[jcadam]

I'm wondering what the deal is with the current crop of games currently available (for ANY platform).

For this rant, I will discuss what I see happening in each genre:

FPS: nothing truly new since Quake I. Sure, the graphics continue to improve as Nvidia and ATI release ever-faster graphics cards, but the gameplay hasn't changed at all (Tribes2 and HALO introduced such an innovative concept as "vehicles" to futuristic warfare. This minor tweak to the standard FPS gameplay made these two titles hits. pathetic.)

Star Trek Elite Force: Hey! it's like Quake III with a star trek theme!

Return to Wolfenstein: Hey! it's like Quake III with a WWII theme!

The FPS genre has had one positive effect, however. Without it, video cards like the GeForce4 would be considered 'workstation-class' parts costing $1000+. Thanks to all the adolescent Quake-fiends out there, I have some serious power at my disposal for programming/experementing with OpenGL.

Sports: Woohoo! Electronic Arts can release the same slew of sports games every year with updated team-rosters and people will buy them! Even better, they can develop one crappy 3D-engine and use it for every single game!!

Strategy: Civilization II was the last good strategy game. Civilization III was crap. I was expecting Civ III to be like Civ/CivII with updated graphics/sound and maybe some additional units/technologies. Instead, Firaxis decided they would 'improve' the basic (proven) gameplay of Civilization by introducing more complexity (and increasing the amount of micro-management required). Real-time strategy games are all clones of Command-and-Conquer (with snazzy 3D-esque graphics, blah, blah). BTW, the only way to play a strategy game is against another human. The AI in ALL strategy games sucks (increasing levels of difficulty means simply allowing the same dumb, predictable AI to cheat more).

Adventure/RPG: my favorite type of game. Unfortunately, developers these days seem to think they can substitute flashy graphics and animated cut-scenes for plot, storyline, depth, gameplay, etc. Phantasy Star I & II were good RPGs. Starflight was a FANTASTIC RPG/adventure game (the BEST plot/storyline I have seen in a game). Each new installment of Final Fantasy sucks more than the last. Summoner sucked. My personal opinion is that storyline/plot should be developed FIRST and that a SIGNIFICANT amount of time should be spent on it.

Most of the problems I see with the gaming industry probably center around the pressure put on developers to get games released as quickly as possible. Gone is the time that YEARS could be spent developing a good product (Starflight). I am a programmer (recent college grad) and I have always been interested in getting involved in the gaming industry. Truthfully, I think I would be happier back in the eighties, working with a team of developers devoted to taking the necessary time to produce quality games (despite the frustrating hardware-constraints that would have been present at the time). I really don't know If I would be intersted in working for one of the major development studios where the attitude seems to be "Yea, it might be cool to add such and such element to this game (or fix such and such bug), but we need to push this project out the door NOW so we can move on to the next one."

Working on a project with other game-enthusiast/programmer types over the internet in our spare time sounds better to me.

[JoNoiD]

I agree with most of the points you make. There is definitely too much emphasis in trying to get games out as quickly as possible. There should be more emphasis on the quality of the game. However, the need for better graphics will continue to grow. We, by nature, want better than what we currently have.

Also, regarding first person shooters; there are many really cool games out there that play similarly to the original Quake. However, these new incarnations are just as fun, but they also have better graphics and a few new twists. If the original idea works, then why drastically change it?

[Guy Incognito]

The funniest and most true is the sports games.

ElectronicArts has got it made. The game engine is slighly improved, they update the player rosters...slap on a new year label on the box and call it a day.

And they make toooons of money for doing practically nothing...'cuz everyone seems to love sports games (except me...I'd rather play them in real-life or watch them.)

[imacman11]

Well, I agree... it is pretty pathetic how we cling to 'new' things like vehicles and such.... But, they are new to the FPS and HALO did a great job... way better than TRIBES could hope...

Anyway, I think that 3D Realms is one of the few companies to actually not do anything on their list (not with their BIG games at least). Max Payne was freaking awesome and they never had a release date except W.I.D.... and soon (hopefully) to be realeased, Duke Nukem Forever which has taken that long still has a release of WID. Hopefully that game will be a nice refresh from what current FPS has to offer (and the other categories). :|

[schwa]

With the exception of the sports genre, your points show an overly-simplified view of how technology and gameplay have progressed:

FPS- Half-Life/Team Fortress really raised multi-player to a new level, integrating squad-based play with different classes to replace the standard deathmatch style.

Strategy- You have nothing to say here on anything other than your opinion of Civ III. BTW, what are you expecting? There will, BTW, not be a really good AI in this area for a looooong time. It's unbelieveably difficult to program the concept of personality, let alone backstabbing.

RTS- Myth changed the genre, integrating real physics and "characters" that got better the longer you kept them alive.

As for your wistful reminiscense of the 80's (which I'm guessing you're not old enough to really remember), keep in mind that people didn't make real money developing games for computers. It was still, largely, a hobby industry.

Not to burst your idealistic bubble but... welcome to the real world, fella..

[Scarpa]

FPS: what about the tactical shooters? what about Natural Selection? There's still innovative stuff out there.

Strategy: Um.. your Mac came with Chess didn't it? Mine did.

RTS: I still play Starcraft.. Natural Selection looks really cool though, too bad I totally suck at FPS games.

Adventure: Buy a Gamecube.

Sports: Um.. I don't get the sports genre at all. No comment.

Final Words: GTA.

that's my $.02

[Hash]

I wish there were a good soccer game for mac *DONT TELL ME ABOUT KICKSTART or whatever its named.

However, there is NO good soccer games even on PC side!

[saltines17]

For roleplaying... I think Alice is awesome

Rune is fun too (not much of a plotline, but still really really really fun - especially multiplayer), but there's no OS X version yet

The Worms series is also incredibly fun, but there aren't any good ones for the Mac

And for non-PC roleplaying, I love Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.

But yes, the Mac OS (Especially X) needs some good roleplaying games (AND THE FREAKIN' WORMS GAMES!! COME ON...DOESN'T *SOMEONE* LIKE THESE ENOUGH TO PORT THEM? AAHHHH )

[clarkgoble]

Alice? You mean that video game based on Alice in Wonderland that ran on the original 128K Mac? Is that available anywhere in a form that will run on OSX? I loved that game.

You had this chessboard and you could make Alice a pawn, bishop or so forth. You then had all the other pieces moving non-stop trying to kill you and you had to leap around getting them.

[saltines17]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
Alice? You mean that video game based on Alice in Wonderland that ran on the original 128K Mac? Is that available anywhere in a form that will run on OSX? I loved that game.

Haha, no, sorry... I have no clue what you're talking about

The game I'm talking about is: http://www.aspyr.com/mini-sites/alice/

...and it's FREAKY

[Judge_Fire]

The online gaming scene has been going through evolutionary steps, which IMHO haven't stopped yet.

In FPS, with UT being my thing, the games themselves first took on collaborative modes (teams), then classbased (fortress, wolfenstein) and other variations to the mode and mindset of the player.

The mod scene has been producing interesting alterations to these games, which in turn has inspired the original developers to open up their engines.

For example, UT2003 comes with UnRealEditor 3.0, which is based on a long tradition with a great deal of people familiar to it. But now there are vehicles, 'realworld' physics and more flexibility. The game comes with Maya PE just to make sure anyone can take a stab at evolving the scene.

You can go beyond insane fragging, easily.

People doing things with people, for people. With all this distributed modding, however amateurish, evolution slowly happens. Every now and then, something attention- grabbing will surface.

J

[CharlesS]

Jcadam, I agree completely with all of your points.

It's sad - games were a lot more fun when the hardware completely sucked, causing game developers to need to come up with clever enough ideas in the gameplay to make up for the graphics...

[mdcarter1]

Originally posted by jcadam:

Adventure/RPG: my favorite type of game. Unfortunately, developers these days seem to think they can substitute flashy graphics and animated cut-scenes for plot, storyline, depth, gameplay, etc. Phantasy Star I & II were good RPGs. Starflight was a FANTASTIC RPG/adventure game (the BEST plot/storyline I have seen in a game).

Starflight was the best game ever made i think. I almost forgot about it, thanks!

[Jansar]

You're absolutely right. Games nowadays seem to be "mods" of each other, as new games use engines from old games, and so on.

I'm afraid that Mac users will be reclusive for the rest of their lives when Halo comes out.

[Chimpmaster]

I know most mac users arent the biggest microsoft fans...

But if you want to see some innovative games, and are a mac owner without a pc, try xbox.

I just bought one - they are awesome; comparable to a high end pc in terms of performance, with an excellent video card, broadband out of the box via xbox live, and a hard disk inside it.

Halo is the most innovative fps for a long time - absolute must buy if you like the fps genre. We are talking co-op play, squad based action with heaps of atmosphere and great vehicles that you and your team mates can jump on.

Much better implementation than say cs etc.

And for rpgs, morrowind (elder scrolls 3), also on xbox, is fantastic too.

have a look at this url for a listing of the best sbox games out right now. If you havent already, you might find some refreshing titles....

[ShortcutToMoncton]

CLick here to read about the xBox.



greg

[parallax]

In defense of the FPS genre, it's not really practical for those companies who already sell millions to add plot, etc. to their games. That job is mainly left to 3rd party developers and the gaming community, both of which these FPS developers support. There have been some amazing mods to Unreal and Quake that completely alter gameplay, and some developers like Ion Storm have used engines to create wonderful games like Deus Ex. Epic and id don't really sell games to the community; they sell engines.

But yeah, I agree with basically every point, esp. about RPGs and sports games. The only RPGs I play these days are old MUDs. It's sad, I used to love them so much.

[ramberk]

What do you mean by MUDs? What's a MUD and how do I go about playing one? No seriously!

I'm looking for a good RPG. Whether for the Mac, PSX or DC. I like the old Exile games on the Mac. I also like strategy RPGS like Final Fantasy Tactics. I don't like modern RPGS cause I think they are too easy and straight forward. Although, I didn't like Balder's Gate cause I thought it was too hard and slow. Is BG2 anygood?

[Jansar]

Originally posted by ramberk:
What do you mean by MUDs? What's a MUD and how do I go about playing one? No seriously!

Download Cantrip, then connect to a server.

Here are a couple below:

lots.wolfpaw.net (port 3000)
mud.labyrinth.net.au (port 3333)

[parallax]

Mmm, MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) are [usually] text-based realtime games that you play with a bunch of people (around 100 or so concurrently). It takes a certain type of person to appreciate MUDs so if you're a gfx buff you may hate them. Think of a choose-your-own-adventure book and multiply by infinity or so in complexity. Typical late-night MUD action:

consider dragon
> The dragon looks about as strong as you.
backstab dragon
> Your backstab DECIMATES the dragon!
> The dragon's bite mauls you!
dustkick dragon
> Your dust kick blinds the dragon! Your pierce mauls the dragon!
You have killed the dragon! You gain 123481 XP.

'course it gets a lot more fun when you're battling other people with tons of items and potions and stuff, join guilds, clans, take on quests, and whatever. You'll never know until you try it. One of the oldest and most popular MUDs is the Realms of Despair (realms.game.org:4000 I think). You can play through a standard telnet client although playing with a MUD client is better.

[Gul Banana]

One warning: MUDs can be seriously addictive. The lack (at first) of an OS X native MUD client was the best thing that ever happened to me, as it cured my addiction - but too late. I'd already wasted/spent (depends on point of view) almost 1000 hours of my life playing the things...

[invisibleX]

I totally agree with jdcam. On some points. Lets do a run-down:

RTS: There's starcraft, warcraft, AOE II and SWGB. At least one of these should do it for you.

FPS: I don't like these games. If you live for this kinda thing then don't expect a plot. Thats what third person shooters are for. I would suggest Oni, Red Faction or one of many other dandy ones with plenty of plot.

Strategy: This is the only really sad spot. Aside from CIV III there really is nothing. I think this genre is really important because these games are insanely hard but aren't time-relative. Purely for those who enjoy mental challenges. Aside from Tropico its a sorta dead genre. Sad

Sports: I don't like sports. Still there are many games such as KickOff 2002 (soccer game) and F1 championship.

RPG: Spiderweb makes some good ones. So does Ambrosia.

General games: Shareware. Many small shareware companies are making awesome games which are cheap and enjoyable.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

LOL. "Many games such as Kickoff 2002 and F1 Championship." There, you've named the "many" for the Mac. Kickoff is a primitive shooter that borders on quality shareware, and F1 Championship is OLD.

Hmmmmm.

greg

[Sosa]

Originally posted by invisibleX:

Strategy: This is the only really sad spot. Aside from CIV III there really is nothing. I think this genre is really important because these games are insanely hard but aren't time-relative. Purely for those who enjoy mental challenges. Aside from Tropico its a sorta dead genre. Sad
[/B]

In the strategy section for Macs we don't just have Civilization III, we have the best strategy game ever!
And there is another awesome strategy game in the works, Master of Orion III! These two games are enough to keep any strategy gamer happy.

Another soon arriving game with a strategic aspect to it is World War II Online.

[jwblase]

I am still a fan of the open-sourced version of Marathon 2,Aleph One The engine is updated fairly regularly, the gameplay is now TCP/IP internet enabled (in the OS X version), and it still works with all the original mods.

The thing that made Marathon such a great game wasn't just the FPS genre, but the fact that it had a PLOT that one had to THINK through in order to continue with the game. Simply shooting faster will get you nowhere. In fact, the faster you shoot, the more ammo you waste.

The Quake series (and imitations) seems to have only one point: shoot more people faster. No brains needed. Graphics get better, gameplay still sucks.

JB