Bored with new video games?

[Scrobbs]

Right, who's with me?

I'm feeling completely jaded with computer games recently, specifically new releases. For a while now, I've not been feeling the love with new games, as they mostly seem to be producing the same old rubbish repackaged. The only games that I actually want to play at the moment are TF2, Company of Heroes and last night I had a blast on portal and really loved it, all of which are fairly in game terms; CoH is nearly 18 months old, TF2 at least 6. Call of Duty kept my interest longer than I expected, but all the new xbox releases fill me with horror, as do a lot of PC titles. Tabula Rasa waned after a few weeks, Sins of a solar empire lasted about 3 hours, Wow still has no attraction, neither does any of the approaching MMORORRGGMMORGGS. The few games I've bought on the Wii hold my attention for about a day.

Why is this? Am I just getting a bit older? A bit past it for games? Or am I pushed to tedium by the lack lustre IP being generated recently? All the genres seem to be getting a little tired, and need a fresh injection of interest - just because a new 360 game is a TPS where you can *gasp* play with a mate in the story game online *gasp* doesn't fill me with a desire to spunk 40 quid on it. Of course, that's my rights - I don't fancy the game, therefore I don't buy it. Vote with my wallet. Or is it something deeper? Something more endemic that is caused by the relentless consolidation ongoing in the games industry?

Case in point: Grand Theft Auto IV. Lots of people are waiting for this, whether they be a casual gamer who played the last one to death a long time ago or people like myself who spend a lot of time gaming, slavering at the mouth for the graphics! the gameplay! cop shooting! I can't be arsed. Sure, it looks good, but so does Call of Duty 4. COD4, although not original IP, has good pedigree, but they actually bothered to put something different into the MP game - so much so that most players I see online all use different combinations of perks. Ok, so I've heard folks grumble about the linearity of the SP game - but if you looked past that, here was a game that got your pulse racing with excitement as the sheer pace of the action sucked you through (and frustration, on veteran at the ferris wheel, I came very close to breaking my television with the controller, and had to go outside for some kite flying).

Right, so the reason folks loved GTA I, 2 and three was the sheer free-form nature of the game. Well, that's pushing it a little far I think; it boiled down to little more than go here, do that, kill them, get that case of money, report back although if I'm being fair you could put that down to storage and ahrdware limitation. You could, should you wish, hijack a taxi or an ambulance and go round doing delivery or medical missions, or for the craic beat a whore to death and nick her money. Staid, dull, boring and tedious. GTA 4 (or IV as it insists on styling itself) is purporting to boast 15 different types of multiplayer, downloadable content in the form of other missions, a drinking minigame where you stumble about to get home, ability to arrange your meetings with fellow crooks to complete missions... I could go on. The feature list definitely seems rich, but still does not grab me like I feel it should. Younger gamers are going to lap this game up, precisely because of the freedom of criminality, that crucial part of games which allows you to forget the real world and immerse yourself in someone else's construct.

I think, therein lies my problem. There are few truly talented storytellers, artists who design the world and the atmosphere, but there are a large number of excellent graphic designers and programmers - so the games look fantastic, rarely do the control system bug the shit out of you now, but the story lines really do not come up to scratch. Is this because games are designed by committee? Graphics and sound while being extraordinarily creative in their own right lend themselves to this method of work. The best worlds take years to develop and should be done by one person, as one can easily tell when someone has thrown their entire life into the game world (or indeed other media) they are creating to really make it believable. There are also worlds that have translated badly into games - the Star Wars MMO was disappointing for instance, and that is one of modern cultures most detailed and enduring alternative realities. A game with a promising story was Bioshock. In all honesty, I had been waiting for that game for months. I sat there and fumed at steam when it wouldn't let me download it for hours, then was tortuously slow when it did. I played it I think for about 4 days and got bored of it, without finishing. I loved the story, the game world, the graphics - but it was missing something, a crucial piece so that it too became drawn-out. Perhaps in this case, I realised I didn't really give a shit about the characters and what happened to them.

Are these the rantings of a spent, nearing middle-aged gamer? When I first started played video games, all this was fields? I'm not going to sit here and pretend that games from yesteryear were better that they are now, as that is clearly nonsense. I have some nostalgia for old games, but have learnt through experience that playing them merely destroys the fond place they have in my memory as I can play them for literally minutes before becoming dismayed. Games have indeed moved on and become far far more absorbing. To prove that I don't hate all games, As I mentioned briefly above, I'm still in love with Company of Heroes, an RTS game that can leave you with heart palpitations and sweaty palms it's that intense; Team Fortress 2, an FPS that leaves you gurgling with laughter when your pyro charges round the corner into a room full of enemies massing for attack and the sheer panic that grips everyone!

There are a few brighter lights on the horizon; EA (of all people) are bringing out a FREE game. Not so amazing, but what is, is that the claim there will be little or no in game advertisments. It also looks suspiciously like TF2 in graphical style and gameplay, but if it offers similar thrills and does something a bit different, who am I to argue? Spore is another one, although I am readying myself for this game to be a bit of a crushing disappointment. On the face of it, the idea seems superb, and it is written by none other than Will Wright, a superlative designer. A little apprehension is present because of what happened with Black & White. There is a new total war coming out, promising those of us (including me!) who loved the previous incarnations what we've wanted since the first medieval - proper naval warfare! Fingers crossed that I don't lose interest as quickly as I did with Medieval II, the friendly AI in the tactical game being the biggest culprit for that, sitting there clicking frantically as your heavy cavalry wouldn't charge because someone was lagging behind being stuck on a ladder, or tree or something equally silly. Why does that matter? Well you're defending your castle against a vastly superior force, all your bowmen have spent their arrows but you're well up on the casualty sheet and one final enemy unit of fresh heavy infantry are charging up the ladders to assualt your knackered artillery troops, and you NEED that heavy cavalry to thunder into their flanks to rout them before they take the walls. But no. The iron horses get stuck on a twig, you lose the castle and one hour of your life.

I digress a little and the total war series remains a draw, but games of this calibre are few and far between and while people continue to buy the same old FPS (UT3), RTS (C&C), TPS (Army of Two) shit, companies will continue to churn it out. I think this might have been said before, and perhaps more elequently, but I hope you at least agree and it will reach some others who may become a little more discerning in what they buy.

[Nachimir]

That's a lot of verbiage, I'm afraid I scanned it.

Jenova Chen did a rant at GDC, saying basically that he was excited about shooting Nazis when Wolfenstein first came out, but now it's boring. "Why can't people make more interesting stuff?", etc. There are a few prongs to that.

As far as storytelling goes, we still don't have a clue how to tell stories properly with games. Noone does. Worlds in which events are dynamic don't mesh easily with linear stories. Valve are pretty much at the best compromise with HL2 right now. People are working on dynamic storytelling right now and have been for many years, it's a really fucking hard academic problem and I don't expect anyone can solve it and turn a profit on their time right now. Hence, it'll eventually come from a university first before any company manages it with a commercial project. Similarly, new rendering techniques are more likely to turn up at SIGGRAPH long before they're in a retail game - publishers tend not to take risks on R&D like that.

If you feel jaded about games, you're not alone. I got that way in 2004 and would have followed a really different career path if Katamari Damacy hadn't perked me up. I recommend checking out the IGF nominees, and indie games in general. As smaller projects that can fail fast and often, they're much more suited to experimentation and interesting work, and until (and even after) all the big games industry players get bought by people like MTV, who can afford to experiment with a large team, indie games will mostly be where the interesting stuff is at.

Seriously, check the IGF stuff out and take your time over it. Or PMOG. Or ARGs. Or My Life With Master. Or Chore Wars. video games have built a niche culture, yet in parallel with the net and new media they're ballooning up into a much larger industry that will have a different culture and do different things.

That said, I'm still excited about video games as I know them, even though I'm bored of shooting Nazis. GTA IV is something I'm looking forward to for several reasons: Mainly that I still really enjoy that kind of gameplay, but also that I want to see it with new tech. Having seen Naturalmotion demo their stuff, I really want to play with it in a game.

[Thrik]

To be honest I'm not enjoying any more or less new games that I have been for a few years now. There's not been a consistent stream of superb games in ages; there're only a few gems I can point to in any given year.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I've felt bored with new games for years. I particularly can't stand anything generic. It's good really because I don't have the time for them anymore. It does mean I'm a lot more discerning about what I play, which is actually quite nice because I don't feel I'm missing out on the slew of "great games" that are coming out.

I'm sure everyone here feels the same way. It's why we're all so grumpy, annoyed and cynical, isn't it?

For me Guitar Hero II is still my saviour. That and Dave Gilbert's games.

[Roderick]

Wow, I'm pretty much opposite here. For the past few months I've loved games enormously. Right now I'm playing Oblivion and Half-Life 2, both a few years old, but also the new games of last year are superb and managed to tickle and excite me. Portal, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, all exciting =)

[Thrik]

I think waiting a while and playing all the great games in a relatively short space of time is a great plan, Rodi.

I should clarify that my comment above was restricted to the release of new games; that is, there haven't been many exciting releases per year. I haven't actually gotten around to playing most of them until late 2007/early 2008, and I've been having a great game ploughing through games I never played/finished such as Black & White 2, Company of Heroes, Episode One, Episode Two, Command & Conquer 3, BioShock, Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, and more.

Of course now I've gotten all excited by these I'll inevitably be disappointed by relatively few awesome new releases in 2008 — as always. Then again, with Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Metal Gear Solid 4, and maybe Battlefield 3 to look forward to, it may not be so bad.

[miffy495]

Well, I picked up Brawl on the way to class this afternoon and was going to pop it into the Wii as soon as I'd given a quick read to the new stuff going on here, so I'll be seeing how much the ennui has set in very shortly.

Luckily, over the past two years my free time and disposable cash have slowed pretty much exactly in pace how often games that excite me come out. Back in '04, for example, there were a ton of releases that caught my interest. I was working, but still living at home and going to high school, so I had enough cash to get them and time to enjoy them. Now, I'm in third year university, on my own, spending time with work, school, and my girlfriend, and can afford to get a brand new game (still pick up the occasional XBLA or VC release, and used game if it's really cheap) about once a month. Sometimes I don't even do that, because nothing came out that month that interested me. Thinking back, January was Drake's Fortuneand Ratchet and Clank, (both used, so the total came to about the same as one new game) February was No More Heroes, and now it's Smash Bros Brawl. And I still haven't really had the time to beat Heroes. I guess I never really noticed the slow in excitement because it coincided so perfectly with my life's pace ramping up.

[twmac]

Well I'm going to disagree with you not just because you have sneered at pretty much any post I've put into teh Thumbs Forum but also because I disagree with your assertions Norfolk.

I've played a few games that have properly made me grin, and I mean I have sat there and gone 'Shit I was prepared to like this game but this is better than I excpected'.

The Club is properly old school in ideals and it works, it really does feel like a 90's or 80's arcade game done in 3-D.

Condemned 2 for very different reasons made me very happy. It was like someone tried to make a first person Silent Hill and succeeded.

Omega V - Brand new but decades old, same 2-D shooter but it is well thought out and looks beautiful. I'd rather play it over most full priced games.

Then again everything you mentioned was PC orientated, try out 'N' the 360 version put a smile on my face.

As for story telling... I still believe that most of the real story happens through us. When we nail that expert song on Guitar Hero. Get through that section of Bioshock without using Vita-chambers. Play through Golden Axe and get the achievement for not using continues...

Games can tell stories but they aren't immediatel worse by not telling any or being bad at telling them as long as the game is actually any good,

[Noyb]

Maybe it's a bit of a dry spell after an amazingly dense winter season, maybe we're all getting older, maybe we're just not looking in the right places for innovation.

I for one absolutely loved the most recent Sam and Max episode, Chariot of the Dogs.

I love, love, love time travel paradox puzzles. Haven't played a time travel-based adventure game this entertaining since Day of the Tentacle.

I'm still not completely caught up with the winter's backlog, and I've been delving a bit into older games with my free time. I finally played through Super Metroid on the Wii VC (:tup:), and I finally see why it's such a classic. I'm also slowly working my way through the entertaining bizarreness of Killer 7. Plus, I haven't even touched Zak and Wiki, nor bought Professor Layton or Aquaria, all of which I was hyped about but haven't had the urge to get started on until I finish what I already have.

[Scrobbs]

I'm not aware of sneering at anyone's posts, let alone singling you out. I'm sorry you feel that way.

[twmac]

Don't worry about it dude. I just took a comment on the 8bit festival post out of hand and there was another random comment that you made that rubbed me the wrong way. That is the problem with the written word it is sometimes difficult to tell whether someone is being witty or rude.

Seeing as you clearly didn't mean anything by it then I would like to make it water under the bridge.

[DanJW]

Reading the original post again, it strikes me that you are focussing pretty much entirely on "Triple A" games, those that are most hyped but also most derivative.

Perhaps you should make an effort to seek out the less-publicised single-A or B-grade games that come out. There are often a few little beauties hidden amongst these, especially amongst japanese releases. Try spreading your boundries and try a genre you don't normaly go for - a turn based RPG perhaps. Or do what I do and go to a games site and read through the entire list of upcoming games for the next year. I'm often surprised by how many games I'm looking forward to that I forgot about.