News Modern games have a "creativity problem"

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/06/29/modern-games-have-a-creativity-problem/1

 

i think game creativity comes down to more than just which button does what on the controller

 

There's a reason most FPS on consoles use the same buttons - its the best layout to use.

 

he's right about the lack of creativity, but he chose a poor example!

 

I have no problem with the controls being the same. I kind of expect it. tough to have fun in any game when you have to "relearn " the basics...... What I do find troubling is the fact that ALL the games ( FPS Military ) they ALL look alike and act alike. This is what needs fixing.

 

I think the headline deserved a better article under it. Modern games do have a creativity problem, but it has nothing to do with joypad control schemes.

The problem is a handful of publishers now dominate the market and are happy to churn out the same junk week in week out, dragging more money out of already tired franchises. Activision I'm looking at you.

 

Its not necessarily "best" but its "familiar", so people find it easier to play different games.

One thing that gets "fun" in PC games is that, outside the WSAD and other very basic keys, a lot of the others can be very different, so you have to learn more.

 

What the **** is he talking about? Controls aren't about creativity, they are about efficiency. Hell, I'm pretty sure the three SSB games had the same controls (with some tweaks here and there, which even Halo does).

He has a point with the creativity in a lot of respects though. He just needs to think about what he's saying.

 

I've got to say I agree, but I think that there are several reasons why the market doesn't innovate as much as it once did.

Looking at the progression of FPS games I grew up on, (Wolf3D, Doom, Hexen, Duke 3D, Quake, Half Life) there was a substantial difference in gameplay, stories, settings, etc. The market was ever growing, so there was always a boundary to push in terms of better graphics (Polygons instead of sprites? What is this magic?), new gameplay mechanics (Mouselook? But I like my arrow keys!) and story and character development (Barney never did buy us that drink, did he?).

Now, however, there is little room for innovation. Big budgets mean high pressure to succeed, and to guarantee success you need to follow an existing formula. Graphics have almost hit a wall in how much prettier they can be seeing as they've almost maxed out the 360 and PS3's capability. In the modern multiplatform industry, spending the extra cash to take advantage of a new graphics card's spangly new features isn't worth it if the target spec is 360 and PS3. In the past three years or so, there's barely been an FPS I've been interested in. Seems to me that there's just hundreds of CoD clones out there, and the market has just become saturated with them because that's where the money is.

I think that because a lot of us have grown up remembering a time when gaming was niche we see today's industry in such stark contrast.

 

What I took from that is that these games are so close to identical in their mechanics and the way you play them, they might as well all be expansion packs for each other. No matter what groovy new stuff gets thrown into the engine, it always boils down to being yet another first-person shooter from the [insert favourite FPS game here] mold.

There has been very little actual advancement in FPS gameplay for a long time. The original Quake brought us a real fully-fledged 3D environment to play in. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 advanced the physics which we interact with. And... I've already run out of landmark games since then that weren't entirely based on eye-candy and weren't just evolutions. Pretty poor show from an entire genre, don't you think?

Only exception I can think of: Portal

 

Yeah? i was like thinking, "try try a keyboard for a change" it is FPS game you know, a invention for PC mouse+keyboard. Not for a stupid nes controller.

 

You did NOT just insult NES controllers


On a serious note, as has been said before, this is probably the best button combination to use. Battlefield and COD series use slightly different buttons, but if they were to change it around (even a little) there'd be uproar and a shedload of complaints, as a result the new game in the series would revert back to the original controls.


There IS a lack of creativity in most FPS games, COD 1/2/3/5 and most of the Battlefield series are taken from real backgrounds so there's not a huge amount of creativity to be found in there

 

That's pretty extreme Obiwan.

 

As I've said before, if you want original, interesting titles, look to the Eastern Bloc - the Russians, Ukrainian's etc are the only ones making real PC games.

 

Guy complains about a lack of creativity in gaming, while working on a modernised version of a game from 1986, for Nintendo, a company that has been re-releasing essentially the same half dozen games for the past couple of decades. Oh the irony.

 

@ Hovis
+1

Mario is still there playing douzen of not so different game and they talk about creativity. But atleast theere is still something new in every nitendo game I played (I'm far from having played all of them), whereas to much FPS are COD copy with nothing different (beside one is in WWII and one is in moyen orient) I mean look at that

 

Heh as the guy above just said... the creativity problem in FPS games is down to the control scheme on a joypad.

Really?

I've played some Wii FPS games, and although they utilise the controller in a completely different way they're still the same old rehashed "Kill everyone, reach end of level, repeat" rubbish as every other FPS game.


To some extent you might as well complain that books lack creativity because they all start on page 1 and you turn each page to progress the story.

 

So, according to Masahiro Sakurai, all games are uncreative...apart from the game that he wrote?

 

Agree and disagree here, but good post.

Within the genre, you're not going to see amazing innovation in gameplay mechanics now that realistic physics have been achieved. That's by the nature... every FPS game is going to be a first-person shooting game. There''s only so many ways to change it while keeping it a FPS. Portal was great, and one of the most fun games I've ever played, but it isn't really a FPS. You don't actually shoot anything, you just create portals. It's using a FPS game engine, but you're not shooting at enemies, just aiming the portal.

Why are companies still making re-hashes of the same FPS games from decades ago with prettier graphics and more violent sounding titles? It's because people are still buying them.

Innovation is great, and I like seeing changes to the genre. I'd rather see a company take a gameplay mechanic that works well, and put in a very well-written plot, a wide variety of combat situations including physics puzzles, stealth, small scale man-on-man combat, medium scale combat against vehicles, and full scale combat (i.e. final battle in HL2E2) than see a company change up the well known FPS gameplay in favor of some goofy genre of game, but not to a good job with it.

I really liked the HL plot in that you didn't really know what was going on, you were just trying to get to the surface, and had no idea what to expect. There were times when you'd get to an area that looked impossible, but then find a trick for how to get through it. You had to pay attention and think about things moreso than just blast every person who walked by.

A friend of mine was playing an Xbox shooter, not sure what the title was. It looked so boring. Generic urban desert warfare setting in Afghanistan or wherever, and your squad was walking down a completely pre-determined path while getting shot at by guys in buildings, and then shooting them back with long-range, rapid-fire, scope'd rifles.Boooring. I like games that mix it up and add new gameplay elements. Forget about realism. I like to see teamplay elements, weapon variety, class or race variety, level setting variety, mission variety, etc. Some of the guns that are so much fun in certain games would never be found in real life combat.

Don't change the basic gameplay mechanics - they work. Referencing the Orange Box - Give us more things like the Gravity Gun or the Portal Gun, or the Sandman or the Stickybomb Launcher. Guns that are more exciting than a SMG that also has a grenade launcher like every single FPS has. Give us more classes like the Spy or the Scout or the Demoman, who are different from the standard FPS classes. Give us more epic battles like the one at the end of HL2E2. Give us more levels like Ravenholm or the river chase, and different multiplayer modes like Payload.

 

why not play your fave fps on a steering wheel ! that'll make it much more interesting.