Feeling alienated by modern games

Either from the fact that the gaming industry is an ever changing beast, or a product of growing up, but lately I've felt really alienated towards most games in the last couple of years. Forgive me as I begin to sound like your grandpa.

Back in the day it just felt like you had a truck load of games to choose from between Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation. Atari was still around but I never had an Atari system sadly. Then there was the arcade that would have games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Gauntlet Legends (does anyone remember Gauntlet Legends?), Mortal Kombat, etc. etc. Back then the genres that was really popular were platformers and RPGs. We also had a lot of good action, adventure, action-adventure, fighting and survivor horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. And stealth games like Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu. FPS games were more rare back then and most of the ones I played qualified more as rail shooters where you just went from point to point and shot things that appeared on the screen.

I'm not knocking current games. I was just blown away by Darksiders fairly recently and that qualifies as a current gen game. There just isn't a lot on the market that appeals to me anymore or leaps out at me like the next big thing. Exclusives don't stand out like they used to with the exception of Nintendo, but Nintendo has always had better known exclusives than the other platforms. And I couldn't care less about some of the recent stuff that are used in games now. Online? I don't play games to play online. I'm anti-social as all hell on the occasion I play an MMO. I'd rather play a traditional single-player or mulitplayer game. Thus the feeling of alienation. Has anyone else ever felt this way or am I on my own?

tl;dr: I'm old. Time to retire.

This is something I can relate too actually.

I'm not sure if it's just due to getting old or not but I find very few titles these days entice me. It may also be nostalgia too as when I was young I'd only really ever get a new game around Christmas or my Birthday, or occasionally Easter, so there was always that big wait in anticipation.

Nowadays I can pretty much just buy anything, and now I have that choice I find that most titles don't really hook me anymore. But then I look back at the past 9 years and realised that most of my game time from those 9 years was spent on things like World of Warcraft, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World League of Legends and now A Realm Reborn (with servings of Pokémon on the side). What little time wasn't, was usually lost to Left 4 Dead. MMOs make you chase a carrot on a stick, and most of the time I keep chasing it...

Even a fantastic game like The Last of Us I found didn't hold my attention for longer than a couple of hours at a time. Heck I think the only single player games I lost any significant amount of time too were Mass Effect 1-3 and Skyrim and all the Ezio Assassin's Creed games. Borderlands 2 as well, but that was mostly played Co-Op.

I do look at a lot of the recent releases trying to find something, but there's nothing that screams out to me anymore. I guess it's harder to find a title in a market that's now saturated with yearly Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, EA Sports games etc.

But working 40-50 hours a week my free time is also at a premium too so I guess I've become a lot more fussier about what I can devote my time too.

I'm older than a lot of you guys (turning 30 in a couple of months) so I actually have a bit of a different perspective. I felt this way maybe seven or eight years ago. It felt like a lot of the magic in the gaming industry was gone and my interest in it waned quite a bit. I still played games, of course, but it was mostly tried and true older titles that I knew I could appreciate. (Well, that and Halo.) Both college and work gobbling up the bulk of my free time didn't exactly help.

Fortunately enough for me, much of the magic has returned now that I'm older and out of college. I work a lot, yes, but outside of that I do... nothing. So I play games. Old games, new games, doesn't matter. I play them and love them. I actually credit Steam a lot here with their Steam sales and giving me millions of titles from every direction to try. I'm happier with gaming now than I've been in years. :)

TLDR: It might get better, because it did for me!

I've never got tired of gaming. The only real difference is that I tend to play single games for long periods of time, while back in the day I would play a lot of games in short bursts. I think it is often a case of just not finding the right game for a while, or losing the energy for other reasons.

I' stuck old school. I really have no clue what to even try that is new that I might get into. I tried Skyrim a couple years back and it didn't do anything for me, so I'm wondering if I out grew the industry. Heck, I didn't even like FFXIII much, so I've held off on trying it's sequel, but I guess I should before it's next sequel comes out. I keep hearing stuff about the Last of Us so I may try it out.

There's more games out there I want to play than I'm able to play so I'm good. Not having as much time to play is a big contributor to that.

I feel that the gaming in my life is being alienated by other parts of my life. I already play more often than I should, but I still wish I could play more. :(

Poor gamer me.

I'm partially jaded myself, I don't think gaming has that same magic it did in my adolescence but I'm sure part of that is just not being a kid anymore.

But look: there's more games being made today than ever before, and they're certainly not held by the measure of Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty. Maybe it's time you tried something new? You talk about the variety on Nintendo, Sega, and Sony back in the day, but I assure you that's nothing compared to the variety right now across handheld, Console, and pc.

You might also want to look into the classics you missed. No matter how many games you played, there's probably a lot on any given platform that you should give a shot. Nintendo's eShop and the Playstation Store both provide cheap and convenient ways to go back to legacy titles and they have sales all the time. Steam, GOG and Amazon's digital game service all provide the same function for pc. I know your frustration's with newer games but people don't limit themselves to new titles when reading or watching film and neither should you.

I've been getting into a lot of the old NES/SNES/Genesis classics lately just for the fun of it. For me, the games are just simpler and leave a lot to the imagination, and I also feel like it puts me back into a mindset of when life was a lot simpler. Playing older games (up to the PS1 era) is sort of an act of escapism for me so I can destress.

That being said, the only real downside of current gaming for me is a lack of good JRPGs. That will always be my favorite genre, and there just doesn't seem to be as much as there used to, at least on home consoles. I know handhelds are a different story. I probably game as much as I did as a kid, but I spend most of my time playing older titles I missed or more modern games in shorter bursts.

I'm not having the problems outlined in the first post at all. I find myself having plenty of single player games that I feel are worth my time. I have a moderately sized backlog of games I haven't played yet because I don't have enough time, and an even bigger backlog of games that I want to complete "everything" in, but don't have time for. Most of these games are from the PS360 generation, althought some are remnants from PS2.

Different genres/styles are currently emphasized in AAA gaming than in the SNES era or whatever, which means I don't like most of them. But there are so many games produced that there are still plenty I do love.

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Originally Posted by Bolivar

I'm partially jaded myself, I don't think gaming has that same magic it did in my adolescence but I'm sure part of that is just not being a kid anymore.

But look: there's more games being made today than ever before, and they're certainly not held by the measure of Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty. Maybe it's time you tried something new? You talk about the variety on Nintendo, Sega, and Sony back in the day, but I assure you that's nothing compared to the variety right now across handheld, Console, and pc.

You might also want to look into the classics you missed. No matter how many games you played, there's probably a lot on any given platform that you should give a shot. Nintendo's eShop and the Playstation Store both provide cheap and convenient ways to go back to legacy titles and they have sales all the time. Steam, GOG and Amazon's digital game service all provide the same function for pc. I know your frustration's with newer games but people don't limit themselves to new titles when reading or watching film and neither should you.

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Good point. I still haven't gotten around to playing Final Fantasy IV yet.

"Hold-your-hand-games" alienate me for sure, and those have become so numerous lately. Indies and Dark Souls 2 are the only games I'm currently interested in.

I'm starting to develop a love for the indies as well. Spelunky and Game Dev Tycoon was the most fun I had playing games this year. I'll probably start looking more into those in the future.

I don't really see any problems with games that hold your hand for a bit in the beginning. I'm not sure which games you guys are talking about, but most games I play stop holding my hand after not very long. The majority (probably 95% or more) of the time I spend on my games are not handheld, even if they did do that in the beginning.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

I don't really see any problems with games that hold your hand for a bit in the beginning. I'm not sure which games you guys are talking about, but most games I play stop holding my hand after not very long. The majority (probably 95% or more) of the time I spend on my games are not handheld, even if they did do that in the beginning.

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Ni no Kuni held my hand for literally half the game. Maybe more.

Never played that game.

Also, what exactly do you guys mean by holding your hands? Is it just having a "this is your next destination" marker on a minimap all the time, or is it more? Cause that's not really something that's new. It's been around for idk, almost two decades now.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Never played that game.

Also, what exactly do you guys mean by holding your hands? Is it just having a "this is your next destination" marker on a minimap all the time, or is it more? Cause that's not really something that's new. It's been around for idk, almost two decades now.

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This may seem like a dumb answer, but playing Ni no Kuni would really explain it best. It's the hand-holdiest game ever made.

Next destination marker is one way in which it happens, yes - not the most important, and not the most new, but I still wish it didn't exist. Little tutorials with lots of explanation for basic game mechanics is another way. Removal of all consequence for actions is one. Excessive literal explanation of events and/or descriptions of what to do is one. Yet another is a very slow, tedious unrolling of abilities/features/etc in a game - like if in a platformer you started with only "jump" but then slowly were allowed to use the rest of the game mechanics like sliding, running, whatever.

Basically, it's better for some subset of players (including me) if exploration is allowed to exist. Not just literal exploration of an area (that helps, though) - but exploration of the game mechanics, even to some degree exploration of controls. I don't want to be told what to do, I want to be released to do what I want.

Basically anything that explains a bunch of stuff that should be self-explanatory to the player.

>>> As long we still have new 2D fighting games and JRPGs, I guess will keep wasting my money on games until I die..:luca:

Yeah ok. In that case, nope, can't say I have played a lot of very hand-holdy games in a very long time.

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

I'm starting to develop a love for the indies as well. Spelunky and Game Dev Tycoon was the most fun I had playing games this year. I'll probably start looking more into those in the future.

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Yes. Play indie games! I lost interest in games for a good 10 years, and indie games are what got me back into them. Nowadays I find that $60 AAA-release games are often not appealing to me, seeming more style than substance, while a $5 indie game can keep me having fun for months.

A lot of people who grew up with Atari/NES era games got old, learned to program, and started making their own games that harken back to those days, with modern touches. We are in a golden age today with indie PC games.

I can't plug Humble Bundle enough: https://www.humblebundle.com/ It's pay-what-you-want for mostly indie games, often cross-platform and DRM-free. Wikipedia has a list of all the games in all of the past bundles, that's a great place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Indie_Bundle

I'm right there with the people who mentioned the hand-holding trout. It's downright insulting. The games with mandatory tutorials need to die in a fire. Especially if the tutorials are things like "press B to jump" which actually does happen quite a lot (yes, in Ni no Kuni as well). What's worse is when they take up any more than 2 hours of your time. The Fullmetal Alchemist game for PS2 did this and it was a pain in the ass. By the time the hand holding was over, the game had already been 1/4 of the way over.

These new games also have the side effect of making people worse at older games in general. This is why I love games like Street Fighter. You can play SFIV for a good amount of time and STILL be able to play the older games decently. You can't really do this when you play the new Nintendo stuff for a while, for example, and then go back and play the old trout. You're gonna suck. There's no real tutorial given for games like SF and Demon's Souls. But they're still fun to play. That is the point of games, to let you figure out how trout works. But most developers have lost their way with how to do that. If a game can't do that, it automatically fails. Games are supposed to be compelling. To make you WANT to learn how to do things.

Now on the subject of newer games not being as captivating, I can agree with that. Most games this gen are extraordinarily hard for me to finish, because a lot of them lose their luster after about 5 or 6 hours. It also sucks that there are mostly shooters this gen. I have no idea where people are getting that there is more variety now, unless they're talking only about indie games. Even there it's mostly platformers. Handheld gaming is where it's at for me really. That's where the fun and variety is now.

Hand holding doesn't bother me much because I can usually tolerate it for the beginning and occasionally I am thick about a particular mechanic and its actually useful to me. What does bother me is when deeper and more interesting gameplay mechanics are simplified to the point where it actually negatively impacts the gameplay and makes it comparatively shallow.

By far, the most egregious case of this bulltrout is everything that the FPS genre has become. Remember playing Doom, or Duke Nukem 3D? Remember non-linear level design? Powerful guns with limited ammunition? Health as a resource because it didn't smurfing regenerate? Boss fights? It wouldn't bother me so much if games like this were still around in addition to stuff like Call Of Duty, but it isnt. It's just gone, its disappeared. FPS went from one of my favourite gaming genres to my least because everything I took for granted about the genre is gone. What has replaced it is a linear corridor with action setpieces, littered with nearly interchangle guns with ammunition as a non-issue. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Gaming hasn't alienated me, but FPS and to a lesser extent survival horror certainly has.

Bringing up Doom reminded me of something else I can't stand: when games focus on story instead of gameplay. Doom 1 and 2 was pure gun-em-down gameplay all the way through. Didn't need a story. But then Doom 3 comes along and craps all over that by trying to have a "story." As a result, you have to watch cutscenes every five seconds and you shoot maybe a total of 100 monsters throughout the game. A bit hyperbolic, but accurate. Duke Nukem Forever was kind of like that too, but replace most of the story with driving around in inane RC-car segments.

Would you guys be satisfied if the games asked you if you wanted to play through the tutorial first? Metal Gear Rising did that, so did Zone of the Enders.

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Originally Posted by Polnareff

I'm right there with the people who mentioned the hand-holding trout. It's downright insulting. The games with mandatory tutorials need to die in a fire. Especially if the tutorials are things like "press B to jump" which actually does happen quite a lot (yes, in Ni no Kuni as well). What's worse is when they take up any more than 2 hours of your time. The Fullmetal Alchemist game for PS2 did this and it was a pain in the ass. By the time the hand holding was over, the game had already been 1/4 of the way over.

These new games also have the side effect of making people worse at older games in general. This is why I love games like Street Fighter. You can play SFIV for a good amount of time and STILL be able to play the older games decently. You can't really do this when you play the new Nintendo stuff for a while, for example, and then go back and play the old trout. You're gonna suck. There's no real tutorial given for games like SF and Demon's Souls. But they're still fun to play. That is the point of games, to let you figure out how trout works. But most developers have lost their way with how to do that. If a game can't do that, it automatically fails. Games are supposed to be compelling. To make you WANT to learn how to do things.

Now on the subject of newer games not being as captivating, I can agree with that. Most games this gen are extraordinarily hard for me to finish, because a lot of them lose their luster after about 5 or 6 hours. It also sucks that there are mostly shooters this gen. I have no idea where people are getting that there is more variety now, unless they're talking only about indie games. Even there it's mostly platformers. Handheld gaming is where it's at for me really. That's where the fun and variety is now.

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I hear that, I went back to the first Devil May Cry game after playing Darksiders. That was an interesting week. Devil May Cry is very unforgiving of game rust.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Would you guys be satisfied if the games asked you if you wanted to play through the tutorial first? Metal Gear Rising did that, so did Zone of the Enders.

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If having a tutorial is the only problem? Then yes, making it optional helps. It's certainly an upgrade over a mandatory one. Although optimally, the game should be designed in such a way that discovery of the mechanics is organic and possible without a tutorial.

The first Super Mario Brothers game sets you up to jump by putting something in the air in front of you. Obviously you're going to press your buttons and see if you can get it somehow. It doesn't have a "press A to jump!" picture with a little image of Mario jumping.

Even super mario brothers probably explained the controls in the manual. With manuals becoming more and more rare, it's only natural that it is implemented in the games themselves.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Even super mario brothers probably explained the controls in the manual. With manuals becoming more and more rare, it's only natural that it is implemented in the games themselves.

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They are? Every new game I gotten has all had manuals.

I guess you don't buy a lot of digitally distributed games :p.

I mean sure, they come with digital manuals, but they're even more bleh to read than actual manuals.

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

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Originally Posted by Polnareff

I'm right there with the people who mentioned the hand-holding trout. It's downright insulting. The games with mandatory tutorials need to die in a fire. Especially if the tutorials are things like "press B to jump" which actually does happen quite a lot (yes, in Ni no Kuni as well). What's worse is when they take up any more than 2 hours of your time. The Fullmetal Alchemist game for PS2 did this and it was a pain in the ass. By the time the hand holding was over, the game had already been 1/4 of the way over.

These new games also have the side effect of making people worse at older games in general. This is why I love games like Street Fighter. You can play SFIV for a good amount of time and STILL be able to play the older games decently. You can't really do this when you play the new Nintendo stuff for a while, for example, and then go back and play the old trout. You're gonna suck. There's no real tutorial given for games like SF and Demon's Souls. But they're still fun to play. That is the point of games, to let you figure out how trout works. But most developers have lost their way with how to do that. If a game can't do that, it automatically fails. Games are supposed to be compelling. To make you WANT to learn how to do things.

Now on the subject of newer games not being as captivating, I can agree with that. Most games this gen are extraordinarily hard for me to finish, because a lot of them lose their luster after about 5 or 6 hours. It also sucks that there are mostly shooters this gen. I have no idea where people are getting that there is more variety now, unless they're talking only about indie games. Even there it's mostly platformers. Handheld gaming is where it's at for me really. That's where the fun and variety is now.

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I hear that, I went back to the first Devil May Cry game after playing Darksiders. That was an interesting week. Devil May Cry is very unforgiving of game rust.

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The same thing happened to me, just about. At the time DMC came out, I beat the game on Normal in one go, using no continues. Now going back to it a generation later, I can't do it anymore. Games like the newer God of War games and Darksiders 2 have made it kind of difficult.

Also, yes, Mirage, I'd rather it just be an option. Mandatory tutorials are lame. If you haven't already, play Ni no Kuni and you'll see what Spuuky is talking about. They literally stop you like once every 15 minutes, for the first 10 hours of the game, to tell you how to do everything. Annoying as hell.

Ni no kuni just doesn't seem like a very interesting game to me.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Ni no kuni just doesn't seem like a very interesting game to me.

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It's 1/3 Pokemon, 1/3 Dragon Quest, and 1/3 Earthbound. If you like all those games, it should interest you, and if you don't, it shouldn't. But that's fine, that isn't really the subject of this thread, it's just an exceptional example.

Pokemon wasn't my thing, the only DQ I played (8) was extremely boring, and I actually haven't tried Earthbound yet.

I can relate completely. My tastes have become a lot more niche, and lately I find that the 3DS is the only system that really has any offerings that appeal to me. I still play a few newer franchises like Demon's/Dark Souls and I'm looking forward to The Evil Within, but beyond that, I just play Atlus RPGs (which still play like the best the PlayStation had to offer) and emulators.

I'd suggest checking out the ROM hacking scene, especially if you like platfomers. There are hundreds of Mario hacks, many of which are essentially brand new games running on the original game engine and with the original mechanics. Super Metroid is in the same boat. Then there's Zelda Classic, which is a PC port of the original Zelda on a new engine with a level editor built in. There's tons of quests made for that as well. There are so many older games getting fan translations that never made it out over here to play as well.

If modern gaming isn't for you, there's still an endless amount to discover concerning older games, and even new "old" games coming out all the time if you count ROM hacks.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Pokemon wasn't my thing, the only DQ I played (8) was extremely boring, and I actually haven't tried Earthbound yet.

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... I can't find and post the barfing emoticon on my phone!

Jk Mirage we know you got class! (Classy lady)

Dragon Quest is a great series if you like classic RPGs, especially if you don't like hand-holding. In DQ9 for DS, it's possible to miss the event that lets you have more than one person in your party for example. DQ9 feels very much like an old NES game with updated graphics and a few modern niceties.

You're in a town, you finished a quest, and suddenly you have no idea what to do. You talk to some people and hear the name of some other town repeated a few times, and a very vague idea where it might be. You check your map and see a road going east so you head off blindly in that direction. Along the way you find a cave. Do you go in or not? There's a non-zero chance that this is a high-level dungeon that will destroy you.

I love RPGs where instead of artificially blocking your progress to parts of a map with walls (or invisible walls...), they just put enemies over there that will one-hit kill you. You get to control your own progression. If you reeeeeeally want to grind out 20 levels, then congrats, a new area will be open to you. In practice you're probably going to do all the low-level quests and level up that way, but at least you have the choice. Or maybe you can cheese your way through the high-level area and find some kind of uber-sword and become an avatar of death for a while back home. This is where fun is born.

All this talk of hand holding is making me scared to play Ni No Kuni now.

The problem with at least DQ8 was that it was too much like a NES game. I don't mind not being hand held, but I do mind a very unexciting battle system. It was ultimately that which made me stop playing the game.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

All this talk of hand holding is making me scared to play Ni No Kuni now.

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It's still a fairly challenging game (mostly because your partners have inept AI and there are very few AI settings), but yeah, all the lame-ass tutorial business made it hard for me to get into. That said, I have a save file that's about 3/4 of the way through the game.

DQ is pretty good about not holding your hand, but the newer DQs and the remakes aren't very challenging. Specifically DQIX. By the end of that game, everyone had a multi-hit skill. The last boss was getting hit 16 times in one turn. He died in something like 5 turns. Any other DQ last boss is pretty hard. I know you'll say the challenge in DQIX is in the downloadable maps and stuff, but truth be told, those aren't even that hard. Plus it matters little because they're not part of the game proper. Even the DS remakes got seriously nerfed in that way. But at least they don't tell you how to do every little thing like all these other RPGs now want to.

Like Polnareff, I got through the majority of Ni No Kuni, and enjoyed a good portion of it. I can't say I would not recommend it. All the hand holding was endearing at first. The real problem is that even 10 hours in, they're still introducing new mechanics. And once you learn something, you're rarely allowed to just do what you know you should do. Instead you have to have a conversation about what you should do. In which you're told how stupid you are for not knowing how to do what you know you should do. It gets old. But it typically takes a while to get old. In the beginning it barely pulls you away from loving the game. In some way its makes the game even more lovable, because the little fairy dude is a hoot half the time. It really just depends on your tolerance/patience levels. But of all the people I know who eventually got tired of Ni No Kuni, I can't think of any of them who were immediately turned off. And I can think of a fair few who were happy to barrel through to the end and never even stopped to consider anything was annoying or repetitive and just loved it for what it is. I definitely think it's always worth a look to see for one's self how it rubs them. I still look back on it fondly, and intend to finish it one day. I even spent $40 on the beautiful and massive strategy guide

Without the game being as cute as it is, it wouldn't be nearly as tolerable. I think a big reason why I stopped playing is because I got caught up on level grinding on these enemies that appear in a certain area on the world map, and just plain old forgot where to go next. That and I already know who the final boss is and how to fight him. But someday....

It's still a fun game.

I'm starting to doubt it!

Maybe you should be impressed that I'm still willing and able to defend the game's overall enjoyability despite my deep hatred of this one somewhat pervasive aspect of it?

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

Either from the fact that the gaming industry is an ever changing beast, or a product of growing up, but lately I've felt really alienated towards most games in the last couple of years. Forgive me as I begin to sound like your grandpa.

Back in the day it just felt like you had a truck load of games to choose from between Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation. Atari was still around but I never had an Atari system sadly. Then there was the arcade that would have games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Gauntlet Legends (does anyone remember Gauntlet Legends?), Mortal Kombat, etc. etc. Back then the genres that was really popular were platformers and RPGs. We also had a lot of good action, adventure, action-adventure, fighting and survivor horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. And stealth games like Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu. FPS games were more rare back then and most of the ones I played qualified more as rail shooters where you just went from point to point and shot things that appeared on the screen.

I'm not knocking current games. I was just blown away by Darksiders fairly recently and that qualifies as a current gen game. There just isn't a lot on the market that appeals to me anymore or leaps out at me like the next big thing. Exclusives don't stand out like they used to with the exception of Nintendo, but Nintendo has always had better known exclusives than the other platforms. And I couldn't care less about some of the recent stuff that are used in games now. Online? I don't play games to play online. I'm anti-social as all hell on the occasion I play an MMO. I'd rather play a traditional single-player or mulitplayer game. Thus the feeling of alienation. Has anyone else ever felt this way or am I on my own?

tl;dr: I'm old. Time to retire.

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I understand how you feel my friend.

Try to hit the indie scene once and a while. The lack of corporate obligations, hopefully, can revitalize your love in gaming.

I feel sort of the same way and for me it's because for the PS3 there have been hardly any JRPGs released and those games provided the most fun for me and not to mention sequels to PS2 franchises like MGS4 and GTAIV did not satisfy me, but I have found love with the following games this gen: Mirror's Edge, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Batman Arkham Asylum, Batman Arkham City, Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, LittleBigPlanet and Dragon's Crown. Back in the PS2 generation the list would've been longer than that.

Huh? PS3 had the most JRPGS this generation besides the handhelds. Meanwhile, 360 and Wii had very few of them. 360 especially. There were only about 6 or 7 JRPGs on the system, and only 3 or 4 of those were worth playing. :P

I think gaming this generation became more focused on trying to tell a classically written story and by that I mean the type you would read or watch in other forms of entertainment. With this sort of mind set, games have become way more linear than ever. How can you get to the next story point if you can go off and do whatever? This sort of mentality has also lead to games becoming way easier because people like to see their stories complete. Thus all of the hand holding and other features that make games too easy.

When making the top 10 list of games for this generation, I kind of struggled a bit to come up with games I thought should be nominated. I felt so many of them wanted to be an incredible narrative experience but most utterly failed in that sense, even the big games. I felt like games have/are becoming more and more disposable entertainment.

I think more time needs to be spent on crafting the experience a person will have with a game. Whether that is a fun game in the purest sense like FTL or something that attempts a narrative experience like Red Dead Redemption. I think these games are memorable for that reason. I don't think Call of Duty is all that memorable because they focus on what would be cool/shocking instead of asking what sort of experience are they looking to craft (multiplayer).

That is my take on why you are becoming a bit more disinterested. As a person over 30 that doesn't a remember a time without videogames, I have seen genres rise and fall in popularity. You just need to figure out more what it is that you want and go get that and ignore the noise. Maybe you find that a certain genre is awesome in the indie scene (horror) or that there is a creative force behind games you really like (Suda 51). I think part of the reason older games might be considered better in some sense is that there were fewer creative forces crafting the vision of the game back in the day. Today it seems to have become too committee like :/

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Originally Posted by Polnareff

Huh? PS3 had the most JRPGS this generation besides the handhelds. Meanwhile, 360 and Wii had very few of them. 360 especially. There were only about 6 or 7 JRPGs on the system, and only 3 or 4 of those were worth playing. :P

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There were more this gen compared to PS2, and PS1/ That doesn't sound true to me.

Polnareff never said that.

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Originally Posted by edczxcvbnm

I think gaming this generation became more focused on trying to tell a classically written story and by that I mean the type you would read or watch in other forms of entertainment. With this sort of mind set, games have become way more linear than ever. How can you get to the next story point if you can go off and do whatever? This sort of mentality has also lead to games becoming way easier because people like to see their stories complete. Thus all of the hand holding and other features that make games too easy.

When making the top 10 list of games for this generation, I kind of struggled a bit to come up with games I thought should be nominated. I felt so many of them wanted to be an incredible narrative experience but most utterly failed in that sense, even the big games. I felt like games have/are becoming more and more disposable entertainment.

I think more time needs to be spent on crafting the experience a person will have with a game. Whether that is a fun game in the purest sense like FTL or something that attempts a narrative experience like Red Dead Redemption. I think these games are memorable for that reason. I don't think Call of Duty is all that memorable because they focus on what would be cool/shocking instead of asking what sort of experience are they looking to craft (multiplayer).

That is my take on why you are becoming a bit more disinterested. As a person over 30 that doesn't a remember a time without videogames, I have seen genres rise and fall in popularity. You just need to figure out more what it is that you want and go get that and ignore the noise. Maybe you find that a certain genre is awesome in the indie scene (horror) or that there is a creative force behind games you really like (Suda 51). I think part of the reason older games might be considered better in some sense is that there were fewer creative forces crafting the vision of the game back in the day. Today it seems to have become too committee like :/

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I agree with much of what you said.

I feel like we will look back on this generation as a transitory period between what games were and what games will become in the next gen. This generation did a lot of new things with storytelling in games, some working better than others (Heavy Rain, Beyond, the BioShock games, the Uncharted games, The Last of Us, etc.). It seems like video games were trying to strike the balance between what you would expect from a film in terms of storytelling, and being a video game. Naughty Dog seems to understand it pretty well now, as does Irrational Games, and I think moving forward we're going to be seeing a lot more games the blur the line between what is and isn't a video game (especially from the indie sector, where they're more free to experiment with games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, etc.). I think the definition of "video game" is going to be drastically different by the end of this upcoming generation.

The positive side of this, for people who enjoy classic style video games, is that the indie sector also houses a lot of developers very inspired by classic video games, and who wear their influences on their sleeves. I find a lot of indie games to be very derivative and uninspired, but I'm sure many gems following classic styles of crafting games will surface. Hopefully we can reach a happy medium of these new "interactive experience" style games and classic style video games, and everyone will be happy.

What I don't see happening is classic style games with large production budgets, which is really saddening. But at least we've got FromSoft. :P

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Originally Posted by SirPrizes

What I don't see happening is classic style games with large production budgets, which is really saddening. But at least we've got FromSoft. :P

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Kickstarter is a pretty big help with this sort of thing. Not exactly what you're talking about, I know. But still close. You're right though, we're not getting Final Fantasy One: Skyrim. But we are getting Wasteland 2, and a new Planescape, with millions of dollars being pushed into them. Which has me excited that I don't have to rely on big publishers who are losing touch with what is important in gaming (A new, identical FPS every year? Yay...). Crowd-funded studios and legitimate indie developers are the cause of a good portion of my video game enjoyment these days. It's probably more about that "committee effect" people are talking about with big publishers. These people get to make the games they want. The games we want. Without having to listen to ridiculous overhead decisions, or bitching about how they need to get their (unfinished) game out NOW

Ni No Kuni has a really good ending stretch. It's worth seeing if you haven't finished it yet. There's less hand-holding in the sidequests, but most of them consist of getting x amount of y. The hand-holding bothered me, but the ending made up for it a little bit.

There is more variety than EVER. Kickstarter, iOS, Android, PS3, 3DS, PC, PSN, XBLA... There are too many games worth playing but... having said that I still agree with you.

I just wish games that I like had bigger budgets and other gamers cared more about them. I just can't see the appeal in games like Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, and Skyrim. Every AAA Western title to me seems like its sandbox/quest-a-thon game or an FPS. Hell, there are FPSes that are also open world sandboxes. These quest-a-thons are usually packed with kill and fetch quests...kind of like MMOs. Ugh. I'm so seriously DISAPPOINTED in my fellow gamers for exalting these stupid games.

I mostly play a ton of indies, Nintendo games, and other interesting downloadable titles. Sometimes I visit old games...The past 3 days I've played FFVIII, Earthbound, and Yoshi's Island.

Check out Steam to find great indie games! Also, the 3DS has a lot of good looking games on it that remind of how things use to be.