From gaming experience I can safely say that games don’t amuse me anymore and the lack of innovation in recent games helps to support this further. Most of what we see today is run-shoot games that have been copied from an age-old concept first seen from id Software in Wolfenstein 3D and their Doom series.
Now almost two decades later we’re seeing the same principles being played down in Doom 3 which is basically a re-inactment of the first Doom which played down in space and development on Doom 4 has also begun which is opted to be similar to Doom 2 in which the storyline took place right here on earth.
Before I go any further I’d like to address that I am not a professional in the gaming industry and there are a lot of mixed opinions around this matter and this article was written mostly from my own opinion although I am definitely not alone in my views over this matter. I’ve opened the discussion on three diffirent forums here, here and here.
Something’s missing in the next-gen games
Regardless of all the development around some of the top-notch next-gen games I personally feel there’s something lacking in the gaming industry and in order to determine what that is we have to look at what did the games of back in the day offer and what does the current games offer.
The games of old
Remember those cool DOS games you used to play as a kid when you just got your first PC? I sure do, Keen, Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem, Death Rally, King’s Quest, Space Quest and Police Quest were just some of the great games back then which I enjoyed as a toddler.
Or what about the TV games such as Mario Bros, Battle City (yes that cool tank game which had multiplayer support). Damn they were FUN!
While they didn’t have the greatest graphics compared to today they were, and may I say, still are very fun games to play even today. Why? My overcast over everything tells me these games had something that kept me coming back for more and more and I could play hours on one on a single game.
Take even the simplest concept such as Mortal Kombat. This is a raw and brutal fighting game which still lives on today but if you look at why it was successful back then? It was one of a kind, not even Street Fighter is the same (although similar). It is a game that had me hooked for many days because back then the net wasn’t something ordinary so I had to figure out all the cool moves (fatalities etc.) and heck, just as I was getting bored I’d have to fight a suprise secret character (Noob Saibot anyone?).
Mario Bros as another example is also a very simple game which can be enjoyed from ages 5 and upwards to be honest. What made it fun was that it could be enjoyed by more than one and the inevitable secret bricks you could discover as well as those cool secret levels.
King’s Quest, Space Quest and Police quest were probably the most intuitive games ever. In these games you really had to think hard sometimes in order to progress and in some of the earlier releases you even had to type in what you’d like your character to do. This was great fun and also generally funny games with funny comments but probably the best of all, you could learn a lot by playing them.
Today’s Games
There really have been some good strategic games such as Starcraft, Tiberian Sun, Red Alert, Age of Empires and WOW etc. However you’ll find once you’ve played one of these you can be a master in any of the other and while I’ll admit Age of Empires is quite a bit different from Red Alert and WOW the principle is the same. Build a civilisation and fight to survive by obtaining ore to conjour resources etc.
Realism, graphics, sound and perhaps gameplay itself has been improved but that’s inevitable with the new hardware coming up and I agree we should make use of all that processing energy on great games (if as an individual you so desire to play games anyway).
Apart from that and some titles which have been fun I can’t say with honesty that I’ve seen innovation from the gaming industry over the last couple of years.
How many games have you seen lately in which your mission is not to kill apart from simulation and racing games? Or another question might be how many games have you played lately which’s difficulty is high not because it’s hard to kill people, win a race or because real-life simulation games are hard, but instead because you have to think? I can go on by asking how many games have you played recently in which you were surprised to come by some in-game secrets such as secret levels etc?
Personally I haven’t been playing such a game that meets those standards for years now and as a result my spark for gaming has disappeared and I now spend most of my time writing articles and listening to music on my computer.
On the flip side however, the online game “Second Life” is impressive for the mere fact that you can do well, almost anything and interact with people across the world, establish a business and see how it runs. This is great in case you’d like to simulate a local area in which you plan to open a restaurant for example and in my opinion wins the award for innovation for a next-gen game.
Conclusion
Disregarding the above-written, I think the reason why big game titles such as Call of Duty have been so successful is because it has a great storyline behind it. What better than learning about the World War while playing a very realistic and fun game?
I think what got lost over the years in games is the feel for a world or a universe. Many games just don’t feel like a world that wants to be explored any more but instead like a concatenation of well-tested and well known gamedesign-elemnets that you already have seen in the last dozens of games, it simply isn’t interesting to explore that, that you already know all to well.
Until I find something fun to play again I’ll be playing the age-old games (with the exception of a few newer games which I like) through DosBOX…
What are your thoughts on this?
. Sorry guys!
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