I don't understand.

[Manny]

While graphics get cooler and you get to do SO many more cool things, the actual quality of games seems to be diminishing. When I have money, I always stop in at the game store and I stand there and I stare at the game rack and there is just never anything that I want to buy. Because... They all suck. That's a little bit of an overexaggeration, of course. They don't all suck. There are a couple fairly neat games, but not nearly as many as from the original Playstation and the early Nintendos. It's always exciting to meet a new person and find out they game, but every single gamer I've met here has never even heard of Final Fantasy. It'll go like this "I love the Final Fantasy series." "Um... I don't think I've ever heard of that. *perks up proudly* I play Halo." And I want to throttle them. Fragging people is awesome to an extent (Gears of War ftw), but COME ON. I'm not being an RPG nazi. I don't demand that everyone like them, but you have to at least have tried a really awesome one once. These little morons don't even know what an RPG is.

If you have anything contribute, feel free.

/end rant

[Raebus]

Every gamer I've met has heard of Final Fantasy and played the Final Fantasy games. So, you're upset because the few gamers you've spoken to haven't played a Final Fantasy? Or what?

[Momiji]

I agree to an extent. It does seem that game makers these days tend to want to focus on pretty graphics and do nothing to make games fun. I mean, you can decorate garbage and make it pretty, but it's still junk no matter how you look at it.

Some of the best games I've ever played hardly focus on graphics and totally focus on gameplay. Oddly enough, they aren't made by companies either, but one person/a small team of people.

[Roto13]

The past is blurred by the fog of nostalgia.

[Aerith's Knight]

Halo had a fairly deep and thought out story you know.. but the MP geeks, who never even played single, i would be frustrated about as well.. but you should be more angry at WoW players...

anyway, you are correct about pretty graphics and no story, which is strange, because if there is a mediocre storyline instead of an awful(or nonexistent) one, the game instantly becomes a succes..

i wonder if they even notice that.

[Ashi]

Lots of people around here play the ever-popular online games (no names need mention), but have never heard of the games I play. Perhaps not Final Fantasy (then again it has been years since I last played one myself), but my favourite games usually aren't popular and it woudln't be normal that I have a convernsation about them with random people or my co-workers / classmates.

Then again, my classmates do bring up games that I haven't even heard of or would ever think about playing. So in my case, it sort of evens out.

[XxSephirothxX]

The past is blurred by the fog of nostalgia.

This, and age. You're older. You don't realize how bad, average, or unspectacular plenty of games you played when you were younger actually were.

Also, RPGs are not some high-and-mighty genre, though the majority of people here would disagree. There are plenty of standouts, but far too many JRPGs are the same plot wrapped up in a different package.

[KentaRawr!]

Ignore everyone else. The games today don't suck, it's just that whatever game store you're going to sucks.

[Dreddz]

The general quality of games these days has risen compared to the 90's. Bad games these days arent nearly as atroucious as the ones from yesteryear. You had to be damn sure what you were buying in the past or you could end up with something that would detract you from gaming forever.

Although I agree that making decisions these days is tough. Its the lack of variety really, for every ten great shooters there is one great fighter. Its the whole seen it done that I have with gaming these days that makes it less exciting to buy games. Also nothing has revolutionised this gen like previous generations. 2D to 3D saw the biggest change in how we view games, then that got significantly improved upon with the last generation of consoles. This gen feels like an extension of last gen with better graphics. I know someone will bring up the Wii but........thats a different story altogether.

[Bolivar]

Definately. The current consoles have opened up the pandora's box for graphics which pc's have had for some time now... you have incredible amounts of resources from the development team being devoted to the graphical edge, it seems like alot of these developers have forgotten how to make a fun game. I don't care about ragdoll physics, lighting or smoke effects, those things won't make a difference if your shooter just sucks.

Dreddz does bring up a good point, though. Any game you buy today in all likelihood won't be utterly atrocious (unless, of course, you love to exaggerate), you can at least get something out of it for a little while. But at the same time, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of exceptionally creative titles... this is the age of mediocrity and games have been hit hard, too.

[KentaRawr!]

I am now bringing up the Wii.

The Wii, unlike the other systems, is not an extension of the earlier systems with better graphics. Rather, it is an earlier system with a controller hardly any developers have used effectively. I still like my Wii for its current library of games, but not many games have really used the Wii's unique feature effectively. Without the Wii Remote, the Wii would essentially be a GCN. The hardware on the inside of the game console hasn't really changed much. A lot of the games I've seen on the Wii use the Wii for either its fan-base, or when they have a Ps2 game they think will sell well on the Wii.

[Manny]

Every gamer I've met has heard of Final Fantasy and played the Final Fantasy games. So, you're upset because the few gamers you've spoken to haven't played a Final Fantasy? Or what?

I suppose it's rooted in the fact that I'm tired of teenage boys thinking they know everything about video games when they've only played Donky Kong and Halo. When I lived in Utah, there were plenty of kids there that played FF, but here I'm seriously confused. Honestly, I thought most anyone that even has a remote interest in video games would have at least HEARD of the Final Fantasies. But hell. smurf me, right?

[Namelessfengir]

halo kids are idiots its all this live interconnectivity you get 3 million 13 year olds screaming at each other over the net it dumbs down everyone else.

but i have seen that the better looking the game the shorter the plot

[Roto13]

I'd take pretty graphics over plot any day. I'd take anything over plot in a game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I play more obscure RPG series, of anything, I find it harder to meet other RPG players who play anything but FF, WoW, or Elder Scrolls. Its hard to find anyone who remembers Breath of Fire, MegaTen, or even Suikoden and I live in the city.

I would actually say that a bad game now is just as bad as a bad game back in the 8-bit era. They both have the same problem of being either boring or downright unplayable. Overall, nothing has really changed since 20 years ago. Looking through old magazines, I see people still bitch about the same things today even back when Genesis and SNES were popular.

FPS games flood the market now but 15 years ago it was fighting games. In 15 years some other genre will be flooding the market and people will be bitching about the lack of selection in quality shooters. I agree that for the most part, that this generation has only done minor cosmetic changes but the systems still have the potential for other avenues of use. The fact is, I feel the game industry has finally hit a proverbial wall in terms of graphic and sound qualities. I can't imagine the systems pulling off anything better in the audio/visual departments (in fact I've hardly been impressed to be honest)

I think one of the better trends that shows hope for this generation is the amount of characters that can be displayed on screen and their decent A.I. MGS4 and Assassin's Creed have only impressed me cause the games have a lot of character models on screen at once and most of them are interactive and independent. Even GTAIV seems to have placed more emphasis on creating a living enviroment rather than flashy graphics. FPS' have not exactly been able to improve with this tech but action games and possibly even RPGs can seriously use this type of technology to its advantage. The fact is, we're still in the infancy of this current generation, I think people have forgotten that the last generation didn't really start pulling out a consistant crop of diverse quality games until about 3 to 4 years into their life cycles. Sure their was Halo, FF, Rogue Squadron in the first few years but no one can say that the quality level really shot up right afterwards. Give the new generation some time and we may yet to see some amazing things.

As for the Wii, I feel it has two problems:

1) Developers feel they have to use the wii-mote functionality. This is a pretty stupid assumption and I feel its stupid to feel like you have to use the remotes special functions. It can still work like a regular remote so why not make a game that just uses that?

2) Not many developers build their games around the remotes full possibilities. A few non-Nintendo games come close but most are lousy, poorly implemented knock offs of existing titles (Mario Party and Wii Sports ibeing the biggest titles to rip off) I just don't feel like games are being made specifically around the Wii-mote. Despite being made originally for the GC, Twilight Princess feels like it was completely designed around the remote and it uses many of its functions well. Only Nintendo, Capcom, and SE seem to know what they are doing. The Wii-mote has the possibility to be a very immersive experience but other companies are treating it like a gimmick. Its this mind-set that is hindering the quality of Wii games.