Historical Revisionism in Video Game and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[PrK]

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

Like say.. Arcanum? The game you claim to love? You control the pace, you decide when to engage with dialogue or when to proceed with the story, plus it is not disconnected from the gameplay, the latter informs the former in all the ways that matter. That is good design.

I fucking love Arcanum. But Fallout and Arcanum play like old stick figures moving around with extremely simple gameplay. It has poor pacing with long text trees.

Ok, you are certifiably insane after all, got it.

Most of these older games are only played by people who love them, so they don't get the criticism they would if more people played them. They play like old 2D games that appeal to people who like this very specific type of game. Most people get bored of this because of its slow gameplay and archaic design.

There is years upon years of criticism on all these older games here, orders of magnitude more than most other places, you should try the search function. What does "old 2D game" mean? Do you realise that there are old 3D games as well as modern 2D games, plus there is absolutely no common characteristic in all "old 2D games" that appeal to people who like a "very specific type of game". WHAT is this very specific type of game?? "Slow gameplay". What?! Slow like say, Might & Magic? As opposed to what?! And even then. How is "slow", a categorical negative? "archaic design". Like what? Engaging and well thought out systems, rewarding exploration, choices & consequences? All those things the old games had?

I did not claim c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon. I am saying choices in early 2D games are easier than in later 3D games. You guys are talking about depth, but depth in early RPGs is considerably different than in more complex games.

"Later 3D games" are in no way, shape or form more complex or more in depth than in earlier ones. For example Wasteland, a 1988 game is a thousand times more complex and in depth than say Avowed. That is not something that is possible to dispute. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Modern game design is design that takes into account what has been learned from older games. Like using checkpoints where needed,

Checkpoint based design as opposed to save anywhere is in the overwhelmingly amount of cases flat out worse.

avoiding long boring tutorials,

..which is exactly what newer games do and the opposite of what the older games did?!

pacing the game correctly, designing good difficulty, etc…

..like exactly what the older games did and the opposite of what the newer games do?!!

using good art styles,

What the motherfuck does the art style have to do with design?!! Like seriously? Plus, can you possibly claim that Eye of the Beholder or Icewind Dale look worse than Veilguard?



You are just posting in the wrong forum that is all. This is a place for people who like video games and appreciate and discuss what they can accomplish as an interactive art form. Not for falsely claiming the very best examples of them are in any way inferior just because they were made before the time your mother failed to abort you.

 

[Vic]

This thread started as Sega fanboys being butthurt about Nintendo's success. What is it now?

 

[Nutmeg]

we should be asking "who made Herzog Zwei?" "What was their intention?" "What was their inspiration? What were they trying to realise in video game form?"

I will get to this in a subsequent post, stay tuned!

Earlier I promised I'll write about Herzog Zwei's predecessors, and I think as good a way to go about it as any is the formula given by GamerCat_'s rhetorical questions.

Herzog Zwei was made by Technosoft, which for the rest of this brief essay we can consider a "school" of game design. As for the intentions of the adherents of that school, we can look to their past and future game development endeavors to give us some clue.

Technosoft's first notable alumni was Katsunori Yoshimura, a pioneer (globally) in real-time 3D graphics for personal computers (initially, high end arcade hardware and consumer game consoles later), responsible notably for Technosoft's seminal 1983 Plazma Line (the first PC game with real-time rendered "polygonal" 3D graphics), and its 1988 cult classic sequel Star Cruiser, the latter created by his team at Arsys software, which he founded after he left Technosoft in 1985.





Unlike what the thumb for the video above suggests, I wouldn't classify the PC versions of the first Star Cruiser as FPS games, at least not in the way we know them, since maze exploration and shooting were separate modes in these Arsys originals. Rather, Masaya's port (Masaya being the developers of the Assault Suits series of 2D mech sims, among others) of Star Cruiser to the Mega Drive in 1990 resulted in, arguably, the first FPS game in the vein of Id Software's 1991 Catacomb 3-D, a year before Catacomb 3-D:



Before leaving Technosoft, Yoshimura worked on Thunder Force, which would spawn a legendary (within the genre) series of games bearing the name, and as I will argue later, is a direct ancestor of Herzog Zwei by way of Thunder Force 2.

Beyond the Star Cruiser series, Arcsys worked on ports of SystemSoft (Daisenryaku series creators) TBS games to the X68000, game engines for Namco's Air Combat (predecessor to Ace Combat) and Polyphony Digital's Omega Boost and Gran Turismo, as well as original works for Japanese PCs like Wibarm, Wer Dragon, Reviver and Knight Arms.

As with many talented programmers, Katsunori Yoshimura was the target of an MI6 and CIA led psychological warfare program to "troon out" and neutralize individuals of exceptional talent who could either come under the employ of a state rival to the Anglo-American empire, or challenge the narrative of the "right kind" (Western) of genius -- in this case it was done to promote a budding rightoid-libertarian tech cult around John Carmack by (literally) neutering the Asian competition, and by association the actor-oligarch Musk. Yoshimura has done nothing of note ever since being subjected to trooning.

Another group of Technosoft developers were head hunted by Red working in partnership with Hudson, as far as I understand the history here, to produce a Thunder Force 3 competitor for the PC Engine (TF3 having being released exclusively for the Mega Drive), resulting in Gate of Thunder and Winds of Thunder, the latter in collaboration with Ghost in the Shell creator and legendary mangaka Masamune Shirow for the concept art, character design and cover:

This same group of ex-Technosoft staff then spun off from Red to form CAP (Computer Artist Production) which then capped off (pun unintended) the 16-bit era with Hagane and Battle Raiden for the Super Famicom, and their swan song for the PC Engine, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire. CAP would go on to develop the much loved Bulk Slash for the Saturn and b.l.u.e for the Playstation, before meeting the ill fate of becoming a shadow studio for Nintendo developing Mario Party games (RIP).





I've hit the embedded media limit, so I'll wrap up here. In the next post, we'll look at what Technosoft themselves were doing in the lead up to and aftermath of Herzog Zwei, and on this basis form a speculative description of the Technosoft school of design (If I even can). Finally, we'll look at the broader context of Japanese RTS-likes prior to Herzog Zwei and speculate on how they might have also influenced the game.

 

[newtmonkey]

At first I thought Mountain was trolling here, since he went in just a few posts from "I like plenty of old games, but there are also good new games" to "old games are stick figures on a piece of paper that just cannot compare with modern games like Mass Effect" (a hilarious argument to make, since Mass Effect consists almost entirely of flat maps with no sense of verticality or exploration whatsoever)... but he's pretty consistent with how the average person posting on a video game forum thinks.

Modern game design means no hurdles in the way of your progress through the game, and modern "gamers" love this because they are "adults with responsibilities now" and don't have the time to figure anything out. It's all a joke though, because the fact of the matter is that these people almost always have plenty of free time in their "busy" lives to put 300 hours into Horizon Zero Dawn or whatever to get their Platinum Trophy, or to binge watch trash on Netflix. In effect, playing a game to them is one step away from watching a show on Netflix, and the closer games become to that, the happier they are.

And that is the danger of historical revisionism in video games, the idea that "game design" is some kind of science that inevitably improves with time, and so of course anything released in 2025 has better "design" or whatever compared with something released years ago. You see it here in this very thread (where it rightly gets called out), but go to any forum about games and the rot is overwhelming.

 

[The Decline]

This thread started as Sega fanboys being butthurt about Nintendo's success. What is it now?

Two idiots vomiting.

 

[GamerCat_]

we should be asking "who made Herzog Zwei?" "What was their intention?" "What was their inspiration? What were they trying to realise in video game form?"

I will get to this in a subsequent post, stay tuned!

[Excellent post]

I don't see how you can appreciate history this well and consider "who started RTS" to be a substantial question that can be engaged with in a worthwhile manner. The human dynamics behind these games are everything. Again, I believe the only dangerous revision is teaching people to think of games divorced from the people who made them. Most people really do think "RTS" is an eternal form that existed before us and manifestations of it sometimes spontaneously emerge, and if it's in America that owns, if it's in Japan that doesn't count because they're small bugs and junko furota got molested by a phone camera shutter sound in a used panty vending machine.

"RTS" games went to COMPLETE SHIT IN THE WEST because we decided that RTS was a thing and forgot the creative continuities and motivations that lay beneath the earliest and most original incarnations. Ones exactly like what you're going into here. If these people had the tools we have available today, they would not make a clone of Command & Conquer 3. Utter wastes of human energy like TEMPEST RISING exist because we refuse to treat history like you so excellently have right here.

You're already getting at where I was trying to lead people. That Herzog Zwei is an anime fantasy game. It comes from a continuity of games with brilliant concept art by well-established pop-art pros working in other mediums. Fantasies of realising the premises of popular fantasies and ideas with new tools and no established tropes or conventions. Before "RTS" existed (there was a time) someone had to be motivated to make it so. Someone wanted to make a cool living science fiction war inside a computer. That is where good games come from. Not thinking "hmmmmaaahh it's been a while, nobody's made a command&conquervaniabornelike in a while. I'm going to clone that with unreal engine".

If C&C is valuable as a pure game, play the originals which are such brilliant games. If they're valuable as cultural artefacts and total works and experiences, learn how culture works.

We could also state my skew on gaming history as a desperate desire to make people read gaming as a culture industry, not a tech industry.

Japan never had this problem because they didn't have silicon valley. They had brilliant programmers, as you've said, but there was not a total STEM culture to fall into and be informed by. Instead the programmers fell into and were informed by the Japanese popular culture industry. Video games immediately became kin of anime. While in the USA and a lesser extent Europe, they're still seen as more closely related to Microsoft Excel.

Glad you brought up stuff like Masamune Shirou doing box-art. Herzog Zwei is a product of anime culture coming into contact with computers is what I was hoping to steer us to. You may disagree. Maybe you wouldn't put it that way. Anyway, I look forward to seeing how you do put it. Excellent posting. You might be my favourite poster here.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Western games are also the result of pop-culture + computers. They were part of the same category of 'stupid nerd shit', like how anime and games are for loser otaku in Japan. And animu is full of retarded genreisms now. So, like,

 

[GamerCat_]

Western games are also the result of pop-culture + computers. They were part of the same category of 'stupid nerd shit', like how anime and games are for loser otaku in Japan. And animu is full of retarded genreisms now. So, like,

Undeniable of course, but the centre of gravity has always been tech. The pull of broader culture has always been a good thing for western gaming. This is also why older video games were better in the west, because they had fewer video games to refer to. The inspirations had to come from more interesting and organic places. Example I bring up a lot (like in my Myth review deleted by The Woke) is that Myth was obviously inspired by Braveheart, as was Age of Empires 2. Myth is the more interesting example, its novel approach towards viscerality and directly presented and reactive action is informed by a desire to produce certain images and events, rather than replicate certain gaming conventions or systems. And then retrospectively the gamer-horde call it a product of a set of conventions, it's a real time tactics (RTT so you have to think even less!) vaniabornelike. The game exists because Real Time Tactics is a thing where there's no base. Myth is a realtimetacticsvaniabornlike. To make one make a starcraft clone then remove the base.

This is what actually harmful revision of history looks like. Nobody understands how interesting new things come to be. People think art and culture are a bunch of guys playing mad libs with received forms. Mandalore probably thinks Myth was made by guys throwing darts at a board using C&C as a foundation. "REMOVE THE"... "BASE".

I also think this obvious genesis point of a lot of famous western games is swept under the rug because it clashes with various blind stabbing oldfag contrived memes of what constitutes goodgamedesign. Myth, Half Life, Deus Ex, and many other beloved classics are, god fucking help us, MOVIE GAMES.

 

[Morenatsu.]

We lived in a movie society, little weasel.

 

[GamerCat_]

We lived in a movie society, little weasel.

And that was a good thing. On the whole we were. The trouble is that gaming culture became insular, always had a tendency towards being self-referential, tech-oriented. The western problem, put another way, could be that computer autists are a bunch of tasteless uncultured fucks who need to be enslaved by artfags. They got a lot of flak in their time but I think 2000s moviegames were an extraordinarily good thing for western gaming. The companies who did that kind of stuff were fodder-farms who would only make completely characterless forgotten works about knights and sewer-gunfights otherwise. Friends and I were talking about this in relation to Starbreeze lately. All soul they ever had was outsourced. And this was a good arrangement. They were technically capable of assembling and realising good ideas. But had none of their own.

The most underrated and unappreciated figure in western gaming history if you ask me is undeniably George Lucas. Both material support through LucasArts, and more importantly how many good ideas were facilitated and spread through the Star Wars brand. George Lucas licensed out his soul to brilliant effect. Jedi Academy and Battlefront 2 are two of my favourite games of all time. Not necessarily for their Star Wars elements, but the Star Wars elements definitely lends them a lot of character and prompted their design in interesting direction. The Star Wars brand served as a primary aesthetic motivation to take the premises of games further. Tech does not justify itself like vision does. Tech system based game development just bloats like cancer. Trying to live up to Star Wars demands lateral thinking and prompts novel innovation.

Most Japanese games have aesthetic cores and drives. Most western games are made by people who "want to make a video game".

 

[Morenatsu.]

Japan is just a waifu factory now. It's over.

 

[Falksi]

This thread started as Sega fanboys being butthurt about Nintendo's success. What is it now?

PC fanboys having to endure the same retarded Nintendo shilling.

But this comment actually sheds a good light on the wider issue.

Success and popularity have become hobby/interest defining now due to the fucking retarded "likes" generation. You get the same in music groups, diss the Beatles and it's a crime, say you prefer niche bands like Europe, Dropkick Murphy's or Therapy ?and you automatically must be wrong coz "muh, sales!" right? Nothing to do with personal preference or fact that different cultures gravitate to different things.

Culture as a whole is dying because counter culture has largely died off and is no longer pushing back as hard to balance it out. Critical thinking is dying along with it because more people are conforming to get the popular "like".

Submit. conform, follow the numbers and mainstream standards...I mean, the over-simplification of Bioware's early formula HAS to be a good thing right? Mass Effect 3 sold millions more than Baldurs Gate 2, PROOF that it's better right? Modernization, sales...it's just like how the Force Awakens is clearly the best Star Wars film and thus best formula, because it made the most money and is modern, right? I mean, how can a plastic model space battle be as good as incredible CGI 30-40 years later? Tension, flirtatious combat dynamics, battle depth...the earnings say all that doesn't matter.

"Success"...the true enemy of all art forms.

 

[Nutmeg]

Continuing my post above

Herzog Zwei was released in 1989, after Yoshimura and his crew had left 1985, but before the second group of almuni graduated to Red and then CAP. Technosoft published two other games very relevant to the discussion in the mean time. The first was Thunder Force 2 for the Sharp X68000 personal computer, and the second is Herzog for the PC-88, 98, MSX and Sharp X1 personal computers, both in 1988. These are the direct ancestors of Herzog Zwei. Let's look at Herzog first.



Herzog described itself as a "real time combat simulator". Each of two players possess (i.e. directly control) a mech (called a "land armor") which scrolls around what is essentially a vertical sh' 'm 'up level (with no horizontal panning i.e. less Flying Shark and more Xevious). The land armors have HP, and can be destroyed, and the players have a limited number of land armors in stock (i.e. lives, although they can purchase more). If the player depletes their land armor stock, they lose.

There is also another victory condition, which is to destroy the opponent's off map "base". Damage is dealt to the base by having autonomous units reach the opposite end of the map. These autonomous units may be spawned at the spawning player's end of the map, in a selected lane, at any time via a menu, each spawn costing "funds" which tick up automatically (the same funds are also used to stock up on land armors i.e. lives).

The video series linked above explains things much better, and the narrator also goes out of his way to highlight very familiar RTS tropes (e.g. unit types, infantry running out of destroyed tanks) already present in this genre forerunner.

If the game hadn't been made in 1988 and were made today, it would be called a shmup, RTS hybrid.

The first Thunder Force game released in 1983 was a direct hybrid of Namco's 1981 Bosconian (omni-directional scrolling) and Xevious (separate anti-air shot and ground shot via a bombing reticule) from earlier in 1983.

Its sequel 5 years later, Thunder Force 2, kept every second level in the format of the first game, but interspersed them with horizontally scrolling levels in the vein of Gradius (which is the direction the series would take thereafter).



Nevertheless it was the battlefield as depicted in the former stages that informed Herzog Zwei's visual deisgn at the least (I mean, some assets look as though they might have been touched up only slightly, if not re-used wholesale between the games), especially with regards to scale and geography. We can, IMO fairly, say Herzog Zwei is Herzog as reimagined in Thunder Force 2's top down battle-scape engine.

Technosoft would continue to operate for more years after the release of Herzog Zwei, than it did from its founding to that date. In Herzog Zwei's immediate aftermath, they released a (port of a) pinball game and no less than 5 autoscrollers for arcades and home consoles -- Thunder Force 3 and 4, Star Blade, Elemental Master and Hyper Duel -- indicating that certain (and IMO very sensible, though perhaps unambitious) conclusions on game design were made. The last of the games mentioned, does however, share one thing in common with Herzog Zwei -- the transforming mech.



One can dream of a Herzog Drei, set in the battlefields of Hyper Duel, just as Zwei was set in the battlefields of Thunder Force 2. Vanillaware released a sidescroller RTS in 2007 titled Grim Grimoire, but it's both not an embodied cursor game (AFAIK, though I care less about this aspect), nor is it Technosoft immediate or intense.

Now, of course, we can only speculate on how Technosoft designed their games, but here is what I think the core method was.

• Build a direct (usually combat) simulation of some kind, then
• Design a minimal set of possible player interactions with that simulation, and finally
• Add win, lose and scoring conditions to make a game out of it.

I believe this method is sufficient in its ability to have produced the majority of their (and Arsys and CAP's) game designs, and certainly for the core of every of their game designs (outside this core, a minority of games require a provision to be made for the limited presence of adventure game tropes). It can certainly produce both the design of Herzog and Thunder Force, and indeed nicely ties together the RTS and shmup genres.

If they had two principles in addition to this method, they would be immediacy and pace (i.e. fast!).

Lastly, let's turn our attention to Napoleon Senki, an early Japanese RTS-like from Irem (another incredibly significant developer) which may have influenced Herzog Zwei (the first Herzog only by means of tradeshows, word of mouth, or corporate espionage, as they were released only a few weeks apart AFAIK).



Unlike Herzog and like Herzog Zwei, the player can scroll the battlefield both vertically and horizontally. Unlike either Herzog or Herzog Zwei the player controls an abstract cursor, and finally, unlike Herzog, Herzog Zwei or Dune 2, the game is bi-modal -- there is an operational mode, and a tactical mode -- with modes differing in ruleset and the scale they represent, but not in their fundamental "engine" (for lack of a better word) or interface.

The game remains popular in Japan (for what it is) judging by the amount of videos of people playing it on YT.

Genki would make a spiritual sequel (loose, thematically speaking it's now a wild time travel plot where Napoleon fights Roman generals) in 2001 for the GBA, this time indisputably an RTS and almost definitely influenced by the evolution of the genre as it occurred in the West.



I'll leave more Japanese RTS games in the wake of Dune 2 for another post.

 

[Nutmeg]

That Herzog Zwei is an anime fantasy game. It comes from a continuity of games with brilliant concept art by well-established pop-art pros working in other mediums.

Glad you brought up stuff like Masamune Shirou doing box-art. Herzog Zwei is a product of anime culture coming into contact with computers is what I was hoping to steer us to.

Sorry I think you've managed to misread my post somehow and I've confused you.

Winds of Thunder, developed by CAP had Masamune Shirow as one of the staff.

Herzog Zwei, developed by Technosoft, 4 years earlier (might as well have been 4 decades, back then), may have shared some staff, but definitely did not have Masamune Shirow among its staff.

Herzog Zwei is not very anime at all. The art in it, outside of tiles and sprites, (so, the stuff that appears in the menus, credits etc.) are all just (what appear to be) digitized photographs of military equipment. Likewise for Herzog. Not a single stylized character to be seen.

Behold, this is the legendary game I've been spamming this thread with information on since a few pages back.



Well, this is the Switch port by M2 (I believe), which has some widgets on the side but is otherwise just running a netplay capable emulation or 1:1 recreation of the Mega Drive game.

 

[Mountain]

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

Like say.. Arcanum? The game you claim to love? You control the pace, you decide when to engage with dialogue or when to proceed with the story, plus it is not disconnected from the gameplay, the latter informs the former in all the ways that matter. That is good design.

I fucking love Arcanum. But Fallout and Arcanum play like old stick figures moving around with extremely simple gameplay. It has poor pacing with long text trees.

Ok, you are certifiably insane after all, got it.

Most of these older games are only played by people who love them, so they don't get the criticism they would if more people played them. They play like old 2D games that appeal to people who like this very specific type of game. Most people get bored of this because of its slow gameplay and archaic design.

There is years upon years of criticism on all these older games here, orders of magnitude more than most other places, you should try the search function. What does "old 2D game" mean? Do you realise that there are old 3D games as well as modern 2D games, plus there is absolutely no common characteristic in all "old 2D games" that appeal to people who like a "very specific type of game". WHAT is this very specific type of game?? "Slow gameplay". What?! Slow like say, Might & Magic? As opposed to what?! And even then. How is "slow", a categorical negative? "archaic design". Like what? Engaging and well thought out systems, rewarding exploration, choices & consequences? All those things the old games had?

I did not claim c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon. I am saying choices in early 2D games are easier than in later 3D games. You guys are talking about depth, but depth in early RPGs is considerably different than in more complex games.

"Later 3D games" are in no way, shape or form more complex or more in depth than in earlier ones. For example Wasteland, a 1988 game is a thousand times more complex and in depth than say Avowed. That is not something that is possible to dispute. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Modern game design is design that takes into account what has been learned from older games. Like using checkpoints where needed,

Checkpoint based design as opposed to save anywhere is in the overwhelmingly amount of cases flat out worse.

avoiding long boring tutorials,

..which is exactly what newer games do and the opposite of what the older games did?!

pacing the game correctly, designing good difficulty, etc…

..like exactly what the older games did and the opposite of what the newer games do?!!

using good art styles,

What the motherfuck does the art style have to do with design?!! Like seriously? Plus, can you possibly claim that Eye of the Beholder or Icewind Dale look worse than Veilguard?



You are just posting in the wrong forum that is all. This is a place for people who like video games and appreciate and discuss what they can accomplish as an interactive art form. Not for falsely claiming the very best examples of them are in any way inferior just because they were made before the time your mother failed to abort you.

Wasteland has more depth because it's a game made on a spreadsheet. Arcanum and every game you are talking about are 2D games that allows endless text and stats variations in skills because it only needs to move a 2D sprite around on a 2D map.

3D games need more consideration put into walking over a tree trunk than all of the games you mention. As a result, making deep gameplay requires far more consideration and is far harder, but the tradeoff is that you get better gameplay.

I am not saying 3D games are automatically better or that older games are worse, I am saying that the depth you are talking about is harder to do in other games. Many older games have better choices and systems, but again, it's because the games are extremely simple in nature.

Avowed needs a year of development just to develop magic spells, in 2D games, you just need a flash of light and a text that says "fireball cast". You can do more in old games because you don't need complex gameplay.

I didn't say older games has boring tutorials, or worse pacing, or worse art styles. I just said modern game design changes and takes into account what is learned.

And lol that this is a forum for people who like games. This is an old man's club for old games. People who don't play new games, or seemingly any games at all, who think that depth in games is changing stats in old 2D games.

Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing

Counterpoint: No they don't.

To give you a more serious answer:
Saying "the plot doesn't matter if the game design isn't there" is something you should tell to BioWare, because they didn't seem to realise it - they put a massive emphasis on plot (arguably a low-quality plot at that), to the point of repeatedly stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue and/or cutscenes, and yet the main mode of gameplay they wrapped that plot around was a very generic cover shooter. Virtually all missions play out the same way - you walk around and talk to people for a couple minutes, then no matter what you've done, you end up in a highly scripted and very lengthy cover shooter segment, which is followed by a bit more talking to cap it off.

Even fans of the series tend to agree that you're basically tolerating the cover shooter segments so you can get to the next story segment; if your position is "the plot is worthless without a strong game backing it up", that sounds like an argument against Mass Effect!

I can't express how boring talking about Mass Effect is though, I just thought it was baffling that your argument about modern games being superior to older ones in some ways - an argument I'd otherwise somewhat agree with - ended up with fucking Mass Effect as its centrepiece, one of the most amusingly shit games you could possibly choose to make that point.

It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

Are you telling me you couldn't write Mass Effect?

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here. If you think you can, you don't know dialogue writing.

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

The cover system is fine, the shooting and powers work well with it. What system do you expect? what cover system do you want? or do you want a FPS or turn-based? brothers in arms?

Again, the entire reason Mass Effect is brought up is because he was talking about how it's so much worse than Star Control 2, and how God of War sucks compared to Flashback. I was just pushing back on his insanity.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work.
...
As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those old games became hard to play.

Again! Are you trolling? Can you please explain in simple terms in what ways Mass Effect is better designed than Fallout or Arcanum? Why do you think it has better encounter design than Pool of Radiance?

It was made when player guidance was in its infancy.

It is called RTFM, maybe you should try it.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Did you just claim that c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon count? Putting aside the colossal absurdity of that statement, have you even heard of Alpha fucking Protocol?

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Just answer this please. In your own words, what is modern game design?

I fucking love Arcanum. But Fallout and Arcanum play like old stick figures moving around with extremely simple gameplay. It has poor pacing with long text trees. It's been too long for me to remember properly, but a lot of these older RPGs have completely botched difficulty builds, where you can truly fuck yourself if you don't build exactly the way you are "supposed" to. I am pretty sure Fallout was like that, don't remember with Arcanum. Most of these older games are only played by people who love them, so they don't get the criticism they would if more people played them. They play like old 2D games that appeal to people who like this very specific type of game. Most people get bored of this because of its slow gameplay and archaic design.

Reading the manual to learn a game is a poor excuse for poor design.

I did not claim c&c implementation is inversely correlated to polygon. I am saying choices in early 2D games are easier than in later 3D games. You guys are talking about depth, but depth in early RPGs is considerably different than in more complex games.

Modern game design is design that takes into account what has been learned from older games. Like using checkpoints where needed, avoiding long boring tutorials, using good art styles, pacing the game correctly, designing good difficulty, etc...

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

I'd say the criteria it's fair to judge the game on is the plot, which is obviously the focus above all else in Mass Effect games. ME3 has been criticised to hell and back since it came out, but ME2 offers a similarly bizarre story that's totally disjointed from the games preceding and succeeding it, and which is pretty awful on its own terms. You've probably already seen it but there's a very, very long retrospective on the whole series written by a guy called Shamus Young and even if you don't agree with everything he says (I definitely don't, and he overrates ME1 to an absurd degree IMO), the way he takes ME2 to task is pretty spot-on. You can read it here if you feel like spending hours on it: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28582

You can also judge the games on their reactivity, which was a selling point and even shows up on loading screens in ME2 ("be careful what you do, your choices will have big consequences in ME3!!!"). There's a discussion to be had there, but I don't think it's incorrect to say that your choices overwhelmingly do not actually matter in these games - there's a few very impressive bits of reactivity that stretch across all three games (the genophage cure mission in ME3 relies on things that you did in ME1, for example) but by and large the game straight up doesn't give a shit what you do, to the point where it'll do audacious stuff like give you an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Mordin stand-in for Mordin if he himself was killed.

Additionally I'd question the idea that ME2 fixed the gameplay; it plays more smoothly than ME1 but it's still a very simplistic cover shooter which loses all steam during the tutorial and just keeps getting more and more laboured from there as every mission turns into the same exact cover shooting hell. You could obviously argue that this was a deliberate move on BioWare's part because their aim was to make a blockbuster action game in which Shepard shoots a lot of people and is shot at by a lot of people, but then that opens the door to what I'd consider to be very reasonable criticisms about the incredibly low ambition that characterises the entire trilogy.

The only argument you can make about Star Control versus Mass Effect is that it was more important and better when it came out. But now, that is a non-argument.

I agree the comparison doesn't hold up as the games don't share much in common, but if the games were to be compared, I don't think Star Control being "good for its time" is the "only argument" you can make for it. It's got a range of systems that Mass Effect lacks, offers a far more non-linear experience, and arguably has a better grasp on what it wants to be in terms of writing and tone. Again, the comparison is apples to oranges so it doesn't really work but I'm not sure why you cosnider it to be so unreasonable for someone to play both games and come away thinking that SC2 was more impressive than ME. SC2 hasn't even really aged badly; it's still very accessible to play in a way that other games of the era aren't, and Mass Effect's accessibility comes as a result of being incredibly simplistic and straightforward, which a lot of people won't like.

Mass Effect is not a book, the game design is what matters. The plot means nothing if the game design doesn't work. Mass Effect has tons of plotholes and issues as the games move on, but they also have good dialogue and character writing and a really cool take on the Fermi Paradox, which is enough to make an engaging story. Star Control 2 is just exposition, It barely qualifies as writing. I could write Star Control 2 right now.

The reason why choices were bigger in some older games is because they are essentially spreadsheets and sprites. It's harder to make one tiny choice in a modern game than thirty in a game from the 80s, because of what it affects in the code and design.

Mass Effect needs systems and mechanics that take months to create. That they have a few choices that carry through the games is a massive undertaking. And even if they had a few more meaningful choices, it's not entirely sure it would mean that much.

Third-person combat is anything but simple.

What makes this so bizarre, is that this forum is a bunch of people who think deep RPG systems are better than anything. However, the games they play are considered student projects in modern game design.

Star Control 2 is a horrible-looking 2D systems-based game with barely any gameplay. It's absolutely not accessible, and apart from a few genius systems and rules, it's as simple of a game as you can get from the 90s.

Mass Effect has 400 gameplay mechanics that Star Control 2 lacks.

Haven't read the thread in full but:

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

I don't think it's "categorical madness".

The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.

The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!

Yeah but coming from a guy that had to install/play Avowed to know of it was a good game or slop doesn't add a lot of weight to your posts in this thread.

You have to play it to have an informed opinion.

"The Seven Samurai fucking sucks because it's black and white". Childish.

This close and still can’t grasp the irony.

True, the real reason the Seven Samurai sucks is because of a lack of gunfights

Just watch the american version:

It missed all the points of the original.

Haven't read the thread in full but:

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

I don't think it's "categorical madness".

The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.

The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!

He was the one who made the comparison, that's why I brought it up.

Mass Effect 2 fixed the clunky gameplay. What do you think are Mass Effects criteria for success?

The only argument you can make about Star Control versus Mass Effect is that it was more important and better when it came out. But now, that is a non-argument.

Games are interactive technology in its infancy. Design change, technology change. They couldn't do things in the past that they can do today. Things build on one another. It's more comparable to cars than books and paintings.

Design can change, of course, but change does not necessarily mean improvement, you get that right? Same thing with technology, do you think that just because a modern game can utilise more megabytes of RAM it is better than a game that ran on floppy disks?
And no, games are infinitely more comparable to an artform like film or music than a product.

The tools simply weren't there when Carmack made Catacombs, Doom was not possible. Quake was not possible. Technology opened up new avenues over time.

Again, so close and still not getting it. Do you think a modern UE5 slop is better than Doom or Quake just because it is more technologically advanced?

Old RPGs have random forced encounters. Early games were sticks that were shuffled across the screen to hit balls. The game design changed and developers learned from each other and made things better over time with new game designs as they got access to more tools.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you believe that progress was linear? That it continues to this day? Don’t you get that constraints birthed innovation, and with rapid innovation both in hardware and in software we got most of the masterpieces we have today, but that is by and large a thing of the past? When people say that old games were better it means exactly that, we got for example Thief or Deus Ex, but instead of "new game designs" being brought forth as developers "got access to more tools" we got slop instead. For a long time now, the game industry doesn't care and/or is incapable of making good games, easy profit - and in more recent years, pushing agendas - is the main driving force.

You seem to think that I am saying that no one can enjoy older games. You make things up. Of course you can enjoy older games, I do too, I discover old games all the time, but that doesn't mean you brush past anything that has become dated.

In reality there is a very small amount of things that can objectively be called inferior due to best practices/intuitiveness not yet been figured out. Again, which newer games do you think are more worthy of being included in a best of list like the Codex ones I linked previously instead of all these old games that this forum truly believes are better?

97% of people have shit taste, but you and the other 3% have great taste? by playing games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter?

1. Yes, the RPGCodex regulars do have an immeasurably better taste than the masses, that’s one of the main outcomes of autists sperging about their niche hobby.
2. Is "games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter" supposed to be a comment denigrating games by Sir-Tech, Origin, Interplay, Black Isle, SSI, Sierra, Westwood, NWC, LucasArts, MicroProse, Troika, Looking Glass? If so, you are posting in the wrong forum, faggot.

Change doesn't make it better, but in terms of games, more RAM back then would mean that more things become possible. Cars are also an art form. If games were comparable to music, you would have to envision a situation where the guitar started with one string, then it got two, then it got three. And as it got more strings, the possibility for the musician to craft more complex melodies arose.

UE5 and old hardware are different. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, technology changed so much that it gave game developers completely new avenues to create things. But it's not like that anymore, PS4 games are shockingly similar to PS5 games. But PS1 to PS2 was massive. And early PC upgrades and their iterations were gigantic.

I am not saying it was linear and that old stuff is automatically outdated, I am saying a lot of early games were made with game design and technology in its infancy. They made random encounters because they didn't know better, but after a few years, game design changed and we learned it was a poor way of doing it. It's like when Wolfenstein had mouse movement, and later games stopped doing that because it sucked. Early on, game design was very raw.

Let's face it, this is a forum of older guys who love their old games of their past. It's like talking to people who love darts and think the NFL is for uncultured swine. You guys know as much about games as a prostitute knows of class. Which is why I like this place, I love fucking idiots.

Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.

Mass Effect was shitty RPG that became shitty action game in the second installment and turned into shitty trilogy.
You playing all of them and loving them doesn't mean it is a good game.
It only means you have shitty taste.

Have you ever met Leviathan?

You are married to the past. Depth does not excuse poor gameplay. The reason why you put some of these games over newer ones is because you grew up with them.

It's like the opposite of zoomers who only play Madden and Fortnite, their concept of the past doesn't exist just as your concept of the current state of gaming doesn't exist. So you have to call people idiots to defend your view, just as the zoomers do.

No I'm not. I play modern games too and recognize the great ones there. It's just older ones often did it better.

A lot of these games I'd not even played before, so "you just grew up with them" is bollocks. I spoke to plenty of posters on here stating I was going to dig into the past libraries and play a lot for the first time. You're just doing that cope thing of having to make stuff up to find a way to fit your limited view.

Some examples of games which I played for the first time after 2017 which I now class as some of my favorites ever include...

• Hellfire
• DoDonPachi
• Alien Soldier (and I hated this at first. But, unlike you, I took people's advice and pushed through initial skill hurdles, rather than dismiss them in full without any real effort)
• Blackthorne
• Contra Hard Corps
• Langrisser 2
• Exile: Escape From The Pit
• Blades of Vengeance

...and there are plenty more too.

That doesn't mean I don't love modern games like Dark Souls series, Nioh, SMTV Vengence though. Unlike yourself and those games journos, I've a balanced appreciation of games, old & new.

I never said that playing older games today is bad or somehow wrong. I play older games as well. But we have biases towards the games we grow up playing. You seem to have developed tastes around older PC games, which is cool, but that means playing and discovering older games is fun for you. And that is perfectly fine, but you should be able to discern between what you like and what is good.

I fucking love Blast Corps on the N64, but it's not even within the top 1000 of all-time greats. It's not even top 30 on the N64. I know this because I don't let my bias take over my every opinion, like you do.

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

What are your top 3 new games from last year?

Like I said before, Star Control has almost endless 2-player replayability. It's up there with Chess, Tetris, Street Fighter 2 etc. The game's lasted me, my family and friends over 30 years worth of play. It's space-chess with action thrown in to boot. Mass Effect can't offer that, nowhere near. It's a play through once every 5-6 years game for one week a year.

By your logic Chess shouldn't be considered one of man's greatest entertainment inventions because it's old and Pokemon has flashier graphics.

Last year, Skald, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and then a toss up between Black Myth Wukong & Metaphor.

Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.

You can ask a Day Z kid and he will use the same exact argument as you, "I play it so much, so it's the best game ever, it has endless 2-player replayability".

"I play Sonic all day, it's the best game ever, everybody else has shit taste, everyone else is a fucking casual."

It's a nonsensical argument. It doesn't speak to the game. Your love for it is based on other factors than the game quality. The presentation, pacing, onboarding, and gameplay of Star Control are ancient and far behind the modern standard, and your bias looks past that. I do the same with many games as well, everyone does, but that doesn't mean you can't look at the game for what it is. It's like when people champion Sonic over Mario.

Chess doesn't have flashy visuals, it's a board game. And it has nothing in common with Star Control apart from that you can use strategy and that it has a solid ruleset. Tetris and Street Fighter function completely differently as well.

But it's not.

Star Control's gameplay is pure perfection. As I've already explained several times, it's space chess from a tactical angle. You have to find the right balance between ship types, credits, positioning, ship-combos, world types, and attack and defense strategies to succeed. It's simplified enough sure, but even still Mass Effect's got nothing like that, it's just a shooter with a few token RPG mechanics thrown in.

But then you've an actual shooter element in star Control anyway, which is better than Mass Effects anyway. Mass Effect's is run on a really simple rock-paper-scissors power system...whereas Star Controls rock-paper-scissor combat system is deeper, and contains more variables as each ship stacks up against the others in different ways, giving the tactical part of the game all types of possibilities and making the actual combat as much of a battle of wits as it is skill. It's fucking genius, the balance is supreme and makes for 2-player games that find a supreme synergy of planning, action, predictability and unpredictability.

You're just too casualized to see that, and think Mass Effects simplistic cover-shooter mechanics, which sees you have 60 odd hours of the same action but having to be drip-fed power increases to stay interested, as something special. It's only special if you are.

In fact, have you actually even played Star Control to anything more than a casual degree? I'm really beginning to think you're just standing your ground based on almost 0 experience of Star Control, and just casually looking at the graphics and probably some Youtube play. Your statements don't acknowledge any of the depth it has. Comparing it to Sonic is laughable.

Pure perfection? it's 2D sprites and menus. Do you even know what gameplay is?

Positioning? ship-combos? world types? I can describe any game like that. I can come up with 500 empty words like that to describe Superman 64 as well.

How anyone over 20 years old can sit on a forum and call bash everyone who doesn't play ping pong and 2D stick games as shit, and then say Flashback is better than God of War, is something I didn't think existed. It's almost impressive.

"It contains more variables as each ship stacks up against the others in different ways". Yes, because it's MS Paint doodles fighting each other on a black canvas. When things are that simple, you can add everything you want because you don't actually need to build a game around it. Funny, it took more time and effort to make the cover mechanic in Mass Effect than to make Star Control 2. And Mass Effect is not 60 hours.

All games with any sort of action have "planning, action, predictability, and unpredictability". You are just saying random words.

I played Star Control 2 several years ago, it's interesting as a historical piece, but ancient and crooked. Of course I am only on a "casual" level with it, but that doesn't mean anything. No game is designed to be enjoyed only by people who play a game for 30 years.

This is pure deflection from you simply to show you haven't played the game enough to analyze is properly.

I knew you were setting up an escape argument. "You have to watch Solaris 300 times to get it". "You have to listen to a song 200 times to begin to like it". Nothing works like this, and certainly not video games.

Funnily, I probably played Star Control 2 more than 99% of the people on this board.

To be concrete, Star Control 2 doesn't have onboarding. It was made when player guidance was in its infancy. If the developers had the chance today, they would never make the same game.

As I mentioned with the other guy, it's the same concept as with forced encounters in some old RPGs. That happened because the game design was so early on they didn't know any better. Once encounter design evolved, those games started to fall apart.

It's the same thing with Star Control 2, the gameplay, the UI, the story, it's all based on a time when those things were just started to come about.

Do you know why Mario Bros was so big for game design?

See, you're not even talking about Star Control, this is pure proof that you don't grasp things.

I've literally just spent several posts talking about the tactical battles of Star Control (planet capturing, positioning etc.) you've totally missed that but are also saying you that don't need to play it any more to recognize it lol. You literally haven't even recognized the game lol

Sorry chap, it's clear that I can keep explaining things to you, but I can't understand them for you.

I said in the post that Star Control 2 lacks onboarding, UI, story, and gameplay. I swear some of the maps look like real vomit.

Positioning is literally adjusting the turn of a 2D sprite with your arrow keys. That's all the gameplay, it's like playing with crayons. Oddly, you don't mention the good parts of Star Control 2 and mention only the shit parts.

What a fuck is recognizing the game? do I need to play it for 30 years and hate all other games?

Fuck me, you retarded twat...YOU'RE NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE SAME GAME AS I AM.

You need to recognize which game you are talking about. Star Control (with the tactical chess-esq battles) is not Star Control 2.

Christ alive, talk about a way to display how dumb the average casualized Mass Effect worshipper is. You've literally proved here that the modern casual is unable to grasp games like Star Control properly because they are unable to grasp very basics in general. Thanks, I guess.

Star Control 1? Are you talking about the game where you drive the ship around and shoot blobs at astroids and ships? you are right, it didn't even enter my mind that you would be talking about that. I completely blanked it out.

And you think that game is like chess? star control 1?

You have been playing that for 30 years? with a friend? you are sitting and playing that together? please be honest, because you are either a great troll that have been playing me like a fiddle or something very different.

I couldn't even write 3 sentences of the dialogue, and neither could you or anyone here. If you think you can, you don't know dialogue writing.

You've got to be fucking with me here.

Stopping all gameplay to force you into dialogue? all games with a story do that. That's how you build a game, you pace and balance story and gameplay segments. What sort of game would you rather it be based on?

You said the story doesn't matter if the game design isn't there to support it, and I'm pointing out that in Mass Effect, the story (such as it is) and the game design are typically segregated from each other; the plot is thus presented as a huge and unavoidable feature of the experience, so it absolutely is fair to criticise the game as a whole based on the weakness of the writing.

Also, the bolded part is obviously not true but I'm not really sure you're being serious.

Segregated? Having a cutscene after a gameplay section is not segregation, both affect the other.

What example do you have of a game that ain't segregated? how do you suggest they do it in Mass Effect?

 

[Falksi]

Star Control 1? Are you talking about the game where you drive the ship around and shoot blobs at astroids and ships? you are right, it didn't even enter my mind that you would be talking about that. I completely blanked it out.

And you think that game is like chess? star control 1?

You have been playing that for 30 years? with a friend? you are sitting and playing that together? please be honest, because you are either a great troll that have been playing me like a fiddle or something very different.

This is just... again...an admission that you haven't played it and know nothing about it. Which I suspected all along.

How many posts have I stated that it has a great tactical element which meshes with great combat in already? Yet you still think it's just ship-on-ship combat because you clearly play games via Youtube

Yep, 30 years. Not always just a friend, but a group of friends too. Random melee mode if we are going for a short session, Total War or occasionally Escalation depending on how many are playing.

You are THE perfect example of the typical revisionism fool. Make sweeping judgements against things which you are completely unfamiliar with and unable to grasp.

 

[Silverfish]

Culture as a whole is dying because counter culture has largely died off and is no longer pushing back as hard to balance it out.

What's left to counter? The modern cultural landscape is the fruit of 20th century counterculture.

Mass Effect 3 sold millions more than Baldurs Gate 2, PROOF that it's better right?

I'd say that Novaguards are the proof, but your point is well made.

 

[PrK]

Infinitron I've seen users sporting tags that seem made for this kind of person, can you perhaps chose one (or a few) so in the future people are better informed before they waste their time arguing with him?

For example:

Wasteland has more depth because it's a game made on a spreadsheet. Arcanum and every game you are talking about are 2D games that allows endless text and stats variations in skills because it only needs to move a 2D sprite around on a 2D map.

Shitposter is one I've seen that makes sense for such a poster.

3D games need more consideration put into walking over a tree trunk than all of the games you mention. As a result, making deep gameplay requires far more consideration and is far harder, but the tradeoff is that you get better gameplay.

Dumbfuck is another that fits here nicely.

I am not saying 3D games are automatically better or that older games are worse, I am saying that the depth you are talking about is harder to do in other games. Many older games have better choices and systems, but again, it's because the games are extremely simple in nature.

Possibly Retarded works just fine as well.

Avowed needs a year of development just to develop magic spells, in 2D games, you just need a flash of light and a text that says "fireball cast". You can do more in old games because you don't need complex gameplay.

Batshit Crazy iirc is another fitting tag.

And lol that this is a forum for people who like games. This is an old man's club for old games. People who don't play new games, or seemingly any games at all, who think that depth in games is changing stats in old 2D games.

Maybe there more that I've missed, but you get the point. Thanks in advance.

 

[newtmonkey]

There are many people here who play old and new games alike, but aren't retarded enough to believe that just because a game is polygonal and takes longer to develop, that it is more complex or better. Who gives a shit that it takes a year to code some spells in garbage like Avowed versus a minute in Pool of Radiance when the end result is exactly the same? We aren't talking about an immersive sim here, we're talking about Mass Effect and Avowed, which lack physics engines. Most polygonal games might as well be 2D sprites sliding around on backgrounds because they are designed mostly as 2D games on flat planes with no dynamic physics. Mass Effect would have been exactly the same game had it been released back in 1997 as a prerendered isometric RPG (or even on a console), except for the graphics.

 

[Infinitron]

Japan never had this problem because they didn't have silicon valley. They had brilliant programmers, as you've said, but there was not a total STEM culture to fall into and be informed by. Instead the programmers fell into and were informed by the Japanese popular culture industry. Video games immediately became kin of anime. While in the USA and a lesser extent Europe, they're still seen as more closely related to Microsoft Excel.

I think there's some truth to this re: the Japanese and tech, but it does come at a cost. It has made them less efficient and responsive (and not just in the videogame business).

 

[Viata]

In short, my niggas, just play some good old games in between the shit slop you guys play called modern games.

 

[Mountain]

Infinitron I've seen users sporting tags that seem made for this kind of person, can you perhaps chose one (or a few) so in the future people are better informed before they waste their time arguing with him?

For example:

Wasteland has more depth because it's a game made on a spreadsheet. Arcanum and every game you are talking about are 2D games that allows endless text and stats variations in skills because it only needs to move a 2D sprite around on a 2D map.

Shitposter is one I've seen that makes sense for such a poster.

3D games need more consideration put into walking over a tree trunk than all of the games you mention. As a result, making deep gameplay requires far more consideration and is far harder, but the tradeoff is that you get better gameplay.

Dumbfuck is another that fits here nicely.

I am not saying 3D games are automatically better or that older games are worse, I am saying that the depth you are talking about is harder to do in other games. Many older games have better choices and systems, but again, it's because the games are extremely simple in nature.

Possibly Retarded works just fine as well.

Avowed needs a year of development just to develop magic spells, in 2D games, you just need a flash of light and a text that says "fireball cast". You can do more in old games because you don't need complex gameplay.

Batshit Crazy iirc is another fitting tag.

And lol that this is a forum for people who like games. This is an old man's club for old games. People who don't play new games, or seemingly any games at all, who think that depth in games is changing stats in old 2D games.

Maybe there more that I've missed, but you get the point. Thanks in advance.

You guys always explode like this when you can't argue your point. The only way to pretend you are playing "deep games" is to call everyone else a retard.

Star Control 1? Are you talking about the game where you drive the ship around and shoot blobs at astroids and ships? you are right, it didn't even enter my mind that you would be talking about that. I completely blanked it out.

And you think that game is like chess? star control 1?

You have been playing that for 30 years? with a friend? you are sitting and playing that together? please be honest, because you are either a great troll that have been playing me like a fiddle or something very different.

This is just... again...an admission that you haven't played it and know nothing about it. Which I suspected all along.

How many posts have I stated that it has a great tactical element which meshes with great combat in already? Yet you still think it's just ship-on-ship combat because you clearly play games via Youtube

Yep, 30 years. Not always just a friend, but a group of friends too. Random melee mode if we are going for a short session, Total War or occasionally Escalation depending on how many are playing.

You are THE perfect example of the typical revisionism fool. Make sweeping judgements against things which you are completely unfamiliar with and unable to grasp.

You are obfuscating the description of a simple game because you love it so much you can't help but pretend it's somehow great in 2025. You are revisionist personified.

You know fully well that the game is outdated, but your attitude meshes with all your other insane opinions on games, which makes me think you might actually believe it's a complex game. You have to pretend I never played it, that no one else can grasp the game, because you are so out of touch that your brain has to go into self-defense mode and ignore that you are playing what amounts to a mediocre flash game.

There are many people here who play old and new games alike, but aren't retarded enough to believe that just because a game is polygonal and takes longer to develop, that it is more complex or better. Who gives a shit that it takes a year to code some spells in garbage like Avowed versus a minute in Pool of Radiance when the end result is exactly the same? We aren't talking about an immersive sim here, we're talking about Mass Effect and Avowed, which lack physics engines. Most polygonal games might as well be 2D sprites sliding around on backgrounds because they are designed mostly as 2D games on flat planes with no dynamic physics. Mass Effect would have been exactly the same game had it been released back in 1997 as a prerendered isometric RPG (or even on a console), except for the graphics.

You are making things up.

No one said it's better because it takes longer to make it, only that it's harder and takes longer, which means it's not as common in many newer games. But a short game that takes 2 weeks to make can still be better than a game that takes 3 years.

What you guys consider "depth" is math.

Mass Effect would not be the same in 1997 lol. 3D games and 2D games are completely different beasts, I am not saying one is better than another, but they produce different experiences in your brain. Games are audio-visual, and what you see and how interaction works produce different experiences. Moving around in Avowed and casting a spell is a completely different experience than seeing a text prompt. Jumping down from a rooftop in a 3D game is radically different than jumping of a roof in a 2D game. This is obvious stuff. Graphics affect the experience, they are not the end-all-be-all, but they matter.

 

[Falksi]

You are obfuscating the description of a simple game because you love it so much you can't help but pretend it's somehow great in 2025. You are revisionist personified.

You know fully well that the game is outdated, but your attitude meshes with all your other insane opinions on games, which makes me think you might actually believe it's a complex game. You have to pretend I never played it, that no one else can grasp the game, because you are so out of touch that your brain has to go into self-defense mode and ignore that you are playing what amounts to a mediocre flash game.

It's not complex, it's just very replayable because of it's well balanced dynamics. To repeat myself yet again to you, it's got a rock-paper-scissors type system which has more variables than the likes of Mass Effects far more predictable combat.

I've no idea how you dispute that when it's clear you don't know anything about the game. You couldn't even identify it, so yes, you haven't played it (or not to any degree worth an opinion)

As for "out of touch", I literally gave you my fave games of 2024 earlier too at your request lol. Played 'em, really enjoyed 'em...been playing more Star Control with the family lately though.

 

[newtmonkey]

No one said it's better because it takes longer to make it, only that ... it takes longer

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you are literally retarded.

 

[Salabon]

I think there's some truth to this re: the Japanese and tech, but it does come at a cost. It has made them less efficient and responsive (and not just in the videogame business).

That’s okay. Efficiency and responsiveness aren’t purely good things to strive for anyway. A little redundancy, room to breathe, and time to internalize have their own qualifiable merits, but much to the annoyance of bean counters, no quantifiable merits.

I’m not a massive fan of Japanese gaming but I can appreciate that Japan has done a much better job at holding on to an identity within their media in comparison to the West, and especially the US, where you can find a much stronger and pervasive presence of consultants who have never contributed to the arts, sciences, crafts, or anything that requires any skill or heart. With a cupped hand, said consultants whisper bullshit into the ears of the executive and upper-management who are increasingly naive, soulless, and unskilled in the arts, while the other hand pickpockets them in the name of ‘increasing efficiency and profits.’ The result often being a much higher degree of soulless art being produced that is designed by committee for the least common denominator to maximize profits.

Technically skilled consulting can be very useful when done by people with decade+ of deep hands-on experience, but the kind of young consultants, which graduate business programs churn out whose greatest anxiety in life was worrying whether their parents could find someone to take an exam for them, are an attempt to mask the symptoms of decline and detrimental to the long-term health and success of any company, any industry.