New Games Suck... Or Is It Just Me?

More typos than usual, because im typing at a stationary bike

That's fine too, there are no wrong ways to enjoy games. Personally I play games for inspiration or new experiences. So I like to cycle through different kind of games as often as possible. I always keep the mindset to see how other devs explore different possibility in gaming. So very often I can get "something" from a game even if it's not a masterpiece.

That doesn't mean I like every game that I played, but I would say I get something from at least 85% of the games that I picked. I don't think quantity affected quality in my case.

lol

did you finish all of these? which were your favorites? there's a few on here i'm playing, some i'm eyeing or need to finish the first versions, and some i haven't heard of before (bravely default 2, flex 2).

Stellar Blade: platted
Wukong: got all steam trophies (would have bought on PS5, but it was digital only)
Rebirth: didnt plat (theres a lot of replaying necessary for this)
Lies of P: beat once
Elex II: beat, its an ok game, very weird
Erdtree: got stuck on last boss then never went back to it
Echoes of Wisdom: beat
Bravely Default: beat. started a second playthrough, but then EoW came out

I also replayed Shadow of the Tomb Raider, forgot that one.

So far this year:
STALKER 2. its pretty good, but as someone who didnt play the first, the very limited weight system is harsh, theres no free fast travel, and there is a L O T of running. There are some minor bugs too.
Sea of Stars is also ongoing (OMG an indie game?!?)
Was playing Aeterna Noctis, stopped midway through. Its still installed though. (OMG another indie game?!?)

i've been so deep in MMO's the last 15+yrs i'm finally casually playing RPG's so i'm always looking to see what folks are playing and why. loving the soulslike's but getting stuck on a boss makes me want to smash my controller rather than power through them - one day i'll finish one. can't figure out what kind of game will keep me locked in for a bit, but your list looks like it hits all the different marks i'd be into.

going to add a few of these to my never ending list of things to try

sounds similar to my experience with wukong. absolutely loved the presentation and music, was miserably bad at the combat and didn't get far. need to try again.

Shadow of the Erdtree was all I played last year. That's the only one I was looking forward to!!

Game developers (and movie writers) are so aware (muh socially aware) and accountable by their own stupid decisions of being on social media, that they can't make anything without pushing progressive propaganda that was hammered into them for the past 10 years.

They know and seek out any new progressive rules, because they are petrified of being called out later when the things they make are studied for problems by tards on youtube. It's so bad now, that they even hire woke blue haired advisors who are fully versed on all this stupid crap, and help to completely neuter anything they make (even many Japanese companies are doing this now, cause their JP developers don't understand it). They hire these people in a similar way they used to hire nasa scientists for star trek or historians for a game set in the past.

Fear of being called out aside, many cannot accept that fantasy can be just fantasy and that they are simply entertainers. They have an extremely delusional and grandiose view of what they are doing and think they are changing the world. They think they have great responsibility, and what they are writing directly changes how people interact with each other.



1: They can't show a fantasy race to be inherently evil in a new game, because they believe people will create real world equivalences to different races of people.

The only allowable characters that are now allowed to be seen as inherently bad are <40 white men in modern media, women are not allowed to be shown as evil and neither are specific PoC or lgbt (if they are, they have some complex reason for it and later they become good). The idea is that if you show an evil character who is one of these, you're creating hatred against that group, and since the only possible option left is the one that a) nobody cares about defending and b) they themselves don't care about this nonsense: every single evil character in everything now has to be a <40 white man.

As a required mirror to the above, if there are ever any roles in a video game that are seen as high or good (and their hand isn't forced by franchise lore) they have to put one of these protected groups into it. Is there an engineer or scientist in the game? they have to be a woman or specific PoC (black), is there a village leader? they have to be shown as a woman or PoC (preferably both and shown with her wife). This again, is indisputably widespread in all media to the point it's a meme now.

Scientist? black woman. engineer? old woman. leader of the nation? black guy. Evil lunatic? white guy <40. Village idiot? <40 white guy.

It's pushed to hard in video games in particular, that almost every single scientist, engineer and leader role will be from the groups. Even if there are some white guys scientists, they will be rank and file underlings only.

This also impacts race design in any modern video games or mmorpgs, they are so afraid of anything they make being shown to be any kind of stereotype (wow is full of them and nobody cared, all the races in that game would never be made today because it's now seen as utterly unacceptable) of any real world race that they either just make variants of humans everywhere, or make the most absurd thing imaginable that looks utterly stupid (avowed is a good example or awful race design, made to offend nobody).

2: Sexy women / Succubus are illegal in modern western gaming unless it's porn, closest you'll get is a gay incubus grinding on you. They can't show women as being overtly sexual, immoral, or even lustful because they are afraid this teaches men to be "problematic". Feminist ideology has been hammered into them all, and things like metoo scared pretty much everyone left in the industry, into being afraid of showing women as anything but a virtuous strong female characters that don't need no man or children.

Things are so bad in this regard, that most creators are even afraid to add any romance to their games at all. It's such a dangerous subject that feminists will tear apart, that they just leave it out completely if they can. Which makes a lot of these games utterly sterile.

3: If there is a franchise lore reason they have to show a fantasy race doing bad things, they have to explain it away and bore you with the lecturing you don't care about. For instance the humans did bad thing to them, and they are actually just trying to save a forest or some white dude it forcing them to do it with magic. So in reality, the group you're supposed to hate and enjoy the hero defeating are actually the good guys and you're a bigot.

Another issue writers are petrified of, is making a bad character that people then think is cool or that they identify with. This is widespread in current year and you can see it everywhere in modern media, with things like World of Warcraft, The Boys and the Joker where the writers or actors start sperging on social media if audiences like the bad guy. This forces them to ruin the bad character on purpose by making them stupid and unlikable in some core way, so the audience does not get "confused". Not allowed to have a cool bad guy.

4: Religion bad: Modern writers are so fanatically fedora wearing anti-religion, that they cannot ever show any religion to be good at all. Even if it's a totally fictional one in their video game. They are so afraid that their game is going to single handed bring back the rise of "real world religion", that they have to always show them as being bad in every way (if they ever even add them at all, which they wont).

There are lots of other reasons they suck, including DEI hires that are incompetent or bad fits for the material they are hired for. There are just so many forces being applied to make sure all story based games are garbage, it's near impossible for them not to be.

The only way most western games can be good is if the writing is done with an AI and trained on old media, or they just hire a bunch of people from another culture to make it for them.

They can't even make more Xcom games cause it's seen as anti immigration lmao

Western game industry is cooked asf for anything but CoD and Fifa.

My eyes…. They are bleeding

aint no one reading that

i read it

it's a little exaggerated, but definitely in line with what i've observed

I read it as well

Try BG3 man.

/comfort

I look forward to all the "DAS A CONSPIRUHCY!" handwaving with no substance comments.

I think RA is spot on, I'll say it. I do think he kinda jumps-to-conclusions and gets ANTI quick, but he is right.

There are lots of people with lots of free time in today's world. When WW3, the next great depression, the Rapture, or an asteroid hits maybe people will be so focused on survival again they won't have time for this. And maybe if any of those things happen, religious white dudes get wiped out and all these other people take over completely IRL.

I think change is inevitable and often viewed as undesirable, but we can only control ourselves and how we experience the world. If these games bother you, don't buy them and don't waste your energy hating them. Find what you do like and support it. We may get more Veilguards than Balder's Gate games next year too, but if enough people are unhappy that will change. If they aren't, it won't. Do you want to spend more time hating things you don't like or enjoying the stuff you do?

Kinda a detour going from WW3 and great depression to “dont buy the game you dont like”.

1-We dont
2-We have to otherwise the idiots pushing the garbage will just blame their failures on the economy or lack of console availability or any other *** excuse. They need to be told why no ones buying the slop.

That's how WW3 happens! :O Pokemon vs DBZ MMO Simulator!

Popular fantasy story with "good" evil races:
That time I got reincarnated as a slime.

(I like it more than LotR, fight me!)

Anti-religion story:
FFX, plus countless jrpg that have you kill a god in the end.

Story features female scientist that happened to be popular:
Steins Gate


Best villain of all time that's also a white man:
Roy Batty....or maybe Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker


Maybe, just maybe.... current gen writers see other tropes in a story work well so they copied those formula. Then the tropes become a trend.

Or the story without popular tropes got buried in the market because they lost the competition v.s stories that follows popular trend.

Otherwise you can't explain why stories from other cultures without DEI also feature same religion bad/female scientist/"good" evil race/white villain tropes.

I didn't form that thought well, can ignore that part.


Constructive criticism is valuable, and makes things better. But we've got 56 pages here that none of the people who make those games will ever read, all saying pretty much the same thing. If you want to tell them, there are much better avenues than this forum I think. Most may say you aren't spending much effort posting here, but however little it is is still probably more than most have spent giving feedback through more appropriate channels.

I agree! I think all JP games are amoral. Because JP is amoral.

Ok, this is where RA is right. "Fantasy" is based on the traditions/religions/whatever of the geographic area it's created in. RA is saying Western medias are influencing what Fantasy is, like JP culture influences that RPG.

I think.

I mean, this thread is literally Nynja's playground.

If you look over there, you can even see his bed, his sofa there.

This thread could be renamed as "Nynja's thread".

Ok, I will declare the point goes to Alfania, because the red head is cute.

Even Panta is into her. Get ready to see more female scientists because they SELL! $$$$$

You betrayed the Team Woke with this statement so that is my win.

Touché