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These days for games to sell, usually they have to be based on a good gaming genre that people know, and will play. This though sometimes leads to boring games coming out one after another, there is no other better example than the Tomb Raider series. The first 2 were good but then they just got repertive and very boring. gladly though, people are starting to see through these selling gimicks and stay well clear of below the mark games.
One good thing that has come of this is that developers are now really thinking of what they can do to make a top quality game. Alot of them are going for multiple genres in there games. Such as, in an adventure game where running around exploring and finding puzzles, may now include vehicles to use, stealth type gaming and many other features. The later tomb raider games tried this, which obviously sold them games, but for many people this was not enough.
A clear great example of using many gaming genres in a game is Operation Flashpoint. Here there are 4 types of genre:
1.First Person
2.3rd Person
3.Car sim
4.Flight Sim
This means that there is a more vast choice of what to do. Maybe in the game the car/flight sim may not be very close to the top sims that are available, but the game clearly shows what future games are becoming like.
Hope fully this game will lead the way into the future of gaming types, and developers will catch on, giving us more enjoyable, and more variety of things to do.
One good thing that has come of this is that developers are now really thinking of what they can do to make a top quality game. Alot of them are going for multiple genres in there games. Such as, in an adventure game where running around exploring and finding puzzles, may now include vehicles to use, stealth type gaming and many other features. The later tomb raider games tried this, which obviously sold them games, but for many people this was not enough.
A clear great example of using many gaming genres in a game is Operation Flashpoint. Here there are 4 types of genre:
1.First Person
2.3rd Person
3.Car sim
4.Flight Sim
This means that there is a more vast choice of what to do. Maybe in the game the car/flight sim may not be very close to the top sims that are available, but the game clearly shows what future games are becoming like.
Hope fully this game will lead the way into the future of gaming types, and developers will catch on, giving us more enjoyable, and more variety of things to do.
The problem is, developers seem to be realising this fact much too late...previous versions of Counter-Strike had vehicles thrown in as an extra, and they were very poor. For a game to really excel, it needs more planning than a few weeks tacked on to the end of a project to try and make the game seem more innovative.
Take a first person shooter, for example. The developers have a relatively good game, nothing overly original, but a solid game drawing on the best parts of lots of other action titles. They think it's a good title when put against the others on the market in the same genre (call it "mindless FPS action games") and are polishing some of the gameplay glitches a few weeks before release, when the publishers look at it and realise that there's nothing in there that hasn't been done elsewhere, and so they'll drop support if the developers don't do something about it.
As the developer, what do you do? Look for support elsewhere? Shove it a botched extra mode and hope no-one notices? Or try and rush some new aspect in to the game and market it as a new and interesting title with "revolutionary gameplay"..
I'm all for adding innovation to the market - I think that there are some genres looking very tired, other slightly more inspired - but all too often this new "unique feature" seems to be a gimmick to push the game's popularity up. Again, looking at Counter-Strike, the original betas included stationary vehicles that you could use for cover or climb on, but not interact with. Around the time of the first "proper" release, they decided to try making the vehicles more than just props, and threw in some code to make this possible.
They released this new version to the public, and it failed. Not enough thought had been put in to it, there were glitches, cheats...it was removed by the next version (not crushing for CS, as it's a free download anyway, but it could be for other games). It was designed to be a FPS, the gameplay was all focused around tactics and careful aim, and adding in the option to stampede around the map in a tank just didn't work.
Even some games which do have good ideas and planning just don't execute them well. Red Faction's selling point was the ability to modify the area around you, break apart the surroundings and use them to your advantage. In theory, that should add a whole new element to the gameplay, making defences for yourself, blocking enemies, moving around the chunks of wall you removed in order to access something... but it turned in to a simple case of running through tunnels, shooting areas which were marked with bright paint in order to access another area.
Max Payne was slightly gimmicky, it sold itself on the Matrix approach with slow motion and impressive moves, but it pulled it off very well. I couldn't imagine playing through the game without being able to go in to bullet time mode, it made some otherwise impossibly difficult areas much easier, and just looked so damn smart!
If a game is designed from the ground up with these ideas in mind - multiple gameplay modes, new touches simply for showing off, perhaps a more open structure, and choice in how you complete objectives - then it would really stand out. Not a last minute "we need to make this game look special". Not "we'll push the game completely on this one point", and then not use it to its full potential. That's showing signs that developers realise we need something to change. Now, we need someone to execute that idea well.
Is that asking too much? Possibly. The time and effort involved in making such a game would be immense, and people will always find faults, especially in early attempts. However, I can definitely see more cross-genre titles in the future, especially once people see that these need to be planned, each area being given as much time as the next, and not bolting lots of bits together that don't work in the finished product.
One game I did enjoy playing was Codename Eagle...excellent for multiplayer, each team starts in their own base and has to take out the enemy, but you can do it how you like..trek across the terrain on foot with a sniper rifle, grabs a plane and fly some bombing runs, sit back in your base in a gun turret for defence, pick up a tank and storm the enemy lines..it's by no means faultless, but the variety makes it a very enjoyable game - the same thing played on foot only would become very repetitive. Tribes 2 has the right idea too, but I never got on with it really...the vehicle physics all seemed a bit rushed, no real difference - that's the kind of specific that needs improving.
Hm, I only wrote all that to avoid going to bed didn't I.. ah well, I'm tired now anyway..
Take a first person shooter, for example. The developers have a relatively good game, nothing overly original, but a solid game drawing on the best parts of lots of other action titles. They think it's a good title when put against the others on the market in the same genre (call it "mindless FPS action games") and are polishing some of the gameplay glitches a few weeks before release, when the publishers look at it and realise that there's nothing in there that hasn't been done elsewhere, and so they'll drop support if the developers don't do something about it.
As the developer, what do you do? Look for support elsewhere? Shove it a botched extra mode and hope no-one notices? Or try and rush some new aspect in to the game and market it as a new and interesting title with "revolutionary gameplay"..
I'm all for adding innovation to the market - I think that there are some genres looking very tired, other slightly more inspired - but all too often this new "unique feature" seems to be a gimmick to push the game's popularity up. Again, looking at Counter-Strike, the original betas included stationary vehicles that you could use for cover or climb on, but not interact with. Around the time of the first "proper" release, they decided to try making the vehicles more than just props, and threw in some code to make this possible.
They released this new version to the public, and it failed. Not enough thought had been put in to it, there were glitches, cheats...it was removed by the next version (not crushing for CS, as it's a free download anyway, but it could be for other games). It was designed to be a FPS, the gameplay was all focused around tactics and careful aim, and adding in the option to stampede around the map in a tank just didn't work.
Even some games which do have good ideas and planning just don't execute them well. Red Faction's selling point was the ability to modify the area around you, break apart the surroundings and use them to your advantage. In theory, that should add a whole new element to the gameplay, making defences for yourself, blocking enemies, moving around the chunks of wall you removed in order to access something... but it turned in to a simple case of running through tunnels, shooting areas which were marked with bright paint in order to access another area.
Max Payne was slightly gimmicky, it sold itself on the Matrix approach with slow motion and impressive moves, but it pulled it off very well. I couldn't imagine playing through the game without being able to go in to bullet time mode, it made some otherwise impossibly difficult areas much easier, and just looked so damn smart!
If a game is designed from the ground up with these ideas in mind - multiple gameplay modes, new touches simply for showing off, perhaps a more open structure, and choice in how you complete objectives - then it would really stand out. Not a last minute "we need to make this game look special". Not "we'll push the game completely on this one point", and then not use it to its full potential. That's showing signs that developers realise we need something to change. Now, we need someone to execute that idea well.
Is that asking too much? Possibly. The time and effort involved in making such a game would be immense, and people will always find faults, especially in early attempts. However, I can definitely see more cross-genre titles in the future, especially once people see that these need to be planned, each area being given as much time as the next, and not bolting lots of bits together that don't work in the finished product.
One game I did enjoy playing was Codename Eagle...excellent for multiplayer, each team starts in their own base and has to take out the enemy, but you can do it how you like..trek across the terrain on foot with a sniper rifle, grabs a plane and fly some bombing runs, sit back in your base in a gun turret for defence, pick up a tank and storm the enemy lines..it's by no means faultless, but the variety makes it a very enjoyable game - the same thing played on foot only would become very repetitive. Tribes 2 has the right idea too, but I never got on with it really...the vehicle physics all seemed a bit rushed, no real difference - that's the kind of specific that needs improving.
Hm, I only wrote all that to avoid going to bed didn't I.. ah well, I'm tired now anyway..
Thanks, at least someone read it.
:)
:)
Yeah, it seems to be games series that have the same genre. good post Captain Evo.
These days for games to sell, usually they have to be based on a good gaming genre that people know, and will play. This though sometimes leads to boring games coming out one after another, there is no other better example than the Tomb Raider series. The first 2 were good but then they just got repertive and very boring. gladly though, people are starting to see through these selling gimicks and stay well clear of below the mark games.
One good thing that has come of this is that developers are now really thinking of what they can do to make a top quality game. Alot of them are going for multiple genres in there games. Such as, in an adventure game where running around exploring and finding puzzles, may now include vehicles to use, stealth type gaming and many other features. The later tomb raider games tried this, which obviously sold them games, but for many people this was not enough.
A clear great example of using many gaming genres in a game is Operation Flashpoint. Here there are 4 types of genre:
1.First Person
2.3rd Person
3.Car sim
4.Flight Sim
This means that there is a more vast choice of what to do. Maybe in the game the car/flight sim may not be very close to the top sims that are available, but the game clearly shows what future games are becoming like.
Hope fully this game will lead the way into the future of gaming types, and developers will catch on, giving us more enjoyable, and more variety of things to do.
One good thing that has come of this is that developers are now really thinking of what they can do to make a top quality game. Alot of them are going for multiple genres in there games. Such as, in an adventure game where running around exploring and finding puzzles, may now include vehicles to use, stealth type gaming and many other features. The later tomb raider games tried this, which obviously sold them games, but for many people this was not enough.
A clear great example of using many gaming genres in a game is Operation Flashpoint. Here there are 4 types of genre:
1.First Person
2.3rd Person
3.Car sim
4.Flight Sim
This means that there is a more vast choice of what to do. Maybe in the game the car/flight sim may not be very close to the top sims that are available, but the game clearly shows what future games are becoming like.
Hope fully this game will lead the way into the future of gaming types, and developers will catch on, giving us more enjoyable, and more variety of things to do.