Morning Discussion
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Can you really call Mass Effect 2, one of the best modern Western RPGs ever released, stagnating? Or Red Dead, an outstanding and interesting game (to say nothing of the story, or music).
Reach's Forge mode looks great, and they have done incredible work on the builder and abilities builders will have to design games. In addition, the coop-vs Horde mode is fun as all heck to play. Not stagnation, but steady improvement.
Civ V has a wonderful new interface that exposes information much better (thanks to their work in Civ Rev), and the hex design+non-stacking armies is a huge change for that game. That's the opposite of stagnation.
Minecraft is, of course, completely on its own. It is fun, innovative, high imaginative and great group play. Now, give me a little time to reply on the other end.-
On the other end, we have:
BG: A graphical improvement on the western RPG, but I felt then, and now, that Ultima was by far the superior game where what I did had a much more noticeable and significant impact on the world. I enjoyed BG, but I never forgot how the NPCs would recognize your achievements in Ultima.
StarCraft: A nice iteration on the RTS genre, but beside the a-symmetric design of the races, the game was simply Blizzard reiteration. It would take them over a year to balance out the sides after Broodwar released (Nov 1998). Queuing was a joke (as Cavedog would later show with TA) and the unit AI had a ton of issues with pathing and selection that would not get fixed until SC2.
Half-Life: No question that this was one of the best FPSes released of that time. The AI was notable for flanking (for real, unlike FEAR which cheated it) and trying to flush hidden gamers out with grenades, but the story dropped off after the first 15 minutes. Once you drop into the sewers the game returned to an over-long FPS where you could see set pieces that the team had setup get extended by over-long travel pieces which had little plot or interest. It was obvious the development was rushed and all of the set pieces were fit in. Examples:
Innovative set pieces: The entire start (first 15 mins), The ninja attack, the silo enemy/attack (blind enemy who reacts only to pressure), first meeting with the Op For
Long travel sequences: (Start, down to sewers) - long sewer / FPS platforming sequence (remember crane box-hopping?) - first meet with Op For - Outside, long mundane mountain trudge to - Lambda Complex: silo battle - long raid-car trudge - etc
We won't mention Xen or the end boss of that game.
Unreal: It surprises me this game shows up on everyone's best-of list since the game itself was not that interesting. The only thing it had going for it was the massive exteriors which was a result of the way Unreal levels were designed (With UnrealEd you excavated your level in large blocks, Quake II you built it from small pieces). The AI was notable only in one regard, the Skaarj AI which was programmed by (of all things) a Quake modder (Steven Polge) who built an incredible Quake bot back in the day: Reaper Bot -> http://www.mindspring.com/~win32ch/Reaper.htm - The story, of course, was entirely laughable, and if it wasn't for the large levels the game would have been quickly forgotten. It was remembered more for spawning the first real competitor to the Quake 2/id Tech 2 engine than for being a good game.
I'm not saying this to lesson the impact of those games, but to make a point that they wern't the most incredible games ever. A lot of them were quite flawed upon release. -
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you're really counting chickens before they hatch here. you're pointing out all the flaws in HL and Starcraft below, but of course Civ V is going to be a buggy unbalanced piece of shit for a little while on release, like all the Civ games are, until they get a few patches through.
Minecraft is also in this category. There's great game there but it's not at all finished yet.-
I would say, based on my experience with Minecraft, that it is already outstandingly fun and entertaining. Civ V, yes that's a good point; however, look at that list. Most of those games are released.
Now remember: I'm not saying the 2010 is innovative; I'm saying that the games are outstanding games on par with 1998.-
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I disagree. The exact complaint I gave about Half-Life (unfinished level design) I cannot say about any other game on that list with the exception of Alan Wake (people have been complaining about the long forest walks).
Cataclysm, Mafia II and Reach are not out yet, of course.
Please feel free to point out what I am missing. I find it hard to say that these games are not better. I would easily put Mass Effect 2 as one of the best games I have ever played.-
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i dunno, this whole thing is an exercise in subjectivity. it's just hard to compare on two levels: with respect to the games that aren't out yet, the appraisal is necessarily based on promises and hype. and also, 1998 is a long time ago and those games are out of their context now. it's increasingly hard to remember what a big leap forward HL was in terms of FPS game design.
i can't criticize ME2, that game is great. certainly better than the original BG. i really need to replay it soon.
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cant wait for fallout new vegas, but will probably wait until Christmas to see if I can snag it as a gift. I've got plenty of games to play until then. Really thanks to steam I have an endless supply of games I'll never play because of steam deals, it's genius really.
I mean I bought Red Faction: Guerilla for the sale last christmas and still havent touched it because of other games I had that I actually wanted more at the time. I knew nothing about it (actually though it'd be first person since the original was haha).
I also buy random games I dont even really want but hear they are good, like mirrors edge. I have so many games. when am I ever going to play that game? haha. -
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