The amount of sequels is ridiculous. A few years ago(09? Maybe 2010? I don't recall correctly) almost every top-of-the-line game was a sequel. That's crazy. Originality is hard to come by. Now, granted, companies are going to to release games that they know will sell, but come on now. Even Indie games, which I once thought were the saving grace of this gaming era, are subject to this. "Okay guys, let's all make Tower Defence games/ Minecraft variants/ Roguelikes!"

As for E3, not every year can be amazing. The anticipation comes from the hope that it will be one of those years that everyone remembers.

Japan has always been an isolated nation, so it doesn't surprise me that they only think to please their local costumers.

Nintendo thinks for itself. As a result, when new tech is available, they won't use it. That's been the case since the N64. Before that, they were innovators. They still are, but not in the same way.

Sony has a reputation for making the best entertainment devices. And so their prices are consistently steep.

I think I've given my opinion on everything there. And yes, taking it all into account, it does seem that the industry is losing its touch. But even then, every so often, we get something amazing out of it. So I'm not complaining until the occasional amazings stop coming.

...

I thought the Wii U, PS3 and Halo 4 stuff looked awesome...

But then I feel obliged to reference that one crappy Spiderman quote,
'With great power, (technology) comes great responsibility. (developers only focussing on graphics and technological developments rather than other stuff, like taking risks with games, the lack of which leading to endless sequels)'

I am okay with sequels as long as the amount of sequels is less than four.

I think western games need more creativity and more flair. Storylines are typically bland or linear, and too many games are about some badass guy who kills everything, or some derivative of that idea. Just because you are making western games does not prohibit having heavily written storylines and diverse character traits. Western RPGs commonly exhibit huge ass worlds but only decent gameplay (skyrim is fun because of its expansiveness, but is the fighting really all that great? Not really. Mash R and change weapons occasionally or use magic)

Both western and japanese games adapt to a strict format, which are completely different, but both good in their own ways. The problem is that they barely intermingle, and if they did they could get the best of the both worlds. Where does one see this happen? Well, take a look at retro studios.

OH MY GOD. Yes. I am a fanboy.

Metroid Prime games are insane. They take western skill and graphics design, and put it together with environment and story rooted in Japanese development. Look at the games, they are all insane.

This is when you get a developer that puts together both worlds so well, you get amazing games. Retro is the perfect example of that.

A lot of game companies get stuck on the whole "If something works why change it" mentality... But if they keep doing the same thing over and over, is it really still working?

even with retro as good as the Prime series has been will it continue to be so?

no, thats why they stopped making prime, the trilogy is done

I believe that the reason for companies not giving two shits about their communities are the fanboys. When they make mistakes and release buggy games or sequels of games that are the same as the previous ones (yes CoD I am talking about you) and the majority of the gaming community will go out and buy them because they are fans of the franchise and then they will praise it when someone else trashes their precious games , the companies simply will not care about the consumers that think before buying something.

About the E3 thing , I believe that the games that they didn't show gameplay of , or anything specific at all actually , will most probably suck. They don't want to show actual gameplay footage to the public , because if it turns out to be disliked , even the fanboys might not buy it.

Capcom is the worst company ever by the way. They make some really good games... But they dont care about their community at all. They just try to exploit every single possibility so they can make more money. Take Capcom vs marvel 3 for example. It lacked many features that would be normally there for a fighting game. Do they patch it and fix any problems players had? NOPE! They release ULTIMATE Capcom vs marvel 3 with 4 new characters , still lacking many features , and for a full price as well. Not an expansion , a full price.

In my opinion game developers are getting better, if you look at reviews from a few years ago you would only have a couple of good games, but now it seems that there are a lot of good games.

Quentin wrote:

In my opinion game developers are getting better, if you look at reviews from a few years ago you would only have a couple of good games, but now it seems that there are a lot of good games.

Reviews get better maybe, but when a game gets a 7 out of 10 and is considered horrible, we have a problem. You might say that reviews have undergone inflation. A 7 out of 10 is above average in most media, but for games, it's below average. Looking back at games from a few years ago, even as close as 2008, a game that received an 8 out of 10 was above average. Now you need a 9 or 10 to be above average. Give it a few years, and every game will receive a perfect score.

My point is that reviews are faulty. The scores are getting higher, but the quality of games and originality isn't. So even if the you have more games getting better reviews, can you honestly say that you've played any games this year that completely blew every older game you've played out of the water?

P.S. I personally think that reviewers are being bribed. Remember that little leak about Bungie's new game? The one that says "If the game recieves a 90% average in reviews, you'll all get a bonus"? Tell me that's not a good motivation for bribery.

personally i typically avoid games that get less than 7.5 for a review score, but not if they are japanese in origin because western websites are biased as **** against japanese products these days

Vortiene wrote:

personally i typically avoid games that get less than 7.5 for a review score, but not if they are japanese in origin because western websites are biased as **** against japanese products these days

*cough tri Cough*

Ultimate Jaggi wrote:

Vortiene wrote:

personally i typically avoid games that get less than 7.5 for a review score, but not if they are japanese in origin because western websites are biased as **** against japanese products these days

*cough tri Cough*

Tri isn't even the worst of it. Look at some of the older games. It makes you wonder if they even played them.

Ummm, Tri got high scores almost all around...

Review scores
Publication Score
Eurogamer 9/10
Famitsu 40/40
IGN 8.8/10
Nintendo Power 9/10
IGN UK 9.3/10
GamingUnion.net 9.0

And the sales for it were quite good as well.



For Japan:

Shipped 1 million units on launch day.
Sold 520,000 copies in its first day.
Sold 720,000 copies in its 2nd week.

Sold 915,000 copies total by October 4, 2009.
Ranked 3rd in Amazon Japan's top sellers of 2009.
Ranked 8th in Famitsu's Top 2009 Sales at 968,033 copies sold.
Monster Hunter Tri ranked 12th in Dengeki's "Most Interesting Game of 2009" survey.


For the US and EU:

(Capcom never confirmed the # of copies shiped to the US and EU areas)

110,897 copies (US) sold in its first week.
73,099 copies (EU) sold in its first week.
690,000 sales (US & EU combined) as of July 30, 2010.
1,800,000 sales (worldwide) as of July 30, 2010.






Though Technically I guess this would be another example of developers/companies not listening to the game. The reviews for MHtri were actually quite good and the Based on what is know the sales compared to the amount of copies actually shipped to the west were good as well. But as you know Capcom (not Nintendo) considered the game a flop.

Though this seems to be a trand with many games. A lot of companies hold some games to a higher standerd than others and continue to produce the same game over and over while the Seemingly more popular ones or more inovative ones get lost in the shuffle and seen as to much of a risk.



Question though? Have gamers also become complacent? Do many of us just accept what we are given without exception or question as it is safe and comfortable to us and it is better to continue with something we know and understand than to take a risk on something new or to lear a new, unfimiliar game?

You can see why Capcom are hesitant I guess.

^ because the game sold well and got good ratings? Yes that would make me not want to make more hit games as well...

I think I may misunderstand what you mean. (also I edited my post while you were responding.)

Gameinformer gave tri a 7

^ so one out of how many? And their main complaint was due to no lock on feature.


back to the other question:

Have gamers also become complacent? Do many of us just accept what we are given without exception or question as it is safe and comfortable to us and it is better to continue with something we know and understand than to take a risk on something new or to lear a new, unfimiliar game?

^As I said , fanboys do. But also other people as well. A friend of mine , was whining about that whole Mass effect 3 thing and he was saying how they were just money-grabbing and that it sucked... And then he pre-ordered it....

I believe that also there is a problem with the demos... I mean take MHFU for example. The demo is a hypnocatrice. A high rank monster. When I first played it , hated it because I couldnt understand what was going on. Other games dont have good demos as well... That leads the player either to buy something without trying it out at first and then whining about it on the internet or pirating it.


About the review stuff that was said earlier. Most of the reviewers are specialized in one aspect. So when their bosses say : "Hey review *putgamenamehere*" and the reviewer has no idea what the game is all about and he hasn't played anything like it before... he won't give it much thought. Again , for MHFU. It took me more than 15 hours to realise how much I liked the game and more than 50 to get good at it. Most games end at 15 hours. A reviewer won't sit through those 15 hours. He will pick it up , play for 2 or 3 hours max and then drop it and say "it's good , playable, but nah , 6/10" and then look it up on google and find some well known stuff about it and put it on his review. I'm pretty sure that most people that reviewed mhfu when it came out didn't realise that you could play with 3 other people because it is too complex to connect the psp to ad-hoc....
Don't trust written reviews. if you want to get an opinion on games watch a let's play or a video review , showing a big portion of the game.

dcj91x wrote:

^ so one out of how many? And their main complaint was due to no lock on feature.


back to the other question:

Have gamers also become complacent? Do many of us just accept what we are given without exception or question as it is safe and comfortable to us and it is better to continue with something we know and understand than to take a risk on something new or to lear a new, unfimiliar game?

Most people I know irl are like this?

A new game comes out or something and its a really good game, let's say. It's not thwer type of style though. But then the new CoD comes out and thats all they want to play. It's familiar to them. They don't care that its pretty much the same game over and over; its familiar to them, so they love playing it.

I think a lot of this has to do with Devs making their games as accessible as possible.
A while back in the land of FPSville, a good player would absolutely wreck a worse player. A person who knew the game well and put the time in to get better would be rewarded to a greater extent. But look at FPSes now, everyone and their uncle's dad's Neice's dog's food bowl's pet rock plays CoD because it has been made so much more accessible through perks, killstreaks, radar, instant-respawn and whatnot. Where a great player would truly be great before, he's now only a decent player compared a bad player, simply because he wasn't using a silencer, or because the other guy flinched and accidentaly hit the knife button.

Games are slowly becoming more accessible because it lets the people who wouldn't normally play video games be king for a day. If they couldn't do well, they'd get fed up and stop playing because they're getting roflstomped by someone more experienced. If people don't want to play because they got roflstomped, that means less sales. Less sales means less monay. Less monay means less incentive to develop a great game that feels truly rewarding for doing well or overcoming a difficult challenge, and more incentive to create something decent enough that can give you instant skill through one or two game mechanics that take little or no effort to master because it will sell well.

On the subject of a game being "Familiar or unfamiliar", it makes no difference to me. Hell, if I was afraid of trying out new styles of games and becoming better at said games, I wouldn't be a member of this forum.

I really think you guys should watch this, he has some good points
part 1

Spoiler:

part 2

Spoiler:

part 3

Spoiler:

So in other words.. quit buying every game that comes along and only buy games that are really worth getting.. No multiple call of duties until a new one comes out that is really worth getting, no more street fighter games (because lets face it none of those are new.) and quit giving into gimicks...

Sounds good to me...

But i do feel that some of what was said in the video was flawed...

every so often. Not always there are games that do come along that are original and that the companies did take a risk on in making. Maybe those (and not their multiple clones) should be the ones that are supported more. Try something new each time it comes out that way developers are willing to try something new as well?

dcj91x wrote:

So in other words.. quit buying every game that comes along and only buy games that are really worth getting.. No multiple call of duties until a new one comes out that is really worth getting, no more street fighter games (because lets face it none of those are new.) and quit giving into gimicks...

Sounds good to me...

But i do feel that some of what was said in the video was flawed...

every so often. Not always there are games that do come along that are original and that the companies did take a risk on in making. Maybe those (and not their multiple clones) should be the ones that are supported more. Try something new each time it comes out that way developers are willing to try something new as well?

I have never bought call of duty

cept before it became all commercialized, I think i played call of duty 1, and call of duty Big Red One on gamecube. That's when they were still single player story modes only. They were pretty good for illustrating events in WWII and weren't as stupid as they are now. I really cant stand the "everything is made of cement" appearance of call of duty...

^^ I said the games were dull in both gameplay and graphics long before it became popular as it is now.

In all honesty, I think games are too realistic now. Or at least too serious. This dull, depressing, "realistic" approach is not fun. That's part of why I like Nintendo. Even Metroid Prime 2, by far one of their darkest games, had some color and brightness to it.

speaking of nintendo having good ideas:

TALES SERIES DIRECTOR x PROJECT SORA FOR SMASH BROS DEV TEAM

oh my yes.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/06/22/namco-bandai-developing-next-smash-bros