Split screen co-op is a feature I personally really miss. I wish developers would realize that not everyone has reliable internet. Besides online gaming is fine but can never compare to same couch gameplay.
This is actually coming back pretty good. I find a lot of games now include a couch multiplayer mode. I think as a lot of my gen grew up as gamers (I was 5 when the nes came out and had already cut my teeth on tons of atari and arcade) wanted more online multiplayer to play with friends while they were home on their consoles, but now as we've gotten even older and have kids old enough to game with us we started putting dollars into games with local multiplayer. Triple A is hit or miss, but other levels of gaming have definitely started making the shift.
What about a counter-op mode? Perfect Dark had s counter-operative mode which allowed one player to play a campaign mission normally while the other player controlled one of the mooks in the level at random trying to impede mission progress. It was a lot of fun!!
i honestly loved that MGSV had enemies that would react to your strategies, like if you headshot too many enemies they would start wearing helmets or if you used decoys against them you would start seeing them pop up in bases to trick you, and then you could send in your soldiers to destroy those caches so they couldn't deploy snipers, body armour or security cameras. it was such a great game and incredibly sad to not see anything like this in future games
I been playing off and on since release. The development of the enemy soldiers and deploying your soldiers to counter that made trying to 100% the story so much more fun.
One thing i liked a lot about arkham knight is that if you sneak attacked the enemies a lot, Arkham knight would tell them to walk together and watch each others back, if you faked orders using his voice, he would tell everyone to switch channels, and the enemies would become increasingly scared as their numbers decreased, I can't even remember how many times i revealed myself to the militia just to jumpscare them, use a smoke bomb and disappear again
You're describing emergent gameplay, this used to be what all the gaming magazines were looking for around the time of the 6th Gen era. Compare GTA III to GTA V and you'll see how it's evolved backwards, I still insist Mercenaries POD did so many things better in 2005 than GTA Online from a gameplay standpoint. You could approach any mission from any direction, using so many different strategies that you could improve on the spot or plan ahead of time. The player guided everything, now broadly speaking, every single game has invisible barriers, you walk too far it says mission failed, etc.. it's very sad to see, I think we really lost something brilliant and a lot of people didn't even notice it happened.
Yeeeaaaahhhh, that's not revolutionary. Still cool as fuck to see it in such a modern game (even if it was 8 years ago)... The "enemies react to you being a total idiot when it comes to stealth" thing was done, and (in my opinion) done _better_ in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Take all the shit that Falcon said at Number 5, then add in the reactive adding helmets and adapting to you that you said, Chameleon. That's what Chaos Theory is. It's not _perfect,_ but it's _damn_ close.
I remember playing The Force Unleashed and loving it. Playing as Vader in the prolog and throwing Wookies into buildings only to have the building fall apart had me hooked. I've got to agree about the user interface/inventory situation. Why is the quit game button buried in the settings instead of on the main menu when you hit ESC or inventory systems that you can never properly manage or view.
So damn true, you have to do like 7 clicks to exit some games. And sometimes you first have to go to the start menu of the game, then return to desktop. At this point I just close the program.
For the UI point at the end, I kinda wonder if the people who make the mods so quickly were actually devs who knew what the better UI would be like, but had to implement the one the executives thought looked pretty for the official release
yup was thinking similarly, they must sell the micro transactions so the UI needs to be cluttered with bs so that u need to always navigate over the store kind of thing...
Also, good UI/UX-ers are just super hard to find. And it is also not the sexiest job in game development. And they would probably make a lot more money designing for enterprise software companies.
@Roxor128 How does that sound plausible? Lol. One guy breaking the game down to code and making a "better" UI in less time than a team that already has the code and doesn't have to spend their free time doing it.
Number 10, unlockables, hits hard- I played Nier: Automata a while ago and was honestly taken aback when, at the end of the mission where you rescue the robot from the desert, you get a cosmetic item. Not a ticket for a gacha or currency for some internal shop, or some items for crafting, or EXP that eventually nets you the cosmetic, but the specific cosmetic, for a specific action, which is just so unusual now.
When i was growing up in the 90's, becoming a teen in the 2000's who loved video games. I legit thought the future of gaming was going to be utterly amazing. It's not about graphics. It's increased gameplay mechanics, physics effects, damage effects, environment interaction options, engaging AI to play against in single player against CPU bots in offline modes, or good AI in the games campaign. It's just crazy how many current video games focus on graphical nitpicking and don't put any effort into any of the other things that make games that even have quirky graphics but make it so awesome due to creative art style, gameplay style, gameplay modes, the list goes on.. idk what happened?
I think it's related to how video game trailers often don't focus on showing the actual gameplay. They often care more about how it looks more than how it functions.
The physics part is especially sad imo. I remember throughout the 2000s there were tons of games that played with creative use of game engine physics - read GAME physics like the physics were purposed to be played around with. Later on almost all the physics in video games revolved around getting something hyper realistic or very effectful. There is the odd indie game and in the grand scale there are obviously still more games than ever doing creative things thanks to that but you simply won't see big or even just medium sized or small studios with a decent budget dive into anything that's a potential risk. Yes the risk is higher nowadays but goddam it'd be also sooo much easier to stick out from the gray mass of mass produced garbage.
Corporate CEOs who don’t actually play videogames or understand anything about the people who do or the industry at large. Publishing company executives are trying to operate the way Hollywood has operated forever now. And since people keep buying the games, keep buying the microtransaction crap, keep PREORDERING just to play 2 days early. There’s literally no incentive to do things differently as long as they keep making money. Fucking Anthem made like $100 million. FIFA is literally the same game rereleased every year with new, shitty box art that screams “graphic design is my passion” and the last one made fucking $6 BILLION. They have no reason to change no matter how much people complain because some of the same people complaining are the ones who STILL continue handing over money, anyway, and the people who don’t were never likely to play to begin with.
@@brohvakiindova4452 seriously I'm glad you feel the same about gaming in the 2000's. It seemed like there was more of a focus on destructive objects, fun or funny physics, overall just fun satisfying gameplay mechanics and all of a sudden an annoying shift occurred that focused on graphical stats, even tho the artistic design style and game design greatly suffered in a negative way.
Playing Control right now, and the high level of destructibility in the environment really makes the combat shine in a way it really wouldn’t otherwise.
Control is one of my favorite games of all time, partly because the story and setting were designed for me in a lab, but also because the graphics are great and the art direction is stunning.
Control is hands down top 3 video games of all time. The scp inspired foundation along with anomalies of their own. They let you free to do what you want from the jump. A very souls style of mysterious storytelling in the beginning to hook you in. Awesome gunplay and like the first reply said, the more unlock the more fun it gets. And i have yet to 100% it due to the sheer size of he game. Which that isn’t a bad thing if the game is that fun. I wish the best finishing.
Bad Company 2, Farcry 2 and Red Faction Guerilla definitely set the bar for in-game physics and dropped it hard going forward. The fire mechanics alone in Farcry 2 were mind blowing when it was released!
It is so obvious that the core DICE team is working on the Finals now. All the destruction, the amazing gunplay, the good people are still going strong. And thanks to an indie studio we have Teardown, which is also great in terms of destruction. But overall I agree. It's really weird how destruction and physics took a dumb after the Ps3/360 era , ironically despite the technical advancements. Because idiots prefer a static world with raytracing lighting rather than gameplay relevant amazing physics and destruction, which I never understood.
Bad Company 2 is still one of my favorite online games because of the way the destruction evolved the battlefield as the match went on. Being able to clear the forest so your artillary had line of sight across the map, take down buildings that were prime sniper nests or just blow your way through a wall to get round a well defended front door was great. Destructable environments are something I would love to see return.
I so agree with your number one and I àm an IT-professional. Usabililty aspects we took in consideration in the mid nineties (number of clicks, ease of navigation, tab order) still are left outside consideration in most games. The number of OKs you have to give in a racing game to get to the next race is mind boggling.
Agreed. In the 90s and early 2000s, UI was huge. Apple's entire concept of "1-button" on the iphone was part of the ease-of-use thought process and stark contrast to what Blackberry was doing. (I'm a linux/windows/android person because I like control, but that's beside the point).
About #7, i'd say it's not just destructability, it's general interactability of the environment. Games used to get more and more stuff that the player could interact with, all those small objects that were actual separate physical objects. And now the majority of games have completely static maps, with every single barrel or piece of paper bolted to the ground. Or they have the bare minimum, like you can move this chair, but not the table next to it, that one is made of concrete. Hell, i think even breakable glass is not the norm anymore.
@@fishyboy2140 I don't miss it, at least in multiplayer FPS games. It's taking realism over gameplay enjoyment to me. Like in BF, sure, it might be realistic that the tank can blow up the building you're in, but it also make non vehicle gameplay just overly punishing and unfun.
youd be surprised how many games back in the day did not have much destructability and interactability. we just highlight a few games we hoped would get expanded upon and then complain about games that didnt do it. i mean, we got teardown now, a game literally about destroying and interacting with the environment. and yeah, thats 1 game, but only 2 games got highlighted in the videos. number 7 is more just being disappointed that not more games went for interactable and destructable environments (which honestly is a real shame) and not really addressing something that evolved backwards (as it just stopped according to the video and has actually improved in some games). heres hoping that the rise in popularity of beamng gives us more realistic/prominent damage physics and models for vehicles in games like gta 6 and maybe even arcade racers.
@@yefos420 if you are just hitting the same button then why even play, there are moves to use and shit, its not so simple, you are just making it simple by playing in that way
The Sniper Elite series has some pretty AI with the enemies. If you throw a rock or whistle to get a guard's attention, he'll call out and alert his buddy nearby, and that guy may also alert another. I've had 5 guards come into alert status after trying to bait just 1. When that 1 was taken down, the others would eventually notice they are missing a guy and go investigate, and methodically check bushes for you or his body. They notice lights that are shot out, or generators that are off. All kinds of things. It makes sneaking through a compound a much more intense experience.
@@ThirtytwoJ I don't really buy anything in games anymore since fortnite, but it's kinda the game manipulating you into buying things, and EVEN if we stop, there are gonna be a million other people who don't
For number 6, im surprised you didn't mention Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. The amount of instructions you could set for your party members was insane. Really made you feel in control of your party. Then Dragon Age Inquisition came along and you stopped being a party commander.
You could absolutely give a full range of commands to your companions in DAI, but it was less intuitive & smooth, & you had to actively stop the flow of the game each time. And with the huge size compared to the first 2, it was pointless to waste all of that time constantly stopping the game when they'd be ok on their own.
@@TinKnight That was the problem, you couldn't set up any strategies beforehand, you either had to trust Bioware's AI to use the character's abilities correctly, or constantly pause to give on the fly commands. In DA:O you could set up some pretty powerful combos for your party to use that the general AI never would even attempt to pull off. Plus combo magic was awesome and I'm still bitter they removed it just so the future games were less complex and confusing for poor casual gamer brains.
Not to Mention games like Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and 3, Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity, or IWD. These games just like DA:O and 2 you can do a lot of strategising, commands that sort of thing. Also in DA:O and DA2 you can customise their AI to suit your playstyle or do it just to micromanage less.
I feel like the entire development process has gone backwards for a lot of games. It used to be a story was created, then the game was made, then tested/debugged, then it was finally released. Now a days a game is halfway finished story be damned, and it’s up to the consumer to do all the “testing” so they devs can come back 6 months down the road to patch it.
It's also partially because the consumer base of gamers are terrible consumers who buy garbage - it's almost like people who go to the casino all the time
I took a break from gaming for about ten years. Imagine my shock when I bought Tekken 7 and found out you don’t unlock the new characters by beating the game with every character available! Last one I really played was Tekken 3 and everything was an unlockable! Crazy times!
That was the case until Tekken 6, Then Bandai Namco made a game called Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and that game flopped real hard financial wise and there was no Tekken game for a while and they had to come up with a way of making more money and all they had to was to look at Mortal Kombat 9 which i think was the fighting game to start this trend of selling characters as DLCs.
I can see why you'd be surprised, this isn't new though. They stopped doing that after 5. Dark Resurrection had all the characters unlocked but you can still unlock items for every character with the in game currency you can earn by just playing which gave you an incentive to keep playing. Then in 6 they went all in with customization. Unlocking characters in fighting games is pretty much dead.
@@Sacr1fIces I don't mind DLC characters per se, but it'd have to be a character packages with reasonable prices. And I highly doubt there is any reasonable pricing involved. I wouldn't be surprised about $5/€ per character.
Number 7!!! OMG that one speaks to me so much! I adore destructible environments in games. More than I can describe. I was really hoping more power over years would make it more normal but like you say it’s just gone backwards. It makes it so much more exciting and fun. Take RoboCop Rogue City. It’s destruction is limited but even so, what it does have adds immensely to the experience. Throwing a creep through a stud wall never gets old. All the walls and pillars just getting blown to smithereens with the particle effects covering the screen just makes the gun combat so much more fun. You can even destroy enemies cover. More games need this!
It's not just destructible environments, it's more than that - a reactive game world. Physics reacting to you, NPC reacting to you, additional mechanics like day night cycle and differences in gameplay due to it. I recently thought I simply killed my curiosity for gaming but it wasn't me, it was the gaming industry punishing us for e.g. ignoring the tutorial/quest objective etc. So much gaming experience is designed on very stiff rails nowadays that after the past 10 years I dread having to replay a portion duo to "fucking around" and ruining a mission etc. When this used to be some of the greatest fun. And devs actually used to anticipate this and reward you with hiding secrets or even punishing you in creative ways. This has become sooo rare. You just get a "objective failed -> forced reload / no reaction to your action etc." in these situations. It's frustrating.
It was said in the video but I also recommend Red faction guerilla, almost everything is destrutcible in the game world, even the biggest bridges. And if graphics bother you there is a remastered version, You could play Armageddon but it's more linear campaign
That DLSS point is very good, it was suppose to make the games run better on top of already optimized games. but they are really making it necessary to use DLSS even for high end PC
Well nVidia is working on a way to get DLSS to generate 2 frames for you instead of just 1 frame using similar methods the thing that is the input delay might actually be noticeable when 2 frames are made by AI instead of native as even when 1 frame was at the lower end meaning 20 to 25fps with DLSS turned on you can notice it. The reason why is the frame data taken is not recent enough for the human to not notice there is a difference in time from input to action. DLSS works great when you are getting 20 or more frames without it turned on the problem is right now it being needed to get into the 30s or 40s of fps is not the intended use case for the AI to be used. To get from 50 to 90 to 60 to 120ish min fps is the intended use case. nVidia might have over sold a bill of goods with the feature suit of DLSS and now we are suffering as the publishers do not seem to care as long as it makes money.
@@awolr then the games will die before getting the needed patches for the bugs that exist brought about by the thinking of "the developer can patch it after release" which lead to many broken games. Even more broken than software still in alpha sometimes which is surprising it made it past the QA team to make sure it runs. How you get out of alpha most times is by having a program that doesn't need the debug console to just run. Games that perform so bad that the publisher doesn't see fit to put human resources towards fixing them is how studios fell and how game series die. Now do i agree publishers should rush out the door games that are still not finished and known to not be finished? no but that is how it is right now. For the need of DLSS, XeSS, and FSR they are to make up for the time spent on other parts of the project that is the game. I just wish they would bring back fully destructible worlds is all but then when you can just punch you way through a puzzle it will take some of the challenge out of it. It will work good in FPS, RTS, and RPG that the puzzle isn't something you can a 3D object to get through games not so much in platformers and puzzle based RPG games that the how to to complete the puzzle is important to the story. They got rid of destructible worlds as to much overhead for the physics engine to run on everything all the time including walls, doors, etc. with objects that can be used for a quick loading screen on lower end hardware. The other reason is probably the game assets made right now were most likely made without being destroyable in mind so they do not react well and have to be remade. Will look the same to the player but be a different 3D object or group of 3D objects. Most physics engines also run on the CPU so the CPU to GPU speed matters for where the mesh will be unless they go with a GPU based one which will take up GPU time and cause a lower fps. In all games take time and for a game to have everything all gamers want will take longer than any publisher will want to pay the developers for without results from said developers. So games got simpler reuse a lot of the same code from the one they just made and they are still buggy with most of the same bugs the last one had.
But realistically nothing changed. Devs were always relying on new hardware to handle bad optimization. It's just that hardware progression is slowing considerably so software solutions are created. On the bright side some older games run better on your cheap new gpu than they would otherwise (some by community modded DLSS)
Also, it seems like a lot of AAA game developers don't understand what people want out of multiplayer. A lot of the times when we just want co-op to enjoy the story of a single player game together with a friend they give us something weird or competitive.
These guys are hardstuck on "eSports" which means it has to fit inside a very boring box, just whatever has worked in the past do that but add a jetpack.
Why me and friends are looking forward to Space Marine 2, and were so pissed at Halo Infinite. On release, we always used to split screen play through the Halo Campaign together, for Infinite it took, what was it, 8 months, a year, for Co-op play.
For point Number 7, if anyone else has played The Finals demo I have been super impressed on the destruction physics of this FPS. You can completely level buildings if you destroy the corners and support beams of them it’s amazing
I'm loving The Finals and there is a player count over 100,000 on steam atm. Would the ranked mode kind of help curb the sweat behavior and get players matched to players closer in skill level? I'm really hoping so because I am absolutely loving the game
@MT-qu4tk I'm hoping against hope that you are wrong, but that could become the case. Hopefully, it'll be successful enough that more makers try to copy and innovate
I always have a lot of fun playing Control because of the destructible environments. There's just something about going to a new area, killing some enemies, and then looking around the room afterwards.
100% agree about Environmental destruction and physics, so glad to see this, I think I've commented before about spending hours as a kid digging holes in maps in Red Faction with rocker launchers. 100% correct and games have so much more replay value with it. Imagine if you could set up dynamite in RDR2 strategically to take out bridges, shacks, walls or entire buildings. Even cliff faces to set traps or drop chunks of rock on random carriages. It would create an entirely new way to play it and make the end game exciting to just explore to explode. Sure, a pretty game is great but I could care less if the gameplay is boring and shallow
Try "the finals" when the open beta comes back the destruction is so good
10 місяців тому+2
#2 was something I was just thinking about last week. I wondered "what happened to multiplayer modes in videogames?" after I looked at my shelf and saw Resistance 3, TLOU, Uncharted 2, 3 and 4 and got reminded of some really good multiplayer modes that I sunk a lot of hours into. I miss that. Nowadays you can't have just a small multiplayer mode, it needs to be profitable aka live service and it sucks.
"I remember the days when I walked into a store and bought a game, and now more than ever I find myself diving into a game and finding a store" -Aztecross That quote feels more and more true to me with each passing day in the gaming industry, lots of games aren't made for "fun" anymore, they are made for money and its honestly disappointing.
Great video. Seriously valid points. I remember being so excited for the future of gaming when I played Red Faction Gorilla, and Battlefield Bad Company 2. It's not like the games I've played haven't been good, but it does seem like they just gave up on the destruction in games. It added so much dynamic immersion that I don't know how it's not just part of every game now. I wish I could play a Fallout game, and have a Deathclaw bust through a wall. You could also get a perk in power armor to bust a hole in a wall.
Dice had a article out some 5-6 years ago about them not understanding why they cannot beat the popularity of BC2. Well, maybe if they released games that worked great, with well thought out maps, fun gameplay, that makes it easy for friends to play with each other and on top of that release a whole video game sized DLC for like 15 bucks, then they could repeat it! If they just listen to the fans, it souldn't be that hard.
Number 7 is one I TALK ABOUT ALL THE TIME!!! I've been playing Control and it's wild how we had destructible environments to having a "see, but don't touch" world.
It's like the industry's answer to "Can we have some more destructible environments?" seems to be "Go play Minecraft." Yeah, we could, but we'd like to see it in something else as well, you ninnies!
The destruction of enviroment needs more than just supposed "looks cool and immersive imo" some function or reason why you can or should/should not do it.
What i really want to see is an "open world" game be reduced to a 100 story skyscraper, which itself becomes the "open world"; instead of a vast and empty rural setting most open world game use.
@@daniellewis4154 It would be, if you can still go wherever you want in the building it’s open world. It is a very broad term. The idea would definitely work if they did a megatower from a cyberpunk genre. 1000’s of rooms, shops in the atriums, and even different factions on different floors that could turn the halls into the streets.
Totally agree about the menus in recent games. My guess is game companies are striving to be innovative in their menus but, as Falcon points out, often reinventing the wheel in a worse way.
I just *love* how graphics haven't really improved that drastically since the mid-2010s, yet system requirements have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. HelI, can run Red Dead Redemption 2 with high settings and Battlefront 2 2017 with ultra on my gaming laptop (Rtx 2070, I7 10250), yet I can barely run Starfield on low settings and even Robocop Rogue City (a lower budget game) stutters whenever things explode.
This is a reason I find things like the Unreal Engine 5 demo where they gushed about all the polys and tris in the single view they were showcasing- most, if not all of it, could be achieved with textures and normal maps.
UE5 looks like a decent upgrade but barely any games are UE5. Even 3 years later we still have cross gen games. For PS6 I'll probably wait at least 4 years.
look at gtav online, the gameworld is so cluttered, and there is so much junk added that the screen refresh sometimes has to halt updating to catch up to the action
Im convinced AAA devs could make the most realistic game of all time with the best ai, dynamic animations for everything, realistic physics, and crazy ass particles, but nobody wants to put in the effort and money to make it and test everything.
assassin's creed multiplayer was one of the best multiplayers i've ever played i still remember assassin's creed revelations multiplayer which was crazy good
I loved Baldur's Gate 3's "Pick up and add to wares". I could pick an item up and tag it for selling. No longer did I need to go through my inventory and look for stuff I picked up just for monetary gains. I felt it was such a simple solution, and it is a wonder why so many RPG's are not even trying to improve their menu game.
I first played Supreme Commander only 4-5 years ago and it blew my mind. Not only was the camera great, it had resource management completely different to any other RTS I'd ever played. Supreme Commander 2 kept the camera but went back to the standard resource management you get in every RTS made in the last 15 years.
About #7 -- Some of my favourite game in that genre are indies, where you can blow anything up -- "Teardown" for solo mayhem, "Get Packed" for unleashing chaos with friends.
The #9 one is just sad. So many great memories playing "multiplayer modes" in all sorts of older games such as halo, R6, goldeneye, splinter cell, and many more.
No One Lives Forever 2 was one of my all time favorite games, I replayed it more than any other game. Glad it got a mention. It deserves a revisit, there's too much to mention but the varied enemies, settings, action, and humor were top stuff.
Star Wars Republic Commando had very nice tactical ally control. Each of your crew members having a specialization made them feel more vital and contributed to the four of you feeling like a cohesive whole. Yes, you totally could do all the things yourself and the degree of control was by no means RPG-tier, however, I felt it was enough to feel like you had some autonomy, without detracting from the fast-paced nature of (most) FPS'.
There was one bad Gameranx video recently... The one with ten "gamer tricks you need to know" or something similar where I think 9/10 of them Falcon literally would say "this is probably way more trouble than it's worth" and that was probably an understatement. Aside from that, I have noticed consistently solid content and narration from the operators of this channel.
I'm pretty hyped for The Finals because it's a fun shooter AND lets you tear down the buildings across the map (also it has basic fire physics which is great
Was happy to see Supreme Commander mentioned. The other feature that game had was being able to have it span dual displays. You could watch and handle two areas of the battlefield that no other RTS has ever done before.
@@smelogsplayground It really is. As a game, I still feel it's predecessor, Total Annihilation was better, but Supreme Commander really gave you some gameplay options that for whatever reason never took off. Like, if I'm remembering this right and it's not just a TA thing, because your units are mechs, when they're killed it's possible to discreetly 'melt' the corpses down for their resources. You can do it with enemy units that fell when attacking your base, providing a little bit of a balance in cases where the opposing player has claimed more resource nodes. Plus it's pretty fantastic to have a huge army of hundreds, actual units and not some cost cutting 'stack,' descending upon your enemy base on one screen, while you're still at home base on the other, rebuilding your army to better adapt to what your enemy defences are like.
For #6 Im surprised you guys didn't mention the Brothers in Arms games, since the core of those games is based on tactical squad movement. Like you spend half your time shooting and the other half coordinating your squad. I love those games.
I bet the only things your squad are coordinating are their food runs and trips to McDonald's while you sit there stuffing your face with cheeseburgers like there's no tomorrow.
Great video Especially the point about performance for our game DLSS doesn't work really well without smears so we have to spend time in optimization. Also good point about the Camera it's cool to see characters and buildings close up but it's also cool to see the whole map, rotating the camera or do smooth camera panning for spectators.
The destruction in games almost anyone can admit were awesome for so many reasons like playing the finals beta now and seeing the potential with destruction is awesome for the sake of destroying or using it as a tactic like blowing the floor below the enemy, also destruction just looks cool
You touched on most of these de-evolutions pretty spot on. Some super popular game did something a certain way, and so that's what *publishers* tell the *developers* to do, because doing what the super popular game does makes it more likely your game will be super popular and make more money. As for destruction physics... I think that clashed *HEAVILY* with graphical demands. As graphical demands got pushed more and more the computational resources of full destruction physics (remember that most physics engines leverage the GPU) got exponentially more expensive. But the frame rate thing, OK that? That's simple. Who the fuck can afford top end graphics cards to keep up with increasing graphical demands? Most reviewers use high end, but not top of the line systems... average gamer? They're using stuff that's years old because shit's just too expensive these days. Couple that with poor optimization and that's why so many games run like molasses.
Another thing regarding graphics cards: A lot of people are running years-old hardware because it still does the job for what they play. A few months ago I had to replace a GTX1070 due to a hardware failure, not because it was too slow. The most graphically-demanding games I've played in the last couple of weeks being Factorio, Prodeus, and Roboplant, all of which would have run fine on the now-dead card (Factorio definitely did, and will run with as little as 512MB of VRAM). You're damn right about the prices, though. The top-end AMD card when I went shopping was over AUD$2000, and the next one down $1400. No way I was going to pay that much. Ended up spending something around the $450 mark for an RX7600, though I would have gone for something a little higher-end had it been available at the time, but the 7700 and 7800 series stuff wasn't out yet and the place I bought from was sold out on less-expensive older cards.
Yeah I agree so hard about optimization, my old laptop could run Warframe on mid at 60fps but couldn't run Portia smoothly, even at lowest 30fps was a blessing
Number 7 is true for many strategic games as well. One of my all times favorite strategic games is Men of War, in that game you can destroy buildings, burn trees, make hole in ground, place dynamite and completely disappear a whole building.... so much fun.
The worst part of Number 7 (Destructible terrain) is when you can drive through, for example, a telephone pole or a concrete highway barrier; but then you're instantly stopped by driving into a patchy brush or flower bed, or something.
Playing Red Faction Guerilla was such a mind blowing experience when it came out. I remember having such high hopes for games after that, wondering which one would do it next. I was sadly disappointed.
I think I replayed that game 3 or 4 times just because the destructive gameplay NEVER got old. And I almost NEVER replay any games, even with New Game+. Plus the proof of how loved the destruction physics are in that game is the fact that the story and everything else was pretty garbage--mediocre at best. Like seriously did anyone ever play that game for the story?! Lol.
One of the biggest examples of the very first one is in the Tales of series. Used to be you could unlock stuff by doing side quests and at the end of them youd get an outfit. Like in tales of symphonia for example. Now with the most recent game in the series in tales of arise a lot of costumes and even ARTES are locked behind having to buy packs. Its especially frustrating when some of the artes you unlock by buying them are some of the most useful in the game for some characters. Its really disheartening
After playing Supreme Commander when it came out, I had a hard time going back to any other RTS. You hit the nail exactly on the head. If a modern RTS game doesn't have a strategic zoom at least as good as SupCom, it's really frustrating. No excuse.
supreme commander is a watered down "total annihilation" game is super cheap on steam. not nit picking, just saying in hope you enjoy the first true "supreme commander" game.
@@alaricbarber3680 I played Total Annihilation when it launched including the expansion Core Contingency. I wouldn't say Supreme Commander was watered down at all. Both had unique charms, but Supreme Commander definitely moved the genre forward. The fluidity of the interface with it's strategic zoom was a big part of that.
@@spacehornet Starcraft 2 is another great RTS- renowned as THE greatest, in fact. I really haven’t ever encountered another RTS that is as clean, responsive and enjoyable to play.
Totally agree with #8: Mod/editor support for a game.. the Thief series is a prime example. We're going on 25 years of fan-made missions for those games, and it's still going strong and even getting not only single missions, but sometimes huge campaign mission releases.
Regarding the enemy ai one, I remeber one dev in an interview say that people didn't want actually challenging enemies, they want enemies that make them feel smart. He was talking about strategy games, but I think he may have a point. There's a sweet spot here, where the ai is smart enough to be challenging but not unfair.
@@MartynWilkinson45 It is actually a bit more complex then this, the reason the overhaul mods tend to be frustrating is because of the professional game devs failing to teach you the tools in game or balance. Overhaul mods require the maker to understand the tools and see issues, and to want an Overhaul you should understand the tools otherwise why would you want an overhaul of the tools? The problem is a lot of people don't actually understand the tools. A great example is swords worked all the time in the base game, so when you get an overhaul instead of trying other weapons you use just swords again. You come across a skeleton which now takes 1/4th damage from swords. This is so Maces doing bonus damage in the base game matters more and makes up for Maces swinging slower in the base game. I'm saying this as someone who has been on both sides of it.
I could not believe that I couldn’t jump in assassin‘s Creed Valhalla. I know it’s something simple, but in a game where I can take on 10 Vikings, and somehow managed to come out on top and jump from ridiculous heights, and not be hurt, my guy can’t jump off the ground. It really breaks the immersion for me.
For "destructive environments" one little neat thing is Cyberpunk's glass. It breaks into chunks, it will fall off if you shoot off the corners, it will crumble if you throw something, etc, etc. AND all the items in buildings will have sounds and physics so that a shootout will have paper and glass and metal and plastic make noise and blow up or fall off, etc.
Going on #6 one of the more underrated Allies system was persona 3. For a standard rpg having automatic allies is normally a nightmare. But it was one of the few that was surprising decent. They would cycle through attacks to find weakness and if you expose one they would really exploit it. They were also pretty reliable healers and support. It felt pretty cool having allies that didn't just feel like static dummies you have to control to get anything done.
Monolith deserves more recognition for their AI designs. Both FEAR and Shadow of Mordor/War had some of the most-interesting AI designs of their respective generations, built-into games worth playing/archiving.
If you want to see real quality of life innovations for RTS - try Beyond All Reason (BAR). When I jump between playing BAR and Age2: DE I always keep on doing BAR things for a while in age (then lose some micro haha). It is really useful stuff - not just camera, but drawing on map, gather areas, autofire areas, command queues, bombing run planning.... all very quality made. Hotkeys and UI for buildings by default is better in age though.
I fully agree with 7. I love Red Faction: Guerrilla. I bought the miniature robot to my gaming stuff collection too. I got the Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Marstered version also and got to experience all of that fun again. ❤️ And Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer was so much fun. I literally had a blast. I miss those times a lot.
I like my game environment to be more reactive to what i do with it, not stagnant like a fixed object just added in the programming. At least basic physics needs to be implemented carefully in most of the AAA titles
If players as a whole chose not pay for micro transactions, they would not exist. Yet here we are, at the point where younger gen gamers are used to the micro transactions and won’t know or remember a time where you could unlock all the things they pay for just by playing. Too far gone
Thing is, even if 95% of players refused to engage with microtransactions, it's the tiny proportion of "whales" that they are aimed at. People with either more money tan sense, or people with gambling problems. The execs couldn't care less about the experience of most gamers, as long as they can nickle and dime that vulnerable minority.
@@MartynWilkinson45Exactly. The myth of "oh, it's somehow people's fault for not voting with their wallets" is the exact thing these corporations rely on - keep attention focused on shaming other players, not on regulating the industry through the law.
@@MartynWilkinson45 I was gonna say the thing. As far as I can tell, most players already give this stuff little to no reward. But unfortunately, it doesn't matter what most of us do as long as the whales exist, and they aren't going anywhere. On a side note, as much as I hate "nickle and diming" players, I actually wouldn't hate microtransactions nearly as much if that's what the companies LITERALLY were doing. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't LIKE microtransactions at any price above $0.00, but what's even worse than charging for what should be a free in-game unlockable, is that the prices charged are always so stupidly high. I almost certainly would have caved in and actually used in-game shops several times now at least if microtransaction stuff like new skins were only, say, dimes or upwards of quarters each. But that stuff's always so overpriced for the amount of content you're actually getting that instead of spending a little, I spend absolutely nothing. Why is the next step up from free always so high?
The point you develop about UX is interesting - for reasons I created a profile in medium and said that UX is my favourite hobby (it is not, at all) and I constantly receive articles about how UX and design are not valued anymore by anyone - the recent twitter redesign as a clear example - so design and interfaces are absolute crap now. If the game or product does not work because of lack of investment on UX it does not matter: they will blame it on something else, like piracy.
Man number 3 is real. Starfield forcing you to run at native resolution with the only option to downscale it to half is crazy. Maybe my 3070 could do a little better if the lowest resolution option I had in full screen wasn’t 2k
I bet the only thing you're running at is the fridge to get your food that you so eagerly want to stuff in your face because you cant stop binge eating, so stop blaming the game and go take a walk around the block, maybe then you'll lose some weight and become less of a burden on your parents.
I was so disappointed that the Mass Effect collection didnt have ME3 multiplayer. It was probably my most favorite unwanted additon that turned out to be great.
in tales of arise, your allies can either do their own thing, or you could control them. you need to switch to them tho, but it’s honestly a best of both having control over your allies, and not having to control them at the same time
I used to play Tales of Phantasia to Tales of Destiny and haven't touch the new one since, but isn't there also a behavior control in the team menu so you can control their primary strategy too? Like I remember playing Tales of Phantasia and Tales of the World and I can order the formation the team would maintain in combat in menu. And how aggressive, defensive, how often they use skill or item. Such a good system. For example using the party of swordman Cless, archer Chester, healer Mint and mage Arche, I have Chester standing at the back with defensive as his default behavior so that he will run away from the enemy and create distance before starting to shoot, while Mint and Arche is specifically: don't move, use skill as much as possible. I can comfortably use skill that push the enemy away or body block them with Cless and basically be a tank for them. And we have like 5 preset strategy so I can switch the entire team from that to maximum aggressive and damage focus, or preserve item and mana and just hit them with basic attack while farming/grinding. So not just allies do their own thing, but even thing that you can strategize. I don't know how much the system remain today since I haven't touch it since it become 3D, but look like people still love it as always. I think the Tales of series command scheme is such a good system.
Also, speaking of multiplayer experience, Tales of series also have that part better than other game since way back when too. Since we have multiple member in the party, we can even co-op the game. One playthrough of Tales of the World I just keep my little brother company and control the second slot party member, most of the time using a archer or mage, sometime ninja. The camera is not even split screen, it is focus on the player 1, so the game look normal to them but I can help them in battle just fine, I can even run off screen and shoot from extreme long distance to not distract my brother from his experience. Game nowaday have less and less coop experience option. Only adding more PvP into single player game.
Yea but those are JRPG no? They always implement party play well enough to be engaging. Unless u are talking about western RPG's whose bread and butter comes from their competitive nature then ur point would make sense that some weird PvP or Competitive shenanigans would be added for easy monetization. Think not only as gamers but as ppl , we SHOULD be aware of how eastern and western game design philosophies differ before talking on it.
One thing I can’t do anymore is online/multiplayer only type games. Once you spend all that money theres the chance they finally decide to cancel servers (or it fails to pick up traction) and then you are out of either the complete worth of the game or can’t play it at all. It feels like I made a risky investment more than having actually played a game 😢 I’m old fashioned though, I do be missing those couch co-op games ❤️
An underrated game that highly impressed me with many unlockables that weren't locked behind a pay wall: Gotham Knights. Say what you want about that game, but it's cosmetics and gear options are fantastic, and out of this world for a DC fan.
Good points all, but I feel #4 the hardest. I'm all for improving graphic as much as possible, but the fact that the better graphics get, the more they're used for increasingly generic realism and overall "safe" creative design really takes a lot of the fun out of improving visuals. I really do miss how games used to be overall wackier, weirder, and sometimes stupider, and wish we could have the wacky, creator-driven conceptual and visual design sensibilities of 20+ years ago applied to the technology of today. Sure, generic realism and reduced wackiness can be an improvement over the lowest points of the old days, I'll give it that, but it's also a big step down from the highs as well. And I'd rather have one nails on a chalkboard game and one that's exactly my style than two games that are just... meh, okay to my tastes.
I feel like the games that do include that wackiness have done so to exploit the consumer. Fortnight being the most obvious example as it tries to create a community around wild things happening, but also Roblox
@@Sa3vis To be clear, I'm no big Fortnite fan, and don't really gel with its brand of wackiness. Feels too corporate and... soulless. And forced. Like the video game wackiness version of an unfunny, safe, cliched sitcom joke with a laughtrack rather than legitimate heartfelt creativity. I can't help but imagine every "wacky' thing in Fortnite requiring about seven levels of corporate review and approval before it's put in, making sure that no heart or spontaneity ever reaches the final product. But even so, I don't really see how that's exploiting consumers at all. If that formula works for people, it works for them. Everybody has their own tastes, and I agree with the product itself feeling forced and cynically calculated, but people can form a community around whatever they want. And if nothing else, Fortnite gets a little credit for using an aesthetic other than yet more generic realism. And that aside, that wasn't even the sort of wackiness and weirdness I'm talking about. Way too recent. Like I said, I miss the wackiness of about twenty years ago. Like, old Capcom style from before it was taken over by realism like most of the rest of the industry. The real, authentic goofy stuff games used to be filled with before it really became a big business, when the creators themselves were a lot freer to just... create. At least, much more so than they are now.
I actually dislike hyper realistic graphics at this point in time. They tend to lack artistic direction that their stylized counterpoints don't. In multiplayer games it causes bad performance and slims down the player base because the games are harder to run. This just isn't great for all games. Also in case of live service games the game will look bad in a few years time. That's not to say you have to be on the extreme of something like fortnite but still.
@@cynthiahembree3957 You'd call Fortnite the extreme end of stylized? I'd say it's mild in the grand scheme of stylized game aesthetics, especially if you count art direction all the way back to the olden days of 2d games. Games like Darkstalkers had much weirder character designs and way cartoonier wackier stuff going on. And I mean full-on Looney Tunes style cartoon stuff like the glowing x-ray skeleton effect when characters were electrocuted, super brief cartoon eyeball pop-out for certain damage animations, a special attack that smooshed the opponent into a ball so they could then be slam dunked through a basketball hoop, and so on. I'm not saying games need to going back to being 2d by any means- I'm all for 3d gameplay and that requires 3d visuals- but that's the level of non-seriousness I want to see again. And Ideally we'd be getting that very stylized cartoony stuff again at AAA production values too. I may not want more high realism, but I am an unapologetic lover of fancy graphics, and cartoony games can get just as much use out of advanced shaders, ray tracing, and bazillions of polygons as realism.
Lately I've found myself going all in with retro gaming. I've kind of become numb to new games lately, noting really has excited me since breath of the wild.
For number 2 - it's not necessary to be able to zoom out so far because we use the mini-map for that. Example, if you get an alert that one of your platoons are being attacked, then you just press a button on the keyboard and BOOM! You are immediately in the action. Unless you are playing sims or city builder games, it's actually backward to include the zoom feature in RTS games
Turning single player games in multiplayer games is a dangerous way and always ends with a microtransation bunch. About the interface and menus, i think Skyrim did the best one, it's clean, easy to find and to use things, like you can move to whenever you want using just the keyboard and everything is listed by order etc, my favorite by sure.
you do know that the inventory menu system isn't great either, the SkyUI mod for skyrim is one of the most popular one, pretty much required on most load orders as many other mods also depend on it. edit: though they are stuck behind needing to design UI/UX for consoles and PC, so they mostly go for the simplified way as that is easier to make it usable for both.
It's only dangerous because publishers now ONLY see multiplayer as live service microtransaction nonsense. I do agree with you. Publishers quite literally ruined multiplayer.
Well, part of the problem is that many companies are hiring a staff for just a single game. Sure, the people working on the team are theoretically gaining more experience, but they aren't developing team cohesion and learning how to push the envelope as they aren't sure what the others CAN do.
used to love playing red faction guerrilla on the 360, it was practically other than halo reach my number 1 game just because i could run aboutsmashing everything to pieces withthe hammer, once unlocking all the cheats at the end you felt like thor, hulk jumping from one spot right ontop of them and smashing the ground and making the debris jet into the next wall breaking it to pieces, it was just so satisfying
As someone working on a multiplayer game, I believe the reason so many less games are multiplayer is because the acceptable lag for games has gone massively down. Players don't accept a laggy game anymore as okay. It is REALLY hard to make a smooth multiplayer experience. You can't add it on afterwards if you want it to work well, you have to build the game from the ground up as multiplayer. The higher quality required of multiplayer experiences reduces how many games do it.
It is all about the corporatization of everything. Not anti-capitalist but the corporations are rigging the game unfairly and now we can see it in their products
The decline of tacked on multiplayer modes is a development I actually love, because I mostly like to play single player, so I get absolutely nothing out of those tacked on multiplayer modes except for the frustration that I can't get all of the game achievements (because even games with focus on single player often include achievements that force you to get into their tacked on multiplayer mode on a more than casual level). Also, during the age when publishers thought that succesful video game had to pretend that it was both a great single player and a great multi player game, there were a lot of games in which in reality one of those modes was lackluster and not really worth paying for the game if you were only interested in one of the modes. Especially among the shooter and action genre, there are a lot of candidates whose single player mode is just a cheesy 5 to 10 hour campaign that is hardly more than an extended tutorial to show you the ropes for the multiplayer mode. It's way better for customers if single player and multi player games are now mostly made seperately, because that way you can pick up the type of game mode you want and be sure that the games development budget was actually spent on the game mode you want.
I agree here. While some tack-ons were fun, a lot of games in the 90s and 2000s would tack on multiplayer arenas. Did Donkey Kong 64 really need a battle arena? And it got worse as games went online more and more. Thankfully games seem more dedicated today. That said currently RPG-elements and crafting seem to be shoved into every game even if they don't need it. Great ANOTHER stupid system I have to learn inside a game.
Totally agree with UI / UX and with the last few years there are plenty of experienced and qualified people that can do a better job on Strafield's UI than Bethesda put out.
Point 9 is even more interesting when you remember Fortnite (Save The World) was originally basically a Single player game (you could play co-op). I still remember playing the Fortnite beta (I was invited as an Unreal engine user) where you had to wait like an hour for matchmaking because hardly anyone was playing it
One of the game mechanics I really miss is single player, offline, Split Screen co-op, In story mode! (Specifically on consoles)
Split screen co-op is a feature I personally really miss. I wish developers would realize that not everyone has reliable internet. Besides online gaming is fine but can never compare to same couch gameplay.
me and a mate started playing wizards of legends a while back. Best couch game in recent memory. Check it out if you havent already :)
This is actually coming back pretty good. I find a lot of games now include a couch multiplayer mode. I think as a lot of my gen grew up as gamers (I was 5 when the nes came out and had already cut my teeth on tons of atari and arcade) wanted more online multiplayer to play with friends while they were home on their consoles, but now as we've gotten even older and have kids old enough to game with us we started putting dollars into games with local multiplayer. Triple A is hit or miss, but other levels of gaming have definitely started making the shift.
Was going to post this, is it so hard to let people play a game on a cough together? Thank God for the EDF games.
What about a counter-op mode?
Perfect Dark had s counter-operative mode which allowed one player to play a campaign mission normally while the other player controlled one of the mooks in the level at random trying to impede mission progress. It was a lot of fun!!
i honestly loved that MGSV had enemies that would react to your strategies, like if you headshot too many enemies they would start wearing helmets or if you used decoys against them you would start seeing them pop up in bases to trick you, and then you could send in your soldiers to destroy those caches so they couldn't deploy snipers, body armour or security cameras. it was such a great game and incredibly sad to not see anything like this in future games
I been playing off and on since release. The development of the enemy soldiers and deploying your soldiers to counter that made trying to 100% the story so much more fun.
One thing i liked a lot about arkham knight is that if you sneak attacked the enemies a lot, Arkham knight would tell them to walk together and watch each others back, if you faked orders using his voice, he would tell everyone to switch channels, and the enemies would become increasingly scared as their numbers decreased, I can't even remember how many times i revealed myself to the militia just to jumpscare them, use a smoke bomb and disappear again
You're describing emergent gameplay, this used to be what all the gaming magazines were looking for around the time of the 6th Gen era. Compare GTA III to GTA V and you'll see how it's evolved backwards, I still insist Mercenaries POD did so many things better in 2005 than GTA Online from a gameplay standpoint. You could approach any mission from any direction, using so many different strategies that you could improve on the spot or plan ahead of time. The player guided everything, now broadly speaking, every single game has invisible barriers, you walk too far it says mission failed, etc.. it's very sad to see, I think we really lost something brilliant and a lot of people didn't even notice it happened.
😊😊
Yeeeaaaahhhh, that's not revolutionary. Still cool as fuck to see it in such a modern game (even if it was 8 years ago)... The "enemies react to you being a total idiot when it comes to stealth" thing was done, and (in my opinion) done _better_ in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Take all the shit that Falcon said at Number 5, then add in the reactive adding helmets and adapting to you that you said, Chameleon. That's what Chaos Theory is. It's not _perfect,_ but it's _damn_ close.
I remember playing The Force Unleashed and loving it. Playing as Vader in the prolog and throwing Wookies into buildings only to have the building fall apart had me hooked. I've got to agree about the user interface/inventory situation. Why is the quit game button buried in the settings instead of on the main menu when you hit ESC or inventory systems that you can never properly manage or view.
So damn true, you have to do like 7 clicks to exit some games.
And sometimes you first have to go to the start menu of the game, then return to desktop. At this point I just close the program.
For the UI point at the end, I kinda wonder if the people who make the mods so quickly were actually devs who knew what the better UI would be like, but had to implement the one the executives thought looked pretty for the official release
Sounds depressingly plausible to me. Executives are a plague on every industry, and doubly-so on creative ones.
yup was thinking similarly, they must sell the micro transactions so the UI needs to be cluttered with bs so that u need to always navigate over the store kind of thing...
Also, good UI/UX-ers are just super hard to find. And it is also not the sexiest job in game development. And they would probably make a lot more money designing for enterprise software companies.
@@binarybotany3218 I'll take "livable" over "sexy", every time.
@Roxor128 How does that sound plausible? Lol. One guy breaking the game down to code and making a "better" UI in less time than a team that already has the code and doesn't have to spend their free time doing it.
Number 10, unlockables, hits hard- I played Nier: Automata a while ago and was honestly taken aback when, at the end of the mission where you rescue the robot from the desert, you get a cosmetic item. Not a ticket for a gacha or currency for some internal shop, or some items for crafting, or EXP that eventually nets you the cosmetic, but the specific cosmetic, for a specific action, which is just so unusual now.
When i was growing up in the 90's, becoming a teen in the 2000's who loved video games. I legit thought the future of gaming was going to be utterly amazing. It's not about graphics. It's increased gameplay mechanics, physics effects, damage effects, environment interaction options, engaging AI to play against in single player against CPU bots in offline modes, or good AI in the games campaign. It's just crazy how many current video games focus on graphical nitpicking and don't put any effort into any of the other things that make games that even have quirky graphics but make it so awesome due to creative art style, gameplay style, gameplay modes, the list goes on.. idk what happened?
I think it's related to how video game trailers often don't focus on showing the actual gameplay. They often care more about how it looks more than how it functions.
The physics part is especially sad imo. I remember throughout the 2000s there were tons of games that played with creative use of game engine physics - read GAME physics like the physics were purposed to be played around with. Later on almost all the physics in video games revolved around getting something hyper realistic or very effectful.
There is the odd indie game and in the grand scale there are obviously still more games than ever doing creative things thanks to that but you simply won't see big or even just medium sized or small studios with a decent budget dive into anything that's a potential risk. Yes the risk is higher nowadays but goddam it'd be also sooo much easier to stick out from the gray mass of mass produced garbage.
Corporate CEOs who don’t actually play videogames or understand anything about the people who do or the industry at large. Publishing company executives are trying to operate the way Hollywood has operated forever now. And since people keep buying the games, keep buying the microtransaction crap, keep PREORDERING just to play 2 days early. There’s literally no incentive to do things differently as long as they keep making money. Fucking Anthem made like $100 million. FIFA is literally the same game rereleased every year with new, shitty box art that screams “graphic design is my passion” and the last one made fucking $6 BILLION. They have no reason to change no matter how much people complain because some of the same people complaining are the ones who STILL continue handing over money, anyway, and the people who don’t were never likely to play to begin with.
Money, that’s what happened.
@@brohvakiindova4452 seriously I'm glad you feel the same about gaming in the 2000's. It seemed like there was more of a focus on destructive objects, fun or funny physics, overall just fun satisfying gameplay mechanics and all of a sudden an annoying shift occurred that focused on graphical stats, even tho the artistic design style and game design greatly suffered in a negative way.
Playing Control right now, and the high level of destructibility in the environment really makes the combat shine in a way it really wouldn’t otherwise.
The combat gets better and better the more stuff you unlock
Control is one of my favorite games of all time, partly because the story and setting were designed for me in a lab, but also because the graphics are great and the art direction is stunning.
Control is one of best games of all time
Control is hands down top 3 video games of all time. The scp inspired foundation along with anomalies of their own. They let you free to do what you want from the jump. A very souls style of mysterious storytelling in the beginning to hook you in. Awesome gunplay and like the first reply said, the more unlock the more fun it gets. And i have yet to 100% it due to the sheer size of he game. Which that isn’t a bad thing if the game is that fun. I wish the best finishing.
meh.. that game has some of the weirdest difficulty curves. its mostly unbalanced and turns into a collectable snore fest
Bad Company 2, Farcry 2 and Red Faction Guerilla definitely set the bar for in-game physics and dropped it hard going forward. The fire mechanics alone in Farcry 2 were mind blowing when it was released!
Far cry 3 was great too
it was meh compared to fc2@@bruhdon4748
@@bruhdon4748 most def was, didn't finish it though, Ubi dropped the ball after 3 for sure, and who can forget the burning of the crop?
Mercenaries 2 was also pretty cool when it comes to destruction
It is so obvious that the core DICE team is working on the Finals now. All the destruction, the amazing gunplay, the good people are still going strong.
And thanks to an indie studio we have Teardown, which is also great in terms of destruction.
But overall I agree. It's really weird how destruction and physics took a dumb after the Ps3/360 era , ironically despite the technical advancements. Because idiots prefer a static world with raytracing lighting rather than gameplay relevant amazing physics and destruction, which I never understood.
Bad Company 2 is still one of my favorite online games because of the way the destruction evolved the battlefield as the match went on. Being able to clear the forest so your artillary had line of sight across the map, take down buildings that were prime sniper nests or just blow your way through a wall to get round a well defended front door was great. Destructable environments are something I would love to see return.
It’s a shame EA shut down the servers for BF BC2 & BF 1943
I so agree with your number one and I àm an IT-professional. Usabililty aspects we took in consideration in the mid nineties (number of clicks, ease of navigation, tab order) still are left outside consideration in most games. The number of OKs you have to give in a racing game to get to the next race is mind boggling.
Agreed. In the 90s and early 2000s, UI was huge. Apple's entire concept of "1-button" on the iphone was part of the ease-of-use thought process and stark contrast to what Blackberry was doing. (I'm a linux/windows/android person because I like control, but that's beside the point).
@@aaronwinter447 Iphone had nothing to offer functionally, so for them "one button ui" was actually a nobrainer.
About #7, i'd say it's not just destructability, it's general interactability of the environment. Games used to get more and more stuff that the player could interact with, all those small objects that were actual separate physical objects. And now the majority of games have completely static maps, with every single barrel or piece of paper bolted to the ground. Or they have the bare minimum, like you can move this chair, but not the table next to it, that one is made of concrete. Hell, i think even breakable glass is not the norm anymore.
As someone who fucking love’s destructible terrain I vote for destructible terrain again.
Half life alyx was a breath of fresh air
@@fishyboy2140 I don't miss it, at least in multiplayer FPS games. It's taking realism over gameplay enjoyment to me. Like in BF, sure, it might be realistic that the tank can blow up the building you're in, but it also make non vehicle gameplay just overly punishing and unfun.
youd be surprised how many games back in the day did not have much destructability and interactability. we just highlight a few games we hoped would get expanded upon and then complain about games that didnt do it. i mean, we got teardown now, a game literally about destroying and interacting with the environment. and yeah, thats 1 game, but only 2 games got highlighted in the videos. number 7 is more just being disappointed that not more games went for interactable and destructable environments (which honestly is a real shame) and not really addressing something that evolved backwards (as it just stopped according to the video and has actually improved in some games). heres hoping that the rise in popularity of beamng gives us more realistic/prominent damage physics and models for vehicles in games like gta 6 and maybe even arcade racers.
@@janthecoo4964 teardown fr gotta be one of my top 2 favorite games (I have 500 hours on it)
I’m so appreciative of studios like Insomniac, Larian, FromSoftware and others for continuing to show us what video games should be.
Still there's no depth to things like combat in spiderman u just mash the same button over and over
@@yefos420 Accesibility doesn't make a game bad
From Software, that released a PC game that only worked with an Xbox controller? (Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition)
@@yefos420 if you are just hitting the same button then why even play, there are moves to use and shit, its not so simple, you are just making it simple by playing in that way
@@lhalloran94why are you even playing prepare to die on pc? I get the more recent games, especially Elden Ring and Armored Core, but prepare to die?
The Sniper Elite series has some pretty AI with the enemies. If you throw a rock or whistle to get a guard's attention, he'll call out and alert his buddy nearby, and that guy may also alert another. I've had 5 guards come into alert status after trying to bait just 1. When that 1 was taken down, the others would eventually notice they are missing a guy and go investigate, and methodically check bushes for you or his body. They notice lights that are shot out, or generators that are off. All kinds of things. It makes sneaking through a compound a much more intense experience.
The "real" problem is the consumer and the mentality of fomo ....you stop that and the developers cannot market the way they do.
Eh thats half of it. A lot of that is on the parents dimes so the kids could care less.
@@ThirtytwoJ I don't really buy anything in games anymore since fortnite, but it's kinda the game manipulating you into buying things, and EVEN if we stop, there are gonna be a million other people who don't
I miss couch co op.
For number 6, im surprised you didn't mention Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. The amount of instructions you could set for your party members was insane. Really made you feel in control of your party.
Then Dragon Age Inquisition came along and you stopped being a party commander.
You could absolutely give a full range of commands to your companions in DAI, but it was less intuitive & smooth, & you had to actively stop the flow of the game each time. And with the huge size compared to the first 2, it was pointless to waste all of that time constantly stopping the game when they'd be ok on their own.
@@TinKnight That was the problem, you couldn't set up any strategies beforehand, you either had to trust Bioware's AI to use the character's abilities correctly, or constantly pause to give on the fly commands. In DA:O you could set up some pretty powerful combos for your party to use that the general AI never would even attempt to pull off. Plus combo magic was awesome and I'm still bitter they removed it just so the future games were less complex and confusing for poor casual gamer brains.
also surprised republic commando wasn't mentioned since i believe it was one of the first to do that.
Not to Mention games like Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and 3, Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity, or IWD.
These games just like DA:O and 2 you can do a lot of strategising, commands that sort of thing.
Also in DA:O and DA2 you can customise their AI to suit your playstyle or do it just to micromanage less.
Gamers sure love it but when normies started gaming then such functions are too much for them. There are more normies than gamers.
I feel like the entire development process has gone backwards for a lot of games. It used to be a story was created, then the game was made, then tested/debugged, then it was finally released. Now a days a game is halfway finished story be damned, and it’s up to the consumer to do all the “testing” so they devs can come back 6 months down the road to patch it.
German car companies do this with the 1st model year of new cars. lol... but not really lol...
MK 1 is charging $10 for a Halloween themed fatality!!! WTF!!!
The problem is as long as consumers buy the games they'll keep half arsing it. I now won't buy a game unless I think it looks good and plays well
It's also partially because the consumer base of gamers are terrible consumers who buy garbage - it's almost like people who go to the casino all the time
More to do with the industry being bought then it does folks unable to do a better job 😊
I took a break from gaming for about ten years. Imagine my shock when I bought Tekken 7 and found out you don’t unlock the new characters by beating the game with every character available! Last one I really played was Tekken 3 and everything was an unlockable! Crazy times!
That was the case until Tekken 6, Then Bandai Namco made a game called Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and that game flopped real hard financial wise and there was no Tekken game for a while and they had to come up with a way of making more money and all they had to was to look at Mortal Kombat 9 which i think was the fighting game to start this trend of selling characters as DLCs.
I can see why you'd be surprised, this isn't new though. They stopped doing that after 5. Dark Resurrection had all the characters unlocked but you can still unlock items for every character with the in game currency you can earn by just playing which gave you an incentive to keep playing. Then in 6 they went all in with customization. Unlocking characters in fighting games is pretty much dead.
@@Sacr1fIces I don't mind DLC characters per se, but it'd have to be a character packages with reasonable prices. And I highly doubt there is any reasonable pricing involved. I wouldn't be surprised about $5/€ per character.
Number 7!!! OMG that one speaks to me so much! I adore destructible environments in games. More than I can describe. I was really hoping more power over years would make it more normal but like you say it’s just gone backwards. It makes it so much more exciting and fun. Take RoboCop Rogue City. It’s destruction is limited but even so, what it does have adds immensely to the experience. Throwing a creep through a stud wall never gets old. All the walls and pillars just getting blown to smithereens with the particle effects covering the screen just makes the gun combat so much more fun. You can even destroy enemies cover. More games need this!
It's not just destructible environments, it's more than that - a reactive game world. Physics reacting to you, NPC reacting to you, additional mechanics like day night cycle and differences in gameplay due to it.
I recently thought I simply killed my curiosity for gaming but it wasn't me, it was the gaming industry punishing us for e.g. ignoring the tutorial/quest objective etc. So much gaming experience is designed on very stiff rails nowadays that after the past 10 years I dread having to replay a portion duo to "fucking around" and ruining a mission etc. When this used to be some of the greatest fun. And devs actually used to anticipate this and reward you with hiding secrets or even punishing you in creative ways. This has become sooo rare.
You just get a "objective failed -> forced reload / no reaction to your action etc." in these situations. It's frustrating.
It should be at least on the top 3 though.
You should play Control then, it's a recent-ish game that has great destructible environments!
you should look at “the finals” easily the best destruction in current games
It was said in the video but I also recommend Red faction guerilla, almost everything is destrutcible in the game world, even the biggest bridges. And if graphics bother you there is a remastered version, You could play Armageddon but it's more linear campaign
One to add to your list. Dual screen support on PC. On Supreme Commander, it was spectacularly useful.
You're a supreme commander of snacks and that's about it.
man....I feel this list more than any of the hundreds of others I've seen from ya'll...this one hit home in so many ways.
That DLSS point is very good, it was suppose to make the games run better on top of already optimized games. but they are really making it necessary to use DLSS even for high end PC
We will need a DLSS for DLSS soon at this rate.
Well nVidia is working on a way to get DLSS to generate 2 frames for you instead of just 1 frame using similar methods the thing that is the input delay might actually be noticeable when 2 frames are made by AI instead of native as even when 1 frame was at the lower end meaning 20 to 25fps with DLSS turned on you can notice it. The reason why is the frame data taken is not recent enough for the human to not notice there is a difference in time from input to action. DLSS works great when you are getting 20 or more frames without it turned on the problem is right now it being needed to get into the 30s or 40s of fps is not the intended use case for the AI to be used. To get from 50 to 90 to 60 to 120ish min fps is the intended use case.
nVidia might have over sold a bill of goods with the feature suit of DLSS and now we are suffering as the publishers do not seem to care as long as it makes money.
Just gotta tell those developers we don't agree by not buying those games that do that now
@@awolr then the games will die before getting the needed patches for the bugs that exist brought about by the thinking of "the developer can patch it after release" which lead to many broken games. Even more broken than software still in alpha sometimes which is surprising it made it past the QA team to make sure it runs. How you get out of alpha most times is by having a program that doesn't need the debug console to just run.
Games that perform so bad that the publisher doesn't see fit to put human resources towards fixing them is how studios fell and how game series die.
Now do i agree publishers should rush out the door games that are still not finished and known to not be finished? no but that is how it is right now. For the need of DLSS, XeSS, and FSR they are to make up for the time spent on other parts of the project that is the game. I just wish they would bring back fully destructible worlds is all but then when you can just punch you way through a puzzle it will take some of the challenge out of it. It will work good in FPS, RTS, and RPG that the puzzle isn't something you can a 3D object to get through games not so much in platformers and puzzle based RPG games that the how to to complete the puzzle is important to the story.
They got rid of destructible worlds as to much overhead for the physics engine to run on everything all the time including walls, doors, etc. with objects that can be used for a quick loading screen on lower end hardware. The other reason is probably the game assets made right now were most likely made without being destroyable in mind so they do not react well and have to be remade. Will look the same to the player but be a different 3D object or group of 3D objects. Most physics engines also run on the CPU so the CPU to GPU speed matters for where the mesh will be unless they go with a GPU based one which will take up GPU time and cause a lower fps.
In all games take time and for a game to have everything all gamers want will take longer than any publisher will want to pay the developers for without results from said developers. So games got simpler reuse a lot of the same code from the one they just made and they are still buggy with most of the same bugs the last one had.
But realistically nothing changed. Devs were always relying on new hardware to handle bad optimization. It's just that hardware progression is slowing considerably so software solutions are created.
On the bright side some older games run better on your cheap new gpu than they would otherwise (some by community modded DLSS)
This list really hit hard.
Thanks, Falcon!
Love you guys!
Same
Also, it seems like a lot of AAA game developers don't understand what people want out of multiplayer. A lot of the times when we just want co-op to enjoy the story of a single player game together with a friend they give us something weird or competitive.
i totally agree with you. a co-op campaign is much more fun than having to fight eachother online
But who will give them the millions they want?
These guys are hardstuck on "eSports" which means it has to fit inside a very boring box, just whatever has worked in the past do that but add a jetpack.
@@Cinemagrins esports with micro-transactions for cosmetics is definitely a go-to nowadays.
Why me and friends are looking forward to Space Marine 2, and were so pissed at Halo Infinite. On release, we always used to split screen play through the Halo Campaign together, for Infinite it took, what was it, 8 months, a year, for Co-op play.
#6. The SOCOM Navy Seals game where you could give voice commands to your team was amazing and something noone does anymore.
Thank you for bringing attention to the RTS camera. Props for showing gameplay from World in Conflict! One of the finest tactical strategy games ever.
For point Number 7, if anyone else has played The Finals demo I have been super impressed on the destruction physics of this FPS. You can completely level buildings if you destroy the corners and support beams of them it’s amazing
It's not gonna last long in player count. After 2 years it will be almost dead
Sadly the free to play sweats are gonna ruin the finals
I'm loving The Finals and there is a player count over 100,000 on steam atm. Would the ranked mode kind of help curb the sweat behavior and get players matched to players closer in skill level? I'm really hoping so because I am absolutely loving the game
@@jessclark9013 nah it’ll be like most games where the ranked sweats play casuals just to feel good at the game
@MT-qu4tk I'm hoping against hope that you are wrong, but that could become the case. Hopefully, it'll be successful enough that more makers try to copy and innovate
I always have a lot of fun playing Control because of the destructible environments. There's just something about going to a new area, killing some enemies, and then looking around the room afterwards.
100% agree about Environmental destruction and physics, so glad to see this, I think I've commented before about spending hours as a kid digging holes in maps in Red Faction with rocker launchers. 100% correct and games have so much more replay value with it. Imagine if you could set up dynamite in RDR2 strategically to take out bridges, shacks, walls or entire buildings. Even cliff faces to set traps or drop chunks of rock on random carriages. It would create an entirely new way to play it and make the end game exciting to just explore to explode. Sure, a pretty game is great but I could care less if the gameplay is boring and shallow
Try "the finals" when the open beta comes back the destruction is so good
#2 was something I was just thinking about last week. I wondered "what happened to multiplayer modes in videogames?" after I looked at my shelf and saw Resistance 3, TLOU, Uncharted 2, 3 and 4 and got reminded of some really good multiplayer modes that I sunk a lot of hours into. I miss that. Nowadays you can't have just a small multiplayer mode, it needs to be profitable aka live service and it sucks.
"I remember the days when I walked into a store and bought a game, and now more than ever I find myself diving into a game and finding a store"
-Aztecross
That quote feels more and more true to me with each passing day in the gaming industry, lots of games aren't made for "fun" anymore, they are made for money and its honestly disappointing.
Great video. Seriously valid points. I remember being so excited for the future of gaming when I played Red Faction Gorilla, and Battlefield Bad Company 2. It's not like the games I've played haven't been good, but it does seem like they just gave up on the destruction in games. It added so much dynamic immersion that I don't know how it's not just part of every game now. I wish I could play a Fallout game, and have a Deathclaw bust through a wall. You could also get a perk in power armor to bust a hole in a wall.
Dice had a article out some 5-6 years ago about them not understanding why they cannot beat the popularity of BC2. Well, maybe if they released games that worked great, with well thought out maps, fun gameplay, that makes it easy for friends to play with each other and on top of that release a whole video game sized DLC for like 15 bucks, then they could repeat it!
If they just listen to the fans, it souldn't be that hard.
Number 7 is one I TALK ABOUT ALL THE TIME!!!
I've been playing Control and it's wild how we had destructible environments to having a "see, but don't touch" world.
It's like the industry's answer to "Can we have some more destructible environments?" seems to be "Go play Minecraft."
Yeah, we could, but we'd like to see it in something else as well, you ninnies!
The destruction of enviroment needs more than just supposed "looks cool and immersive imo" some function or reason why you can or should/should not do it.
What i really want to see is an "open world" game be reduced to a 100 story skyscraper, which itself becomes the "open world"; instead of a vast and empty rural setting most open world game use.
Control
100% agree, Istanbul in Revelations feels so much better than Greece or England in Odyssey and Valhalla.
That won’t be an open world game at all
@@daniellewis4154 It would be, if you can still go wherever you want in the building it’s open world. It is a very broad term. The idea would definitely work if they did a megatower from a cyberpunk genre. 1000’s of rooms, shops in the atriums, and even different factions on different floors that could turn the halls into the streets.
@@ArchFang8541 There is already a Robocop game, so here's hoping a Judge Dredd game is released within, a few years?
Totally agree about the menus in recent games. My guess is game companies are striving to be innovative in their menus but, as Falcon points out, often reinventing the wheel in a worse way.
Like radial menu. Worst wheel ever.
Listen Falcon, 😂😂 your number 1 reason has me dying. How you went from casually explaining to full out rant out of anguish was TOP TIER💯
I just *love* how graphics haven't really improved that drastically since the mid-2010s, yet system requirements have skyrocketed in the last couple of years.
HelI, can run Red Dead Redemption 2 with high settings and Battlefront 2 2017 with ultra on my gaming laptop (Rtx 2070, I7 10250), yet I can barely run Starfield on low settings and even Robocop Rogue City (a lower budget game) stutters whenever things explode.
This is a reason I find things like the Unreal Engine 5 demo where they gushed about all the polys and tris in the single view they were showcasing- most, if not all of it, could be achieved with textures and normal maps.
UE5 looks like a decent upgrade but barely any games are UE5. Even 3 years later we still have cross gen games. For PS6 I'll probably wait at least 4 years.
Too add to what the others said, it also has to do with uncompressed audio in addition to graphics.
look at gtav online, the gameworld is so cluttered, and there is so much junk added that the screen refresh sometimes has to halt updating to catch up to the action
Im convinced AAA devs could make the most realistic game of all time with the best ai, dynamic animations for everything, realistic physics, and crazy ass particles, but nobody wants to put in the effort and money to make it and test everything.
This was a great video! So many features we had and lost... it especially pains me to lose physics-based systems for shiny graphics.
Uncharted 4's Multiplayer mode was one of my favorite examples of Multiplayer added to a Single player game, Loved it!
Falcon... you have such passion in your rants. Never stop. You're like the Dad of Gaming.
assassin's creed multiplayer was one of the best multiplayers i've ever played i still remember assassin's creed revelations multiplayer which was crazy good
I loved Baldur's Gate 3's "Pick up and add to wares". I could pick an item up and tag it for selling. No longer did I need to go through my inventory and look for stuff I picked up just for monetary gains. I felt it was such a simple solution, and it is a wonder why so many RPG's are not even trying to improve their menu game.
True. But even that is not really very well implemented. At least it exists, which is good.
I first played Supreme Commander only 4-5 years ago and it blew my mind. Not only was the camera great, it had resource management completely different to any other RTS I'd ever played. Supreme Commander 2 kept the camera but went back to the standard resource management you get in every RTS made in the last 15 years.
After supreme commander, many RTS games just didn't feel right to me anymore.
and all the other things wrong with SupCom 2 .. it was still fun, but not supreme.
Mercenaries 1 and 2 had Destruction Physics too and it was awesome
About #7 -- Some of my favourite game in that genre are indies, where you can blow anything up -- "Teardown" for solo mayhem, "Get Packed" for unleashing chaos with friends.
The #9 one is just sad. So many great memories playing "multiplayer modes" in all sorts of older games such as halo, R6, goldeneye, splinter cell, and many more.
Up to 10 players with Saturn Bomberman!
No One Lives Forever 2 was one of my all time favorite games, I replayed it more than any other game. Glad it got a mention. It deserves a revisit, there's too much to mention but the varied enemies, settings, action, and humor were top stuff.
There's a Luke Ross VR mod for it.
@@tobiasmyers3505 wow cool thanks!
I loved those games so much but I had forgotten about them. I would absolutely love a full remake. Take my money now!
I actually enjoyed the first one more than the second. But they were both great games
Star Wars Republic Commando had very nice tactical ally control. Each of your crew members having a specialization made them feel more vital and contributed to the four of you feeling like a cohesive whole. Yes, you totally could do all the things yourself and the degree of control was by no means RPG-tier, however, I felt it was enough to feel like you had some autonomy, without detracting from the fast-paced nature of (most) FPS'.
Hell yes brother! Justice for Sev.
God that game was so good. Why have they not made another?
The subtle specialties each commando had was what I wished the Ghost Recon games did with your AI squad.
Nice list Gameranx, as always.
Thanks
There was one bad Gameranx video recently... The one with ten "gamer tricks you need to know" or something similar where I think 9/10 of them Falcon literally would say "this is probably way more trouble than it's worth" and that was probably an understatement. Aside from that, I have noticed consistently solid content and narration from the operators of this channel.
Thank you for bringing that up I used to play the old rainbow six games and from what they started as to what it became is a drastic difference 11:20
I'm pretty hyped for The Finals because it's a fun shooter AND lets you tear down the buildings across the map (also it has basic fire physics which is great
Was happy to see Supreme Commander mentioned. The other feature that game had was being able to have it span dual displays. You could watch and handle two areas of the battlefield that no other RTS has ever done before.
Interesting, will have to look into this sounds awesome.
@@smelogsplayground It really is. As a game, I still feel it's predecessor, Total Annihilation was better, but Supreme Commander really gave you some gameplay options that for whatever reason never took off. Like, if I'm remembering this right and it's not just a TA thing, because your units are mechs, when they're killed it's possible to discreetly 'melt' the corpses down for their resources. You can do it with enemy units that fell when attacking your base, providing a little bit of a balance in cases where the opposing player has claimed more resource nodes.
Plus it's pretty fantastic to have a huge army of hundreds, actual units and not some cost cutting 'stack,' descending upon your enemy base on one screen, while you're still at home base on the other, rebuilding your army to better adapt to what your enemy defences are like.
Recycling units is a big part of the game, especially in multiplayer.@@ShaimingLong
@@Robbedem Thanks for the clarification! I've played a lot more TA than SC.
The allies point hits hard. I loved ghost recon advanced warfighter and rainbow6 because of the control over you team, So much fun!
👍🏼
soldier squad games make sense to command your team but not a sidekick in a rpg
For #6 Im surprised you guys didn't mention the Brothers in Arms games, since the core of those games is based on tactical squad movement. Like you spend half your time shooting and the other half coordinating your squad. I love those games.
and republic commando
I bet the only things your squad are coordinating are their food runs and trips to McDonald's while you sit there stuffing your face with cheeseburgers like there's no tomorrow.
I could watch gameranx videos all day ❤ But I'm about to become a dad so no time. But trust me, he will listen Falcon talk to sleep ❤
Great video
Especially the point about performance for our game DLSS doesn't work really well without smears so we have to spend time in optimization. Also good point about the Camera it's cool to see characters and buildings close up but it's also cool to see the whole map, rotating the camera or do smooth camera panning for spectators.
The destruction in games almost anyone can admit were awesome for so many reasons like playing the finals beta now and seeing the potential with destruction is awesome for the sake of destroying or using it as a tactic like blowing the floor below the enemy, also destruction just looks cool
I hope they don't give up on the finals it's looking so good
You touched on most of these de-evolutions pretty spot on. Some super popular game did something a certain way, and so that's what *publishers* tell the *developers* to do, because doing what the super popular game does makes it more likely your game will be super popular and make more money.
As for destruction physics... I think that clashed *HEAVILY* with graphical demands. As graphical demands got pushed more and more the computational resources of full destruction physics (remember that most physics engines leverage the GPU) got exponentially more expensive.
But the frame rate thing, OK that? That's simple. Who the fuck can afford top end graphics cards to keep up with increasing graphical demands? Most reviewers use high end, but not top of the line systems... average gamer? They're using stuff that's years old because shit's just too expensive these days. Couple that with poor optimization and that's why so many games run like molasses.
Another thing regarding graphics cards: A lot of people are running years-old hardware because it still does the job for what they play. A few months ago I had to replace a GTX1070 due to a hardware failure, not because it was too slow. The most graphically-demanding games I've played in the last couple of weeks being Factorio, Prodeus, and Roboplant, all of which would have run fine on the now-dead card (Factorio definitely did, and will run with as little as 512MB of VRAM).
You're damn right about the prices, though. The top-end AMD card when I went shopping was over AUD$2000, and the next one down $1400. No way I was going to pay that much. Ended up spending something around the $450 mark for an RX7600, though I would have gone for something a little higher-end had it been available at the time, but the 7700 and 7800 series stuff wasn't out yet and the place I bought from was sold out on less-expensive older cards.
Yeah I agree so hard about optimization, my old laptop could run Warframe on mid at 60fps but couldn't run Portia smoothly, even at lowest 30fps was a blessing
Number 7 is true for many strategic games as well. One of my all times favorite strategic games is Men of War, in that game you can destroy buildings, burn trees, make hole in ground, place dynamite and completely disappear a whole building.... so much fun.
The worst part of Number 7 (Destructible terrain) is when you can drive through, for example, a telephone pole or a concrete highway barrier; but then you're instantly stopped by driving into a patchy brush or flower bed, or something.
Playing Red Faction Guerilla was such a mind blowing experience when it came out. I remember having such high hopes for games after that, wondering which one would do it next. I was sadly disappointed.
me too
I think I replayed that game 3 or 4 times just because the destructive gameplay NEVER got old. And I almost NEVER replay any games, even with New Game+. Plus the proof of how loved the destruction physics are in that game is the fact that the story and everything else was pretty garbage--mediocre at best. Like seriously did anyone ever play that game for the story?! Lol.
One of the biggest examples of the very first one is in the Tales of series. Used to be you could unlock stuff by doing side quests and at the end of them youd get an outfit. Like in tales of symphonia for example. Now with the most recent game in the series in tales of arise a lot of costumes and even ARTES are locked behind having to buy packs. Its especially frustrating when some of the artes you unlock by buying them are some of the most useful in the game for some characters. Its really disheartening
After playing Supreme Commander when it came out, I had a hard time going back to any other RTS. You hit the nail exactly on the head. If a modern RTS game doesn't have a strategic zoom at least as good as SupCom, it's really frustrating. No excuse.
supreme commander is a watered down "total annihilation" game is super cheap on steam.
not nit picking, just saying in hope you enjoy the first true "supreme commander" game.
@@alaricbarber3680 I played Total Annihilation when it launched including the expansion Core Contingency. I wouldn't say Supreme Commander was watered down at all. Both had unique charms, but Supreme Commander definitely moved the genre forward. The fluidity of the interface with it's strategic zoom was a big part of that.
@@spacehornet nice!! you have good taste in RTS's 😁
@@alaricbarber3680 Thanks! Ever play Total Annihilation Kingdoms? Really unique and underrated in my opinion. Plus it had a great soundtrack.
@@spacehornet Starcraft 2 is another great RTS- renowned as THE greatest, in fact. I really haven’t ever encountered another RTS that is as clean, responsive and enjoyable to play.
Totally agree with #8: Mod/editor support for a game.. the Thief series is a prime example. We're going on 25 years of fan-made missions for those games, and it's still going strong and even getting not only single missions, but sometimes huge campaign mission releases.
As for #7, The Finals was out at the time of making this. A game with the most impressive destruction physics of any game, ever.
Regarding the enemy ai one, I remeber one dev in an interview say that people didn't want actually challenging enemies, they want enemies that make them feel smart. He was talking about strategy games, but I think he may have a point. There's a sweet spot here, where the ai is smart enough to be challenging but not unfair.
I mean yeah why would someone want to play a game *not* to have fun
You know who you are
@@ZackShark1 the way overhaul mods seem to always "add challenge" by frustrating the player make me appreciate professional game devs.
@@MartynWilkinson45 I mean it's understandable with some games like dark souls because that's kind of the point
@@MartynWilkinson45 It is actually a bit more complex then this, the reason the overhaul mods tend to be frustrating is because of the professional game devs failing to teach you the tools in game or balance.
Overhaul mods require the maker to understand the tools and see issues, and to want an Overhaul you should understand the tools otherwise why would you want an overhaul of the tools? The problem is a lot of people don't actually understand the tools.
A great example is swords worked all the time in the base game, so when you get an overhaul instead of trying other weapons you use just swords again. You come across a skeleton which now takes 1/4th damage from swords. This is so Maces doing bonus damage in the base game matters more and makes up for Maces swinging slower in the base game.
I'm saying this as someone who has been on both sides of it.
AI in a game like Escape from Tarkov are brutal, they learn and if you peek them more than once they will head shot ya
The first one, number 10, has to be the most important to the rest of the evolution process. Microtransactions are the worst
The destructive world is such a missed potential for sure,thats a big one
Should look into the finals
I could not believe that I couldn’t jump in assassin‘s Creed Valhalla. I know it’s something simple, but in a game where I can take on 10 Vikings, and somehow managed to come out on top and jump from ridiculous heights, and not be hurt, my guy can’t jump off the ground. It really breaks the immersion for me.
For "destructive environments" one little neat thing is Cyberpunk's glass. It breaks into chunks, it will fall off if you shoot off the corners, it will crumble if you throw something, etc, etc. AND all the items in buildings will have sounds and physics so that a shootout will have paper and glass and metal and plastic make noise and blow up or fall off, etc.
Going on #6 one of the more underrated Allies system was persona 3. For a standard rpg having automatic allies is normally a nightmare. But it was one of the few that was surprising decent. They would cycle through attacks to find weakness and if you expose one they would really exploit it. They were also pretty reliable healers and support. It felt pretty cool having allies that didn't just feel like static dummies you have to control to get anything done.
Donno if it's the nostalgia, but Freedom Fighters' allies system was nifty too
Monolith deserves more recognition for their AI designs. Both FEAR and Shadow of Mordor/War had some of the most-interesting AI designs of their respective generations, built-into games worth playing/archiving.
im still sad that they dont allow other games to use the nemesis system :( it really makes the world and enemies so much better
The Finals is so much fun and you only need 8 other players. it's 100% a good time. I love that SOME developers care about the experience.
If you want to see real quality of life innovations for RTS - try Beyond All Reason (BAR). When I jump between playing BAR and Age2: DE I always keep on doing BAR things for a while in age (then lose some micro haha). It is really useful stuff - not just camera, but drawing on map, gather areas, autofire areas, command queues, bombing run planning.... all very quality made.
Hotkeys and UI for buildings by default is better in age though.
I fully agree with 7.
I love Red Faction: Guerrilla. I bought the miniature robot to my gaming stuff collection too.
I got the Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Marstered version also and got to experience all of that fun again. ❤️
And Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer was so much fun. I literally had a blast. I miss those times a lot.
I like my game environment to be more reactive to what i do with it, not stagnant like a fixed object just added in the programming. At least basic physics needs to be implemented carefully in most of the AAA titles
If players as a whole chose not pay for micro transactions, they would not exist. Yet here we are, at the point where younger gen gamers are used to the micro transactions and won’t know or remember a time where you could unlock all the things they pay for just by playing. Too far gone
Thing is, even if 95% of players refused to engage with microtransactions, it's the tiny proportion of "whales" that they are aimed at. People with either more money tan sense, or people with gambling problems. The execs couldn't care less about the experience of most gamers, as long as they can nickle and dime that vulnerable minority.
@@MartynWilkinson45Exactly. The myth of "oh, it's somehow people's fault for not voting with their wallets" is the exact thing these corporations rely on - keep attention focused on shaming other players, not on regulating the industry through the law.
@@MartynWilkinson45 I was gonna say the thing. As far as I can tell, most players already give this stuff little to no reward. But unfortunately, it doesn't matter what most of us do as long as the whales exist, and they aren't going anywhere.
On a side note, as much as I hate "nickle and diming" players, I actually wouldn't hate microtransactions nearly as much if that's what the companies LITERALLY were doing. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't LIKE microtransactions at any price above $0.00, but what's even worse than charging for what should be a free in-game unlockable, is that the prices charged are always so stupidly high. I almost certainly would have caved in and actually used in-game shops several times now at least if microtransaction stuff like new skins were only, say, dimes or upwards of quarters each. But that stuff's always so overpriced for the amount of content you're actually getting that instead of spending a little, I spend absolutely nothing. Why is the next step up from free always so high?
The point you develop about UX is interesting - for reasons I created a profile in medium and said that UX is my favourite hobby (it is not, at all) and I constantly receive articles about how UX and design are not valued anymore by anyone - the recent twitter redesign as a clear example - so design and interfaces are absolute crap now. If the game or product does not work because of lack of investment on UX it does not matter: they will blame it on something else, like piracy.
Yes! Makes me want to replay Red Faction Guerrilla again, that game fascinates me to this day.
And old Fallouts are still the best thing
Another Video, another W take from Gameranx. These guys never miss😉
Man number 3 is real. Starfield forcing you to run at native resolution with the only option to downscale it to half is crazy. Maybe my 3070 could do a little better if the lowest resolution option I had in full screen wasn’t 2k
I bet the only thing you're running at is the fridge to get your food that you so eagerly want to stuff in your face because you cant stop binge eating, so stop blaming the game and go take a walk around the block, maybe then you'll lose some weight and become less of a burden on your parents.
I was so disappointed that the Mass Effect collection didnt have ME3 multiplayer. It was probably my most favorite unwanted additon that turned out to be great.
Youre one of a kind
in tales of arise, your allies can either do their own thing, or you could control them. you need to switch to them tho, but it’s honestly a best of both having control over your allies, and not having to control them at the same time
Tales of Besteria did that as well, it's really cool. Such good games
I used to play Tales of Phantasia to Tales of Destiny and haven't touch the new one since, but isn't there also a behavior control in the team menu so you can control their primary strategy too?
Like I remember playing Tales of Phantasia and Tales of the World and I can order the formation the team would maintain in combat in menu. And how aggressive, defensive, how often they use skill or item. Such a good system.
For example using the party of swordman Cless, archer Chester, healer Mint and mage Arche, I have Chester standing at the back with defensive as his default behavior so that he will run away from the enemy and create distance before starting to shoot, while Mint and Arche is specifically: don't move, use skill as much as possible. I can comfortably use skill that push the enemy away or body block them with Cless and basically be a tank for them.
And we have like 5 preset strategy so I can switch the entire team from that to maximum aggressive and damage focus, or preserve item and mana and just hit them with basic attack while farming/grinding.
So not just allies do their own thing, but even thing that you can strategize. I don't know how much the system remain today since I haven't touch it since it become 3D, but look like people still love it as always.
I think the Tales of series command scheme is such a good system.
Also, speaking of multiplayer experience, Tales of series also have that part better than other game since way back when too. Since we have multiple member in the party, we can even co-op the game. One playthrough of Tales of the World I just keep my little brother company and control the second slot party member, most of the time using a archer or mage, sometime ninja.
The camera is not even split screen, it is focus on the player 1, so the game look normal to them but I can help them in battle just fine, I can even run off screen and shoot from extreme long distance to not distract my brother from his experience.
Game nowaday have less and less coop experience option. Only adding more PvP into single player game.
Yea but those are JRPG no? They always implement party play well enough to be engaging.
Unless u are talking about western RPG's whose bread and butter comes from their competitive nature then ur point would make sense that some weird PvP or Competitive shenanigans would be added for easy monetization.
Think not only as gamers but as ppl , we SHOULD be aware of how eastern and western game design philosophies differ before talking on it.
One thing I can’t do anymore is online/multiplayer only type games. Once you spend all that money theres the chance they finally decide to cancel servers (or it fails to pick up traction) and then you are out of either the complete worth of the game or can’t play it at all. It feels like I made a risky investment more than having actually played a game 😢 I’m old fashioned though, I do be missing those couch co-op games ❤️
An underrated game that highly impressed me with many unlockables that weren't locked behind a pay wall: Gotham Knights. Say what you want about that game, but it's cosmetics and gear options are fantastic, and out of this world for a DC fan.
Good points all, but I feel #4 the hardest.
I'm all for improving graphic as much as possible, but the fact that the better graphics get, the more they're used for increasingly generic realism and overall "safe" creative design really takes a lot of the fun out of improving visuals. I really do miss how games used to be overall wackier, weirder, and sometimes stupider, and wish we could have the wacky, creator-driven conceptual and visual design sensibilities of 20+ years ago applied to the technology of today. Sure, generic realism and reduced wackiness can be an improvement over the lowest points of the old days, I'll give it that, but it's also a big step down from the highs as well. And I'd rather have one nails on a chalkboard game and one that's exactly my style than two games that are just... meh, okay to my tastes.
That’s AAA corporate mandated blandness at its finest.
I feel like the games that do include that wackiness have done so to exploit the consumer. Fortnight being the most obvious example as it tries to create a community around wild things happening, but also Roblox
@@Sa3vis To be clear, I'm no big Fortnite fan, and don't really gel with its brand of wackiness. Feels too corporate and... soulless. And forced. Like the video game wackiness version of an unfunny, safe, cliched sitcom joke with a laughtrack rather than legitimate heartfelt creativity. I can't help but imagine every "wacky' thing in Fortnite requiring about seven levels of corporate review and approval before it's put in, making sure that no heart or spontaneity ever reaches the final product. But even so, I don't really see how that's exploiting consumers at all. If that formula works for people, it works for them. Everybody has their own tastes, and I agree with the product itself feeling forced and cynically calculated, but people can form a community around whatever they want. And if nothing else, Fortnite gets a little credit for using an aesthetic other than yet more generic realism.
And that aside, that wasn't even the sort of wackiness and weirdness I'm talking about. Way too recent. Like I said, I miss the wackiness of about twenty years ago. Like, old Capcom style from before it was taken over by realism like most of the rest of the industry. The real, authentic goofy stuff games used to be filled with before it really became a big business, when the creators themselves were a lot freer to just... create. At least, much more so than they are now.
I actually dislike hyper realistic graphics at this point in time. They tend to lack artistic direction that their stylized counterpoints don't. In multiplayer games it causes bad performance and slims down the player base because the games are harder to run. This just isn't great for all games. Also in case of live service games the game will look bad in a few years time. That's not to say you have to be on the extreme of something like fortnite but still.
@@cynthiahembree3957 You'd call Fortnite the extreme end of stylized? I'd say it's mild in the grand scheme of stylized game aesthetics, especially if you count art direction all the way back to the olden days of 2d games. Games like Darkstalkers had much weirder character designs and way cartoonier wackier stuff going on. And I mean full-on Looney Tunes style cartoon stuff like the glowing x-ray skeleton effect when characters were electrocuted, super brief cartoon eyeball pop-out for certain damage animations, a special attack that smooshed the opponent into a ball so they could then be slam dunked through a basketball hoop, and so on. I'm not saying games need to going back to being 2d by any means- I'm all for 3d gameplay and that requires 3d visuals- but that's the level of non-seriousness I want to see again.
And Ideally we'd be getting that very stylized cartoony stuff again at AAA production values too. I may not want more high realism, but I am an unapologetic lover of fancy graphics, and cartoony games can get just as much use out of advanced shaders, ray tracing, and bazillions of polygons as realism.
Good ol' daily dose of Falcon 🦅
Lately I've found myself going all in with retro gaming. I've kind of become numb to new games lately, noting really has excited me since breath of the wild.
The higher the price tag the worse the product. Like iphones or clothes.
For number 2 - it's not necessary to be able to zoom out so far because we use the mini-map for that. Example, if you get an alert that one of your platoons are being attacked, then you just press a button on the keyboard and BOOM! You are immediately in the action. Unless you are playing sims or city builder games, it's actually backward to include the zoom feature in RTS games
Turning single player games in multiplayer games is a dangerous way and always ends with a microtransation bunch. About the interface and menus, i think Skyrim did the best one, it's clean, easy to find and to use things, like you can move to whenever you want using just the keyboard and everything is listed by order etc, my favorite by sure.
you do know that the inventory menu system isn't great either, the SkyUI mod for skyrim is one of the most popular one, pretty much required on most load orders as many other mods also depend on it.
edit: though they are stuck behind needing to design UI/UX for consoles and PC, so they mostly go for the simplified way as that is easier to make it usable for both.
It's only dangerous because publishers now ONLY see multiplayer as live service microtransaction nonsense. I do agree with you. Publishers quite literally ruined multiplayer.
I absolutely love the destruction physics in The Finals, which is a super recent game. I hope other devs will take notes
If I’m not mistaken it has a lot of devs that came from dice who made the battlefield games and you can totally see the influence and it’s wonderful
Well, part of the problem is that many companies are hiring a staff for just a single game. Sure, the people working on the team are theoretically gaining more experience, but they aren't developing team cohesion and learning how to push the envelope as they aren't sure what the others CAN do.
used to love playing red faction guerrilla on the 360, it was practically other than halo reach my number 1 game just because i could run aboutsmashing everything to pieces withthe hammer, once unlocking all the cheats at the end you felt like thor, hulk jumping from one spot right ontop of them and smashing the ground and making the debris jet into the next wall breaking it to pieces, it was just so satisfying
As someone working on a multiplayer game, I believe the reason so many less games are multiplayer is because the acceptable lag for games has gone massively down. Players don't accept a laggy game anymore as okay.
It is REALLY hard to make a smooth multiplayer experience. You can't add it on afterwards if you want it to work well, you have to build the game from the ground up as multiplayer. The higher quality required of multiplayer experiences reduces how many games do it.
It is all about the corporatization of everything. Not anti-capitalist but the corporations are rigging the game unfairly and now we can see it in their products
The decline of tacked on multiplayer modes is a development I actually love, because I mostly like to play single player, so I get absolutely nothing out of those tacked on multiplayer modes except for the frustration that I can't get all of the game achievements (because even games with focus on single player often include achievements that force you to get into their tacked on multiplayer mode on a more than casual level). Also, during the age when publishers thought that succesful video game had to pretend that it was both a great single player and a great multi player game, there were a lot of games in which in reality one of those modes was lackluster and not really worth paying for the game if you were only interested in one of the modes. Especially among the shooter and action genre, there are a lot of candidates whose single player mode is just a cheesy 5 to 10 hour campaign that is hardly more than an extended tutorial to show you the ropes for the multiplayer mode. It's way better for customers if single player and multi player games are now mostly made seperately, because that way you can pick up the type of game mode you want and be sure that the games development budget was actually spent on the game mode you want.
I agree here. While some tack-ons were fun, a lot of games in the 90s and 2000s would tack on multiplayer arenas. Did Donkey Kong 64 really need a battle arena? And it got worse as games went online more and more. Thankfully games seem more dedicated today. That said currently RPG-elements and crafting seem to be shoved into every game even if they don't need it. Great ANOTHER stupid system I have to learn inside a game.
Dumb npcs reached the pinnacle for me with starfield ,it was supposed to be this awesome sandbox but instead we got no gore,no dismemberment dumb a.i
They went soft on their faction storylines
@@Matt-md5yt totally. I was so looking to a space exploration game,but starfield is not it
Totally agree with UI / UX and with the last few years there are plenty of experienced and qualified people that can do a better job on Strafield's UI than Bethesda put out.
Point 9 is even more interesting when you remember Fortnite (Save The World) was originally basically a Single player game (you could play co-op). I still remember playing the Fortnite beta (I was invited as an Unreal engine user) where you had to wait like an hour for matchmaking because hardly anyone was playing it