What's left of what made us love video games

[Blue Stinger]

What's left of what made us love video games ?

First, what made us love video games ? Well, video games themselves ! And what's left of that ? Let's make a con-comprehensive list of all the franchises that we saw die in the past 20 years or so :

Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy (technically still here but are they really FFs ?)
Mass Effect
Dead Space
Borderlands
Halo (technically still here but are they really Halos ?)
MSR/PGR
Crash Bandicoot
Syphon filter
Resident Evil (technically still here but are they really Resident Evils ?)
Skate
Deus Ex
Dishonored
Tony Hawks Pro skater
Fallout (technically still here but are they really Fallouts ?)
Elder's scrolls (technically still here but are they really Elder's scrolls ?)
Bloody Roar
Bioshock
Splinter Cell
Fable
Mirror's Edge
Dragon age
TimeSplitters
Midtown Madness
Amped
Burnout
Medal of Honor
Call of Duty (technically still here but are they really Call of duty ?)
Brothers in arms
... and the list goes on and on and on...

(bear in mind that it's just what came to my mind, I bet you can easily double this list and PC players could triple it. Also, I've only included games that had at least 2 successful/promising games.)

First : sorry, I should have done a Xanax alert...
Then : ask yourself these questions :
1/ What's left of what made us love video games ?
2/ What's left of what made video games great ?
3/ Why the hell everyone acts like game companies will get their act together in a hypothetical future and we'll get anything close to any of the listed above in the future ?
4/ Why we see drug addicts chasing sensations they got in their very first shoot in the next shoot as stupid people ?
5/ Why are we seeing ourselves differently ?

Also, each year, the pool of players who grew up on Fortnite, Call of Duty and FIFA only grows (just examples to illustrate). Those kids aren't kids anymore, some of them start to get jobs and money to spend. For them, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare (random example) is the equivalent of our Super Mario Bros...
6/ What makes you think that the gaming industry will suddenly go back to make games like those listed above when, let's be honest, we are dinosaurs... ?


Here you go, no, those weren't rhetorical questions... In every conversation, in every Youtube video complaining about the state of video game, there is some sort of hope/expectation that things will go back to normal... Why ?!

"Today", we have Bungie severing ties with Activision and everyone is hopeful... Why ?!!! Bungie didn't make a single good game for more than a decade now ! It's the Rare Software thing all over again !
Everyone believed in Sea of Thieves just because Rare made it... Yet Rare's last good game was 20 years old at this point !

So, why that hope ? Where does it come from ?!! Why I feel like everyone is waiting for the train at a bus station ?!!

[Lehran]

Just because something doesn't get a release for a while doesn't mean it's dead and not liking the direction of a series doesn't mean it's dead either. Borderlands 3 is the most poorly kept secret in gaming to the point where pretending it isn't coming out is bordering on insulting now, and a lot of people did like Resident Evil 7 as it seems to be moving back towards horror. Even with studios like Konami killing franchises and compressing the remains into pachinko machines developers like Igarashi and Kojima still are working on great things.

[Gravey]

I clearly remember the last time I went to play video games with a bunch of friends on the original xBox. While we were networking them together with cables that ran all over the house someone said "I heard it is really easy to play these games online now." The next weekend no one wanted to stay up too late playing xBox and goofing off. We just played online until the first person decided to go to sleep and then everyone else checked out pretty quick there after. Online gaming is great in a lot of ways. I have friends all over the globe as a result of it. All the global community stuff aside, nothing will replace middle school sleep overs playing Mortal Kombat and trying to get the fatalities to work like everyone said they did at the bus stop.

The other hollow spot in my chest misses mystery in games. Mortal Kombat is a great example. I could write a novel about all the school yard rumors I remember about that game. I can't imagine how much I've forgotten. The Reptile teasers are legend now for the effect they had on the rumor mill. Seems we know everything about a game before it releases now. If we don't know everything about it before it comes out the first person to find it will post something about it and it will get enough coverage to spoil you unless you avoid all media concerning the game. No good secret stays secret for long. Of course the internet has done this to almost everything in popular culture.

[Mike]

Games are still fun, more realistic than ever and with amazing graphics and storylines,

I for one don't care about realism. The graphics nowadays are impressive yes, but at what cost to gameplay? Everything looks the same to me now. Because everything looks "Realistic" (except Nintendo games of course..) it just means everything looks the same.

Storylines again are interesting but they aren't one of the most important parts of a game. Again, the gameplay is most important. Otherwise it feels like an interactive movie...and nothing wrong with that, but a lot of people don't want to "play" a movie. They want to play games and watch movies.

I am sure that in future, the gap between games and movies (and reality itself) will become even smaller..in terms of how these things become combined. Innovative for sure, but it's far far removed from what games used to be.

[Animusisters]

Everything still there.

[Spect3r]

Realistic? Yeah I guess? I don't really know what real life situation all these quick time events and other gimmicks try to replicate... unless you're talking about physics engines and all that good stuff, in which case I'll give you that. Good graphics? Obviously. Storylines? Let me stop you right there. There haven't been many games with good storylines since roughly 2011. On the AAA side of things, games have turned into the gaming equivalent of blockbuster movies (with all the soullessness and blandness that is commonly associated with the word "blockbuster") and quick money-making machines that try to squeeze every last penny out of the player with DLCs and season passes. Indie games aren't faring much better on the storyline front either, with most of them focusing on being either weird art projects or action-oriented puzzle platformers with little story.

When I think of a game with a good storyline, I always think of games from before 2011. I think of Diablo 2, KOTOR 1 and 2, Starcraft, Half Life 1 and 2, Thief 1, 2 and Deadly Shadows, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas and so on. I sure as hell don't think of Mass Effect Andromeda. Or Fallout 4. Or whatever the current installment of Call of Duty we're on. Why? Because the industry has understood that they don't have to produce a game that's all that groundbreaking anymore. Just a marketable game. Well what kind of game sells, you may ask? One that looks cool and doesn't require the player to think too much.

It's a bit like how Hollywood doesn't have to produce thought-provoking movies either in order to make money. Just ones with big explosions and transforming robots or something, I don't fuckin' know.

Yes, i was talking about physics.

I might have a very different view from many of you here, simply because since i have very little time to play i end up playing really few games, so i dont get as disappointed as many of you do.
For every bad game, there is a good one.
For every Fallout 4 there is a Valkyria, for every ME Andromeda there is a God of War, etc, etc.

Just choose better the games you play and you will see that is not as bad as you think

[LtPantyRaider]

I hope that it is released on switch!

[LtPantyRaider]

I remember picking up this odd looking orange pc game box up at the local Target store when I was young. Knowing absolutely nothing about the game other then the box art on the back I decided to give it a whirl. That game blew my balls off it was so awesome and immersing. I truly felt like I was caught in the middle of an experiment gone wrong and I had to get the hell out of dodge. I would say that Half life was the game that made me fall in love with gaming on a different type of level. I'm not sure what that feeling was that is so hard for me to find now. It was a kick-ass single player experience that was perfect for my youthful awkward years growing up in a small farming town. It was that escape from everything familiar about where I lived at the time. I guess the world is a smaller place and my experiences have been broadened so perhaps that escape to something unseen or unheard is harder for me to achieve. The days of "firsts" and original ideas are getting shorter and shorter it seems.

[037]

Try Divinity Original Sin 2, one of the best RPGs I've ever played and epic story, released in 2017, No DLC, no microtransactions, just a FULL rich in depth great story RPG. Also if you're more into Action, try Hellblade, crazy amazing story.

These are both from indie studios of course.

There is still hope.

[vippy]

Games are still fun, more realistic than ever and with amazing graphics and storylines, so im not sure what are you complaining about.

Realistic? Yeah I guess? I don't really know what real life situation all these quick time events and other gimmicks try to replicate... unless you're talking about physics engines and all that good stuff, in which case I'll give you that. Good graphics? Obviously. Storylines? Let me stop you right there. There haven't been many games with good storylines since roughly 2011. On the AAA side of things, games have turned into the gaming equivalent of blockbuster movies (with all the soullessness and blandness that is commonly associated with the word "blockbuster") and quick money-making machines that try to squeeze every last penny out of the player with DLCs and season passes. Indie games aren't faring much better on the storyline front either, with most of them focusing on being either weird art projects or action-oriented puzzle platformers with little story.

When I think of a game with a good storyline, I always think of games from before 2011. I think of Diablo 2, KOTOR 1 and 2, Starcraft, Half Life 1 and 2, Thief 1, 2 and Deadly Shadows, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas and so on. I sure as hell don't think of Mass Effect Andromeda. Or Fallout 4. Or whatever the current installment of Call of Duty we're on. Why? Because the industry has understood that they don't have to produce a game that's all that groundbreaking anymore. Just a marketable game. Well what kind of game sells, you may ask? One that looks cool and doesn't require the player to think too much.

It's a bit like how Hollywood doesn't have to produce thought-provoking movies either in order to make money. Just ones with big explosions and transforming robots or something, I don't fuckin' know.

[Blue Stinger]

Ah, I knew I've read "how is Borderland 3 dead" and I didn't responded it !
Because we are "waiting" for Borderlands 3 for what... 6, 7 years now ? Borderlands 2 wasn't as good as the first one and the way that they handled DLC was ludicrous. 7 years later, I bet it would translate into the most outrageous lootbox system in history ! Don't forget that the game is basically a big slot machine for weapons and armors... Can you imagine what the perfect game to implement lootbox would look with lootboxes in it ? In this day and age ? You know what, I'd like to see that actually, maybe it will be the wake up call for people.

[grayfox313]

I really wanna get an Xbox one for one reason: Fable Anniversary

[Blue Stinger]

The only game I played this year was Forsaken remastered on the X1X. My wife bought me Spyro Trilogy thinking it would please me, but I couldn't get into it for some reason. I was waiting for FF7 HD on X1X, but I'm just going to pass on that one, I bet the conversion will be shitty and the price ludicrous. I was about to buy Hitman Blood Money and Absolution, but it costs £50 ! No way... I already own both of those multiple times on other machines.
At least I got to play one game on my X1X this year and it was one of my favorite games of all time !

[Blue Stinger]

My X1X is just like my wife, I haven't turned it on for almost a year now ^-^ What a big waste of money. So, yeah, I only play old games now. At one point, I thought I just "evolved" and didn't like video games anymore, I went back to old games and I'm having a ton of fun !
And yes, that sucks about PKMN, I only liked the first one and I own a 3DS so I was thinking about picking this one up too... EACH TIME I see a current gen game that is interesting, something happens. The last night is apparently being cancelled... The new PKMN sucks and Hitman Blood Money and Absolution cost £50 !!! WTF ?! I'm not paying that for a downloadable resolution upgrade !

[IcedViking]

Well said; I primarily play on my PSone. However Im always ready to get a new game for my PS4 pro