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Topic: PS4 games have reached a new incredible level

Posts 1 to 20 of 23

Alpine021

I’ve always been behind on buying AAA titles or just amazing games in general. The reason being I’m so busy with work/general life that I’m in no rush to buy the latest games. I’ve bought absolute classic like some of the COD’s, the Batman games, the Bioshock games, TLOU etc etc for like £5 each. I actually got all 3 Bioshocks for £10 and loved them. I was just in a cycle of having so many older games that were still amazing that I hadnt played and was in no rush for newer ones that I got them cheap. Fast forward and i’ve Just bought Spider-Man and BO4 for full price. So from like £5 a game to £50. Am I bothered? Not at all. The quality of games now is mind blowing. I’ve not played the Witcher 3 and already I want to buy RDR2 as it looks insanely good. I’ve got a PS4 pro and a 4K TV and everything looks unreal. I was playing Uncharted 4 a few months back and my mate said “what film are you watching?” When she walked in. With Cyberpunk2077 coming and Days Gone etc - what a great time to be a PS4 owner. These devs deserve all the money they make and all the credit they get. The bar is also raised for upcoming games. Love it 👍

Alpine021

Kidfried

@Alpine021 I often think to myself we're really living in a golden age for video games now. There's so many diversity and games quite often blow me away still.

No euro has felt wasted these last few years.

Kidfried

FullbringIchigo

@Kidfried nah not while modern games are bogged down with things like Microtransactions, day one patches and cut content released as DLC

yeah games today look great but that's all a lot of games don't have the soul many games had in previous generations

remember just because something looks nice it doesn't mean it is nice

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all...there's not a thing I don't cherish!"

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

Alpine021

All good points but I do think it’s still an immense leap. 16 bit games were a massive advancement and definitive but now if devs make an open world game the standard has been set SO high. Same with any other genre - FPS’s, Adventure games etc. You have to be at least as good as COD, RDR2, Witcher 3, Spider-Man, Uncharted, TLOU, GOW etc as these are the games you will be measured against. Who wins overall? Us as the player. Again I’m loving being part of it. PSVR too...

Alpine021

Kidfried

@FullbringIchigo Honestly, I don't feel like the worst examples define how great a certain period is, but rather its highlights.

No matter how many terrible business practices, or bad licensing games or whatever, as long as there are enough game experiences you will never forget. And I personally think there are.

Kidfried

Alpine021

Can you not post pics here? Anyway Techradar stated of RDR2 - “when the credits roll you’ll have created enough incredible memories to fill 10 lesser games.” This is what I’m getting at. It’s not just finishing a game now. It’s like you take something away from it, tell your friends about it etc. That’s pretty special.

Edited on by Alpine021

Alpine021

RogerRoger

Alpine021 wrote:

Can you not post pics here?

Yep, you can. Paste the URL into image tags, (img)www.picture-i-want-to-share.com(/img) only using square brackets instead of round ones.

If you quote my post, you'll see how I've done this:

Untitled

However, only use one or two to illustrate a specific point you're making. If you'd just like to share your various screencaps of PS4 and other games, we have a special topic for that, called 'The Thread of Totally Awesome Video Game Screenshots [Slow Connections Beware]' over in the Retro & Other Gaming section of the forums.

If you're bandwidth can take it, you'll find plenty of excellent examples of what you've been talking about in there. Games have reached stunning heights this generation, with quality of experience matching the quality of presentation in the majority of cases.

It's a fantastic time to be a gamer.

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

NecuVise

@KratosMD but unfortunately, it is going to stop soon. For the next year you have days gone and all the rest of major exclusives will be cross gen. Even if they aren't it's still three games more and adios muchacos. Note that I'm talking about first party games, as there are plenty of third party heavy hitters.

Anyway, it's a pretty good generation which I'm enjoying immensely. I've played most if not all of the major exclusives on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and I'm very satisfied with all of them.

NecuVise

BAMozzy

Personally, I don't think this generation is the 'golden age'. Visually we are at the 'best' point we have ever been but then that's not surprising as we have much more powerful hardware to draw much more complex visuals. As for what is the golden age, I think that really will depend on the person. The 16bit era for me certainly wasn't but I can understand why some may feel that way as the devs were focussed on game-play within the constraints of the hardware. The 32bit/64bit era gave us proper 3D environments and proper audio, not beeps and synthesised sounds. This is where we started to get more depth in games in my opinion and the arrival of the Playstation was the start of making gaming more sociably acceptable for adults. Until then, if you played games as an adult, you were a 'big kid' or a socially awkward 'nerd'.

This generation in general hasn't 'evolved' gaming. In a lot of ways its an iterative upgrade like a Pro/X to last generation. In other words, the visuals have improved but the games are not that 'different' at their core, not evolved on. I know that the improved RAM and streaming has allowed open world games to be much more open and much less loading areas/screens. Sony's big games haven't pushed beyond the level we expected last gen (obviously they have visually), but Spider-Man could well be a sequel to Spider-Man 2 for PS3 and then remastered for PS4. The open world, as great as it looks doesn't offer anything you wouldn't find in open world games on last gen. God of War too - even the more hub like open 'Lake of Nine' could have been done on last gen hardware - not as pretty looking. Its not a criticism as there was nothing wrong with last gen games either and they are still great to play today. Apart from the obvious limitations in visuals compared with today's games, the actual games still hold up today and can stand alongside these on merit - not in a retro/nostalgic way either.

Maybe we have reached the point where whatever 'game' you want to make, can be made so the only real evolution is in visuals - the quest to reach total realism that is indistinguishable from a movie - not a CGi movie but a real life one. We have massive 3D worlds, fully acted characters with proper dialogue, fully surround and spatial audio etc. There isn't really any where to go. You can refine image, AI etc but its never going to be as 'game changing' as the jump from 2D to 3D or the first time we had speech and then fully realistic, high quality audio. VR could drop you directly into these worlds more so than being a bit more of an observer watching things play out on a TV I guess but whether that leads to something we haven't fundamentality seen in gaming before or not, I don't know - more a different way to experience but at the game level, will they be something radically 'new' if you were to play on a TV for example instead?

Golden Age is defined by an idyllic, often imaginary past time of peace, prosperity, and happiness (so maybe a time when you were a child and discovered gaming without the hassles of real life) or the period when a specified art or activity is at its peak - which to me would probably be around the Wii's launch as even 'non-gamers' could suddenly play games - whether socially or has part of their 'fitness' routine - so you had a massive age range and more females too started gaming. You also had a LOT of 360/PS3 gamers, PC gaming also had a big increase and mobile gaming too became more common thanks to Smartphones and tablets as well as the increase in popularity of Facebook and their 'games' too. In terms of gaming being at its 'peak', that's probably when it was at its highest...

A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!

Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??

Feel free to add me but please send a message so I know where you know me from...

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Ralizah

2017 is as close to a peak gaming year as I've ever experienced. The full, glorious rebirth of Japanese console gaming, the revival of Nintendo and the launch of the first successful hybrid system, a return to form for Resident Evil and Capcom in general, and many, many, many amazing games that'll be in my top 50 games of all time probably forever.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

TheWormThatGnaws

Regarding the whole "golden age" thing, can you really judge this generation while still in the middle of it? I would think that to really get a true perspective of a particular period you'd have to look at it after the fact.

Anyhoo, there sure are a lot of good games being released these days. That's all I care about.

TheWormThatGnaws

Kidfried

@Ralizah You mentioned quite a few things I find important, but most of all I agree on how much of these recent games have already earned themselves a spot among my favorites.

Also, I don't think a generation needs some technical or creative jump for it to be called a 'golden age'. We live in a time in which Celeste can release alongside God of War and they are both amazing in different ways. While at the same time we have games as different as the Japanese Persona 5 and the Western What Remains of Edith Finch, and they both make lasting impressions on whoever plays it.

I don't think we've seen this much diversity within one generation ever before.

Kidfried

BAMozzy

@Kidfried Some may argue that this generation hasn't seen that much diversity - with a LOT of Sequels and remasters. Arguably last gen had the most diverse collection of games and in quantity too. You would think that with the fact that we now have the ability to play games that were not possible on 16bit or even 32/64bit era, we should have more diversity because modern consoles can (and do offer) old-school 2D platformers that wouldn't be out of place on a SNES as well as the 3D platformers we had in the 32/64bit era, story focussed 3D games etc etc Virtually every genre and style is available. I do think though that this generation has seen less variety compared to last gen - arcade racers for example are few and far between, Horror isn't as prevalent as it was - Dead Space, Silent Hill, Bioshock, Condemned, F.E.A.R etc.

As good as the 'new' games are this gen, I can't think of any that doesn't have 'something' you can get from last gen games - apart from Battle Royale because last gen was a bit limited and couldn't offer 100player lobbies or maps on that scale. The closest was probably Free For All modes in FPS games - although they were slightly different in that you didn't need to find weapons and had more than 1 life - as well as not having a shrinking map. Minecraft offered 'Hunger Games' although that was created by users rather than being part of the package.

All of the 'biggest' sellers this gen have their roots on Last Gen (or before) although in most cases, it was last gen that propelled them to the top. CoD, Fifa, GTA...

Anyway my point is, I think last gen had more diversity and more options in each genre too.

A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!

Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??

Feel free to add me but please send a message so I know where you know me from...

PSN: TaimeDowne

Th3solution

@BAMozzy You might have a point there. When I read your post, I initially disagreed with the statement that this gen has less diversity of games than last gen, but when I think of the large ground breaking new genres, all I can think of is VR. Battle Royale is, as you say, kind of an innovation of gameplay but not really. I would call it maybe a half-step forward from what shooters had been doing already.
The major evolution of gameplay this gen has been taking the existing game ideas and making them bigger, deeper, more complex, and of course prettier. RDR2 would be an example. I’ve yet to start it but I’m seeing posts like, “it’s pretty much like the first game but more in depth.” Apparently it’s not groundbreaking as far as creating a new type of game, it just does it better by adding and fine tuning features and appearance. It is however an example of one of the defining gaming trends this gen — the melding of genres into the same game (open world sandbox + simulator + third [or first] person cover shooter + RPG ...) which would not be possible on previous gen hardware.
Even the apparently creative innovative game Dreams has its roots born out of Little Big Planet, just amped up to the nth degree.
So perhaps you’re right, this generation has less ‘diversity’ or ‘variety’ of games, with the loss of racers, platformers, horror, etc. But the games are overall better at what they do, speaking in general terms and not individually.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Kidfried

@BAMozzy I disagree.

Some may argue that this generation hasn't seen that much diversity - with a LOT of Sequels and remasters.

I think there is a lot of diversity. The fact that more sequels are releasing, and more remaster, doesn't detract from that fact actually. With every year more and more games have been releasing, so it's not like remasters are being released instead of other games. There is just more.

arcade racers for example are few and far between, Horror isn't as prevalent as it was - Dead Space, Silent Hill, Bioshock, Condemned, F.E.A.R etc.

Some game types get less popular, while others get more popular. Arcade racers we have a bit less of (though there are still a lot of great ones!), but we got more Soulsborne, Metroidvania and Walking Sims in return.

Also, I don't agree with your argument on horror. Last gen was easily the worst ever generation for horror since the genre's rise in the PS1 days. This gen we had great games like Resident Evil 7, The Evil Within 1/2, Outlast, Until Dawn, PT, Inside, Alien Isolation and I legitimately believe I can go on forever. F.E.A.R. for instane is a worse game than any of these. Also, we still have games like Days Gone coming up. Also note how much diversity there is between those horror games I mentioned.

As good as the 'new' games are this gen, I can't think of any that doesn't have 'something' you can get from last gen games - apart from Battle Royale because last gen was a bit limited and couldn't offer 100player lobbies or maps on that scale.

New techniques don't make a certain generation better. Maybe many of this gen's best games, with lesser presentation and stuff going on, could have been released on PS3 as well, but... they didn't.

The Witcher 2 released on Xbox 360 and The Witcher 3 released on Xbox One, and I'd pick the latter over the other any day.

All of the 'biggest' sellers this gen have their roots on Last Gen (or before) although in most cases, it was last gen that propelled them to the top. CoD, Fifa, GTA...

How much games sell doesn't make them the highlights of this gen. What Remains of Edith Finch is an absolute highlight of this gen, even though it might not even be among the 500 best selling games of this generation.

And of course there will be continuity with last generation. The CoD series started on PS2, FIFA and GTA on PS1 even. Does that even matter? I wouldn't name any of those games highlights of this gen. Super Mario World is one of the greatest games, but yes, it is like Super Mario Bros. Because it's a sequel.

Anyway my point is, I think last gen had more diversity and more options in each genre too

Honestly, I really haven't seen you make an argument against this generation, that I couldn't use against last generation.

Some more points I want to add:

  • We have more choice of games for different budgets. Last gen started the indie movement, but it's this gen that I think we're finally seeing that pay off across all of the industry. Not earlier did you have great free to play games on console, like Gwent, Fortnite, Captain Spirit, H1Z1, Warframe, Fallout Shelter, etc. But we've also seen indies and published titles ranging from prices of 5 euro to 50. There's a lot of diversity in that regard.
  • This gen has seen the rise of many genres: battle royale, roguelike, card games, walking sims. We've also seen a genre like Soulsbourne grow beyond its initial series. We've also seen the revival of the narrative-adventure genre and metroidvania's. I'd see the list goes even on beyond that.
  • We've seen some great remakes. Yes, these games already existed, but remakes like Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot and SOTC not only put a new spin on the original, they also add to this generation's diversity.
  • I think the best of this gen can stand up to the best of last gen, but of course I know that's deeply personal as well.

Kidfried

JohnnyShoulder

@Kidfried Yep agree. Diversity and originality of titles available does not equate to them being any good. Just because it is a sequel doesn't make it immediately inferior of what came before it. It is usually the opposite with sequels improving on the previous games greatly. Not saying every game needs to be a sequel to be any good, or that diversity and originality are bad, just that it is not the holy grail of gaming.

Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

PSN: JohnnyShoulder

BAMozzy

@Kidfried Each to their own of course - but I couldn't disagree with you more...

Companies like EA and Activision are releasing fewer games a year and all but Battle Royale games started last gen (or before). As for Souls games - they have been around since Demon Souls and just because Bloodborne was a success, its routes go back to 2009 PS3's Demon Souls. Dark Souls 1 and 2 were also last gen games. There were a LOT of true Indie games on XB360 - not just the 'Arcade' like games but Indies costing less than £1 on XB360 with as much diversity, probably more so than today - which tends to be a lot of 16bit era games - not always 16bit era visuals but game-play. Card games were around - Magic the gathering for example. Metroid games were around too - maybe you really didn't bother with the indie/arcade market but there was hundreds of games and they had their roots in games like Metroid, 2D platforming, tower defence, Physics based, walking sims, narrative story games - basically if you wanted to play it, there is a game on last gen - apart from Battle Royale as that was not really possible - at least not on this scale. Games like Guitar Hero, Skylanders, Dance/fitness/Party games and a lot of other games that utilised motion controls etc have disappeared too although some did release on this gen - while they maybe are not missed, they added to the diversity. That of course helped because of the Wii and then both the 360 and PS3 followed.

Activision released 3 games in 2018 - two of which are remasters (Spyro and Crash), the other being CoD - and an expansion to Destiny 2 of course. in 2012, they released more than 15 (although 15 were on XB360). All you have to do is look at the games EA or Activision released in the five years before this gen and the five years after and you will see LOTS of big name games that have disappeared - as well as numerous other one offs, licenced games (007, Harry Potter, X-Men etc).

This gen may have taken some games to new levels but the core is still not new. The Witcher 3 is one of the best games this gen and better than last gen games but its still not entirely new to have an open world RPG with sword combat. Its set apart because of the writing and the quality of its side quests. I love the game and its definitely in my top games of all time but its more 'evolutionary' than revolutionary - after all we had Skyrim, Dragon Age etc last gen... Point is, you could play the equivalent on last gen and more - just maybe not as evolved as they are today. Just because the Witcher changed more than most, doesn't mean that the game was revolutionary in its game-play but proved that Side Quests didn't have to be yet another filler and could have more significance.

I could go on but the point is, more new games and genres sprung up last gen and you could play a lot more varied games too - whilst this gen has really only had Battle Royale and seen less variety in genres too.

A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!

Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??

Feel free to add me but please send a message so I know where you know me from...

PSN: TaimeDowne

BAMozzy

@JohnnyShoulder Diversity is a good thing - just because you may not enjoy playing a certain genre, desn't mean everyone else should go without too. Sequels aren't necessarily a bad thing either and I never said they were but sometimes 'change' or evolution doesn't work - Dead Space 3 for example or the CoD games with Advanced Movement . There are some people that want more of the same - Fifa sells with minor tweaks every year but you also want new games, new IP's etc too. If you are happy getting old games remastered and sequels with minor improvements year after year, then so be it but I also want to have the next Uncharted, the next Dead Space, the next BioShock, the next Mass Effect, the next Dragon Age, the next Assassins Creed, the next Borderlands, the next Lost Planet, the next Left 4 Dead etc etc etc - not just sequels to these. All these launched last gen alongside sequels too don't forget! I want to expand my gaming, not limit it to the same few games year in, year out supplemented by playing a few prettier versions of games I played 5yrs or more ago. I know this gen isn't over and we still have games like Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima or Death Stranding that will add to the new IP's but I don't want gaming to become like MS's exclusives - yet another Halo, Forza or Gears with maybe some minor evolution year in year out...

A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!

Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??

Feel free to add me but please send a message so I know where you know me from...

PSN: TaimeDowne

JohnnyShoulder

@BAMozzy I suggest you read my post again, I never said diversity wasn't good or that you said that all sequels are bad, or all sequels are better? I didn't even quote you..

It shouldn't matter if a game is a sequel or an original IP, AAA, indie, if it's a good game does it really matter? Yes diversity and originality are important, but imo no more so than sequels and reboots. All the money that EA's sports titles bring allow them to fund more 'riskier' games such as Anthem or A Way Out. You may not like those games but they are original titles.

Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

PSN: JohnnyShoulder

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