Anyone else feels bored by the new titles?

[Archaeon]

During the past few years, only a handful of games have made enough of an impression that I can say they were GOOD games. The Mass Effect trilogy, The Witcher (1-2), Battlefield 3, Metro 2033 and Last Light, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dark Souls. That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head. Everything else has been pretty damn mediocre.

[May90]

No it doesn't. Compared to modern shooters the early FPS games were pretty awful, either due to technical limitations or because the genre needed more time to evolve. Pick something post '98 for PC (Unreal and Half-life releases) or late in the PS2/GC/XBox console generation and you could make an argument for titles being superior, but given CoD does what it does perfectly competently that would be just, like, your opinion man.

That's the thing. Since old games had obvious technical limitations, they had to compensate for it by making involving and diverse gameplay to get people play their games at all.
Now, let's compare Doom and CoD. What you do in CoD is sit in cover and shoot from time to time, switching covers and making sprints sometimes. That's all there is to it. In Doom, however, you have to dodge missiles, to solve puzzles, to spend your ammunition and heath carefully as they do not regenerate. In Doom, there are many different kinds of enemies using different abilities, as opposed to exclusively humans in CoD. Now, sure, CoD has way better graphics and cinematics, it is more realistic and such. But the actual gameplay in CoD is lacking. You do the same boring things over and over until you get so bored that quit the game.

That's what I don't like about modern games. Today it's thought that shiny graphics and complex mechanics is all a game needs. But what is the point in all these complex recoil models and high-tech cinematics if all you do in the actual game is shoot, hide, shoot, hide, shoot, hide, sprint, hide, shoot, hide, and that's it? I prefer game with DOS graphics that has much replayability, than game with movie graphics and realism beyond comprehension, but which you finish once and forget for the rest of your life because there is nothing new the game can offer you on the next playthrough.

[Djuntas]

I'm just inn the same boat. Its been VERY hard to fill the void after I quit/nearly stopped with wow last 1-2 years.

I tried Rift - Meh bored quit after 1 month, BUT good exsperience and fun for the time being.

ARPGS like Diablo3, Torchlight, POE and when Van helsing gets patched (Currently bugged for me...indie lol!). All good time killers, and I hope Diablo3 will get some glory back. Didn't think POE was much good, and Torchlight2 got booring after 80-100 hours played.

Else I bought other random games on steam like Sleeping dogs (GTA asian clone, pretty good if you get it on sale), and currently playing Kingdoms of Amalur, but its getting booring as hell after 50-60 hours - Almost done even, but that last push is booring when your max level already, got some decent gear and the questes are all the same. And no titels but Pokemon on my 3DS had me interested, trough I must have clocked 600-800 hours pokemon by now.


With all thoes games + others like the odd Sims2 when I feel like building houses, and looking up other games constantly I still haven't been able to play as much as Id like. So 1½ year ago, back that summer I installed Age off empires 2 aswell. And I don't regret it- I played it so FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING much, it feels like its the only thing I'm doing sometimes. I'm afraid I did over 1000 games already if you count all my voobly, AOE2 HD and vs AI games together.

[theWocky]

Far Cry, SkyRim, Civilization 5 are all games that come to mind.

I will also be finishing Dead Space, Fear in the next few weeks. Hell, there are sooo many.

EDIT: Exceptional games are, well... exceptional... I thought of at least another 10 or 20 since I left this post...

[NoobzillaYT]

I was more impressed with games from 1997-2005 than I have been since =(

[Grakao]

Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice - Gods Among Us: best fighting games i've ever played, and they came past 2006 :P

I have played MK Trilogy for countless hours and still think MK9 is far superior in every way.

[Callous1970]

An upcoming game that made me nerdgasm when I saw it recently is No Man's Sky.

[Akka]

I would go as far as to say that I haven't seen an RTS since 1999 any close to Age of Empires 2 (Starcraft 2 comes close, but then, again, it's a revamped version of the old game).

Supreme Commander (the first, definitely NOT the second). It definitely is better than whatever was created before 2000.

I haven't seen an FPS since 2003 any close to Jedi Knight series.

Crysis. Again, the first and definitely not the second. Huge, giving lots of freedom and absolutely stunning.

I haven't seen a Hack'n'Slash game since 2000 any close to Diablo 2.

Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning is, IMO, far better than the whole Diablo serie, and has a gameplay much more engaging (it's too easy though, but it's so much bigger...).

And I haven't seen a turn-based game since 1999 that doesn't look like a game for kids with Down syndrome as compared to HoMM 3.

Civilization 4 tends to make HoMM looks like it's the one with the Down's syndrome.

You could say it's all about nostalgia and not being open-minded. Very well. I've never played NWN series before and started NWN1 OC just two weeks ago or so. There is nothing about nostalgia since I've never played it. And yet the game feels so much better than anything, short of modern Bioware games, they make these days! And it is a game that was very cold received back in 2002 for its dull story and boring gameplay... What would people say about Skyrim back then, I wonder?

I'm surprised about this one, considering NWN OC is downright shitty and probably the single worst single-player campaign game ever released by Bioware (even including DA2).
Though the two add-ons are pretty good (the second much more than the first).

Note : I still tend to agree with you that "old" games were more interesting than the marketing crap we eat today. But there IS some great games released these days. The difference is that at the time, there was one game each month that I could immerse myself for days, while now it's barely one or two a year.

[Deleted]

Im just sick of the current generic generation.

98% of the gameplay and features were brought from 6th gen with only slight increases in gfx details and nothing much else. Theres not really been any real evolution in games in the last 10 years, if anything they have got slightly better looking while dumbing down everything else for the console generation or online.

Hopefully with 8GB consoles coming out we can have beauty AND brains.

[Akka]

Hopefully with 8GB consoles coming out we can have beauty AND brains.

How so ?
Games could be and were already complex at a time were computers had 16 Mb (not Gb, Mb) RAM and didn't even sport graphic cards able to improve performance. It's not the amount of memory or hard drive that made console game dumbed down, and as such you can add as many "new generation" as you want, it won't change anything in itself.

The dumbed down games come from the fact that a console only has a pad (hence force the game to restrict itself to something that can be accomplished for a few button, so you can kiss goodbye to good UI and complex input) and the public (which tend to favour "MacDonald games" instead of actual deep and involving ones). Nothing to do with the power of the hardware.

[Deletedaccount1]

OP, I don't think gaming is for you anymore old man.

[Callous1970]

OP, I don't think gaming is for you anymore old man.

Age really has nothing to do with it. I'm OLD and I still play games. I think its more that people need to just quit buying the 25th iteration of the same damn game because they upped the texture rez 10% and added one more feature this time.

Uncharted were cool games.
Some of the Batman games are pretty good.
The Last of Us was a cool game.
Those episodic Walking Dead games are really good.
I loved Skyrim.
Grand Theft Auto's single player game was really good.

If all you're buying is the latest update to your usual sports franchises and the newest Call of Duty then I can see how you're getting bored with games.

[The Casualty]

I love the older games like Baldurs Gate I & II, Final Fantasy IV-VII, Chrono Trigger, and even old NES titles. But I don't think I could say that there haven't been tons of great games that have come out since 2006.

Borderlands I & II, Darksiders I & II, Bastion, Bioshock series, Assassin's Creed series, Left 4 Dead I & II, any of the Arkham Batman games, Dark Souls, the entire Professor Layton series, Dragon Quest IX, Fallout 3 & New Vegas, Skyrim, Starcraft II, Dishonored, Braid, Deus Ex: HR, Oblivion, Last Remnant, Dawn of War II and its expansions, EVERY expansion of World of Warcraft, Dragon Age: Origins, The Walking Dead, and the Mass Effect trilogy. Those are only the some of games that I have personally played and enjoyed that have been released since 2006. And I imagine there are tons more, especially as I do not console game at all.

[May90]

Supreme Commander (the first, definitely NOT the second). It definitely is better than whatever was created before 2000.

Didn't like the game at all. That's all I can say about it.

Crysis. Again, the first and definitely not the second. Huge, giving lots of freedom and absolutely stunning.

What? Crysis is a perfect example of a game that has nothing except for good graphics. Its gameplay is so boring, I couldn't hold even 1 hour and uninstalled it for good.

Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning is, IMO, far better than the whole Diablo serie, and has a gameplay much more engaging (it's too easy though, but it's so much bigger...).

Yeah. If they only had managed to create any resemblance of difficulty... Diablo 2 is not challenging either, but, at least, it didn't let you just rush through the whole content killing everything with closed eyes. Kingdom of Amalur's difficulty is WoW's difficulty, or, in other words, it's zero.

Civilization 4 tends to make HoMM looks like it's the one with the Down's syndrome.

This game is nice, but, better than HoMM 3? Come on.

I'm surprised about this one, considering NWN OC is downright shitty and probably the single worst single-player campaign game ever released by Bioware (even including DA2).

It, however, has way better plot than Skyrim or Fallout: NV. Although it's definitely worse than other Bioware's titles. Except for SWTOR, lol.

Note : I still tend to agree with you that "old" games were more interesting than the marketing crap we eat today. But there IS some great games released these days. The difference is that at the time, there was one game each month that I could immerse myself for days, while now it's barely one or two a year.

I don't claim that there are no good games today. As I said, I adored Dragon Age and Starcraft 2 - they were better than their predecessors in many aspects - and I consider Mass Effect simply to be the best game ever made in history (just let's forget the ending: nothing is perfect).
However, as you said, back in 90-s every month or so there was a game I just couldn't stop playing. Let's just take a look at RTS games from 90-s: Dune 2, Dune 2000, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, Red Alert - and these are only my favorite games, I don't mention dozens I liked a bit less, but still liked. RTS since 2000 worth mentioning? Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, maybe Emperor: Battle for Dune (personally, I hated that game, but some people liked it). That's it. Three games that are revamped versions of the old games. No completely new popular RTS games.

FPS genre, by the way, took a completely wrong direction, IMO. There are no more those arcade games like Doom or Jedi Knight. There are now almost exclusively war simulators and horror games. Every game is so realistic and... boring. I didn't think people would play FPS to feel themselves real soldiers. I always thought the games were for fun.

[Deleted]

What are you talking about? Might and Magic: Heroes 6 was amazing. I still play it when Im really bored and got time to kill:P

But I know what you mean, for me it's always been like this. It's always garbage, garbage, boring.. nothing interesting coming out. Meh.. (well there are a few series I follow, like Dragon age and Elder scrolls single player games) and then all of a sudden its like "omg, where did this come from?! its amazing" out of nowhere.

Last one like that was AC4 (I never really cared much about the series and got bored playing AC2 after an hour and never looked back). Then before that, AD 2070 and AD 1404 and Tropico 4 too.

[Deleted]

I'm inclined to say it is you. I used to feel like that a few years ago, but now I realize that it was pure nostalgia and/or prejudice against new games.
I got my first console in 92, and I have to say that 2013 was one of the best years in gaming I've lived. Probably the best one.

I don't want to be offensive, but seriously, open your mind. Saying that there's no good game after 2006... I can't help but think that you didn't try to play anything after 2006.



Not the ones I played. Maybe you're looking at the wrong place.

I do think a big portion of the games released the past 5 years was mediocre at best, but I agree with this so much. There were a lot more games released this year that I really enjoyed than, I think, ever before.

I have become increasingly more critical towards games since my first game & console back in the early 90's. That might be the case in the OP too. When I was younger I could enjoy pretty bad games because I didn't know better, but I can't posibly say there haven't been any good games lately. Although there is a lot of trash out there, there were a bunch of really good games released lately. You just need to stay open minded and try a lot of games.

Also, indie games. I was really sceptical towards indies for a long time but as of late I've been trying out more and more indie games and some of them are just brilliant.

[Deleted]

I still play cs 1.6. I Don't care about new games at all.

[The Casualty]

I do think a big portion of the games released the past 5 years was mediocre at best, but I agree with this so much. There were a lot more games released this year that I really enjoyed than, I think, ever before.

I have become increasingly more critical towards games since my first game & console back in the early 90's. That might be the case in the OP too. When I was younger I could enjoy pretty bad games because I didn't know better, but I can't posibly say there haven't been any good games lately. Although there is a lot of trash out there, there were a bunch of really good games released lately. You just need to stay open minded and try a lot of games.

Also, indie games. I was really sceptical towards indies for a long time but as of late I've been trying out more and more indie games and some of them are just brilliant.

Great point.

Here are all of the SNES (American + EU) releases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ames_%28A-M%29

The SNES had a LOT of great games, but out of its 779 overall games, I find only about 100 or so worth playing. Nostalgia just has us remember the good ones.
Rest assured though, that there were a TON of bad games made in that era, and the same holds true for the NES, Genesis, Playstation and for PC gaming.

[Ethas]

I agree with you OP. The main proof that it is not nostalgy is that there are small number of new games, which are still unique and immersive. For me, for example, after years of boredom, Skyrim made it.

[Dhrizzle]

That's the thing. Since old games had obvious technical limitations, they had to compensate for it by making involving and diverse gameplay to get people play their games at all.
Now, let's compare Doom and CoD. What you do in CoD is sit in cover and shoot from time to time, switching covers and making sprints sometimes. That's all there is to it. In Doom, however, you have to dodge missiles, to solve puzzles, to spend your ammunition and heath carefully as they do not regenerate. In Doom, there are many different kinds of enemies using different abilities, as opposed to exclusively humans in CoD. Now, sure, CoD has way better graphics and cinematics, it is more realistic and such. But the actual gameplay in CoD is lacking. You do the same boring things over and over until you get so bored that quit the game.

That's what I don't like about modern games. Today it's thought that shiny graphics and complex mechanics is all a game needs. But what is the point in all these complex recoil models and high-tech cinematics if all you do in the actual game is shoot, hide, shoot, hide, shoot, hide, sprint, hide, shoot, hide, and that's it? I prefer game with DOS graphics that has much replayability, than game with movie graphics and realism beyond comprehension, but which you finish once and forget for the rest of your life because there is nothing new the game can offer you on the next playthrough.

You might find short-game, arena PvP fps games boring, but that doesn't make them objectively bad. Likewise you might prefer space-fantasy to realistic/modern military but again that is a subjective opinion. Playing a game and disliking only "hiding and shooting" (also known as camping) is another subjective opinion, but if you don't enjoy that there are other (more difficult) ways to play.

However since Doom there have been lots of improvements that make modern shooters (potentially) much better than the earliest examples. Larger areas, involving stories, physics, the ability to look up and down and a plethora of new mechanics all make the games better; even if you personally don't like the way they are currently stuck together there are lots of people who will argue that games like Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, Bioshock, Dishonoured, Halo etc. offer massive improvements over the original Doom (and none of those offer the "realistic modern military" theme that you dislike). If you expand FPS games to include 3PS you get even more options (personally I found Space Marine to offer a very similar experience to 90s FPS games with a welcome addition of Dynasty Warriors type combat).

Yeah. If they only had managed to create any resemblance of difficulty... Diablo 2 is not challenging either, but, at least, it didn't let you just rush through the whole content killing everything with closed eyes. Kingdom of Amalur's difficulty is WoW's difficulty, or, in other words, it's zero.

I found D3 to be a lot more fun than D2, the game was much too easy before the addition of Monster Power, and elite mobs still rely too much on big hits, but the way the skill system encourages experimentation made it a much more interesting and rewarding experience (to me). Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile have also managed to pick up quite a following.

Let's just take a look at RTS games from 90-s: Dune 2, Dune 2000, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, Red Alert - and these are only my favorite games, I don't mention dozens I liked a bit less, but still liked. RTS since 2000 worth mentioning? Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, maybe Emperor: Battle for Dune (personally, I hated that game, but some people liked it). That's it. Three games that are revamped versions of the old games. No completely new popular RTS games.

Dawn of War and Supreme Commander are both highly recommended FPS series/titles. Dune 2 I played to death back in the day but as soon as CnC was released it's limitations and flaws became monstrously apparent. However I agree that this genre has barely evolved since the 90s (and indeed had stagnated in that decade).