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Socoder -> On Topic -> Nostalgia's not what it used to be... |
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| Wed, 19 Jul 2017, 15:26 | |
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GfK |
Nostalgia's not what it used to be...Tonight I've been musing over Scratch, pondering my activities with Unity, harking back to the mid-1980s and my time spent at a CPC464. It makes you feel all warm and floaty. Then my brow furrowed slightly as I recalled how, about two days ago, I was playing F1 2016 on my PS4, and something really, really infuriating happened. I'm driving for Renault - one of the worst teams in F1. I have the AI difficulty set to "Expert". I like a challenge, and what unfolded on Monday night was certainly that. I'm playing in Career mode and I'm racing at Baku, Azerbaijan. I had a mishap in qualifying that left me at the back of the 22-strong starting grid. Oh, and it's now raining. Everybody is on "Intermediate" tyres. So the race starts, and I'm proper flying along, I get as high as 13th place within eight or so laps. It's all looking good at this point, and the rain has stopped and the track is drying. Yay! So my pit guy is on the radio and says "we think there's a viable strategy change". This is where things start to go a little sour. I'm focusing on the track so I just accept the change without looking - I assume they're shifting me to a dry-tyre strategy, what with the track quickly drying out. My pit-stop window arrives. I pull up in the pits, and they swap the tyres.... but wait... they've put intermediate tyres on again. I'm screaming at the TV like "no no no don't let me fucking go out on these"!! Those are wet-weather tyres, and the track is now barely wet. I come back out onto the track, and it's like driving on ice - very, very wrong choice of tyre! But Jeff the pit guy is on the radio again; "the general consensus in the pit is that we should be on dry tyres now". No shit, Sherlock. So I come into the pits at the end of the same lap. What do they do? A new set of fucking intermediates! At this point I yank the PS4 plug out the wall in a paddy hoping my act fries the fucking thing, and launch the controller across the room. So where am I going with this? Gaming was awesome in the old days. It really was. Looking back now, most games are laughable but they were, by and large, made with some degree of dedication and effort. They worked. There weren't many bugs. Which was handy as they couldn't be patched. Yeah they took ages to load but so does No Man's Sky and don't even get me started on that fucking car-crash. 8-bit games had lovely loaders. The chip tunes. The gradually-revealing title screens. Invade-a-load! The anticipation of a last-minute read error and having to do the whole thing again. It was fucking beautiful. Still singling out the F1 series - they make a "new" F1 game every year, which is basically the same as last year's one, but with different drivers to match real F1, and various stuff fannied about with in a feeble attempt to justify yet another £50 asking price. And the worst part? The old versions get about 3 patches before they just abandon the fucking thing completely and concentrate on next year's version, because that's what's going to make them even more money from fucktards like myself, who wrongly think that after seven years of buying every F1 game they've made, that they're somehow going to magically get good at it. And they don't. They never do. I'm old school. I've been programming for thirty one years now. If somebody finds a bug in my game, I am mortified. I've taken pride in making it and to learn that I've fucked up and not noticed, is soul-destroying. I find it really odd that massive companies like Codemasters just don't give a flying shit any more. And we now live in a time where that sort of attitude is perfectly acceptable. I have issues with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, too. I bought it when I first got my PS4 and honestly, I just cannot be arsed with the game. You can run up walls like some sort of futuristic rifle-wielding Spiderman. You can jump hundreds of feet into the air. You can mind-control shit. And to top it off - you cannot see who you're meant to be shooting at. They're literally a pixel or two. This is NOT fun. How can a game of that stature get right through the QA process without a single person saying; "hang on, I know this is a big franchise 'n all, but this game is total dog shit"? I mentioned No Man's Sky earlier... and it isn't even a game. It's a tech demo with a couple of features tacked on to make it look something like a game but if you look at the big picture, there's fuck all content. It's an entire universe with absolutely fuck-all to do in it. Again, how did it ever pass QA? And as with F1 2016, the updates have stopped coming. It's still broken. Very badly broken. The state some shit gets released in you wouldn't even expect it on Steam Early Access. But it's become normal. I fancy a game of Xanagrams now... |
| Wed, 19 Jul 2017, 16:16 | |
Jayenkai
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In many ways, I think this is why I've stuck with Nintendo. Sega were the same before their leap into the abyss. Nintendo make sure that the game is fun. And they've had shitloads of bad press for that. AAA shouldn't be "happy green mushroom land", it should be shitfuck death murder kill.. But at least when I boot a Nintendo game, I typically get enjoyment at the other end. For me, as a "traditional" gamer, that's much more important than scoring achievements and shooting all my friends in the head... ... and then calling them all a bunch of wusses.. If Sega were who they used to be, I strongly believe the Nintendo vs Sega wars would've continued, and we'd have some cracking games from both parties. But Sega have all but dropped off the face of the earth. I honestly can't think of a Sega game other than Sonic, for the past few years.. Certainly nothing that screams "SEGA!!!" anyway.. So, yeah, Nintendo's all that's left, IMO. Once they go, gaming is fucked. Mobile gaming is all IAP and shit, and AAA just isn't worth the effort. ... and then there's Zelda BOTW. I've enjoyed it. I've never enjoyed a Zelda before. I would get about 5% through, then get stuck and give up. But... This isn't a Zelda game. The story is all but missing. The "adventure" is gone. No more set pieces to follow. Just a big open world. The big open world is nice. ... but at what price? I honestly think that this game should be a one-off, and future Zelda's should be back where they should be, with nice evolving storylines and magical events. Not all like this. It's good to be different, but it's important not to forget what got you there. ... Gawd, I'm rambling as much as you!!! Yeah, old games good, new games booooo! Also.. Xanagrams. Hmmm... *yoink* -=-=- ''Load, Next List!'' 
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| Wed, 19 Jul 2017, 16:37 | |
rockford
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I absolutely agree with all both of you are saying. The state of gaming now, really is horrendous. Sure, there are some really, really great games out there, but do I actually enjoy gaming more now than when I owned my CPC, Amiga or MegaDrive? Obviously not as I'd rather be coding for the most part. So yeah, looking back games are indeed laughable, slow clusterfucks of shite. But back then they were real fun, without any of the worries that he have now with constant updates and patches - of the software AND the machines. I was never a pc gamer because of spec issues and upgrades and installation. Now consoles do the same. I couldn't go back to the 8bit days permanently, but I'm really glad I lived in those early days and enjoyed real gaming when it was still fresh and raw, where every new game was a NEW game. Innovation ruled and sequels were rare. God, we really are a bunch of old farts aren't we!  |edit| Multplayer games in the same room, on the same machine. Need I say more? |
| Wed, 19 Jul 2017, 18:33 | |
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rskgames |
I used to play and enjoy split screen multiplayer game of the demo level Suzuka in "eidos f1 world grand prix" in 2000 with friends. We then used to challenge each other in the ghost mode in Austria GP in "Monaco Gran Prix Simulation 2". Bought EA sports F1 games but didn't have the same interest I had for the other 2 games. Completed all levels in "1nsane" and used to enjoy LAN multiplayer with room mates. Recent years I have completed "Driver San Francisco" 2 times. |
| Thu, 20 Jul 2017, 05:12 | |
cyangames
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Ehh, gaming is what you make of it I guess. I'm still enjoying pokemon go when I head out to work in the mornings, retro gaming is great fun and yeah, some games on Steam are pretty cool too, I've really enjoyed playing Gal Gun of late, heheh. I bought a couple of the codemaster f1 games way back when 2010 and 2014 in a steam sale I think. neither one of them worked out any good and I love me some Formula 1. 2010 refused to work unless I upgraded my OS so Microsfot for Games or some shit was on there. 2014 seemed to work okay, but I just lost interest in the game pretty quickly. I've kept away from most of the more common (non Nintendo) franchises which has probably been a good thing as it would likely only make me more jaded. So, back to NES development then, ha! (seriously, you really appreciate how much effort goes into making one of these games once you attempt it yourself!) -=-=- Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also! |
| Thu, 20 Jul 2017, 06:42 | |
Dabz
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I went to a game programming convention [aka massive booze up] in Newcastle with James Mintram a few years ago, there was the usual mix of indie and commercial... James was off floating around and I started talking to these two fella's, they worked for Ubisoft, programmers the pair of them, so I went "oh aye, so what have you worked on? They said Settlers 7, I was like "Settlers 7 eh, you's lot released that broke didnt you?", then I continued how indie programmers could never get away with that. That ended that conversion!  About an hour later I ended up talking to another Ubi, he had something to do with servers, he loved his job the lad, one of them moments when you ask what that involves and 20 seconds later you wish you didnt... I never had a clue what he was on about, and he droned on for that long that I just stopped listening! James came over asking if I wanted another pint, he got talking to the lad, the lad must've thought I've got another victim and he started again... I said "I'll get them in hey!" A few of us left there and just went on a pub crawl! Twas a good night, but I'll never forget the conversion killer I dropped on the two Ubisoft programmers... Bless'em! Dabz -=-=- Intel Core i5 6400 2.7GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB), 8Gig DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 64bit
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