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While I was reading this forum recently I noticed a post talking about buying a copy of Timesplitters the other day. In that post, the poster (apologies, I can’t remember who wrote it) mentioned how dated this particular game looked. Timesplitters is only a year (and a few months) old, and on its release date was considered one of the must-have titles for PS2.
Another game that can be talked about in the same way is SSX. When this was released it blew us all away (I challenge anyone to list this as anything other than a great great game), but now with its sequel released it too looks a bit ‘old hat’, again just over a year after its release.
That got me thinking..... why is it that games these days are looking dated only a few short months after release? It is possible that there are two different answers to this question.
1) With the speed at which gaming technology is continuously improving, designers are constantly surpassing themselves (albeit with longer and longer delay times thrown into the mix) and are producing titles that constantly break new grounds (granted some of these ground breaking moments are small enough (a new way to shade graphics, new textures, new sound developments etc,) thus making slightly older titles look dated well before their time.
2) We are spoilt for choice. We have become so used to getting better and better titles that we fail to appreciate the goodness in the games that have been around for any length of time over 12 months.
Personally I believe that the answer is a mixture of the two above. Let me explain.....
I’ve been playing games since I had a ZX Spectrum in my younger days. Back then games came out almost every week, and as a result there was an abundance of great titles available to play, each of which had some slight (and I mean slight) improvement over its predecessor. Rare (then Ultimate) broke a lot of boundaries in those early days with games like Knightlore and Underworlde. But I digress (apologies.... I can’t help reminiscing). The point is that many games were available each week, and us gamers really had a great range to choose from, (and very little waiting / build-up before a game got released). So great was the selection in fact that we failed to notice (or just ignored) titles that were, to put it in technical terms, crap.
The statement about Rare is made to bring up the point that once in a blue moon a company actually released a title that really did break new ground (Uridium, not a Rare game, is another classic example), and it wasn’t long before other developers ripped its code to shreds and copied its technology to the benefit of all us gamers.
This continued, to a lesser extent, with SNES and Megadrive, and to a lesser extent again with the PS1 and N64.
But now that we have the next gen consoles, we first hear of games a long long time before they get released. We allow ourselves to get all excited at the prospect of getting at these new titles, and more often than not we are let down by the result (as a case in point how many of you have written in these very forums that MGS2 is not going to be so great, while when we first got our hands on the demo version months ago, the forum was filled with praise for this same title. Actually that brings up a point that maybe Hideo made a mistake by giving us a taste of the goodness before the title was ready to ship. By doing so we are already used to how good it is before we play the whole thing, so there is very little room for improvement). Enough about MGS2, I’m just using it as an example, not trying to start another debate.
Back to the point..... are we getting spoiled? Are we having too high expectations from the struggling games developers? Does the fact that we’ve played the best available now mean that we will not tolerate anything other than wonderful?
We’ve become too accustomed to great graphics and gameplay, and so we come down hard and heavy on less than perfect titles. Nothing makes us gape in wonder anymore. Everything is cool for a while, but is dull before we know it, and purely due to our own judgement of what is good and bad.
I guarantee you that in 6 months we’ll look at GT3 and GTA3 and wonder what all the fuss was about.
To me this is a sad state of affairs. Developers are trying their best with the resources they have available, but we, the gaming public, just want better and better (of course you may, and probably will, argue that that is our God given right) and will not tolerate anything other than genius.
I really do think it is a bit sad. The innocence and wonder at getting a new game to play seems to have faded.
What will we be like in another few years? Will anything be good enough?
Opinions? Thoughts? Criticisms?
Thanks for reading.
Another game that can be talked about in the same way is SSX. When this was released it blew us all away (I challenge anyone to list this as anything other than a great great game), but now with its sequel released it too looks a bit ‘old hat’, again just over a year after its release.
That got me thinking..... why is it that games these days are looking dated only a few short months after release? It is possible that there are two different answers to this question.
1) With the speed at which gaming technology is continuously improving, designers are constantly surpassing themselves (albeit with longer and longer delay times thrown into the mix) and are producing titles that constantly break new grounds (granted some of these ground breaking moments are small enough (a new way to shade graphics, new textures, new sound developments etc,) thus making slightly older titles look dated well before their time.
2) We are spoilt for choice. We have become so used to getting better and better titles that we fail to appreciate the goodness in the games that have been around for any length of time over 12 months.
Personally I believe that the answer is a mixture of the two above. Let me explain.....
I’ve been playing games since I had a ZX Spectrum in my younger days. Back then games came out almost every week, and as a result there was an abundance of great titles available to play, each of which had some slight (and I mean slight) improvement over its predecessor. Rare (then Ultimate) broke a lot of boundaries in those early days with games like Knightlore and Underworlde. But I digress (apologies.... I can’t help reminiscing). The point is that many games were available each week, and us gamers really had a great range to choose from, (and very little waiting / build-up before a game got released). So great was the selection in fact that we failed to notice (or just ignored) titles that were, to put it in technical terms, crap.
The statement about Rare is made to bring up the point that once in a blue moon a company actually released a title that really did break new ground (Uridium, not a Rare game, is another classic example), and it wasn’t long before other developers ripped its code to shreds and copied its technology to the benefit of all us gamers.
This continued, to a lesser extent, with SNES and Megadrive, and to a lesser extent again with the PS1 and N64.
But now that we have the next gen consoles, we first hear of games a long long time before they get released. We allow ourselves to get all excited at the prospect of getting at these new titles, and more often than not we are let down by the result (as a case in point how many of you have written in these very forums that MGS2 is not going to be so great, while when we first got our hands on the demo version months ago, the forum was filled with praise for this same title. Actually that brings up a point that maybe Hideo made a mistake by giving us a taste of the goodness before the title was ready to ship. By doing so we are already used to how good it is before we play the whole thing, so there is very little room for improvement). Enough about MGS2, I’m just using it as an example, not trying to start another debate.
Back to the point..... are we getting spoiled? Are we having too high expectations from the struggling games developers? Does the fact that we’ve played the best available now mean that we will not tolerate anything other than wonderful?
We’ve become too accustomed to great graphics and gameplay, and so we come down hard and heavy on less than perfect titles. Nothing makes us gape in wonder anymore. Everything is cool for a while, but is dull before we know it, and purely due to our own judgement of what is good and bad.
I guarantee you that in 6 months we’ll look at GT3 and GTA3 and wonder what all the fuss was about.
To me this is a sad state of affairs. Developers are trying their best with the resources they have available, but we, the gaming public, just want better and better (of course you may, and probably will, argue that that is our God given right) and will not tolerate anything other than genius.
I really do think it is a bit sad. The innocence and wonder at getting a new game to play seems to have faded.
What will we be like in another few years? Will anything be good enough?
Opinions? Thoughts? Criticisms?
Thanks for reading.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
While I was reading this forum recently I noticed a post talking about buying a copy of Timesplitters the other day. In that post, the poster (apologies, I can’t remember who wrote it) mentioned how dated this particular game looked. Timesplitters is only a year (and a few months) old, and on its release date was considered one of the must-have titles for PS2.
Another game that can be talked about in the same way is SSX. When this was released it blew us all away (I challenge anyone to list this as anything other than a great great game), but now with its sequel released it too looks a bit ‘old hat’, again just over a year after its release.
That got me thinking..... why is it that games these days are looking dated only a few short months after release? It is possible that there are two different answers to this question.
1) With the speed at which gaming technology is continuously improving, designers are constantly surpassing themselves (albeit with longer and longer delay times thrown into the mix) and are producing titles that constantly break new grounds (granted some of these ground breaking moments are small enough (a new way to shade graphics, new textures, new sound developments etc,) thus making slightly older titles look dated well before their time.
2) We are spoilt for choice. We have become so used to getting better and better titles that we fail to appreciate the goodness in the games that have been around for any length of time over 12 months.
Personally I believe that the answer is a mixture of the two above. Let me explain.....
I’ve been playing games since I had a ZX Spectrum in my younger days. Back then games came out almost every week, and as a result there was an abundance of great titles available to play, each of which had some slight (and I mean slight) improvement over its predecessor. Rare (then Ultimate) broke a lot of boundaries in those early days with games like Knightlore and Underworlde. But I digress (apologies.... I can’t help reminiscing). The point is that many games were available each week, and us gamers really had a great range to choose from, (and very little waiting / build-up before a game got released). So great was the selection in fact that we failed to notice (or just ignored) titles that were, to put it in technical terms, crap.
The statement about Rare is made to bring up the point that once in a blue moon a company actually released a title that really did break new ground (Uridium, not a Rare game, is another classic example), and it wasn’t long before other developers ripped its code to shreds and copied its technology to the benefit of all us gamers.
This continued, to a lesser extent, with SNES and Megadrive, and to a lesser extent again with the PS1 and N64.
But now that we have the next gen consoles, we first hear of games a long long time before they get released. We allow ourselves to get all excited at the prospect of getting at these new titles, and more often than not we are let down by the result (as a case in point how many of you have written in these very forums that MGS2 is not going to be so great, while when we first got our hands on the demo version months ago, the forum was filled with praise for this same title. Actually that brings up a point that maybe Hideo made a mistake by giving us a taste of the goodness before the title was ready to ship. By doing so we are already used to how good it is before we play the whole thing, so there is very little room for improvement). Enough about MGS2, I’m just using it as an example, not trying to start another debate.
Back to the point..... are we getting spoiled? Are we having too high expectations from the struggling games developers? Does the fact that we’ve played the best available now mean that we will not tolerate anything other than wonderful?
We’ve become too accustomed to great graphics and gameplay, and so we come down hard and heavy on less than perfect titles. Nothing makes us gape in wonder anymore. Everything is cool for a while, but is dull before we know it, and purely due to our own judgement of what is good and bad.
I guarantee you that in 6 months we’ll look at GT3 and GTA3 and wonder what all the fuss was about.
To me this is a sad state of affairs. Developers are trying their best with the resources they have available, but we, the gaming public, just want better and better (of course you may, and probably will, argue that that is our God given right) and will not tolerate anything other than genius.
I really do think it is a bit sad. The innocence and wonder at getting a new game to play seems to have faded.
What will we be like in another few years? Will anything be good enough?
Opinions? Thoughts? Criticisms?
Thanks for reading.
Another game that can be talked about in the same way is SSX. When this was released it blew us all away (I challenge anyone to list this as anything other than a great great game), but now with its sequel released it too looks a bit ‘old hat’, again just over a year after its release.
That got me thinking..... why is it that games these days are looking dated only a few short months after release? It is possible that there are two different answers to this question.
1) With the speed at which gaming technology is continuously improving, designers are constantly surpassing themselves (albeit with longer and longer delay times thrown into the mix) and are producing titles that constantly break new grounds (granted some of these ground breaking moments are small enough (a new way to shade graphics, new textures, new sound developments etc,) thus making slightly older titles look dated well before their time.
2) We are spoilt for choice. We have become so used to getting better and better titles that we fail to appreciate the goodness in the games that have been around for any length of time over 12 months.
Personally I believe that the answer is a mixture of the two above. Let me explain.....
I’ve been playing games since I had a ZX Spectrum in my younger days. Back then games came out almost every week, and as a result there was an abundance of great titles available to play, each of which had some slight (and I mean slight) improvement over its predecessor. Rare (then Ultimate) broke a lot of boundaries in those early days with games like Knightlore and Underworlde. But I digress (apologies.... I can’t help reminiscing). The point is that many games were available each week, and us gamers really had a great range to choose from, (and very little waiting / build-up before a game got released). So great was the selection in fact that we failed to notice (or just ignored) titles that were, to put it in technical terms, crap.
The statement about Rare is made to bring up the point that once in a blue moon a company actually released a title that really did break new ground (Uridium, not a Rare game, is another classic example), and it wasn’t long before other developers ripped its code to shreds and copied its technology to the benefit of all us gamers.
This continued, to a lesser extent, with SNES and Megadrive, and to a lesser extent again with the PS1 and N64.
But now that we have the next gen consoles, we first hear of games a long long time before they get released. We allow ourselves to get all excited at the prospect of getting at these new titles, and more often than not we are let down by the result (as a case in point how many of you have written in these very forums that MGS2 is not going to be so great, while when we first got our hands on the demo version months ago, the forum was filled with praise for this same title. Actually that brings up a point that maybe Hideo made a mistake by giving us a taste of the goodness before the title was ready to ship. By doing so we are already used to how good it is before we play the whole thing, so there is very little room for improvement). Enough about MGS2, I’m just using it as an example, not trying to start another debate.
Back to the point..... are we getting spoiled? Are we having too high expectations from the struggling games developers? Does the fact that we’ve played the best available now mean that we will not tolerate anything other than wonderful?
We’ve become too accustomed to great graphics and gameplay, and so we come down hard and heavy on less than perfect titles. Nothing makes us gape in wonder anymore. Everything is cool for a while, but is dull before we know it, and purely due to our own judgement of what is good and bad.
I guarantee you that in 6 months we’ll look at GT3 and GTA3 and wonder what all the fuss was about.
To me this is a sad state of affairs. Developers are trying their best with the resources they have available, but we, the gaming public, just want better and better (of course you may, and probably will, argue that that is our God given right) and will not tolerate anything other than genius.
I really do think it is a bit sad. The innocence and wonder at getting a new game to play seems to have faded.
What will we be like in another few years? Will anything be good enough?
Opinions? Thoughts? Criticisms?
Thanks for reading.