Yeah, a strangely large number of video games now fall squarely into the Uncanny Valley.
It did have a quest log. The problem was that it didn’t give all the necessary information, such as who to return to when the quest was finished. PITA when you had 10 quests and hadn’t played for a few days.
I basically lost interest in consoles when I got a decent PC in High School. And the Mega Drive was being replaced by the PlayStation. I haven’t looked back, and to this day I haven’t found a console game I enjoyed playing. I just don’t like the controls or the lack of ability to fiddle with what’s under the bonnet the way you can with a PC game.
But I have fond memories of having all-night “Tag-team” matches of Mortal Kombat 3 or NBA Jam: Tournament Edition with all my friends on a Sega Mega Drive when I was around 12 or 13… But like Bill Bryson says, you can’t beat the phone company and you can’t go home, and the current crop of Console games don’t grab me the way they did when I was 12.
The only exception would be the Wii Sports games; but they’re not “Games” in the “Gaming” sense of the word, IMHO, even if they are quite fun to play casually.
Can you explain this sentence as it doesn’t jibe with any definition of “video game” I’ve ever heard.
I’ve always considered the Wii Sports games to be “Software Toys”; there’s no real “depth” to them. They’re designed to be fired up, played casually (at a party or with your Aunt or whoever) and then turned off; there’s no real long-term involvement or anything like that.
It’s a little complicated and it’s nearly 1am here, so I might have another go at expanding on this tomorrow, provided the thread hasn’t moved on too much…
That’s the reasoning everyone gives to the question of why Wii Sports isn’t a game. But then it seems to ignore the fact that until about 1990, that’s what the vast majority of games were like.
It just irritates that this new definition of gaming disqualifies all of the games I grew up enjoying.
I am somewhat conflicted about this. For the most part, I agree with what you are saying in theory. Baldur’s Gate was a truly awesome and landmark game, and must be appreciated in its context. I have a hard time going back and playing it now, however. It, and others like it, came out of a gaming wasteland. I spent a few years just replaying the BG franchise because there was simply not much else worth buying. I appreciate them largely because they were just so much better than their predecessors.
Now the improvements in gaming are more incremental, but some of the games themselves are phenomenal. They stand out less than their predecessors because they have a much bigger grow-over problem. I don’t think this makes some of them any less awesome in their own right. It is harder to go back to some of the older games and take away more than a sense of deep nostalgia.
All of this said, it will take a lot to convince me that Planescape: Torment is not the pinnacle of the art of game creation whose sheer awesomeness will never be surpassed. I will never forget my first experiences playing this game when I was in college. In enduring, grow strong!
Ugh, this was the least of Daggerfall’s PITA-dom. That game broke my heart. The awful minimaps, eternal free-falls, and getting stuck in dungeon walls turned me off this one for good. This game was supposed to make the summer of my freshman year of college bearable, despite the crap job and not being with my girlfriend. I had to put it down after one frustrating week.
I think Nintendo is the master of the superficial game, if that’s any comfort. I’m still anxiously awaiting games that I have to buy for the Wii. I’ve been meaning to get Tiger Woods on it, which would be great, but EA keeps releasing different courses every year, which upsets me.
I just watched a great documentary called The King of Kong. It follows these two classic gamers as they try to beat each others top scores in Donkey Kong. Yes, there are video game competitions today, but this captured the true essence. One man is diabolical and the other is a sweet family man (who is actually reduced to tears out of frustration and letdown). It was quite moving. I suggest you all see this.
Wha?
When fully patched, it was rather enjoyable, as long as you saved judiciously. I loved those wacky dungeons, I loved trying to get complete sets of each armor type, I loved the literally endless quests. I think that some of the things that were changed for the sequels made them less enjoyable, although infinitely prettier.
I don’t think of them as “not a game” (what else would they be, work?), but I do think of that entire disc as basically a demo. It is incredibly lacking in the depth department, even compared to games 15+ years ago. I was hoping it was "here’s a taste of what Wii can do, and the real Wii Sports is coming . . . " But it appears that most of Wii’s target demographic has taken it seriously as a complete game.
My bad, I had mis-remembered DKC as 1993 for some reason.
I never meant to imply that the 3DO and Jaguar came after the PSX, I just listed the consoles of that period starting with the most sucessful. Sorry for any confusion.
Too dismissive of the N64 and Saturn? I’ll concede that there were some really cool games on the N64 (Goldeneye and Mario 64 being two of the biggest). However, the big N made a lot of really bad decisions with the N64, it was difficult to program, used cartridges vs cd’s, making it very difficult for 3rd parties to release N64 games, etc. Meanwhile, 3rd party developers were flocking to the powerful and developer friendly PSX, which sold over 100 million units worldwide (cite) compared to 32 million for the N64 (cite). Therefore, IMO it’s not unreasonable to call the N64 a failed system. And almost everything Nintendo got wrong with the N64, Sony got right with the PSX.
As for the Saturn, I’m still a bit boggled that they managed to make such a perfect version of Quake, which really should’ve been beyond the capabilities of the machine. But with anywhere from 17 to 9.5 million units sold (depending on whose figures you believe), and a severe lack of games, the Saturn was definitely third behind the PSX and N64, and the system was discontinued after only 3 years.
Sony sold more than double the number of consoles that Sega and Nintendo did combined, hence my assertion that the PSX “carried” the era.
That said, I do agree that the start of the PSX was pretty bad. The first year, all the games were very short and horribly rushed, and it was obvious the programmers were still struggling with 3d programming. It was only at the end of the 2nd year, or even the beginning of the 3rd, that the games finally started to look like the next gen games we’d been promised.
Yeah, I assumed we were talking about videogames in the US. There’s too many differences between the US and Japan to compare things. I’ve not a lot of knowledge of life in Japan, but I don’t think they experienced the crash of 83, or the lulls in gaming we’ve seen here. From what I’ve seen videogames have always been huge in Japan since the 70’s. But if someone with firsthand experience can enlighten us, I’d love to hear about it (and other overseas gaming tales).
This came out in May 1997. Are you sure you’re thinking of the same game? There are a lot of X-com clones with similar names, such as the Cenga UFO: Aftershock, Aftermath, etc. In any case, I picked up UFO: Extraterrestrials on www.gogamer.com for $20, and consider it well spent. I would highly recommend this game to any X-com fans, but you need the mods for the game to shine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dedication put into a game by it’s fans, and it really does make it a whole different experience. I downloaded Official patch 2 (it includes the first patch), and all of Bman’s EOU 4.04 mods, which incorporate a lot of other user’s mods in with it. Last time I checked, Bman’s was up to 4.07
[/QUOTE]
No 
It may very well have been the “aftermath” one, as that rings a bit of a bell.
But I’ve been looking for a good game, and I’ll definitely see about picking the one up that you recommend. Thanks!
I’m definitely going to disagree there. The N64 a “failed system?” I find that a fairly outrageous claim.
No, it wasn’t as successful as the PSX, but it was absolutely an important entity both commercially and creatively. It was home to some of the most significant software of its time, despite obvious missteps on the part of Nintendo.
Certainly, it was at least as influential as the PSX.
And I don’t really see that sales are a huge part of determining what amounts to a golden age or not.
I would consider, for instance, the TurboGrafx-16 and Neo Geo as part of the tapestry of console gaming during the SMB3 - DKC period discussed earlier, even if not many people played those systems.
Likewise, the 32-bit era was richer for the contribution of the Saturn library.
I loved my N64, but you have to admit, that after Zelda: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 the system had very little to offer.
There were the Banjo-Kazooie games and Turok, although the dropoff for that series was pretty damn steep.
I had the N64 for the duration of its lifetime, and the only games I ever enjoyed at home were Mario Kart, Waverace, and 1080 Snowboarding (the latter two being essentially the same game.)
I also played a lot of Goldeneye at friends’ houses.
I have no particular affinity for racing games and tend not to like FPSs, which kind of underscores the point, I think. It was a great system (awesome controller, no load times) with very few good games.
Edit: Oh, and I did like Ocarina of Time and Shadows of the Empire for a couple hours but not enough to buy them or finish them (rented both.)
You could spend hours discussing the merits of N64 games that were “pretty good but not great” (I have a soft spot for Doom 64… no, really!).
Wave Race 64 is a good one. As is the first Turok (and only the first, the rest suck the goat ass). And Shadows of the Empire is just bitchin’ (Hoth forever!). Oh, and Rogue Squadron too.
Wait, what was wrong with the N64 again?