Master of Orion 2
When I was listing those ten wargames that I recommend earlier, I totally forgot about Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares (PC, $10.) That definitely deserves to be somewhere in the top 10, so I guess Warlords IV is out.
What is it with wargame sequels sucking these days? Warlords III was a masterpiece, and Warlords IV is pretty much a sham. Similarly, MoO2 had a huge fan following, and MoO3 has been universally rejected by those same fans. Are PC game makers getting stupider over time, or what? Maybe the quality of games, in terms of gameplay, just isn't what it used to be overall.
4 Comments:
I disagree with the notion that video gameplay, on the whole, is getting worse (though I can't say anything about PC games or wargames). It's always been the case that only 1 out of every 20 games or so is actually any good (less than that if you include whether or not a game is to a person's tastes).
It's been a weak summer, I'll admit, but fall/winter always has been the best season for games. In fact, I think we're headed into one hell of a great run this winter, with games like Burnout 3, Devil May Cry 3, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ace Combat 05, Gran Turismo 4, Jak 3, Ratchet and Clank 3, Final Fantasy XII, two new Shin Megami Tensei RPGs (Nocturne, and Digital Devil Saga), Gradius V, GTA: San Andreas and a whole whack of stuff I've no doubt forgotten to mention here. If the game industry needs anything, I'd say it's games that bring something new to the table. We've had some innovators over the past few years, and many of the games we're seeing now are just evolotions of that. Time to break new ground again. I'm getting slightly weary of the sheer quantities of sequels we're having rammed down our throats, even though many of those sequels are ones that I want to play, and many that I will likely buy.
The thing that I find interesting, that may have something to do with Parappa's disenchantment with current gameplay trends (in terms of quality), is that there seems to be a lot more mediocre titles than before. Which is to say that there's a wider span of "middle-class games", not that there's less good games. I've played a great deal of games that were "almost good," but seemed too rough around the edges, as if they were released before being finished. It's a frustrating thing, almost worse than playing a shitty game, because you can';t help but see where they were going and think "If only..."
Speaking of good games that are almost great, you really gotta borrow my copy of The Mark of Kri. That's a very strong game--definitely worth putting a weekend or two into.
A lot of the current trends in gaming seem somehow loosely related to current trends in Hollywood film-making. It seems like a lot of producers in both industries have really tuned into what will sell their product, and a lot of the artistic strengths in recent releases are aesthetic. Pardon my broad generalization.
It's like you're saying, though: we're not necessarily getting fewer "great" games or films--we're just being bombarded with a lot more mediocre ones than before. I can definitely agree to that. Sometimes, though, I really itch for something that will totally shake me to the core. I want to go to the theatre and see something as mind-blowing as Apocalypse Now or Requiem for a Dream. I want to boot up a new game and have it be as all-consuming as Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy X. And I get pissed off when I read reviews and stuff on the web that fail to make the distinction between "good and over-hyped" and "truly classic." I think a lot of people are feeling this same frustration these days.
Of course, it could also be that critics (and let's face it, all geeks consider themselves critics at some level) struggle to determine what is really "classic" as quickly as they possibly can, and you can't rush that judgement--at least, not in my opinion. It's only in hindsight that you can tell what was just hyped in the moment and what was truly transcendant.
I know what you mean, I too have been feeling that there hasn't been a truly great game to come along in a while. But I strongly feel that we'll be compensated in the next year with some excellent, fun, solidly-designed titles.
I completely agree that you can't determine a "classic" just by experiencing it once. That's no better than hyping a game as a classic before it comes out.
Game magazines are pretty quick with the 8/10 rating these days. It's getting to the point where I knock most game mags' ratings down one point to better reflect how I might feel about the game.
How you were saying that the greatest artistic strengths in newer games tend to be aesthetic; I think there's some truth in that. I can think of a lot of games where everything *looks* cool, but the gameplay, camera, and/or animation is crap. As cool as good game art is, it's not worth shit if the game plays poorly. I think what really makes "classic" games stand out is their approach to the game medium. They set a goal - to entertain the player with a particular concept or philosophy, and the game achieves that goal in the most effective manner available. Devil May Cry set out to combine the most kick-ass Hong Kong action movie stuff with swordplay and a dark gothic atmosphere - kind of a badass twist to an old and tired setting - and to make it as stylish, dynamic and playable as possible. Ace Combat 04 set out to create a fast arcade sim that felt believable and intense. Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City just wanted to let you drive around and do whatever the hell you wanted. These are the games that won't get old (or at least stand a good chance of having staying power), even after the next gen of consoles comes out.
Some of the mediocre games we've been talking about, their approach - I think - is geared a little differently. There, the goal is somehow caught up in what those aforementioned "classic" games have been up to. Take, for example, Crimson Sea 2, which is a futuristic and sloppy riff off Devil May Cry (or Chaos Legion, which is a sloppy more medieval take on the genre). Or games like True Crime, which tries and fails to be GTA. Of course, a lot of these mediocre titles also fall into a different category: games that have solid and pretty original concepts, but fail utterly in implementation. Case in point: Drakengard. Flying around on a dragon roasting soldiers, being able to jump off or climb on at your whim, levelling up the dragon, your character, and the numerous weapons that you can collect - that's a pretty cool idea, especially when they throw in a story and some Panzer Dragoon style shooter levels. AND it's by friggin' Square-Enix, to boot. But the game ended up being kind of bland and repetetive. How did this happen? Not enough time/money, or just shortsightedness on the part of the game developers? I suppose determining why there's so many 'mediocre' titles out there isn't an easy question to answer after all..
If there's anything at all that the video game industry and the film/movie industry have in common, it's that making a "classic" is much, much, much harder than it looks. There's definitely the whole "the best scripts don't make the best films" factor, which I consider to be a really big deal--you simply can't judge the merit of a video game (or film) based on the subject matter, because the whole heart and soul of the production lies entirely elsewhere. It's like you were saying, Fritzkrieg, about the best games being ones that latch onto a particular idea and really run with it. The idea itself may or may not be inspiring in of itself, but it's the execution of that idea that really matters; everything else is frosting. I see it happen to myself and my peers all of the time where the idea behind a particular film or game gets us all really excited, but the final product is absolutely forgettable, even boring. The converse is often true as well: something might be not too exciting on paper, but mind-blowing in its full actualization.
There's definitely an important lesson to be taken away from that, I think.
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