Talking 'Bout This Generation

[cka]

easiest generation to pirate video games

[Nash]

Ugh, "pretentious" is almost as abused as "epic." Do you know what that word means, darling?

This post is epicly pretentious.

[YellerDog]

It's the "Ugh" that sells it! Fuckin' hipster!

[Shin Johnpv]

I find this generation to be a mixed bag. There have been some really awesome games released this gen, and a lot of stuff that just doesn't appeal to me. It was pretty straight forward for me by the end of last gen, I loved it, thought it was the best since the 16bit era. This gen isn't as clear cut. I'm going to agree that Japanese devs have dropped the ball this generation, but for different reasons than what's been stated. I feel like some of the big ones, specially Capcom for instance, have stopped doing what made them stand out, and have instead taken up trying to copy western devs. I don't mean for people to take that as not liking Western Devs, because I do. It's more about the uniqueness of the Japanese devs drying up outside of a small handful. Platinum games is definitely one of the few exceptions.

To me this seems like the generation of everything outside of graphics not reaching their full potential. It seems like a lot of devs decided to just play it safe in other aspects. For instance pointer controls, they're a huge step over dual analogs. FPS/TPS should be supporting pointer controls left and right, and its not happening. I hope with Move now out more devs will explore them.

I have more thoughts but my brain is shot tonight, I'll post more tomorrow.

[Tain]

Strongly agree with:
- neo-retro games generally being insulting imitations of classics.
- everything being too damn easy.
- the indie/artgame movement being mostly a joke.

Strongly disagree with:

This gen has been fantastic. Some of you guys just need to stop playing games. Your so pretentious and full of shit. Seriously lolers at this stuff.

lol, why would i stop playing good games

[Frogacuda]

You mean to tell me that none of the games I mentioned were setup story wise as a trilogy? C'mon, Halo and GoW are perfect examples. I'll possibly concede on the rest since they don't really have one main story arc. But those two for sure had trilogy written on them from day one.

They became neat trilogies, but no, they were not planned from the jump as such.

[YellerDog]

Or....



...were they?

[Frogacuda]

- the indie/artgame movement being mostly a joke.

But it's really not! It's a broadening of the market that reflects a growing audience for games not driven strictly by production value. Appeals to "art" on its own merit are almost inherently pretentious, but games that emerged from the "art game" movement like Machinarium and Super Meat Boy are very much legit works of both art and game.

- neo-retro games generally being insulting imitations of classics.

And yet many of them are the best entries their series have seen in years. Not necessarily the peak for the series (although Fantasy Zone II DX is certainly aguable), but better than other attempts to bring these franchises to a modern day audience. More than that, I think it's good to see someone be able to judge the quality of great pixel art over the number of pixels in said art. That's progress in its own right.

[Diff-chan]

But it's really not! It's a broadening of the market that reflects a growing audience for games not driven strictly by production value.

Or, morons who know nothing about games and don't even really like them trying to force their ignorance on discourse. Those people can fuck off thanks.

[Salsashark]

This generation has been pretty weak IMO although with six years, billions of dollars, and hundreds of companies working on stuff, many good games have come out.

Pretty much agree with this. This gen has left me cold overall, and I feel like I really have to scrounge for stuff that's interesting. I mostly blame:

Myself - for not having the time or will to spend playing multiplayer games and preferring single player games. Also for not having friends that like to get together in the living room to play games anymore. Admittedly this generation has delivered on multiplayer. If I was still in high school...

The Hollywoodification of the industry - Inflated budgets mean less risk-taking and more blatant copying than before. I'm not saying there's no originality to be had, but it's been dialed down big time. And a lot of games seem like they're trying too hard to be movies. Games like Uncharted and anything from Ubisoft take too much care of the player, and it just feels like playing air. They feel slick, but there's no tension.

The blandification - Looking at that hideous Game Informer "characters that defined a decade" poster is enough proof of this. I'm not a fan of the big swing towards realism, especially when the "realistic" games are just as emotionally juvenile as before. Makes me uncomfortable, like I'm watching a straight-faced professional wrestling saga.

Japan - I always thought that I valued Japanese and Western games just about equally, but now that their presences have shifted I'm not so sure. A lot of the most interesting (to me) games are still coming from Japan, but this gen many of them have been ghettoized on handhelds and most of the BIG console efforts failed to find their way (looking at Square Enix and Capcom). And it's not very heartening that great stuff from Platinum, Cavia, etc. haven't exactly been economically satisfying.