4 lives as a group. I hate the fact you lose after a certain amount of lives, but then to add it to that kind of crappy system makes it worse. Either your the jackass that screws your team, or you have to deal with the other person screwing you over.
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i really got only 2 problems with games nowadays.
FPS and RTS.
There is about 2 new games of each types every month. this genre as been beated to death, and re-beated again and again.. How many "war" FPS there is... 4254332... all the same next to the other. Same with RTS... same old shit that was available 10 years ago.. of corse now you get roma settings, egyptian setting, martian settings... all the same bullshit.
PC hardware:
Manufacturer realeasing different type of the same product within few months with very small difference. how many ATI 800xt or nvidia gt6800 there is? how many P4 3.2 different model there is to fit with so may different mobo ?!
it would be neat if compagny would release less product with bigger gap in power between the 2, and less model of the same time.
When you are changing computer now, each 4-6 years, you almost got to buy a book if you didnt follow up what happened in between.
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edit: double post.
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This isn\'t really a trend, but I don\'t like it when any media outlet says "PS2 and Xbox" as if there is no 3rd console competitor.
A competitor that AFAICS is still no.2 in the world sales-wise.
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Also, :gman:
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^ How hot is the Cube doing in sales then lately ? Btw, Nintendo is getting lotsa media attention and praise with the DS.
As for games industry trends ; like the word implies, something comes and it goes and fades away in the background after a while again. This is an ever repeating process.
So, I hope Steam is a really shortlived trend. While I agree on the base of the idea to get the money directly to the developer without the \'middle man\' publisher, there are lotsa issues with it.
I\'m not gonna list them all here, they can be found applenty on gaming forums.
Speaking of publishers : I really dislike it when they force a developer to release a game when it\'s not really polished yet.
It only hurts the name and the content of the game, which could be very good in itself.
I also dislike publishers pumping out movie franchise games. Not always, but alot of the time such games fail to deliver both a good \'translation\' of the movie plot as also just a great gameplay expierence.
I love cinematic story driven games, but these Hollywood movies franchise games often fail at both aspects. They\'re only driven by franchise money.
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Originally posted by Lord Nicon
Im guessing you werent too keen on the older generations huh ginko? :p
I just don\'t see the point other than being a cheap challenge. The most recent example I can think of is Astal from the Sega Saturn. Fun to play but it had some very challenging moments, the game would give you 5 lives. Another is Super Ghouls N\' Ghost, what the hell? That game was very hard and if you lost then that\'s it, start all over.
If I payed to bring the game into my home then I should get to play it out as much as I want.
One other game I never understood is Samda De Amigo. I love that game but I think it\'s stupid that after 2-3 songs it goes to game over.
I much prefer the approach today\'s games take of no lives and well placed check points. Let me try until I get it.
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Blade, last sales figures from both companies this past summer said the Xbox had sold 300,000 more than cube world wide.
Xbox = #2
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Fair enough. One has 10+ million and the other has 300,000 more than that.
It still deserves media attention when it\'s getting mostly the same games as the no.2. It\'s just annoying, is all.
As for other annoying things, I can\'t think of anything outstanding that other posters haven\'t put down.
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Actually, the last sales figures posted were 15.5 million for Xbox and 15.2 million for Gamecube as of June of this year.
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Actually, the last sales figures posted were 15.5 million for Xbox and 15.2 million for Gamecube as of June of this year.
That looks like a dead heat to me...
I hate a game that has absolutely no cheats that you can activate to enjoy the game more after you beat it once. Some games have things to unlock, which is fine, but not having EITHER is just incredibly annoying. Of course...then there\'s GameShark and CodeBreaker...but you know what I mean.
Short games bother me, as well. For example...not only was Devil May Cry 2 incredibly disappointing and utterly crappy, I beat both discs in under 6 hours. WTF? The puzzles were lame, the bosses were gay, and the overall experience left me with a heated rage of homicidal fantasies...and stuff.
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Thanks for the clarification, Ginko, and for driving my point home.
I know that Xbox has the clear advantage over the \'Cube in the west, but it still bothers me how one competitor gets ignored while it continues to house some of the best of the best.
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I am tired of consoles thinking they have to do more than games. I don\'t want a system that does more than play games, it only leads to shoddy support. I point to the PS2\'s problem with DVD playback. I don\'t want systems with gimmicks (Nintendo DS). I want a system, that does nothing, but play games (NGC).
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Just providing the facts, not sure what point you were getting at.
Nintendo isn\'t making any noise, how do they expect to be heard?
Nintendo carved their own little niche in the market and they\'ll be stuck there until they start taking some risks. I think the DS was a major risk but it\'s been very well received so far, I\'m hoping the Revolution will be met with similar praise and reception. I also hope Nintendo grows some hair on their balls and come up with some new franchises. I can honestly say I don\'t care about the next Mario game, I\'m also not as excited for the new Zelda game (I\'m sure it will be great) as I am for new games like Jade Empire(Xbox) and God of War(PS2).
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In the column I write every week, I mention all the systems. Heh, once someone said they noticed a Nintendo bias and I had to make sure to cover PS2 and Xbox more.
Lately I\'ve covered the DS obviously. I wrote about the EyeToy game Sega Superstars for Sunday\'s issue.
But I agree with the FPS trend. I haven\'t seen a first-person shooter that\'s inspired me since 007. Even Doom 3 just looked like a pretty version of every other generic shooter. And from what I understand, it was met with about as much praise.
Half-Life is the only one I don\'t know much about, but I do know that Halo doesn\'t do it for me, except for its co-op mode.
Co-op play is at least creative, and that\'s what this tired genre strongly needs.
I\'ve mentioned Geist before and how they\'ve added a few elements to that. But I don\'t know what it\'ll take to get me back into the genre.
Another trend no one mentioned is the shameless port trend. I\'m kind of sorry I picked up Mario 64 DS, for instance. It\'s too been-there-done-that.
I kind of wish I had picked up another title for the DS launch. I got Feel the Magic, at least, but maybe I should\'ve gone with Spiderman or something.
Ports are ok when they\'re inexpensive and as part of a collection.
-Dan
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I\'m kind of going off the thread subject here.. but..
Eik: SM64DS was probably a lot better than any of the Mario Advance games, in value at the very least.
Obviously it\'s been-there/done-that for those of us who were gaming in 1996-1997 when the game was new, but considering the price, the amount of content (even without the 24+ stylus mini-games) and the fact that a minority of the DS\'s audience (adults included) have actually played the original game through.. I think Nintendo made a wise choice.
A new adventure would\'ve been better. I\'m peeved at Nintendo for not providing one on the GBA. (Wario Land 4 is great but not SMW3)
SM64DS brings a hell of a lot more to the table than SMA1-4 and SMB:Deluxe combined. New characters, new areas, 30 new stars. The GBA titles only had Mario Bros as an extra. Don\'t even get me started on the comparison between the GBA\'s NES Classic series versus SM64DS. $20 for Donkey Kong versus $30 for SM64DS.. which should I buy?
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I think the problem with handhelds as of late has been lack of original content. Honestly, Nintendo has banked on ports for the GBA and it already appears they are looking for the ports on the Nintendo DS. From what I have seen from the PSP, Sony also seems to be banking on ports (Gran Turismo, etc). I am not saying that there is not original content on handhelds, (Castle vania series on GBA!), but there does seem to be a lack of good original content.
As for the FPS, I would say the only true fun and intentive FPS as of late would be Half-Life . No, not even Half-Life 2, which is a fine game, but not nearly as breakthrough as the original was. Playing through Half-Life:Source, I can still apperciate what this game brought to the genre, something that I can\'t say for Doom 3, Far Cry or even Half-Life 2.
Lastly, slightly off-topic, but back onto the Nintendo DS, does anyone else get the impression that Nintendo is not really truly behind the system? Maybe it was the lack of launch hype, maybe it was the lack of launch titles, but I get the feeling that Nintendo is not quite sure what to do with the system, it\'s the same feeling I got when the Virtual Boy launched. And in the end, I think it may face the same problem. The very thing that makes the system so special, is something magazines can\'t actually show per say.
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Good point, LiC. Really you have to play the DS to "get" what it\'s all about. Screenshots didn\'t really do anything for me.
I definitely had that feeling. I played the MP:H demo on a kiosk.. and I felt pretty "meh" afterwards about the touch-screen. Only when I got home and plugged in SM64DS and started playing some touch-screen mini-games did I really understand. Right off the bat I was giggling like a schoolgirl at the Draw a Picture segment!
The touch-screen is really useful for bringing more advanced software to the handheld platform.. but I don\'t expect every game to be super-original with full use of the system\'s "gimmick" as it were.
It\'s not actually a gimmick, but if we don\'t see some game balance (i.e. less PS1/N64 ports) then it might actually go there.
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Pick up Feel the Magic.
It bucks another trend that we\'re talking about, the lack of originality.
For software, Nintendo was always creative, but now there\'s very little in the way of fresh ideas coming from them. Even with the DS, Sega is the one showing it off best.
I look to Sega and with games like Prince of Persia and Viewtiful Joe, Ubisoft and Capcom to lead the way to innovative titles.
Silicon Knights was inspired with Eternal Darkness, but they don\'t produce much, and the MGS port was certainly nothing original.
-Dan
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how people bytch about games and hardware... Why isn\'t it just, if you don\'t like it, don\'t buy it. If theres a feature u don\'t like. Heres a idea, don\'t use it.
nuff said.
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Nintendo can still be imaginative. Paper Mario 2 is a good example of that.
Although.. it\'s becoming tougher and tougher for everybody to be original today, Nintendo and Sega included.