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nuckles87 on 16 March 2015
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greenmedic88 said:
A rewind to 2008 had me realize that the majority of Great Console Games from the early 7th gen weren't console games.

Bioshock, The Orange Box (Portal was the only new title in the collection), Mass Effect were PC games. Assassin's Creed, marketed as a console game, but on PC 5 months after debut. Gears of War, also on PC 7th months after debut.

For the sake of argument, call Gears (2006) a console game that unquestionably qualifies as a Great Console Game.

Call of Duty 4, unquestionably a PC game with console versions, but irrelevant because it was not a new franchise even though it could arguably considered a reboot. It's still Call of Duty "4"

The PS3 had Uncharted, Heavenly Sword, Resistance Fall of Man. Heavenly Sword was a dead end franchise (no sequel, no franchise); hardly considered a Great Console Game defining the 7th gen. Resistance received its due, but saw early success mainly due to lack of competition (no games on the PS3 in 2007? Play Resistance: FoM). Motor Storm also saw sequels, but similarly, is unlikely to show up in the 8th gen.

It's a hard sell to say that Resistance or Motor Storm were Great Console Games.

So we are left with Uncharted as the only enduring new franchise in Playstation Land released in the second year of the 7th gen.

8th gen has Titanfall (sequel in development), Destiny (Bungie will make it a franchise), Watch Dogs, The Order (almost guaranteed a sequel given the R&D that went into setting up the game engine and game universe), Sunset Overdrive (may have suffered commercially due to being an exclusive on the smaller marketshare platform).

None of these budding franchises are being predicted as ones to cross into the 9th generation (a decent marker for the impact of a new franchise) even if they do see sequels, but all I'm really counting from the 7th gen as of this time frame (2008, second year of generation, 3rd year for XB360, but Gears was released in 2006, the 2nd year on the market) is Gears of War and Uncharted.

Granted, two of the best franchises to come out of the 7th gen (three games from each franchise in one hardware generation is almost unprecedented), but when I think of 2008, it's a myth that the 7th gen had all kinds of Great Console Games. Lots of sequels from existing franchises. Lots of cross platform games that were also for PC; no console required.

I don't know if I'm the only one seeing this, but about the only complaint that can be made about the 8th gen is that we haven't seen this generation's equivalent of Gears of War and Uncharted.

That hardly makes it a big disappointment, much less a failure.


I wasn't aware many people were even making much of a distinction between "console exclusive" and "console and PC". The video certainly didn't, beyond the title. Many of the 8th gen titles you mentioned were also released on the PC as well.

But I mean, the notion that you HAD to have a Xbox/PS3 last this early last gen would most definitely be a silly one. Certainly, anyone with a poweful PC didn't really need one. I have a powerful PC now, so I could probably play pretty much any "next gen" game on it without having the other consoles, but I don't personally hold that against them in regards to their value because I still prefer to own the big budget games on consoles. I don't really think it's relevant whether or not these console games (most of the games you mentioned WERE marketed, and made the bulk of their sales, off of consoles) were also on PC. I think what's relevant is their quality/critical acclaim, innovations, and efffect they had on their genres/games in general. Certainly, that's more what I find lacking about the last year or so of Xbox One/PS4 games.

 

FarleyMcFirefly said:







nuckles87 said:

The video isn't complaining about a lack of next-gen exclusive titles. He actually mentioned two cross-gen titles as examples of games he wishes there were more of. He's not even really complaining about the QUALITY of the titles. He's talking about two things: the unreliability of release dates for big titles, and the lack of GROUND BREAKING, GENRE DEFINING titles.


Like how Dead Rising and Just Cause introduced new scale and openness to previously enclosed, small genres like zombie horror and action shooter games. How games like CoD4 and Halo 4 redefined first person shooters for a new generation (I suspect he was mostly referring to multiplayer). How Gears of War pretty much revolutionized how third person shooters would play.


I mean, I never played games like these before I played them on my Xbox 360. I never played an open world zombie game or a game with Halo 3's level of multiplayer (which blew what Halo 2 did out of the water) or pretty much ANYTHING like Gears of War before GoW came out.


He's mentioned a few titles like Titanfall and Shadow of Mordor as games this gen that did that, so he's not saying there's a dearth either. There just aren't enough


 

These days, originality is getting more and more elusive. Everything (hyperbole) has been done already.  It will take time before this guy's standards are met.

As for me, I'm enjoying the hell out of this generation (best so far IMO).

Can't say I really agree with that notion. I mean, I heard the exact same thing from people at the beginning of the last generation, and things have certainly changed since then, partially thanks to all the new ideas last generation gave us. I think the bigger problem is that, with game budgets as high as they are, few publishers or developers want to insentivize any sort of risk or creativity. This is where indies have come in, thankfully, but they are still limited by budget. The indie scene has produced plenty of new ideas over the last few years.