Are new games really worth it, or can we get by on retro titles? - Virgin Microtransactions Versus The Chad Retro Finished Product.

[ducktales4gameboy]

Personally I greatly prefer older games just because they tend to have a much higher ratio of content to downtime and anything that can be played via Retroarch can be fastforwarded if it has a stupid bit that drags.

Spoiler: example : I hate games that waste my time

My biggest gaming pet peeve is the modern idea that literally everything the player does needs to have an unskippable animation tied to it.

Compare the second Toejam & Earl game to the remake of the first that just came out. Both have a mechanic where you can search bushes to find items. In TJ&E2 searching a bush is a single frame of animation that never takes control from the player - you just push up in front of the bush and something happens. In the remake you get pushed into an unskippable second-long animation before the bush reveals whatever it has hidden. This might seem like a really pedantic thing to get irritated with, but searching is an action you’re expected to do roughly once every 10 seconds in both games and it gets so grating so fast in the remake that it effectively makes the entire mechanic feel like a punishment.

Also older stuff can’t get patched into something entirely different by balance patches or expansions.

 

[UE 558]

This thread in a nutshell

Also, as bad as the likes of DICE and Infinity Ward might be in current year, that doesn't automatically mean that retro-style indie games are free of being garbage. For every Retro City Rampage or Sonic Mania, you get about 10 lazy GameMaker turds made by fat troons who saw Undertale and Hotline Miami and thought "I could do that too". But like I said earlier, I play what I like and steer clear of what I don't. I like RDR1 and MH4 and I liked the preview footage of their upcoming sequels, so I picked up MHW and RDR2 last year, meanwhile I've never given a flying fuck about AssCreed or Battlefield, so I opted not to buy either of them, and while I enjoyed Darksiders 1+2, 3's gameplay looked...questionable, so I opted out of buying it.

 

[JM 590]

This thread in a nutshell

Also, as bad as the likes of DICE and Infinity Ward might be in current year, that doesn't automatically mean that retro-style indie games are free of being garbage. For every Retro City Rampage or Sonic Mania, you get about 10 lazy GameMaker turds made by fat troons who saw Undertale and Hotline Miami and thought "I could do that too". But like I said earlier, I play what I like and steer clear of what I don't. I like RDR1 and MH4 and I liked the preview footage of their upcoming sequels, so I picked up MHW and RDR2 last year, meanwhile I've never given a flying fuck about AssCreed or Battlefield, so I opted not to buy either of them, and while I enjoyed Darksiders 1+2, 3's gameplay looked...questionable, so I opted out of buying it.

If ever you get the itch in your ass to try Ass Creed, only play AC4 and no others. That game is considered the pinnacle of the series because it's the one that's least like Assassin's Creed, and you get to have fun sailing around on a pirate ship.

Battlefield is gay.

That's very true about indie games. My Steam account is like Boogie's weight, if every game were a pound: about 150 of those pounds make up good vital organs that belong where they are, and 550 of them should be burned off.

 

[UE 558]

If ever you get the itch in your ass to try Ass Creed, only play AC4 and no others. That game is considered the pinnacle of the series because it's the one that's least like Assassin's Creed, and you get to have fun sailing around on a pirate ship.

Battlefield is gay.

That's very true about indie games. My Steam account is like Boogie's weight, if every game were a pound: about 150 of those pounds make up good vital organs that belong where they are, and 550 of them should be burned off.

Yeah, for every Ittle Dew 2 or Shovel Knight you get twenty or so "DIS IS TOTALLY NOT A RIPOFF OF MARIO/METROID/ZELDA/MEGAMAN CUZ IT GOT WOMYNZ AND DA GAYZ IN IT" indie games (with the ocassional "DIS GAME PLAYS LIKE ASS, LOOKS UGLY, HAS AN EIGHTH GRADE ENGLISH-TIER SCRIPT, AND IS FULL OF GLITCHES AND RESUSED ASSETS BUT IT'S OKAY CUZ ITS IRONIC AND SUBVERSIVE SO YOU CAN'T CRITICIZE EVEN THOUGH I'M STILL CHARGING $20 FOR IT" indie game)

 

[Billy_Sama]

I know this is mention in the thread but like with movies and music, we forget the amount of terrible and mediocre titles that been launch at consumers since the days Atari and Microcomputers. I love the NES system but the faction of the games of the entire library I can truely enjoy without being bogged by BS that didn't aged well like super hard difficulty, confusing progression, and poor design overall. Even computer games were often buggy pieces of mess back then, but they are not indestructible companies like today that can still produce flawed games and still profit from it.

 

[UE 558]

I know this is mention in the thread but like with movies and music, we forget the amount of terrible and mediocre titles that been launch at consumers since the days Atari and Microcomputers. I love the NES system but the faction of the games of the entire library I can truely enjoy without being bogged by BS that didn't aged well like super hard difficulty, confusing progression, and poor design overall. Even computer games were often buggy pieces of mess back then, but they are not indestructible companies like today that can still produce flawed games and still profit from it.

That's quite true and something that does definitely irk me when people constantly bash into my head "new games bad, old games good". Like yeah, Fallout 76, Anthem, Crackdown 3, etc all look like smelly dogshit, but even the "good 'ol days" had their fair share of stinky poopoo, just that most people don't remember a lot of it. Like, if I ask someone, "What game were you playing in 2005?", they'll probably say "God of War" or "Resident Evil 4", not "Shadow the Hedgehog" or "Big Mother Truckers 2"

 

[An Ghost]

Just play dwarf fortress, catacalysm dark days ahead, and stone soup dungeon crawl. They all are free, still updated with mods available, can be run on calculator tier pcs, and have a ton of depth.

 

[Sable]

Just play dwarf fortress, catacalysm dark days ahead, and stone soup dungeon crawl. They all are free, still updated with mods available, can be run on calculator tier pcs, and have a ton of depth.

DF ranges between 'you could play this on a potato' to 'Oh fuck the supercomputer is crying'.

 

[chicken wings]

This thread in a nutshell

Also, as bad as the likes of DICE and Infinity Ward might be in current year, that doesn't automatically mean that retro-style indie games are free of being garbage. For every Retro City Rampage or Sonic Mania, you get about 10 lazy GameMaker turds made by fat troons who saw Undertale and Hotline Miami and thought "I could do that too". But like I said earlier, I play what I like and steer clear of what I don't. I like RDR1 and MH4 and I liked the preview footage of their upcoming sequels, so I picked up MHW and RDR2 last year, meanwhile I've never given a flying fuck about AssCreed or Battlefield, so I opted not to buy either of them, and while I enjoyed Darksiders 1+2, 3's gameplay looked...questionable, so I opted out of buying it.

I don't think it's really that much a nod to a massive indie gaming circlejerk. I barely even play them. But you have to admit that AAA publishers have been increasingly trying to see how far up our asses they can shove their nonsense. I will happily defend cosmetic or other inconsequential DLCs/microtransactions because hey, if it helps the team earn some dosh then I'll chip in what I can but when they start introducing mobile gaming grind or transactions then boy you can fuck off. I've already paid the price of admission from the 60 dollar price tag. Why am I being funneled into a Clash of Clans style grind.

 

[UE 558]

I don't think it's really that much a nod to a massive indie gaming circlejerk. I barely even play them. But you have to admit that AAA publishers have been increasingly trying to see how far up our asses they can shove their nonsense. I will happily defend cosmetic or other inconsequential DLCs/microtransactions because hey, if it helps the team earn some dosh then I'll chip in what I can but when they start introducing mobile gaming grind or transactions then boy you can fuck off. I've already paid the price of admission from the 60 dollar price tag. Why am I being funneled into a Clash of Clans style grind.

I've already shit on greedy AAAs numerous times in here. I've also said that I'll look up info on a game beforehand to ensure that it's free of predatory garbage. I chose not to buy Spyro HD at launch because the thought of 2/3 of the game being off the disc bothered me, I ensured that MHW's MTXs were completely unnecessary cosmetics (dumb shit like chef costumes) and I ensured that RDR2 can be installed and played completely offline with no need for any giant patches or MTX grinds

 

[XYZpdq]

Oh yeah there's lots and lots of mind poppingly bad shit ass 8 bit games that aren't even worth laughing at.

 

[KotatsuApe]

Ummm strange nobody has already posted this

Spoiler

but seriously, shitty games have always existed and indie games are in the vast majority made by 1) kids who dick around with unity/rpgmaker/gameguru etc... 2) russian scams making an asset flip to gain a quick buck 3) horny weeabos churning out one VN after another 4) early access (thanks Steam! we really needed the extra cancer!). The main point is that at least back in the day they wouldn't make you pay an extra 60 dollars to unlock content that you already have on your disk

 

[Alwaysrates]

The extent of which I get new video games at this time tend to come from either Chrono.gg or from humble bundle. I might also pick up a game here and there from steam if it is on sale. Most I will spin on a game now a days though is 20 dollars on certain games. I have no issues waiting for prices to drop. This also gives me a higher likelyhood of getting DLC bundled in.

I am also one of those "Ill pirate a game sometimes to check if it is worth buying" and then I will actually buy it on my next check or ill just uninstall it. I did that with stardew valley and some other games.

 

[Posthumorous]

Anyone with any really serious interest in video games have noticed that, over the last decade, the video game industry has changed quite a bit. Where once it was standard industry practice to sell games to the public that were finished, and did not use the internet as a major component of game play. Times having changed with the increasing accessibility of the internet, and advances in technology have led to the Video Games Industry focusing more on what they call 'Live Services' games. Such as the atrocities of Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Battlefront II, the Diablo Immortal announcement and subsequent backlash, and a multitude of other examples, including the current issues regarding Anthem. Which has actually led to a player boycott.

This isn't even taking into account the explosive storms of autism surrounding Fallout 76, a system so greedy that the price of painting your power-armor blue costs almost $20. The giants of the Video game Industry have switched from creating a creative, complete, cathartic and overall enjoyable product has changed. And their focus is instead on enticing as many players as possible to pay for loot boxes, instead of making a quality product.

With this being stated, and the current outlook of the Industry being more and more anti-consumer in the last several years, are modern titles really needed to enjoy video games? The short answer is, of course not, but it raises an interesting question. What if people stuck with older titles for the foreseeable future? There's no questioning that today's titles are more technologically adept, and advanced than older games, but when you factor in that the older titles are cheaper, already finished, and much more often than not feature no micro-transactions, the trade offs seem a bit more worth it. To me at least.

When looking at titles like Fable 3, Fallout 3, and New Vegas, even these older games have DLCs, and in the case of Fable 3, did feature the Xbox store to purchase clothing, weapons, etc, but this is a moot point given that the service is no longer live, and all content in game can be enjoyed in the current GOTY editions, that cost less than half, or even a third to a sixth the cost of a modern title. I've checked prices, and I could purchase a fully refurbished Xbox 360 E, with a 750 GB of hard-drive space, along with two controllers, a kinect sensor, Fable Anniversary, Fable 2, Fable 3, Fable Journey, Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas for less than $350. A very good deal considering the cost of a modern console is nearly that much, with games two to three years old costing an average $40.

If people stopped paying into the Video Games industry and it's current, half-baked, over-monetized, creatively bankrupt titles, would the loss in revenue force the Industry to pay more attention to it's customers, or would the companies, in the spirit of the Current Year, double down? There are developers who are making some amazing games. Such as CD Projekt Red with Cybepunk2077, Naughty Dog with the Last of Us 2, and Obsidian with their new IP The Outer Worlds. But these companies are few in an ocean of corporate focused games with little spirit, if any, to them.

What are your thoughts? Is it better to play the multitude of older titles, or do you prefer the newest, most advanced games out there? Do you feel gamers have been too harsh against the likes of EA, Bethesda, Bioware, etc? Do you think these companies will ever change, or just continue on their current path? Or is this thread just the autisitc ramblings of some exceptional individual on an internet forum? Probably the latter, tbh.

Newfag here, and not voting. But it's for a reason. It honestly depends. Although I don't take issue with some microtransactions, the fact that the old farts in charge of many of the AAA publishers like to rape the ever loving shit out of their games with it. While I do agree a lot of AAA games are fucking garbage on account of the publishers about half of the time, there are some modern games out there I am still looking forward to playing.

Speaking of which... any of y'all hang out in any Discord servers to chat about shitty video games you like?

 

[bigrigger]

I play maybe 5-6 new titles per year and the rest are old games, I feel like graphics have plateaued this generation so it makes sense to just stay a full cycle behind and live like a peasant cause you aren't missing much by paying 60 dollars per new release of sub par shit when you could pick up a ps2/wii/etc for the price of one game and mod it.

 

[Bluey]

Modern and AAA games feel empty and over hyped. There will be shills defending them. 98% of modern games are too easy or act like the player is stupid.

I prefer Indie games or collection title games like the SNK 40th Anniversy.

 

[TowinKarz]

The quality of games isn't the issue, it's the predominant sales model becoming one of reinventing "insert coin to continue" that nobody in the gaming community asked for.

And that article fails to take into account that "old titles" for me are mid 90's FPS' that I can buy for $8 a pop on Steam and enjoy far more fun-per-buck, there's 30 years of available titles out there, including arcade machine ports, an old timer like me that grew up feeding cabinet machines and being perplexed the original NES had TWO buttons on the controller can just say "Fuck it" and spend their entire life with a cheap library of games they like that have long since become so cheap as to almost be public-domain.

 

[Billy_Sama]

I think the last console generation that was worth it was the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube (I'll lump Dreamcast) era. You can have a wide arrange of titles from big blockbuster games to nice budget software and companies haven't total adopted the practice of piecemealing content for microtransactions since they were focusing on a complete package product for a physical release. Don't get me wrong that there are some great games for the new generations and new good advancements like better processing technology and downloadable addons free or worth the money, just that back than you didn't the AAA industrial complex didn't full set in to become the disease we have today.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

The PS2 and PS3 are still a blast, and because they got jailbroken/softmodded years ago it's really easy to pick up tons of classic games without having to deal with discs (especially on PS2, where all you need is a memory card with Free McBoot and a crossover cable to your PC)

My son loves playing the Burnout games on PS2 - the graphics and gameplay are still impressive

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

At this point, all I believe in are $15-30 indie games and remasters. Haven't gotten a AAA game in years; been doing fine.