Best and worst aspect of current gen gaming?

Jack burton

Yeah I agree on the 'that's just not right', i know exactly what you mean, remember getting the exact same feeling playing through it.

Because I dont think video games really desentise people to violence really, there is a big difference between doing stuff with a controller and washing blodd off your hands in real life. Trust me on that!

And no I never killed a person, but having spent a lot of time working as a butcher and in a slaughter house, and "preparing" my share of animals I know that blood and gore its a lot different to red polygons on the floor

o1s1n

It's the human factor really. If you're murdering someone in real life you're dealing with a person. Their emotions. Their fears. Their smell even. You're not getting that in games. Well..with Manhunt you got a little bit of that - and it's what freaked the **** out of everyone.

Jack burton

Yeah pretty much but games will never measure up to real life, just like mesturbation and sex, I know that makes me sound like a serial killer haha

I played the censored version of the sequal, I'd say the uncensored version is vicious!

o1s1n

I played through the uncensored version of Manhunt 2 on my PSP. It was a fairly nasty experience at times alright. There was still a couple of things censored out though (the pliars for one) as they were removed completely. I think this version just got rid of the censor filters.

Have the censored version for the Wii too but it's totally unplayable with those filters. I'd already played the game, just saw it in London and had to pick it up as a big **** you to the Irish censor office. :pac:

Jack burton

Yeah I have it on the PS2, the filters are just horrible, along with the faint snow on the screen the whole time, I'd like to play the beta that was leaked, just to see how bad it was

Retr0gamer

Didn't feel any impact from the game myself. The game just looked so awful that it was pretty obvious to me these weren't people so I felt nothing.

Well you have a point about art being subjective but I very much doubt Rockstar went into it trying to prove an artistic point. I'm pretty sure it was violent to make money and as GTA4 shows they really don't have the writing skills to pull off anything that clever.

This is all based off of Manhunter 1. I steered well clear of the second one on account of how awful the first game was.

Useless trivia but the exclusive review rights to Manhunter were taken off the UK magazine that had them first because they gave the game 3/10.

o1s1n

Halo 2 got several 10/10 scores. Don't trust reviews :P

Jack burton

Streets of Rage got 90% I think we can trust reviews, right retr0? :P

batari

I personally don't get that full on gore thing with current gen games. Sure, the likes of Smash TV back in the day sounded pretty rough; going around a quiz show maze bludgeoning anyone you could, but there was no full on violence in your face.
Not llike playing the likes of GTA on say the ps2, where you beat a guy to the ground, and proceed to kick his head till theres blood everywhere...just not right.
Yea I know I sound like an old fart (I'm 32)

amacachi

o1s1n wrote: »

Good point. And of course no, I wouldn't be fine with it being banned. When I mean't illegal I was thinking of snuff films, child porn and things like that. I guess you could substitute 'illegal' in my post with 'things which cause harm to others'

Aye, I just wanted you to be careful with your words. :pac:
As far as I'm concerned nothing should be banned but (we're getting too far into my politics here :pac:) there should be some option for parents to protect against this kind of stuff, but then there's another argument to say that that already exists and parents are just damn lazy.

amacachi

Jack burton wrote: »

Streets of Rage got 90% I think we can trust reviews, right retr0? :P

Time for some Ultimate Mega Drive Collection on the Xbox! :pac:

paperwork

What annoys me is what constitutes as "adult gameplay". gta is a basic go to point a then point b affair. But its considered "adult".

Something like, pikmin for example is much more in dept and in my opinion rewarding... but because it looks like pikmin its considered childish.

I remember with the atari it didnt matter what the style or appearance of a game was, (this is discounting actual graphics) if the game was good it would be held in high esteem...

Mario Galaxy is the only game i can think of that recently managed to sidestep this.

Xluna

I've noticed games which are not given a rating are becoming a bit more risqué and adult.

The story mode in Blazblue makes a lot of references to boobs, sex, bi sexuality and has plenty of moderate swear words, "sh!t" and "pr!ck". Ragna is even falsely accused of being a paedo bear in one of the skit episodes of story mode.

Then of course there's the bouncing breasts of the DOA franchise. I don't mind that sort of fan service if the game is good but it's pretty sad when you have games like DOA extreme on 360 and PSP which are dedicated to it.

Glad to hear there's a DOA game coming out for 3DS which is an actual fighting game.:eek:

I'll admit I find the obsession with the GTA games a bad thing. I'm anti censorship but that games demographic is mainly comprised of teenage skangers and ASBO candidates.
It's also God damn over rated too, especially by professional game critics.

Another bad thing about modern games: Not enough weird and wacky Japanese games. Which is odd as people in the west are far more exposed to anime now than 15-20 years ago. We need Goemon/ Mystical Ninja, Parodius and Pop n. Twinbee again.

Retr0gamer

I do hate when people dismiss a game totally over the art style because it's too kiddie. A friend in college was telling me how he loves strategy games so I gave him a lend of Valkyria Chronicles. I got told the next day that the game looked 'gay' but was great. His flatmate came over to talk to me later and said 'I saw that gay game you gave Shane. Why would he play that instead of red dead?'.

I find most 'mature' games like GTA to actually be utterly childish and badly written. There's some shockingly badly written games that are held up by a lot of people as pinnaclesof writing. Not every game designer is a great writer, there's only a few excpetions like Ken Levine and Swery. Professional writers should be hired like for Enslaved.

As for games like GTA getting over rated, I find that a lot of thes big franchise game reviews are being given to rabid fanboys of the series to review. It's why solid 8/10 games like GTA4 and Halo 3 are running away with 10/10 scores. As for MGS4, that game was just bad yet any reviewer that saw it was bad didn't have the balls to say itgiving it 8/10 and saying 'fans of the series will like it'.

Xluna wrote: »

Another bad thing about modern games: Not enough weird and wacky Japanese games. Which is odd as people in the west are far more exposed to anime now than 15-20 years ago. We need Goemon/ Mystical Ninja, Parodius and Pop n. Twinbee again.

This is very much down to the state of the japanese industry than anything else. We've got loads of small publishers now that are willing to take a risk and localise and release all manner of weird japanese games. The problem is the industry over there has gotten so bad that there's very few released on the big consoles, third party support on the DS and Wii has stopped because it's commercial suicide and any big games are being made for PSP and monster hunter clones.

Xluna

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I do hate when people dismiss a game totally over the art style because it's too kiddie. A friend in college was telling me how he loves strategy games so I gave him a lend of Valkyria Chronicles. I got told the next day that the game looked 'gay' but was great. His flatmate came over to talk to me later and said 'I saw that gay game you gave Shane. Why would he play that instead of red dead?'.

I lolled when I read that.:) Yes, I've noticed this too. I think a lot of it is based on notions of the male gender in the east as opposed to the west. Japanese males are, in appearance and often attitude, rather androgynous compared to the western macho male gender role. Compare your average protagonist in a JRPG as opposed to a western rpg.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I find most 'mature' games like GTA to actually be utterly childish and badly written. There's some shockingly badly written games that are held up by a lot of people as pinnaclesof writing. Not every game designer is a great writer, there's only a few excpetions like Ken Levine and Swery. Professional writers should be hired like for Enslaved.

As for games like GTA getting over rated, I find that a lot of thes big franchise game reviews are being given to rabid fanboys of the series to review. It's why solid 8/10 games like GTA4 and Halo 3 are running away with 10/10 scores. As for MGS4, that game was just bad yet any reviewer that saw it was bad didn't have the balls to say itgiving it 8/10 and saying 'fans of the series will like it'.

Definitely. I often wonder is there some back scratching going on when the big publishers give the reviewers a game to review. I don't even bother with mainstream reviews anymore. IGN, and especially Game spot, wouldn't know a good JRPG if it hit them on the head. I really think many of them would rather be playing an FPS than reviewing the likes of Lost Odyssey. It never fails to amaze me how a reviewer will criticise games like L.O. for using an old gameplay formula and having cliches in it's story but won't apply the same criticisms to FPS games and GTA games.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

This is very much down to the state of the japanese industry than anything else. We've got loads of small publishers now that are willing to take a risk and localise and release all manner of weird japanese games. The problem is the industry over there has gotten so bad that there's very few released on the big consoles, third party support on the DS and Wii has stopped because it's commercial suicide and any big games are being made for PSP and monster hunter clones.

I wasn't aware of this. Nintendo really needs to go back to being a hard core gaming company, at least for it's next home console. Sadly, I doubt they will as they've made a mint on the Wii with the casual market and it would be a big risk to take on Sony and M.S. for the hard core gamer audience. Damn, I miss Sega.:(

ghostchant

In fairness there have been a lot of absolutely amazing games released on both the Wii and DS, to the extent that for me the DS is the best console of this generation. Sure, 'casual' gamers might not buy a lot of games outside of wii fit and the imagine series, but that doesn't remove the existence of the many great games that exist on both consoles.

So next generation I hope that 'hardcore' gamers realise that nintendo's consoles aren't just kiddie systems

One thing I really don't like that's sprung up in the last couple of generations is the distinction between 'hardcore' and 'casual' gaming/gamers. I don't want to be considered part of either category. The games I like could never be considered casual territory, but I generally don't have the time or the inclination to sit around for hours and hours every day playing games. So I guess I'm not hardcore either :rolleyes:

Nerdkiller1991

o1s1n wrote: »

GTA4 got numerous 10/10 scores. Don't trust reviews :P

Fixed.

CiDeRmAn

Speaking of DOA on the 3ds, just imagine what those perverts are going to do with that processing power, 3D and an obsession with breasts!
Could take your eye out!

Xluna

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Speaking of DOA on the 3ds, just imagine what those perverts are going to do with that processing power, 3D and an obsession with breasts!

Way ahead of ya.:o:pac:

paperwork

ghostchant wrote: »

One thing I really don't like that's sprung up in the last couple of generations is the distinction between 'hardcore' and 'casual' gaming/gamers.

I totally agree with this, and i think "hardcore" gamers have suffered more from this rift. Its come to the point that adult content and good graphics make an awesome game

The biggest example of this is heavy rain... everyone gives out about about wii and ds "waggle" controls and how bad they are. to me heavy rain played like a waggle game with no waggle... I'm so shocked that it reviewed as well as it did.

CiDeRmAn

Look, there are those who are taken in by this mature/adult/hardcore vs casual/child friendly/colourful videogame division.
Ultimately these are distinctions to make a game appear more attractive to a certain niche in the market, a certain demographic who wants to see games that are familiar, that are marketed at the Pokemon fan, the Pixar fan, the horror movie aficionado, the sci-fi buff, the guy who has watched Aliens far too many times (me!).
But for gamers like ourselves, who figure a love for a game is best based on how it plays rather than the target demographic having us at the bullseye, all games are valid, possible objects of our affection.
No format, console, publisher, dev is outside consideration, everyone who discounts EA as a company that produces mass produced sh1te can go ahead with their delusion, I'll be here playing Mass Effect 2, Need 4 Speed and Burnout Paradise, everyone who thinks the DS is for minigame loving children can excuse me while I play Professor Layton or Scribblenauts.
Its all about the games, always was, always will be.
Retro Gen/This Gen/Next Gen, it's all good baby!

K.O.Kiki

Xluna wrote: »

Compare your average protagonist in a JRPG as opposed to a western rpg.

...
That's not a chick?! :eek:

Retr0gamer

Hope you don't take a shine to Lightning from FF13 either. She was designed to be a female Cloud Strife so all the fanboys won't be questioning their sexuality when all they want to do is nail Cloud.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I do hate when people dismiss a game totally over the art style because it's too kiddie. A friend in college was telling me how he loves strategy games so I gave him a lend of Valkyria Chronicles. I got told the next day that the game looked 'gay' but was great. His flatmate came over to talk to me later and said 'I saw that gay game you gave Shane. Why would he play that instead of red dead?'.

They're not entirely off the mark. The majority of Japanese Role-Playing games target effeminate male teenagers and gamers. It's the same for most of the well-known franchises, but I'll take the Final Fantasy series as an example. Final Fantasy X's main antagonist is Seymour: an androgynous character who is the ultimate 'bitch' which is the perfect enemy for that target audience. Square took their targeting of a particular audience to its extreme with Final Fantasy X-2, (J-pop, dresses, female lead with female supports). After fighting Matsuno's attempts to raise the maturity of the genre with Final Fantasy XII, Square release Final Fantasy XIII which includes a female lead. It's not that the fanboys want to nail Shine; they want to be Shine, tits and all.

A few of my friends in Uni were questioning Square's marketing of Final Fantasy XIII, specifically Leona Lewis's song in the television ad. When you place it in the context of whom Square are targeting, there is no need to question their marketing at all.


And the big success of Nintendo is not, contrary to the popular perception, that they have targeted the 'casual' market this generation. It is that they have targeted the mass-market, which includes everyone ('hardcore' and 'casual' market) and succeeded. Mario Kart Wii is the best example of this and it is one of the best games of this generation, and best-selling.

Retr0gamer

NeoKubrick wrote: »

They're not entirely off the mark. The majority of Japanese Role-Playing games target effeminate male teenagers and gamers. It's the same for most of the well-known franchises, but I'll take the Final Fantasy series as an example. Final Fantasy X's main antagonist is Seymour: an androgynous character who is the ultimate 'bitch' which is the perfect enemy for that target audience. Square took their targeting of a particular audience to its extreme with Final Fantasy X-2, (J-pop, dresses, female lead with female supports). After fighting Matsuno's attempts to raise the maturity of the genre with Final Fantasy XII, Square release Final Fantasy XIII which includes a female lead. It's not that the fanboys want to nail Shine; they want to be Shine, tits and all.

A few of my friends in Uni were questioning Square's marketing of Final Fantasy XIII, specifically Leona Lewis's song in the television ad. When you place it in the context of whom Square are targeting, there is no need to question their marketing at all.

I know all that and in japan FF is seen as a series more for female players, although it is popular with males as well, while Dragon Quest is more for the hardcore male gamers. However my point was that they are completely dismissing great games just because of their art style which I think is just wrong but ultimately a fact of life. The androgynous male leads of a lot of JRPGs or anime stylings will appeal in japan but not to a western audience.

o1s1n

If you're dealing with people who reply to things with 'that's gay' then they're probably not the type to appreciate anything beyond Halo, GOW and Dead or Alive Beach Vollyball - no matter how good it is.

Ironically enough, the big muscle bound characters in the likes of GOW etc are closer to Cho Aniki in appearance than anything in 'gay' Japanese RPGs.

CiDeRmAn

o1s1n wrote: »

If you're dealing with people who reply to things with 'that's gay' then they're probably not the type to appreciate anything beyond Halo, GOW and Dead or Alive Beach Vollyball - no matter how good it is.

Ironically enough, the big muscle bound characters in the likes of GOW etc are closer to Cho Aniki in appearance than anything in 'gay' Japanese RPGs.

Ah yes, those infamous scenes cut from Gears of War, when Dom and Cole realise the truth of their feelings for each other and hit the showers with a tub of lube!
I think it may have been a QTE section, with a bit of rhythm action for good luck...

Professey Chin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Hope you don't take a shine to Lightning from FF13 either. She was designed to be a female Cloud Strife so all the fanboys won't be questioning their sexuality when all they want to do is nail Cloud.

Why would anyone want to nail cloud?He's a mook!
Lightning id destroy though......................what?

Xluna

o1s1n wrote: »

Ironically enough, the big muscle bound characters in the likes of GOW etc are closer to Cho Aniki in appearance than anything in 'gay' Japanese RPGs.

Gears of war....a bunch of muscle bound dudes running around for ten hours doing nothing bar male bonding-with not a chick in sight. How gay is that?:pac:

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

...
That's not a chick?! :eek:

Yeah Poison and Bridget makes me feel totally straight after that.:pac:

CiDeRmAn

Just to make sure its understood that we do not condone the singling out for ridicule of any classification or group.
Unless you're from Meath, then you frankly deserve everything you get!

Xluna

NeoKubrick wrote: »

They're not entirely off the mark. The majority of Japanese Role-Playing games target effeminate male teenagers and gamers. It's the same for most of the well-known franchises, but I'll take the Final Fantasy series as an example. Final Fantasy X's main antagonist is Seymour: an androgynous character who is the ultimate 'bitch' which is the perfect enemy for that target audience. Square took their targeting of a particular audience to its extreme with Final Fantasy X-2, (J-pop, dresses, female lead with female supports).

After fighting Matsuno's attempts to raise the maturity of the genre with Final Fantasy XII, Square release Final Fantasy XIII which includes a female lead. It's not that the fanboys want to nail Shine; they want to be Shine, tits and all.

A few of my friends in Uni were questioning Square's marketing of Final Fantasy XIII, specifically Leona Lewis's song in the television ad. When you place it in the context of whom Square are targeting, there is no need to question their marketing at all.

Are you saying that Japanese male F.F. fans are transgenders in denial? There's a massive difference between being a feminine or androgynous male and being a transgender.

Retr0gamer

I kind of have to disagree with Squaresoft trying to fight Matsuno trying to bring maturity to the FF series. The reason Matsuno wasn't back for FF was because he had a break down during development and left halfway through. He only came back recently to do the remake of Tactics Ogre, which looks amazing.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I kind of have to disagree with Squaresoft trying to fight Matsuno trying to bring maturity to the FF series. The reason Matsuno wasn't back for FF was because he had a break down during development and left halfway through. He only came back recently to do the remake of Tactics Ogre, which looks amazing.

Yes, it's well-documented that there was internal pressure throughout the development teams and the development was a "pressure cooker" environment. He left halfway through because of internal pressure from development staff.

Xluna wrote: »

Are you saying that Japanese male F.F. fans are transgenders in denial?

No. Am I a PhD theoretical physicist in denial for wanting to play as Gordon Freeman? The character's PhD (especially its subject) signifies a property of the character which appeals to me (namely his intelligence); the character's sex and look in Final Fantasy XIII signify properties which appeal to feminine males (femininity is qualities of females, remember).

Retr0gamer

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Yes, it's well-documented that there was internal pressure throughout the development teams and the development was a "pressure cooker" environment. He left halfway through because of internal pressure from development staff.

Well we probably won't know exactly what went on unfortunately because of how secretive japanese companies are. I'd say there's a damn good story behind that games development.

Xluna

NeoKubrick wrote: »

No. Am I a PhD theoretical physicist in denial for wanting to play as Gordon Freeman? The character's PhD (especially its subject) signifies a property of the character which appeals to me (namely his intelligence); the character's sex and look in Final Fantasy XIII signify properties which appeal to feminine males (femininity is qualities of females, remember).

Feminine males and androgenes don't wish to alter their physical appearance to that of their opposiate birth sex, that's transsexuals;which is something totally different. (Which is what seemed like you were saying in your earlier post.) Guess I misinterpreted you.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

It's not that the fanboys want to nail Shine; they want to be Shine, tits and all.).

Gender identity wise, androgenes are gender neutral. Feminine males are happy with their physical selves and don't identify as the female gender, they just are less masculine than the average male, but ultimately they identify with the male gender.

Retr0gamer

I've got a willy!

Xluna

More than we needed to know.:D

Myrddin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I've got a willy!

Really? :eek::P

Xluna wrote: »

More than we needed to know.:D

Frankly, it's NSFW

NeoKubrick

Xluna wrote: »

Guess I misinterpreted you.

You didn't misinterpret me; you misinterpret human behaviour. First, you have to accept the distinction between wanting to play as a female character and wanting to be a female human. Have you ever watched Irréversible by Gasper Noe? In it, there's an unedited nine-minute rape scene. There are only two characters in the enclosed space: the victim and the rapist. The viewer can only want to play as either the victim or the rapist. The vast majority of viewers have trouble watching through that scene, because they choose to identify with the victim never the rapist (as all normal viewers should). Noe understood this and to even further torment the viewer, half-way through the scene, he introduces a bystander in the background who happens upon the rape; the viewer wants to identify him/herself as this bystander who will act as the 'hero', but the bystander flees the scene and now the viewer is a coward as well as having to revert to playing the victim.

This example demonstrates that it does not mean that I or anyone else who identifies with the victim rather than the brutal rapist wants to change their gender. Just as it does not mean that anyone who wants to be Shine wants to change their gender; she is designed to be strong and feminine. Qualities some people want to identify with, and qualities which Square-Enix have identified as 'attractive' to their target audience.


To contribute to the original topic, I think one of the best aspects of the current generation is the ability to turn on/off your console with your controller; it's effortlessly convenient. I hope that they find a method to take it a step further and flank the piracy issues of installing a game on your console and playing it without having to insert the game disk.

Retr0gamer

I remember reading that Bioware did a survey when KotOR was released and found that there's a pretty significant majority of males that played as a female. I found that playing as a male in RPGs is pretty boring since it's just been done so many times. I usually pick a female. I know that for any Black Isle RPG that the female option is usually the more entertaining. Also I picked a female for Mass Effect because male shepard is unbelieveably boring and Jennifer Hale was amazing as the female shepard.

jesmed

I remember it used to take weeks(sometimes months) to finish a game. I sped home from work every night to play.....player had to think about the game and i used to get stuck for days and refused to cheat. Now youtube is there to show you how to get past your sticky spot.
Games these days are more visually pleasing than they used to be.
I dont like this motion sensor stuff thats starting to grow upon us.

I have been a gamer for over 25 years.god.:rolleyes:

chopperbyrne

If I'm going to be playing a 3rd person game for 20+ hours then I'd rather be following a girls arse than a blokes.

Nerdkiller1991

chopperbyrne wrote: »

If I'm going to be playing a 3rd person game for 20+ hours then I'd rather be following a girls shoulder than a blokes.

Fixed for current generation standards.