4 ms·

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discov

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discovered. Each breakthrough in technology has been followed by iconic "first of it's era" games, eg: - Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and others with their demonstration of how to translate a platformer to a 3D world - Tomb Raider with it's "even the scenery can be explored" - Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role - Half-Life, System Shock and others with their emphasis on story and setting But these ideas have been well explored and so games like Alien Isolation, which is a great game, aren't held in such high esteem. The solution to that is to look outside of the traditional gaming paradigm. Look at indie games and see what they're creating -- there's some really great indie titles out there. Look at games that utilise new technology like VR (ok, technically VR has been around since the 90s but it's only really becoming mainstream now) and you'll see some stand out titles there too. If you're only looking at games like Deus Ex then it could be easy to miss all the other stuff going on.

clarry 6y ago
>> I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex. > The solution to that is to look outside of the traditional gaming paradigm. I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it put them all together and did so many things right to create a polished, immersive experience with a compelling story (rather footed in reality as opposed to all out scifi/fantasy), strong plot focus (as opposed to disconnected mass-produced side quests), rich level design, lots of choice and player freedom, great music, replay value.. Hardly anyone is doing that. But, evidently, a lot of gamers want that. > If you're only looking at games like Deus Ex then it could be easy to miss all the other stuff going on. I just don't see anything that really compels me. Stuff is going on, and it's mostly not worth my time (or does a terrible job marketing itself).
- laumars 6y ago
  > I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. I don't think flatly calling all indie and VR games as "gimmicks" does justice to some of the more innovative creators out there. > * It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it put them all together and did so many things right to create a polished, immersive experience with a compelling story (rather footed in reality as opposed to all out scifi/fantasy), strong plot focus (as opposed to disconnected mass-produced side quests), rich level design, lots of choice and player freedom, great music, replay value..* I was gaming back then as well. It was mostly the mechanics people seemed to talk about at the time (and the graphics too). In any case, story driven games have existed long before Deus Ex and still exist now. > I just don't see anything that really compels me. Stuff is going on, and it's mostly not worth my time (or does a terrible job marketing itself). I see these kinds of comments all the time and frankly a lot of it is rose tinted glasses. You will naturally favour the games you grew up with. As it was, I grew up with text adventure games and crappy 8-bit conversions of arcade games so as much as I enjoy modern games I'm often still going back to Pac-Man and it's ilk because 3D is too "modern" for me. Like with how people harp on about how cartoons aren't as good as when they were kids, people make the same arguments for computer games too.... but that doesn't mean it is true.
  - clarry 6y ago
    > It was mostly the mechanics people seemed to talk about at the time (and the graphics too). Huh. Nobody praised the graphics back then. They were dated on the day Deus Ex came out; it uses the original Unreal engine (with some tweaks) and looks just as dated. Rendering technology moved fast back then and a game as large as Deus Ex had no hope of staying ahead of the curve. Plus they had to make some compromises to fit such a large scale game on disk & in RAM (there were other UE1 games that looked arguably better). I recall reviews considering Deus Ex's graphics "boxy" (literally!) and it has plenty of super small textures.. The thing that most people praised was the freedom. That's part mechanics, but what I was trying to say is that very few of the mechanics in Deus Ex were innovative; mostly they just did a great job incorporating mechanics that already existed in prior games. That's the ticket. You don't need to innovate and make some superb new mechanics to make a new Deus Ex quality game. > In any case, story driven games have existed long before Deus Ex and still exist now. Yes, but few games pull all the elements I mentioned above together. Deus Ex has "all the parts", and for most part it's done well, therefore it's more than the sum of its parts. Yes, story driven games exist, but few of them incorporate all the other elements that made Deus Ex what it is. > I see these kinds of comments all the time and frankly a lot of it is rose tinted glasses. I see people always dismiss this as nostalgia. I call bullshit, if only because I played very few games "back in the day" (and I don't like most of the games I had back then; I played them only because I really didn't have anything else to play). Most of the old games I discuss today are games I've only played sometime during the last decade for the first time. And I keep finding old games that I really like, and then I don't like their sequels, and I have a hard time finding new games that I like as much.
anthk 6y ago
>- Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role No. Mizzurna Falls was first.
- laumars 6y ago
  If you only look at the Japanese release dates then sure. But Mizzurna Falls was a mess of a game and never released in the west. Shenmue, however, had been in development long before Mizzurna Falls had started (since Shenmue was first developed as an RPG for the Saturn) and even with the pivot to the Dreamcast, it was only released the following year after Mizzurna Falls. Shenmue also has a much higher polygon count, all the NPCs had voice actors, it had action sequences, mini-games, etc. It was a hell of a lot more immersive than Mizzurna Falls in every imaginable way.
  - anthk 6y ago
    True, I forgot the Saturn protoypes, my bad. But the concept of "open world" could date back to Ultima RPG. You could set Ultima VII under an "open world" genre.
    - laumars 6y ago
      You could argue the concept of open world games date back to 70s with Dungeons and Dragons. The point I was making was that Shenmue introduced the world to a new way of approaching game design -- even if not all of the ideas were truly unique it did still package them in a way that hadn't been (successfully) tried before. Which is why it's such a memorable game.

clarry 6y ago

>> I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex. > The solution to that is to look outside of the traditional gaming paradigm. I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it put them all together and did so many things right to create a polished, immersive experience with a compelling story (rather footed in reality as opposed to all out scifi/fantasy), strong plot focus (as opposed to disconnected mass-produced side quests), rich level design, lots of choice and player freedom, great music, replay value.. Hardly anyone is doing that. But, evidently, a lot of gamers want that. > If you're only looking at games like Deus Ex then it could be easy to miss all the other stuff going on. I just don't see anything that really compels me. Stuff is going on, and it's mostly not worth my time (or does a terrible job marketing itself).

laumars 6y ago
> I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. I don't think flatly calling all indie and VR games as "gimmicks" does justice to some of the more innovative creators out there. > * It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it put them all together and did so many things right to create a polished, immersive experience with a compelling story (rather footed in reality as opposed to all out scifi/fantasy), strong plot focus (as opposed to disconnected mass-produced side quests), rich level design, lots of choice and player freedom, great music, replay value..* I was gaming back then as well. It was mostly the mechanics people seemed to talk about at the time (and the graphics too). In any case, story driven games have existed long before Deus Ex and still exist now. > I just don't see anything that really compels me. Stuff is going on, and it's mostly not worth my time (or does a terrible job marketing itself). I see these kinds of comments all the time and frankly a lot of it is rose tinted glasses. You will naturally favour the games you grew up with. As it was, I grew up with text adventure games and crappy 8-bit conversions of arcade games so as much as I enjoy modern games I'm often still going back to Pac-Man and it's ilk because 3D is too "modern" for me. Like with how people harp on about how cartoons aren't as good as when they were kids, people make the same arguments for computer games too.... but that doesn't mean it is true.
- clarry 6y ago
  > It was mostly the mechanics people seemed to talk about at the time (and the graphics too). Huh. Nobody praised the graphics back then. They were dated on the day Deus Ex came out; it uses the original Unreal engine (with some tweaks) and looks just as dated. Rendering technology moved fast back then and a game as large as Deus Ex had no hope of staying ahead of the curve. Plus they had to make some compromises to fit such a large scale game on disk & in RAM (there were other UE1 games that looked arguably better). I recall reviews considering Deus Ex's graphics "boxy" (literally!) and it has plenty of super small textures.. The thing that most people praised was the freedom. That's part mechanics, but what I was trying to say is that very few of the mechanics in Deus Ex were innovative; mostly they just did a great job incorporating mechanics that already existed in prior games. That's the ticket. You don't need to innovate and make some superb new mechanics to make a new Deus Ex quality game. > In any case, story driven games have existed long before Deus Ex and still exist now. Yes, but few games pull all the elements I mentioned above together. Deus Ex has "all the parts", and for most part it's done well, therefore it's more than the sum of its parts. Yes, story driven games exist, but few of them incorporate all the other elements that made Deus Ex what it is. > I see these kinds of comments all the time and frankly a lot of it is rose tinted glasses. I see people always dismiss this as nostalgia. I call bullshit, if only because I played very few games "back in the day" (and I don't like most of the games I had back then; I played them only because I really didn't have anything else to play). Most of the old games I discuss today are games I've only played sometime during the last decade for the first time. And I keep finding old games that I really like, and then I don't like their sequels, and I have a hard time finding new games that I like as much.

anthk 6y ago

>- Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role No. Mizzurna Falls was first.

laumars 6y ago
If you only look at the Japanese release dates then sure. But Mizzurna Falls was a mess of a game and never released in the west. Shenmue, however, had been in development long before Mizzurna Falls had started (since Shenmue was first developed as an RPG for the Saturn) and even with the pivot to the Dreamcast, it was only released the following year after Mizzurna Falls. Shenmue also has a much higher polygon count, all the NPCs had voice actors, it had action sequences, mini-games, etc. It was a hell of a lot more immersive than Mizzurna Falls in every imaginable way.
- anthk 6y ago
  True, I forgot the Saturn protoypes, my bad. But the concept of "open world" could date back to Ultima RPG. You could set Ultima VII under an "open world" genre.
  - laumars 6y ago
    You could argue the concept of open world games date back to 70s with Dungeons and Dragons. The point I was making was that Shenmue introduced the world to a new way of approaching game design -- even if not all of the ideas were truly unique it did still package them in a way that hadn't been (successfully) tried before. Which is why it's such a memorable game.