[D'rek]

I think some of the best games are those that can be played either casually or hardcore. I like strategy games, but I'm also more of a casual gamer, so I'd rather play starcraft because of its great custom map system full of fun user-made maps than some shiny new RTS that has nothing but versus modes where there's naught to do but tank rush. And if I ever want to try a bit of hardcore, SC has that too so I'm set.

[Silencer]

Yeah, for StarCraft if you want 'hardcore' all you need to do is vs the AI on hard. XD

[Aptorian]

[Gothos]

I approve of that picture.

[ansible]

Gothos, on 07 July 2010 - 05:13 PM, said:

I approve of that picture.

[champ]

i would have to say im a hardcore gamer, probably because am stubborn, al only ever play a game on hard and wont let it beat me! That god damn first castle on alex the kidd, it must of beat me 100 times never mind the speed boat level before and then you had the cheating bosses, i think back now and do wonder how i ever had the patience to stick with it but completed it and must of strutt for a week, 8 year old thinking i had just conquered the world! Only a few on modern day games take my fancy now, play more on the snes and saturn than wii and ps3, half that tho i reckon is for nostalgia! But i dunno, guess when graphics werent much developers concentrated more on gameplay!

[Aptorian]

[cerveza_fiesta]

I already want to play that game, after seeing the wiki

It looks actually harder than Rogue...which is a stretch for any game

[Illuyankas]

The guy simulated hairgrowth.

Seriously.

[Homo spectatricis]

Hmm, it is most amusing to see various game developers proclaim PC Gaming as a "dead" market and yet on informal polls such as the one above PC Gaming seems live and well?

[Aptorian]

Those polls often don't take into account how many digital copies are being sold over the internet. Steam alone has some 25 million users.

[Silencer]

Eh, I think that at least Carmack has retracted his statement that PC gaming is dying, going so far to say that it's going to dominate the next 3 years while consoles fail to produce their next generation - these days an $800 PC is basically the equivalent of an Xbox 360. XD

The consoles will really start to show their age now, encouraging PC games, and PC game sales. They also fail to take into account illegal copies ofc, though one could argue that it in fact increases the rate at which PC gaming is 'dying'...but meh.

[Gothos]

Steam is saving it though!

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Silencer, on 27 September 2010 - 06:33 AM, said:

Eh, I think that at least Carmack has retracted his statement that PC gaming is dying, going so far to say that it's going to dominate the next 3 years while consoles fail to produce their next generation - these days an $800 PC is basically the equivalent of an Xbox 360. XD

The consoles will really start to show their age now, encouraging PC games, and PC game sales. They also fail to take into account illegal copies ofc, though one could argue that it in fact increases the rate at which PC gaming is 'dying'...but meh.

I don't think the consoles will start to show their age too badly. In fact, for once they are going to be around long enough to get a bunch of properly made gamers out for them. from what I've heard, in the past developers finally get really good at using all of the capabilities of a console right around when it's time to introduce the next one. This time, they'll have a while to kick out great games that really push the consoles to their limits.

Or the motion sensor craze will be the death of consoles altogether. It's a tossup.

[Silencer]

Reach supposedly already pushes the 360 to the edge. I can see what they mean. The PS3 may have a few legs left in it, but your average PC is already past it in terms of graphical and AI capabilities.

And listen to Carmack. He knows.

[Gothos]

I hear that the motion sensor for the PS3 is bloody amazing. It's something I'd like to check out one day, good thing I have some buddies that have the console!
Kinect, however, seems just... wrong. Gimme a fucking controller.

[Tapper]

The thing that limits console gaming more than the age of the thing is, imho, the controller.
Sure, a lot of people may balk when pc games really get better graphics (still some time off), but apart from the EA sports games and the occassional adventure published for both formats, neither bites the other. There's no good strategy stuff for the consoles, and there are no good fighters or racing games for the pc. RPGs, while theoretically suited for both, are usually fucked up camera-wise when ported.

Also, console gamers are used to a certain standard of quality. That is still pretty good quality, and if it starts to lag behind, they'll probably try and invent new flavorful stuff they can do with the same technology.

[Cause]

I think quality of graphics is as much a porduct of programming trick as it is the base specs of he machine. Supposedly reach maximises the Xbox and god of war maximised the PS3. Yet I have already seen trailers for new games that trump both. Besides games like borderlands have shit graphics are undoubtdly fun and I prefer playing it with a controller on a 40 inch TV screen thank you.

I think the xbox is in trouble with the maximum data storage of its dvd medium. More and more games are going to have to be split into two or more disks and to make it worse the PS3 is starting to promise free extra games with a few of their titles because their blue ray discs are just so much larger.

[Silencer]

Cause, on 29 September 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

I think quality of graphics is as much a porduct of programming trick as it is the base specs of he machine. Supposedly reach maximises the Xbox and god of war maximised the PS3. Yet I have already seen trailers for new games that trump both. Besides games like borderlands have shit graphics are undoubtdly fun and I prefer playing it with a controller on a 40 inch TV screen thank you.

I think the xbox is in trouble with the maximum data storage of its dvd medium. More and more games are going to have to be split into two or more disks and to make it worse the PS3 is starting to promise free extra games with a few of their titles because their blue ray discs are just so much larger.

You're right, but there is still a finite upper limit. Reach doesn't push the console graphically, it pushes it in terms of processor power. Running the AI for that many on-screen NPC's, while processing the graphics inbound, and handling any network code going on, is pulling all of the console's juice. The simple issue here is that while you could improve the graphics, you would THEN have to trade off on the quantity of action taking place. Essentially, short of some revolution in the handling of AI, there is no leeway any more. You can sacrifice graphics to get more stuff happening, or you can sacrifice stuff happening to get better graphics, but the maximum throughput has been achieved.

The reason we tend not to notice such limitations on the PC is that it has graphics settings. The reason a high-end computer from 5 years ago cannot cope with modern games has nothing to do with the level of code refinement - that is something that is constantly improving - it's because the highest of high-end games back then pushed it's upper limit when graphics were maxed. So if you then take a game that has both more graphics, and more on-screen events, it quite simply is impossible for the older computer to run it because the BASE level of processing required is too high for it, without cutting back on something.

In the same way, this is why older computers CAN run newer games - they were above and beyond the maximum throughput requirements for their time, and so can still run a new game well - possibly sacrificing something in the graphics card department, of course.

The point is, if you look at Mass Effect you will notice that there are rarely more than 5 enemies in any engagement. The graphics are paramount, and it is quite simply impossible at this point in time to expand the scope of those engagements. Reach, comparably, has up to 20 combatants on both sides of the field. It loses out a bit in the graphics department, however.

Your point about Borderlands (which I personally don't like) is kind of irrelevant. It's not like you would have to play it on a PC. The point is that games will not get much more complex for consoles, while games developed with PC in mind, or indeed exclusively, will both keep the platform alive and be bigger and graphically superior to their console-bound counterparts. *shrug* Games with shittier graphics but that are still fun to play will still appear on consoles, so I don't quite see what you're getting at? (Given Reach itself is not exactly the leader of the pack in terms of graphical performance...)



As for storage mediums, you may be right. We may see an increase in digital sales to the Xbox because of it, or a new capacity for DVDs may emerge. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if HD-DVD's came back just to cope with the size of the games. M$ can probably afford to do that to keep the console alive until the replacement war of 2013.

Streamed games like that hypothetical system in the US (think there is a thread around here about it) may also increase the longevity of the console. I'm not a fan of downloaded games because it both costs me money and bandwidth, and takes at least an hour or two (and this is, quite simply, unacceptable, because it means that an $80 NZD game is actually $80 + 4GB which, at 4/10ths of my bandwidth, means it's actually $90 AND has the inconvenience of putting me on bandwidth conservation, which is basically a huge cost to me). But it's certainly a potential wave of the future, and something that may come to prominence to due to the death (relatively speaking) of the DVD format for Xbox games.

As for blu-ray, it is rather ironic that they can't fill the things up because the developers don't put enough content into their games to fill the things out. Heck, Dragon Age wouldn't even fill one. It makes the disks a large expense for any producer, and I can't see them getting properly filled like DVD's and CD's before them were for quite some time. After all, if you can re-use the same texture and character model and skeleton for 90% of your game, you're never going to need more space for them (and most developers do this - primarily as the consoles would struggle with loading in unique items for every corridor, or every character) and so the only thing that MIGHT increase in size is voice acting files...which is likely only to happen with Bioware, or perhaps Bethesda. :S



Anyway, long post is fairly long, but I'm certainly interested to see where the consoles go from here. I'm expecting higher levels of graphics for the top-end AAA games, but with a fairly consistently small amount of on-screen 'actors', while some of the lower budget games will succeed with reduced graphics but increased action.
Certainly one to watch is the storage issue, I'm glad you brought that up, Cause. It's a rather interesting little problem that I'm keen to see resolved.
And of course, the fact that some of the major developers have stopped calling PC a dead platform is a major plus. I can really see it taking off again over the next 3 years. Then again, it may still be subjected to innumerable crappy ports which fail to utilize even a mid-level PC's power while developers cling to the money-market that are consoles. Plus there's that whole piracy thing (because people totally don't pirate console games...).

/post

[Traveller]

Gothos, on 27 September 2010 - 09:56 AM, said:

I hear that the motion sensor for the PS3 is bloody amazing. It's something I'd like to check out one day, good thing I have some buddies that have the console!
Kinect, however, seems just... wrong. Gimme a fucking controller.

Has anyone got a Kinect? Or PS3 motion sensor?

Unless you're playing party games or sports, I really can't see the point. Where'd you hear that the PS3 one is better? I thought it was just tacked on quickly to keep up with the Wii and Kinect, but I haven't actually heard that it's any good, or know what use it will be put to.

And yes, give me a controller (or mouse and keyboard) any day.

Anyhoo re. the op. Does anyone playing on console actually spend time collecting things in games simply to get gamer points?

I like to to think I have completed 100% of a game, but I really can't bring myself to trawl through maps post completion looking for stuff (Assassins Creed series) so I can say I finished the whole thing. But since they keep including such banal challenges in new games, I suppose people must be.

I completed Red Dead, but to 100% it you have to complete challenges in multiplayer as well as single. It obviously doesn't matter, but I used to like to think I'd finished a game before I moved on to something else.

That's another thing. Do you tend to have several games on the go at once, or get into one and play it until you're done? I tend towards the latter, but I mostly play rpg type games - when I get a new game, I wait until I've finished the one I'm on before starting a new one. Like books I guess.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 31 December 2010 - 12:47 PM