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I hate modern day gaming.

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:00 am
by Tofu Man
Usually I'd have posted this in the "Game you're playing. How far you are." but since DaC has been slow as of late, I thought I'd make a thread for people to rant on whatever piece of shit they're playing this side of the oh-tens.

What spurred me on? This:


Image

Got a hearty laugh out of me.



Also, some data on the upcoming Dragon Age (yeah I know no one cares but consider it food for thought).

Dragon Age: Origins
1,000,000 Words
1,000 Cinematics
1,000 Characters
56,000 Spoken Lines
60 Hours of Gameplay

Dragon Age II
400,000 Words
2,500 Cinematics (????)
500 Characters
38,000 Spoken Lines
40 Hours of Gameplay

Dragon Age 3, I believe, will be a FMV game.

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:02 am
by Yonmanc
Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but the one on the left is the Duke Nukem 3D prison level right?

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:41 am
by Tofu Man
Origin - http://furiousfanboys.com/2010/11/fps-m ... 3-vs-2010/

You appear to be correct, young man c. Bloody hell mate, some eye for maps you've got. Tell ya the truth, I can't remember a whole lot of it, "...cut your head off and shit down your neck" aside.

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:41 am
by Retlaw83
I don't know how Dragon Age Origins can claim to have 1,000 characters unless it includes generic city dwellers that don't have interactive dialog. And there's no way it had that many cutscenes.

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:51 am
by Kashluk
I guess this is a thing we all know. And the reasons are obvious: big money & international markets & main-streaming. You have to cater for all to cover the expenses and to maximize profits. There are still 'artsy-art' games out there, there are deep and intriguing pieces to be found. But it's not the way money works, mang.

I play games quite a lot. These days I don't have the attention span to wade through crappier games, so I get bored really easy (like with the DK clone Dungeons), and move on quickly to the next. A couple days ago my Mrs. asked me that "Isn't that awfully patronising?" I responded: "What do you mean?" as I was playing Dead Space 2. "You're constantly told what to do, there's no room for you to figure stuff out yourself -- doesn't that bother you?" she continued. I was stunned. She doesn't play herself, but occasionally she likes to watch what I'm doing. That was her 3 min observation when I was about 1 hour in to the game.

@Retlaw: I guess all the variations (you know, the different Origins) are counted in. So when in a cutscene there's a moment where your character's greeted with either "you smelly dwarf/elf/commoner" or "your dwarfic/humane/evil/benevolent majesty", that counts for at least 7 cutscenes.

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:21 am
by Tofu Man
Retlaw83 wrote:I don't know how Dragon Age Origins can claim to have 1,000 characters unless it includes generic city dwellers that don't have interactive dialog. And there's no way it had that many cutscenes.
From http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8435 ... cinematic/

Bioware rep's words. I'm guessing char numbers do include generics (I'm really having trouble picturing 1000 individual talking characters, I mean oblivion had like 5 or 6 copypasta all over the place) and that by cinematics they mean not only cutscenes but several conversations as well (again, I can't see 1000 simple no-interaction cutscenes, then again I never did find the patience to play through it all).

What boggles the mind, apart from it being severely unambitious, Is how the hell do you get a 2.5 times the "cinematics" on a game that looks to be about half the size?

Thing reeks of expansion pack turned sequel for a quick cash in. Couple with the consolitis and with the obligatory day 1 DLC (and a bunch more incoming, not to mention the preorder exclusives and the "buy the game at walmart for a "free" sword" type affair) and you get a big pile of shit from the last supposed bastion of the RPG.

O Bioware, how the mighty (?LOL) have fallen...

Kashluk wrote:(...)A couple days ago my Mrs. asked me that "Isn't that awfully patronising?"(...)
It's pretty easy for any of us who've been playing for over a decade (well two decades, now that I think about it) to recognize how simple everything has gotten in the game world. It's when a non-gamer realizes that the latest AAA title treats the player like a retard that you start getting concerned for today's youth. Here's hoping it's only the developers being overzealous.

Save stations every 5 metres and the railtrack excuse for a map getting you down? Maybe the overpowered weapons? Perhaps the overabundance (sic) of ammo? Or even the "It's survival horror only... huh... no, not really"? I told you so. ;)

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:00 pm
by TheCynic
I hate the words: "dark" and/or "gritty" when developers describe their games. Yeah, we fucking get it, I'm going to have to re-adjust my tv to see your goddamned video game.

Also: Repetition... My little brother(14) loves Assassins Creed. I borrowed it from him, played it for a couple hours, same fucking thing over and over. Same with the later Elder Scrolls games, Dragon Age, any modern "Rpg" (which is a real stretch of the term). But I'm ten years older than him, generation gap?? ( i was elevenish when Fallout came out, I begged my parents for it. Thank God they didn't care about Parental Guidance bullshit back then)

Age of Decadence is the only reason for me to care about modern gaming. If that game ever comes out all Hell is gonna break loose in game world. Maybe the younger gamers will finally "get it" ( I just typed "game" 8000 times)

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:20 am
by Stalagmite
Yep and these little hipster cocksuckers suck up all these new games like a baby sucks on the mothers tit. Fucking BULLSHIT! I remember the days when you were the biggest loser in school for knowing all about video games and now with this shitty medium that's being implemented we no longer get that sort of private comfort! ARROOOOGA!
Kashluk wrote: A couple days ago my Mrs. asked me that "Isn't that awfully patronising?" I responded: "What do you mean?" as I was playing Dead Space 2. "You're constantly told what to do, there's no room for you to figure stuff out yourself -- doesn't that bother you?" she continued. I was stunned. She doesn't play herself, but occasionally she likes to watch what I'm doing. That was her 3 min observation when I was about 1 hour in to the game.
You found yourself a nice catch methinks! I played that game for like 15 minutes and I was like "what the fuck is this? Go from point A to point B with insert random slasher flick cinematic into it?! THE FUCK!?" What the fuck do you even call that in a witty way anyway? All I can think of is shit. You know something is total shit when you would rather masturbate to porno than play it.

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:26 am
by rad resistance
I saw my friend playing Dragon Age once and then I shot him dead.

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:43 am
by Mad Max RW
The map is E1M6 (Central Processing) from Doom 1.

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 6:02 pm
by Mismatch
Age of Decadence is the only reason for me to care about modern gaming.
dead state seems promising as well

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:02 pm
by TheCynic
Mismatch wrote:dead state seems promising as well
I concur. I really didn't know anything about Dead State until SenDen had something to say about it a couple of weeks ago. I'll add it to the list, which is now up to 2 :dance:

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:37 pm
by SenisterDenister
I'm pretty sure both of those games are being made on the same engine, so there's little surprise, to me at least, why they both look so promising.

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:25 pm
by Dogmeatlives
I was really psyched for LA Noire as I was intrigued by the mystery solving until some hands on previews came out and the hand holding seems to make it possible for even small children to solve these crimes.

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:48 pm
by Frater Perdurabo
Dogmeatlives wrote:I was really psyched for LA Noire as I was intrigued by the mystery solving until some hands on previews came out and the hand holding seems to make it possible for even small children to solve these crimes.
Yeah I played some Condemned 2. There's a crime site - this looks cool. And then I realised that they told you exactly where everything was, what to use and what to look at.

But it had great GRAPHIX

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:23 pm
by Stalagmite
LA Noir looks like shit, Rockstar is good about making great movie genres into games but I really think they get too into themselves sometimes.

Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:13 am
by Cimmerian Nights
Really the indy shit is the only hope.

The industry is becoming a victim of it's own success. Just like every Hollywood movie has to be a remake/sequel/comic book/old sit-com/japanese horror movie formulaic crapfest to turn a profit, so it seems that gaming follows the same path.


You guys should check out some of those Matt Chat interviews. Especially the Burger one, there was one really great question and candid response in there. Well worth listening to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBg6L4H7 ... re=related
check out around 4:40

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6 ... php?page=6
Do you think the setup with publishers and developers stifles the creativity of the designers?

RH: In many ways, yes. What most people tend to forget, and because I've worn the CEO hat with Contraband and Logicware -- this is a business. We need to make money because the paychecks I had to write to people were coming from a bank account that only had so much money. Once that money reached zero, everybody gets laid off.

Whereas many people would like the Id software model -- it'll be done when it's done -- most companies don't have that luxury, especially big companies with shareholders. They need to have profits every quarter.

The only way to do that is to minimize their risk and go formula. Formulas are sequels or licensed titles like Harry Potter the game. Those are the safest bets. Licensed properties
-- EA sports -- they license NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR...There's your thing. Of course, lately they've been trying to branch out with new franchises like Mirror's Edge, but they still want to create a franchise they can milk over time.

One thing we actually found at Interplay, which I was raising the red flag all the time over, was that Interplay's greatest contribution to the gaming world was that we took risks. We came up with a lot of games that no one would touch because they were so off the wall -- like Tass Times in Tonetown, I mean, who in the hell would come up with that and actually ship it? We did!

Neuromancer was based on a book, but we did Battlechess. It's just chess with the pieces beating the crap out of each other. Earthworm Jim, Boogerman, Clay Fighter, all these games that Interplay did -- we had a gimmick, but a lot of the publishers said, a game with clay warriors? Why don't you just make Mortal Kombat V?

We made a lot of games that would have never seen the light of day. The trouble is that we did too many of them, and the company eventually ran out of money, which is why Interplay had to die and eventually be rebirthed as a company that was Interplay in name only -- what exists today.

Companies like Electronic Arts, if they were to do a title that was risky and didn't have some real meat to back it up -- to make people not afraid -- it's a hard sell. It would kill the person's job. How would you like to be an executive producer who green lights a game that's never been done before, and the game tanks? You're fired.


Nobody wants to get fired. So, they need to come out with NASCAR 7, then you can blame it on the NASCAR license. Oh, Need for Speed, maybe they don't like that type of game anymore, but we can still milk the franchise. It's not something innovative that's at fault, it's just the franchise is tired. Blame something else, so the executive producer can keep their job.

That's where, right now, in my opinion, indie games is where it's at for innovation. Who would do The World of Goo, Minecraft... Indie games are done by a couple of people locked up in a closet. They don't have anybody to answer to, so they can write something that's brand new and, in fact, doing something new and innovative is what gets them attention. Look at Introversion. They did Uplink, Darwinia. Those games, when you see them, are pretty out there. They made some money. Bingo! That is where the new ideas come from.

At a big company, if you were an executive producer and somebody gave you the idea for Darwinia, could you tell your CEO that Darwinia would absolutely, positively make you a million dollars? It's a hard sell. If it makes a million, you'll be a star. You'll be executive VP. If it bombs, well, the door is right there. With that kind of a choice, it really stifles the executive producer's ability to green light titles as innovative as Darwinia. Hence, the reason the vast majority of games these days are sequels, movie tie-ins, or some sort of celebrity hook.

One of my pet peeves right now is that a lot of video games these days; for example, Command & Conquer III. They have all these big name actors in the cut scenes they film at a sound stage. Does that really add to the game? Did that really make the game a better game? I thought I was buying a video game. I didn't think I was buying an interactive movie. I want to play a game.

So many games these days are supposedly a first-person shooter, but you walk around a couple corridors, kill a couple formula monsters, and the game freezes as it plays a cut scene with voice actors. Then you continue on. Why don't I just buy the DVD and watch the movie? It's less work on my part. In fact, many games like Bioshock or Dead Space -- I didn't play the game. But I pretty much did; I went to YouTube and watched people do a run through. As far as I was concerned I just watched the movie.

A game that did first-person shooter right: Portal.

One of my favorites.

RH: Where are the cutscenes? Is there a cutscene in there? The only one there is that you actually get to see the cake. Other than that, it's just listening to GLADOS taunt you and go completely mad. Otherwise, it's the game. All about the game.

So you don't think that game would've been better if every few minutes it would have taken you out of the game and shown you 15 minutes of cut scenes with some big name actors?

RH: I would have thought that they wasted a couple million dollars. Think about it, they saved a couple million dollars they could use to do Half-Life III, to be released in 2017. We hope.
Good Stuff.

Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:18 pm
by St. Toxic
Frater Perdurabo wrote:Yeah I played some Condemned 2. There's a crime site - this looks cool. And then I realised that they told you exactly where everything was, what to use and what to look at.

But it had great GRAPHIX
The first Condemned wasn't bad though. Obviously not the most intelligent game being primarily a console title, and really gets simplified towards the end, but plenty of nice survival horror style moments.

True though, games are shit these days. I'm down to just strategy games like Civ. Oh, and mindgames with unsuspecting victims. :crazy:

Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:37 pm
by TheCynic
The industry is becoming a victim of it's own success. Just like every Hollywood movie has to be a remake/sequel/comic book/old sit-com/japanese horror movie formulaic crapfest to turn a profit, so it seems that gaming follows the same path

But Dude, Call of Duty is o-o-original, they didn't remake nuffin. No re-regurgitation.

Shit like that blows my mind, little bro argues shit like that all day, every day. And Fallout 3 in the pinnacle of roleplaying in his eyes. But he thinks the new Call of Duty (honestly, I don't even know what it's called) is considered an rpg because it has customizable classes. But he and all his little jackoff friends won't play a "real" rpg because "the graphics suck".

Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:39 pm
by St. Toxic
Maybe you should strangle them before it's too late? They're going to be responsible for your health when you're old and weak, you know?