How Older Games Showed Me Whats Wrong With Modern Gaming
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ค. 2024
- Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:53 Chapter I: The "Graphics" Problem
03:31 Chapter II: Lack of Emotional Connection
04:42 Chapter III: Modern Monetization
05:36 Chapter IV: Blind Trust
08:48 Chapter V: Lack of Innovation
10:01 Outro
In this Video I present the Problems that I noticed with Modern Gaming - เกม
It is a huge mental fallacy to think that old games had to lean on story because the graphics were not that good or the maps were not that big. Those games were the cutting edge when they came out and no one then had seen anything beyond them.
Look at my comment, I adressed this, I think this dude needs some more perspective hehe, but he is on the right track. What gaming is, is first and foremost, as our first developers who inspired all companies today, it simply boils down to, GOOD IMMERSIVE GAMEPLAY :) It is why indie developers get it, and AAA devs fails. AAA wants games that sells, and indie devs has simply more passion put into the product.
@@eccer It's a perfect example of the limits imposed on development by the capitalist system, how finance always ends up coming before real art, resources, or people
exactly. Quake and Half Lie were mind boggling games at the time. No one could compete with their graphics. Then we got games like Perfect Dark for the N64, Shadow of the Colossus for PS2, and Crysis on the PC, all those games crushed their competition in terms of graphics
I don’t necessarily agree, with the advances in tech, there are so many more tools and possibilities now, that just tackling a games art style and direction is a daunting task. Devs I’d imagine they then have to work a hell of a lot harder to meet a minimum standard of what’s expected in todays modern games. I’m ignorant on the topic of game design and development, but what he said sounded intuitive to me.
Interesting, I still find that After playing more and more Older Games in recent years, they tell a lot more interesting and high quality stories. Especially when you compare them with modern Games that came out in the last Couple of years.
Here's the thing: we DID look at those games back then and say "They look incredible!" because, for that time, they WERE incredible.
Yup. Standards were different. If a game came out looking like it does today back then, they'd be even more impressed. It's like how movies like the original Toy Story was impressive back in 1995 but looks extremely dated today thanks to much better animation, lighting, and modeling technology today. People's standards are set by the limitations of technology of the time
@@crestofhonor2349 It's not so much that *standards* were different. Expectations weren't even different. The tech just wasn't up to the level that it is today.
Back then, the top end games were the best that current technology could deliver...so they WERE "incredible".
The idea that "well the graphics back then sucked (by TODAY'S standards), so they had to tell good stories to make up for it" is ridiculously shortsighted. The games told good stories because, in general, it doesn't matter how mind-blowing the graphics are...if you don't have a good story, the game is going to suck. Period.
I remember playing Morrowind for the first time, and being awestruck by its sunsets. I would climb a hill, and just watch. The sun would go down, the sky would slowly get more and more golden. The sound of the creatures, the musical backdrop. Then the first stars would appear.
It was the first time I had ever seen a day-night cycle in a 3D game, and it was amazing. Great memory.
Today, though... been there, done that.
@@Dalendrion Not the first game with a day night cycle but it could have been many people's first. Another iconic game with one is Ocarina of Time
@@crestofhonor2349my earliest memory of a game with a day night cycle was seiken densetsu 3 on the snes(the fan translates rom) that was really Something i was astound with.
i thought i was getting old and games weren't cut out for me anymore but then i start playing skyrim out of nostalgia and just then i realize why i love gaming all those years ago
An Oblivion fan might scoff at that. A Morrowind fan might double scoff at that. And I think Black Isle era Fallout fans are still in the corner crying. I think this comment is a perfect example for how novelty is a huge part of enjoying games, and how ones own expectations rise over the years.
i also went through this recently with skyrim lol
@@acuteaura As an Oblivion lover I concur, Skyrim although fun at times, pales in comparison and in a sense did in many ways reflect the slow downfall of gaming illuminated in this video...
Skyrim was great.i keep hearing new games keep getting bugs and stories
When most people say "old games", they mean games from the 90s and early 2000s, not games from 2011.
The difference is not a matter of what is possible, but what is required. Game development has shifted over the years from being about making experiences, to making a marketable product. This is the philosophy behind all decisions, and it causes the games to be unfocused, rather than being too focused on one area. There's no focus by developers because the direction is decided by management, and management has decided that controlling direction is the best way to make a profitable triple A game. There's no appreciation for innovation because there's no one present in the teams that has "innovator" as their job title. There's no place for it in big game studios.
Lol as if The Gamers don't treat games now more and more like a craft, a product, as opposed to an art.
The internet throws a hissy-fit when something isn't on-par with "consumer demands" and is done in an experimental way. The discourse online around games is extremely entitled: "I want my product my way, you lazy devs, go make product, make consumer happy". Sales are driven exclusively by marketing circlejerks. It's always been a two-way street and most are too blind to see that.
@@ged-4138 Both of our statements are true, but one does not directly cause the other. It doesn't make sense to say Suicide Squad exists in the state it does, solely because gamers chose to buy games that are like it. The goals I outlined which studios pursue, exists regardless of market conditions, it is inherent to being in a market in the first place. It is through the past 10 or so years that they have gradually become as focused on it as they are now. Yes I agree that consumers play a part in that change, yet I'll reiterate that the change itself exists regardless of conditions.
The most noticeable change is that innovation in games stopped being so much about improving the gaming experience, and started being more about developing systems to improve their profitability.
I've said it before, I'll say it again - publicly traded companies are killing gaming.
Because they have investors to please they have to get more profit each quarter and they cant be satisfied with just turning a substantial profit.
So every game appeals to everyone at all times and it just becomes mediocre rather than focusing on a dedicated niche.
This is why games from studios like Fromsoft Grinding Gear Games and Larian Studios are so beloved - they have a niche, they know it well and they deliver solely on that to the best of their ability. They accel and innovate in ways that other games companies never could simply because they've built experience perfecting their niche.
It's honestly why the indie market has exploded and seen meteoric rises with the likes of Fall Guys, Vampire Survivors, Lethal Company etc.
They are passionate about their niche, they just need to turn a profit and they dont try to appeal to everyone. They know their market and appeal to just them and that's more than enough.
@@rasmachris94 how are they killing gaming of the market grows year after year?
Indie market has exploded because indie gamedevs now make good games. Because they're able to make good games, because the underlying technology exists for it. You can take unreal engine for free, put together some free assets, put together mechanics using blueprints and guides how to use them, boom, done, you have a complete game. It might be crude, but if the idea is good, you can make it work, without any skills necessary whatsoever, you can learn to use the technology in the process and it's easy to learn and use. Back in a day, what was available? Flash? Well, yeah, most good indies from back in a day were remakes of flash games. Meatboy, Isaac, etc.
Hit the nail on the head, right there
Financial success does not translate to a good game. I'm not talking about financials. If you looked at that solely, mobile games would be the most successful games of all time and yet we know that they are laden with predatory mechanics to entice users to spend with mediocre mechanics and gameplay.
Which is the direction AAA studios are going. They are not content with making a profit, they are only interested in rinsing you for all you're worth for the least amount of effort possible.
I agree on the indie part, the ease of access of technological advancements has allowed an outbreak of small teams to do incredible things and honestly I'm thankful for it. Without technological advancements we'd be beholden to whatever the AAA industry decides to push out in whatever state.
I was speaking in hyperbole referring to it killing the games industry. it's more specifically that as a lot of the AAA industry is struggling to produce anything of quality; Remastering old content in the laziest way possible, re-packaging the same ideas in new skins and lacking meaningful innovation. The indie industry however is flourishing.
I think that it's becoming more and more apparent that the AAA industry is just looking to produce products for another financial quarter rather than for the passion of the game itself. So we should look towards indie games for quality in the future because the AAA industry doesnt show any signs of changing any time soon - actively being outraged at quality being released by other AAA devs, like Elden Ring and BG3. @@ForOne814
yes all cause of shitty mobile games...
Graphics have always been something devs and players gush about. I remember interviews with Todd Howard talking about all the work that went into Oblivion's graphics. Or how everyone loved the grass physics in the early Far Cry games. The limitations were graphical but it was still a major focus. Back then gaming was more niche, today there is a much wider audience and so game companies have made game blander to appeal to more potential gamers. Also the studios themselves were much smaller so devs teams could really work together to laser focus on stories and ideas. Now the studios are so big and corporate that individual teams have to get permission for this or that and sometimes aren't even privy to the overall goals of the game. They are just told do this thing by this time. It's not really a collaboration anymore. Just some of my thoughts as an old gamer.
so true. but i have to add that graphics was more rarely prio 1 (compared to today) but rather a secondary goal.
Hear hear
Todd howards a corporate hack.😂
Very, very true.
Exactly. I literally remember being a kid and playing the original Super Mario Bros on the NES for the first time back in the late '80's and talking with my friends about how this new console's graphics blew the Atari 2600 and other previous consoles out of the water, just like the Atari itself had put things like Pong to shame. The exact same thing happened when every subsequent generation of consoles came out. The SNES and SEGA Genesis were amazing in comparison to the NES and SEGA Master System, then the original Playstation came out and it was even better, then the PS2 and the X-Box, and so on. Every single time this happened people have talked about how mind-blowing the new systems' graphics were in comparison to the earlier generation.
We actually did talk about the graphics looking incredible back then, pretty often. Each new advancement was remarkable, and advancements were made frequently. Flashback, Virtua Racing, Duke3D, Quake, Dungeon Keeper, Phantasmagoria, MotoRacer, Thief, Half Life, CoD, HL2... I remember wow'ing at the graphical improvements on each one of them and many more. Even in the late 80s/early 90s, on the consoles and the arcades, some games were something to behold in terms of visuals, since we hadn't yet seen anything more sophisticated.
And we totally bought em all. I mean… mostly… sometimes years later 🙃
The fact that wolf 3d came in 1992, doom in 1993 and quake in 1996 is fucking mindblowing.
If anything, I talk about graphics less now than back then.
Dude I still remember talking to my friends and cousins about Wolfenstein3D and how realistic the graphics were.
Visuals have pretty much always been at the forefront of estimating a game's quality, since they've been the most in-your-face benchmark of a game being on the latest tech.
Sure wolfenstein 3D was mighty impressive for its time but I just can’t see how you can see those graphics as realistic. It’s like saying super Mario bros looked realistic. Impressive for the time, but far from realistic. Maybe after about 2005 or so did games start looking realistic and they have gotten really realistic in the last 7 years.
@@silverwatchdog The brain fills in the gaps and it's impossible for current generations to wrap their heads around the degree to which the previous generations were able to do that on the media content of their times.
There's an old black and white film from the early 1900s where there was a scene where a train was coming towards the audience from their perspective and when they showed it in theaters people actually panicked and fled because they thought an actual train was going to run them over right there in the theater. People in 2024 wouldn't even blink and would probably keep looking down at their phones in boredom.
I very much got sucked into Wolfenstein 3D when it came out.
"Because we buy every single game they release". THIS.
Why I normally wait for games to be at minimum 50% off.
@@mrow7598Smart man!
It's choice also. I have access to hundreds of games through ps+ and game pass.
When I was young I'd save up, buy a game, and even if it was difficult or complex to learn, I'd learn it out of a lack of choice. Now if I download a game and I don't get hooked in the first hour or two, I delete and try something else
@@mrow7598 same here man, but even so it's still way too expensive here in Brazil
@@shinshinshin81 i despise these services. Don't get me wrong, they have their uses like you said, but I despise paying for something I won't own. Then when they take certain game out of the catalog and I still wanna play it... Well.. I won't be able to. So no, it's not a choice, prices are high and should drop. Drastically.
People will buy, no innovation needed.
Especially the youngsters!
The phrase, 'Don't criticize problem, just consume product' has never been more true
Yep, I grew up in a time where ALMOST EVERYONE was involved in sports.. had FRIENDS... today we literally have entiire generations of game ADDICTS who will say "But theres this 1, 2 or 3 games in recent years"" leaving out the other 50 games and thousands of $$ they spent in that time finding those few games.
We also live in a society where IQ has been rapidly dropping since 90s and testosterone since 50s..
Part of a MUCH bigger problem unfortunately.
✡️Greedy corporations and brainless consumers
I mean to be fair this video itself proves that people are waking up.
I sat with my friend playing Doom in 1993 and I said "the graphics cent get much better than this" - to me, there and then, the graphics were photorealistic
3:23 no, the reason the stories, characters and details we so much more beautiful back then it's because the devs loved what they were doing, they had passion, now the have to follow the orders of the corporate CEO who only care about agendas, micro transactions etc.
With so many games out there these days, I find myself going back and playing games from my childhood pretty often. Sure, I'm probably blinded by nostalgia, but I feel like old games had a lot more going for them relative to the technology at the time. At the risk of sounding cliche, modern games just don't have as much soul. I feel like older games they weren't just about selling a product, but the developers had a vision and wanted to tell a story or create a unique world.
I played metal gear 2 solid snake for the first time a month ago, having already played all the other titles in the series multiple times, and frankly I think it's my favorite one. No nostalgia involved, it's just a really good game.
No, it's understandable. Some games just are better (for you). It always includes a subjective element, no matter how old or new something is. Some people are having fun with Suicide Squad for instance. Well, let them ;)
But still, I have discovered a lot of games that I really like in the last few years. It just means I have also played a good amount I didn't like so much ;) So, finding those games that are for you is the problem. Simply because there are just so many nowadays.
It depends. Games were as much about selling as they were today. Developers back then were trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. Some games were overly mechanics heavy and others were extremely simple. Kojima is a good example of someone who likes a lot of detail to his games and he still does this to this very day. Many modern AAA games are trying to aim a bit too broad with their audiences probably because budgets are very high. Thankfully smaller games tend to be a bit more focused and less broad.
There's a ton of great stuff today, you just have to sort through the crap just like back then.
@@crestofhonor2349 since we're in a discussion about finding great new games, I have to mention rain world. Subjectivity obviously applies but for me it's one of the best games that's come out in a long time.
A lot of people who are, say, twenty today do this. But a lot of people who are 35 nowadays also did this when they were 20. So the games one group is playing in favor of new stuff were the new stuff some older people were avoiding in favor of even older stuff. I think it's just natural to want to revisit games you played in your formative years, and not so much an indication of the current state of games.
That's even the more so if you count all the "recent" influx of great indie titles.
I have been playing video games since the late 1970s. There has always been a tension between graphics and other aspects of games. The desire to take advantage of the capabilities of the latest hardware is strong, and it leads to an arms race. Unfortunately, this can result in graphics being unnecessarily prioritized over other elements. Back around the late 1990s, one of my friends observe this. In response to a game that he found inadequate, he described "an awful lot of graphics and very little game." I can't remember which game he was talking about, but there certainly were games back then that went all in on graphics to the detriment of the game - for example, Ultima IX, which was widely detested by long time Ultima fans. Realistic-looking 3-D games were just getting started during that decade, and while they may look primitive by today's standards, they looked impressive when they came out. Nothing is new here. These days, "an awful lot of graphics and very little game" still applies to flashy games with mediocre content, and I'm sure this will continue far into the future.
As for the decline in story telling and the general staleness of many contemporary video game franchises, a focus on graphics is only one contributor to the problem, and I don't think it is even a major contributor in most cases. At the risk of sounding like a cantankerous old elitist gamer (which maybe I am), the mainstreaming of gaming and the growth of a more casual type of player base has likely contributed. Many modern games feature simplistic stories and a lot of hand holding - Skyrim, for example. This makes the games very approachable, which brings in the big audience and the money, but something was lost in the progression from Daggerfall to Skyrim. The systemic depth of the early Elder Scrolls games gives the player many layers of complexity to discover, while Skyrim is fun to explore but provides no mental challenge and is ultimately a shallow experience. It's a fun game to play when I simply want to turn my brain off and putter around in its world, but if I want immersion, Morrowind is a far better choice.
The predatory monetization schemes that the AAA companies love to abuse only make things worse. When a game is designed around this type of system, nothing good will come of it. Furthermore, newer audiences don't remember the time before this started to happen, and they are being conditioned to accept it as normal. (To be fair, coin-operated arcade games could be considered the first example of predatory monetization in gaming. When I was a teenager, I wasted plenty of quarters in them, and the games were purposely designed to be insanely difficult in order to more rapidly separate teenagers from their money.) As indicated in the video, gamers are partially at fault for this state of affairs. Stop throwing money at microtransactions, and stop pre-ordering games or buying them soon after release. Do this, and the big companies will panic and will have to change their ways. I knew better than to pre-order Starfield or Cities: Skylines 2, and I still haven't bought them.
I have come to accept that I'm no longer in the mainstream of gaming even though I have been a gamer for decades. The big budget blockbuster AAA games are simply not made for me. Grouchy old ladies aren't exactly the target audience these companies have in mind. I know a scam when I see it, so I stay away from live service games. I don't have reflexes, so hard core action games are not for me. I'm not impressed by ultra realistic graphics, so I won't buy a game simply because it looked neat in a preview video. There are plenty of indie games that appeal to me, and the big companies will occasionally throw some crumbs to the non-mainstream. Pentiment, for example, assumes that the player is intelligent and reasonably well educated in European history, philosophy, and religion - and it was made by Obsidian, a Microsoft subsidiary. I'm surprised, and also very pleased, that they were allowed to make it.
The AAA segment of the industry may have turned into the gaming equivalent of modern day Hollywood, but the broader industry is in better shape than I've seen it in a long time. Look past the flashy but shallow releases from the big companies, and there is still plenty of fun to be had.
I wanted to take the time to thank you for this well thought out comment. Like you, I'm an old gamer, my first game being Ultima II in 1982.
I think the real difference, is that when we were young, games were very participatory. The graphics, even when good for its time were meant as representations for our imagination. We made the stories from the canvas we were given. Cloth maps, feelies, ornate manuals. Even when graphics became sensational, a good story dealt heavily with our participation, that's why some games do become lauded, but overall still offer less to the player than something like System Shock or Underworld did.
Nowadays considerable effort is made to make the player a passive participant. He moves the controller in known combinations unconsciously to get through to the next cutscene. Players almost see game play as tedious in some cases, seeking the next story evolution, like reading a book with skill checks to turn the page. I'm not sure this is necessarily good storytelling.
Apologies for the length, it was the best comment on this video, and I felt a little sad it didn't get the attention it deserves.
@@chuckhaynes9166 Sometimes, I vomit out long comments on TH-cam videos when the subject is sufficiently interesting. I like to write. Every now and then, they result in good discussion, so it is worth it even if few people read them.
Ultima III was my introduction to that series, and I quickly went back to Ultima I and II. Ultima II is a janky mess and something of a failed experiment, but it is about as fun as a failed experiment can be, and I spent a lot of time with it. I have to wonder how many people were able to complete it without resorting to a hint book. Remember the desk clerk at the Hotel California? This is one of the most important NPCs in the game, and the whole situation makes absolutely no sense. I remember being so excited when I figured this out - finally, I could make progress in the game.
The feelies that came with some games were always a big part of the experience. Ultima was known for this. The Infocom text adventures were too, and the feelies often constituted the DRM of their day since they contained information that was necessary to complete the game. These text adventures certainly relied on the player's imagination, and if there had been graphics in these games, I don't think they would have worked as well. Later on, when Activision added graphics to the newer entries in the Zork series, I was disappointed. It didn't feel appropriate. Younger gamers today probably can't even imagine the concept of a game without any graphics.
You make a great point about the passive nature of many of today's games. They rehash old ideas and old mechanics, and they tell the player exactly what to do. There is a place for games like this. Sometimes, after a hard day, I want to turn my brain off and relax with something that isn't going to demand anything from me. The rather nebulous "cozy game" genre is built around this concept, though some of them can be surprisingly complex if you dig beneath the surface or try to power game them. Cozy games don't pretend to be anything more than this, so I can respect them when they succeed at what they are trying to be. Many games these days look like they are trying for something more profound and engaging but only provide a surface level, passive experience, with lots of hand holding provided so that no thought is necessary. Skyrim can be fun, but I have a hard time seeing it as anything more than a cozy life sim in an epic setting. Many of the features of cozy games are there - wander around the world looking for loot, hoard the loot in the player house, craft things from the loot, get into some very easy combat, talk to NPCs and maybe romance one (who will become a generic non-person after marriage), and even do some farming. The dungeons are very linear, and there are markers to point the way on quests, so getting lost (and the resulting discovery of something interesting) is rarely a problem unless you purposely ignore the markers. Stories are simple, straightforward, and full of clichés. Fallout 4 is similar. Life sim activities are usually more fun than the quest lines. Neither the quest lines nor the cozy game activities require much thought.
Fortunately, there are still games that make people think. City builders and other simulation games allow for creativity and require thinking about layout and logistics. Some RPGs still have good stories and complex mechanics (Baldur's Gate 3, for example). Some narrative adventures and walking simulators concentrate on the narrative and artistic style, and in many cases minimize game play mechanics so that the story is in the foreground. I like those that piece together the story out of snippets of information that the player comes across along the way so that the player has to think about how everything fits together. Pentiment, Dear Esther, Gone Home, and What Remains of Edith Finch do this.
As I get older, I am starting to worry about the potential for the onset of dementia. It does appear that keeping the brain active into old age helps to delay or eliminate this problem. People who sit in front of the TV with their eyes glazed over aren't giving their brains much exercise. I have older relatives who gradually became senile as they sat around and did basically nothing. Video games could be great for providing active mental engagement as old age sets in, but sticking with games that are passive and provide little mental challenge might have a limited benefit. Still, even passive games are probably better than watching insipid TV shows and loud advertisements. I'm fortunate in that I like city builders, which exercise creativity and logical thinking, but don't depend on reflexes, which have never been good for me but will only get worse as I become more decrepit with advancing age. Hopefully, this will help me ward off dementia, and hopefully others will stick with gaming as they grow older. I really think it will be a productive hobby for the elderly.
Yeah, good comment.
I agreed with this speech in it's entirety. Thank you ma'am.
Similar to you, been gaming since the early 80's. I couldn't have written a better comment if you paid me. Completely agree!
One of the BIGGEST reasons I bought a handheld. Is to play an older game while relaxing on my couch. There are a lot of older games I can't play back in my childhood days.
It's interesting that your current observations echo those of older players who grew up gaming in the 80s and 90s and watched the transition from 8-bit and 16-bit into 32 and 64-bit. By the year 2000, many of those gamers were noticing smaller worlds but greater details in the environment, often at the expense of more meaningful gameplay. As technology continues to advance, there is less and less necessity for games to focus heavily on gameplay elements to wow and attract the audience. There's definitely a lot more into it, but it is definitely interesting that your observations are pretty much identical to observations of people back when these older games were first made.
I've been playing since 8-bit Nintendo and don't remember these complaints. Perhaps a little but it pales in comparison to what it is now. Maybe with PC games but console games only got so complicated.
It was with both when i was growing up. Different regions will have different people; which means different opinions & views on life. I'll chock this up to regional differences in where we lived. @@J.B.1982
What’s wrong with modern gaming is the hyper-focus on monetization and maximization of profits. Games are an art and entertainment medium first and foremost; they should be ENTERTAINING and allow people to experience stories and other creative elements of art in a directly interactive way that no other medium can.
The big game companies do not make games just to *make games* anymore. They make games for the SOLE purpose of making money. And that is the exact point at which every medium of art loses its soul and audience fatigue sets in; the same is true for movies and tv shows at this very point in time.
Take a look at a recent example of TLOU’s canceled Factions II project. This was game that was hinted at for years now and the fanbase of TLOU was extremely excited for it. It would have sold very well. Yet, Bungie comes in and declares that the game would not have had enough of a steady cash flow from microtransactions for an online multiplayer-focused live-service game, and so the entire project has been SCRAPPED. That game should have been made, just like Star Wars Battlefront 3, and many more throughout our history of gaming.
When games have such HUMONGOUS budgets such as $100m+, companies have to make up for that with a focus on profit in the form of microtransactions and a hyper-focus on the trends of the market. These ridiculously over-inflated budgets need to be returned to a sustainable level so that developers are not crunched and creativity can flourish without the expectation of reaching a profit to exceed their bloated budgets.
Especially since either half, or sometimes more than half, of those inflated budgets are all spent on marketing, marketing is good, it's important, but if you have to spend half your budget on it, you are doing something very wrong, especially in this day and age with all the streamers, youtubers, tik tokers, etc that would advertise your game for free (some of them at least).
Yeah have i seen any triple a studio make a game with low graphics and main focus on the story and combat system ?
There are still a ton of great innovative games coming out. They just aren't being made by the big companies.
This sentiment is a lie.
Your 2d niche lolworthy platformer created by a single dude in a musty basement with the intent to spread a "Lesson about life" or some other such nonsense doesn't constitute for innovation.
Majority of indie games are trash and modern games are even worse. Stop it, i can't think of a single game that isn't boring derivative crap or commercialized slop. Even baldur's gate 3 had preorder bonuses and a broken ending with enough bugs to read like a holy cvs receipt.
Required 5 patches just to get a stable framerate in act 3, GTFO here man.
@@mikeity2009 I think and know your sentiment is wrong, and your whole opinion reeks of someone who really hasnt gotten into indie games.
But hey, like you judged the other guy with nothing to hold.your opinion, I will do the same 🙂
@@Urelasir I've played pretty much every indie game under the sun, aside from a few outlier's they're pretty much all the same.
Yeah that's right go back into the rank smelly hole you crawled out of and shut up.
@@Urelasir Yea, not gonna respond to him, he clearly hasn't played many indie games if Baldur's Gate 3 is his only argument. Maybe he should try jusant or smth idk.
Yep, too many. Actually finding the ones that are right for you, is the actual problem.
I vibe so much with this. Whenever possible i always try to turn as much as the HUD as I can because i was sick of constantly looking at waypoints and arrows and reading lists and lists of stuff plastered all over the screen and not even looking at the game
Great video! I was just trying to explain my own frustrations with this earlier today. Specifically that developers are more often abandoning story, character development, detail, and world building to focus on player retention through online multiplayer/co-op, shallow replayability via procedural generation, and addictive loot mechanics. But I think you much more succinctly answered this by noting that it's simply a refusal or inability to create games that are emotionally resonant.
Of course they are. Building a game that has the bare minimum of gameplay required to keep players playing, while building it around other players and interactions with them, making the other players be the content, is the most cost-effective way to generate content for players to experience. It's theoretically infinite ROI. Artless, yes, but lucrative.
Story was always optional in games. And it's the best thing about the medium.
Assassins Creed released in 2007. In 2004 EA acquired 19.9% shares of Ubisoft for an estimated U$ 96 million. So during Assassins Creed development Ubisoft already had a market value of roughly half a billion dollars. Hardly what I would call a small developer.
They were not as large as the large publishers, but as far as I know very few developers were much larger than them, or with a longer history and backlog, having been founded in the 80s.
The gaming market has since then expanded tremendously. Even the best game was not as big as some average franchise today.
@@curious_one1156 sure, but they were still valued at about half a billion dollars - which is maybe 15% of their current value, but still hardly what I would call a small developer.
okay user, what is the point of your comment cause it adds more to the fact that they have more money, less innovation. SO assuming or even admitting youre right, how does that help to any argument here?
like, what is the focus?
@@DanielGarcia-sj7bp The guy says they were a small company. That's just not true - they were among the largest developers at the time.
You can still say that them growing led to less innovation, sure (although that's not an automatic conclusion), but you can't say they were small. The game being discussed as the good example still had one of the largest budgets at the time. Again, hardly a small developer.
So yeah, growing can be tied to less innovation in this case (and probably in general), but the game seen as good was still made by a very large developer, not by a small one as claimed. In fact, I'd bet almost any current game which isn't "triple A" has a lower budget.
This makes his claim a lot weaker and shows some bias, even if it doesn't invalidate all of it or the general idea.
But more importantly, he presented a false fact and I just offered a correction - shouldn't that be reason enough?
Both my Atari 2600 and then Commodore 64 showed me who the players were in the development arena. Activision, Electronic Arts were both well entrenched before most players today had parents old enough to marry. It's always interesting to see history through the eyes of those whom weren't alive when it happened.
I feel that half of the audience here is gonna feel that "older games" are 2 years old and need a remaster and they're not gonna get the point
you're an elitest, we get it
@@acuteaura haha! Thanks for proving me right:)
@acuteaura yes 🗿
"The Last of Us Part II" has entered the chat
Playing Fallout NV and loving it right now, finished Borderlands 2 before that. I don't really care if something gets remastered...as long as it plays with bugs.
Just found your channel and subbed! I think you make a lot of good points. No doubt the old days had it's own share of shovelware but there does seem to be a lack of risk taking that you saw in those days, perhaps not unsimilar to the same formulaic repetition we see in the current mainstream film space. I'm replaying True Crime: Streets of LA right now and there's certainly a lot missing to modern sensibilities in that game but it still has a lot of innovation over its contemporary competitors, GTA most notably, and many aspects that stand up against the test of time. It is fortunate, at the very least, that we do have some strong indies working to bring some more interesting ideas and spins to the marketplace in ways that the top tier developers have punted.
I was a PC gamer all through the 2000s and early 2010s. Loved Deus Ex, Morrowind, SWG, KOTOR, anything BioWare, RTCW, Quake 3, Jedi Knight/Academy, Undying. I moved to Nintendo Switch in 2017 for most games. Not many people mention how modern Nintendo still retained the spirit of gaming with the level design, focus on fun, creativity overcoming hardware limitations, etc.
I agree with you! The issue with different playstyles is quite easy to work around. Have a "survival" or "explorer" setting where you can turn off all the mission aids and so forth. Then those who want to be guided can, and vice versa.
But Yes, engaging and original stories is what is missing for me with modern games. I want to get sucked in and go "Holy sh*t is it already 2am?" That rarely happens nowadays.
That sums it up perfectly. The “is it already 2am?” Feeling
I don’t agree that it is so simple, respectfully. I think that a game designed with guides in mind is fundamentally different in result from a game that, from the start, was designed without the guides in mind. In such a case, it is the game design/level design itself that guides you, not the HUD.
You could argue, then, that using the HUD rather than designing a game that seamlessly guides the player is a lazy shortcut.
@@swinnyuk6584 Yes, this. In Morrowind your quest instructions include directions on how to find your next objective, often involving trekking out into the wilderness and navigating by landmarks in the environment. The instructions weren't always entirely clear, but they gave you far more than any of the games that followed. With Oblivion and Skyrim, and even Fallout 3 and 4, Bethesda knew that the player would always have a compass on their HUD to lead them directly to their objective. So they started to get a lot more lazy with their quest directions. Trying to find quest locations or objectives in those games without the compass is vastly harder than otherwise, because they were not designed with orienteering in mind.
I would also point to The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, which had a whole bunch of side-quests and environmental puzzles based around the player looking at the environment and at landmarks, and using that information to determine where a quest reward was. And that game recieved tons of praise for inviting its players to actually engage with their surroundings directly, instead of just following a HUD marker to their destination.
In both cases - Morrowind and Breath of the Wild - the developers were confident in the player's ability to navigate without any hand-holding. Orienteering was part of the game's challenge. And they were okay with the player getting lost, or potentially missing content. Allowing players to use a minimized HUD needs more than just a toggle in an options menu. It needs to be baked into the design philosophy of the entire game.
The "holy shit it's 2am" hits hard. I used to stay up till 4 or 5 am and wake up 8am. There's not been a game that's got me like that in a long time.. RE4 remake, but it's basically just an updated re release.
One of my biggest issues with modern games is the big focus on accessibility and stuff like that.
Games used to be made for people who liked whatever type of game it was, but now many games are made in an attempt to get and retain impatient players who are less interested.
As an example, most racing games used to be about starting at the bottom and slowly working your way up to better cars and more money, but nowadays you're often given a starter car that should be a mid to late game car, and very little work is required to get the best cars, just so that impatient players won't quit too early.
Edit:
To be more specific, i don't mind the kind of accessibility that gives basic access to more people, like color, sound, font, difficulty, controller settings ect. What i have a problem with is when all of the in game content is easily accessible early or even from the start of the game, as opposed to being locked behind game progression.
I want there to be something to work towards, and for my progression to be rewarded with access to more and better content.
True, EVERYTHING is nerfed now..
I in last few years went back and played games I played from 90s, and some I missed out on in a poor family in 80s.. and they ARE DAMN HARD compared to newer games.
yup, all "accessibility" is - a rhetoric to push more people to run into predatory monetization tactics in big games and to conform to the social agenda in games - hence the ones pushing it the most being ESG allied companies (companies like Sweet Baby) - the more people that play their games the more they can preach to them
That is why I haven't both enjoyed and played a racing game since Project Gotham Racing 1/2 on DC and Xbox.
@@Lizards_Lounge A lot of NES games were made hard just for the sake of being hard. The renting of games that was popular in the US purposefully made games difficult so you couldn't beat them in one renting period and were forced to pay more if you wanted to keep playing. I wouldn't really call that a good form of game design.
Games were never so expensive to create, ever. Look at the numbers they need to sell to get any profit. That's why nowadays things are always targeted at very large audiences and will do anything to get more people to play.
I'm kinda over online gaming as well. Funny how i started out with single player, online gaming blew up, and now i'm going back 20 some odd years later to single player lol.
This video hits hard, man.
Especially with Ezio's Family playing in the background.
It's not about new games and old games. It's about passion and greed.
Older videogames were made during a time when gaming wasn't as popular and was more of a niche thing, enjoyed by a smaller community who were often made fun of. As such, the market was smaller, and also the companies. They weren't as much motivated by greed bit more about making something they actually would like playing. A similar drive made me get into programming when I was 14, it started with me wanting to make a specific game that doesn't exist and I'd like playing.
Same thing happens with movies and TV series. The original trilogy of LotR was made by a group of passionate people who wanted to offer us a true representation of what one of their favourite authors imagined, whereas the Amazon series RoP was a cashgrab and and absolute disaster filled with characters whose only purpose was brand recognition, made by honestly bad writers, and forced to add in and remove detailed according to what their "marketing experts" thought was trending at the time, instead of giving the directors and designers freedom of creativity to make something actually good.
That's what's happening with games too. Now they're made with money in mind, and the decisions are made by the people who put the money in there, not by the actual developers, and the people in charge rely on their marketing team to decide what's trendy. And what's most trendy in videogames? Graphics. Because now gaming has become a huge industry played by people of all ages from everywhere in the world, and the one thing everyone likes is graphics, not having a good experience. It's reaching a point where games are becoming more like movies with micro transactions where they remove the agency of the players.
Think for instance booster packs, a micro transaction made with older people in mind who have disposable money and not a whole lot of time, who want to fast forward to the endgame without enjoying the journey (which is what games were actually made for), thus removing the player's agency and making it that much closer to a movie.
It used to be the case that games were challenging experiences where you had to learn and improve your skills via actual effort in order to obtain the reward of actually being good in the game. Whereas now games appeal to instant gratification and stimulation removing as much of the effort and challenge (and thus fun) as possible.
And since older people with disposable money who don't care to dish out money for boosters in order to obtain that instant gratification are the main source of income for these developers, games are becoming more and more optimized for that kind of experience rather than one of actual challenge, discovery, exploration, immersion and reward for that effort.
But this is only true for the bigger titles out there (and not all for that matter)
The devs just no longer count in that equation. The decisions are made by the owners of the company who only want to maximize income, not create an actual good and enjoyable product.
On the other hand, good games still do exist in the form of indie titles, which more often than not need to be good in order to even have a chance against the bigger titles, and thus are made with actual passion, caring and love, to create a good product thst will stick with people.
An excellent example of this is Factorio. They spent an immense amount of effort into making a game that's as good, and as well made as possible. The game feels extremely streamlined. The experience is filled with all kinds of quality of life shortcuts to make your life easier and remove any and all of the repetitive and boring aspects of the game (such as copy-pasting designs and configurations).
They didn't rush the release, they took their time to make a great game and when they finally released, the game felt complete in an utterly satisfying way, and after the release they constantly kept publishing free updates, polishing any kinks the game still had, solving bugs, rebalancing if needed, and all that while working on a 2.0 version and a DLC as promising as it gets, and giving weekly detailed updates to their fans.
It's developers like these who deserve all the money, and not bigger releases. Of course there are exceptions like Doom Eternal, another game where you can feel the love and passion in every bloody pulp that the enemies become.
All in all, you should look for passion and not sheer money. Cause even an incomplete buggy mess of a game is more fun than a "complete" micro transaction riddled, forcibly online, battle pass bearing, bug filled rushed mess of a triple A game that will be advertised to the ends of the Earth.
Greed✡️
Well fuggin stated friend!
Thissss WELL SAID
That’s why Baldur’s Gate 3 blows my mind. It is the only AAA RPG (or AAA game in general) in years that seems to have been made with real passion.
Actually showing the dice rolls? Letting the player send party members away FOREVER after a disagreement? Letting them KILL party members before they join? Potentially locking players out of content over even small choices? These are RISKS that the money people would generally never allow.
It’s also got the scope of a peak Bethesda game, and writing as detailed and personal as a peak BioWare game, and is more polished than either company has ever been able to achieve.
This game is a miracle amidst modern gaming. It defies everything we have come to expect from big budget titles, and actually meets the hype it garnered like no game as done in decades.
@@joshdaymusiced when devs work with passion, it shows.
Plus, it makes sense. Would you be passionate about a project you didn't come up with, a project you were TOLD to work on whether you like it or not?
I mean some people might be passionate about working on such a project, if it's something that really resonates with them, but I'm willing to bet most of us wouldn't like that!
I also do not have as much time for gaming as I used to, but this encourages me to be even more critical of AAA games, not less. I would never dream of wasting my limited time with any Ubisoft game or spend a lot of money on broken games as release. Indie games are where the future is.
I disagree that indie games are the future, sure indie developers have freedom, but their games get over looked easily.
The limited time thing I do agree with. I'm not going to spend my money, or time on a pos game that doesn't even work right on launch day.
@@trustworthydan not working on launch day? That seem more common or no different in AAA. What's your point?
Please will someone tell me the audio track used towards the end of this video before the outro and during! I’m sure I knew it and it’s been an ear worm ever since!
Far Cry 5 - When the Morning Light Shines In.
Im 37. I feel like the constant hype train for new games with gaming journalism contributes to our brain rot. We used to just have Nintendo Power Magazine, which was once a month and was as much about guides as it was about hype. The only way to sell a game was with marketing or with demos. Remember the N64 or PS1 kiosk in box stores like walmart/target? That was my primary deciding factor as to buy a game or not. Did I have fun playing it for 5 minutes in Walmart, while a kid behind me wanted a turn? We've always had a enourmous abundance of games to choose from. The key was finding what games you personally thought were fun. Of all the dozens or even hundreds of games I've played over the past decade only 5 were fun to the same standard of fun I used to have 20 years ago. A lot of wasted time and money could have been avoided if I had a casual demo to play first, before I even have the option to get a pre-order.
I recently played Morrowind and ACCIDENTALY played it for an hour just because how engaging the exploration is. I never played it on release. Old games are simply better desighned.
Well, the game Morrwind is intersting to explore, but it's conversation system is dogshit. That killed my immersion so quickly I couldn't play that title for more than 10 hours until I quit. Just wanted to point out, that even highly regarded older titles are often weird in their design.
Games have figured out certain genre conventions for a reason. For people who have experienced a lot of games that can be frustrating. I personally always think the first few hours of a Ubisoft formula game: "That's great, why don't I play these kind of games more often." And then I see the world with collectibles, meaningless shit to distract you, huge but samey.... and then, after 15-20 hours, I stop playing and feel disappointed.
Back in the day genre conventions were still evolving and needed to adjust to new technology. Especially when 3D games (neither 3D with the glasses nor 3D as in early titles, I mean polygonal Models) became standard, a lot of games tried to do interesting things with the technology. These days formulas have been found that most people enjoy. I even enjoyed many of them until I got overexposed to them.
I acutally play old GOG games. They often have ridiculously high user scores (because most people buying and rating them, are people who already played the game and know they are going to enjoy them) and are extremely clunky and poorly designed. Yes, from time to time I find flawed gems, that I enjoy very much. But can we please stop pretending that old games were so much better?
I always get the vibe that people who say shit like that, have one or two specific games, they played in their childhood, in their mind and don't remember all the other shit that got released.
If I could make an experiment, I would force all the people who agree that old games were sooo much better designed to play both Gothic and Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Not just because they are among my favourite games, but also because they have huge fanbases, that to this day talk about these games as if they were the pinnacle of design. Most people would hate playing them much more than playing a similar new title of the same genre (RPG). Yes, there will be people who absolutely love them. But I will force those people to play Age of Empires 1 and then Age of Empires 4 (RTS). Most people would enjoy the newer title much more.
That doesn't mean that those titles aren't worth playing or that their weirdness can't be enjoyable for some people. But that's not the average experience people would have.
There are also sooo many indy games that are much more willing to try new things and sometimes deliberately dismiss genre conventions. The average person will like these games less, but if you are just the right person for this type of game, you will love it more than any AAA game. That's basically the same as with those older titles. A good indy game has more character, more to like, but also more to hate. The great thing about modern gaming is that there are both things. High budget titles with conventional gameplay and weird indies that might just appeal to a very small group of people.
@@zuiop9993 What do yoy mean? Conversation system is good in Morrowind. I mean, you said "It's dogshit", but you didn't explain why.
Imo it's good because you can ask anyone about almost anything. Basically, this conversation system is literally how i want to talk to everyone, and how i want everyone to answer to me. I ask direct questions, they give direct answers. It's even better than real life conversations.
@@KeyleeTamirian Because that makes NPCs feel more like wikis than people which isn't a very immersive way to tell a story. Which to be fair might not be what you're after. Like the other person I enjoyed exploring the game world. I had the map taped up on my wall and it was kind of cool to see interesting locations on the map and just journey there and see what was there in the game. I had zero connection to any of the NPCs or really any of the plot of the game.
@@theodis8134 A lot of them have their own unique dialogue options and responses. What is wrong to be able to ask "Who are you?" Anyone you meet, and hear them telling their race, work? Asking their opinions and so on?
I have connections to some characters in that game.
We need more games that are willing to go all out with the crazy plots and worldbuilding (and that are able to take it all seriously and execute it well), I think.
The only games that feel magical now are indie games. Valheim. Deep rock. Battlebit. These make me feel like a kid again.
I totally agree. Valheim, Enshrouded, VRising, Sun Haven and Stardew is where most of my gaming goes to nowadays.
Valheim is an absolute banger
Very true. I like Deep Rock and No Man's Sky
I’m with the Valheim crew ! What and epic game with and even more epic soundtrack. Stardew is an upgraded harvest moon, I love playing this game with my kids.
GTA6 is a game I won’t play. I played GTA 1 and 2 and it was funny
FOR ROCK AND STONE!!
@narco name of the music playing in the background please!
Excellent video! Loved it and your perspective!
Maybe with big AAA studios it's like with old rock stars. At some point they just keep doing meh stuff that has a bit of that flavour of theirs that once made their few albums in the 70s blow up and now they're just getting by
I'd say it's like an old band that's still recording albums, but none of the original artists and producers are involved anymore, and it just became a brand with an executive board, with none of the flavor it once had, with absurd production costs that cause extreme risk aversion, and with a disconnect between executives and artists and consumers.
This is actually a very good analogy.
Yeah, modern versions of legacy studios are basically Sepultura.
Most games today are wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle.
As someone who started gaming in the nineties playing fallout, baldurs gate, morrowind i completely agree. Also ac black flag was the high point and the only one i finished.
But luckily some gamers start to realize this, with bg3 and elden ring being extremely successful, while live service games die left and right
There have always been lots of crap and good stuff. I don't think anything has changed besides gamers tastes changing. After all we were the ones who supported this crap in the first place making it financially successful to get to the point it is now. Now that it's failing for many companies things will change
Oh, Elden Ring. Elden Ring is a giant stone in the shoe of the entire industry. A game that is so player unfriendly, it's almost a novelty. Like, what am I supposed to do next? There's no mini map, no quest log, no objectives. That guy over there kills me right away, that guy behind there kills me right away, I go down here I die right away, I go over here I die, every direction is death. There's nowhere to go that doesn't kill me. So at that point, the casual or lazy gamer will say, ugh, I want my money back. But, the player that Elden Ring is made for has character and will grow and say, ok, how do I do this? And with persistence and planning discovers not only is it doable, it's incredibly fun and satisfying to accomplish what was impossible just 1 hour (or 3 or 8 hours) before. The outright shock of Elden Ring is that there are millions more of this latter kind of player than anyone thought. The industry is still processing it.
@@AlbinoMutant I've found Morrowind to be tougher than Elden Ring or any other souls game. And I've never even beat a souls game, but got pretty far. Just always gave up on them because I don't feel like I'm getting any better weapons or armor.
@@FordHoard Elden Ring isn't really tough once you get the hang of it. My point is it's just player unfriendly. There's very little guidance. I mean, every RPG has a quest log, but not Elden Ring. You just have to remember what items you have and who might have wanted them and where you saw certain things and why you might want to go back there, etc. Armor doesn't matter a whole lot in Elden Ring. And literally every weapon you find can be used to beat the game with the right build and upgrades. I used a sword I found an hour into the game to get me 90% through the content. It took tons of upgrades and experimentation with different abilities, but most of the weapons in Elden Ring that aren't unique are like that. You can find and use powerful unique weapons, but they can't be customized like regular weapons and in many cases are less useful because of that.
I think it really depends on the game, I played A Plague Tale Requiem last year and connected with it's story and characters more than I have for almost anything else. There is also a lot of passion in Indie games, which I believe are the future. Awesome vid btw!
Playing that far cry 5 menu music around the part aboiut how you play games to relax is perfect.
Yep, the problem with modern gaming, is that the companies that made those older games, are the same companies now still making those older games, but "LOOK AT THE TREES!"
Gamefreak feels
It's not the same company
All those developers are retired now
We totally talked about how Oblivion had great graphics.. Seems insane nowadays :D
Oblivion wasn't that pretty of a game back when it came out. What oblivion impressed in was it's sheer scale of the world
Nah, easy to see why people thought it was pretty. The art design is great
@@crestofhonor2349 Oblivion required an above-average GPU at the time to run decently well, it was a lot like Starfield in that respect. I was constantly tweaking settings to get Oblivion to run and look good, and no matter what I did, the endgame was a slideshow.
@@DenKulesteSomFins no CRPG had looked that good before, the lighting and environment was on a new level for a PC game experience at the time
"All we're saying is, GIVE OLD VIDEO GAMES A CHANCE!"
It seems the only games that have any long term play value are the ones that people are inspired by enough to make content for. I may just be an older gamer, but back in the late 90s/early 2000s, I could spend years on a game just because of community added content- levels, mods, player run tournaments or random lobbies hosted by clans/groups started by gamers getting together and starting beef with other groups of gamers. One thing that I've noticed is as the games got more modernized, particularly around the time of Xbox live, more control was taken from the player that once had to figure out how to connect to an online lobby, find extra content and learn how to add it-- in a few short years, everything from playing a multiplayer match to all the extra content you could add to your game became streamlined. Everything has a price tag on it now and is a narrowly controlled experience. Social experiences in these games have pretty much boiled down to lobbies of random people, seems rare to find familiar faces to form alliances and rivalries with. It's kind of sad when these days Elder Scrolls is still relevant because Skyrim has been modded to relevance by people who haven't found a game worth their time and effort. It's a time when people who make video games don't really care about making a fun game, and people are so starved for their next fix that they'll buy anything.
I think what you're saying mostly applies to triple a devs. There are tons of amazing games coming out now that retain all those qualities you like, they're just made by indies.
I agree with the response to someone saying they don't have the time to play a lot so they want more hand holding built in to the game. I think having less time to play games means that it is more important I play games that don't give me a path or tell me what to do but let me find out for myself. IMO this creates a more unique experience in the shorter amount of time. Why would you only want to fill less available time with a more monotonous experience? It sacrifices the time you do have and gains nothing in the end.
Because for people with limited time they are just looking at basic experience of the game. Spending hours after a tiring day of work feels like a frustrating chore. That's the reason why multilayer fps games became popular since people that are tired and have less time don't get frustrated because of small things. That's the reasoning coming from someone that has less time. Trial and error takes time people with limited time looking to relax don't have the luxury of.
Not having as much time as made me gravitate towards more "concise games" - games which have an interesting idea / theme / mechanic to explore, do that, and then are over, instead of games where you can sink 500 hours doing not all that much new.
(Competitive games are of course another story)
Different people have different demands.
Someone who does a lot of mindnumbing manual labour during the day may want to play a game where they can finally engage their brain.
Someone who does a lot of trouble solving at work and is mentally exhausted, may just want to be taken for a ride without having to think much.
Both are fine gaming experiences.
i've been playing a lot of older titles recently and that condensed feeling is really nice. there's always a dungeon or smth right around you in MW. there's always a briefcase of blood diamonds half a km away in FC2. Half Life's story beats are unending and the level designs themselves are an adventure.
it just feels good to play games that respect your time and hardware space.
what was the track at the very end?
The key is to stop being such a child and stop preordering all low effort media just like with movies. I pride myself on never having preordered anything and not watching new media which fails to impress and yet costs a lot. I'm not doing this because I'm an old fart but because the product should be made for discerning customers which seem to stop existing at least when it comes to the entertainment industry in the last 10-15 years.
I haven't preordered a game I don't have the absolute most faith ever. Most games I just don't trust to pre order unless it's from specific companies
I didn't watched a video yet, but I want to say after playing modern games where devs hold your hand the whole game telling you what do to etc. I was dumbstucked when I started playing Fallout: New Vegas. This game is a whole new dimension of gaming, quest that require you to think by yourself to finish them not some "follow the dots on the map" and this well crafted map with story and more puzzle to solve on every corner to uncover said stories. I regret not playing NV earlier and if you also didn't play it you won't be disappointed
Oh yes! If you enjoyed NV, go for Fallout 3 as well - don't mind what people say about it and it being Bethesda, it's still a worthy Fallout game. And of course the greatness that are Fallout 1 and 2 if you don't mind the 2D turn based style.
These games are such quality and so beloved, that they're practically endless due to the huge modding community that is creating all manner of mods all the time. There's DLC sized mods, remasters and remakes already out and in the making.
Also I highly recommend checking out Al ChestBreach - do yourself a favor and watch that hilarious, wholesome goof! He's been making Fallout content for more than a decade.
@@flamerose3833 hapy to see more people talk good about fallout 3, also don't forget ttw its a whole new experience.
@@Rockmanbalboa Indeed. I'm most excited for Fallout London.
@@elquetefaka5555 I'm not sure, but some voices are definitely shared. It was released in 2008, and Skyrim in 2011.
That sucks... well, at least you got Qui-Gon Jinn in there 😆
If you can't deal with that, you can always remove voices I guess. The original games are text, for the most part.
Otherwise, try and be patient and maybe you'll get used to it. It's a whole different world that has nothing to do with TES. Watching movies is the same - shared actors.
Edit - Also if you mean Fallout in general, then keep in mind New Vegas is made by Obsidian, not Bethesda. That was back then, mainly the original crew from Black Isle studios that made F1 and F2. That should mean different voices.
In modern games I find myself staring at a minimap going from point A to point B more than actually being immersed in the world and exploring.
i need to know which song is at 9:18 i cant remember where it came from
I haven't ever been able to play the latest and greatest because I'm always generations behind regarding hardware. So I'm always stuck playing old games for the date. Currently I have a laptop that runs 2015 smoothly enough. This has made me realize the same point of this video, old games have so much charm and emotion that you can play for hours and completely forget your life, it's beautiful (please don't forget your lives, but you get my point)
Anyone know what the music is that's playing around 9:10 it sounds familiar but I can't place it?
When the Morning Light Shines In - by Dan Romer from Far Cry 5
Ahhh, thanks. It was driving me crazy. Not my favorite Far Cry but it was pretty good.@@NARCO.2210
@@NARCO.2210Fc5 had excellent music
That's why I'm looking for games like Talos Principle. Have you tried this one? The first game was magnificent, yet Talos Principle 2 is even better. I cried like a baby and it got me really thinking. The game is not only about solving puzzles, but also about philosophy, morality, history, humanity and what it means to be a human. Very deep, very bitter-sweet, absolute must-play.
I like the soundtrack in Chapter V, could you tell me name of this song?
we used to get GTA games and other major franchise games almost every single year. Now games take ten years or even more to come out.
One single time you got a new GTA game the year after another(GTA III and GTA: Vice City). Even when GTA was a 2D game that you could make with a 7 people dev team it took 2 years between number one, number 2 and GTA III. You have to have some understanding of why games take longer now? Right? You do understand that if you have a game map that is 1x1 and you make one that is 2x2, the 2x2 map is not double the size, it is quadruple the size. And then you have game details you need to add to stay in the forefront of games that mean the cost and manpower required to make a AAA game has grown by orders of magnitude since the days when you could make and release a AAA for just a few million.
@@rustknuckleirongut8107 yes but ten years between games is just stupid, its all based on greed not technology. Games with more limited scope can be produced more quickly thats why the early 2000s were a golden age of gaming. Also look at GTA 4 which is in many ways is more advanced than 5 and was made in the space of three years.
@@purefoldnz3070 the problem with the "ten years" argument is that the fact that rdr2 even exists in the first place
This argument is so dumb when you apply the slightest bit of critical thinking. If you’re implying laziness then you’re lost.
@@purefoldnz3070the 10 year argument makes no sense. Imagine if they announce Bully 2 for 2026. Are you really gonna say it took them 20 years to make bully 2? They have other franchises.
Thank you for wishing me an amazing day. I wish the same for you!
I recently starting playing fable 2 for the first time, and it's been a absolute delight. There's some real oldies but goodies out there for sure.
NIce music usage from medieval dynasty ( a game that was able to captivate me)
and farcry 5
Vote with your wallet! Buy indie!
That is very true. They had to give you a very good reason to be entertained by a 16x16 pixels character with zero animations - talking Castle of the Winds here.
I know I will ask super different question hahabut what is that music in Chapter V till the ened? It is so beautiful! Thanks mate, interesting video btw!
thanks for this you just convinced me to add a new sidequest to my game.
The great thing about Witcher 3 is that it is combining both options - markers on map telling you where each city is with road signs pointing towards them with a ton of map marks all over the open world making exploration revarding and interesting and fullfilling because you did know where to go but you never did know what you will find. And you were sure that you 100% the area thanks to checking and clearing all map markers.
Having map markers all over the map doesn't make exploration good, if anything it just makes it lazy. Why do you think people are surprised when they find new weapons/gear that they've never seen before in their 500 hours of playing skyrim? it's because the game's map encourages you to find stuff on your own without the help of a stupid marker on the map and it makes the whole thing all the more rewarding. Or another example being elden ring, where you could miss out on like 40% of the content in the game if you don't go out of your way for exploring..do you think finding the underground cities in elden ring would've been any fun if it was a map marker? no it won't, it's only fun because we found it ourselves without the game helping you. Witcher 3 is probably one of the worst games in terms of exploration because all your doing is following the mini map dotted lines to reach your desired destination, that isn't exploration, that's called mindlessly following a yellow trail because the game said so.
@@CITYZEN50 For me Skyrim is boring just like all Bethesda games. A lot of empty spaces sometimes a few useless enemies with their useless weapons etc.
@@user-hm5dt2bd5q Atleast those empty spaces have many random encounters that are fun to see within them, in witcher 3 you've got similar boring empty spaces with no random encounters or anything in there..probably the reason why 90% of the witcher fanbase uses fast travel to go from point a to b in comparison with skyrim players not even using their horse to get from point a to b. Exploration in witcher 3 is in no way better than the exploration in skyrim, Bethesda has always been the king at creating open worlds that are fun to explore (minus starfield lol) so much so that even after a decade people are finding weapons that they never saw in the game before, you simply can't see that kind of stuff in witcher 3, its because witcher's world is cluttered with useless treasure chests, garbage bandit camps and boring monster nests, its so uninspired.
@N50 I played all Bethesda games - each one for 10-20 hours and not a single one of them was fun in any way for me.
I think Witcher is one of the few open world games that I enjoyed. I preffer isometric RPGs than Bethesda big empty boring words.
@@user-hm5dt2bd5qYou can have an opinion but calling Bethesda's open worlds big boring empty worlds while praising cdpr's garbage copy pasted shit just makes you look stupid.
I love the perspective!!
Good video. Reminds me of the "really? 20 year old games on your new gaming PC" meme.
Also now I have to listen to some FC5 tracks again dang it
I remember also back then I had no Internet to check answers or path when I was blocked,
So I used to try and retry with other weapons or just figure things out by myself, it was really long indeed but it also felt so great when I managed to find the clue !
I remember spending hours in Oblivion testing builds, in Viva pinata trying plants and food to see what
Will happen and in Pokemon to look in grass for new mons,
It's difficult nowadays to not look for the direct answer online when you're stuck, I wish there was a website where they could tell you if the fight is duable or the asnwer makeable or if it's too complicated and you should check the spoiler because of bad game designing
5:40 HUH? AC2 original had like 3 FULL CHAPTERS missing that they added later as DLC
Wait for real?
@@thorodinson292 Yep. It's included in the Ezio Collection and I can't quite recall WHICH chapters, but I clearly remember at one point Shaun and Rebecca going "well these memories are corrupted and we will restore them later" and they just skip like 5 years of Ezio's life
@@kanadashyuugo873 nah, that's foul.
The graphics were always a very central aspect - I think you outed yourself as a young gamer there. 😅
I think the difference to back then are mostly the distribution channels, and the management of gaming companies focusing on assured financial success.
Distribution: Back then, there were magazines that would get the games early and _they_ would tell us whether or not they were good. Today: games are promoted to high res personal computer monitors and only need to generate beautiful 5-Second-Shots of landscape (we want no spoilers, right?) - and I think streamers are part of the issue. (And yes, as you said, pre-order is a curse to game quality imho.)
Guaranteed success: this is the same in movie industry these days. They will rather make part 16 of an existing franchise, using a name that guarantees not a hit, but revenue X. They won't risk huge sums of money on something new. In games, series have always been a good thing (unlike in movies!). But new series should come with new ideas, an inner character of their own. But no risk, better calculated investment - revenue.
I see your point (and I can remember being excited to upgrade from VGA to SVGA), but for me the big difference is that the amount of effort it is now possible (and often necessary) to put into the graphics has grown exponentially, while our ability to invent captivating stories and engaging new mechanics hasn't moved on in the same way, and isn't really any easier with a massive team.
You missed one critical thing: Budget and scope.
AAA games now cost so much and take so long to develop that they CANNOT take the same risks they used to. Not only that but huge AAA games that do come out now are much fewer and far between than they used to be. (think GTA/Elder scrolls/Diablo)
Also there is the fact dev teams can be MUCH larger now than you needed in say the early 2000's. It all makes it all the more difficult to get a cohesive and deeply personal game.
3:43 what game is this?
The problem with modern games is that they can have photorealistic environments, but the physics and realism is still at the level of 20 years ago. A game with even the best graphics loses all its charm when you suddenly find that the character you are playing is suddenly able to jump 3 metres above the ground without any effort, or falls from a height of several metres without any injury. And that's what's annoying about today's games, especially if they're advertised as Survival. That's why games that put an emphasis on realism are considered to be more interesting. One example is RDR2 - the game is already 6 years old, but it still has no competitors when it comes to realism and physics in the presented world. This is why such a game will not get old for a long time, even if more graphically advanced games will be developed in future.
Elden Ring had a franchise before it. Even George R. R. Martin said that it was going to be a sequel of Dark Souls.
But I agree with your theme. We should go back to playing older games to understand what is missing in current generations. I love the indie gaming sphere still because it has a lot of what we loved in old games.
I can't stop saying enough of this. But whoever never played Hades, give it a try. The developers studied SO MUCH of Greek Mythology. It is amazing just how much compelling narrative there is on that game. I recommend watching documentaries about the Mythology in Hades to get a notion on how deep they went.
what game is being played at chapter 2 (3:40)?
Medieval Dynasty
thanks!@@zp8377
Just returned to UnReal World after a decade or two and it still holds up as one of my favourite games of all time. No story, 90s graphics but detailed mechanics and some fun systems to play with. Many studios have fallen into a variation of the GranTurismo problem - turning a fun game into some artsy graphics project with no soul or personality but the shiny buttons and swish cutscenes..
[Watches the first two seconds and sees 'Morrowind']
This guy knows what's up.
This is probably why I fell in love with the AVN genre (Adult Visual Novel). It checks off every mark you mentioned.
Emotional attachment? One AVN made me cry for like 10 minutes non-stop. If anything, they're maybe a little too good at this, as real life feels dull in comparison.
Story? That's the main focus of all great AVNs (or just VNs in general). They're basically books with extra steps.
Graphics? While absolutely gorgeous in some newer AVNs, it's never the main focus or selling point. It's there to enhance the story and immersion, not to show off technical skill.
Franchise? Nope, usually made by indie devs and every game is an original story or a vaguely connected prequel at most.
Lack of inovation? While there is a shared base for all AVNs, every one of them manages to be unique not only in story but in worldbuilding, game mechanics and overall feel too.
That RDR moment got me. Gets me every time I see it
I thinks that the graphic if use well can tell a story as much as the characters itself (especially as someone that is becoming a environmental artist for video game) one of the best exemple of it I can recall is the basement of the hospital in last of us 2. There almost no dialog form the character but every thing is here for you to understand what happens in the place. A guy handcuff to a hospital bed where is body is almost just mushrooms. And letter that the more you read it the more the orthography of the guy is bad and where you see that the guy was becoming slowly not itself. There a lot more but i don't want it to be too long. But you can clearly understand that the guy was one of the first infected and he did not know what was happening till the end, in is letter saying he ear scream outside... it show how unprepared the hospital where and how the chaos happens in the hospital when the infection begins without the character ever talking
Just play indie games. There are so many amazing indie games out there. Ignore the AAA market, especially Bethesda, Blizzard, EA and Ubisoft.
CD Projekt Red still make great games, even though they botched the Cyberpunk release. But now, the game is actually amazing. Best modern open world game imo, even though it comes with some of the issues you mentioned. It still is an insane achievement from a world design perspective. Night City is the most amazing virtual environment I've ever explored.
FromSoft basically only remakes Dark Souls over and over again, but the formula is still great. Elden Ring was a joy to explore, finding stuff was actually a central part of the experience. You get rewarded for paying attention. Meanwhile, modern AC games are cluttered with bullshit map markers and UI elements.
From software doesn't remake dark souls over and over again
I find it really funny that people pre-order games. What the hell are they afraid of, a digital copy of a game going out of stock?!
The way I see it, this is the most stupid thing people do in buying games and they are the majority. People have turned themselves into zombies worshiping shitty companies, there is no hope for the gaming industry.
That's probably the silliest thing I've heard or seen in pre-ordering games. I agree there isn't the need to be all that afraid of "limited inventory". Like digital copy is going to run "out of stock?" was pretty funny said by you (haha!).
Well, I don't think it's the most stupid thing many people have done. I think modern gaming of current era has consumers themselves disappointing or exploiting each other, rather than the game company being more involved in promoting their sales. I find it confounding to see even game reviewers and media influencers speaking in a way that hype their audience to try to sell a company's game. It's like they're pretending to be cars salesmen with no affiliation to the company and its games. They're content enough to have people unwittingly believe their words, while omitting notable facts, only to have the consumer feel disappointed after purchasing and experiencing the game because they felt convinced by the reviewer's enthusiastic words. We've lost our integrity if we feel unsympathetic to exploiting other people's wallet to help put money in game company pockets without regards whether the product is produced of good or bad quality.
@@Richard-mo1nc the thing is, pre-ordering is way more severe than you think. You make great points, but think about this. Why would a company care to provide you with a good product, if they already got your money before even releasing said product? That's what pre-ordering does. Why do you think Ubisoft is as big as it is while providing nothing of substance? They get the money anyways, that's why. Why give effort in order to get rewarded for it when you get the reward before even thinking of giving effort? As long as people pre-order things are gonna get worse.
@@ekimolaos I don't think it is going away or going to get any better. Even with the promotional or additional content and merchandise that they include with pre-ordering to entice you to pay for supposedly "premium tier package" is pretty ordinary and not as exclusive as they promised. They really trying to make unquestioning fans pay more money. You've reminded me a lesson my father once taught me caution in spending money similar to pre-ordering. Why should I reward/pay them only to have to wait months of intermediate processing and approvals when I should be able to have it now or reasonably sooner? The product is probably waiting in the warehouse ready to be shipped. So, what can we do? Gaming companies are ready to capitalize on testing how loyal their consumer fans are ready to purchase their products. With social media, it has made it easier to connect like-minded people to be in a group of unwavering loyalty even to a fault.
Sadly, I have friends who preorder games yearly. At first I thought it's the hype for the game and their impatience because they have nothing else to play. But then when I saw that they still continue preordering even when the last preorder was a dissapoinment, I came to the conclusion that they are just fucking stupid
@@damndanieI I never understood the reasoning. Why give money to someone without getting something in return for a long time when you can give them money when the product is actually available and, because it's digital, get it at the same second?
My main gripe about modern gaming is requiring at least 100GB for a game that I actually want to play, but then finding out later on that the game isn't the kind of fun I was looking for.
One of my favorite games as a kid was Pajama Sam on the PC. I recently recommended it for fun to a gamer friend of mine and I swear on my life he could not beat it. He said he didn’t know what to do next. Lots of games nowadays just point the player with a literal arrow on where to go and what to do.
A lot of players back then also couldn't beat those kinds of games, it's not some new phenomenon. Thinking that players have somehow changed because of the way games are designed now is kind of reversing cause and effect - players didn't change because of the way new games are designed, rather, games changed to make it more clear what should be done next specifically because old games in the past didn't do that and a lot of people gave up on playing their games because of it.
I'd say it's a mix of both. It's definitely not because players are more dumb, but modern games most definitely train players to "follow the arrow" and without that arrow people get lost. Old games had this too, but it's much more prominent now with open world RPGs @@asdfqwerty14587
Wow great video ! (brought to me by chance by the TH-cam algorithm XD)
I played all the games featured in the video and they make an excellent example for each argument presented.
I also noticed how old games had a different style and today most game have the same "realistic" design.
Chapter four was particularly interesting, I always wondered why most of my friends bought any new, uninspired game that got mainstream attention while I continued to play old (but still awesome) games.
This made me consider that all the hate that some studios are getting these days (Bethesda um...) is not as justified as it seems given that we will buy everything they make anyway.
The video game public demands that studios put more effort into their development while they make no effort to invest in the game and the story.
Will I suggest that those around me think more about the influence of their gaming habits ?
No, because no one cares, but I'm going to suggest they watch this video ; )
It's not all the same "realistic" design. There is a ton of variety but styles change. The 7th gen was even more homogenous than what we have currently in terms of visual design
Strongly disagree. Yes, the older assassin's creeds had better stories, but those games were mighty impressive when it comes to graphics as well. I remember playing the first AC, I was blown away and it felt like the first true next gen experience on the Xbox 360.
Yup. Every Assassin's creed tried to push forward graphics
Plenty of errors and issues in this video, including DLCs and you can tell this is being told by someone who was not there at the time.
The first game still looks great. The way the cutscenes were done was so cinematic and unique.
There was a game on the Atari 8bit computers called Aliants. I found out recently that it also released on the Atari ST. But on the 8bit computers, it was a massive five floppy disks (or of course 3 double sided). This was the game that had the best graphics I had seen at the time, and I will always remember it being the closest to a 'movie' that the 64kbs could get at the time. It also was the shortest game I had ever played! It was hard, but you could win it in less than an hour (at least that is how I remembered it). That was definitely my very first experience of 'all graphics and little content.'
What music did you use toward the end of the video
Far Cry 5 Soundtrack, Main Menu
One thing you're forgetting is you are getting older.
So it's normal, assuming you have good memories from being younger, that you would look back on games from a simpler time that had such an impact on you.
Music in chapter v? Pleaseeeee
8:10 Dan Romer's musics at FarCry 5 made me enjoy that game so much, it's unbelievable holy shid
what is the game with the waterfall at 2:05?
Forbidden west
thanks, friend! :D
What game is that at 3:30?
the og assasains creed ost , just chills. my 1st AC game was the ezzio one(n1), at 1st grahics felt awkward as they didnt age well but i got used to it and loved it, i left started game 2 of ezzio but may retake it someday, also i am playing from time to time blackflag, and as i am writing this i am trying the n1 with altair for the 1st time.
i am not a usual gamer, though i love gameplays where there is a story, they became my movies, and when i have an open world at the palm of my hand i love exploring it. must be sth generational: both my bro(2007) and i (2002) played ps2( games from rockstar, capcom,etc), then somewhere along the way he kept playing and i dropped, but when i returned i saw the difference between our tastes: he is more of an online player(gta V online side and fortnight for example) meanwhile i prefer story mode games where sure, i kill characters as well, but that is a bit to an all: lovable characters, breathtaking scenery and soundtrack to feed your soul as cheesy as it sounds , info discovery, secondary stuff you find while exploring, a good story.
A while before retaking my once in a while gaming i pased the og uncharted trilogy. there is nothing wrong with liking just killing games, but i expect so much more after growing up with storymode games and sticking to those, even if once in a while i had some random arcade games for my ps2 that we could compete against each other and was fun: like mortal kombat like games.
tlou is one of my favs horror games, i may still be a bit scaredy cat to play horror games but love watching gameplays. my father, bro and i played the 1st one together and explored together the world the way we used to do in the 2000s with Resident evil 4(even if i am a bit scaredycat for playing i enjoy being a companionship while playing and trying to find stuff that the control user may forget in the tension of the moment lol)
. the connection to ellie and joel was so strong that i loathed what they did in the 2nd game, i just couldnt watch how they massacred a good story with political drama.
sure good graphics are awesome, but get old easily if you dont have how to substain everything else.
also lets not forget that ubisoft when was starting with AC had the awesome prince of persia, which walked so AC could run, yet they still did their best to bring good emotional stories unlike today.
also i dont think its entirely about being new, but big companies getting lazy, sometimes among independent creators that are barely starting you can find good stories for what i saw from those game reviews or summaries nowadays.
Once upon a time, i played my NES / SNES / Genesis / Gameboy games, they were quick, responsive arcade like experiences. You developed sharp reflexes on the instant lag-free giant boxy TVs of old. You had to practice the game in order to master it, beating it felt like an accomplishment!
I became irritated in the early 2000s when games started emphasizing graphics and stories instead of action! Which is funny to me that you are nostalgic for and miss the stories being told from those games, heh. It brings me to my point: I think alot of us chase the experiences we had as children, and as times and games change as we get older, it just won't have that same impact in your later years as those childhood and teenage experiences.
I used to play old school arcade games. I still do, but i used to, too.
Coluche said in a sketch of 1984: "if people stopped buying it, it wouldn't sell anymore, you people are unreasonable"
I agree I like immersion and learning the world and becoming the character I’m controlling, just as the in the universe protagonist would need to learn the world, combat, go through the story, etc. in a game, you can’t have a map with the character, not knowing where the character is going, what needs to be accomplished these things all relayed to the player through perspective of the character. That’s why I love Star Wars squadrons because of the instruments only mode, if you want the feeling of actually being a pilot, that’s the mode for you!
Nightmare Reaper. I have put over 160 hours into that game in a very short amount of time, and have absolutely loved every.single.second.
I’ve been a gamer since before the 90s, and have steadily watched their progression, and in many cases, regression.
For me, Nightmare Reaper is the PERFECT example of a newer title striking that balance of old graphics with upgrades AND being genuinely fun to play. It’s a really simple formula, and I think the devs that fail to articulate it correctly are just greedy, ignorant, or forced to avoid it because of publishers who want certain things present in the game.
Modern games, old games. Every era has games with great story, bad story or no story at all. I'm gaming since PONG (getting old uh...) and I still find modern games with great stories. It's just more difficult to find one, because there is a gazillion new games every year.
Red dead redemption 2 is just 4 years old and man it has an incredible plot that keeps you glued to the chair since the first second.
My recent favorite game is Armored Core 6. I love story of AC6, and also satisfaction of S ranking missions, chefs kiss.
I ran into this problem a year or so ago, i kept hearign about these old legendary games, so i went through a back log to experience them, since then i havent been excited for any new release, ive been playing alot of Stalker, and online ive been playing Warhammer Online, i have been enjoying my time playing older games than any new release.