I first have to start off with the legal stuff. Please keep the law in mind when emulating games. You are not supposed to run an emulation of a game if you don't own the original legally. I do not condone piracy or stealing of licensed software / hardware. With that out of the way, lets get into it.
Emulating classic games is something that's been around since the turn of this latest century. Yes, it existed before that, but it was in it's infancy, and what you would have been emulating (and badly) weren't even that old yet.
The first levels of emulation were pretty basic. You could only really emulate things like the NES and Gameboy, and a little later, SNES and same era consoles like the Genesis. In the early days of emulation, the biggest con would have to be controls. Most emulators only would register input controls from the keyboards. And for those that would input joysticks, USB joypads were both young, expensive and crap. But we emulated our games none the less. Using keyboards awkwardly, and stuck to our PC's as there were no portable devices capable of emulation yet, apart from top tier laptops of the day.
But there were 2 things that kept us coming back. The first was stability and reliability. Many of the early consoles were unreliable, prone to glitch, and saves would oft times erase when the game cart wasn't played for a certain amount of time. The second, which leads from the first, is save states. Save states have existed since the beginning and are an amazing tool for emulation. It made it so you can put down any game, for any amount of time, and pick it up and start playing from exactly where you left off. Alternatively, it also opened the door for cheating your way through games that you might not have been able to beat previously; allowing you to save and load your way through hard sections of a game that you would normally game over on.
It was really in the mid 2000's that emulation started to pick up speed. Around this time, emulators for the N64, and PSX came out, allowing us to play these on the PC. At the same time, peripheral support was much stronger, allowing you to pick up a decent USB game pad for under $20. This not only opened the world up for better emulation and controls, but very real multiplayer games. Before this, you might have had to share a keyboard, which is hardly practical, but having a couple of USB controllers worked perfectly. In these early days, emulating the later consoles, especially the PlayStation was weak at best, but it worked well enough to keep us trying. Support kept on, and computers got better and better, making emulation work better and better.
As hardware evolved in computers, so did the emulators. Better hardware and better code writing made it possible to play more advance games reliably and without fault. But the direction that emulators took surprised everyone. Emulation on mobile devices like tablets and phones allowed for us to play our classic games on the move. This was a huge step and is still going strong today.
When mobile devices like android phones started with emulation, it was rough. They were only capable of playing with touch screen controls, which were difficult, lacked a level of feel, and were commonly unresponsive. I started with this pretty early in Androids life, around build 2.5. I will admit it did get better, and fast. First was allowing support for bluetooth controllers. Unfortunately, this started with only androids that were rooted. Eventually a pretty smart individual came up with a code to link the android with a Wii remote, and was the first real link to actual game controls on a phone. Around this time, there were a few developers coming up with add-ons, buttons and joysticks that you stuck to your screen, Think Geek even came up with a mini arcade console for iPhones. None of these were really viable solutions however.
Around this time, there were some gaming tablets that were starting to be release. Mostly from China, many of these had problems. Most had issues with reliability, buttons and joysticks breaking, and versions of android that were glitchy and had a LOT of problems. I've owned a number of these devices, and in short, there were definitely BIG problems. But it was a step in the right direction. And gladly, many developers have continued to pursue this. Not only have gaming tablets become quite good, they're still relatively cheap in comparison to most devices you can buy in the states. But this still requires purchasing a second device, and more often than not, not up to our devices top specifications.
The real advancement came in 2013, with the Nvidia Sheild Portable. They had a Bluetooth controller that held in place a proprietary tablet. This was (and still is) extremely expensive in comparison to other devices, and was all proprietary. But this was the match that sparked the flame. It's now common place to find Bluetooth controllers with clips, spring holders, whatever is needed to hold phones or tablets in place. And with companies like iPega producing well built and reliable joypads, you can now play emulated games on whatever device you own, easily, practically and affordably. Some of these controllers are getting pretty advance as well. A good example is the iPega 9028. A Bluetooth controler that is designed for smartphones, and has a built in touch sensor. They also have the iPega 9023, a device that can expand
What keeps emulation going is our desire to play games from our childhood. Be it from wanting to relive our past, or in my case, the belief that old games are just better, emulation is going strong and shows no signs of slowing down. It's so popular in fact, Nintendo is re-releasing a version of the original NES, and is constantly having classic games pop up on their Wii and 3DS virtual console titles. Sony, Microsoft and Steam and joined the fray with classic titles on their respective stores as well.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2018
Console's VS. Computers - The all time gaming battle
In the world of home gaming, we've always had 2 distinct classes of gamers. The console gamers VS. computer gamers. Setting aside all the individual console prejudices that are held toward one another, PC and console gamers have almost always been at odds with each other. There's no denying, that both platforms have swapped places for supremacy over one another. This is just a short article explaining the strengths and weaknesses between the two over the past years.
In the early days, computers weren't really capable of playing games. The earliest computer games were text base adventure games, where at the time these were out, consoles like the Atari were on top of the world in home gaming.
In the 1980's computers were starting to catch up a bit, but were still a bit down in comparison to systems like the NES. Computers in the 1980's were at least able to branch into some of the game markets, even with some direct arcade ports to the system. But it wasn't until the 90's that computers were capable of high quality gaming. The real issue was the game media. In the mid to early 80's, we were stuck with the microscopic 5-1/2" floppy disks with a grand total of 1.2mb of disk space and a horrifically long read time. Later, the 3-1/2" floppy came out with a bit more space (1.44mb) but with the real advantage being the read speed. The problem was still the size. I remember installing games using 10 or more disks. Then there was a small push for a media called 'Zip' disks. These were massive in comparison with 100mb of storage. But again they were not a viable media as they were very slow and extremely prone to viruses. It wasn't until the 90's when CDROM's became common place that computers could keep up.
The CDROM era in the early 90's was when computers really hit their stride. Not only were the 700mb disk size much more capable of holding and playing larger more complex games. But the technology allowed for full movie cinematics and voice acting, something that wasn't really capable in consoles until the release of CD based consoles much later. Even the early CD consoles like the Sega Saturn didn't do this particularly well. The Nintendo 64 and original Sony Playstation were the first to really compete with this. But computers still have a few disadvantages. First and probably the largest was price. To get a computer in the early 90's, complete with monitor, keyboard, mouse and possibly any peripherals, could cost you close to $1000, and this was 30 years ago. Consoles were able to hook up into any TV, and rarely cost more than $300, most selling for around the $200 mark and less. The other, oddly was portability. Often times, as kids, we would bring consoles to friends and family members houses. They were relatively small, and surprisingly durable. Early computers were extremely large, heavy and incredibly fragile. They were stationary unless you absolutely had to move them.
Even with the price, computers dominated the early to mid 90's of gaming. It was the first place you could play full 3D games, and even had full ports of arcade games, where the consoles had to have them completely dumbed down. It wasn't until the mid 90's with the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 that things started to swing back in the consoles favor. During this period, computers still had plenty of capabilities that consoles didn't. Especially with the rise of the internet in the mid 90's. But consoles were still cheaper, more portable, and more reliable. At this time, there were still video rental stores, and you could rent both consoles and console games, but you could never rent computers and/or computer games, giving them an additional edge.
In the late 90's into the early 2000's, there was another shift toward computers. As computers progressively became more powerful, and more affordable, along with the increase of high speed internet, online gaming became a main staple in the gaming world. Even in the early days of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft, online gaming became (and still is to this day) one of gaming's most lucrative formats. This period was a bit of a difficult point for consoles. There were some solid systems like the Playstation 2, Game Cube, XBox and even the Sega Dreamcast. All solid systems, with solid games. But with the ability to only have 2 players (4 in the Game Cubes case) and no online ability, they didn't have the appeal of a lot of computer games. Sega actually had an expansion for online gaming, and later on the Playstation 2 as well; But neither were fully realized and worked poorly. This isn't to say there weren't some fantastic console games released at this point. On the contrary, some of the best of all time were released. But in the terms of appeal, PC's still had the market largely cornered during this period.
The next generation (starting around 2007) is when computers and consoles started fighting on even ground. With the release of the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360, online gaming became normal for consoles. Nintendo, even to this day, still doesn't quite have online gaming down (largely with their fear of offending anyone). But everyone else has pushed so far into online gaming, that even full singleplayer games have online elements. Be it random Co-Op missions, or even just expansions to games, it placed consoles on an even playing ground with PC's. The PS3 was the first real step in this direction. The monolith device that was supposed to be able to cure cancer (literally). It was sturdy, reliable, but also massive and extremely expensive, with the launch versions costing upwards of $700. The Xbox 360 was a bit cheaper at $400 and the Wii at the cheapest at $250 for the base model. At this time capable computers were actually less expensive than the Playstation, and were on par in cost with the Xbox and Wii. But, as the consoles soul purpose is to play games, they were actually better than PC's in most respects when it came to gameplay.
In the last 10 years, gaming has taken sort of an odd turn. The latest generation of consoles, and even many new PC games, you don't really own the software. You can't use it on different machines, and in some cases, are paying monthly for games. Consoles are now watching you when you're in your house, and they're releasing games in fragments, forcing you to pay for each tiny portion release of the game. The problem is, in the last 15 years, video games have surpassed Hollywood in net gains. Companies are seeing this and cashing in. In the process, they have become so paranoid about making every last cent they can, they are robbing the gamers blind. I can understand fighting against piracy. But they are so set on making every dollar, they don't even want you sharing a game with your friends and family. They have to buy their own. What this does, is if someone was on the fence about picking up a game, instead of asking a friend or something if you can borrow it, and you know, see if you like it, they'll just say screw it and not ever play it. This mind set is stopping people (including myself) from picking up modern consoles.
Because of this, I would have to give the current generation of gaming to computers. Especially with even low end laptops being able to play really fantastic games, and you can take them anywhere.
To add to this dilemma, modern gaming is starting to take a downward turn in several areas, just in regards to the games as well. The powerful systems are nice, but the game producers are more interested in vamping up their games graphics, rather than providing us with any real gameplay. I would estimate about half or more of top level games spend half the time in a pretty movie with quicktime events (one of the reasons why there are so many people nostalgic over the games of our youth). It won't be until we can get past this that gaming can really take a new direction.
There's also a new direction that PC's are making that consoles have yet to step into. The world of VR gaming. VR gaming is still really in the steps of infancy, with only a few real games that have taken this direction. But it is a direction worth exploring. Many gamers are looking for a more immersive experience, and VR is the most immersive you can get. It's also the quickest way to get motion sickness, but I'll side step that for now. I've played around with VR, and it has some serious potential, and this is potential that consoles will have to catch up with, or they will fall behind again.
I do want to note, that I'm not one who ever took sides in this spat of gamers. Yes, I have always preferred most console games to computer games. But over the years, I've had both, with favorites in both directions. And now, about the only company with any real exclusives is Nintendo, so even the exclusive argument isn't overly valid anymore either. These days, as time goes on, Consoles and Computers are growing closer and closer in similarities as well. The only company that's keeping it in a different direction is, again, Nintendo. The next 10 or so years will be an interesting study on where gaming goes.
In the early days, computers weren't really capable of playing games. The earliest computer games were text base adventure games, where at the time these were out, consoles like the Atari were on top of the world in home gaming.
In the 1980's computers were starting to catch up a bit, but were still a bit down in comparison to systems like the NES. Computers in the 1980's were at least able to branch into some of the game markets, even with some direct arcade ports to the system. But it wasn't until the 90's that computers were capable of high quality gaming. The real issue was the game media. In the mid to early 80's, we were stuck with the microscopic 5-1/2" floppy disks with a grand total of 1.2mb of disk space and a horrifically long read time. Later, the 3-1/2" floppy came out with a bit more space (1.44mb) but with the real advantage being the read speed. The problem was still the size. I remember installing games using 10 or more disks. Then there was a small push for a media called 'Zip' disks. These were massive in comparison with 100mb of storage. But again they were not a viable media as they were very slow and extremely prone to viruses. It wasn't until the 90's when CDROM's became common place that computers could keep up.
The CDROM era in the early 90's was when computers really hit their stride. Not only were the 700mb disk size much more capable of holding and playing larger more complex games. But the technology allowed for full movie cinematics and voice acting, something that wasn't really capable in consoles until the release of CD based consoles much later. Even the early CD consoles like the Sega Saturn didn't do this particularly well. The Nintendo 64 and original Sony Playstation were the first to really compete with this. But computers still have a few disadvantages. First and probably the largest was price. To get a computer in the early 90's, complete with monitor, keyboard, mouse and possibly any peripherals, could cost you close to $1000, and this was 30 years ago. Consoles were able to hook up into any TV, and rarely cost more than $300, most selling for around the $200 mark and less. The other, oddly was portability. Often times, as kids, we would bring consoles to friends and family members houses. They were relatively small, and surprisingly durable. Early computers were extremely large, heavy and incredibly fragile. They were stationary unless you absolutely had to move them.
Even with the price, computers dominated the early to mid 90's of gaming. It was the first place you could play full 3D games, and even had full ports of arcade games, where the consoles had to have them completely dumbed down. It wasn't until the mid 90's with the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 that things started to swing back in the consoles favor. During this period, computers still had plenty of capabilities that consoles didn't. Especially with the rise of the internet in the mid 90's. But consoles were still cheaper, more portable, and more reliable. At this time, there were still video rental stores, and you could rent both consoles and console games, but you could never rent computers and/or computer games, giving them an additional edge.
In the late 90's into the early 2000's, there was another shift toward computers. As computers progressively became more powerful, and more affordable, along with the increase of high speed internet, online gaming became a main staple in the gaming world. Even in the early days of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft, online gaming became (and still is to this day) one of gaming's most lucrative formats. This period was a bit of a difficult point for consoles. There were some solid systems like the Playstation 2, Game Cube, XBox and even the Sega Dreamcast. All solid systems, with solid games. But with the ability to only have 2 players (4 in the Game Cubes case) and no online ability, they didn't have the appeal of a lot of computer games. Sega actually had an expansion for online gaming, and later on the Playstation 2 as well; But neither were fully realized and worked poorly. This isn't to say there weren't some fantastic console games released at this point. On the contrary, some of the best of all time were released. But in the terms of appeal, PC's still had the market largely cornered during this period.
The next generation (starting around 2007) is when computers and consoles started fighting on even ground. With the release of the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360, online gaming became normal for consoles. Nintendo, even to this day, still doesn't quite have online gaming down (largely with their fear of offending anyone). But everyone else has pushed so far into online gaming, that even full singleplayer games have online elements. Be it random Co-Op missions, or even just expansions to games, it placed consoles on an even playing ground with PC's. The PS3 was the first real step in this direction. The monolith device that was supposed to be able to cure cancer (literally). It was sturdy, reliable, but also massive and extremely expensive, with the launch versions costing upwards of $700. The Xbox 360 was a bit cheaper at $400 and the Wii at the cheapest at $250 for the base model. At this time capable computers were actually less expensive than the Playstation, and were on par in cost with the Xbox and Wii. But, as the consoles soul purpose is to play games, they were actually better than PC's in most respects when it came to gameplay.
In the last 10 years, gaming has taken sort of an odd turn. The latest generation of consoles, and even many new PC games, you don't really own the software. You can't use it on different machines, and in some cases, are paying monthly for games. Consoles are now watching you when you're in your house, and they're releasing games in fragments, forcing you to pay for each tiny portion release of the game. The problem is, in the last 15 years, video games have surpassed Hollywood in net gains. Companies are seeing this and cashing in. In the process, they have become so paranoid about making every last cent they can, they are robbing the gamers blind. I can understand fighting against piracy. But they are so set on making every dollar, they don't even want you sharing a game with your friends and family. They have to buy their own. What this does, is if someone was on the fence about picking up a game, instead of asking a friend or something if you can borrow it, and you know, see if you like it, they'll just say screw it and not ever play it. This mind set is stopping people (including myself) from picking up modern consoles.
Because of this, I would have to give the current generation of gaming to computers. Especially with even low end laptops being able to play really fantastic games, and you can take them anywhere.
To add to this dilemma, modern gaming is starting to take a downward turn in several areas, just in regards to the games as well. The powerful systems are nice, but the game producers are more interested in vamping up their games graphics, rather than providing us with any real gameplay. I would estimate about half or more of top level games spend half the time in a pretty movie with quicktime events (one of the reasons why there are so many people nostalgic over the games of our youth). It won't be until we can get past this that gaming can really take a new direction.
There's also a new direction that PC's are making that consoles have yet to step into. The world of VR gaming. VR gaming is still really in the steps of infancy, with only a few real games that have taken this direction. But it is a direction worth exploring. Many gamers are looking for a more immersive experience, and VR is the most immersive you can get. It's also the quickest way to get motion sickness, but I'll side step that for now. I've played around with VR, and it has some serious potential, and this is potential that consoles will have to catch up with, or they will fall behind again.
I do want to note, that I'm not one who ever took sides in this spat of gamers. Yes, I have always preferred most console games to computer games. But over the years, I've had both, with favorites in both directions. And now, about the only company with any real exclusives is Nintendo, so even the exclusive argument isn't overly valid anymore either. These days, as time goes on, Consoles and Computers are growing closer and closer in similarities as well. The only company that's keeping it in a different direction is, again, Nintendo. The next 10 or so years will be an interesting study on where gaming goes.
A Rant About Classic vs. Modern Gaming
As I am, what is now classified, a classic gamer, I do often times get asked, ridiculed even, about how old games can be better than new. I can usually silence them with a basic answer, old games were more fun. Now this is an extremely simplified and somewhat objective answer. I will go over what makes most classic games better than the modern games that are coming out now.
I will start with the easiest to compare, gameplay.
Modern games are largely about pretty graphics and sometimes trying to tell a compelling story. The problem is that's all they do. I have a few really big titles that display this really massively. Heavy Rain, almost all the Call of Duty games, and most JRPG's released since the mid 2000's. I understand what they are trying to do, but most of these games are forgetting an extremely important thing. IT'S A GAME! When I turn on the ol' console, I'm looking to actually be a part of something, not feel like I'm watching a 12 hour movie that I have to fiddle with the controller. The worst offender that I know of is Xenosaga, a PS2 game. Xenosaga has a minimum of a 4 hour unskippable intro without gameplay. I say minimum as I gave up. 4 hours of my life I will never get back. I know this isn't exactly a new game, but it was around when this was becoming norm. And so many games have followed suit, as if this was a good idea (I'm talking to you Kojima).
Older games mainly focused on the gameplay. And there's a good reason for this. They didn't have anything else. Look at Super Mario Bros. A game release back in 1985, and had the entire disk space of around 35kb. That's .035mb. This small of a space wouldn't even render a single particle effect in a modern game. And yet, with something so basic, they produced a game that fans and newcomers are playing and enjoying, over 30 years later. Not all early games were good. E.T. being the fly in the proverbial ointment. But even in the old Atari days, 4 directions with 1 button, they had to make a game fun to play. If not, no one bought it, or they would even return it. Bless Nintendo for restarting the gaming industry in 1985.
As gaming progressed into the 90's we did see some graphical jumps into the 16 bit era. But gaming was relatively unchanged. Larger file sizes were able to be used, consoles were becoming more reliable and games did become prettier. And more buttons were added, allowing for us to do more. But the basic experience, aside from slight changes and improvements didn't alter much. Oddly, gaming was still very mascot oriented. This wasn't a bad thing back then as many of the mascots were still fairly young, but is did set certain companies in a future direction that would hurt them.
Gaming's next big step cam with the introduction of 3D in 1994-1996. I'm not talking about those pseudo 3D games like Wolfenstien and Dark Forces, but real 3D rendered games. The Playstation coming out, and shortly followed by the N64, this was the new direction. This allowed for some great innovation, and for some serious problems to develop. Although with problems, 3D was a hit. Games like Spyro and Super Mario 64 were well implemented and allowed for new developments in games. It also advanced the FPS into a better direction as well, allowing for real 3D environments.
But with the good and the glitter, started a rise of something that, while at the time seemed cool, was the start of what gaming has become today. The use of pre-rendered graphics to tell a story. The first big company to starry really doing this was Squaresoft (now SquareEnix). Games like the Final Fantasies and Vagrant story, while still excellent games, chose the direction of pre-rendered cinematics to pretty up the game and progress the story. Points in the game where you aren't playing, you're watching. As it was the early days, it wasn't to the point of being abused. But it was a start into a bad direction. There were a number of big name games that fell into this trap permanently.
The company that resisted (granted they didn't have much of a choice with their hardware) is Nintendo. Oh, Nintendo fell into it's own sins. The N64 did not have the hardware capable of pre-rendered cinematics, so they defaulted to what they were doing in the NES and SNES days, walls of text. Again, story telling through non-gameplay methods. And, realistically, since the SNES, Nintendo started the hand holding that exists largely in gaming today. Be it by extremely easy challenges, an inability to fail due to an excess of free lives, or just over explaining something that could have easily been a puzzle.
There were some superb games to come out of these era's. Unfortunately though, this era holds the sin of the birth of bad ideas. Bad ideas that still plaque gaming today.
Gaming has been a shockingly smooth progression from the early eras of 3D to now. Little things have been implemented, better controls, online, etc. But there was one franchise that really altered an aspect of gaming, and that would be Halo. Halo is the franchise that really made PvP a main staple for a game. Now Halo isn't guilty in having a tiny story and focused only on the online play. But they did lay the brickwork for it. The online was so popular, franchises like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and the Battlefield games popped up. Sure they have a single player campaign.... Kinda. But you can tell it's slapdash, and the 100% main purpose of the games is the online matches. And from that, games that have no single player aspects have popped up. Games like Star Wars Battfront, Overwatch and Battlefield 1 for example. And I can't stand they are charging extremely high prices for these games that have zero playability if you don't have an open network (Or don't care about online). Fighting games can be sort of blamed for this, but console released fighting games always have some reasonably decent single player to it as well. To add, games that focus on multiplayer, with zero local multiplayer ruined a lot of what use to make multi-player games any fun.
There are modern games that do get it right. Games like Darksouls, Shantae and the Pirates Curse and Hollow Knight to name a few. And why are these games so good? They are harking back to something older. Be it just classic gaming styles and 2D platformers that are just fun, or games that might clearly be a modern game, but don't have the modern issue of hand holding just so it can tell the story it wants to. So few games are show don't tell, which is a shame as those are the games with the best story telling elements. What's interesting, most of the games coming out that do hit all the right buttons are being made on the indi market. I guess the indi market is where people exist to make what they WANT to make and not what is being dictated to them.
In the very early days of gaming, I can understand either a very simplified story, or no story at all. The disk space was so minute, that one text box could have cost the space needed for something like a boss battle. But as games progressed, they started to be able to weave quite powerful stories. But in these early days, they didn't skimp on the gameplay to do so. Now, everything is so set on making a game pretty, and rendering the neck hairs of the protagonist, it leaves them with a shortage of both time and disk space to do little else. And story focused games seem to be so set on telling you the story they want to tell, they give little to no way to deviate from their path. In some cases just taking controls away from you because heaven forbid you don't have the exact experience they have planned out.
There is one genre of game that has come out of the 3D era that really has been a strong movement, however. Sandbox games. Starting with Shenmue on the Dreamcast and progressing to the majority of AAA titles today, sandbox games to provide an experience that could never be truly replicated in older games. This direction has led to some of the most interesting games to be launched in the last 15 years. This has also led some games into a corner they shouldn't have gone into. Sandbox games that work, do so because it's a world that you can take just about any direction you like. And most of the time, will allow you to be a psychotic little nut bag. The games that fall down in this manner would be better served in a linear progression, as that's obviously the direction the games push. There are a few games that really fall into this pattern, No More Heroes and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the first Assassins Creed are 3 good examples. For something that really is a good idea for some games, is just a terrible idea for those that really shouldn't use it.
I don't want to say that the progression of all gaming has been bad. That just wouldn't be true. But certain ideas, many of them bad ideas, have become common in nearly every game.
Just for arguments sake, there is one genre of game, that has only proceeded to get better with technology improvements. That is simulation games. Flight sims, driving sims, hell even farming and truck driving simulators have all benefited from this. Reason being, they only need to focus on one thing. Making gameplay as intuitive, and as realistic as possible. In the early simulation games, it was bad, real bad. Now it's near like doing the real thing. I have a wheel, and can use it to teach people how to drive using Gran Turismo or something similar as the driving program. But this does bring me back to my original point, basing a game around gameplay is what makes a game fun.
I think what game producers need to do, is make a fun game idea, and then come up with a story and world to build around it. This way, even if the story struggles at points, if you make the game fun, you can still play and enjoy the gaming experience.
I will start with the easiest to compare, gameplay.
Modern games are largely about pretty graphics and sometimes trying to tell a compelling story. The problem is that's all they do. I have a few really big titles that display this really massively. Heavy Rain, almost all the Call of Duty games, and most JRPG's released since the mid 2000's. I understand what they are trying to do, but most of these games are forgetting an extremely important thing. IT'S A GAME! When I turn on the ol' console, I'm looking to actually be a part of something, not feel like I'm watching a 12 hour movie that I have to fiddle with the controller. The worst offender that I know of is Xenosaga, a PS2 game. Xenosaga has a minimum of a 4 hour unskippable intro without gameplay. I say minimum as I gave up. 4 hours of my life I will never get back. I know this isn't exactly a new game, but it was around when this was becoming norm. And so many games have followed suit, as if this was a good idea (I'm talking to you Kojima).
Older games mainly focused on the gameplay. And there's a good reason for this. They didn't have anything else. Look at Super Mario Bros. A game release back in 1985, and had the entire disk space of around 35kb. That's .035mb. This small of a space wouldn't even render a single particle effect in a modern game. And yet, with something so basic, they produced a game that fans and newcomers are playing and enjoying, over 30 years later. Not all early games were good. E.T. being the fly in the proverbial ointment. But even in the old Atari days, 4 directions with 1 button, they had to make a game fun to play. If not, no one bought it, or they would even return it. Bless Nintendo for restarting the gaming industry in 1985.
As gaming progressed into the 90's we did see some graphical jumps into the 16 bit era. But gaming was relatively unchanged. Larger file sizes were able to be used, consoles were becoming more reliable and games did become prettier. And more buttons were added, allowing for us to do more. But the basic experience, aside from slight changes and improvements didn't alter much. Oddly, gaming was still very mascot oriented. This wasn't a bad thing back then as many of the mascots were still fairly young, but is did set certain companies in a future direction that would hurt them.
Gaming's next big step cam with the introduction of 3D in 1994-1996. I'm not talking about those pseudo 3D games like Wolfenstien and Dark Forces, but real 3D rendered games. The Playstation coming out, and shortly followed by the N64, this was the new direction. This allowed for some great innovation, and for some serious problems to develop. Although with problems, 3D was a hit. Games like Spyro and Super Mario 64 were well implemented and allowed for new developments in games. It also advanced the FPS into a better direction as well, allowing for real 3D environments.
But with the good and the glitter, started a rise of something that, while at the time seemed cool, was the start of what gaming has become today. The use of pre-rendered graphics to tell a story. The first big company to starry really doing this was Squaresoft (now SquareEnix). Games like the Final Fantasies and Vagrant story, while still excellent games, chose the direction of pre-rendered cinematics to pretty up the game and progress the story. Points in the game where you aren't playing, you're watching. As it was the early days, it wasn't to the point of being abused. But it was a start into a bad direction. There were a number of big name games that fell into this trap permanently.
The company that resisted (granted they didn't have much of a choice with their hardware) is Nintendo. Oh, Nintendo fell into it's own sins. The N64 did not have the hardware capable of pre-rendered cinematics, so they defaulted to what they were doing in the NES and SNES days, walls of text. Again, story telling through non-gameplay methods. And, realistically, since the SNES, Nintendo started the hand holding that exists largely in gaming today. Be it by extremely easy challenges, an inability to fail due to an excess of free lives, or just over explaining something that could have easily been a puzzle.
There were some superb games to come out of these era's. Unfortunately though, this era holds the sin of the birth of bad ideas. Bad ideas that still plaque gaming today.
Gaming has been a shockingly smooth progression from the early eras of 3D to now. Little things have been implemented, better controls, online, etc. But there was one franchise that really altered an aspect of gaming, and that would be Halo. Halo is the franchise that really made PvP a main staple for a game. Now Halo isn't guilty in having a tiny story and focused only on the online play. But they did lay the brickwork for it. The online was so popular, franchises like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and the Battlefield games popped up. Sure they have a single player campaign.... Kinda. But you can tell it's slapdash, and the 100% main purpose of the games is the online matches. And from that, games that have no single player aspects have popped up. Games like Star Wars Battfront, Overwatch and Battlefield 1 for example. And I can't stand they are charging extremely high prices for these games that have zero playability if you don't have an open network (Or don't care about online). Fighting games can be sort of blamed for this, but console released fighting games always have some reasonably decent single player to it as well. To add, games that focus on multiplayer, with zero local multiplayer ruined a lot of what use to make multi-player games any fun.
There are modern games that do get it right. Games like Darksouls, Shantae and the Pirates Curse and Hollow Knight to name a few. And why are these games so good? They are harking back to something older. Be it just classic gaming styles and 2D platformers that are just fun, or games that might clearly be a modern game, but don't have the modern issue of hand holding just so it can tell the story it wants to. So few games are show don't tell, which is a shame as those are the games with the best story telling elements. What's interesting, most of the games coming out that do hit all the right buttons are being made on the indi market. I guess the indi market is where people exist to make what they WANT to make and not what is being dictated to them.
In the very early days of gaming, I can understand either a very simplified story, or no story at all. The disk space was so minute, that one text box could have cost the space needed for something like a boss battle. But as games progressed, they started to be able to weave quite powerful stories. But in these early days, they didn't skimp on the gameplay to do so. Now, everything is so set on making a game pretty, and rendering the neck hairs of the protagonist, it leaves them with a shortage of both time and disk space to do little else. And story focused games seem to be so set on telling you the story they want to tell, they give little to no way to deviate from their path. In some cases just taking controls away from you because heaven forbid you don't have the exact experience they have planned out.
There is one genre of game that has come out of the 3D era that really has been a strong movement, however. Sandbox games. Starting with Shenmue on the Dreamcast and progressing to the majority of AAA titles today, sandbox games to provide an experience that could never be truly replicated in older games. This direction has led to some of the most interesting games to be launched in the last 15 years. This has also led some games into a corner they shouldn't have gone into. Sandbox games that work, do so because it's a world that you can take just about any direction you like. And most of the time, will allow you to be a psychotic little nut bag. The games that fall down in this manner would be better served in a linear progression, as that's obviously the direction the games push. There are a few games that really fall into this pattern, No More Heroes and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the first Assassins Creed are 3 good examples. For something that really is a good idea for some games, is just a terrible idea for those that really shouldn't use it.
I don't want to say that the progression of all gaming has been bad. That just wouldn't be true. But certain ideas, many of them bad ideas, have become common in nearly every game.
Just for arguments sake, there is one genre of game, that has only proceeded to get better with technology improvements. That is simulation games. Flight sims, driving sims, hell even farming and truck driving simulators have all benefited from this. Reason being, they only need to focus on one thing. Making gameplay as intuitive, and as realistic as possible. In the early simulation games, it was bad, real bad. Now it's near like doing the real thing. I have a wheel, and can use it to teach people how to drive using Gran Turismo or something similar as the driving program. But this does bring me back to my original point, basing a game around gameplay is what makes a game fun.
I think what game producers need to do, is make a fun game idea, and then come up with a story and world to build around it. This way, even if the story struggles at points, if you make the game fun, you can still play and enjoy the gaming experience.
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