I am so sick of the denial of progress.
Nobody is denying progress. We are arguing points on the foundation of gameplay, Challenge, and balance.
No matter how much you try to Dress up checkers... its still checkers. You can re-make Pac Man with 3d cut scenes and 3d rendered FPS graphics... but again.. its STILL Pacman. The game plays a certain way. Thats its foundation. The rest is just glitter.
There are games still made today, like the Mario 2d series, that Still remain fun and challenging. There are Timeless. As are all games which have excellent gameplay, challenge, and balance.
Todays games are more fun, have way more thought put into them and are overall superior in every way.
A new Mario maybe... but an FPS? Its easy. All you have to do is copy a game engine. Then drop some bad guys into the mix that are not all that intelligent. (And you can even skip much of that, cause multiplayer humans will solve the difficulty of good Artificial Intelligence programming). Add some action stopping cutscenes with faces that unintentionally scare you due to creep factor of unrealistic rendering.. and then Drop some 3d models in.. and finally, click "Exe". Theres very little more than that... and certainly not anything as tight of tolerances of the older games... or a game like 2d super mario.. where everything has a specific placement and speed, a puzzle, a trap, exacting timings, exacting distances ..ect. In an FPS, all you have to do is roam and fire. Its slow, its not challenging, its a sleeper fest that even young kids have little trouble doing.
How was robotron developed? "Hey my hand is broken. You know what would be sweet? Two joysticks! Here's two atari joysticks! Rock on!"
Robotron was developed like most games of the 80s. Lets try this idea... and see how it plays. Ohh.. it plays good, so lets see how far we can push it and develop it. OR... Ohh, this plays like crap... and the system board cant handle all the action, we dont have enough memory to do this, etc... so lets modify it this way...
According to documemts from actual designers who worked for Atari... they just told you to start making games. A lot of them had never done it before, and were not even sure where to start. Eventually, with a lot of trial and error, they brute forced the systems to do their bidding. They were given pretty much free reign to create whatever they wanted to create. After making a prototype game, they would submit if for review. So long as the thing played decently... it was all green lights. If it didnt play well, it was sent back to be tweaked or scrapped.
They couldnt just drop a bunch of characters on the screen like in an FPS. Robotron for example, has some incredible Artificial Intelligence. The flying enemies will not simply aim for you.. but will aim in the direction you are running in - ahead of you. They also detect when they are in danger, and will fly away faster than lightning at such a point. Some will quickly go hide in a corner trying to pick you off at a distance, while the others are all over your butt.
But even that, is nothing compared to the masterpiece of AI, "Spy Hunter". That game is Viciously Brilliant! The cars are not simply sent out at random. In fact, you can see the intelligence as they start to form specific teams of cars that work together to try to kill you. Putting Armored cars in the rear, making it a nightmare if you slow down... and a switchblade car in the lead, so your constantly pressed to go fast. Then dropping a combination of puddles that make you steer into other cars / trouble.. or the helicopter, which drops bombs in the only road area you felt was safe. The combinations of these elements are finely balanced and orchestrated like a symphony. Its like a constantly changing rube-goldberg machine in action, and it always ends up taking you out, in the end.
But yeah, even simply Robotron, was an exercise in perfection of game balance. There are a zillion Robotron-Esc games out there... and NONE of them are as good as the Original. The specific elements, types of enemies, combinations of attacks, speed of the players, speed of the bullets, AI, and much more... all are tuned up to make an ever challenging, yet incredibly fun and addictive experience.
Years later, they made Smash TV. Changing Robotron into a continue quarter muncher. Effectively, ruining the gameplay. Its still an ok game. Its fun, its funny, and the graphics are cool.. BUT... it becomes meaningless after a few rounds. Basically, you dont even care if you finish the game or not. You dont even care if you win a level or not, because its programmed to make the game too 'cheap', so that you drop more money into it.
But the real Robotron always gives you a chance... even though it may seem impossible, you Can get out of it by the skin of your teeth... and nearly every second, is a skin-of-your-teeth moment. Theres nothing but adrenalin flow. And if you lose all your lives, you still want to try again, to get to a higher level.
An FPS doent get your blood pumping like that. Its not challenging. Its point and click, and thats it. A simple point and click adventure book. A slow moving fairy tale. Or a done to death shoot-out war/gun fest. Theres no skill in Snipeing in a game, just as theres barely any skill in real sniping... esp at closer ranges.
You honestly want me to believe that careful care and consideration was put into the design of that thing?
Try programming a Robotron clone. See if you can convince all the Robotron hardcore players that your version is better.
Please. You all act like video games was akin to art done by passionate people for the
sake of producing something beautiful for the world.
I guess because you are soul-less, and dont give a crap about the work and things you produce.. that you feel everyone thinks the same way as you right? (you must be a typical "COG" right?)
People back then actually cared about how well a game played. In fact, they had to... because there was no pretty graphics to cover up the visual losses... nor any cd quality sound systems, help aid. It was all about how well a game played... and yes, it WAS a passion... as well as a constant battle. Creating games that not only did the office workers enjoy.. but that tested well with the higher-ups, and in actual arcade locations, making money. Fail to any of those parties happy... and the game was shot down and scrapped. All that work, for nothing.
As if commercialism and consumerism is a recent plague that has ruined the soul of videogames. Right.
Nothing to do with either of those. It was when game companies started to cater to the gamers who didnt want to put any effort into games... that games fell. Continue games. Cheat codes. Buy-In's. Low difficulty / challenge... Etc. When gameplay became 2nd to graphical look. When corporations got too corporate, zapped all the creativity and originality away. Forever changing games for the worse on a whole.
the arcade games didn't have to be that great because there was nothing out there to compete with them, no good home consoles, the only competition was other arcade games, so companies pumped them out as fast as they could to maintain market share
Simply not true. Poor games didnt earn well, and when they didnt earn, they didnt sell. On the other hand, great classics that made very good earnings, were sold in massive quantities all over the world.
Companies that made crap games, eventually went belly up. The more accomplished companies, like Atari and Sega, stood rock solid for many years, with astronomical sales figures.
People didnt just play crap games, because supposedly, there was nothing else. There was plenty of other things to do, rather than to play a game that wasnt even fun. Just the same as today, you decide long and hard about what you want to waste money on, and if something sucked, you dont buy it/do it again. Human nature hasnt changed.
and used novel ideas like "hey lets use... TWO JOYSTICKS INSTEAD OF ONE!!!!" as simple, cheap ways to stand out.
Your argument falls flat, when you tally up the cost of designing, testing, and assembling a custom Star Wars controller. They could have used a simple analog joystick, like the modern craptasic Starwars Arcade game.
It also falls flat when you consider that marble madness needs two $120 trackball units, special metal punches to cut the trackball holes, extra assembly time...etc. And, it was also almost going to have force feedback.
It falls flat on a game like Race Drivin, with about $1400 worth of custom built controllers, totaling about 250lbs in controllers alone.
The plain fact is that Robotron doesnt play well with a single controller. Anyone can easily test this in mame, by mapping the two together. Being able to fire in a different direction than you move, gives more advanced gameplay, and its utilized to the fullest in that game.
Cheffo has told you, that the original design was a scolling one. Why change that? As stated... it didnt play well. The game, like all the rest, were changed constantly, until they played excellently, and were very balanced.
If anything the Early 90's arcade games were the best. The Street Fighter era games are the golden age because they had to compete for dollars and time with consoles that were pretty darn good.
There were some good 90s games. And in fact, I like fighters too. However, its was the worst era of games. It was when all originality DIED. Almost every game was a fighter that came out. No more unique controllers. No more original gameplay. It was all the same exact game, repeated over and over, in different graphics.
While fighters did make money... they also were to blame for losing a lot of it too. Because not everyone wanted to play on a machine which when a skilled player was on, would take them out in seconds. Fighters complexities became off-putting to a lot of players... who simply didnt have the time or money to invest in them. And finally, there were times when you just wanted to play something different... but sadly, there was nothing else.
And because the Ops were no longer pushing the boundarys of originality, and no longer different and challenge... finally, consoles stepped in to take the last byte.
In fact, games in the arcades SHOULD have been getting better earnings geometrically.. due to population growth. The corporate 'copy formula', eventually failed, and it took out an entire section of history with it: "The Arcade"
This Copy-Formula attitude followed into the pc and console markets... and then we got the same repeat game model all again. It also spread to the music industry... which is why many bands have the same exact sounds. Same samples, same tempo, same chords, same use of vocal enhancement to cover the fact that they dont hire real singing talent anymore.
The 80s were completely different. It was a time when Anything was possible. When artists still had the freedom to create amazing things. When stars were born... not manufactured by a formula.
90s were a Dying star... when all creativity was almost dead. When all industries were controlled to the point where there was no freedoms at all.
By 2000, there pretty much nothing but puppets on strings, yes men, and the zombies who eat it all up.
Todays videogames blow those ancient coin gobblers out of the water.
Name 3 games that are so fast. intense, and challenging, that they make you sweat.. (made in 2010 or later).
Tell me how long it took to master and beat them.
Then, go fire up Mr.Do. See if you can get 15 levels in, and how long it takes you to do it.
Then, go fire up Robotron, see if you can get to level 35 on the default settings.
Then, go fire up Spy Hunter, and see if you maintain your game for 30 min.
Diablo III has been in production for like a decade, that game is truly an example where they cater to the gamer. They play test it for months and tweak it endlessly before they are going to roll out with it, and it will be epic. To put that game in the same class as something like marble madness is laughable
Diablo III will be like all the other Diablo's. Its a point and click game. You are not a tenth of a second away from death at every moment. You do not have full and accurate control of the player. Its slow, clumsy, and frankly... boring. The only thing it has going for it.. .is very nice graphics. Thats it. Its the same exact game engine, with some slight mods and changes. But its the same slow moving game.
In fact, Marble Madness done with todays hardware, and done well, would blow the pants off of the slow gameplay of DiabLOW.
MMs biggest drawback was lack of speed. That was due to hardware limitations of the day.
It made up for it by making extremely tight time limits... so you really had to work hard physically to get to the end in time. A modern version with greater speed and longer levels, would dominate.
The problem is, your lack of perspective and objectivity. You just cant see past the fluff, and into the heart of a games engine. All you see are graphics and hear sounds. You simply dont get the whole 'gameplay' thing.
For all the hard work they put into Diablow... nobody will care about it in a year, and nobody will remember it in 10... and who is going to replay it repeatedly over the years? Thats right... Nobody.
Id rather play a game of Guitar Hero, or some 20+ yr old classic...
The problem isnt in the age.
Good creations are Ageless.
You simply make it about age, because thats what your obsessed about.
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