Why I'm a Retro Gamer - from Racket himself

[AppleQueso]

Just gonna jump around a bunch here

Angry Birds is a simple, single screen game. There's no way you can compare it to a proper video game. It might be well designed, but I will never respect it the same way I respect the mature, intelligent writing of Planescape: Torment, the freedom of GTA: San Andreas, the symbolism of Silent Hill 2, the athmosphere of Portal, the lore and the size of World of Warcraft or the sheer brilliance of System Shock. It's a slap in the face for the developers of those "proper" games to speak of them in the same sentence with a game like Angry Birds.

Practically the entire golden age era of arcade games aren't "proper" games now? What the fuck?

There aren't any popular new western RPGs like Fallout 1/2, Arcanum and Icewind Dale, it's all 3D now, like the new Fallout games.

Who cares about graphical style? I fail to see how being 2D and isometric lends to a drastically different gameplay experience than rendering models.

And who will buy these niche games if they're only available in digital form? People who are intentionally trying to find out niche stuff. Your average casual gamer wont be able to make an impulse purchase at the game store. The games that have the potential to become surprisingly big thanks to word to mouth advertising never do because only a bunch of hardcore gamers bought the game. It's like music (or movies), unless you're intentionally searching for something in particular, you wont stumble across anything unique or awesome if you only stick with the TOP 40 list. Only people who are really into the stuff know about all the hidden gems, average consumer has a very narrow and ignorant view because the market is not diverse enough, so they wont get exposed to any cool stuff.

I know from personal experience that as a kid I stumbled across some really weird and awesome games by accident thanks to the fact that more niche games were available in physical format.

Are you seriously suggesting that you can't impulse buy a DL only game? It's very easy to just browse through the PSN store and drop down $10 on a random game simply because it looks interesting, Impulse buys on DL titles are arguably even easier now than they were with only physical copies!

I'm sorry but it sounds to me like you're just repeatedly narrowing your criteria to try and make your point. "No that doesn't count it's based on a pre-existing IP." "No that doesn't count it's a download title", etc.

[Violent By Design]

Also, I am pretty sure Angry Birds has made much bigger profits than Madden has, so I find it strange that someone implied that Angry Birds is some how the lesser game.

Angry Birds is a simple, single screen game. There's no way you can compare it to a proper video game. It might be well designed, but I will never respect it the same way I respect the mature, intelligent writing of Planescape: Torment, the freedom of GTA: San Andreas, the symbolism of Silent Hill 2, the athmosphere of Portal, the lore and the size of World of Warcraft or the sheer brilliance of System Shock. It's a slap in the face for the developers of those "proper" games to speak of them in the same sentence with a game like Angry Birds.

I'm sorry, but your point is going all over the place. Now gameplay doesn't matter, only scale and scope? So Ms.Pac-Man, Tetris and Donkey Kong shouldn't be mentioned as real games because you can't walk around a virtual city? You're essentially using a relic type of argument, yet a few post ago you were asking where are Shoot em Ups and Beat Em Ups. I could make an ignorant statement claiming that those are not "real games" because of their crappy production values and their lack of plot.

What I meant was that in the late 1990s/2000-2003 story based RPGs like Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout 2 were isometric (but there was also 3D RPGs). Nowadays all the story based RPGs are 3D. You don't play a tactical/strategy RPG for the same reasons you play a "regular" story based RPG, so the fact that some strategy RPGs still use isometric view does not matter. SRPGs are the kind of games you play when you want to stimulate your mind in the same manner you do when you play chess, while you play a game like Baldur's Gate (or Mass Effect) to explore an epic storyline, so they're two different types of RPGs. Although unlike ME, BG is still good even if you're no intrested in storyline.

Tthat is a really semantic complaint. Isometric RPG is not a genre, it is just an art preference. I am pretty sure there are isometric RPGs as well, just none of them are very famous since they are handheld.

"stimulate your mind in the same manner when you play chess" - I'm sorry, but this point really makes no sense in the slightest. None of those games you mentioned play anything like chess, and being isometric does not make the game require more strategy or even affects the gameplay at all necessarily. Ironically, strategy RPGs are more similar to chess. The Mass Effect thing where you said it can be fun even if you do not like the plot holds little weight as well, games like Mass Effect, Fall Out 3 and what not have in-depth action elements, so you do not have to be engulfed int he plot to have fun. To be honest, Baldurs Gate has a lot in common with the games that you are claiming to be a different genre.




1) The respect from whom exactly?[/quote]

See my first paragraph

So respect just from you?

Ok, retail release.

Why does this matter? You still haven't fleshed this point out.

Team Fortress 2, Dota2 (yes, I know it is Beta only but there are talks of it not having a physical release anyway), League of Legends - all download only and those games are huge. They represent today's gaming culture just as much as Call of Duty does.

Except that Call of Duty does not have a creative fanbase

Hm? I didn't say anything that implied COD's fanbase was creative in that paragraph. Didn't even mention creativity (why is creativity even relevant, again the discussion is basically branching off into everything you hate about the industry, rather than your original point).

Team Fortress 2 comes in physical form with Orange Box, that's how every one got it (and Portal) in the first place.

Come on now. This is getting a little silly.

First off, way, way, way, way more people have TF2 via digital download then buying off the Orange Box. TF2 and Portal are legitimately popular because they're good games, not because they were add ons to Half Life 2. These points are becoming ridiculously semantic. You're really telling me that because technically TF2 has a hard copy release in SOME FORM, that it is totally off limits when mentioning the power and relevance of digital downloads?

Out of curiosity, since you have turned this discussion into something much larger than your original point, what exactly is your point?

I don't see how LA Noire or Heavy Rain can be action adventure (there are hardly any action elements).

Apart from those gun and fist fights and car chases you mean?[/quote]They are not the core elements of the games. More like minigames for the most part, you can't tell me that those games play something like Metroid, Prince of Persia or like Zelda. LA Noire and Heavy Rain are considered to be "movie games" even by casual audiences, they are certainly closer to traditional adventure than to action adventure.

That list is really weird, considering it lists Portal 2 as an adventure game. Adventure games have traditionally been considered to be games like King's Quest, Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry, Discworld, Myst and so on.

Because it has Portal on the list, the other games they mentioned are void?

Sonic Generations is one of my all time favorite platformer games. I'm not dismissing it, I'm saying that just because there are Mario and Sonic 3D platformers does not mean that the 3D platformer genre is doing as good as it did during the PS1 or PS2 era.

I said that all the genres are represented and the current generation is the most diverse generation (I still have yet to see someone mention another generation that is more diverse when it comes to genres). Where on earth did I say that there are more 3D platformers for the PS3/360 than there are for older gens? I never claimed that the current gen is the end all to be all in every genre, just that there is representation for nearly all genres. I cited not only titles, but they are Triple A titles, you dismissed them because they are part of an established franchise. But in doing that, you're actually going away from your original point, and the core of how our debate sparked.

To be perfectly honest, if there were just as many made as there were during those gens, people would complain about the market being over saturated. Some genres are more trendy than others and come around in cycles. Considering how popular open world games are, I don't think 3D platformers are going to be on the endangered species any time soon.

In less you're going to only cite games that have Bunny hopping and rocket jumping as fast past games.

Yup. Even compared to Doom, the characters in most modern FPS games run slow as hell even while sprinting.

FPS are not called fast pace by judging the rate of how fast a fictional character is moving. There is more to gameplay mechanics than the walking and jumping speed. COD you spawn near your opponents, you have guns that shred the other person's character, and deathmatch is usually the main objective of the game. Those make for fast pace elements. COD movement is not even that slow from what I remember. Aside from that, TF2 and Tribes certainly fit the bill, there is also Natural Selection 2 which just came out.

[noiseredux]

Are you seriously suggesting that you can't impulse buy a DL only game? It's very easy to just browse through the PSN store and drop down $10 on a random game simply because it looks interesting, Impulse buys on DL titles are arguably even easier now than they were with only physical copies!

Ugh totally. There's nothing worse than having a few drinks on a Friday night and being like "oh man I wish I had something new to play!" and waking up Saturday morning to find you've bought a bunch of new digital games haha.

[Erik_Twice]

Hey, guys, I heard whoever uses more quotes wins the argument!

[Menegrothx]

Practically the entire golden age era of arcade games aren't "proper" games now? What the fuck?

Are you acting stupid on purporse? Golden era games were made during late 1970s and early 1980s. An atari 2600 cartridge has 4kb of memory. You cant judge games made under those circumstances by modern standards. If you compare those golden age arcade games with mid/late 1980s cosole and computer games, it's quite clear which has more substance. I seriously doubt that a game like Pacman, Space Invaders or Joust can you keep you entertained as long as a game like The Legend of Zelda, Ultima IV or Mega Man 2. That does not mean that those arcade games wouldn't be influental or that they're poorly designed, they are just very one dimensional compared to something like LOZ, U-IV/V, Phantasy Star or Wasteland.

Who cares about graphical style? I fail to see how being 2D and isometric lends to a drastically different gameplay experience than rendering models.

If you don't see any difference in gameplay between Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect 2, then I don't know what to say

I'm sorry but it sounds to me like you're just repeatedly narrowing your criteria to try and make your point. "No that doesn't count it's based on a pre-existing IP." "No that doesn't count it's a download title", etc.

I've already explained why pre-existing IPs and downloadable games don't count. If I rephrase my argument "There is a lot less diversity in the physical market these days", would you be satisfied? You can make an indie game out of what ever you like and publish it online. That is way different than getting publisher to fund you and having your "unordinary" game being sold in stores. If industry veterans like Tim Schafer cant get money from publishers (a very small budget, mind you) because according to them "it is impossible to sell adventure games/insert genre here" in today's market then there clearly is a huge problem in today's physical/retail market.

When Metal Jesus interviewd Al Lowe, he (Al) stated "back then you couldn't sell a game if there already was a game like that out there. Now you cant sell a game if there already isn't another game like that" or something along those lines

Tthat is a really semantic complaint. Isometric RPG is not a genre, it is just an art preference.

It's not an art preference when it affects the level of depth gameplay mechanics have. In other words Skyrim is dumbed down, infinity engine games aren't. Is it possible to make a 3D RPG with real time combat that has as much gameplay depth as isometric RPG? Surely, you could say that MMORPGs have done it (EVE, World of Warcraft's high end PvE and arena exceed just about any traditional RPG in that regard) already. But at the moment being there really aren't any single player games like that out there.

Chris Avellone in a 1 UP interview

1UP: Does an isometric perspective open up opportunities to do things that would be impossible or less effective in a first person or over-the-shoulder RPG?
Party-based combat, for certain. 3rd person and 1st person don't tend to allow for a lot of companions (trying to govern 5 people plus your PC in a 3rd or 1st person game usually means letting their AI run as it will). Also, the controller scheme for a console game doesn't tend to allow for it, either.

In the Infinity Engine games, you were able to guide and select a party to attack creatures and threats, and having that level of up-high-in-the-sky control and sense of tactics created for much different RPG fights and reminds me more of a pen-and-paper gaming session with tabletop miniatures.

None of those games you mentioned play anything like chess, and being isometric does not make the game require more strategy or even affects the gameplay at all necessarily. Ironically, strategy RPGs are more similar to chess.

Are you misunderstanding me on purporse? That's exactly what I'm saying FFS

Strategy RPGs still use isometric view because they are strategy games. Mainstream RPGs got rid the isometric perspective and became 3D to have a wider mass appeal. A strategy game is nothing if you remove the strategy aspect, while a story based RPG still has it's story even if you remove the strategy aspect. Therefore it's not a surprise that strategy RPGs still use isometric view. There aren't any isometric mainstream RPGs like Fallout, BG and PS:T anymore that focus on the story, characters and athmosphere. Strategy RPGs only focus on strategy while generally ignoring everything else, so if you'd like those chess like strategic battles but also a well written storyline and characters then you're out of luck since there aren't any games like that out there anymore.

Hm? I didn't say anything that implied COD's fanbase was creative in that paragraph. Didn't even mention creativity (why is creativity even relevant, again the discussion is basically branching off into everything you hate about the industry, rather than your original point).

Why are you paying attention to irrelevant things? You said that TF2 represents today's gaming culture just as much as COD does. I didn't try to deny that fact, I just said that difference between the two fanbases is that COD fans aren't creative like TF2 fans. If there's a "counter culture" to the COD cancer that is just as big, then surely it's a good thing? That means things aren't that bad after all. I guess I shouldn't attempt to give any merit to today's gaming culture at all then.

First off, way, way, way, way more people have TF2 via digital download then buying off the Orange Box. TF2 and Portal are legitimately popular because they're good games, not because they were add ons to Half Life 2.

I never said that TF2 or Portal are bad, Portal is one of my favorite games. Back in 2007 people bought Orange Box for one reason: Half Life 2 Episode 2. There's a huge number of fans who wanted to see how the Half Life story line continues. Not nearly as many people would've discovered Portal if it wasn't for the fact that it came free with the purchase of HL2E2. TF2 didn't become free to play untill 2011.

I know I would've never even heard about Portal if it hadn't been for Orange Box. Even wikipedia states the following

Portal was first released as part of The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007,[3][4] and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007.[7] The Windows version of the game is also available for download separately through Valve's content delivery system Steam[2] and was released as a standalone retail product on April 9, 2008.[9] In addition to Portal, the Box also included Half-Life 2 and its two add-on episodes, as well as Team Fortress 2. Portal's inclusion within the Box was considered an experiment by Valve; having no idea of the success of Portal, the Box provided it a "safety net" via means of these other games. Portal was kept to a modest length in case the game did not go over well with players.[34]

Out of curiosity, since you have turned this discussion into something much larger than your original point, what exactly is your point?

A situation where gaming is divided in to two groups, "retail games with high production values and zero originality" and "downloadable indie games that are (severely) limited but original and innovative" sucks, I miss that happy medium.

When things go download only, many Racketboy members will simply stop buying new games.

Because it has Portal on the list, the other games they mentioned are void?

I dont see why a list of adventure games should include a first person puzzle platform game in it.

I still have yet to see someone mention another generation that is more diverse when it comes to genres

PS1 release - the death of Dreamcast. You could probably cut a few years and say 1997-2001 and the statement would still be true.

FPS are not called fast pace by judging the rate of how fast a fictional character is moving. There is more to gameplay mechanics than the walking and jumping speed. COD you spawn near your opponents, you have guns that shred the other person's character, and deathmatch is usually the main objective of the game. Those make for fast pace elements.

Slow pace=America's Army
Normal pace=Counter Strike
Fast pace=Quake

It's true that maps are relatively small and players spawn quite near to each other in COD, but the gameplay is far from frantic most of the time.

[noiseredux]

I seriously doubt that a game like Pacman, Space Invaders or Joust can you keep you entertained as long as a game like The Legend of Zelda, Ultima IV or Mega Man 2.

^you know what forum you're on, right?

[Menegrothx]

I seriously doubt that a game like Pacman, Space Invaders or Joust can you keep you entertained as long as a game like The Legend of Zelda, Ultima IV or Mega Man 2.

^you know what forum you're on, right?

Yup. This has nothing to do with age, graphics or even sheer amount of content. Legend of Zelda, Ultima IV and Mega Man 2 are superioir to just about any modern game you'd find in a game store right now even if technically speaking the latter have more content, more dialogue and so on.

There's just simply so more much more to Mega Man 3 or Ultima V than there is to Pong, Asteroids or Yar's Revenge. On the other hand there's not that much difference if you compare Mega Man 3 or Ultima V to a modern 2D platformer/RPG.

[noiseredux]

have you ever actually spent any serious time playing Yar's Revenge? That's one of the deepest 4kb of gameplay to wrap your brain around, guy. Maybe you don't get as much enjoyment out of it as Mega Man 2, but that's opinion, not fact. And I'm sure there's just as many folks here who would prefer to spend their hours on Yars as there are who would opt for MM2.

[Menegrothx]

It's one of my favorite 2600 games. Whether it's a good game or not has nothing to do with the fact that a single screen, single objective game will never have as much substance to it as a huge RPG or platformer like Mega Man with all kinds of different game mehcanics and gimmicks, different stage themes, different tactics for defeating different bosses and so on.
Games like Pacman and KC Munchkin tend to become very repetitive very quickly.

[noiseredux]

the fact that a single screen, single objective game will never have as much substance to it as a huge RPG or platformer like Mega Man

again this is where I disagree.

And again, I find it odd that you use the word "fact" when it is clearly your OPINION. One that I still think many people here would disagree with.

How are you defining "substance?"

Your initial claim was that games like MM2, LOZ, etc can be played for hours while a single screen game is going to get boring quickly. Isn't Galaga a single screen game? Well I've sunk many, many hours into that game. Probably as many as LOZ. Probably more than MM2.

You know there are folks that play Pac-Man for high score. They get to kill screens. They play for many hours and it's not because they want to see how long they can endure a "boring" game.

(I kind of wish YoshiEgg25 would chime in on this conversation...)