A Gamer's RantsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #gaming5 years ago

A bit of a gaming rant here.

I've been a gamer for most of my life. Being in my mid-30's there's quite a few years of gaming under my belt now. I'm not completely into gaming at an extreme level, but I'd much rather sit down and play something on a console than watch TV. Both gaming and TV are a waste of time and I can see that, but at least gaming involves some sort of thought and motor skills.

I can't say I've ever played an Atari, but I guess it started with a Nintendo and the classic Mario and Duck Hunt games at my Grandparents house when I was small. From there, my parents bought us a Sega Genesis as the first console. With games like Sonic the Hedgehog and NHL games becoming a thing, I'd spend many hours with friends playing these games. Computers also started to become a thing early as I was growing up. My father bought a computer pretty early, before they were really a common thing for a household, and with a good push from him, I was typing 60-70 words per minute before I was 10. I'll be pushing my boy to do the same thing as well as coding: He'll thank me for that later. The games weren't great for the computer back then, though. But there were some good ones like Worms that I ended up putting a lot of hours into, also with friends.

The thing back then, in the early 90's, was that all these games were designed to be played with other people. I remember having some great Bomberman battles with 3 other friends on the Super Nintendo, or sharing a keyboard to play a Worms battle with someone, or playing a split screen deathmatch in a number of first person shooters.

I think there was a little gap in my gaming during the end of the 90's. I sort of skipped the initial Playstation era (only playing occasionally on friend's consoles). Computers still weren't affordable for me to buy my own, either. Plus, I was very much into playing guitar back then and that's pretty much all I was involved in, aside from the regular teenage things; if in fact they were regular things.

My next console was an XBox which I bought used (and moded) from a friend. This was ideal for me because it got me back into gaming for cheap, but it also got me into learning how to do internet research on my own to find out information about downloading and burning games. I supposed this really started from figuring out how to download music with Napster, but it got a little trickier with video games. This, now that I think back, makes it really easy for me to find information on the interne tnow and to know (mostly) what is real and what may not be. This certainly didn't come from the school system. Eventually, that Xbox died and I ended up buying an Xbox One, which also died; so I bought another one, which also died. I won't be going back to Xbox after that.

During this transition from Xbox to Xbox One, something changed. The internet was getting fast and it became connected to these gaming consoles. It now became possible for people to play games together online. This, as most gamers are aware now, opened up many doors for which direction games could go in. But, it seems that something happened when the internet got involved. It seemed to lessen that quality of games while, at the same time, raising the price of everything.

One of the biggest letdowns for me in the gaming industy is the ability to play games with friends in the same room. Anyone else remember spending an entire day playing halo in the same room with friends on a campaign? Now, think of all these new First Person Shooters (FPS) that have been coming out for the last 10 years. They may say multiplayer on them, but that means multiple players can play with their own consoles, own interent connection, own tv's, own house, etc. Nobody can really play games together anymore while at the same time we can play with people all over the world. There have been multiple instances where someone has been over at my house and seen me playing a game. Could they join the game if they were with me in the room? No. Could they go home and join my game if they had their own console and game to play with me? Of course. This is very frustrating because it actually seperates us and causes us to be less social, while using something that was initially made to use together and have fun with it together.

Playstation for me was pretty bad for this. After my two Xbox One's I bought a Playstation 3 which I had for quite a few years and then trades it in for a Playstation 4. I had two controllers for both consoles, and there were some single console multiplayer games, but for the most part it was only for one person to use and I had to know people playing the same game to play with anyone. I usaully played alone because no one is has or plays the same games at the same time.

What got me writing this post is because we recently got a Nintendo Switch. I'm a little more into playing games on my computer right now, because it's new and can handle it. We got the Switch mostly for @landonator to use. We had an old Nintedo Wii that he was playing with, but with the Switch I control a little more how much he plays it by setting parental controls. I can lock it out from my iPad at any time so there won't be issues with him playing it too much. It's a pretty cool little device and it seems like it's making an attempt to come back to playing games together, but it's not quite there yet. I know there are mulitplayer games available for it, but there are mostly sports related or similar like Mario Kart or Mario Party. Those games are fun, but there is no substance to them and there are other games that could easily implement two players into them for a great experience that just didn't bother; or didn't try hard enough to implement it. There are games that allow a second play to participate, but not play. Really, this is sad. Mario Oddesy, for example, will let a second player join the game at any time, but they can't actually do anything other than move Mario's hat within a close proximity to Mario. This is really dissapointing. I was hoping it would be a good open world game I could play with @landonator that would be fun for both of us. Instead, if he wants me to play, I just have to be a hat that can't really do anything. How is that supposed to be fun for anyone?

@landonator also just got Mario Rabbits yesterday for Christmas. This would make an amazing two player game for the two of us. It's so close to it but it also failed to allow people to actually play together. Instead, one person has to play by themselves to unlock the ability to play two player levels. Once you beat the level, the one person has to play by themselves again to unlock another level for two players. Essentially, one would have to beat the game to unlock all the two player levels. Why not just make it so two people could play through the single player campaign. It's so close to that already, why would no one think of that. The game consists of one player moving around a group of four Mario characters and getting into turn based battles as they progress. It would have been so easy to make two players control two characters each to play the campaign with the ability for the second player to jump in and out as they wanted. Instead because the game is a little too strategic for a toddler to do on his own, I have to constantly play the game for him to get him past each of these battles. When we do get a chance to play two player levels, I can easily show him how he should be moving his characters and what the best move is, but allow him to do it in a way were he suggest the move first. This might not make sense if you've never played this game, but we'll just chalk it up to it being another fail for a good multiplay game that could have been.

It seems like things are movin back to the old school multiplayer style, it's happening slowly and it's frustrating that game developers don't understand how important this feature is to make a game that much more enjoyable. An example of a good multiplayer game I do enjoy playing with my boy is Lego Worlds. This game captures the two player experience perfectly. The second play can jump in and out whenever, both players can roam a sandbox style environment on their own in split screen, and one player or two can work towards progressing in the game or just mess around in the world building things as they want. This game proves to me that it is still possible for games to do this, but that the developers just don't, for whatever reason.

Another thing I think needs to change is the completion of games. It seems to be more and more acceptable for games to be released incomplete. It's becoming the new norm for game developers to release a game filled with glitches and bugs and then just patch them as time goes on to make them into a real playable game. This practice is totally cool if it's done properly and developers are upfront that the game might not be finished and that should also be reflected in the price of the game. But it seems like more and more complete games are being releases when they are not yet finished but still being sold full price.

How'd you like to buy a new car that runs off an environment friendly fuel? You think this is a great idea so you go out and buy the car only to find out the fuel hasn't been developed yet and the car is undrivable until it is. Don't worry, it will be released soon. How about a new house that uses a new kind electrical wiring that can power your home for 1/10th the price? You buy the house only to find out that the electrical company has yet to develop their end of the system and your house will have no electricity until they do. Althoug the gaming side is much less important, I'm sure no one would stand for those two examples actually happening and there would be quite the uproar if it did. On the gaming side, this is just normal now.

The example I'm thinking of is Fallout 76, which was just released in November. I bought it yesterday because I noticed it was on sale. The mistake I made, was I tricked myself into thinking the game was on sale because of the holidays and not because the game isn't really finished yet. I bought the game and while it was downloading I looked at some reviews. I usually do this in the other order, watching some reviews first, but I made a mistake. Turns out the game is supposed to be absolute crap. The graphics are bad, the gameplay is bad, there are tons of glitches, there is no storyline, and the list goes on. Right away I felt yet again betrayed by the gaming industy. This game was hyped up a bit last spring and because Fallout 4 before it and Fallout New Vagas befor that were such good games, I took it for granted that this one would be outstanding as well.

I tried the game for a few minutes last night after it finished downloading. Right away I could tell that there were certainly going to be glitches. Before I even really started the game it wanted me to take a picture of my character I had made and, before I could do that, the character disapeared and I had to take a picture of the wall behind my character, which is now the picture for my avatar, a photo with no character in it. In the 15 minutes I played the game to test it, I noticed a bunch of weird weather glitches so I'm not sure I'll be playing this right away until there are a number of substantial patches coming out.

I know Bathesda, the game developer, usually has some glitches in their games. Skyrim and the other Fallout games had some weird things happen to me, but the size and detail of the worlds they created made it tollerable. The problem now is I'm playing Zelda - Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch and that is what I have to compare to Fallout 76. Zelda really raises that bar for what makes a great open world adventure game and I don't think anything is going to be better than it for a while. It works flawlessly, that graphics are simple yet amazing and detailed at the same time, and the gameplay (which is the most important) is really challenging with lots variety between puzzles to solve and giant monsters to slay that will instantly smash you into the dirt if you're not careful. It balances the challenge of a game that makes you think for puzzles, with actual skill to fight and block, with a sandbox variety of allowing different playing styles flawlessly. I have quite a few hourse into this game now and it runs flawlessly. I have seen zero glitches - ZERO.

Both Fallout and Zelda are essentially the same game. You scavenge the land for equipment while fighting monsters and solving quests. The way they made each game is different, but they are the same game at heart; most are. It's quite clear to me that the developers of Zelda focused on the gameplay and made the rest of the gameplay around that. It's the most important part after all. Fallout, on the other hand, has clearly focused their attention on the graphics and the ability to play this game online with other people. They don't seem to understand that, while both those things are important, nothing is more important than gameplay. And then to top it off, they also dropped the ball on the graphics and playing online part.

Gameplay is what makes the game. I wish these companies could remember that.

End Rant.

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Ever since gaming went mainstream, a lot of new and and old (usually sell out) faces are trying to maximize nothing but profit.

Look at Activision-Blizzard, although it really only calls itself Blizzard. Old Blizzard is now just Blizzard North. Activion-Blizzard games and updates have been mostly cash grabs, like Diablo III and SC2. Fallout 76 is also a good example, for sure.

But games like those from the old days still exist. It's just that they're not AAA games. The big "indie" teams are what you're supposed to be looking at if you want quality games, like tinyBuild

I must say I disagree with old games being mostly multiplayer, though. A lot if not most of great titles from the NES/SNES/DOS/WINDOWS 95 PC era games were single player. I had an Atari and no gaming generation gap.

For sure there were a lot of good single player games as well. I mostly mean if it claimed to be multi player, multiple people could play them together in one location.

I will look more into indie games now that you mention it. I know there are some good ones, but there are also a lot of bad ones. I tend to look at them like apps on a cellphone - there are thousands but only a handful are any good. I should put more effort in finding those good ones since the big name companies are clearly not cutting it for me.

Thanks for the comment.

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Oh, I get it. The new kids call it "local coop" now so that's the tag you should be looking for if you want to search for games on Steam

The truth is, true game-focused dev groups from the old days are called "indie" now. The development team behind Doom 1 only had 7 members, which would be a "small indie dev team" nowadays.

I've been an on an off gamer since I got my hands on Playstation 1. I missed those days where I could play with my siblings in real time and in person. They just don't seem to make games like those anymore. To compensate, I organize or join some LAN parties so that my friends could play in the same room too. It's the closest thing we can get like the old days experience.

I never played Zelda but I do watch how my friends play the game. Definitely a game that lives up to the hype.

I used to play Diablo II a lot with friends as LAN parties. Those were good times, but the only reason we did this was because we had a pirated copy of the game and could share it between multiple computers. Otherwise, for me, it's nearly impossible to organize that sort of thing as a casual gamer. Nobody ever seems to be playing the same game at the same time. I even notice that most of my friends playing online don't seem to be playing the same games as one another. Sometimes they are, but rarely.

New games do have a habit of being competitive that it draws less quality time. Different people different preferences and I do hear you about friends playing different games at the same time. I do experience that and it's like the only way to get everyone to play and interact again is for them to have that sense of fun playing together like old times. Definitely not an easy thing to do. I'd want to play fps games but the rest of the squad wants to play turn based etc. I just give in to what they want because it's my squad, but I bet a lot of people aren't so cooperative about this matter :/

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What, no mention of MMORPG? Lol, I keep forgetting am not much of a gamer anymore. I guess they make console games for the "loner" players now? Family Computer is still the best game system for me. You can play with another person and have fun together. These days they have the Mini FamiCom and the Mini Nintendo I think... Why don't they just bring back the big old ones instead? Tsk tsk.

Wait, I never knew Bomberman could be played with other people? Oh my, I must be playing on my own too much even as a kid. Hahaha.

I rarely get to play anything these days unless it's a mobile app. Of course I would love to get my hands on some Playstation if I could but I might forget to work... or something. Haha. Thanks for keeping me up to date on console gaming. It looks like in the past few years most are not meant to be shared with peers or other people as you mentioned. I'd still love to get my hands on the God of War games. Haha. More thumb numbing gaming ftw!

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