Why isn't anyone making games anymore? I haven't seen any games made for a little over 5 years now. For example, I picked up Homeworld 2 a few weeks ago thinking it was a game. It turns out it wasn't. Instead it was just pounds of cinematics and 3D Flash. Just when you try to get a hold of your tactics and manage your fleet, it breaks out into some video candy and zooms away from your current unit management. This is all I see being sold the past few years. Give it a few more years and games won't be much different from watching TV with a bit of an interactive nudge here and there. They will be made truly dummy proof. [edited by - CAKE on January 18, 2004 2:48:53 AM]

It''s extremely hard to read your post. you should try to split it up into paragraphs

All is about MONEY!

I agree with you, there is no games, just flashy graphics.

Many games have better been movies, like TRAOD (followed my gfx card
And many games are released half done, like ToEE(could be a very good game if there wasn''t all these irritating bugs)

Please reformat your post, it messes with my mind when I try to read it...

Maybe you''re playing the wrong games/genre or platform?

I didn''t read the whole post but you mentioned PC games.
Get a console, I think Gamecube games have more creativity than any games I''ve ever played.
Other people think XBox Live is the way.

Expand your views or obviously you''re gonna hate certain things.

yes, try something other than strategy games.

Games with flashy graphics sell better, because the screenshots look better and people choose them instead of the much better games with not-so-flashy graphics. Since they never try the better games, they think the graphically inclined games are the best there are, and the overall quality of games decreases, since graphics sell... Or maybe not. I don''t know. But it would be nice to have gameplay-shots instead of screenshots in the back of the boxes, wouldn''t it?

I agree with the fact that games should not be so movie-like. Now it seems that the time for actual gameplay (the time you''re in control of your character/units/etc, that is) gets lower, but the time you have to watch cinematic sequences gets higher (the worst case of course being that you can''t skip''em, either because you simply can''t (ESC does nothing etc) or because there''s some vital information embedded in them). In some games you even get cinematics in the middle of the game, abruptly, with no warning whatsoever, and after the cinematic you''re thrown back into action, also with no warning (usually with something nasty included, like enemies starting firing, in which case the cinematic becomes a reflex test).

Now, the player should be rewarded for success in the game, but I really don''t consider cinematics a reward (as some people seem to). Instead, especially if the sequence comes with no warning beforehand in the middle of a game, I actually consider it a way of punishing the player (this is of course just my opinion, if you really want to have your reflexes tested then go ahead), and the player has to sit back and just watch, he''s not playing anymore, which is probably not what he had in mind when he bought the game.

Using movie-like, linear plots in games indeed makes it merely an interactive show. Forcing the player to play in a certain way also decreases replayability: clearly many people enjoy playing tetris long sessions, maybe some even all day long, every day of the week, but how many like watching the same movie over and over again? I also don''t like movie-like plots in games like strategy games (where the whole world seems to revolve around the unique hero, even though it should be more about armies and the like). And how can you call a strategy game epic if all you get is a measly couple of hundred units fighting each other?

And adding some more movie-like pointlessness, eg. some unnecessary special effects, like the constant use of slow motion etc? No thanks. All in all, stop making seemingly interactive movies and make games for a change.

3D? Nothing wrong with 3D, as such. The problem is however in the perspective projection, in my opinion. Why do we always have to have a first/third person view of the world? I mean, you can do eg. an isometric view with 3D hardware as well, since you can define the projection matrix anything you want. Especially this pains me in strategy games (as well), since it is in my opinion even counter-productive to have a perspective view of the world (at least I find it distracting). This does not mean you couldn''t zoom or rotate the world (like orbit around a unit), just that units don''t scale despite the difference in distance to the point of view.

Of course, all this depends on things like genre, since it''s nice to have good stories in RPGs, the first person mode in FPSs , etc, but the gameplay is indeed more important than the state-of-the-art representation of the game world.

I have to disagree a lot with your general statement that "there are no more [good] games". Especially in the strategy genre, I admit there is a lot of unnecessary games that just were made for money. However, usually at least 20% of the games in a normal computer store are not as bad as you say. It's all about picking the right ones. An easy way to make sure you buy the good stuff, is to try the demo versions before you buy. That procedure never failed me except one time, when the demo happened to be much more exciting than the actual game because of a time limit in the demo .

Neither are computer stores the only place on earth where you can find games. You should investigate the internet and hunt for odd companies that make games that divert from the usual pattern. Trust me, these games do exist even though they may be hard to find. I'd say that 50% of my favorite titles are those that I've ordered from some unknown companies' websites.

EDIT: A few serious spelling spelling errors were corrected...

[edited by - Unwise owl on January 16, 2004 7:27:24 AM]

I disagree. I still get a lot of fun out of games, even if they are eye candy. Driving a few laps in need for speed hot pursuit 2 is fun, even if it looks very pretty.

quote:Original post by Fidelio66
I disagree. I still get a lot of fun out of games, even if they are eye candy. Driving a few laps in need for speed hot pursuit 2 is fun, even if it looks very pretty.

yeah hes talking about people like you who like the graphics. Im not saying thats a bad thing i like it too, but games like the ones he mentioned are better