Anyone born in the 70s? Remember how good the 90s games were?

[TechBuyingHavoc]

Noita on Steam

Noita is a magical action roguelite set in a world where every pixel is physically simulated. Fight, explore, melt, burn, freeze and evaporate your way through the procedurally generated world using spells you've created yourself.

store.steampowered.com

As usual these days there is always a game to scratch that specific itch. I have yet to play this one, but seems to match what you've not been able to do as a 'Wizard'


Simplicity in concept, complexity in execution, I would like to add.

Indie games have many great examples of this. They simplify existing games but they excel on the execution part, you're given a simple toolbox, but the way you use those tools is where the gameplay keeps evolving. Triple A also gives you a simple concept, but then forgets to make it shine, they don't explore the possibilities in execution, its just giving a character a standard moveset and then dragging it through a game world, when open, to visit all the map markers, and when linear, to check off the quest markers going from A to B. What's supposed to keep you attached is a constant stream of gacha mechanics, flashy lights when leveling up and constantly holding a promise that there's more, which really doesn't amount to anything.

I think AAA games continuously fall into the trap that more money, more resources means a better game. Yes, more money and resources and development CAN lead to a better game but you can't rely on brute force to fix fundamental problems that should have been caught during the pre-planning or conceptual development of the game. If you are sacrificing the fun of the game loop to advance micro-transactions or whatever eldritch goals your upper management bosses want to splice into your Frankenstein monster of a game, you are never going to be able to mitigate the downsides of that approach.

Also, making video games is still an art form. Too much game development is still context-dependent and situational to make concrete rules that apply universally to all game development.

 

[Kapone33]

When I was young there were no computers/games/consoles that were available, the go to tech was an Abacus or an "Etch a Sketch" (dependant on age those might need googling ). TV's were black and white, pretty small and only 3 terrestrial channels available, there was no choice but to go outside to play or die from boredom Electronic calculators became widely available in retail when I was about 13 I think although they existed before that but I had never seen one in a shop until that age.

I hear you on that. My Dad was an Engineer so Electronics were part of my life from a young age. Tyco racing Car sets, Atari and TRS80 were my youth. I agree with you though we only did those things when it was raining outside.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I think there's some memory/selection bias at play. Ever heard someone lament how much better pop music in the '60s was? That's cuz the good stuff sticks, and we forget about the garbage. The '80s gets crap sometimes about how bad the music was in comparison, but if you look past the chart-topping cheese, there was some amazing stuff going on. The dance, hip hop, alt rock and metal communities put out some killer tracks that still hold up. And that's only the stuff I know about.

Getting back to games, Sturgeon's law is inviolate. For every great '90s game we remember, there were 10 (probably 20 or more!) turds shoveled out. Scope was mentioned a few posts up, and I think that's also important and a great point. 20+ years ago, game scope was more limited by necessity. AAA back then was more like AA or even A these days. Teams and budgets were far smaller, and we got more focused experiences from the top publishers because of that. So I think that the '90s-'00s experiences we remember so fondly are still out there: They're just in the AA-and-under space.

 

[AusWolf]

Project scope must be determined beforehand, and accurately, too. What you see in a lot of triple A is that scope is either completely misinterpreted from the beginning (oops, this is bigger than we thought, No Man's Sky for example), or made far too large during development (Cyberpunk going open world) and then all hell breaks loose. We're seeing more and more of this, even the scope changing entirely during development, with games serving a different niche altogether all of a sudden. The most recent example I saw was Wayfinder.

What we see in triple A is that we're promised a massive scope but underneath the varnish we notice there's really just a tiny set of systems repeated ad nauseam, a good example is the repetitive style of assignments you do in Hogwarts Legacy or Skyrim, or more recently Star Wars Outlaws: there are certain types of encounters, types of locations, and they are all slightly different, yet execute the same concept. If you've seen one dungeon, you've seen them all. Therefore, none of them feel unique and the theme park idea starts taking hold. Its an immersion killer, too. These tricks are ways to oversell the scope of a game, really, with the argumentation that 'the concepts themselves are fun to play' so why wouldn't you do them a few dozen times. Except its a fine balance between being fun, and being repetitive, while we can be certain its never unique.

The problem with scope these days is that it's too much and/or too vague, imo. Many AAA games try to build around the concept of open world, which is not a concept. It's one single aspect of a game. I mean, ok, open world, but what do you do in it? Nothing? (Bethesda) Or just the same repetitive crap over and over again? (Ubisoft) I'm sick and tired of top studios trying to sell games purely on the concept of "bigger is better", which isn't true. There is no point of a vast game world with hundreds of hours of content if most of that world is empty and the content is boring and meaningless.

I also can't enjoy a game that is trying to be too many things. Why do we need crafting in every single game, for example? Is there really a point, or is it just one of the many boxes that the studio has to tick? Do we really need 5-7 character classes with different play styles? A game that tries to appeal to everyone usually ends up being liked by no one. We're desperately lacking focus these days.

That's where I have to bring up Space Marine 2 again. It has no open world, the single player campaign takes 10 hours at most, and you only do one thing through the whole game in various forms: kill aliens. But this one thing is executed so well that it makes the game immensely fun. You can't have such a perfect execution when you have to put a bazillion different things into your game. You can have 5-10 favourite dishes, but if you mix and mash them all up in one pot, the end result is gonna suck.

 

[johnspack]

Gee, no one remembers Kings Quest? I played all the dos Sierra games... Oh born in 61....

 

[lexluthermiester]

Gee, no one remembers Kings Quest? I played all the dos Sierra games... Oh born in 61....

Kings Quest 6 was good! Good grief does it kill the player A LOT! It was still good fun. Never played the rest..

 

[GamerGuy]

Gee, no one remembers Kings Quest? I played all the dos Sierra games... Oh born in 61....

Oh crap, how could I have forgotten this pixelated gem! Had some fun with this game too! There were a number of pretty fun games, I recall playingThe Mummy on a PSOne, but I think was later, another fun game that just hot me was Horned Owl, played the heck outta it as well....after PSOne games, I'd skipped all the other PS consoles and jumped on a PS5 for Stellar Blade. Only because I'd appreciated Shift Up's dedication and stellar (see what I did there?) effort in making this game. It wasn't because of Eve's curvaceous booty, no sirree, and stellar (I did it again!) figure.

So I repeat, I'd gotten the PS5 and Stellar Blade to show my appreciation for the work Shift Up had done and not because Eve has a great figure and nice booty, and.......eh, what were we talking about again? I'd kinda lost myself with all this talk of booty....

 

[Mister300]

1. Missile Command, Atari games ruled the roost. Steam has collection of Atari games.
2. Loved Defender would like to see it redone.
3. FEAR series on PC
4. Any pinball machine some went high tech.