- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.world
Comic: https://www.deathbulge.com/comics/441
Alt text: Yeah yeah, there's always exceptions, I mean look no further than the game in the 2nd panel, not the most thrilling gameplay, is it?
You must log in or register to comment.
Tried God Of War, lost patience after 30 minutes - too much of a “guided experience” for my taste.
Picked up Valheim again for my 6(?)th run of it and only lost patience with it maybe a month (in real time) later.
Been doing Saelig since (got it as a promo from GoG) but now have so much money in that game and such a steady way to make more that it’s not really fun anymore.
Just updated Songs Of Syx to v0.71 and preparing for a new run on that.
I’ve been gaming for almost 4 decades, originally in a ZX Spectrum and after than mostly on the PC (tried modern consoles with the WII, but found it a bit meh).
For me the modern AAA gaming experience is seldom as much fun as some Indie games out there and AAA games now tend to have much less replayability: AAA games in the last 1 or 2 decades mainly have fixed game areas with fixed and reasonably simple game rules so once I’ve seen it and done it I tend to still remember how it was for many years after playing it, so the exploration fun isn’t there anymore in a new run (in my experience it takes maybe a decade before I can come back to the best such games and have fun with it again) whilst many Indie games have procedurally generated playing fields and/or complex enough game rules that after I’ve played so much of it that I got fed up, it takes me a lot less time to have fun in a new run.
Even supposedly great games like Red Dead Redemption II turned out to, for me, be engaging and interesting for far less time than things like, say Terraria - sure, the former starts a lot more impressive, but the fun goes down a lot faster whilst the latter just keeps throwing challanges at you. Also having played it until you’re fed up, some months later Terraria is fun again for another run, whilst if you go back to it a year later, for RDR II you quickly remember what’s were in the game area and how to go around doing stuff, so the “discovery” part of fun isn’t there anymore (this especially so for the story: it’s really only interesting once)
Mind you, there are actually older AAA games for which this doesn’t apply. For example, I can still go back to the Sims 3, start a new game and it will be fun for quite a while.
I think that the problem with modern AAA games is that far too much was invested into glitzy visuals and a heavilly curated game area (not just visually but even things like scripted events) and not enough in engaging game play, plus I get the impression that game play tends to be low complexity so as to be accessible to more people, and for me after 4 decades as a gamer, simpler game rules are usually boring unless the interact in complex ways. Further, all that curating (read, “tight control”) of the game experience goes against a great source of fun in games - emergent gameplay (how the interaction between game rules and between them and the game environment can create varied and complex situations that need different solutions) - something which, IMHO, is part of the reason why in some games multiplayer is a lot of fun when singleplayer is not (humans are great at creating the novel and unexpected) and which works especially well with game with tons of things which interact with each other and with procedurally generated game spaces.
God of war Ragnarok gets even worse with the backseating
too much of a “guided experience” for my taste.
This shit drives me crazy, and Sony games are far and away the worst offenders - Spider-man, GoW, Death Stranding 2, etc. Otherwise great and enjoyable games damn near ruined by constant nagging and pointers for the most obvious things, like “helpful” reminders to get to the objective you’re already going towards. I have other problems with Death Stranding 2, but that was one of the bigger ones. Stupid doll man wouldn’t. shut. up.
As I recall The Last of Us two found a pretty organic sweet spot. The character you’re with would just make oblique observations if you were stuck for a while, increasingly explicit, until finally an actual icon would appear in the UI pointing you in the right direction (configurable).
I really do find hifi environments too busy to make out “significant” features, and if you’re not going to splash yellow paint on everything some kind of hint system is nice.
Source: I’m not smart
The games I always remember/return to the most are the ones that had an amazing storyline.
That doesn’t require a huge budget. But it does require the developer to love the game too.
So many companies are run from an excel spreadsheet. No true leadership or vision.
Same thing for movies, music, etc. The people that piss and moan about their media being terrible are the ones that can’t be bothered to lift a finger to seek out something better. They only bother with media that falls into their lap, and that’s petty much all determined by studios that care more about profits than quality.
Exactly. It’s like when people complained that rock and roll died again at the end of the 90’s. Sure, if you don’t seek out better music and just take what’s handed to you by MTV and the radio (or what Spotify shows on its Home screen these days), then music is terrible now. If you go digging, you can find all kinds of amazing stuff. Same goes for gaming. Good studios get too big or bought out and ruined by people who only care about money, but if you dig around you can find all kinds of good stuff.
The stuff that “lands in your lap” was actually shoved there by a multi-million dollar marketing budget. That almost certainly means the product itself is meant for mass consumption and may not be that compelling or interesting. If you’re willing to spend the time and effort to look around and play some bad games along the way, you’ll find the good ones.
On the topic of indie films, can people in-the-known share some suggestions for what’s worth watching?
Grey Man, purely for Captain America in a pedostache hamming it up as a villain.
Back in the day, I used to just look up the different indie film festivals, see what was nominated/won, go watch the trailer, and pirate the ones I was interested in.
Found a lot of films this way.
Brick, Moon, Sunshine, Seven psychopaths
I don’t know how many of those are actually indie but I feel like they all flew in under the radar.
I think it’s still a bit of a fair critique.
There were always sequels and garbage 30 years ago but someone who maybe only saw a movie a year the chance that it would be a new IP were higher. Studios are allergic to risk so they would prefer a mediocre known quality.
That said you’re right there’s more media than ever and tones of interesting options in niche areas. That said discoverability is not free. You have to put in a decent amount of effort and even still you might end up watching a niche indie darling that was never for you and come out disappointed.
For someone who only periodically dips into a form of media I think the current landscape is undeniably worse than it was and I understand when they complain about it.
Streaming has changed films. With on-demand TV, and more affordable, higher-qualitt home theatres, the only films worh spending money on seeing in a cinema are the big eye-candy films.
However, those streaming films are often lower quality if they weren’t also released in cinemas.
The last games I finished were both Remakes (last one: Another Code Recollection)
Aside KingdomHearts getting a Switch remake release the onyl thing entertaining me are GBA and NDS on the RetroidPocketFlip2 … Switch2 ? Collecting Dust … (Altho finishing MMSFLC would be needed. Yet another Remake)
Maybe I should make my own game. Good thing new games are trash, that way it won’t hurt not being able to preserve em anymore
Modern gaming like modern TV and Series and books are very boring. All targeting the low attention span of smartphone zombies
It’s a logical outcome. The big studios are risk-averse. Why bother with something that hasn’t been already ‘proven’, and also if they think something has gone “out of fashion”, then similarly don’t risk revisiting something that will make them look dated.
The pleasant creative outcomes stem from people who want to do it for the sake of doing it rather than constrained by predicted business results. It’s by no means a guarantee of quality, a lot of Indie stuff sucks, but certainly being overly business minded inhibits anything ‘different’ coming out.
I’m having more fun with Supplice than any AAA shooter since… idk, 2016 at least.
Capitalism ruins another awesome part of our lives.
Indie games aren’t capitalism?
Are indie better because of capitalism or despite capitalism? It’s despite.
I think you’re mistaking capitalism with corpocracy…
“The problem isn’t capitalism, it’s <fancy term to describe the inevitable result of capitalism>!”
No, I am not. I did think about my answer despite it being short.
there have always been loads of shitty games, same witb movies/music etc. the bad just gets forgotten with time
If they are advertising their game that money that could have made the game better.
But then nobody knows about the game, it won’t sell well, and there’s no money to make the next one
There are all these people who think it’s only a video game if it involves big fightymen killing things. That’s hyperbole (they could instead be big sportsmen doing sports), but not by much.
These are the people who view graphics as the be-and-end-all of a game’s quality. There are more kinds of games than anyone could count, but you wouldn’t know it by asking those people.
There’s definitely amazing indie games, but there’s also hundreds of shitty and terrible indie games for every decent one.
I can respect a shitty indie game that has passion. You can tell a lot of people are ALMOST there on itch.io sometimes. And its just so close. Or just something that doesnt click with you. But thats ok.
“Or just something that doesn’t click with you. But that’s ok.” You’re going to rile up the rage addicts with this calm logic.
It’s funniest when they act like their rage is justified. Or destroy their own things.
This wisdom is strong. I respect the fuck out of shitty games that have crazy passion. I often enjoy them far more than soulless titles that are perfectly polished. A lot of my favorite games gain their character from their rough edges. Peripetia, Alisa, Webfishing come to mind.
I don’t think the intended message is that all indie games are great. The message is that if you’re frustrated with AAA-games and haven’t considered indie games, you should.
yes but more chances to be good. variance is expected ln chances. the choice is your’s to pick which ones to play. no one said you absolutely had to play the shit ones. use your free will.
Oh no I spent $3 on a game that could use some more polish.
Honestly even if the game ends up being kinda lame I won’t ask for a refund.
There’s a lot of indie games costing $30+ these days
And thats the natural way of the world. Without shitty artists there would be no good artists, because every good artist was once a shitty artist.
Sure everyone needs to start somewhere. I’m just saying it’s also very far from all sunshine and rainbows in indie-game land.
I mean don’t play the ones you don’t want to…?
Also, I’m a lot more willing to gamble on a $20 game than an $80 one.
My experience has been indie games are pretty well vetted if they are able to sell for $20.
Plenty of $3-5 games that are a bit of a gamble though. Even if it ends up being kind of lame I figure it’s funding for the developer to make another attempt.
Adding on to that: Sometimes these indie devs, who made a cool thing as a passion project and get rewarded with life-changing money via sales, then go on to continually update the thing since they can now devote time to passion. Thinking Minecraft, Terraria, Vampire Survivors, Stardew Valley as my personal “I have sunk hundreds of hours into this title” games. That $3 game might have good bones and just need time to flesh it out.
Also the communities will rally around devs that don’t use predatory pricing and cash-grabs. I know I’m not the only one who bought more copies of some of these games (or their OSTs, donation DLCs, Patreon, etc) to gift or even just as a thank-you when something updated and gave me more content or more polished experience.
My game list were so popular it was almost cliche, but we can’t really predict what the next great thing will be until it’s there and pricing your new best-seller at $3 means you get exposure and good will.
Yeah you are right there is plenty of small slop games that were clearly made as a cashgrab full of microstransactions and bugs. But i jist wanted to point out that its not so black and white.
If you read the negative reviews on steam, you can often filter these shitty ones out. Also, be suspicious by default of free games. There are some that were made by some game dev just having fun but most want to make money some way or another and f2p monetization is often pretty toxic, like adding a long grind just to sell ways to avoid it or p2w mechanics.
I haven’t felt like I’ve gone wrong by generally just buying the cheapest well-reviewed games on my wishlist, occasionally stretching the budget to grab a mid-priced game I’m interested in and rarely going for a AAA priced game. Means that I get to some great games later (eg, Hollow Knight is one of the more recent ones, highly recommended btw) but it’s been a great way to experience a wide variety of games from today and the last 15 years for not that much money.
There are more good indie games than ever. It doesn’t bother me that there are also more bad indie games than ever. We have a variety of ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. And I don’t think the ratio has ever been better than 1:100 in any genre in any time period. 🤷♂️
That’s why the Indie side is a full ecosystem.
Shitty games die and fertilize the ground so that all the good ones can grow.
If a AAA game dies, it takes another 6 years for investors and executives to gain the balls to maybe risk spending the money to make another game, so it fertilizes nothing, just sits and rots on sand.
If you dont play a game for 2 hours and didnt buy it more than 2 weeks ago, you can refund it if you bought it on steam
there’s also hundreds of shitty and terrible indie games for every decent one.
I would skip those and play the good ones
Yes.
Ratings systems and reviews aren’t perfect, but they are a good starting point.
I would play them both. Because fuck me I guess
I mean yes but there are also good games coming out that I wouldn’t call indie games. You just have to know your own taste and need a little bit of experience about which studios will fuck you over and which studio will most certainly deliver what you want.
I mean… if you only have a console (or even worse: only a Smartphone) I get why it looks like that to people. Some people apparently don’t even have a PC or laptop anymore.
You can emulate tons of consoles and games on your phone though
Just sucks without physical buttons. Using button on the screen covers things up and is much harder to use.
Agreed. Some emulators do have the option for haptic feedback via the vibrations. Which still isnt ideal but i found it quite useable for certain types of games.
Or you just buy a bt/usb controller for 20-50 bucks. A few phones even have usb-c dp alt mode and you can enjoy the games on the big screen.
Got a Bluetooth controller. Changed everything.
I’m genuinely upset at how miserable the mobile scene is compared to the rest.
I’ve got a phone that’s orders of magnitude above a TurboGrafx or a Game Gear, but 95% of the games are GACHA crap or so ad bloated as to be unplayable.
There is nubbys number factory
And thats it, there are no other good mobile games
Slay the Spire!
They need to release the sequel on mobile already. I’m dying here
Yeah, it’s abysmal. I still rock a OnePlus 7 Pro from 2019 with /e/OS, that damn thing can run Crysis (I tried, works with Winlator - lots of compatibility bugs though). The SoCs are so powerful Valve designs a whole stand-alone VR system around it able to play full-blown PC titles. Modern phones got crazy performance.
Good games without all the extorsion money simply can’t compete in the attention game though and people won’t pay money for something worthwhile if there’s a storm of crap “for free”. The internet and digital spaces in general got utterly broken by surveillanve capitalism. But, you see… it’s for ✨the economy✨.
people won’t pay money for something worthwhile if there’s a storm of crap “for free”.
I’ve got the first six FFs, which were remastered and released on Mobile. Got me through lockdown, when I was just trapped in a socially distanced office with nothing to do.
Like, it’s definitely possible to make - and sell - a good game that works well on a phone.
The internet and digital spaces in general got utterly broken by surveillanve capitalism.
Ain’t that the fucking truth.
It’s unfortunate that the attention economy is what sells the existence of these indies in the first place.
Personally a big thing that holds me back from even seriously considering mobile gaming as an extension to normal gaming instead of “the best you can do when you don’t have access to better devices” is the input side. I hate touchscreen controls for anything with real time action because touching the screen obscures it from view, plus you don’t get the tactile feedback of buttons that makes it trivial to play without needing to readjust your finger positions constantly.
And I know there are external controllers you can use with phones, but if I’m making space (and remembering to bring) one of those, I might as well just bring my steam deck or even the switch instead.
I mean, yeah, why not bring a dedicated device, but the shit you can do with a phone and a controller is not unimpressive. I’ve got anything and everything psx and before emulated (including SCUMM and DOS, so I could play old lucasarts or sierra games. Fuck if I remember how to do that. Something on fdroid) on a oneplus 7 pro and galaxy s3.
I think the money aspect is a big one with this. Someone with a Steam Deck and/or Switch doesn’t see the need (well, Switch maybe unless it’s jailbroken), but if you just want something and money is tight then a new 50€ controller and your existing phone gets you way further.
50€? What has happened to the controller market in Europe while I was in the toilet?
EDIT Cheap gamesir for $35 USD. I’ve got an old gamesir g3s. Something like 10 years old. Still works great, i might have to reset it with the pin if I’ve been using it 8 hours straight.
I have a GameSir G4 and it’s trash, utterly awful input lag and the connection never worked correctly with any device other than Android either. Basically unusable without a cable, I’d never recommend their stuff.
Well, as a consolation prize, you can run PPSSPP on Android, Linux, and possibly iPhone. You can also find archived ISOs for pretty much every PSP game ever made such as Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Crash Twin Racing, Phantasy Star 2, etc.
Even if you only have a console, it’s really not THAT bad especially if you’re not a conscious consumer. Like my kids love their Switch 2 games because they don’t really know any better yet. They see me playing different games on my PC or even indies on the Switch and look genuinely interested so I’ll get them to play those soon enough to expand their horizons (and eventually let them know how shitty a company Nintendo truly is lol).
But Switch exclusives are amazing anyway. 1st party Nintendo games are almost always good. And ever since Switch 1, pretty much all of the indie games are available on the platform. And since indie games don’t really need powerful hardware, it’s a great experience.
The quality is good, I give that to them. But their pricing, ownership model and especially opinion about copyright is abysmal (weren’t they the ones trying to patent relative motion?). Nintendo has some genuinely good artists and engineers who clearly love their job but they take the carrot-and-stick approach to the extreme and it’s disgusting.
A lot of great games have been ported to phones. Then you have emulation. I am playing games up until 3DS on a 6yr old phone with a blue tooth remote that sticks to the back of my phone.
Do you have the screen vertical or two screens horizontal? I’ve been trying to get through a run of radiant historia and I keep falling apart because I can’t get the screens lined up right
I’ve been doing the screen vertical. I have an McCon that can change the direction you place the phone on the remote.
if you only have a console
… then your an idiot in the first place.
If you spent $700+ on a gaming only device that you can’t use for most “PC activities” (office, banking, browsing the web, etc), than you obviously set your priorities wrong.
Most indie games run on 10 year old budget laptops/PCs and you can get them definetly cheaper than a console.
Do you know how goddamn cheap an old console can be? It’s insane value for money for entertainment. You do not have to buy the latest console. I played Star Wars Racer for hours the other day with my nephew, on the old Nintendo 64 in my games cupboard, gathering dust but still working perfectly.
Yeah cool, but the meme is about modern gaming…
The meme is, but you were saying that consoles are hella expensive. I was just saying they do not have to be.
Cozy Pixel Dating Exposition Building Pastel Farming Dog Quirky Fishing Rogue-lite Crafter
Shut up and take my money!
For real though, casual and chill-out games are so cathartic. Sure, I love my edgy soulsborne action adventures… But a couple of edibles and some Slime Rancher and I’m happy as a clam.
For real, there’s so much more variety these days than there was ten or fifteen years ago. I feel like these are the golden days of gaming where everyone can find the exact niche game that they are looking for
So true! If you ignore big corpo and their slop, we actually live in a golden age of gaming.
We always have and I’ve often ignored big corp.
