Feeling alienated by modern games

[Spuuky]

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?

[JenkinsHTTK]

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.

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.

[Depression Moon]

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.

[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

[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 :/

[Depression Moon]

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

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

[Mirage]

Polnareff never said that.

[SirPrizes]

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 :/

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

[Vyk]

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

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

[Pete for President]

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.

[Lamia]

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.