Game devs officially suck, as of 2006.

Rastalovich

New member
It's a loose date, but it's as good as an approximation as I could put together.

Been playing games for over 25 years now. Know what I like, know how to appreciate a good game that I wouldn't personally like too.

At the pinnacle, there was/were perhaps a clutch of games that I thought were both written pretty well, looked as good as they needed to, better in some cases, and had an ethos of spirit behind them.

In a personal collection:

Total War (from Shogun to the Romes)

Madden 07

Fifa Manager 07

Whole bunch of fps games

CnC Generals etc

Whole bunch of god-esq games

Throw in some FinalFantasy (loved 7, couldn't get too interested in 8,9..)

Some Zelda (Ocarina was good, latter ones got bad)

Fifa 07

... many others I would think

One at a time, Total War went bad. They brought out some nice expansions, but along the way they introduced bugs that to-this-day are not ironed out. The latest Empire, after numerous patching - critical game running fixes, develops a bug in the save games after so many turns.

Madden, EA took features out of the game year on year. Some breakaway dev tried to make a Headcoach that was abysmal and lasted one release. Eventual it disappeared from the pc altogether. No Madden 2010 for pc.

Fifa Manager in 07 was very good. A very in depth management sim, even down to using the progressive Fifa engine for game plays. U could design tactics in a very detailed fashion. This mysteriously disappeared one year, and I've recently tried the 2010 version, which is a joke of a copy of the 09 version's faults plus an online feature not many would use. From the 08 seasion, saved games got bugged after a certain amount of time. (not the 1 season sack if ur illegal thing)

God-esq games. U can still go back a good number of years to find the classic good ones. No competition there really, no originality.

FinalFantasy & Zelda are pretty much riding the crest of the popular wave. Whatever was the spark the older versions had, I just don't see in the newer ones - and I have tried. They're very much console favourites, granted, but the originality has faded alot for me, the newer ones are far too easy and linear. U pretty much follow a destined path. Spin-offs like TLR kept the interest but get very repetitive too quickly.

Fifa, now the game in itself probably represents the classic with name changes every year and every other 2 years they squeeze more cash out of u with the tournament specials which in all fairness the full games should have anyway. I think back to the likes of SWOS, something that's not really had a duplication in playability or originality for me. PES sucks as an attempt. Atleast u no longer need to be Mersyside Reds with Gerrord in the team. Progress.

Tried 3 football management games out this weekend. Football Manager 2010 - pretty much uninstalled it after creating a game. Very woeful. Gave Fifa Manager 2010 a go - 1 very important thing missing, the tactical editor. U can no longer stress to the team what u want them to do, only really give a formation like the other management games have always had. So now really, all the management games have the same foundations, and a variation of styles. Championship Manager - a very hands off management game, very uncomplicated, is - and always has been - as good as watching a vidi-printer during a game (this is the 21st century now). The 3d game looks worse than Actua Soccer, or even I-Play Soccer. Fifa Manager's saving grace is it's use of FIFA 09's engine. However, the AI is as bad as it's ever been and something as silly as not understand what a team does when a GK is sent off is pretty poor. Still it's the better option - and it's crap.

CnC are recycling a classic and it is inherently a great genre. I liked the Sensible (orginal creators) Dune - graphic advancements aside - not much has changed. Although they can milk this forever I think, fair play to them. Similar to the Creative Assemblies' TW, but with no bugs!

FPS games are what they are, a frag fest. Traditional, recycled; graphics improving year on year. Not much staying power for me tho. It's turns very quickly into a same-ole-same-ole. Last one I can say was great was the original DeusEx. Doesn't compare to today's games in the looks department, even tho they trashed DeusEx Deu. Last good frag I had was a poor-ish game called Resevoir Dogs, only really cos of the storyline to the film. Took about 4 hours to complete the whole thing, but it was fun. Think that's about as much interest fps games hold for me now. Quick blast, then uninstall fodder.

I see everywhere - poor execution of fair ideas. Bad programming. Cash driven games pushed out by publishers (eg EA) often b4 they're really finished.

Mmo's I've played for maybe 10/15 years. Last originally challenging one I played was LoM2. After that RFOnline was decent (with a major fault in it's design). Gotten to a point now where I've tried all the recent and classic ones, and there simply isn't any challenge out there. Skill has been taken away. Adventure is non existent. Originality is wanting. Eve was probably the last original one I played, no staying power in it for me tho, even tho I could appreciate how good it was. DO is good, LOTRO is good, WoW is good, WAR is good and sadly Aion is good. They're good in so much as I can see what they're doing in their attraction to the masses, which is the name of the game in the 21st century. Create a game that's easy on the eye, not difficult to play, can include ages from 13 to 80 and a twist or lore to each one. Nothing too challenging, too difficult, no penalties for failing. And Aion's latest "U've been playing for an hour now, please take a break" - c'mon. Oh and if u ever want to know anything about any of them, a quick google will tell u - no need to find out for urself.

Gonna play Minesweeper for a bit.
 
Did you try Dragon age Origins? It's a single player RPG I'm playing at the moment and once you get past the start it's quite good.
 
Used to love Unreal. Look at the date on tournament tho - 2004.

Dragon Age:Origins is lined up. Hear people saying it's good. Went to the homepage for it yesterday and it's a pretty poor site. Fanpages are probably better. Just wanted some good screenies really.
 
Have you tried Fifa 10? Whilst I agree on the whole 'iterations' thing, Fifa really is improving in a real way. The management side is far more in-depth than it used to be and the tactics are pretty good imo. Having said that, I play it on PS3 which makes it a ncie platform.

CoD MW2 has me massively addicted to MP, didn't think it would but it has. Not played more than 1/2 hour of the single player.

Last good FPS I played single player? Half Life 2?

Uncharted 1 & 2 are superb, if you have a PS3....
 
I have to agree that a lot of newer games are driven purely by graphic's content. Bigger and bigger game files and disk quantities to accomodate the pretty graphics, but a very weak or non existent storyline added seemingly as an after thought. Why have replay ability built in, much better for the market if you bin it and buy a new game.

There's a lot of hype about Final Fantasy 13, due out about March. Supposed to be story driven, has good graphics but I'm not sure about the over the top amount of stats that seem to swamp the battle scenes?

My vote for current games goes to Dragon Age Origins as well. good story, decent graphics, it's a bit talky, like The Argonauts game was, but in the dialogue lies a lot of the puzzles and tactics, so you may like it as well.

I played on the 360 and liked it. I played very briefly on the PC , where it looks better, but the interface seems a bit clumsy to me, as if it was ported from the console version, though it's much bigger file wise on the pc. I personally preferred the 360 version though each to his own.

 
Gotta disagree with the footy management thing though... Footy Manager 2010 is very good. You can stress to each player exactly what you want them to do and they will do it.

As for Championship Manager being the same as it's ever been. Well it's totally different from what it used to be. It used to be Footy Manager until the dev team shifted over to making Footy Manager and then Championship Manager totally lost it's way. I played them both for a couple of years after that move and watch Championship Manager lose a lot of what I liked where as Football Manager took what Champ Man had and improved on it year on year (apart from last year).

I never bothered with Footy Manager 2009 as I didn't see much improved over 2008 but this year it is another step up. A lot of refinement is showing itself.
 
One thing I've always maintained with games is that whilst I may not like them, or can see obvious flaws to myself, if some1 likes it/them - then great.

I did find championship/premier and football manager acceptable when I played them on the Amiga. But I do feel in almost 20 years, they should have moved on more than they have. What they are now, I've done b4. The control u may have is nothing in comparison to what Fifa Manager 07 would give u over a player. However, some people also don't like the detail such games give u as there is 50 million things to check each day or week.

The ingame playing tho is appauling. I make no excuses for that.

My ideal management game back then was the idea of SWOS with Actua Soccer. Today I'd switch in Fifa.

EDIT: Something I'm looking into is whether I can hack tactics from an 07 Fifa manager into 2010. U used to be able to load formations etc into Fifa.
 
Far Cry 1 and Half Life 2 were the last games I thoroughly enjoyed, these days every FPS is the same game with different guns and levels :(
 
name='zak4994' said:
Wait a minute.

Twilight Princess sucked?

Didn't have the same feel for me. Played it for perhaps a quarter of the time I played Ocarina.

There was something annoying about it too. Can't remember exactly what.
 
The annoying thing about it was that it was almost taking itself seriously. The graphics weren't Zelda-esque enough and it was even more laboriously told than Ocarina.

Oh, and the Wii add-ons were just that. Gimmicky cr@p.
 
For me halo was one of the best storylines, and it came around the time killzone was out. They were two amazing games with great storylines and great graphics for their time. UT was unstoppable for hours of play doing literally the same thing, that is the epitome of a good game.

Maybe you should make a list of these games? ranked by us? :D
 
Bah!

If you truly wanted to play the game you would forget about simple niggles like that.

It's a bit like a girlfriend. lol
 
i too havent loved too many games recently

killzone was a good story line however the ps2 really was limiting the graphics and at times you could feel it straining lol

bioshock was the latest game ive enjoyed

that and HL2 and the eps 1,2 with the HD texture pack installed

heroes of newerth is good rast if you want a beta key (?)

DOTA style gameplay with better graphics? id never played dota but iv preordered for £18
 
pretty much hate nintendo games

all i see is party games potential such as smash bros and thats it

even they bore me after a while

super mario galaxy < 2d mario

ooh ooh

i remember a great series on ps2

timesplitters :yumyum:
 
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