Edit: Games aren't about gameplay no more.

[zarx]

DevilRising said:

Sorry, but everything you just said is kind of pointless and immensely silly, in this man's view. YEAH, I kinda have gone back and played 8bit games, all the damn time. I own modern consoles, but I'm very much a "retro gamer" at heart. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and no, it isn't just nostalgia. That is a pisspoor excuse people use to try and disregard someone's argument, "Oh that's just nostalgia". No, in fact, almost all the games I loved as a kid are STILL great, because they hold up to the test of time, they're fun to play, they're challenging, and to me, they play like VIDEO GAMES, not $60 Quicktime Events. Saying that most 8bit, and even 16bit games (HUH?), had "horrible gameplay" or "were super derivative"..........that is not 99%, that's 100% your opinion, and one not shared by most gamers. I'd wager that most gamers who prefer modern games would still not wholly agree with that sentiment. Just because you apparently don't like side-scrollers, or "schmups", or whatever, doesn't mean they were or are "super derivative". What would you call most modern games? 90% (not an exaggeration) of the big games I saw shown at least year's E3 WERE super derivative, most of them involving a character with a gun, and all of those involving "shoot, find cover, shoot some more" gameplay mechanics that have been done to death over the last generation. If THAT isn't boring, uninspired, and derivative gameplay and game design I don't know what is.

Certainly, old side-scrolling games almost all involved running and jumping, the GOOD ones (and there were a lot), always tried to be creative and put their own spin on things, oftimes being very innovative in the process. I would argue that develors back then, not ALL (there were and always will be lazy, shitty developers), but a lot, would often employ a lot more effort and creativity because they had to, and because gaming wasn't so corporate and mainstream back then, so it was okay to take a risk and come up with some far out, ridiculous idea. Now most non-indie developers outside of Nintendo seem to play it safe, which is why you see the super-derivative "Shoot stuff" games I mentioned. There are certainly things about modern gaming that are "better", some I even like and am glad to see. But I still say that gaming and the games industry was better off back in the 8 and 16bit days, not because I'm nostalgic and pine for those times, but because it seems to me that they genuinely were. For my dollar, you just saw a hell of a lot more creativity and FUN in a lot of games from that era, whereas now if a game doesn't sell 2 million copies it's a "Flop", so developers are scared shitless to even bother BEING creative or taking risks.

Sorry my point wasn't that there weren't good games back then, or that there weren't origonal games. But I get sick of people acting like it was a perfect age with nothing but super awsome origonal games. there are literally thousands of 8-16bit games and most of them did suck and most of them were also super derivative just like games today if not more so. For every CoD wannabe modern war FPS released this generation there were 8/16-bit 10 (mostly licensed) platforming games or scrolling Beat 'em ups . Just because you don't like modern cover bassed 3rd person shooters doesn't mean that lots of modern 3rd person cover based shooters don't have unique elements that seperate one from another. The 8 and 16 bit generations were filled with crappy ports of arcade games with mechanics designed specifically to force people to spend more tokens in the arcades inelegantly shoved into a home console. And I am not sure why anyone would expect AAA blockbuster games that need to sell 2 million to all be super original and risky. full priced retail games made by 1-15 man teams don't exist anymore but those small team games are still getting made we just call it the indie scene now and there are more devs working in that space than ever producing all sorts of creative fun interesting games for reasonable prices to boot. AAA is it's own beast and to expect it to not be aimed at the mainstream and utalise popular mechanics and tropes is just retarded, it's like expecting a summer blockbuster action movie to be an edgy R rated arthouse flick. 

The great thing about todays market is that there is a huge veriaty in the types of games being made, from AAA blockbusters to hardcore retro style games made by a hundfull of people. Going back to just making small team games would not be anything but a regression any way you slice it. If you don't dig the big AAA style games there is plenty more out there and it's all more accessable than ever.