Why is there no good games anymore?

I can see where the OP is coming from, I've often reminisced on here about the lack of decent 90's or early 00's style flight sims or space sims. However accepting these type of games seem deader than the dodo I have compromised. I know Fallout 3 isn't what the OP yearns for but I've just started playing it for the first time and it's the equal if not better than the dynamic campaigns of long dead flight sims.

While we all remember games like Tie Fighter and Wing Commander with great fondness, let's not forget these were actually quite linear. WC had its branching paths and "second chance" missions but these were quite narrow and you ended up on one of only two final paths (win, or lose). Even X3, which is probably the closest you will get to an epic space game these days, has main story plots which are pretty linear and while there's scope to do BBS style missions these tend to get repetitive. The developers have in some respect tricked the audience by including a campaign (The Hub) which goes on and on simply by merit of the OTT amount of material you need to gather. Frontier Elite II gave endless gameplay but with no overall goal.

My own pet hate is the death of the transport strategy game. Sid Meier's Railroads was, frankly, aimed at kids and A-Train 8 was to me incomprehensible. However it's not a money spinning genre for the suits running gaming in the current era.

However there are still good PC games out there, maybe even the odd "great" one (I think I will be putting F3 in that category), as I say you just have to be prepared to play a different style or genre of game to what we may have been comfortable with in the past. Other than Doom or Quake I rarely gave FPS games a glance back in the days of flight and space sims aplenty and probably never touched an RPG. Yet here I am now thoroughly enjoying one which offers both elements!
 
If I'm totally honest, there hasn't really been many games in the recent years that have blew me away. The only games recent games that I keep going back to are HL2, TF2 and L4D but that's simply due to the amount of mods and the multiplayer aspect. I haven't seen any games like Thief or Deus Ex that have been pushing the way we play games. I mean take Thief, the stealth aspect of that game was amazing; the way you had to hide in the shadows and pickpocket people and take their loot. Deus Ex was another, the whole RPG, first-person interaction with everything, was so truly immersive. I haven't played games since that have had such a lasting impression like those.
 
I crave a Freespace sort of game with 2009 graphics, something really spectacular with a brilliant storyline and extreme amounts of work going into the finer details that really make a game stand out from the croud! Anyone know of upcoming space sims?

Secret_Window said:
Deus Ex was another, the whole RPG, first-person interaction with everything, was so truly immersive. I haven't played games since that have had such a lasting impression like those.
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+1

Deux ex was simply amazing given the amount of innovation and new ways of playing the game brought to gamers. Storyline wasn't too bad either tbh.
 
the current genres of gaming on the PC has been dying for the past five years really, its gone really down hill over the past two years.

There will be new genres coming out when motion controllers (Project Natal) will be released, and they will bring out a fresh genre of games for everyone to enjoy.

First Person Shooters are going to be soon forgotton about just like the 2D platform games were when Doom and Quake first came out.

the 3D generation of games has had its toll, its time for a new generation that will kick start gaming and give it a breath of fresh air.
 
Well next Friday PC gets all of these at the same time and all will be the technically superior versions as well as some of the biggest PC games this year:

Batman:AA (plus free DLC apparently if you pre-order with a certain high st shop, anyway Eidos are planning some DLC which they say will be free)

Resident Evil5. Most polished RE game yet and at least 3-4 weeks solid zombie killing gameplay (and great GFWL co-op gameplay as well) so amazing vfm as you can pick it up pre-ordered right now for £19-25 depending on where you shop.

Red Faction Guerilla comes will all console DLC as part of the retail game package so its free


Before the end of the year we also get:

Star Wars Force Unleashed Sith Edition which includes all console DLC as well as 1 extra level on Hoth.

Assassins Creed2 is coming same date as console version no 6 month wait like before.

COD MW2 but I can wait for this until Activision are forced to make the pricing more realistic.

Dirt2 first DX11 title in Dec so again PC gets the technically superior version.


PC is obviously waning but at least there are still some quality multiplatform games being made for it and its unlikely to change for years to come so either get a console or wait and embrace the technically superior (and nearly always much cheaper) PC version.

There not technically ports either as PC is usually the lead platform but the code is written all on the PC then advanced compilers are used to translate to the consoles and its cut down to suit them but the PC version is left untouched or improved upon depending on budget. Some PC coders recently went on record as saying its now very easy to make a multiplatform game work on PC as the newest compilers are so good at translation code between platforms its not the issue it used to be so look out for more multiplatform design PC games in future.
 
the reason is years and years ago all the best games existed on consoles such as the nintendo 64 or sega dreamcast.

then the kiddies arrived with thier playstations and now again as microsoft 360 fanboys and ruined the games market with thier utter load of tosh.

u sacrificed the catalogues of games for premium ones but for some this wasnt good enuff.if you are one of those people then shame be yours forever because you ruined gaming.

microsoft,sony,EA are plagues to humanity and gamers.until u stop buying half assed games then u will keep getting semi decent games in the thousands.


edit:sorry for the extremely bad typing but i just cant type on laptops :(
 
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Rofflay said:
the reason is years and years ago all the best games existed on consoles such as the nintendo 64 or sega dreamcast.

then the kiddies arrived with thier playstations and now again as microsoft 360 fanmboys and ruined the games market with thier utter load of tosh.

u sacrifed the catalogue of games for premium ones but for some this wasnt good enuff.if you are one of those people then shame be yours forever because you ruined gaming.

microsoft,sony,EA are plagues to humanity and gamers.until u stop buying half asses games then u will keep getting semi decent games in the thousands.
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Thanks, I needed a good laugh :D
 
Rofflay said:
the reason is years and years ago all the best games existed on consoles such as the nintendo 64 or sega dreamcast.

then the kiddies arrived with thier playstations and now again as microsoft 360 fanmboys and ruined the games market with thier utter load of tosh.

u sacrifed the catalogue of games for premium ones but for some this wasnt good enuff.if you are one of those people then shame be yours forever because you ruined gaming.

microsoft,sony,EA are plagues to humanity and gamers.until u stop buying half asses games then u will keep getting semi decent games in the thousands.
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lol.gif
 
im blaming sony killing nintendo and the dreamcast really as the sony had millions of sub standard games and rampant piracy.

microsoft have started to strangle everything now too and thier getting the blame for alan wake.

EA well everyone knows what they stand for and thats ker ching $$


if nintendo won and had the money i cant help but wonder would we have nintendo and segas games on machines with the same graphical power as the ps3 and 360.
 
Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Seriously, I can't think of a single game that came out this year that I got even vaguely excited about. The only thing I'm currently looking forward to is Mechwarrior 5, but that's years out isn't it?

I think the last game I bought was Blood Bowl, and I only got that because I never got a chance to play it when I was younger, and wanted to give it a go. Sadly however, it wasn't my thing.

Why is there nothing like Homeworld anymore? What about another Nexus: the Jupiter Incident? How about a Sins of a Solar Empire 2? A new Master of Orion?

Where the hell have all my space and sci-fi themed strategy games gone? all there seems to be these days is a constant hose of **** modern day warfare simulators, and fantasy themed rubbish and I'm sick to the teeth of them!

Of course, I've just remembered, I have to look into buying AI Wars later on, but thats done by a lone chap in his bedroom isnt it? i'm nor suggesting that this makes it rubbish, but I just want to know why the publishers are producing these gems anymore?

Anyone care to recommend some games for me? :(

TL;DR Version: spec me some Sci-fi Strategy Games, preferably ones where large groups of ships blow the living **** out of other large groups of ships. Or Solo ship based fun, except with completely customizable ships?
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I know what you mean, and I tend to agree on the whole, although I wouldn't say there aren't any good games anymore, more that most of the ones that are being raved about don't appeal to or impress me

The newest game I am playing is Dawn of War II, although I've had it less than 10 days and I am already finding it lacking content, there is so much more they could have put into that game, I imagine that they didn't because they wish to release a lot of it in expansion packs. I play it and I like it, but I can't shake the feeling that they haven't put all they could into it because they had an economist tapping on their shoulders saying "no, no, no ...if we put that in, in 6 months we can charge people for the expansion pack with a load of stuff that should have been there from the start" ....etc.

Prior to that the best games of recent years for me have been Sins of a Solar Empire and Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance.

I love Supreme Commander, I think it's the best game released since Total Annihilation, which I still play now.

I used to play a lot of fantasy style RPG's aswell, but they really haven't been the same since the last Icewind Dale game.

For me the golden years of PC gaming was from about Doom through the original Command and Conquer series and original Red Alert to Baldur's Gate II.

I loved the Baldur's Gate series and the Icewind Dale series, I also enjoyed Planescape Torment hugely. I've not been particularly enthralled by any of the Command and Conquer games since the last expansion (Aftermath) pack of the original Red Alert.

Total Annihilation though was and still is fantastic in my mind, it was revolutionary at the time in the way it did things and in it’s sheer scale. Supreme Commander captures I'd say 90% of what the original does with Forged Alliance and 3rd party maps.

I loved the Home World series too, although for me, one of the best games ever released for anything was and still is Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. I still play it now, with various 3rd party modifications, it was always buggy as hell, but I love it, I played games of that with my best friend that lasted days, the problems for us was the chronic memory leak the game had, made it a real pain to play past about 150 turns, we had to keep reloading it every 8-10 turns. Now I can play it without such issues, 10 years after it was released the hardware has gotten to the point where it can cope with sustained play :p

I just can't believe the amount of time that has passed since some of these amazing games; it seems like only yesterday that they were current to me.

I struggle to think of Home World 2 as remotely old, 2003, hell that was like yesterday in many respects, to me.

Oh another series that 'made' PC gaming for me, was Age of Empires, the first and second games particularly, I never played the 3rd so much as I could never get into it in the same way as the earlier games.

Sid Meier's Civilisation 4 is a game I still play a lot too, it's fantastic, I loved it's predecessors too. I especially liked Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri aswell, I have never seen another game like it either.

Arhh memories, they really don't make them like they used to, well not as often at least.

Civ:4, Supreme Commander and Sins of a Solar Empire I consider fairly current games really, especially the later two.

I dunno, maybe it's just because I've gotten older, gaming doesn't hold my attention like it once did, I do still play the older games for hours at a time, but I find it really hard to get excited about any of the very new games. As you say, Mech Warrior 5 is about the only thing on the horrizon that really makes me 'want' to play it. Speaking of mechs, remember Heavy Gear? ...that was a good game too, I had a lot of fun playing that.

The only console games I have ever really enjoyed were the original Mario line-up on the NES and SNES, the R Type games, Super Metroid, also for the SNES and later Final Fantasy VII (still the best, by far!) and the Gran Turismo series. I'm really looking forward to GT 5, it'll be something to use my PS3 for other than watching Dvd's and Blue Rays, seriously, that's all I do use it for.

I would say my top 5 games of all time are as follows, in no particular order and including expansions.

Total Annihilation

Supreme Commander

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation

Age of Empires II

Eve Online
 
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I haven't read the whole thread but I would have thought you'd be interested in Eve Online? I believe there is a monthly fee (being an MMO) but it's entirely set in space, lots of focus on economics, upgrading ships and so on.
 
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