Do u feel that gaming has passed you by?

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:14 am

I dunno, I guess today was supposed to be a super exciting day of announcements (X360, Playstation 3, etc).

But for some reason I wasn't excited at all. In fact I was kind of bored seeing the list of endless Gran Turismo, Tekkens, Final Fantasy sequels, etc being announced...

Does anyone else feel that gaming has passed them by? It used to be that I would live for days like this...to hear about new exciting consoles and their possibilities...but now...I just don't see what the big fuss is.

Is having 1000 times more processing power really going to make Final Fantasy 12 that much better? I mean you're still going to walk for 3 seconds, go into a battle, push a button to cast a spell, watch cool spell effects for 10 seconds, lather, rinse, repeat etc etc ad nauseam.

All these kiddies getting excited about 1080p resolution, 2 teraflops, and here I am still dreaming about Thunderforce 6....is there any room left in this "new generation" for 2D and shmup gamers like myself?

Sigh, maybe it's time for me to give up this hobby. I am just not a "real gamer" anymore.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:25 am

I don't understand why the next 3 systems being crap would cause you to quit videogames.

Just face it, you're not a real gamer and you're not a true shmups fan. Next stop, serial rapist.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:29 am

Hey, tehkao!

This is the second thread of yours in this mood. I remember the other one "Do you think I'm still a shmup fan?" or something like that.

Come on, man, cheer up!! ^__^

As for your question, the E3 is always like that, boobs and big numbers and specifics, but...

The gamer inside you will live for the next Ico, or the next Thunderforce or something you love. Hardware really doesn't matter, but let's not give up gaming just because the industry is marketed by idiots. We are not here to hear Reggie or Allard or Kaz's bullshits.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:55 am

Get over it and accept the fact that you're among the huge number of people who just don't get a stiffy over conventions, which is all E3 is.

If you're going to quit gaming because E3 doesn't excite you... well, that's pretty ridiculous. It's like giving up movies because you find Tom Cruise boring.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:05 am

I'm more excited about Senko/Rajirugi/Raiden III/Under Defeat/Homura/Ibara or the new KOFXI than anything at E3. In fact I think there is nothing at E3 this year that interests me (of course it's not over yet either).

I do however, get excited/interested when a TGS or AOU comes around.

edit - I was just talking to some friends the other day, and none of them are excited about E3 either. The only interest we had about anything E3 related was making fun of the Xbox360 (WOW XBOX360 HAS FACEPLATES I WANT A FACEPLATE THAT IS SO COOL WOULDNT IT BE COOL).

black mariah · Post by **black mariah** » Tue May 17, 2005 10:20 am

There was a discussion along these lines in the IRC channel. The fact of the matter is, people have been bitching about unoriginal shit forever and the only thing that's changed is the name of the unoriginal games they're complaining about. Every new generation of systems the same people bitch and moan about how there aren't any cool new games and it's all just sequels and blah blah fucking blah whine bitch whine.

Look, it's pretty fucking simple. 90% of EVERYTHING is crap. Every generation will have its share of shit. If you want to argue, I'll be happy to point you towards the fifty billion half-assed Pac-Man and Galaga clones that littered arcades in the early 80's.

No, there is no room for us. Shooters are an antiquated and practically dead genre held onto by steadfast psychos. I like my shmups as much as anyone here, but I honestly don't give a fuck if any of them make the cover of Game Informer as the next big thing. You can either be a whiny old fucker bitching about these kids today with their newfangled gadgets or you can wake the fuck up, realize that you are not important to console developers, and get on with your life.

Which makes a person more of a real gamer? Simply following along with every bullshit item that comes down the assembly line? Or only playing what you find fun?

Nei First · Post by **Nei First** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:32 am

^

Hey chillout man, that's just his opinion. In any case for the most part I agree with you although I wouldn't say 90% of EVERYTHING is crap.

druuna · Post by **druuna** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:35 am

this is a great moment for shmups...stop talking about sh*t like E3!!!
just think about 'mushi' on ps2 or 'under defeat' on DC

Palmer Eldritch · Post by **Palmer Eldritch** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:08 pm

tehkao wrote:Does anyone else feel that gaming has passed them by? It used to be that I would live for days like this...to hear about new exciting consoles and their possibilities...but now...I just don't see what the big fuss is.

My real concern is that the next generation of consoles are appearing a bit too soon.
Looking at the shelves with my version of must-haves there are hardly 5 notable games for each console (PS2, XBOX, GCN).
Not so with my collection of 16 and 32-bit games.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:25 pm

There was a discussion along these lines in the IRC channel. The fact of the matter is, people have been bitching about unoriginal shit forever and the only thing that's changed is the name of the unoriginal games they're complaining about. Every new generation of systems the same people bitch and moan about how there aren't any cool new games and it's all just sequels and blah blah fucking blah whine bitch whine.

Look, it's pretty fucking simple. 90% of EVERYTHING is crap. Every generation will have its share of shit. If you want to argue, I'll be happy to point you towards the fifty billion half-assed Pac-Man and Galaga clones that littered arcades in the early 80's.

No, there is no room for us. Shooters are an antiquated and practically dead genre held onto by steadfast psychos. I like my shmups as much as anyone here, but I honestly don't give a fuck if any of them make the cover of Game Informer as the next big thing. You can either be a whiny old fucker bitching about these kids today with their newfangled gadgets or you can wake the fuck up, realize that you are not important to console developers, and get on with your life.

Which makes a person more of a real gamer? Simply following along with every bullshit item that comes down the assembly line? Or only playing what you find fun?

Here here. Pac-Man clones, Space invaders clones, Karate Champ clones, Manic Miner clones... maybe not 90%, but the majority of games are derevative, unoriginal, badly executed horsecrap. Always have been, always will be. Fact is, gamers of a certain age have already seen it all and played it all, and it's gonna take something pretty special to excite them. Doesn't make current-gen games crap, it makes us jaded old bastards. Relax. Y'know, some of the gamaes that have been slammed as average on this board, current and old-gen, can actually be kind of fun if you just relax your stance a little.

Minzoku · Post by **Minzoku** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:50 pm

It's occurred to me that the "new" generation of gamers are actually playing a different game: "Keep up with the Joneses." It's not so much whether a game is fun five or ten years down the road, so long as you've played it when it was "the big thing."

Yes, we may love the timeless ones, but marketers don't. It's the same reason things like bottled water have expiration dates--to get people to buy more of it rather than keep it forever.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Tue May 17, 2005 1:21 pm

I was not at all excited about these announcement. I really don't care too much about 360 or PS3; more of the same. I am however excited to see what Nintendo has to offer as they seem more inline with what I am looking for these days.

I still get very pumped about the new shooter releases, though. I get way more excited about the new Cave shooters getting ports than I ever could over Xbox 360.

janrodricks · Post by **janrodricks** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:16 pm

I got a PS2 the day it came out, and had it until this October. Over the years I had just grown bored with it and the games coming out interested me less and less. I got sick of games always being lame. Thats what interested me about shmumps - it seemed like they had more pure gameplay. I'm not even interested in the next generation of systems. Maybe in a couple years if they ended up looking cool I'd consider picking one up...but for now I'm more than content with buying old PS1 and DC games (and hopefully some cool DS/PSP games will start coming out soon)

The same thing happened with me and XBOX. I only ended up having three or so games for it after a year or two.

ryosnk · Post by **ryosnk** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:18 pm

I don't get excited about games like I use too mainly because I have a family and bills to take care off. I remember reading about games mostly every night and thinking about how can I get this certain game because the 2d graphics look so kick ass, when I was a little lad

. I guess we all grow up knowing that we have other responsibilities that need our attention and gaming is the last thing in my mind at least. I have a huge collection of games but when I look at them I smile

but then I realize that maybe it was a mistake with the cost and effort of finding that certain game or system. I still enjoy games but I rather play catch with my kids and spend some quality time with the wife.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:29 pm

It's obvious that gaming has passed us by, developers now target towards Joe Sixpack who would rather play through the game without any difficulty and unlock something stupid like a new costume or something. I was seriously considering selling my PSTwo because all I ever play on it was Gradius V and my PS1 shmups anyway. The developers will occasionly throw us a bone to get us to shut up, but it isn't enough. We simply are not the target market anymore. My roommate thinks I'm crazy for importing a Saturn, espeically when I told him why. He does find shmups fun, however, so maybe there's hope. The problem is that more and more games are being dumbed down so even the most brain-dead of "gamers" can finish it with no problem, up to the point where the games aren't really fun anymore. Graphics and fancy technology mean nothing to me, and I'm tried of buying polished turds. There's enough games on the older systems to last a few lifetimes anyway.

Also, you can always wait for the newer systems to become obsolite. I'm going to try and skip a generation and see if I am really missing anything new.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:29 pm

ryosnk wrote: I guess we all grow up knowing that we have other responsibilities that need our attention ...

Nah! Gaming is a primary source of joy! And I could care less about "responsibilities".

Then again I don't have a wife and kids to take care of or something like that... I can afford saying it. But I could care less about getting a wife and even less about getting kids.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Tue May 17, 2005 2:37 pm

This seems more like a thread for OT.

ryosnk · Post by **ryosnk** » Tue May 17, 2005 3:18 pm

Here is another thing on my mind

. Lets see................in the 8bit and 16bit and to some extent the 32bit ages, game companies tried new things like characters, designs, and originality. Now you get the same series like tekken, medal of honor, and jak over and over in the same console. It gets old very fast and it bugs me because companies waste over ten million on making a game and if it sells it goes in the tube on rehash mode. I miss the old days where companies took chances and they were awarded by the hardcore and respected, now we see first person shooter up the ass in the current system with no sense of originality. Every game I played lately either It seems like I played it before in another game or it sucks because it has purty graphics but the design and gameplay suck big time. Ahhh, I guess it time for me to take out my genesis and snes to play some 2d because that is all but gone with the new systems coming out.

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:01 pm

Yes of course the gaming industry has passed us by.

Its now more of a hardcore pursuit than ever.

I don't give a damn about new hardware.

I give a damn about 'playing' the new & old shoot'em up software.

I agree that the pseudo 3D games being pumped out to the masses have been 'dumbed down'. Most of these games don't even have score!

Shoot'em ups are one of the last bastions of skill.

Thank God the Japanese still make them!

jp · Post by jp » Tue May 17, 2005 4:13 pm

I went through a similar phase my freshmen year of college. My senior year of high school I got the Xbox and shortly thereafter the Gamecube, and after about a year of owning both I realized that nothing was really holding my interest, so I just hooked my Dreamcast and Saturn backup and haven't looked back since.

Games are nothing but time wasters these days. There's no challenge, no skill involved, nothing but hours of doing X number of monotonous tasks so that, instead of working or spending time with family and friends, you're basically sitting there looking at pretty graphics and drudging along through Boring Shit Game 239849278349234.

Personally, I prefer to sit down with a game for 30 minutes-2 hours each day and spend that time on something that'll give me a rush of adrenaline and push my limits as far as a gamer goes. But gaming quit delivering that after the DC it seems...

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:15 pm

Lets see................in the 8bit and 16bit and to some extent the 32bit ages, game companies tried new things like characters, designs, and originality.

Yeah, Super Mario 1,2 & 3. Gradius 1,2 & 3. R-Type 1,2 and Leo. Sonic 1,2,3 & Knuckles. Alex Kid, Mega Man, Street Fighter, the countless unspired cookie-cutter shmups that have vanished without trace. Repetition is something that's crept into gaming quite recently because of mainstream players right? Come off it!

I miss the old days where companies took chances and they were awarded by the hardcore and respected, now we see first person shooter up the ass in the current system with no sense of originality.

NEWSFLASH! Those companies were in it for the money as well. Remember Ocean film licences? The countless unofficial clones of the current 'in' coin-op? The software house Imagine hyping up every new release as though it were the second coming (Psyclapse and Bandersnatch)? Remember how Psygnosis started out, as a publisher of great-looking games that pretty much stank? And how many original concepts do you think there are left after 25+ years of gaming? And rewarded by the hardcore? How so? How did the hardcore 'award' CapCom for Street Fighter 2? By buying it in such numbers, and making them so much money that it encouraged them to churn out 'sequel' after sequel. They watch the dough roll in, we get update after update thrust at us. Yay for the hardcore. Which is a strange term in itself, because there was no 'hardcore' up until the end of the 16-bit/beginning of the 32-bit era, because there was no 'mainstream' - because until then gaming was, for the most part, a niche market, a hobby of utter geeks. Like me

Every game I played lately either It seems like I played it before in another game or it sucks because it has purty graphics but the design and gameplay suck big time.

Then you're buying the wrong games. Prince Of Persia SOT? Half Life 2? Resi 4? Out Run 2? YOU make not like 'em, but to say that the design and gameplay of any of those titles sucks is a huge, and ignorant, generalisation. This rose-tinted shit needs to stop. The games we're playing now are still around because they were the stand-out PRODUCTS of their time. The other 75% of them vanished without a trace 'cause they were shit. Same as will happen with this gen. Same as with next. The classics will live on, and the crap will fade quietly into obscurity.

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:31 pm

Marc wrote:NEWSFLASH! Those companies were in it for the money as well.

True... however, in the golden days you could innovate (though some didn't). That creativity is largely supressed now. There was a time when a guy like David Crane (Activision's Pitfall, Laser Blast, Freeway, Dragster, Fishing Derby) could sit at his desk, dream up a game and code it up in 4-5 months time by himself with a small bit of creative input from his cohorts. Nowadays, it's a movie production budget with lots of programmers, graphic artists, sound editors, etc.

When you pitch a game today, it needs to be given approval - even before you begin to work on it. The costs associated with a game now are simply too high to just allow someone to run with an idea unchecked. So when you sit in front of a panel that is giving the thumbs up to games and you pitch brand new idea A or a game that looks like the next modern Doom clone... the panel thinks... "Hey! Doom 3 is a blockbuster... let's go with that idea!" and good idea A sits on the shelf.

Nintendo occasionally will be brave enough to internally develop really innovative games these days... but other than that, it's just a new shiny coat of paint given to most new games. You're free to like them - some of them are really good... but (for the most part) the innovative years are well behind us.

Also... where have the console exclusives gone?! It used to be that one in 10 games were ported to more than one system. Nowadays, 1 in 10 games is an exclusive (the ratio is probably not even that high). Too much generic "design-for-the-lowest-common-denominator" stuff going on. God bless companies like Treasure and (more recently since they switched to a software only house) Sega who really spend the time to understand a bit of hardware and squeeze the most out of it.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:44 pm

True... however, in the golden days you could innovate. That creativity is largely supressed now. There was a time when a guy like David Crane (Activision's Pitfall, Laser Blast, Freeway, Dragster, Fishing Derby) could sit at his desk, dream up a game and code it up in 4-5 months time by himself with a small bit of creative input from his cohorts. Nowadays, it's a movie production budget with lots of programmers, graphic artists, sound editors, etc.

When you pitch a game today, it needs to be given approval - even before you begin to work on it. The costs associated with a game now are simply too high to just allow someone to run with an idea unchecked. So when you sit in front of a panel that is giving the thumbs up to games and you pitch brand new idea A or a game that looks like the next modern Doom clone... the panel thinks... "Hey! Doom 3 is a blockbuster... let's go with that idea!" and good idea A sits on the shelf.

Yeah true, but even in those days the indie or one-man bolts from the blue weren't as frequent as we'd probably like to kid ourselves. Although they're even less frequent now. They might not be everyone's cup of tea, but gaming needs more titles like Rez and Ico (to name two lazy examples). Only Nintendo still really does that, I must have been the only person to find Luigi's Mansion a breath of fresh air - fun, new and finishable, Odama looks the shit, Eternal Darkness was a brave stab at reinvigorating a stale(ish) genre... pity about Wave Race, Sunshine, 1080 etc...

Also... where have the console exclusives gone?! It used to be that one in 10 games were ported to more than one system. Nowadays, 1 in 10 games is an exclusive (the ratio is probably not even that high). Too much generic "design-for-the-lowest-common-denominator" stuff going on. God bless companies like Treasure and (more recently since they switched to a software only house) Sega who really spend the time to understand a bit of hardware and squeeze the most out of it.

Now there's a good point. We're going back to the days of Spectrum/Amstrad/C64, where all 3 machines got the same title, but the Amstrad (Xbox) would normally get a Spectrum port (PS2) because it was easier to port from the less capable machine upwards, taking very little (if any) of the capabilities of the better machine into account. Course, the C64 owned them both, but we can hardly compare the 'Cube to that can we

? C64 usually got the best version, 'Cube just doesn't get one full stop.

ryosnk · Post by **ryosnk** » Tue May 17, 2005 6:19 pm

Their are some companies that do originate in game development by creating a great game (viewtiful joe, jet set radio and afew others) with nice graphics and gameplay that are second to none, but the mainstream audience wont buy it because their clueless and we are stuck without a sequal! But hey people seem to buy anything that is put in their face even if the came sucks. My local game store told me that his top selling game of the week was ford racing 2 (

) that shows you how lame the average gamer is. Heck, if its price that they are concern why not research and find that special game; its been done because I have been able to score great games for less then $10.

Ah forget about, I going to play some radiant silvergun and gallatic attack when I get home.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue May 17, 2005 7:20 pm

I'd just like to point out how funny it is that people complain about how challenge and competition doesn't matter in games anymore, and then use FPS as some sort of proof. FPS are to the last decade what fighting games were to the SFII era. Claiming that there's no skill in them, ESPECIALLY mutliplayer, is just flat-out nuts, and is in no way a valid criticism of modern gaming.

Unless any of you making these claims would care to take on Fatal1ty to prove that skill means nothing these days...

umi · Post by **umi** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:06 pm

Hell yeah... I bow to those guys who kick my ass on FPS's. They have some scary skills... I almost wish I'd kept on playing after Doom2... some of them haven't stopped since Doom2. Nothing can beat the days of local Doom2 online though *nostalgic sigh*

sethsez wrote:I'd just like to point out how funny it is that people complain about how challenge and competition doesn't matter in games anymore, and then use FPS as some sort of proof. FPS are to the last decade what fighting games were to the SFII era. Claiming that there's no skill in them, ESPECIALLY mutliplayer, is just flat-out nuts, and is in no way a valid criticism of modern gaming.

Unless any of you making these claims would care to take on Fatal1ty to prove that skill means nothing these days... :lol:

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:19 pm

The only thing that bothers me about gaming now is the death of all the stuff I grew up playing and how kids nowadays won't know "classic" gameplay (excepting the classic game packages). It really hit me when I got Shattered Soldier and my sisters boyfriend confessed that he had never played a Contra game before.... shameful.

Looking at the shelves with my version of must-haves there are hardly 5 notable games for each console (PS2, XBOX, GCN).

I'd disagree there. That lies more with your tastes than anything. I'm not big on the gamecube but I could name a few dozen games on PS2 and Xbox that are notable to me.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:48 pm

Looking at the shelves with my version of must-haves there are hardly 5 notable games for each older consoles (SNES, GENS, SATURN).

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Tue May 17, 2005 10:30 pm

The gerne's/media I love are no longer at the forefront but I still like some of the newer games.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:00 pm

Acid King wrote:The only thing that bothers me about gaming now is the death of all the stuff I grew up playing and how kids nowadays won't know "classic" gameplay (excepting the classic game packages). It really hit me when I got Shattered Soldier and my sisters boyfriend confessed that he had never played a Contra game before.... shameful.

The games we knew were the norm back then and are the classics now.
The games kids play now are the norm, and who knows? If how people play games changes just as much in the next 15 years, what we see now in 3D games will become the "classic" gameplay down the road.

I am assuming your sister's boyfriend and yourself are of comparable ages, and not to be compared to "kids nowadays". Although I'm not sure if what I'm saying aids or counters your point of never having played a Contra game being shameful.
I've never played a Contra game either until a little over a year ago too. (Well, played Contra Spirits when I was a young'un but didn't enjoy it and used a cheat device to get infinite lives..)

shmups.system11.org

Do u feel that gaming has passed you by?

Do u feel that gaming has passed you by?

Re: Do u feel that gaming has passed you by?

Yes