Dont Shoot! I’m with the science team….
by John on Dec.06, 2006, under Personal
I wrote yesterday about a particular series of games that captured my heart and mind when I was younger. The X-Wing series of games came out in a wonderful period of PC Gaming. It was back in the day when LucasArts could do no wrong (ok, perhaps Rebel Assault 2 was doing wrong, but I digress), and nearly every game they released was excellent in their own rights. It was also the day and time when Janes Combat Simulations, Microprose, and other game companies were pumping out some of my favorite games of all time.
I’ve found, upon further thought on the matter, that I’ve not been really satisfied with a game in a long time. The two notable exceptions being F.E.A.R. and World of Warcraft. The older games, from the early to mid (and in some cases late) 90’s, seem in my mind to be superior to those today. There’s no concrete evidence that I have to back this up, mind you, just the feeling / opinion I have. Games like System Shock (and it’s equally cool sequal System Shock 2), Xwing (and it’s equally cool if not cooler sequal Tie Fighter), 
Rainbow Six (and a few of it’s sequals, though the series is losing it’s way fast), et al. have provided me with hours upon hours of gaming fun, which in turn gives me many fond memories of my gaming days.
I’ve not really been much of a gamer for a few years now. I like to blame College for this, as I like to pretend I spent all of my time in college being studious and learning. That’s a complete load of bullshit, though, and I’m not sure why I believe it every time I tell myself that. The reality is I still game, just not nearly as much as I did when I was younger. Part of that is because I’ve become bored with the games that are out now. It seems like a lot of them focus almost entirely on graphics and technology, and not enough on character development and/or storyline. A notable exception to that that i’ve played recently was F.E.A.R., which had some really neat maps, an intriguing story, some great scripted sequences and some truly frightening encounters. The high quality graphics certainly allowed for some of this, but other games have pulled off the same things without the very high end graphics engines. Take, for instance, System Shock 2. SS2 gave the players a great gaming experience that immersed them into a 
truly scary environment. A ship where something has gone horribly awry, trying to figure out what happened. It was a great story, and had pretty decent graphics for its time, but it didn’t rely on graphics to provide the only lure to get people to play it. Doom III, however, seemed to me to be mainly about the graphics. The story was there, and I guess somewhat plausible (certainly it could have been worse), but most of the game in my opinion was dominated by showing off it’s graphics engine (which I will admit is damn impressive), and consisted a lot of the time by being surprised by demons and monsters appearing out of nowhere for the scare factor. The story wasn’t that deep, and certainly failed to immerse me. It did provide some cheap thrills, but not enough to compel me to play it again.
As Matty P so eloquently put it, the main thing sacraficed for these advances in technology is the gameplay. Games were more fun back then to play, had deeper stories 
and more character development, great control schemes and some really neat fringe features because they had to. Graphics alone weren’t ever going to draw someone to play the games, and so they had to go farther to develop the other aspects of the game to make them compelling enough to appeal to gamers. Add to that this god awful obsession game companies have with console systems. I’m sorry, but I find it very hard to stomach that every year or so a new console comes out that I have to buy to play the games. Add to that the controllers, which IMHO suck ass compared to the mouse and keyboard combo a PC has. Plus, if you want to play some games you have to buy different consoles. What a crock of shit. With computers I could play any of the games on the same system. Sure, upgrades were needed sometimes but a lot of times it meant upgrading a certain component, and not the whole system, and even then seemed fewer and farther between than the new consoles seem to be. I’ve been running on the same hardware in my PC for years now, and haven’t had a need to upgrade yet. In case you couldn’t figure it out, I abhor consoles. I feel the gameplay is dumbed down to the point of being annoying in a lot of cases, and in a lot of other cases you end up with games that are essentially clones of each other.
So, what does this all really mean? It means I’m saddened by the current state of the 
gaming industry. There are a few bright nuggets here and there, but they seem to be much fewer and farther between than they were in the 90’s. There’s a distinct lack of decent flight simulators out there, and the space combat genre that was once topped by giants like TIE Fighter, seems to have disappeared alltogether. Instead you have games like Battlefront II which promises you the ability to fly fighters in space combat, yet the implementation is so abysmal that it makes me hurt inside. Deep inside. In my soul. But maybe that should say something to me. Maybe the masses don’t want deep stories, well developed characters and downright great gameplay. Maybe they want technologically adavnced steaming piles of shit. You can up the graphics and details, make it look really flashy and full of neat new tricks, but in the end if the game fails to have a compelling story and engaging gameplay, it’s still going to suck. I find my outlook on the future of gaming unfortunately kind of bleak.
Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where the title for this post came from. A Hint: It is from a game.
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December 6th, 2006 on 3:21 pm
I was talking with Tony Tease last night about this very topic. One game that is not too old yet, had great graphics, story, and game play is Half Life. I never played HL2, but the first one really made a save of my time at SJNMA. It was so much fun! However, I do not agree on all of your points for consoles. While you are 100% right that it is bullshit that you need a new system every few years to play new games, and sometimes need to buy new hardware to play some games, the consoles were originally made for people who didn’t have the time or expertise for computer gaming. The NES was specifically made (as the Wii is now) as a way for all ages to be able to plug in a unit and play. No complex systems involved, just a game, a console, a controller, and a good time to be had! If my PS2 worked, I would play it! But it is a certified piece of crappola, so it sits idle.
December 6th, 2006 on 3:24 pm
Growing up I wasn’t allowed to have consoles, I was allowed to tinker with computers. I will admit that the older dos games were sometimes quite a challenge to get working, but very rewarding when they do. You can thus see that I’m colored by this early limitation in my gaming, and favor PC’s over consoles. Consoles probably aren’t neccesarily *bad*, but I don’t enjoy them as much.
December 6th, 2006 on 4:36 pm
“Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where the title for this post came from. A Hint: It is from a game.”
Sounds suspiciously like a Half-Lyfe type of phrase to me
I haven’t owned a games console in *years*. There’s various reasons for that, but after selling my Sega Saturn [sometime in the late 90s I guess?] I’ve never felt the need to get one since.
I’ll go through phases of playing PC games.
December 6th, 2006 on 4:39 pm
You, Sayer, are quite right! It’s from Half Life
Nicely done.
December 6th, 2006 on 4:56 pm
I had two choices in my mind but as I couldn’t remember the title of the other game [and still can't] I thought I’d go for the other one which was Half Life
I played HL a bit when it came out. I remember thinking it was quite advanced for the time.
December 6th, 2006 on 4:58 pm
It was indeed quite advanced when it came out, and still is listed by many as one of the greatest games of all time. HL2 was a great game too, in it’s own right, though I’m not sure if it reaches the same standard set forth by the orriginal.
December 6th, 2006 on 4:59 pm
Shouldn’t I get the points because I mentioned Half-Life in my first post?
“One game that is not too old yet, had great graphics, story, and game play is Half Life.”
December 6th, 2006 on 5:00 pm
Resident Evil. That was the other game I had in mind.
December 6th, 2006 on 5:02 pm
Matty: You didn’t mention it as an answer to the question, but rather as a passing reference to the game.
Sayer: I don’t recall ever having played Resident Evil, though the movies were at least somewhat entertaining.
December 7th, 2006 on 3:29 am
I played Resident Evil around a friend’s a couple of years back for no more than five minutes maybe. Not really my thing. That said, it is quite famous which is probably why my wind threw it up as a possible source for the quote… even though I couldn’t remember the title of it
December 7th, 2006 on 10:43 am
Boooo I want points!
The first Resident Evil was kind of blocky, but very scary from what I recall. Silent Hill was MUCH more frightening!
December 7th, 2006 on 10:53 am
I think I’ve *seen* resident evil, a friend of mine played it when I was around once. He may have even let me play it, but I don’t remember much about it.
F.E.A.R. was pretty creepy in a lot of parts, but not over-the-top in it’s scare tactics. It used very well placed visuals and scripted events that worked perfectly and added a great ammount of depth to the environment and gameplay.
And Matty, there will be more chances to get points for identifying the source of the titles.