Next Gen Games

[phibermon]

Hey all, what games have you played lately that you feel either represent a new standard for games or are the pinnacle of their genres?

Maybe it's their Graphics, Sound, Game play or concept

For me there are 4 games that have really stood out over the past few years that offer a unique experience, something that just feels so far ahead of other offerings.

Uncharted 2 : From the stunning graphics, to the seamless integration of animation with the game play. It does such an excellent job of making you feel in control of your character. The pace of the action broken up with involved puzzle sections makes me feel like I am Indiana Jones. Big win for me. It offers nothing radically new but everything it does, it does so well that I can't help but compare 3rd person games to Naughty dog's classic.

Grand Theft Auto 4 : Sandbox games are nothing new, but what with so many clones, all offering immersive experiences, none yet have felt as polished and offer the degree of depth that the GTA4 series has done so far.
The dynamic animation technology of the characters is simply awesome. Occasionally glitchy but to have a persons foot fall onto a brick you've dropped in front of them and not go through it but rest naturally, raising the height of the character as they progress? It adds that degree of realism where other games you can just feel the characters as being stuck within their bounding boxes.

Heavy Rain : Sorry for listing two PS3 exclusives, but Heavy Rain? everything that Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit) could of been. It's button bashing, dance dance revolution style of action sequences to not appeal to all but sitting down to a none stop session? for me it offers the closest experience to a fully immersive film next to Mad Dog Mccree. It never bogs you down with too much fiddly involvement, the sizes of various environments are just the right size so you can flow through them without feeling their restrictions and above all, short of Dragon age offers one of the most brilliantly executed multi-branching story lines since the choose your own adventure books.

Braid : How can I not mention Braid? it has been years since a game has offered me a new way of thinking, to turn time on it's head and have me think in circles meant that Braid had me coming back for more every day until it was finished. Lovely cute graphics, this game has proven beyond a doubt that with the right idea, you don't need to be a big name developer to catch peoples imagination and admiration. For that reason alone Braid is the hero game, justifying decades of bedroom development. It took me back to the Commodore 64, when game play was paramount.

Give me not cutting edge graphics! give me cutting edge concepts and the graphics will be nothing but a sprinkle of salt on my chips :)

What are your standout games of the past few years?

[chronozphere]

Hehe.. I'm not much of a gamer. ;)

But I've been playing starcraft II for a few weeks now, and I still suck at it. :( As far as I can tell, it's the most "next-gen" RTS game out there. It has great graphics and a solid multiplayer and it's polished from top to bottom. It's especially fun when you have some friends to play with.

I hope I'll be good at it someday. :P

[User137]

Blizzard games... that company is doing such quality right now there are no competitors to them now or in any close future.

Starcraft 2 - Fast pased Realtime Strategy Game.
- This is visually awesome package with little realtime physics and almost realistically animated cinematics. But that's just the shell; the actual game holds rich story of 3 competing races along with the best user-controls a RTS can offer. It's the national sport of South-Korean nation and the popularity around the world is immeasurable.

World of Warcraft - Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game.
- Regardless of fact that it holds K12 stamp Blizzard is constantly doing their best to please not just young but mainly older players. It is the most common stereotype to think this game is easy and massive waste of time. 13 million active subscriptions tell otherwise, and you would be surprised how big part of them are female :) The social and endgame possibilities in this game leave even Facebook behind. Everybody can level their character to max level eventually and enjoy the game in different ways, but there is also content that requires much thinking. End game content can make even the most hardcore guild train and train the encounters weeks straight until they finally figure them out.

Not to mention it's the only MMORPG in the world with FPS-like response time to user controls. That is 1 of the big reasons no other game has yet been able to beat WoW. They all try better graphics but game is much more than that by definition. One of the only games in the world where you can actually talk to support in the game and get possible problems sorted rightaway. And the lore... not only is there previous games with their stories attached to this, there are even books written to fill out holes in the worlds history. The game world itself evolves with the story which is constantly all around the player.

[WILL]

This current "Next Gen" of games seems to be mostly media heavy, much like Heavy Rain, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (reboot), Starcraft 2 in a way. These games seem to all try to blend the gameplay experience and the cutscene experience together, which is pretty cool for those gamers that love a good story and like being a part of it.

On the other hand, one of the other trends is user-generated content games too. Little Big Planet, the Spore games, Mod Nation Racers and so on. Settlers 7 even has a way to style your own castle for others and yourself to see as an example of elements that even non-LBP type games are using this trend to enhance the gameplay experience.

I don't really consider MMO to be a part of any of the current trends really. Rather they are more 'yesterday's' idea. Much like Ultima Online, World of Warcraft and all the others, Final Fantasy 14 for example, are just redoing an older concept and enhancing and polishing it. Not all games have to conform to all the new trends though, casual gaming for example is a market that continues on to please it's crowd without needing any of the super high-end graphics, physics or new hardware.

I think the next big big thing is probably the latest hardware coming from the big companies. Namely the PlayStation Move and the XBox Kintetics. These cool new doodads are sort of following in Nintendo's direction to go the next step with all the amazing things we've learned to do with hardware and software. It's a nice change up to the traditional gamepad based games we are used to. I as you may have guessed, have a PlayStation so I'm looking forward to seeing what the Move will have for it before I jump on it. There were a few titles I'd seen demos for at E3 that got me interested. Plus the Move upgrade to Heavy Rain is also interesting to me. But I would need a whole selection of GOOD games to want to get it. It's kind of like getting a PS3.5 with the price tag on it and all. I don't really like to just jump onto a new piece of hardware unless it validates it's self first. It's my way.

Besides all of that the term "next gen" probably goes on to mean the next generation of hardware and software rendering for graphics, like all stages in the gaming consoles market. Every few years since Nintendo brought back the console market to North America, every company will create their next big console with amazing new hardware functions and performance and if all goes well the developers will come up with new tools and game concepts for us to enjoy. Lets just hope that there is some more mixing it up in the years to come so that it all doesn't get boring and fall flat. That'd suck. I like games. ;)

Oh and I love the Uncharted series. Have 1 & 2 and can't wait to see what they do for number 3. I expect some of the serious graphical improvements that they were promising not too long ago for the next one. I'm looking forward to 5 games coming out soon though; The Force Unleashed II, Infamous 2, Tron: Evolution (Tron 2.0 rocked!), X-COM (reboot) and Deus Ex 3! :D

[Ñuño Martínez]

Actually I'm sad and bored with all that cutting-edge games, starting from graphics (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222) but also gameplay and the hateful blocked contents.

Fortunatelly, there are some new games made in "old-school" style. My last acquisitions are:
Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, a nice old-style fighting arcade. Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo, actually two games: a side-platform arcade and a fighting arcade. I know: they have blocked contents too, but you can enjoy the game without pressure. :)

[WILL]

What's a blocked content?

[L33tCh]

Ok, I know I haven't actually played it much, but I never saw WoW as a next-gen game... more like a fine tuned old school MMO. I do however think some need to be in the category, such as Eve-Online.

The eve universe has always pushed the gamers to an extent that many find it too much. Some see this as a problem, but I think it's a brave way of almost fine-tuning your gamer-base to those willing to push the limit.

By now you probably picked up some bias, but I think it's a combination of depth, interaction and constant improvement, the last of course referring more to MMO games.

Anyway, other than that, I absolutely agree on Braid, I do enjoy it and Starcraft 2 is good but didn't live up to the hype imo, though I guess not much does.

Going back to the MMO idea, I think that next-gen games will be free to play, well designed and supported games using up to date tech, such as may be possible with Black Prophecy from what I've seen in the beta... will have to see how it fairs when released.

[WILL]

I think if by StarCraft 2 hype you mean what some users had guessed it would be like, well sure I guess you could be disappointed. I think Blizzard's original intentions were to simply update the technology to their StarCraft franchise to see if their old formula still worked. A part of that upgrade was to continue the storyline, but in a more modern fashion. Going into SC2 expecting a different game or completely new gameplay would have been a bit fool-hearty, I think. Though they did add a few new elements which worked well for the game.

For example; Permanent upgrades and abilities through single player campaign play, which was cool. Being able to select what your next mission was also enjoyable and the ability to grab extra tidbits about the story's world between missions was also really neat. I enjoyed it as the game it was not so much what others expected it to be like. lol I never listen to critiques about games, maybe one day when I release one of my own I will though.

As far as Eve goes. That thing is a monster of a game. I wouldn't know where to start. Much like WoW, even though I have no personal interest in getting into MMOs myself, these games tend to be not so inviting to newcomers to the genre. At least that's the impression I get whenever I hear just about anyone talking about them.

[Ñuño Martínez]

What's a blocked content?

I mean those levels, object or things that your can't use until you do something in the game (i.e. Win a level, find some objects, etc.). In Spanish we call it "contenido bloqueado" and I think "blocked content" was the correct translation, isn't it?

[WILL]

Ah, so you mean "unlockable content" I guess. Direct translations are sometimes confusing things. ;)

I don't mind it so much, I mean before games used to block access to levels until you completed all the previous ones, but not in some games you can select whatever level you want to start at and play on. I guess it's the new way people like to make their games I suppose. In a way it's always existed, but they just use it in new and different ways now that more content and features can be pumped into a game.

[Ñuño Martínez]

Ah, so you mean "unlockable content" I guess. "Never ends a day without learn something". :)