@ Disolitude  Wait, did you just condemn Lords of Shadow, God of War and Heavy Rain for offering nothing but sinple and basic gameplay elements, to then name Battletoads and Yoshi Island as better example to represent games that could stand the test of time?  Even though they offer much simpler and repetitive gameplay than the HD games you mentioned?

I see you not making sense quite often, but I can't help but see this here "opinion" of yours as nothing more than you wishing to make yet an other jab at the games people here enjoy most.  ¬_¬

Just so you realise, God of War and Lords of Shadow are in no way more shallow than their 8 and 16 Bits counterparts: Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Dungeons and Dragons, Golden Axe, and of course Battletoads.

V-I-D-E-O (five letters) G-A-M-E-S (five letters).  Hmm.  Interesting.  It looks like there's just as much emphasis on the word "video" as there is on the word "games".  I love a good playing game.  I can also appreciate a good looking game.  As far as I can remember, I was drawn to video games.  I remember walking past games like Double Dragon, Bad Dudes, Race Driving, Afterburner, Street Fighter 2, and such in arcades and being stopped dead in my tracks by how stunning they looked.  I used to connect my Nes/Snes/and when I could get my hands on one, the Genesis and hook it up to the family VCR and record footage of various games just to look at them.  I'd spend literal hours pausing Street Fighter 2 to look at the individual frames of animation and thinking how awesome it looked and I'd watch the opening to the original Starfox or Flashback over and over again in awe of how good the animation was.

I've been gaming since the early 80's.  I'm not one of these new generation gamers that you speak of.  You name a good game, classic or new and the odds are pretty good that I've owned it or at least played it.  (that was all just to set the mood).  I own a Wii and I've been a Nintendo Fan since the beginning.  And I prefer the PS3/360 BY FAR.  You can tell me how the Wii is all about gameplay over graphics and I'll call bullshit on you.  The Wii's underpowered graphics actually hurt the experience of some games.  If believing the Wii has some sort of edge over other consoles helps you sleep well at night, so be it.  Games like Uncharted 2, Gears 2, Heavy Rain, Halo Reach, and Enslaved (buy Enslaved, kids!) etc. are great experiences and the presentation have a lot to do with it.

And even if you disagree, tell me that games like 'Splosion Man, Limbo, Braid,Flower, etc. don't benefit from impressive graphics?  Even the games like Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Star Fox, Wave Race, Super Mario Bros. 3, Zeld LttP, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario 64, and such benefitted from being the absolute best looking games of their time.  I think graphic whores arent the only ones who forgot what VIDEO gaming is about.

You must have not played battletoads...that game has more gameplay variety than god of war and lords of shadow combined. Standard beat em up style gamplay, platforming, going down the shaft, driving the car, sliding in the ice pipes, riding the snakes, surfing...

Also you cant button mash thought Battletoads or Streets of rage games. Those games had twitch based gameplay and lots of challenge which was just fun. Other games on your list are not as good, but are still more gameplay oriented than God of war.

God of war and lors of shadow are pure button mashers which QTE. Yeah you can increase the difficulty and then it becomes an excercise in frustration...

You don't ever watch a god of war execution of a boss and are like..."wow, that looks so good...I wish I could actually have control instead of play DDR with buttons while the computer does the animations." If you take away visuals from thsoe games, they stop being fun...period.

Battletoads was amazing looking at the time, too.  Probably one of the best looking Nes games of all time.  It also played like shit.  It was impossible to beat more than a couple of levels with two players. Jumping was imprecise and doing the wrong punch at the wrong time could kill you!  It offered lots of variety but the reason I beat it (and the Gameboy version) wasn't because it was fun.  It was for the visuals that made me feel like I was playing something that i technically shouldn't be able to play (that stage witht the 3D looking rotating towers made my head explode with how awesome it looked!).  If that game looked like shit, nobody would have liked it.

Thats crazy talk... :)

It wasn't a challengeless experience like a lot of beat em ups back then and it wasn't user freindly like other games but nothing about battletoads gameplay was broken.

Also, it looked quite dated imo...I did play it in 1992 tho. Eastern Europe took longer to get games :)

I am not saying that all games these days put visuals over gameplay.

Since we are talking about hack and slash games, Devil May Cry captured this twitch based gameplay back in 2001 perfectly. Ninja Gaiden did the same...as did Bayonetta.

When I play god of war 3, I feel 1 of these 2 things:

1. I am button mashing

2. I don't have control over whats going on and am just watching pretty rendered cinematics while playing musical chairs with buttons

This is because of the cinematic and visuals over control approach the game chooses to take,and thats fine. This obviously appeals to the masses as God of war 3 is considered the ebst hack and salsh this gen.

Hence why I think this thread makes sense, but not only graphics whores are to blame...

Maybe "played like shit" was a little to extreme.  That game probably gave me grey hair as a kid, though!  I remember platform jumping and falling to my death when I KNOW I made that jump or punching a character with the inflated glove and falling to my death, too!  I admit most of the stages controlled tightly (the stage where we were going down that cave, turning into wrecking balls or riding vehicles) but it was so easy to die from making a split second mistake that it was insane!!  This game goes on my list of good games I NEVER want to play, again (along with Nes Castlevanias, TMNT, Blast Corps, etc.).

Good Sir, I've given the industry at least 1500$ this gen alone because of my PS3 and you say I'm killing the it? And who are you to tell me whether I'm enjoying my shit or not?

That or people who say graphics don't matter at all are accepting mediocrity. Look at Uncharted 2, It has (arguably) the best graphics this gen and its also (arguably) one of the best games overall this gen. Just because a game looks amazing doesn't mean its bad.

Works both ways...

I find that people who just stare at the pretty visuals on the screen and are contempt with pushing square everyonce in a while when the screen says so are accepting mediocrity as well.

Uncharted 2 is a great game, and not just the visuals...but there re many games which go off on a visual tantrum and really provide very little control or gameplay involvement.

The problem the industry is finding itself in is that with the "visuals first" approach, the product quality starts to be proportional with the $$$ invested with production and not gameplay ideas involved.