I like to delude myself into thinking that the criticism of the masses crying for change will somehow reach the PTB, and eventually influence gaming down a better path. But since they probably don’t, and what is considered as “better” is subjective from one person to the next, I should therefore just shut the hell up! But where’s the fun in that? NOWHERE! That's Where!

Now:

If you were sitting in a boardroom with the heads of any video game company, and they genuinely wanted to hear what your ideas or unmitigated criticisms were, what would they be?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Azuzu!,

Firstly, if you want your games to be appreciated as art (and of course, not all developers are interested in this anyway) start hiring actual writers to do your writing. Sounds pretty obvious really, but only the smallest handful of studios do it. Bioware, for example. And their games seem to do okay.

An excellent start! Keep em coming.

Here I was all excited only to discover some filthy, filthy spam that’s not even in the right thread.

Damn it people! I can’t be the only unsatisfied video game customer.

A peripheral with a sex hole?

quote:

Originally posted by mymindsblank:
A peripheral with a sex hole?

You really do need to get out of the house more often.

How about releasing Mother 3 for the GBA, NINTENDO?!?! HOW'S THAT FOR A SUGGESTION? OH, YOU MIGHT LOSE MONEY??? I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T REALIZE YOU WEREN'T MAKING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OFF OF THE WII AND DS!!!!!

I'm not bitter, though.

I picked up NCAA 09 Football for 360 this week and i wish that EA would start making the sidelines and crowd look a little better. Also the announcing on almost all sports games are atrocious. These games are cash cows for EA so they could put a little more effort into the small details.

Also it isn't fair that these sports sell their licenses exclusively to one company. NFL, NCAA Football, and MLB games are exclusively made, meaning their is no competition. Thats a bad thing in my opinion.

I'd tell them to read Chris Crawford's book on computer game design. It's very old, but all the principles still apply today. You can read it online at:
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

One thing I'd especially like to see in computer games is really good AI. I'm almost strictly a single-player gamer, and I hate it when the AI is too stupid to bother with.

Mind you, I'm not that brilliant myself. There are many games that do have decent AI and pose a good challenge for me. But many others do not.

I'm tired of having to resort to chess to get a strong computer opponent. A thoughtful design team should be able to create challenging AI for any game.

I’d like to see game developers become stricter in using successful “tried and true” standards as a prerequisite for any function in new games. I’m not exactly saying that games should be ripping off each other, I mean more just taking a page from which methods work and which methods crash and burn. I’ve mentioned an example of this here where I’ve compared SSBB’s (2008) stage Builder to Tony Hawk 4’s (2002) Park Builder.

I’d like to see developers become more pedantic in making sure that no matter how big or small, every function in their games is providing at least the standard of what has been accomplished with that function in the past from various titles. If anything, game developers should be moving forward and getting better especially when there’s a gap of 5+ years between what they’re trying to do now and the previous titles that have already done it. Not to mention a whole generation of console.

I’d also like to see this applied to all the different concepts of game play, for example if there’s a series of RPG’s that’s been using a format that’s been working for the past 10 years DO NOT completely change/remove it, build upon it, add more to it, generally advance upon that concept; like the once used method of worlds that you could trek and fully explore in FF, as apposed to the now used method of the map image which you select locations with.

Generally I’m a believer in the idea that more is less, and I’d say that this is something that should be applied to the single player or story modes of a game (to some extent.) However, apart from those aspects, I’d say that generally with games I want more bang for my buck, but I don’t want a game jam-packed with a whole lot of functions that are half assed and have been done far better, many times before.

When it comes to RPG’s, I want huge worlds full of content that I can physically explore. I want the virtual world to be abundant with potential to make me curious; I think the GTA series has hit the nail right on the head with this, and managed to keep the same style of game play with each new release whilst managing to advance upon the concept without being completely oblivious to what made it enjoyable in the first place. Games like GTA IV that are that polished and refined should be the standard. Game developers should be striving to make games that are of the same level quality if not better. All too often I walk into an EB that’s completely flooded with a sea of garbage games, each one more horribly disappointing than the last.

I’m starting to wonder: Have my standards become incredibly high due to 20 years of video gaming experience? OR: Am I just getting old, and are video games in general just not interesting to me anymore?

You should play psychonauts.

I am going to make an honest effort to clean up this section of the forums. I know that we do have some loyal members who are gamers and post here. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to see it cluttered with lots of spam.

Please, feel free to PM whenever you see any spam on these forums. That goes for any of the other sections as well. It might take me until the end of the day to get to it but I will take care of it, promise. I deleted some stuff here and there just right now but I am sure this place is filled with spam.

Thanks for all of your help in this matter and continue discussing your passions. Enjoy!

Thanks FKA! Don't know why the Game forum is more heavily populated by spam than others, but thankful that you guys are going to try to clean house.

Cheers!

As for game ideas/criticisms, I'm just finding myself at more of a loss with this current generation of systems than anything else. Yes, great games have been released here and there, but compared to previous generations of systems where you had piles of classics in the first two to three years of the system's lifespan? This generation has nothing even close to that. Thankfully, it would appear that developers are starting to get the hang of the newer systems - finally! But will Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo say screw it, and bust out with their new systems in a couple of years? I certainly hope not.

Microsoft, after almost three years of the 360 being on the market, has yet to correct all the kinks in the system. WTF x 10, man?! I recently bought one, busted it out the night I got it, and it gave me the red rings of death three minutes into gameplay. 3 MINUTES!!! I yell without hyperbole. I started to go through Microsoft's warranty repair process, but ended up saying, Forget it. If Microsoft can't make a quality product that costs 300+ dollars, then they don't deserve to have my money. So I returned it and got my money back.

Sony has given me a quality system with the PS3, but where are the exclusive games? MGS4 was a step in the right direction, but anything else??? All of the awesome exclusive games that I really want to play are coming to the Wii (thank God I have one of those) or the 360 (curse you, Microsoft!!). PS3 will get more exclusives in time, or at least I have faith that it will. And the Blu-ray player now has complete control over the HD-DVD market, so that's a plus (it didn't when I bought it - but I was hoping it would).

The Wii was my favorite game system... for about a year after I bought it. I've addressed this in other threads in the Wii forum, but how on earth are developers not making excellent games for this huge success of a console? Many of you (Jamshed in particular, if I recall correctly) have given me good reasons for why this is. But it still blows my mind. Only a couple shovelware titles sell very well at all. All the other million-plus selling games are well-made games. Wii owners aren't all grandmas and families who only play Wii Sports and Wii Play. Yeesh.

To put an end to this rant of mine, I will say this: if anything overwhelmingly positive has come of this generation for me on a personal level, it's that this current generation of systems with its sub-par games, makes me reflect and want to stop playing video games as much and start using my free-time (which will become less and less in the near future) more wisely. Playing piano, writing, spending time with loved ones - you know, life. It's not even that I'm addicted to video games or play some of them as much as I want to, but it is reassuring to see that less and less games are coming out that make me want to put my real life on hold, and become consumed in the VG world.

Thanks for reading.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
I am going to make an honest effort to clean up this section of the forums. I know that we do have some loyal members who are gamers and post here. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to see it cluttered with lots of spam.

Please, feel free to PM whenever you see any spam on these forums. That goes for any of the other sections as well. It might take me until the end of the day to get to it but I will take care of it, promise. I deleted some stuff here and there just right now but I am sure this place is filled with spam.

Thanks for all of your help in this matter and continue discussing your passions. Enjoy!

Awesome stuff, FKA!

I would tell all developers universally:

- always have a "hard mode" after completion of the main game
- always have a "new game +" where stats and money are carried over
- customizable camera controls in every 3rd person game (coughGTA4)
- bring back cheat codes! They were plentiful and made games fun in the 90's
- include more easter eggs, they add to the authenticity of the game
- ability to skip cutscenes should be unlocked after beating the game once.

I would tell them to stop producing crap franchise games based on films. These always get bad ratings It's amazing to see the developers have not learnt that yet. Games should never be based on films, they should strictly be for the purpose they are made which is origionality, maybe influences here and there e.g. Max Payne + Bullet time = Genius, Matrix based on film + bullet time = failure.

quote:

Originally posted by al_m:
I would tell them to stop producing crap franchise games based on films. These always get bad ratings It's amazing to see the developers have not learnt that yet. Games should never be based on films, they should strictly be for the purpose they are made which is origionality, maybe influences here and there e.g. Max Payne + Bullet time = Genius, Matrix based on film + bullet time = failure.

I'm about 50/50 on this. I've played plenty of movie/franchise games that were passable but there have been some greats and some that were just a good bit of fun, such as: Goldeneye (N64), TMNT - Turtles in Time (SNES), Star Wars Rogue Squadron 1-3 (N64-NGC), Star Wars Jedi Knight 1-2 (PC), and Spiderman II (PS2).

It comes down to the game. If the game developers put very little effort into making the game play something new or different, or something old to life, and depend too much on the movie/franchise popularity to sell the game, chances are it will be shite by anyone's standards. But if they do put the effort in, and then use the popularity on top of a good game, then you might have something. For example, I loved Spiderman II on the PS2 because it was the first time game developers had made a complete full scale city that you could free roam/websling around as Spidey, and it was awesome. The idea had been toyed with in previous Spiderman games, but not to the level of Spiderman II. They took the concept of webslinging (something I'd love to do) and applied it to a completely free roaming city similar to what you would get in GTA. The game was never classic, but I'd be surprised if anyone who first played it didn't agree that it was a ton of fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Super'Shed:

quote:

Originally posted by al_m:
I would tell them to stop producing crap franchise games based on films. These always get bad ratings It's amazing to see the developers have not learnt that yet. Games should never be based on films, they should strictly be for the purpose they are made which is origionality, maybe influences here and there e.g. Max Payne + Bullet time = Genius, Matrix based on film + bullet time = failure.

I'm about 50/50 on this. I've played plenty of movie/franchise games that were passable but there have been some greats and some that were just a good bit of fun, such as: Goldeneye (N64), TMNT - Turtles in Time (SNES)

I love both those games. The dual aspect of Goldeneye (there was a PvP mode, right) was the best. Good memories of video games after school in junior high...

That's a great topic, i've wanted to write something like that for ages. So let's begin.

First of all developers should stop considering games as simple "games". I mean games are just a type of media, like movies, music, books. The definition of a good product, is great composition of different elements and of the product as a whole.

For example i've always loved jrpgs, they had interesting storylines, gameplay and so on. But now as i'm getting older and played a lot of them, i started to notice things that i didn't earlier. Crisis Core has great production values, awesome soundtrack, graphics, engaging nostalgic storyline, but damn the dialogue is in the league of a five year old and the voice acting is as in every jrpg piss poor. It looks like as if the developers thought, oh ok, we made it look great, satisfied the fans so we'll just hire a fifth grader to do the dialogue for us. That's the major problem of most game developers, they just dont't bother, i still remember the lines and voice of Glottis in Grim Fandango after 9 years.

Another topic of consideration is concept. I've purchased Patapon for the PSP a while ago, and it's a really unique and lovely experience. It's made with such care and dedication, that you can't help but be amazed by it. It also proves tbat in graphics the most important thing is Art Direction, you don't need fancy technology to make a game look great, sometimes a few lines and colors are more than enough. The samge goes for Shadow of the Colossus, it looks gorgeous, sound amazing, the scenery and introduction of the colossi, are so well timed, composed, i even dare to say "filmed" that you're left with a feeling of amazement. And the most important thing is how minimalistic the whole concept is, you search for the colossi and then figure out how to kill them.

And my point is, the things that make a product interesting and worthwile are: great art direction, attention to detail and concept, when all of these things are masterfully put together(composed), then one day we could see a Kubrick or Scorcsese of the videogame industry.