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.

NFS Underground is even flashier graphics, but teh gameplay is extraordinary. Adreniline begins pumping through my veins as i''m reaching 190km/h on a drag strip and my racing wheel is shaking like mad and i can barely see the road cause of motion blur. Of course that kind of speed is only reached after you''ve played the game for hours and built your car up from stock. NFS is one of the greatest racing genres the game industry have seen. I''ve allways been satisfied extraordinarly with their products.
Strategy games however, are going the route of BETTER GRAPHICS LESS GAMEPLAY. I''ll still pick the 2D command and conquers over the new age generals any day. So what if generals has super new armys and rankings and way better super weapons, the gameplay just doesn''t match though. All the new features were implented in a way that would only be visually nice. They do almost nothing for improving the tried and true gameplay of the C&C franchise. I have yet to see one 3D strategy that doesn''t have a 2D counterpart that is far superior in gameplay. Not to say that there aren''t any good 3D strategy games, its just their not as good as where the bar was raised to by the generations of 2D strategies.
FPS games are getting overly flashy as well, but this is a given.Its all a fps can really do to improve itself. Not to mention the FPS genre has allways been the leader of improving graphics and being better and better looking. It''s expected now a days. The amount of gameplay that you could cram into one topped out with goldeneye on the N64. I haven''t seen any FPS since that has improved on that game other than with graphics.
I think that games need cinamatics. They offer an unmatched method of suspending disbelief for the player. Getting the player more and more involved in the game is essential for the game to be fun. Putting those cinamatics in the middle of a level however is far more than damaging to your gameplay. They should only ever be at the end of a level, between campaigns, or implented in a way where aplayer can still play while it is going on. The only games i''ve seen that succesfully interupts the game with cinamatics are RPGs.
RPGs though are pretty much beginning to become exactly what you''re describing. A movie, where occasionally you have to push a button. FF7 did cinamatics in gameplay the most effictively that i''ve seen. Ever since square has been pushing more and more cinamatics into their games. Essentially they''re becomming a movie studio that produces interactive fantasy films.
The game industry is moving more towards interactive movie like software, but thats not to say that real games aren''t sticking around still. There''s still plenty of games out there that are breathtakingly beautiful to how much design is put into them. Personally I think we have just finished a growth generation of games, and with a new generation of OS''s and consoles on the horizon, a whole new generation of gameplay is coming. The industry has been trying to catch up to the demands of their consumers with the brand new graphics cards. Now that all the techniques are developped and have been experimented and refined over the last few years, less focus will be put on the graphics. Game developers and publishers are beginning to focus back on gameplay again. New control ideas and better AI are beginning to emerge. Deeper more intricate interactivity with the game worlds are starting to get developed. Flashy graphics are getting close to being mastered and publishers and developers are beginning to hear the crys of the world for more exciting gameplay.

Yeah this is why I avoid games named after movies.

Paragraphs. USE THEM.

..once my eyes stopped burning..

There are good games out there, you just have to dig for them! There''s a lot of repetitive tripe made to get a quick buck off the unwitting consumer - no doubt - but there ARE some winners. I''m an RPG nut and I love Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights, I consider those pretty decent games.. reasonable graphics as well.

It all depends on what you''re looking for, I guess. Most FPSes are graphics-driven and most FPS players I know prefer eye candy over complex gameplay (after all, it''s all about how many bits you can splatter over the environment). RPGs I expect deeper gameplay from, some do and some don''t provide leading-edge graphics as well (me, I don''t care as long as I can tell what''s coming after me I''m happy lol).

quote:Original post by CAKE
Then Blizzard delivered Warcraft 3. On paper I''m sure everything
looked very good, but...it went 3D (oh yuk). Now I don''t know
about you but building placement is important to me. How you
align and place your buildings is key. In War3 you have this 3D
angled perspective which discourages from effeciently aligning
towers or fodder buildings to create a clean sensible defense.
There is also NO time to really appreciate and develop your hero.
You are too rushed with other things to do it well and take the
time to really enjoy it. Everyone more or less sticks with the
same old building sequence with next to no evolution to it.

That''s funny, I don''t have a problem with it? Must just be you.

quote:Original post by CAKE
There has been hundreds of bad decisions in the game industry to
go 3D with a particular game and it was a major flop because of
it. The Starcraft II (not ghost) that''s rumored to come out have
many people requesting it be done in 2D.

And these people are qualified to make that request how?

quote:Original post by CAKE
Most people don''t have good taste.

I''m assuming that you''re one of the exceptions.

quote:Original post by CAKE
Racing car games and others like 3D shooters appear to me more
like simulators then games.

Huh?!? So Doom/Quake/Unreal are simulators of what, killing monsters?

quote:Original post by CAKE
I played all the online greats by the way. Ultima Online was
interesting wasn''t it?

Define interesting? I thought it was a bug ridden, badly designed piece of crap.

quote:Original post by CAKE
Online games are a very long story with me. Oh so very long. They are designed to make money. So what do you design for? You design to give or get?

All games are designed to make money in the long run. What''s your point?

quote:Original post by CAKE
Games are just one of the most tricky things to get right design wise.

We''ll be waiting to see your masterpiece. Then you have the right to critique and brag.