june gloom on 27/6/2010 at 22:57

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Your mom deserves a facH^H^H^H^H^

I was being sarcastic/exaggerating to make a point. This "wah AAA games suck/have no soul/games from 5-15 years ago are SO MUCH BETTER/hoodies" nonsense just grates on my nerves more and more every time it gets spewed. Yeah, a lot of AAA games are very flashy and may seem like an overly processed commercial product, but there are quite a few AAA games that manage to have heart and soul in spite of flashy graphics. The problem is that a lot of people here and elsewhere tend to let nostalgia for the way games used to be (which could be quite obtuse!) get in the way of enjoying something new, and every time someone complains because some new game pisses them off because it's not exactly like some 256-color game from 1997 I want to take away their computers and give them a Pentium 2. (Assuming they're not still using it.)

I think it's also extremely important to note that many of those games we continue to stroke off over today would be considered "AAA" if they were made today. And a lot of people back then complained because 256 colors and transparent sprites were too flashy.

Zygoptera on 28/6/2010 at 00:14

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Always has been about the combination, from my side. I'd be more than happy to chop at least the terminal clause off that sentence if you can provide me with evidence of being wrong, but you haven't done that, yet.


It's a logical corollary that the smaller the level, the more linear it will be- if you have a level chunk of six rooms there is simply a lot less combinations possible than if you have a level chunk of twelve rooms. If you had 12 rooms and just had them in a long linear line then it's an issue of level design, if you can only have six rooms then it's not, it's a limitation forced by level size. And if you try and force non linearity on those small levels you end up turning large parts of your small areas into nothing other than loading zones, something both Mass Effect and AP suffer from already.


A fair example, and one I had considered. I dismissed it primarily because while the levels are large they are also very limited, most importantly in graphical and other detail quality- sure, they're large, but they're hardly level design to be emulated for a Deus Ex type game. To get an experience with better verisimilitude you'd be far better off with something like Oblivion/ FO3's Gamebryo, for all its technical limitations.


I brought Bioshock up because it has a lot of stuff which AP (or any other 'Deus Ex like') could benefit from already implemented, things like the potential for campaign persistence, more AI in level with better behaviour patterns, stealth, 'special abilities' etc and all in a package that allows decently detailed and comparatively large levels.

Papy on 28/6/2010 at 03:03

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I was there and I can assure you that no one complained back then about 256 colors and "transparent sprites" being too flashy. Of course some IBM PC people with CGA cards complained that some games did require a VGA card, but that's another problem.

Things like Trackmania and Portal certainly prove there are still good and innovative games now. But the truth is there was a lot more innovation in the 80s and the early 90s than now. Not everything was good, in fact I'd say there was a lot more shit then than now, but there was still a little bit of everything and everyone could find what they wanted. In 1990, I had no difficulties finding games I liked. It is certainly harder now.

Just as an example, last week I bought Mass Effect because it was $5 on steam. I played it for about two hours, and gave up because it is another utterly boring game to me. That rarely happened in 80s and early 90s. It happens very frequently now.

thiefinthedark on 28/6/2010 at 05:06

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Exactly! It was very convenient of the people refuting me to simply ignore my second paragraph, but I can roll with it. The majority of AAA games released today are, quite frankly, boring as fuck to me. Why? Because they have nothing new.

Sure, if you have the attention of a 12 year old then the incremental increase in particle density between MW and MW2 will seem Earth Shattering to you, but in terms of mechanics the game actually degraded between MW and MW2.

Like I said before, design meetings are about marketing and VFX these days, not about the actual mechanics of the game. In most cases they simply copy most of the mechanics from an existing title and fill in the blanks to suit the situation at hand. I've had a fair share of arguments with other designers, but they just laugh now and brush me off as "old fashioned".

Evidently it's simply too expensive to put some bloody time and effort into imagining some innovative game mechanics when you're getting paid 40K a year by a AAA publisher to do so. Without the indie developers doing the grunt work in that regard these days, we'd be seeing a degree of stagnation far more advanced than it already is.

Papy on 28/6/2010 at 07:05

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I'm not a big fan of indie (the world needs another breakout) games, but what's wrong with the idea of having a single gameplay mechanic and making a game out of it? I certainly consider Osmos, Droplitz and World of Goo as good games. I'm now having a lot of fun with Manufactoria. I will agree they can't keep my interest for long (although, according to Steam, I did play Osmos for 22 hours), but that's not a problem for me. I don't mind if I play with a game only for two hours, as long as those two hours are fun.

Anyway, the single gameplay mechanic pretty much describe what video games were in the 80s. And you know what? From time to time I load a C64 or an Amiga emulator and play with Mission:Impossible, The Last V8, The Sentinel, Speedball and a lot of other simple games... And those games, after 25 years, are still fun to play!