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"Ten Years Ago....."

Ten Years ago:

Games were made good because they had the gameplay and lastibility, these two key words charged many games and made them excellent to play and complete in every way shape and form, games like Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt were pure class built on the idea of originality and another key word 'fun'. The games of ten years ago had all the ingrediants of the best games ever. Maybe they didn't have the graphics, but that wasn't important in those days as people didn't know what gaming graphics were going to be like nowadays, every game had something new and fresh to offer and brought all the ideas which games use today.

Seven Years ago:

The best time for gaming was seven years ago, the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive were in the ring beating the hell out of each other with classic after classic, hell there were more classics than bad games, and at this point in time I thought gaming really couldn't get any better, all my best memories come from these two platforms, the games contained something which most current ones don't, and that is 'ideas'. The likes of Super Mario World, Mario Kart, Secret of Mana and Sonic made me believe that gaming was going to get so much better, these games had the simplest yet most pleasing graphics of any game, they weren't to realistic and weren't meant to be, these games were 'THE' games that founded most of our addictions to the gaming world.

Three Years ago:

The end of the millennium, wasn't a pleasing sight for me as a gamer. The games of this period began to drop in quality with only a few managing to impress the world, thousands of games were being produced every year and this ruined gaming. MGS, Mario64, Goldeneye, these few games are the only ones that have actually made me pleased to have let the current consoles deserve a place in my bedroom next to my Super Nintendo and Mega Drive. The developers didn't understand that gaming wasn't about the graphics and how good the game looked, it was about the gameplay, originality, lastibility and ideas they had. Many companies dropped from the industry like swatted flies, many managed to hang in there and keep hold until this day, but one thing is for sure, this period of time, gaming was far from good.

Currently:

Gaming is worse, only a few companies actually decide on making good games, while the others just pump out a game with a lot of publicity and sell it in millions. Black & White was worth the wait, but for many others the wait was worthless. The current situation is that many gamers are deciding on what games to buy, only a few games trickle out of the process that are even worth the money, only a few games even get attention.

Future:

Gaming has had a kick start by the promise of better things in the future, finally the Playstation and Nintendo 64 can be put to rest, finally maybe we will see a new 'Seven Years ago' era, gaming has been said by some to never have 'looked so good', well let me just tell those people that you haven't been around long, have you? I hope that the future is bright, I hope we see less of the churning and more of the making, less of the visual effects and more of the brilliant ideas, although gaming has never been so popular, for me gaming is far from great...

Lets hope the future holds something.
Thanks
er-no

Lastibility is not the most important thing for a game to have, this game to me when I was thinking about all the great games I have played, I mean lets just compare two:

Secret of Mana: This game had a completion time of about thirty five hours if you played it properly and with friends, it is in my opinion one of the best games ever to be released, ever. It was a 'fun' experience for all the seconds, minutes and hours.

Conkers Bad Fur Day: This game can be completed in twelve hours, this is probably about an average time. The game was a superb play from beginning to end, every cut scene and moment made you appreciate the game, this wasn't that long but still made me feel that gaming has still something to deliver.

There you have it, two games from two eras, and although I enjoyed one more than the other I still would say that they both deserve five out of five for lastibility, one needed the lastibility to make it an excellent game, the other didn't need it because it was of a perfect length.

Gaming ahs got progressively worse over the past 10 years. I don't mean worse in the sense that the games are rubbish and that it's not fun anymore. I mean worse in the sense that the developers aren't putting the effort in these days. Why's that then?

Technology is a wonderful thing... or rather it can be. It can either be your greatest allie or your worst enemy. Advances in games engines brought us to where we are today in gaming. To a point where damn near every game has lush graphics, cool sound and above average gameplay. It doesn't have lastability. which is probably the most key thing a game needs. Gameplay and Lastability tie in together. You CAN'T have one without the other or else the game will be rubbish.

Nowadays, developers can chuck together a great looking game that has damn near everything. Fit girls, gameplay more addictive than roast chicken flavour crisps and more lastability than Annebel Chong. So what's the problem? I hear you ask. The problem is that these games are great but developers arenb't going that extra little bit to make an amazing game from a great one.

Look at it like this. The games market is filled to the brim with great games. It's basically saturated. What it doesn't have many of though, is amazing games. Games that give gaming a new definition. That take it to the next level. Basically supply and demand and the ability to put together a great game relatively easily has reduced (If you like) the games market to great games, not amazing ones.

What's brought us to this point? Well go back to earlier in the post. Technology. We've become victims of our own... Oh I dunno. Let me put it another way. Technology has been the gaming industry's greatest allie up till now. Now that it's helped us to be able to scramble together flashy grpahics and great gameplay quickly it has turned enemy.

We need to bribe technology back onto our side. We need to work WITH it not against it.

RBS

M16, now you are only mentioning a few great games that you would play from the lest few years, I would prefer to play Street Fighter and Killer Instinct because they both offered more to me than the others, there was the quickness of the games, the great choice of original characters and the game didn't have the graphics, which in my mind makes it a better game for that.

I would rather play a game that had most of the categories correct than only one or two, yes Perfect Dark was a stunner of a game and extremely great, but then there was the fact that it just wasn't like Goldeneye for the fact that Goldeneye was the original, the first time. (the first time :P)

Gaming needs something special in the next year to dig itself out of this hole that its dug itself into it seems to be taking a 'two step forward, one step back' attitude, were for every stunning game we have, we have thirty games that don't serve the material there made on.

Time will tell yes, and I will get annoyed about games not getting any better because five years ago the same promise of better games were placed apon us, and as yet I don't see any change, infact the gaming industry is much alike Labour, broken promises four years ago and still no change.

The pendulem could swong two ways in the next few years, on one side we have the kept promises of the best gaming and entertainment ever, on the other side we have a repeat of broken promises.

I don't see it as a problem for companies to get it back to the way it was, I don't see it as a problem for companies to learn from there mistakes of the past. However companies haven't learnt from mistakes (3DO) and still continue to release jibberish that hardly makes it worth any of the time they spent on it.

Gaming can never be as good as it was ten years ago, on the simple fact that gaming was always going to be original ten years ago, now we are just left with the ever familar blend of normal game after average game after rubbish game.

Its now a good time for change, hopefully the GameBoy Advance will bring back a sweet new line of originality, hopefully we can see something different....but the again.... hopefully is a hopeful word.

Give that man a GAD!!

I too look back on my past console and of proud of my pruchase but i am not sure if I will inm the future.

Joby: Exactly!

Nice post dan!

ThE DeViL wrote:
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Is that meant to be the devil or a buffalo? :P
Thanks for the compliment.

It all depends on your taste of games.

Personally I would prefer to play Tekken Tag than Street Fighter, as I feel Tekken suits me more, not just because of the graphics but there are a more variety of moves and combos.
I can understand where you are coming from because games that came out 10 year ago didn’t just depend on graphics to please people because they concentrated very hard on making the game fun to play, and to try and make you happy that you bought the game.

I look back at gaming and I am generally really pleased with it, especially with the Mega Drive because in my opinion that was my best console that I have ever owned, and trust me I have owned a few in my time. I just enjoyed playing it so much, I didn’t buy a game because someone said that it was good in a review in a magazine, I just went ahead and tried it out myself, that way I would honestly say to others if I thought the game was good or not.

As I was so young back then, I can’t remember every single game I had for it, but I remember what the games were like. Although it was impossible for them to have the graphics that we have today, I can still remember them as being good.
Good meaning that they were enough to show of the gameplay that it had to offer for it and that is what made the console very special to me.

It is very pleasurable to just look back at the gaming years, thinking of the hours of fun you had, both on your own and with your mates. Remember when you thrashed you mate 10-0 on Fifa 95? Remember beating him on a race between Sonic and Knuckles on Sonic 2? Yes, those were the good days, weren’t they?

Still, I am sure that when I look back in ten year time to today, I will think how much fun I had playing Goldeneye with my mates and spending quality time with my Nintendo 64. I will also remember the great discussions I had with gamers on the Internet, I am sure I will treasure these days in time to come.

Going back to the days of the Mega Drive again, I also realise that I bought a games console because I thought that *I* would enjoy playing it, not because I know that all my mates love it and I would be seen as “cool” if I had one. Today, although I often don’t admit it to myself, I would buy a game if everyone is saying how good it is, even if I don’t like the look of it. Cool me mad, but that is the way I am.

Nevermind though, as I enjoy playing games today so much, and as today was a miserable Sunday, I decided to give Perfect Dark a quick blast, which turned out to be a “quick blast” lasting 4 hours, now that is gaming at it’s best! It makes you happy in so many different ways.

So, I will not be ashamed of playing a game that was 10 years old as long as I had fun doing it. Okay the graphics wouldn’t be fantastic but as the gameplay was good, I doubt if I would notice. I think what made me think tat the Mega Drive was such a great console was because the games were new and original, most probably because the gaming world was at an early stage, one that had plenty of new idea’s to explore. Today, we have come to an end of new original ideas, also we will surely come to a halt when we find that we can not make graphics get any better than they already are. I will not mind that because I know that companies will have to re-treat back to thinking up new, gripping, exciting, thrilling, twisty, funny, serious, funny, scary, sad story lines that really get us rapped up in games. So let’s not fret about games not being not as good as they used to, who knows maybe games getting worse will lead to them getting better? Only time will tell…

Here is the post that deserves todays GAD. I wont blab on but all I can say is well done er-no and thanks for making my day with a good post.

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