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Gaming is a much bigger business than is was in the pre Win95 days, but has that brought us a better product? Im not so sure.

I went to the store and looked at the hint book for Sim City 4 by Prima Soft and was not very impressed. Basically it contained all the info I would have expected the manual to have. The hint book for Sim City 2000 was a wonderful piece of work.

It seems to me that the sheer amount of money to be made actually drives down quality in some respects. What do you guys think? Do the bean counters ruin it, or has the "golden age" of video games simply passed?

Some gems are still coming out (*glances at HL2*), but for the most part, money and deadlines and simple crappy work are killing games today.

Most of the whining about the decreased quality of video games these days seems to me like fallacious good ol' days rhetoric. I believe nostalgia is blinding people; the games of today completely surpass their predecessors in every way; aesthetically, mechanically, and in terms of simple fun. Video gaming has always had a fairly high ratio of crappy games to good games, and that will never change.

Of course, I make an exception for Tetris. Tetris still owns all, even after a decade of life.

Are you kidding? Tetris has and always will suck.

HemlockGrey wrote:Are you kidding? Tetris has and always will suck.

*Beats Hemlock Grey over the head with an L-block* DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!!

DPDarkPrimus wrote:

HemlockGrey wrote:Are you kidding? Tetris has and always will suck.

*Beats Hemlock Grey over the head with an L-block* DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!!

*brings a T-block along to help* WHACK!

Durran Korr wrote:Most of the whining about the decreased quality of video games these days seems to me like fallacious good ol' days rhetoric. I believe nostalgia is blinding people; the games of today completely surpass their predecessors in every way; aesthetically, mechanically, and in terms of simple fun. Video gaming has always had a fairly high ratio of crappy games to good games, and that will never change.

Of course, I make an exception for Tetris. Tetris still owns all, even after a decade of life.

I dont think this is a case of nostalgia, you have to scale back your expectations. Of course UT beats the crap out of Doom but both are excellent products given the platforms they were designed for.

But I think there was a time when games where designed by people with a passion, and now its more about dollars.

I think part of it is that many of the good ideas are taken. How many times can you kill a dragon for gold and not say "been there done that"

Only games from Valusoft can truely be called "shitty." No mattter how crappy of a game you've played, Valusoft games will spank it in sheer "shitty-ness."

Anyways, some older games are always going to out-class the newer stuff. There's always a special place for a game that sets a mold. You also notice more shitty games because there are, in fact, more games being made because of the industry. "Back in the day," the gaming industry was small, so games were forced to be great in order to last and build the market up. Now everyone is making games, and with more volume: comes more crap.

I think if you know what you're looking for you will find games that are far greater than their older counter-parts.

That said: Zork > everything ever made afterwards.
"Kill troll with sword"

It seems to me that the sheer amount of money to be made actually drives down quality in some respects.

And drives quality UP in other respects, ways in which pre-Win95 games were driven down due to a lack of money.

So it all balances out. It's just that you look back at previous games with rose-colored glasses.

One of the things i miss about the old dos games was their stability. I almost never had a crash playing one of them. Now with Xp its not a question of if but when a crash is going to set me back.

IMO, old games were, on average, better for their time. Obviously TES: Morrowind completely annihilates Arena or Daggerfall, but look at a lot of games that have come out since the advent of Windows as a core OS. Deer Hunter, Swamp Buggy Racing, Emergency Rescue Firefighter, etc. I don't remember this kind of shit sitting next to Duke Nukem II (with the good ol' big boxes that could hold a decent manual, I might add) or Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Where shitware is now, (good) shareware once was.

JediNeophyte wrote: or Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

Okay, I completely agree with what Neophyte's saying, but I must stop back in to say this: OMFG Raptor: CotS was GREAT! I remember playing that game for hours on end.

For me, I don't think it's so much in terms of the games themselves (though I think some old games have some new games beat to Hell in terms of gameplay, even if graphics aren't up there), but more in terms of who plays them (obviously this is in refrence to MP games). Back in the day, as it were, it was a more friendly atmosphere. Newbies got their share of jokes, but there was rarely a shortage of vets who would be willing to help train the newbies, give them tips and advice, and even let them win a few in the name of training, and there was always a "good game" (or shortened to gg) message afterwards, where more recently, it was, play and that's it, the 1337-mentality, and forget a friendly post-game chat anywhere outside of a clan/squad/whatever.

I don't know if it's improved any since I stopped, but it kind of drove me away. However, to hear about most of the "big name" MP games out there now, and the various stories that come filtered down, it's even worse now than it was before with that Goddamn 1337 bullshit, to say nothing of dickhead server admins (I never ran across a real dickhead Zone sysop in my experience).

Mitth-raw-nuruodo wrote:

JediNeophyte wrote: or Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

Okay, I completely agree with what Neophyte's saying, but I must stop back in to say this: OMFG Raptor: CotS was GREAT! I remember playing that game for hours on end.

I still have it on floppy

Too bad XP fucks up DOS

If you're desperate for some Raptor action, though, Google "Tyrian 2000". You should be able to get a demo of that old beauty, and 2000 is an updated version to be more compatible with modern systems.

Look, my response to people saying that games now a days lack a story is to say "You're right, the fact that Warcraft II had less back plot then Pac-Man was what got me off Video Games alltogether." And then walk away, to let them try to figure out if I was Sarcastic or not.

Straha wrote:Look, my response to people saying that games now a days lack a story is to say "You're right, the fact that Warcraft II had less back plot then Pac-Man was what got me off Video Games alltogether." And then walk away, to let them try to figure out if I was Sarcastic or not.

Comparing Warcraft II to PacMan is mixing genres. Try comparing WC2 to something close to a RTS of the time. Say Raid Over Bungling Bay or Mail Order Monsters. Of course Warcraft II is an outstanding title and is on par with the best of the old days.

But Blizzard is the modern equivelent of EA back in the days of Wasteland and such.

Still, manuals were generally better, back in the day. Or rather, a few years ago.

TrailerParkJawa wrote:It seems to me that the sheer amount of money to be made actually drives down quality in some respects. What do you guys think? Do the bean counters ruin it, or has the "golden age" of video games simply passed?

Welcome to the 'Good Old Days' way of thinking. This happens to everybody. Essentially, in five years, you're going to think that nothing in the gaming industry is anywhere near as good as, say, Half-Life, whereas the fresh crop of young kids with fat wallets will think that Half-Life is nothing more than a highly pixellated antiquity amusement. For example, I think that the best game ever made in human history was probably Super Mario Brothers 3 for the NES, based entirely on Number Of Hours Spent With Eyelids Propped Open Screaming "DAMN YOU, GOOMBA! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!" and "WHO DESIGNED THIS GODAMNED RACOON SUIT? WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO AS A HUNK OF ROCK? OUTLIVE THE ENEMY???"

Then there's nothing to do but sit back in a rocking chair, mumble occasionally, and have erotic fantasies about women with big hair and garter stockings.

Game quality is still good, but the quality of the manuals has gone down. SC2K and Civ2 had wonderful manuals - SC4 and Civ3's were nowhere near as good (hell, SC4 gives you a pamphlet(!))

Mitth-raw-nuruodo wrote:

DPDarkPrimus wrote:

HemlockGrey wrote:Are you kidding? Tetris has and always will suck.

*Beats Hemlock Grey over the head with an L-block* DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!!

*brings a T-block along to help* WHACK!

*starts deorbiting Squares and Rod Blocks onto Hemlock's head* KRUNK! SMASH! SPLAT!!

I think that unless something Really Bad™ happens that takes everyone's minds completely off gaming for the foreseeable future (Nuclear Holocaust counts, a return to FMV-Only Games does too, Daikatana doesn't) that gaming's golden age will never pass.

3rd Impact wrote:Still, manuals were generally better, back in the day. Or rather, a few years ago.

True. The Warcraft III manual is a drastic exception to the rule in that it's thick and packed not only with gameplay instructions but game fiction and world background.

No, the good ol days were hardly the good ol days.

Yes, there were some classic good games...but honestly how many remember the pieces of shit that Atari, Activision, Nintendo, Sega and many others pumped out in the pre 8 up to the 16 bit days?

Saying back then was better is similar to someone going Sci-Fi reached it's pinnacle in the 60's while ignoring there was crap then just as there is crap now.

And vets were just as nasty to newbies...just some were helpful as some are now.

HemlockGrey wrote:Are you kidding? Tetris has and always will suck.

In that, we are in total agreement.

- Tetris sucks

- Space invaders sucks

TrailerParkJawa wrote: Try comparing WC2 to something close to a RTS of the time. Say Raid Over Bungling Bay or Mail Order Monsters.

Or Herzog Zwei.

Seriously though, the days of big gaming innovations are over. Back then, the market was so small, it could afford to have a huge variety of titles. Companies weren't expecting to make a lot of money, so the creators were more careful in their programming. That's why games back then didn't require "Upgrades" or "Patches."

Games today are far, far superior to their ancestors. Granted, the old games like Doom and such have a certain charm to them, much the same way that old suits of armor have a certain charm to them. But does Doom measure up to a game like Halo in any way, shape or form? Absolutely not. Would a game like Knights of the Old Republic even have been concievable merely ten years ago? Absolutely not.