quashpdarkman
03-31-2008, 06:49 PM
this is a very long read, but it is a recollection of various thoughts i've had over the past year that have recently been provoked by the replaying of some classic games. this is very opinionated and incredibly biased, so if you're the type to disagree easily, you might as well just skip over all this.
ever since i first played through mgs2 back in 2002, i have regarded it as one of the greatest games ever made. i mean top 3 material. even though it drew some sharp criticism for not being completely true to the original (mostly just people bitching about raiden) i've still always regarded mgs2 as the best game in the series. even after playing through mgs3, i still held my position. as time has gone by, so have my memories of the game. all the hype around mgs4 got me in the mood to play through both of the mgs games i own. they're both pretty easy games for me even on extreme, so i figured it'd be a good way to spend a lazy weekend. i decided to sit through all of the cutscenes and everything. this was going to be the time i absorb absolutely everything about the series once and for all.
20 hours of gameplay and cutscenes later, i still say that mgs2 is the best in the series, and still one of the greatest games ever made.
it's rooted very deeply into the original, which is why some people disregard it as a rehash or discredit it's originality, but those tend to be the same people who either don't like or understand metal gear's story (who also happen to be the people who criticize the game for having cutscenes). but once you've sat through both of them in one sitting (well, okay, two. i did have to sleep) it becomes very clear that the sequel has far surpassed the original in every way. the presentation, the gameplay, and especially the plot, have all matured from the original. even the twin snakes fails to bring the original up to par with 2, and it was a very faithful recreation.
if you've played either one of them, you can probably counter argue everything i just said rather effectively. either way, this has made the wait for mgs4 harder than it's ever been. i'm buying mgs3 this week (i did beat it, although it wasn't my copy) and spending this upcoming weekend playing though that. after that, it will just be a matter of weeks before i go on my media detox and play all the way through mgs4.
in all honesty though, i can't think of a single game released in the last year that will ever be remembered on the same level as mgs2 is. not even in the last four years. 2007 and 2004 were both very good years for games, but there has yet to be another game that follows in the footsteps of mgs2 in terms of overall quality. i guess you could say the shenmue series, but both of those games came out before mgs2 did. most games anymore really don't capture the essence of what makes a game great; a symphony of visual presentation, audible immersion and intriguing plot. even for all of the good titles that were released last year, bioshock is the only one that will be remembered ten years from now, and maybe halo 3, tf2, guitar hero and rock band depending on their ongoing status in pop culture.
ignore my blatant nostalgia fueled sentimentalism for a minute here, and ask yourself this. ten years from now, what game from this generation is going to be remembered? not just remembered, but remembered as a great game at the time, and as a great game by current standards? many of the psx/n64 classics that people were upholding on a pedestal just around the time of mgs2's release have nearly all faded into obscurity. the only games on the psx that are still discussed on a regular basis are ffvii and metal gear solid, much like how sm64, starfox 64, goldeneye and the zelda games on n64 are the only n64 games that are still remembered by everyone. sure mischief makers and incredible crisis were and still are awesome games, but no game developer is out to make a game better than either one of those.
i guess what i'm saying is that there's no standard in games anymore. there's no benchmark for developers to surpass, only business models to mimic. halo was arguably the beginning of the most prolific genre of the decade, but how many fps' have been as well-received as the original halo? not even talking about review scores, but how well have these games managed to keep their fanbases? i'm certain that the majority of people who played ghost recon 2 never played the original, and those few who did play the original felt disenfranchised by all of the changes in ghost recon 2. and let's face it; when we look back on this generation, we won't be hailing ghost recon 2 as the definitive title of the era (or at least, i would hope not). not to say that it's a bad game, but it's hardly a masterpiece by any stretch of the means.
some of you are probably wondering why i chose ghost recon 2 of all games, and that's exactly the reason why i chose it; it's already been largely forgotten. it's day in the sun is over, and most people have moved onto r6:v2 by now.
but that just happens to be the problem with the game industry today; competition no longer exists. we currently have three consoles, and three consoles only. this isn't like the 90's where we not only had nintendo, sega and sony but also snk, 3D0, atari, philips and many others trying to make their way into the market. most people never owned a neo-geo or a jaguar, but their very presence in the market was still a very real threat to nintendo and sega. while they may not have been very competitive in terms of market share, they were still there, and had nintendo or sega left themselves off guard, one of them could've easily changed the course of history by overtaking one of them. sound familiar? it's exactly what happened when sony entered the market. sega screwed up big time with the saturn, and sony saw an opportunity and seized it. had it not been for sega's own misfortune, and more importantly, sony's initiative to compete, video games would be very different today. but now it's become simple; the wii is targeted towards people who don't normally play games and the nintendo loyal, the 360 is targeted towards people who have traditionally played games and want something new, and the ps3 is targeted towards the sony loyal and those who want the absolute best in high def gaming. all three fill their niches quite adequately, and this has become the biggest deterrent the industry has ever seen. this stagnancy has made the industry easier than ever to enter. certainly you've seen those devry commercials attempting to recruit gamers to take their game design courses?
quite simply, there lies the problem in everything: games are now being made by gamers, and with free content distribution becoming an ever prevalent way to add content to games, games have become more streamlined than ever. this lowering of standards has made games not a matter of being better than what everyone else has out there, but a matter of improving upon what you've already created. case in point: sports games. and although this can be applied to most every genre anymore (most notably fps, rpg and rhythm), it is the most painfully obvious in the sports genre. not even in the span of a decade have mainstream sports games become monopolized by a single company. this kind of success was unheard of in the 90's; even nintendo had a hard time overtaking sega in the early 90's, and as soon as sony got the psx in the lead, sega was quick to strike back with the dreamcast, which was swiftly defeated by the ps2.
if you only read one part of this incredibly long rant of mine, read this.
i'm not saying that good games aren't still made. i've thoroughly enjoyed several games released in the last year, and even a few from this year. what i am saying though is that this monotony within the industry has become so prolific to the point where even companies that used to compete with each other have now all been forced to submit to mass consumer demand (honestly, five years ago who would've expected a game like rome: total warfare or the hulk to be made by sega?), and that this has become the industry's single biggest problem. in a sense, it's almost the exact opposite of the crash, but in other ways it's a sign of this or next generation becoming it's successor. while it's true that every console and era are defined by only a select few games, it's also true that this generation really doesn't have any games yet that can even come close to filling that gap. if you ask me, it's just a matter of time before the industry as a whole becomes consumed in the same greed that it did over twenty years ago.
ever since i first played through mgs2 back in 2002, i have regarded it as one of the greatest games ever made. i mean top 3 material. even though it drew some sharp criticism for not being completely true to the original (mostly just people bitching about raiden) i've still always regarded mgs2 as the best game in the series. even after playing through mgs3, i still held my position. as time has gone by, so have my memories of the game. all the hype around mgs4 got me in the mood to play through both of the mgs games i own. they're both pretty easy games for me even on extreme, so i figured it'd be a good way to spend a lazy weekend. i decided to sit through all of the cutscenes and everything. this was going to be the time i absorb absolutely everything about the series once and for all.
20 hours of gameplay and cutscenes later, i still say that mgs2 is the best in the series, and still one of the greatest games ever made.
it's rooted very deeply into the original, which is why some people disregard it as a rehash or discredit it's originality, but those tend to be the same people who either don't like or understand metal gear's story (who also happen to be the people who criticize the game for having cutscenes). but once you've sat through both of them in one sitting (well, okay, two. i did have to sleep) it becomes very clear that the sequel has far surpassed the original in every way. the presentation, the gameplay, and especially the plot, have all matured from the original. even the twin snakes fails to bring the original up to par with 2, and it was a very faithful recreation.
if you've played either one of them, you can probably counter argue everything i just said rather effectively. either way, this has made the wait for mgs4 harder than it's ever been. i'm buying mgs3 this week (i did beat it, although it wasn't my copy) and spending this upcoming weekend playing though that. after that, it will just be a matter of weeks before i go on my media detox and play all the way through mgs4.
in all honesty though, i can't think of a single game released in the last year that will ever be remembered on the same level as mgs2 is. not even in the last four years. 2007 and 2004 were both very good years for games, but there has yet to be another game that follows in the footsteps of mgs2 in terms of overall quality. i guess you could say the shenmue series, but both of those games came out before mgs2 did. most games anymore really don't capture the essence of what makes a game great; a symphony of visual presentation, audible immersion and intriguing plot. even for all of the good titles that were released last year, bioshock is the only one that will be remembered ten years from now, and maybe halo 3, tf2, guitar hero and rock band depending on their ongoing status in pop culture.
ignore my blatant nostalgia fueled sentimentalism for a minute here, and ask yourself this. ten years from now, what game from this generation is going to be remembered? not just remembered, but remembered as a great game at the time, and as a great game by current standards? many of the psx/n64 classics that people were upholding on a pedestal just around the time of mgs2's release have nearly all faded into obscurity. the only games on the psx that are still discussed on a regular basis are ffvii and metal gear solid, much like how sm64, starfox 64, goldeneye and the zelda games on n64 are the only n64 games that are still remembered by everyone. sure mischief makers and incredible crisis were and still are awesome games, but no game developer is out to make a game better than either one of those.
i guess what i'm saying is that there's no standard in games anymore. there's no benchmark for developers to surpass, only business models to mimic. halo was arguably the beginning of the most prolific genre of the decade, but how many fps' have been as well-received as the original halo? not even talking about review scores, but how well have these games managed to keep their fanbases? i'm certain that the majority of people who played ghost recon 2 never played the original, and those few who did play the original felt disenfranchised by all of the changes in ghost recon 2. and let's face it; when we look back on this generation, we won't be hailing ghost recon 2 as the definitive title of the era (or at least, i would hope not). not to say that it's a bad game, but it's hardly a masterpiece by any stretch of the means.
some of you are probably wondering why i chose ghost recon 2 of all games, and that's exactly the reason why i chose it; it's already been largely forgotten. it's day in the sun is over, and most people have moved onto r6:v2 by now.
but that just happens to be the problem with the game industry today; competition no longer exists. we currently have three consoles, and three consoles only. this isn't like the 90's where we not only had nintendo, sega and sony but also snk, 3D0, atari, philips and many others trying to make their way into the market. most people never owned a neo-geo or a jaguar, but their very presence in the market was still a very real threat to nintendo and sega. while they may not have been very competitive in terms of market share, they were still there, and had nintendo or sega left themselves off guard, one of them could've easily changed the course of history by overtaking one of them. sound familiar? it's exactly what happened when sony entered the market. sega screwed up big time with the saturn, and sony saw an opportunity and seized it. had it not been for sega's own misfortune, and more importantly, sony's initiative to compete, video games would be very different today. but now it's become simple; the wii is targeted towards people who don't normally play games and the nintendo loyal, the 360 is targeted towards people who have traditionally played games and want something new, and the ps3 is targeted towards the sony loyal and those who want the absolute best in high def gaming. all three fill their niches quite adequately, and this has become the biggest deterrent the industry has ever seen. this stagnancy has made the industry easier than ever to enter. certainly you've seen those devry commercials attempting to recruit gamers to take their game design courses?
quite simply, there lies the problem in everything: games are now being made by gamers, and with free content distribution becoming an ever prevalent way to add content to games, games have become more streamlined than ever. this lowering of standards has made games not a matter of being better than what everyone else has out there, but a matter of improving upon what you've already created. case in point: sports games. and although this can be applied to most every genre anymore (most notably fps, rpg and rhythm), it is the most painfully obvious in the sports genre. not even in the span of a decade have mainstream sports games become monopolized by a single company. this kind of success was unheard of in the 90's; even nintendo had a hard time overtaking sega in the early 90's, and as soon as sony got the psx in the lead, sega was quick to strike back with the dreamcast, which was swiftly defeated by the ps2.
if you only read one part of this incredibly long rant of mine, read this.
i'm not saying that good games aren't still made. i've thoroughly enjoyed several games released in the last year, and even a few from this year. what i am saying though is that this monotony within the industry has become so prolific to the point where even companies that used to compete with each other have now all been forced to submit to mass consumer demand (honestly, five years ago who would've expected a game like rome: total warfare or the hulk to be made by sega?), and that this has become the industry's single biggest problem. in a sense, it's almost the exact opposite of the crash, but in other ways it's a sign of this or next generation becoming it's successor. while it's true that every console and era are defined by only a select few games, it's also true that this generation really doesn't have any games yet that can even come close to filling that gap. if you ask me, it's just a matter of time before the industry as a whole becomes consumed in the same greed that it did over twenty years ago.