Are todays Games just Retro Games with a Facelift?

Miggy2TheMax · 29 January 2002, 23:06

Hi,

I dunno, each time I look at a game today I've seem it done before, where is the innovation gone in the gaming industry? Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but I'm wondering what people have to say about todays games and if they feel they are unique or mainly just copies of yesterdays games with better graphics...
Thanks.

Twistin'Ghost · 29 January 2002, 23:36

More importantly, what was the last game you saw that was truly unique in design? Peter Molyneux has a tendency to start with a clean slate. But Lemmings is the last one I remember doing anything really new. Maybe I'm just forgetting something that came out since then, so that's just off the top of my head.

I like 2D games, 60's/70's sitcoms, old movies, old music...I am a retro man. Not because I live in the past, but because modern games, modern TV, modern films, and (a lot of) modern music is utter tosh!

30 January 2002, 00:03

Quote:

I like 2D games, 60's/70's sitcoms, old movies, old music...I am a retro man. Not because I live in the past, but because modern games, modern TV, modern films, and (a lot of) modern music is utter tosh!

Yeah that the way I feel but maybe things would be different if we were younger. Maybe today's kids will miss modern games of our time in the future. But things were different in the past. Computer gaming was not a major industry as it is now. Today a game becomes too popular and you see tons of sequels and clones of it quickly. There was a game named "icarus" with the following sentence on the cover:

"Diablo fans willl love this game"

If I were a diablo fan I would play diablo instead of a cheap imitation but games are there to be consumed, not to be played now! Quantity overcomes quality. It's capitalism and no matter how we hate it, we live in it.

Twistin'Ghost · 30 January 2002, 00:49

That's a good point. The marketing and hype play a major part in games and their success (or lack of). I tend to hate sequels and lookalikes, but there is no doubt big money to be had in both. I guess I can't blame someone for wanting to get rich. But it tends to make for bad entertainment, IMHO.

Drake1009 · 30 January 2002, 00:53

It's nice to see innovation even in it's smallest form. And it does still exist somewhere. Just seems to be darn hard finding because the games don't get that much publicity and thus not many stores get them.

Games like Oddworld Abe's oddysee and Battle zone for the PC both showed some odd twist to the dime a bucket games. They had different gameplay than the other games. Though they might be built on gameplay already known it's combined uniquely making them somewhat interesting.

Problem is if you want truly innovative you'd get a problem. There are only a limited number of control devices present. The keyboard/joystick can be used to move an object either with rules such as gravity, or without rules such as shoot em ups. Both in 2D and 3D. The mouse presents a mouse pointer, but there's also limits to what you can do with that thing. Lemmings was about assigning attributes. The incredible machine was about placing stuff. Oxyd and (I think it could be played with that) Marble madness was funny ways to move stuff. Now you're almost back to square one again. To get a truly innovative thing you have to think of some control method hitherto not thought of. Without more control devices and with some consumers and many producers going with the tried and true method it won't be easy to spot a truly innovative game since noone'd be talking about them.

jmmijo · 30 January 2002, 01:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Twistin' Ghost
More importantly, what was the last game you saw that was truly unique in design? Peter Molyneux has a tendency to start with a clean slate. But Lemmings is the last one I remember doing anything really new. Maybe I'm just forgetting something that came out since then, so that's just off the top of my head.

I like 2D games, 60's/70's sitcoms, old movies, old music...I am a retro man. Not because I live in the past, but because modern games, modern TV, modern films, and (a lot of) modern music is utter tosh!

You're correct about Peter Molyneux, I've played the demo of Black & White and it's pretty much an updated Populous. But I do get a kick out of playing 'GOD'

As for retro in general, if it trips your trigger then go for it. I like old stuff and new. Probably the two things I despise the most is Country Music and Broccoli :laugh

7-Zark-7 · 30 January 2002, 04:29

Abe's Oddysee unique??
Well the latest version for Xbox might end up that way....I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it,I bought Abe after renting it for PSX. But it does remind me of Flashback which was good fun on Amiga.

I guess the real "stand-out" games in recent years for me had to be the Resident Evil games-the concept isn't exactly new,(Take X object use here etc.),but the execution of it with the "survival horror" aspect finally brought the feel of an "interactive movie" type experience.
And I enjoyed Final Fantasy VII.Granted, ineeded the play guides & hidden secrets etc., but building up the materia etc. was good fun. Problem is with such a big game you don't want to ever go back again-too daunting!!

Drake1009 · 30 January 2002, 09:25

Quote:

Abe's Oddysee unique??

Well not really unique, but though it had a very nice flashbacky feel it still had some differences. For one you could divide much of the game into smaller "levels" which were each a kind of puzzle. In flashback everything except your enemies and that one VIP was static. Here you need the others to help you do stuff, and abe's exoddus you had to have many more to follow you.

As for Resident evil. That was a fairly nice game too though it resembled Alone in the dark a whole bit.

Shatterhand · 30 January 2002, 10:51

I agree with Drake about controlling stuff. Me too, I have some nice ideas for games, that would need news kinds of controllers devices (I even have then in mind)... if I only had the money and the power........

Drake1009 · 30 January 2002, 12:29

Until I finally had a way of making games with graphics (Bought click & play for the PC) I had plenty of ideas for games, but somehow when I got it I was out of ideas and all that ever emerged from it was some stupid stuff like a pac-man platformer and a stupid kind of game where you had to move a thing with your mouse and avoid objects which every 5 seconds set their course directly for you. Had it been a little more powerful and had it been chosing random positions to move towards it would have made a nice screensaver though.

But now that I finally have means to make something half decent I've lost all creative thought. Really a pity.

Ian · 30 January 2002, 22:16

Put's thread where it belongs

That's better

Sorry for breaking the flow of the current discussion, but I feel that we have seen are last truely original game now

Every game will be the same from this day forward (With maybe the odd exception), all we have to look forward to is playing the same games, but with different control methods/twist's/flavours, but nothing completely new.

Innovation won't happen to the actual games, but to how we play them.

Just my thoughts, god I hope I'm wrong

CodyJarrett · 30 January 2002, 22:46

We used to see more creativity because it was the era of the bedroom programmer. Anyone with an idea could make a game. That's how the great ideas came about.

Nowadays it's more of a 'business' to make a game, so more people are involved and there is less creativity. Companies need to sell the games and weird and wonderful ideas don't sell.

Also, it's the age of more realistic gaming. There is less chance for abstract ideas.

However, I don't think that this change is necessarily a bad thing. We see a lot of modern games which are wonderful to play - it's just that today's gaming experience is somewhat different from yesteryear.

I personally like playing through first person shoot-'em-ups (if someone doesn't like Deus Ex or Half-Life, then it's likely that they've never played it). I also like the greater immersion into game worlds, for example - fighting battles on planets in the Battlezone remake. And huge RPGs (Ultima) and strategy games (Age Of Empires 2) are superb.

The online gaming scene is also without equal. And stuff like Counterstrike and Team Fortess Classic are free to play.

With the Amiga we've seen the equivalent of the 1930s and 1940s era of movies (in some ways). There were a hell of a lot of great movies and innovation (and rubbish ones too, but that's the same in every year). But today's movies are different - there is little that is new. It doesn't mean that I still can't enjoy a new movie, though.

Miggy2TheMax · 30 January 2002, 22:58

Looking thru what has been said, some good points have been raised.

Drake: True, I guess their could be more innovative controllers to interact with games. Ultimately while our computers have evolved rapidly we see that our controllers are the same, so I guess I can see the bottleneck there.

Burseg: Ahhh.. yes good old marketing.. just as long you can sell ice to to the eskymos it must be a good product. Yeah .. we can thank marketing for pushing crap products on the market .. but that is the world we live in..

I guess that is why retro gaming will always have a following as todays fancy graphics offer little entertainment value compared with great original playability.

Miggy2TheMax · 31 January 2002, 00:05

Quote:

Originally posted by CodyJarrett
We used to see more creativity because it was the era of the bedroom programmer. Anyone with an idea could make a game. That's how the great ideas came about.

Nowadays it's more of a 'business' to make a game, so more people are involved and there is less creativity. Companies need to sell the games and weird and wonderful ideas don't sell.

Also, it's the age of more realistic gaming. There is less chance for abstract ideas.

However, I don't think that this change is necessarily a bad thing. We see a lot of modern games which are wonderful to play - it's just that today's gaming experience is somewhat different from yesteryear.

I personally like playing through first person shoot-'em-ups (if someone doesn't like Deus Ex or Half-Life, then it's likely that they've never played it). I also like the greater immersion into game worlds, for example - fighting battles on planets in the Battlezone remake. And huge RPGs (Ultima) and strategy games (Age Of Empires 2) are superb.

The online gaming scene is also without equal. And stuff like Counterstrike and Team Fortess Classic are free to play.

With the Amiga we've seen the equivalent of the 1930s and 1940s era of movies (in some ways). There were a hell of a lot of great movies and innovation (and rubbish ones too, but that's the same in every year). But today's movies are different - there is little that is new. It doesn't mean that I still can't enjoy a new movie, though.

"realistic" gaming .. that is a classic .. look at the crap the EA produces .. anyway I guess it works for some gamers out there .. I do agree that some of the new games are great, but none the less they are just the same old "RTS / RPG / Strategy / Shootem up / 3D / Platformer" remade to look something new... which sadly most of the time does not work for me.

Ian: Why do I have a bad feeling you are right.

CodyJarrett · 31 January 2002, 00:15

When I say that today is more about 'realistic' gaming I mean that people want to play games about controlling squads of soldiers or racing in F1 cars, rather than flying a spaceship against waves of enemies or bouncing round a multi-coloured platform world as it often was in the Amiga days.

To complain about modern games all being the same is to ignore two things:

1. Games need to sell and the suits will always pick something that's worked before over a new idea.

2. If you don't think that Amiga games were about copying ideas, then you haven't played enough Amiga games. If I had a dime for every identical Amiga shoot-'em-up or platform game, then I'd be rich!

31 January 2002, 00:38

Exactly cody! Realistic graphics kill the gameplay. Games we play are like interactive movies. They are not designed well but rather they seem to offer real life experiences to us. I saw Medal of Honor running a few days ago. It was like an interactive saving private ryan. then I attampted to play the game. It was boring like hell and the AI was stupid. PAC-MAN, on the other hand depends on a solid game design idea. The elements in it don't have real life references yet it works.

Drake1009 · 31 January 2002, 00:47

I hope I didn't say Amiga games were purely original games. That would've been a big mistake.

I just thought of a good example of innovative gaming on the PC though. At least I can't recall ever having played anything like it.

It was a game called Quest for Fame (Not to be confused with Sierra's quest for glory). This game came with a simple piece of hardware to plug into your computer. The only thing it was supposed to do was register whenever you banged it against something.

The core object of the game was that you were some guy stuck in his bedroom playing your electric guitar and once in a while had a gig with a local band who practiced in a garage.

Except for clicking on songs and stuff all you had to do was keep a rythm to the songs played which could get pretty hard. It was fun to hear your weak little guitar (which sound could be customized) when you were off the beat and just thrashing random strokes.

Incredibly simple gameplay but dang addictive. I remember thinking how it would be fun to make a game thingie with somewhat the same game but with the ability to have you play after one of the channels in a MOD file or something like that. All you'd have to do was specify the channel, and then just keep up with when new samples were started.

If you wanted to take strange first person games into consideration I think you should consider Thief. Wow a first person game where you don't have to shoot everything in sight. At least not if you care to win the game. Better stay out of sight.

And how about Ultima underworld and System shock? At least UU was released before Doom offering total freedom of movement, something Doom didn't. An inventory to make use from (like games such as Arena and Deus ex) and spells to use. UU and SS were huge games with plenty of stuff packed into them. Sure there might not be that much dialog in them but there is some. I'm still sad I never got System shock CD edition to work properly. Would've been so nice to have voice logs.

And burseg. There are people who can't cope with creativity and want realism. Too bad for them. Take Alice for a run of the mill 3rd person like first person shoot em up game. That's far from realistic.

31 January 2002, 01:24

It's good you mentioned Thief! It's absolutely realistic yet it is also designed well in my opinion and these two rock when they come together. But my general attitude is skeptical against realism as you see for it's rarely used properly. :smileek <----I'm using this smiley at the first time in the history of eab.

Miggy2TheMax · 31 January 2002, 03:34

Cody: I cant argue with point 1.. but point 2.. Even though there were copies of games made in the retro days there was still a good supply of creative and innovate stuff to choose from unlike today.

btw, for "realistic" games to be considered fun their playability and AI will need to get a hell of a lot better..

Tim Janssen · 01 February 2002, 17:22

Today's games are just Retro-games with a facelift? Basically any game (even an Amiga game) can be traced back to its bare bones in being it a Pacman, Space Invaders or any pre-1985 game.

I think the major point is that games don't progress anymore gameplay-wise. The last PC game I ever played was the mighty MDK1 in 1997. At least this game runned fine on my Pentium 90 -just.
Now I have my new supa-dupa PC I can finally play the latest games. Apart from improved graphics and sonics I cannot say the gamesindustry has progressed far in the past five years.
Here is my experience with some games I have played the past few days:
- New York Race: Pole Position revisited with floating cars;
- Voyager Elite Force: Quake in space;
- DS9 The fallen: Rick Dangerous 2 revisited;
- Clive Barker's Undying: Quake in a horror-mansion;
- Tomb Raider Chronicles: Rick Dangerous mutated into a busty woman.
Games which really grabbed me are American Mc Gee's Alice with its weird and wonderful ideas and Evil Twin (just bought it this morning for only 9 Euro

. Both are platformgames and being a fan of this genre I really like them.

But generally I have to say that I am disappointed about the quality of games I have played. They all feature fantastic sonix and gorgeous eyecandy but gameplaywise they are not better than their far-related predecessors in the Eighties.

andreas · 05 February 2002, 08:11

was definitely HALF-LIFE in 1999.
Nothing stolen afaics, just excellent gameplay, excellent graphix quality and design.
Thousands of mods have been "born" since then, but nothing beats the original! (exception: Opposing Force)

Miggy2TheMax · 06 February 2002, 01:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim Janssen

....[snip]

But generally I have to say that I am disappointed about the quality of games I have played. They all feature fantastic sonix and gorgeous eyecandy but gameplaywise they are not better than their far-related predecessors in the Eighties. [/b]

Well summed up Tim! That is exaclty how I see it.

andreas: Half life.. hmm .. will have to check it out sometime.

7-Zark-7 · 06 February 2002, 07:09

Lets not forget something else from Amiga gaming....
1.Turn on Amiga & TV/Monitor
2. Put in the Disk & play!!

PC-Pray your sound & GFX card are compatible for the game,
Hope you don't need a later Direct X which'll render older PC games suddenly incompatible or stuff up windows & require a re-install.
And lastly-if the above doesn't work, download a 50Mb + patch for a couple of hours & hope that works!!

CodyJarrett · 06 February 2002, 09:36

Here are some great PC games that some of you guys might actually try!

System Shock 1&2
Thief 1&2
Grand Theft Auto
Carmageddon
Unreal Tournament
Age Of Empires 2
Civilization 2
Outlaws
Realms Of The Haunting
Jedi Knight: Dark Forces and Mysteries Of The Sith
Half-Life
Deus Ex
Terra Nova
Battlezone 1&2
Outwars
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Aliens vs Predator 1&2
Black And White
Severance
Serious Sam
Soldier Of Fortune
Project IGI
Counterstrike
Tribes 2
Team Fortress Classic
Ultima Online
Ultima 7 Part 1&2
No One Lives Forever
Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force

Galahad/FLT · 06 February 2002, 10:17

Ok, Doom, Half-Life.... original? Lets go back further, Wolfenstein?

Nah...... All of these kind of games are a derivative of one game...... PacMan!

All these games are are 3D versions of PacMan, Kill the ghosts=kill the badguys/aliens, pick up a power pill=pick up extras, collect all the pills to finish the level=collect everything to finish the level.

It doesn't matter what game you think of, with only a very few exceptions, nothing is original.

As for original games, and how software companies like to stick at what works..... Lemmings nearly didn't get released by Psygnosis at all....... Typical Psygnosis couldn't see beyond the graphics...... turns out it was their biggest ever game release!

Software companies are not interested in being original, they just want to copy other games because they know it will sell.

Its only like the people that created Half-Life that actually make a difference, small team, almost back to the days of the backroom bedroom programmer turning out an amazing game, where software company doctorate dictates how it should look and play.

Drake1009 · 06 February 2002, 11:13

I think I heard Rollercoaster tycoon should've been made by one man. It had gotten great success in spite of the fact that there had been plenty of similar games up till now.

Game quality isn't about team size or money pumped into it but rather wether the creators had an idea and burned for that idea.

andreas · 06 February 2002, 15:17

Quote:

Ok, Doom, Half-Life.... original? Lets go back further, Wolfenstein?

Nah...... All of these kind of games are a derivative of one game...... PacMan!

All these games are are 3D versions of PacMan, Kill the ghosts=kill the badguys/aliens, pick up a power pill=pick up extras, collect all the pills to finish the level=collect everything to finish the level.

*LMAO*
:laugh That's really a "little" bit far-fetched, don't you agree guys?

If you want it that way, you might as well call "Evil Twin" a 3D version of ROGUE

Tim Janssen · 08 February 2002, 16:14

I must say the publisher of Evil Twin, UBI Soft, has an *excellent* user-support. Here is a little warning for everyone who wants to play this game under Windows XP: the OS blocks the keyboard so the game is unplayable (unless you have a joystick). When I posted this problem a couple of hours ago at the UBI Soft support site, I got immediately a response. It appears a bug which occurs only in XP is guilty (why am I not surprised?). The problem can be overcome by configuring the game on CD and launching it from harddisc. A patch is underway.

Anyway, I am glad there are still softwarecompanies out here that actually are caring about the individual. I can’t wait enjoying this mighty platformgame

Akira · 08 February 2002, 20:12

I'd add another category: A lot of games today TRY to be like the old ones, but fail horribly in the process, because they 'enhance' them with uneeded crap.

About innovative concepts, yes, there are a few, but even back then, we didn't see much innovative stuff, did we? The last most innovative concept I can think of is Lemmings.

I don't like most of today's games

Chuckles · 08 February 2002, 20:41

Hi folks - I'm new to the board, so please excuse me if I just jump right in, but I found the topic interesting.

I'd have to agree that most of today's games are just rehashes of retro games, and only rarely does a new game introduce something that really feels innovative. For me, Populous was an example of a game that broke new ground when it first came out, and of course it has spawned plenty of imitators. It's always been easier to implement a good idea than it is to come up with one in the first place. There's nothing wrong with reusing a proven concept of course, but the trick is to do it in such a way that it improves or expands on what has come before instead of merely copying it.

The last game I can think of that really introduced something that seemed novel to me was Messiah on the PC, where your character is an absolute weakling, but has the ability to "possess" the body of any other character he encounters (sometimes drawing a hostile reaction from any witnesses). This have been done before but I'd never seen it, and it kept me from writing off the game as "just another FPS".

Akira · 08 February 2002, 23:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Chuckles
...where your character is an absolute weakling, but has the ability to "possess" the body of any other character he encounters (sometimes drawing a hostile reaction from any witnesses). This have been done before but I'd never seen it, and it kept me from writing off the game as "just another FPS".

Yes, you can do this in Paradroid

Drake1009 · 08 February 2002, 23:35

Messiah did implement puzzles based on the different people well though. People only being able to access or use certain things, and in a review I read about a macabre part where you had to run several scientists into a meat grinder. I don't recall having to do something like that in paradroid. But then I never was good at that game.

Twistin'Ghost · 08 February 2002, 23:48

OK, then...Paradroid meets Creatures?

Chuckles · 09 February 2002, 00:13

Looks like I'm going to have give Paradroid another try - I don't think I ever really gave it much of a look before.

As for Messiah, the "meat grinder" part was definitely different. Before I figured that part out, I'd even "possessed" a few folks, had them dive into the grinder, and bailed out of their bodies before they were toast. Now there's something you don't do everyday ...

Drake1009 · 09 February 2002, 09:23

Well I don't know if I'd call messiah cute. Creatures is cute, even when massacreing the poor little critters. (Just wish I had one ot two more seconds. He always makes it out to get that chainsaw)

10 February 2002, 08:17

IMHO, the only games you could call original would be things like Pong and Asteroids - ie. the very first electronic interactive arcade games.

Given that technology has been evolving at a steady pace, its natural that games evolve with this technology - and when you look at just about ANY game it has stemmed from a title before it with perhaps one or two new features.

So, really, there are hardly any games that are truly original in the sense of the word, they've just taken inspiration from older games and built on them with a little more technological flexibility.

Obviously the only things that are "original" are the new features - ie. the changeover from 2D graphics to 3D graphics a la Wolfenstein, the changeover to point-and-click adventures from text-based adventures etc. etc... games are like any other art form - 90% inspiration 10% perspiration...

(well, actually it's more like 90% inspiration 90% perspiration, since programmers have to put in 180% effort to make a bloody game

... pesky bugs, how dare they infiltrate my perfect code)

The one good thing (and bad thing - depends which way you look at it) about games these days is their development time. A decent game can take up to 18 months to make (I believe Gran Turismo 3 took around this long) which (hopefully) means that developers looking for a quick buck will be deterred - there's nothing worse than cheap clone games that offer nothing new and are just looking for a quick buck. I suppose the obvious flaw to this argument is 18 months of development time can still produce a pretty run-of-the-mill game. A crap game with 100 vehicles to choose from and 50 levels isn't much use to anyone if it sucks :-)

CPC464 · 10 February 2002, 12:39

I must admit I think that most games now just lack originality, some of the earlier release games had good quality and content, most games now just seem to be aimed at "GOOD GRAPHICS" and that's all and then they seem to require 2 or 3 patches.

10 February 2002, 14:19

Quote:

Originally posted by CPC464
I must admit I think that most games now just lack originality, some of the earlier release games had good quality and content, most games now just seem to be aimed at "GOOD GRAPHICS" and that's all and then they seem to require 2 or 3 patches.

I definitely agree - the genres of FPSes and RTSes and RPGs have been so well established now that they're really not going anywhere significant these days. The only real difference now is how gory the deaths are, how many polys the car is made out of, or how realistic the weapon-modelling is - a real pity. It's almost like the novelty of 3D graphics hasn't quite worn off yet, and everyone just gets caught up in the 3Dness and loses sight of the playability of the game.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that games like Project IGI and Halo, while not doing much new for FPSes in terms of storylines, are at least bringing us new environments - there's nothing as satisfying as driving around an entire island in Halo in a jeep and then going into a base, coming out again, driving some more along the coastline, etc. etc.

While essentially it's still the same game as any other, it's nice to be outdoors at least.

I can forgive the patches problem a little more though - the complexity of modern games has increased sooo much since older games that it's probably a necessary evil, although I do definitely agree that the game SHOULD have been well tested before it got released.

Patches that fix multiplayer problems and gameplay bugs are just sheer laziness - patches that fix unforeseen problems like server cheats/hacks etc. are more understandable, as no-one could have really seen them coming even with a lot of testing.

If there's one thing my Computer Science degree has taught me, its that testing and debugging is PARAMOUNT!

Modern programmers are so damn sloppy. Myself included

//fixed the quote. If you need to quote someone when replying, just click on the Quote button uder their message. - TG

View Poll Results: Are todays Games just Retro Games with a Facelift?
Yes, todays Games are just Retro Games with a Facelift.	15	83.33%
No, todays games are unique and have _really_ evolved from yesterdays games.	3	16.67%
Voters: 18. You may not vote on this poll

29 January 2002, 23:06	#1
Miggy2TheMax Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Australia Age: 34 Posts: 369	Are todays Games just Retro Games with a Facelift? Hi, I dunno, each time I look at a game today I've seem it done before, where is the innovation gone in the gaming industry? Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but I'm wondering what people have to say about todays games and if they feel they are unique or mainly just copies of yesterdays games with better graphics... Thanks.

30 January 2002, 22:16	#11
Ian HIGH FIVE!! Join Date: May 2001 Location: Derby Age: 35 Posts: 1,745	Tsk Tsk Put's thread where it belongs That's better Sorry for breaking the flow of the current discussion, but I feel that we have seen are last truely original game now Every game will be the same from this day forward (With maybe the odd exception), all we have to look forward to is playing the same games, but with different control methods/twist's/flavours, but nothing completely new. Innovation won't happen to the actual games, but to how we play them. Just my thoughts, god I hope I'm wrong

01 February 2002, 17:22	#20
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Hague / The Netherlands Age: 36 Posts: 1,271	Graphics revolution, gameplay evolution Today's games are just Retro-games with a facelift? Basically any game (even an Amiga game) can be traced back to its bare bones in being it a Pacman, Space Invaders or any pre-1985 game. I think the major point is that games don't progress anymore gameplay-wise. The last PC game I ever played was the mighty MDK1 in 1997. At least this game runned fine on my Pentium 90 -just. Now I have my new supa-dupa PC I can finally play the latest games. Apart from improved graphics and sonics I cannot say the gamesindustry has progressed far in the past five years. Here is my experience with some games I have played the past few days: - New York Race: Pole Position revisited with floating cars; - Voyager Elite Force: Quake in space; - DS9 The fallen: Rick Dangerous 2 revisited; - Clive Barker's Undying: Quake in a horror-mansion; - Tomb Raider Chronicles: Rick Dangerous mutated into a busty woman. Games which really grabbed me are American Mc Gee's Alice with its weird and wonderful ideas and Evil Twin (just bought it this morning for only 9 Euro . Both are platformgames and being a fan of this genre I really like them. But generally I have to say that I am disappointed about the quality of games I have played. They all feature fantastic sonix and gorgeous eyecandy but gameplaywise they are not better than their far-related predecessors in the Eighties.

05 February 2002, 08:11	#21
andreas Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Germany Age: 39 Posts: 5,858	Bound-breaking... was definitely HALF-LIFE in 1999. Nothing stolen afaics, just excellent gameplay, excellent graphix quality and design. Thousands of mods have been "born" since then, but nothing beats the original! (exception: Opposing Force)

29 January 2002, 23:36	#2
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 22 Posts: 4,662	More importantly, what was the last game you saw that was truly unique in design? Peter Molyneux has a tendency to start with a clean slate. But Lemmings is the last one I remember doing anything really new. Maybe I'm just forgetting something that came out since then, so that's just off the top of my head. I like 2D games, 60's/70's sitcoms, old movies, old music...I am a retro man. Not because I live in the past, but because modern games, modern TV, modern films, and (a lot of) modern music is utter tosh!

30 January 2002, 00:49	#4
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 22 Posts: 4,662	That's a good point. The marketing and hype play a major part in games and their success (or lack of). I tend to hate sequels and lookalikes, but there is no doubt big money to be had in both. I guess I can't blame someone for wanting to get rich. But it tends to make for bad entertainment, IMHO.

30 January 2002, 00:53	#5
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	It's nice to see innovation even in it's smallest form. And it does still exist somewhere. Just seems to be darn hard finding because the games don't get that much publicity and thus not many stores get them. Games like Oddworld Abe's oddysee and Battle zone for the PC both showed some odd twist to the dime a bucket games. They had different gameplay than the other games. Though they might be built on gameplay already known it's combined uniquely making them somewhat interesting. Problem is if you want truly innovative you'd get a problem. There are only a limited number of control devices present. The keyboard/joystick can be used to move an object either with rules such as gravity, or without rules such as shoot em ups. Both in 2D and 3D. The mouse presents a mouse pointer, but there's also limits to what you can do with that thing. Lemmings was about assigning attributes. The incredible machine was about placing stuff. Oxyd and (I think it could be played with that) Marble madness was funny ways to move stuff. Now you're almost back to square one again. To get a truly innovative thing you have to think of some control method hitherto not thought of. Without more control devices and with some consumers and many producers going with the tried and true method it won't be easy to spot a truly innovative game since noone'd be talking about them.

30 January 2002, 04:29	#7
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	Abe's Oddysee unique?? Well the latest version for Xbox might end up that way....I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it,I bought Abe after renting it for PSX. But it does remind me of Flashback which was good fun on Amiga. I guess the real "stand-out" games in recent years for me had to be the Resident Evil games-the concept isn't exactly new,(Take X object use here etc.),but the execution of it with the "survival horror" aspect finally brought the feel of an "interactive movie" type experience. And I enjoyed Final Fantasy VII.Granted, ineeded the play guides & hidden secrets etc., but building up the materia etc. was good fun. Problem is with such a big game you don't want to ever go back again-too daunting!!

30 January 2002, 10:51	#9
Shatterhand Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brazil Age: 30 Posts: 1,637	I agree with Drake about controlling stuff. Me too, I have some nice ideas for games, that would need news kinds of controllers devices (I even have then in mind)... if I only had the money and the power........

30 January 2002, 12:29	#10
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	Until I finally had a way of making games with graphics (Bought click & play for the PC) I had plenty of ideas for games, but somehow when I got it I was out of ideas and all that ever emerged from it was some stupid stuff like a pac-man platformer and a stupid kind of game where you had to move a thing with your mouse and avoid objects which every 5 seconds set their course directly for you. Had it been a little more powerful and had it been chosing random positions to move towards it would have made a nice screensaver though. But now that I finally have means to make something half decent I've lost all creative thought. Really a pity.

30 January 2002, 22:46	#12
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 35 Posts: 5,439	We used to see more creativity because it was the era of the bedroom programmer. Anyone with an idea could make a game. That's how the great ideas came about. Nowadays it's more of a 'business' to make a game, so more people are involved and there is less creativity. Companies need to sell the games and weird and wonderful ideas don't sell. Also, it's the age of more realistic gaming. There is less chance for abstract ideas. However, I don't think that this change is necessarily a bad thing. We see a lot of modern games which are wonderful to play - it's just that today's gaming experience is somewhat different from yesteryear. I personally like playing through first person shoot-'em-ups (if someone doesn't like Deus Ex or Half-Life, then it's likely that they've never played it). I also like the greater immersion into game worlds, for example - fighting battles on planets in the Battlezone remake. And huge RPGs (Ultima) and strategy games (Age Of Empires 2) are superb. The online gaming scene is also without equal. And stuff like Counterstrike and Team Fortess Classic are free to play. With the Amiga we've seen the equivalent of the 1930s and 1940s era of movies (in some ways). There were a hell of a lot of great movies and innovation (and rubbish ones too, but that's the same in every year). But today's movies are different - there is little that is new. It doesn't mean that I still can't enjoy a new movie, though.

30 January 2002, 22:58	#13
Miggy2TheMax Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Australia Age: 34 Posts: 369	Looking thru what has been said, some good points have been raised. Drake: True, I guess their could be more innovative controllers to interact with games. Ultimately while our computers have evolved rapidly we see that our controllers are the same, so I guess I can see the bottleneck there. Burseg: Ahhh.. yes good old marketing.. just as long you can sell ice to to the eskymos it must be a good product. Yeah .. we can thank marketing for pushing crap products on the market .. but that is the world we live in.. I guess that is why retro gaming will always have a following as todays fancy graphics offer little entertainment value compared with great original playability.

31 January 2002, 00:15	#15
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 35 Posts: 5,439	When I say that today is more about 'realistic' gaming I mean that people want to play games about controlling squads of soldiers or racing in F1 cars, rather than flying a spaceship against waves of enemies or bouncing round a multi-coloured platform world as it often was in the Amiga days. To complain about modern games all being the same is to ignore two things: 1. Games need to sell and the suits will always pick something that's worked before over a new idea. 2. If you don't think that Amiga games were about copying ideas, then you haven't played enough Amiga games. If I had a dime for every identical Amiga shoot-'em-up or platform game, then I'd be rich!

31 January 2002, 00:38	#16
oldpx Posts: n/a	Exactly cody! Realistic graphics kill the gameplay. Games we play are like interactive movies. They are not designed well but rather they seem to offer real life experiences to us. I saw Medal of Honor running a few days ago. It was like an interactive saving private ryan. then I attampted to play the game. It was boring like hell and the AI was stupid. PAC-MAN, on the other hand depends on a solid game design idea. The elements in it don't have real life references yet it works.

31 January 2002, 00:47	#17
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	I hope I didn't say Amiga games were purely original games. That would've been a big mistake. I just thought of a good example of innovative gaming on the PC though. At least I can't recall ever having played anything like it. It was a game called Quest for Fame (Not to be confused with Sierra's quest for glory). This game came with a simple piece of hardware to plug into your computer. The only thing it was supposed to do was register whenever you banged it against something. The core object of the game was that you were some guy stuck in his bedroom playing your electric guitar and once in a while had a gig with a local band who practiced in a garage. Except for clicking on songs and stuff all you had to do was keep a rythm to the songs played which could get pretty hard. It was fun to hear your weak little guitar (which sound could be customized) when you were off the beat and just thrashing random strokes. Incredibly simple gameplay but dang addictive. I remember thinking how it would be fun to make a game thingie with somewhat the same game but with the ability to have you play after one of the channels in a MOD file or something like that. All you'd have to do was specify the channel, and then just keep up with when new samples were started. If you wanted to take strange first person games into consideration I think you should consider Thief. Wow a first person game where you don't have to shoot everything in sight. At least not if you care to win the game. Better stay out of sight. And how about Ultima underworld and System shock? At least UU was released before Doom offering total freedom of movement, something Doom didn't. An inventory to make use from (like games such as Arena and Deus ex) and spells to use. UU and SS were huge games with plenty of stuff packed into them. Sure there might not be that much dialog in them but there is some. I'm still sad I never got System shock CD edition to work properly. Would've been so nice to have voice logs. And burseg. There are people who can't cope with creativity and want realism. Too bad for them. Take Alice for a run of the mill 3rd person like first person shoot em up game. That's far from realistic.

31 January 2002, 01:24	#18
oldpx Posts: n/a	It's good you mentioned Thief! It's absolutely realistic yet it is also designed well in my opinion and these two rock when they come together. But my general attitude is skeptical against realism as you see for it's rarely used properly. :smileek <----I'm using this smiley at the first time in the history of eab.

31 January 2002, 03:34	#19
Miggy2TheMax Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Australia Age: 34 Posts: 369	Cody: I cant argue with point 1.. but point 2.. Even though there were copies of games made in the retro days there was still a good supply of creative and innovate stuff to choose from unlike today. btw, for "realistic" games to be considered fun their playability and AI will need to get a hell of a lot better..

06 February 2002, 07:09	#23
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	Lets not forget something else from Amiga gaming.... 1.Turn on Amiga & TV/Monitor 2. Put in the Disk & play!! PC-Pray your sound & GFX card are compatible for the game, Hope you don't need a later Direct X which'll render older PC games suddenly incompatible or stuff up windows & require a re-install. And lastly-if the above doesn't work, download a 50Mb + patch for a couple of hours & hope that works!!

06 February 2002, 09:36	#24
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 35 Posts: 5,439	Here are some great PC games that some of you guys might actually try! System Shock 1&2 Thief 1&2 Grand Theft Auto Carmageddon Unreal Tournament Age Of Empires 2 Civilization 2 Outlaws Realms Of The Haunting Jedi Knight: Dark Forces and Mysteries Of The Sith Half-Life Deus Ex Terra Nova Battlezone 1&2 Outwars Shogo: Mobile Armor Division Aliens vs Predator 1&2 Black And White Severance Serious Sam Soldier Of Fortune Project IGI Counterstrike Tribes 2 Team Fortress Classic Ultima Online Ultima 7 Part 1&2 No One Lives Forever Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force

06 February 2002, 10:17	#25
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 39 Posts: 5,026	No such thing as an original modern game! Ok, Doom, Half-Life.... original? Lets go back further, Wolfenstein? Nah...... All of these kind of games are a derivative of one game...... PacMan! All these games are are 3D versions of PacMan, Kill the ghosts=kill the badguys/aliens, pick up a power pill=pick up extras, collect all the pills to finish the level=collect everything to finish the level. It doesn't matter what game you think of, with only a very few exceptions, nothing is original. As for original games, and how software companies like to stick at what works..... Lemmings nearly didn't get released by Psygnosis at all....... Typical Psygnosis couldn't see beyond the graphics...... turns out it was their biggest ever game release! Software companies are not interested in being original, they just want to copy other games because they know it will sell. Its only like the people that created Half-Life that actually make a difference, small team, almost back to the days of the backroom bedroom programmer turning out an amazing game, where software company doctorate dictates how it should look and play. __________________ Former member of: LSD, Scoopex, Razor 1911, Dual Crew Shining, Rednex, Fairlight. www.southwestscrap.co.uk

06 February 2002, 11:13	#26
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	I think I heard Rollercoaster tycoon should've been made by one man. It had gotten great success in spite of the fact that there had been plenty of similar games up till now. Game quality isn't about team size or money pumped into it but rather wether the creators had an idea and burned for that idea.

08 February 2002, 16:14	#28
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Hague / The Netherlands Age: 36 Posts: 1,271	Off-topic: User support I must say the publisher of Evil Twin, UBI Soft, has an excellent user-support. Here is a little warning for everyone who wants to play this game under Windows XP: the OS blocks the keyboard so the game is unplayable (unless you have a joystick). When I posted this problem a couple of hours ago at the UBI Soft support site, I got immediately a response. It appears a bug which occurs only in XP is guilty (why am I not surprised?). The problem can be overcome by configuring the game on CD and launching it from harddisc. A patch is underway. Anyway, I am glad there are still softwarecompanies out here that actually are caring about the individual. I can’t wait enjoying this mighty platformgame

08 February 2002, 20:12	#29
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	I'd add another category: A lot of games today TRY to be like the old ones, but fail horribly in the process, because they 'enhance' them with uneeded crap. About innovative concepts, yes, there are a few, but even back then, we didn't see much innovative stuff, did we? The last most innovative concept I can think of is Lemmings. I don't like most of today's games

08 February 2002, 20:41	#30
Chuckles The Ancient One Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Kansas City/USA Age: 58 Posts: 684	Hi folks - I'm new to the board, so please excuse me if I just jump right in, but I found the topic interesting. I'd have to agree that most of today's games are just rehashes of retro games, and only rarely does a new game introduce something that really feels innovative. For me, Populous was an example of a game that broke new ground when it first came out, and of course it has spawned plenty of imitators. It's always been easier to implement a good idea than it is to come up with one in the first place. There's nothing wrong with reusing a proven concept of course, but the trick is to do it in such a way that it improves or expands on what has come before instead of merely copying it. The last game I can think of that really introduced something that seemed novel to me was Messiah on the PC, where your character is an absolute weakling, but has the ability to "possess" the body of any other character he encounters (sometimes drawing a hostile reaction from any witnesses). This have been done before but I'd never seen it, and it kept me from writing off the game as "just another FPS".

08 February 2002, 23:35	#32
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	Messiah did implement puzzles based on the different people well though. People only being able to access or use certain things, and in a review I read about a macabre part where you had to run several scientists into a meat grinder. I don't recall having to do something like that in paradroid. But then I never was good at that game.

08 February 2002, 23:48	#33
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 22 Posts: 4,662	OK, then...Paradroid meets Creatures?

09 February 2002, 00:13	#34
Chuckles The Ancient One Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Kansas City/USA Age: 58 Posts: 684	Looks like I'm going to have give Paradroid another try - I don't think I ever really gave it much of a look before. As for Messiah, the "meat grinder" part was definitely different. Before I figured that part out, I'd even "possessed" a few folks, had them dive into the grinder, and bailed out of their bodies before they were toast. Now there's something you don't do everyday ...

09 February 2002, 09:23	#35
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	Well I don't know if I'd call messiah cute. Creatures is cute, even when massacreing the poor little critters. (Just wish I had one ot two more seconds. He always makes it out to get that chainsaw)

10 February 2002, 08:17	#36
a1studmuffin Posts: n/a	IMHO, the only games you could call original would be things like Pong and Asteroids - ie. the very first electronic interactive arcade games. Given that technology has been evolving at a steady pace, its natural that games evolve with this technology - and when you look at just about ANY game it has stemmed from a title before it with perhaps one or two new features. So, really, there are hardly any games that are truly original in the sense of the word, they've just taken inspiration from older games and built on them with a little more technological flexibility. Obviously the only things that are "original" are the new features - ie. the changeover from 2D graphics to 3D graphics a la Wolfenstein, the changeover to point-and-click adventures from text-based adventures etc. etc... games are like any other art form - 90% inspiration 10% perspiration... (well, actually it's more like 90% inspiration 90% perspiration, since programmers have to put in 180% effort to make a bloody game ... pesky bugs, how dare they infiltrate my perfect code) The one good thing (and bad thing - depends which way you look at it) about games these days is their development time. A decent game can take up to 18 months to make (I believe Gran Turismo 3 took around this long) which (hopefully) means that developers looking for a quick buck will be deterred - there's nothing worse than cheap clone games that offer nothing new and are just looking for a quick buck. I suppose the obvious flaw to this argument is 18 months of development time can still produce a pretty run-of-the-mill game. A crap game with 100 vehicles to choose from and 50 levels isn't much use to anyone if it sucks :-)

10 February 2002, 12:39	#37
CPC464 Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: York Age: 43 Posts: 393	Games Lack originality I must admit I think that most games now just lack originality, some of the earlier release games had good quality and content, most games now just seem to be aimed at "GOOD GRAPHICS" and that's all and then they seem to require 2 or 3 patches.

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