Why does AAA gaming suck now?

[ZoSoRose]

With the PS5 and Xbox 4 coming out now, let's reflect on the last generation and how it has, in my opinion, kind of sucked. Obviously, there have been some stellar games this generation, but does anyone else think this generation was mainly a bust? I'm an Xbox One owner, and it has been a pretty over priced netflix box aside from the occasional adventure game and few rounds of Halo. Wtf happened?

Grand Theft Auto- 2 games last gen, 0 this gen

Mass Effect- 3 games last gen, 1 this gen (which was a poor release)

Halo- 3.5 (ODST gets a half point) games last gen, 1 this gen (another poor release)

Elder Scrolls- 2 games last gen, 0 this gen 

Fallout- 2 games last gen, 1 this gen

Gears of War- 4 games last gen, 2 this gen

Then you have regular release franchises like Assassins Creed that had an infamous buggy release this gen (I think the one in France) and Battlefield, with 4 launching as a buggy mess and 5 as very mediocre (I did love 1, though). Many "new" IPs meant to showcase this gen ended up being disappointing at best like Watch Dogs, Titanfall (great gameplay, but the first game had no content and the visuals are very sub par), Destiny, Anthem, Avengers, The Division etc. Compared to third party IP's born on the 360 and PS3 that is a pretty pitiful list. Microsoft didn't even really try to do anything in terms of new exclusives. Did anyone play Quantom Break? 

It seems Sony escaped this trend and released some killer PS4 content, including new IPs, but that doesn't explain all the third party failure on top of Microsoft's failures. Was it the free to play stuff? Or the games as a service models?

Its clear that developers could still make something special as seen with the Witcher 3, Red Dead 2, and a very large amount of PS4 exclusive content, so it was obviously not a matter of needing more resources for the higher demanding platforms. 

 

[Dazey]

I don't really think that this new gen is going to be all that spectacular. The days are long gone that a new generation of consoles make a genuine noticeable improvement. I don't think we've seen a proper generational leap since we went from PS2/XBox to PS3/360. The PS4 and XBox One weren't a massive improvement and the fact that the XBox Series X has launched without a single generation exclusive that isn't also available on previous gen speaks volumes. 

Maybe I'm getting old as Luke said but as an old cunt I can remember Atari VCS to NES/Master System to SNES/Genesis to N64/PS/Saturn to Dreamcast/PS2/GC/XBox to PS3/XBox 360 and every one of these generations was a massive increase in graphical horsepower from the previous.   

Have a look at these examples from the generations I've mentioned. You can see a massive improvement all the way up to XBox 360 and after that I can't really tell the difference. I mean there's a bit of a step up from 360 to One but after that it doesn't look like the kind of update that I'd be tempted to drop $500 right now.

   

[Dazey]

Another example is this comparison of Gears 5 on One X vs Series X.

I can't tell the fucking difference.  

 

[action]

corporations and money are your answers

EA buying all the good studios, then killing them, including mircotransactions and gambling elements everywhere.

sony going all out on cinematic games that sacrifice gameplay for story (that's a matter of preference though)

the death of physical games, the advent of internet requirements, day one patches, service based games further poison the market.

that said, there were a couple of great games this gen:

red dead redemption 2 was great

mortal kombat 11 was spectacular, the best MK game since mortal kombat 2, and I'm not saying this lightly

other honorable mentions: resident evil 2 remake, resident evil 7, blair witch, the witcher III

Overall I find I have enjoyed the nintendo switch the most. mario 3D all stars, mortal kombat 11, burnout paradise remastered, need for speed hot pursuit remastered, resident evil HD remake, mario maker 2, mario kart live home circuit... what a TON of fun I have had with the switch. I don't think I've EVER enjoyed a console more, really. It's home to the best classic games ever. All I need is a zelda 3D collection and I'll be overjoyed.

there still is great stuff to be found, but I feel you need to search for the good things, now more than ever.

[Dazey]

Got my Switch back today after my sister borrowed it over two years ago. Looking forward to a bit of Mario Odyssey. 

[DieselDaisy]

I bought a game boy recently with 500 games on it - all the classics, Mario, Double Dragon, etc. Fifteen quid!

[action]

36 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I bought a game boy recently with 500 games on it - all the classics, Mario, Double Dragon, etc. Fifteen quid!

fagg*ot shit!

you mean, you're not interested in an xbox series X, running on a 12 teraflop AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 52 compute units, running at 12 fps at 8K?

no games, you say? what a crazy thing to say. it runs at 12 teraflops, man. think of all the great dudebro games you're missing out on.

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, action said:

fagg*ot shit!

you mean, you're not interested in an xbox series X, running on a 12 teraflop AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 52 compute units, running at 12 fps at 8K?

no games, you say? what a crazy thing to say. it runs at 12 teraflops, man. think of all the great dudebro games you're missing out on.

I don't even know if that is serious or madey-up.

I gave up on modern, contemporary, gaming sometime around the time the XBox 360 came out, but I had already lost interest a bit before that. San Andreas was my ''Indian Summer'' I suppose. 

Edited November 12, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[action]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I don't even know if that is serious or madey-up.

I gave up on modern, contemporary, gaming sometime around the time the XBox 360 came out, but I had already lost interest a bit before that. San Andreas was my ''Indian Summer'' I suppose. 

all I can say is, I see your gameboy and I raise you a donkey kong game & watch. I can't let go of the thing. and it even has a watch built in (which I use as an actual alarm clock).

Edited November 12, 2020 by action

[Coma16]

5 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I don't even know if that is serious or madey-up.

I gave up on modern, contemporary, gaming sometime around the time the XBox 360 came out, but I had already lost interest a bit before that. San Andreas was my ''Indian Summer'' I suppose. 

San Andreas is on of my all time favorites. Hope it gets released on Switch at some point. I dont see it happening though...

[Dazey]

2 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

San Andreas is on of my all time favorites. Hope it gets released on Switch at some point. I dont see it happening though...

Vice City was always my favourite of the PS2 era GTA games. I get how San Andreas dialled everything up to 11 and everything but I just loved the 80’s setting and Scarface story so much more in Vice City. 

[DieselDaisy]

11 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

San Andreas is on of my all time favorites. Hope it gets released on Switch at some point. I dont see it happening though...

I still have my PS2 and that game.

I got a XBox (unexpected gift) and got the sequel with the Russian, but barely played it; by then I had basically given-up on gaming - sold the XBox soon after.

[Coma16]

GTA4 dragged on. GTA5 was fun again. Has there been something since? Wasn't 5 released on PS3?

[downzy]

3 hours ago, Dazey said:

Vice City was always my favourite of the PS2 era GTA games. I get how San Andreas dialled everything up to 11 and everything but I just loved the 80’s setting and Scarface story so much more in Vice City. 

Vice City was the game that got me to buy a PS2. I didn’t get the excitement around GTA3, but Vice City was insanely fun because of, like you said, the 80s nostalgia and tongue and cheek homage to that era.

For me, the only games that I truly enjoyed and think were worth the next gen mantra of this era (from an Xbox perspective) were RDR2 and Forza Horizon 4. Loved the shit out of those games.  Especially glad to have the Xbox One X for RDR2. Easily the prettiest game I’ve seen and something I feel was exponentially better than what we saw on the Xbox 360.

I would say that PS4 crushed it with AAA games this era. Sony’s first party exclusives took off in a way that I don’t think compares to other eras.  Spiderman, God of War, Last of Us 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, Shadow of the Colossus, Hero Dawn Zero, Dreams, and so many more. If I had the time to play more I would have bought a PS4 because Sony crushed it in the AAA space. 

I think what has kind of killed gaming a bit is a move away from platforming to everything being FPS oriented or Fortnight. For the younger generations just coming into gaming this is all new to them, so it’s not something they’ve grown up with for decades like most of us have.

Personally for me the next step will be in VR. Unfortunately the tech isn’t quite there yet, but it’s getting really close.  Until then we’ll see nothing but repetitive experiences with maybe some slight innovative iterations along the way.  Gaming at this point feels to me like 80s hair music. Fun and all but kind of derivative and kind of shallow. 

[action]

12 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I still have my PS2 and that game.

I got a XBox (unexpected gift) and got the sequel with the Russian, but barely played it; by then I had basically given-up on gaming - sold the XBox soon after.

that game depressed me, with it's grim look

killing hookers and pimps should be colourful and fun, not grey and grim

[action]

I'm pleased to see gaming going back to a kind of arcade style of fun.

the burnout and need for speed remasters which prove to be very popular, show that people still very much like arcade racers.

And Doom 2016 showed that FPS don't always need to have a weapon limit, and that shooting from the hip is much more fun than shooting "through scope". And cover based shooting has long outstayed its welcome

the ONE thing that modern gaming was missing, but which is slowly coming back, is "fun"

[Dazey]

14 minutes ago, action said:

I'm pleased to see gaming going back to a kind of arcade style of fun.

the burnout and need for speed remasters which prove to be very popular, show that people still very much like arcade racers.

And Doom 2016 showed that FPS don't always need to have a weapon limit, and that shooting from the hip is much more fun than shooting "through scope". And cover based shooting has long outstayed its welcome

the ONE thing that modern gaming was missing, but which is slowly coming back, is "fun"

Doom Eternal is fucking great too!

When I got my Switch back yesterday I discovered that my sister had installed the Zelda: Link's Awakening remake on it. Played it for hours! 

[action]

4 hours ago, Dazey said:

Doom Eternal is fucking great too!

When I got my Switch back yesterday I discovered that my sister had installed the Zelda: Link's Awakening remake on it. Played it for hours! 

cool stuff.

for me, I've rediscovered arcade racers, which took a backseat for so long. It's like taking a shot of adrenaline playing those games.

When your hands start sweating, you know you're playing a damn fine game

[ZoSoRose]

Sadly, we can add Cyberpunk to this list. I'm sure the game is great, but what a disasterous launch

[jamillos]

And here I am, sitting here quietly, not being able to play the new stuff like RDR2 or CP77, cause my 3.5-year old laptop just won’t take it, hoping for some future savings in order to buy a new, proper PC… For me, the recipe for not caring about game “generations” is playing just what your HW can handle and being glad at least for that...

[Jakey Styley]

It is totally normalized for developers to release unfinished games now. At best missing content, at worst broken. All we get are "wahh games are hard to make" excuses from the developers, no true accountability.

[downzy]

2 hours ago, Jakey Styley said:

It is totally normalized for developers to release unfinished games now. At best missing content, at worst broken. All we get are "wahh games are hard to make" excuses from the developers, no true accountability.

You would think at this point that certain elements of game design wouldn't need that much tweaking.  GTA has essentially been the same game since the early to mid 2000s.  I get that world building takes a lot of time and effort, but I still don't understand why base game engines can't be easily adapted at this point.  This seems to be a bigger problem with sandbox games and less so than FPS games like COD that get released every year.  I'm hoping with GTA 6 they simply take GTA 5's engine and build out a new map.  Perhaps I'm naive about this stuff but i don't see why it takes reinventing the in-game engine with every release.  The same could be said about Cyberpunk.  The developer didn't have the same issues with Witcher 3, but for reasons that don't make sense to me (since it was in development for nearly ten years), they couldn't even get the basics done right.  

[James Bond]

That's why I like IO Interactive so much. They've used the same in-house engine for what, 20 years at this point? They just refine it and improve on it as needed.

[action]

I am a bit late to the party and only recently got into Xbox one X gaming. it was my first console of the generation, so I waited till the very end.

I bought my xbox games at dirt cheap prices, and had a wealth to chose from. In a few days I got these games:

- gears 5 (came with the console)

- halo MCC

- rare replay

- MGS V ground zeroes

- MGS V phantom pain

- F1 2017

- RDR 2

- resident evil 2

- resident evil 7

- blair witch

- rogue squadrons

What I found playing these games, compared to older games, is that each game provides hours and hours of replayability and fun. A game like RDR2 is so massive, it easily justifies buying a console for alone. MGS V, another game that can provide unlimited replayabilty and fun.

Where in the days of the N64, games were shorter and with less content, you needed a larger library to get through. A game like blast corps would be a small element in a current AAA game.

All in all, I am very happy with my xbox, it can easily stand besides the N64 and switch, and is increasingly taking up playtime. It's somewhat of a spiritual successor the the N64 I find.

But it's not all rose and sunshine, because current gen is very hostile to the consumer with lootboxes, DRM and always online requriement. You just need to weed through it all and find the little diamonds.

[ssiscool]

On 11/12/2020 at 10:13 AM, Dazey said:

Another example is this comparison of Gears 5 on One X vs Series X.

I can't tell the fucking difference.  

 

One the One X, it's a little bit lighter on the hand side i think... 

On 11/12/2020 at 10:45 PM, Coma16 said:

San Andreas is on of my all time favorites. Hope it gets released on Switch at some point. I dont see it happening though...

San Andreas is easily the best in the series. With the exception of 'Wrong Side of the Tracks' Smoke can't shoot for shit!

On 11/12/2020 at 11:41 PM, Coma16 said:

GTA4 dragged on. GTA5 was fun again. Has there been something since? Wasn't 5 released on PS3?

GTA 4 was versy hit n miss. It felt more like III than a step up from SA. 5 i like the story mode but online element ruined it for me. GTA should be a single player game not online. Same as when they introduced online play in the rebooted Tomb Raider.

On 12/21/2020 at 5:46 PM, action said:

- MGS V ground zeroes

- MGS V phantom pain

MGS V, another game that can provide unlimited replayabilty and fun.

Whats the difference between Ground Zero and Phantom Pain? I never really progressed past MSG 3 Sneak Eater to be honest. seemed so far fetched it wasn't fun at that point