abc

Clearly some ares such as expansion and graphics will always improve, but is the gameplay getting worse? are concepts and storylines getting boring?



These questions stem from the fact that I still have not felt the need to own a current gen console, sure the games may be good but they just don't seem to compare with the offerings of the PS2 or original Xbox, series like:

Timesplitters
Metal Gear Solid
Need For Speed
GTA
Tony Hawks
and many many more...



And it appears to get worse when you compare individual games to their modern counterpart:

Tony Hawks Pro Skater or Underground vs Skate
Killzone 1 vs 2
Need For Speed Underground 1, 2, carbon vs shift
GTA Vice city & San Andreas vs IV
Colin McRae 4 vs Dirt 2
Pro Evo 3 & 5 vs 2010



And what about all those games with a one-off (or two-off) hit?

Black
Conflict Desert Storm 1 & 2
Killzone 1
SSX Tricky & 3
Toca Race Driver 1



Sure there are good games for the current gen but they just aren't going down as well as expected or the original/previous last gen iteration:

MAG
Killzone 2
Any new F1 games
Battlefield 3
Fifa 10
Pro Evo



What about COD?:

COD4 - arguably godlike
MW2 - Love it or hate it... it really isn't that different from COD4

And COD4 is very heavily based on the over-four-years-old-COD2

As a matter of fact the opening paragraph of IGN's 2005 review of COD2 is overwhelmingly relavent to todays MW2 release:



For me, probably due to overwhelming greatness of last gen, current gen is just a bit of a letdown, just looking through my PS2 library and comparing it to the later PS2 games & current gen installments:

Need For Speed Shift - race prepared supercars around prepared tracks? WTF IS THAT?!?!
I thought NFS was all about the rather mundane Mazda MX5, Ford Focus, Toyota Celica, Honda S2000, 350z, Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Skyline GTR with Level-3-upgrades-of-everything along with the neons, the outrageous bodykits, the spoilers and 1 or 48,000 decals & caining it around at night in downtown-fake-USA-city illegal street racing.

GTA IV - admit it, you have fonder memories of Vice City or San Andreas
'nuff said.

Skate - trying to be too clever?
Pro Skater, PRO SKATER, who remembers PRO F****** SKATER. And the two undergrounds... Skating games at their best. Not too serious, not trying to be ground breaking with great graphics or motion sensitive stuff just good old fashioned fun in an arcady package. Ridiculous 2 million point combos with 360 varial mctwists off of the back of a dump struck onto a darkslide along a telephone wire then ollie over a 30 foot gap onto the roof of a hotel where you collect a floating secret-video-unlock before doing a 1080 japan off the side of a skyscraper - that is just more fun than all of Skate put together.

Conflict Desert Storm - And for that matter SOCOM: US Navy Seals
The latest conflict, global terror, vietname. No Conflict at it's best was the dusty Gulf War, one of the first games to put true current-gen weaponary in your hand from the new M249 & M16A2 to Laser Designators and night vision in the other hand. The original socom games... they were arguably more epic than the latest ones. I've just remembered Tom Clanys Splinter Cell. Wow. Weren't 1 & 2 great and the rest were, well... less great.

Racing Games - Such as Dirt 2 & Race Driver Series
Baja Buggies, Trucks & Dakhar 4x4s? Sure the caked-in-mud-effect gets nicer every year but although less variety weren't those long WRC stages in official liscenced WRC Imprezas, Evo VII, McRae's own Focus WRC etc just... somehow better?




I appreciate a lot of things change:

Tony Hawks - How well would a "hey dude skateboards are sik" game sell in the modern "one emo has a skateboard thus all skaters must = emo thus all skaters = uncool" society?
Need For Speed - How well would a fifth consequetive game of quarter mile drag racing in a modified Mazda RX7 sell?
Conflict & SOCOM - How well would another "ok so ANOTHER middle eastern terrorist has stolen some russian nukes and tries to blow up the west" plot sell (well actually I have just described the plot of 67 games, amongst them COD4 & MW2)
Call Of Duty - How well would another semi-realistic game (such as COD1, COD2, to an extent COD4) where you need more than half an ounce of skill to do well at sell?



Infact look at the top 5 games of 2009 list by IGN for PS3 (link) Assassins creed 2: maybe. Batman, Beatles rock band, BlazBlue Calamity Trigger: F*** no. MW2: yes, obviously.


I suspect I may not be the only one who prefers games the way they were, the PS2 generation, afterall.

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"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

E Hizz

Personally, I think story modes are getting worse because game developers are trying to make the online so good so people will keep playing. I remember playing the first Halo, and I loved that game. I was too young to be allowed to play online, so all I did was play through the story again and again.

And I loved it. I never really stopped playing it. Then I was so excited for Halo 2, only to be let down majorly because Bungie didn't give a shit about single player, they wanted to create a revolutionary multiplayer.

And they did... Unbeknownst to me, because I didn't have online.

Developers aren't trying to appeal to everyone anymore, they're just trying to appeal to people who have online and will continue to play their game even after others come out.

Lame, in my opinion.

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GocK

Tony Hawk Underground WAS BEAST.

although i still enjoy skate.






Oh yes and conflict desert storm - 1 i may add, didn't enjoy 2 as much

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abc

The games of today are good there's no denying that, but I can't help feeling:

GTA Vice city >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GTA IV
Conflict Desert Storm >>>>>>>>>> Conflict whatever-the-new-one-is-where-you're-not-even-a-four-man-military-team-just-two-rogue-CIA-mercenaries
THPS 3/4/underground 1/2 >>>>>> Skate
Killzone >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Killzone 2
Medal Of Honour Frontlines (OMFG this is epic. MOH single player games used to roughly = the epicness that was early IW COD games) >>>>>>>>> Medal Of Honour Rising sun etc
Battlefield 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Battlefield 3
NFSU >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Shift
Colin McRae 3/4 >>>>>>>>>>>>> Dirt 1/2
Socom 1 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> latest SOCOM





I shall buy a PS3 when there is a list of games that equals the epicness of a list the top 10 PS2 games. Even if the PS3 cost £150 I probably wouldn't buy it because FPS are better on decently-ported PC by nature of mouse control & I don't really see any uber special driving games which are consoles forte (Obviously GT5 is king of the mountain here, but polyphony are not known for making deadlines - to put it a kind way...)




P.S. Remember there is an edit button so you can add to previous posts as opposed to posting another 7 minutes after the first.

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"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

HBK

Resident Evil 1,2 & 3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>4,5, where the hell is the "scare factor" that made the RE series I WANT MY HORROR IN A SURVIVAL HORROR GAME!

Same with the Silent Hill series, they never hit it off as perfectly as they did with 1 and especially 2, 3 was good too but 4 oh god no.

NFS games kept going down hill since Underground 1 and 2, carbon was good, but the newer NFS games never will be what Underground 1 & 2 were.

CoD2 = I had a great time online, it was an actual pleasant experience, in CoD4 it's just unbearable sometimes, don't get me wrong CoD4 MP is great, still the best overall best online FPS IMO but it gets so incredibly irritating with all the retarded stuff that happens it ruins the fun(nade spam, horrible spawns, bastards spawning right behind you, maps get unbearably cramped on large servers, too much camping compared to some other FPS games) still it's great, but I had way more fun with CoD2.

MW2 = Too much hype IMO.

Battlefield 2>>>>>>>Bad Company IMO

GTA Vice City and especially San Andreas there seemed to be a lot more stuff to do in them than in IV.

Some games are still doing a great job thou, Gran Turismo outdoes itself(in a great way) with every release, so does MGS, I like Far Cry 2 better than 1, Fallout 3 oooh yeah...........

I guess some games go down hill, some others improve and new releases can make up for other failed sequels or just fail at their own right.

In my experience thou, I had way more fun years ago when games were much simpler and more fun there also seemed to be a greater variety of genres, I used to play for hours everyday, now I barely play 7-8 hours a week.

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Se7en SiN

Ill give you one example of why VG's aren't fun anymore.

Mw2.

Eat it.

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RFCAM

I actually think that its not that games are less fun, its just that games are simply WORSE. I don't know why I think this, but I do. I buy a game, play it for a week, but Mw2 will always be my main game. It wasnt like that with the PS2 though, every game I bought I loved and played it over and over.

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Se7en SiN

Kingdom hearts II FTW.

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Sarcross

I don't think games are getting less fun, I think people are expecting too much from the next in the series. Take Need for Speed since I follow the franchise a lot. The first NFS started off good, the next improved, and so on and so forth. The Fast and the Furious coupled with NFS Underground excited everybody, all this and that, blabbity blah. Underground 2 came out and everything was all good, but things started going downhill, not because of the game developers, but because of the people who play the game. They propose ideas, some make it some don't, then they get upset that somethings had to be tweaked or removed in order for the newer things to make it in. They say that the game sucks, but in all reality they don't have a problem with it.

Honestly, I haven't had any upsets or major gripes with any of the games of the Need for Speed Series. Sure, some things they could have improved on, but I still had fun because I don't throw out expectations that were too wild to be followed, and I didn't let others cloud my views. I think Shift is a step forward, and whatever they do next, they really need to focus on what was good, rework it a little and make it great.

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Se7en SiN

Modern Warfare 2 is the most boring game out IMO. I mean, most ppl have played CoD4 almost the whole 2 years and Modern Warfare 2 doesn't really feature any drastic changes. I'd love to play LFD2 or ACII because there Concepts aren't old yet. but as for Mw2, well..........

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abc

Also shelling out upto £54.99 for a newly released PS3/360 game really isn't cool... @ max £34.99 PS2/Xbox you didn't feel bad about racking up big game libraries and it didn't really hurt either...

__________________
"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

Se7en SiN

And the worst part is, it takes about 2x as longer for the price of a game to drop nao then it did during the PS2 and Xbox Era.

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Olaf Vikingsson

It's because of the masses of inexperienced console gamers being fed pile upon pile of graphically awesome but substanceless crap that, largely, aren't recognised as such because the current console generation has little to no experience of the quality gaming that came before.

Simply put, the consumer has put itself into its current position by force of mass stupidity.

The only reason I play MW2 is because I'm better than everyone else at it and enjoy being better than everyone else at it. I wouldn't find the game fun whatsoever if I didn't rape pubs so hard. When a game has become an ego outlet rather than a hobby, you know that something's gone wrong.

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jason221

And here I thought NFS was about incredibly expensive cars and running from cops. I guess the only NFS game I really enjoyed was Hot Pursuit 2 for Gamecube and PS2, before it got into that street "gangster" crap.

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Proud CoD4Forums member since November 2007 - Xbox 360 gamertag: jason221 - Proud member of the t00b clan - Best kill streak: 51 on Afghan
Tactical Nukes: 11 - Most Kills with a Chopper Gunner: 44 - Most Kills with a Grenade Launcher: 5 - Prestige: 5 - Best Flawless: 28-0 on Salvage

Dante

The original Tony Hawk's game is without a doubt the most fun i've ever had from a game. I think as gaming has opened it's door to a wider market (more money) it has diluted itself in a way which has certainly had a negative effect on the gameplay. I find it hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about the current gen which displeases me but i'm not having as much fun as i've had from games in the past.

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Sarcross

I still think its all down to what people expect. The less you expect, the more you'll be surprised and enjoy.

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belly-jeans

no.

Se7en SiN

^Yes. Belly-Jeans is infected w/ not-Tired-Of-Mw2-When-Its-Obviously-The-Same-Shit-Weve-Been-Playing-For-2-years Syndrome.

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belly-jeans

yes... i should see a doctor..??

all I am saying is no. Games aren't getting less fun.. Infact I think they are getting more fun as game developers develop new technology to put into their games.

Olaf Vikingsson

They haven't developed any new technology that actually affects you for nearly a decade now.

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Se7en SiN

What about the Motorola Droid?

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Olaf Vikingsson

I should have specified.

VIDEOGAME technology. You know, like... the thing that the previous post was talking about?

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Pirate Fister

Depends on your idea of fun. I find the soulless repetition of the Diablo series thrilling, so much so that I'll play a mock up of it (Torchlight) and still be addicted.

Games that make women avoid you thoroughly entertain me.

Se7en SiN

Steam?

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XN1ghtStar

I loved everything about Killzone2. But, If Killzone 1 was better than Killzone 2 than that game must've been epic.

Killzone 2 did not have the best online experience but the game didnt have a terrible story. I think the story was wisely better than others and the online was perfect for its uniqueness. My favorite game is Killzone 2, so call me a fanboy.

And GTA4, I thought had a must play story.I have played GTA VC but not the story so I dont have a clue what thats like. But all this is my opinion so dont flame me.

I am not disagreeing with you, abc, but just questioning.