Any of you feel like we’ve become so fixated on graphics and perfomance to the point where the actual game part of a video game is often overlooked, or at least underemphasized? I don’t know about the rest of you, but all I come across on social media regarding gaming is about resolution, ray tracing, DLSS/FSR, frame rates, frame time, CPU and GPU untilization, and all of that stuff, and I’m honestly sick of it! I mean performance markers have always been discussed when it comes to PC gaming, but now even console gaming is getting this treatment! Don’t you miss the days when you just installed the game and just played it? I know I do. What do you think?
In the battle of KPI vs Mixed Methods, objective vs subjective, some prefer objective…
I’m not a PC gamer, perhaps the people who play PC games invested a lot in their rig and expect a studio experience. So they review it and other people realize they are not getting the best experience.
Nintendo Switch users with NSO might not realize that the software emulation used to run those games suffers from latency, and they will enjoy themselves until someone they trust brings it up and sends them down the rabbit hole.
I’m currently grinding a game that looks like it was made in 2015 and had a few bugs. I don’t care because it is what I want to play.
I get what you mean, though.
It’s hype for marketing. Our society is based on consumption and over spending. The GPU and CPU manufactures want us to keep spending money to have the latest and greatest.
this makes me nostalgic… people were saying this about fallout 3.
People were saying this about the first goddamn Playstation
To be faaaaaaaaaaaiiiiir, a lot of that was tied up in the switch from overhead isometric view to first-person view.
Fallout 1/2 didn’t focus on graphics, they were in many ways point-and-click adventures. A lot of things you had to hover over for “flavor text” and every once in a while something only four pixels wide exists that you need to notice.
So the gameplay actually actively eschewed graphics in favor of things like flavor text and reading.
Further, the switch to first person broke the SPECIAL system, because how to you even manage a gun skill in a first person shooter without it feeling absurd? It made sense in isometric, even if it was often frustrating to miss an enemy when you had a 79% chance to shoot them in the balls. Putting that in a first person when you mag dump into someone standing right in front of you and half your shots feels a lot less realistic, and can quickly become frustrating in a more fast-paced first-person-shooter environment. The SPECIAL system feels absolutely slapped on as an afterthought in Fallout 3.
Also, the writing in Fallout 3 was that shitty Bethesda writing. The writing was just subpar compared to the prior two installments. Especially the fucking stupid ass end of the game.
I’d say a lot of those complaints were driven more by the perspective switch than anything else.
it was just an example :P
Ignore all the that, it’s marketing. A lot of cool indies that have better story and mechanics than AAA games, you just have to look beyond your usual places
Nothing happened. It is the same as always. There was no time, when graphics (and audio) weren’t the hottest shit to talk about. We did that in the 90s in ads, game magazines and in the schoolyard. And the people before us did the same. The buzzwords back then were different but that’s all.
Maybe stop watching youtubers, if that annoys you? Idk.
Well, my thoughts on this are pretty ‘basic.’ I buy games that I enjoy. I think that <5% of my games purchased in the last two years are games that have been released within a year of when I buy them.
There are more than enough games that are amazing from the past 30 years to keep me occupied for the next 10, and not a single one of them stresses my 12 year old computer. Plus, while I can understand the complaints about Steam being the massive titan that it is, I am quite happy with them and their Linux gaming enabling work. I really do just install games and play them.
Balatro is nominated for game of the year. Some other games from the past year you could check out: animal well, nine sols.
I’ve never had Balatro crash or do anything weird on me, either.
Don’t you miss the days when you just installed the game and just played it?
I don’t miss them because they’re still here!
I don’t miss them because they’re still here!
Exactly
Graphics have never been a priority for me, they’re more like an inevitable side effect of technology advancing. Luckily there is no shortage of good old games, and a lot of smaller studios are making amazing titles with older art styles / less demanding specs.
What you’re describing is not exactly gaming, but a different hobby entirely which is sometimes referred to as benchmarking. I’ve dabbled in it myself for some games, and the goal isn’t to experience and talk about the game as it is, but to figure out how to benchmark, best settings for performance and all that jazz.
Discussions about specific games for their merits are still very much alive on the internet though, you usually have to go to reddit and look for a dedicated subreddit for the game you’re interested in or their itch/discord if it’s a small indie game.
Try stardew valley, Celeste, and others indie games.
Very lovely in term of visual too.TW :LGBTQIA+, anti patriarch, propaganda 😂😅
What does TW stand for?
Thats an alert, meaning “trigger warning”,
Usually you do use it to alert, before a click. Alert this content is gore, hard, etcAh trigger warning. I’m familiar with CW (Content Warning), but wasn’t sure what the T stood for. Gracias.
Celeste def needs that TW. Played it two months ago and now I’m questioning my gender. Maybe I’ll be able to do C sides if I get on E.
I see all the graphics technologies as an extra bonus to the gaming experience. It might make the game experience slightly better; but it alone doesn’t make the best experience.
I’ve tried various team based shooters over time like Dirty Bomb, Overwatch, Paladins, and even now I try newer stuff, like Marvel Rivals. However everytime I feel get bored of them, I hop onto TF2 and no other team based shooter gives the the same satisfying gameplay loop compared to it.
Regardless of graphics; a well made skill based game can keep players for a long time inside it; i mean just look at aoe2, it’s the chess of strategy games and a ton of people still play it to this day.
The bubble of AAA gaming and reviews/benchmarks definitely has that kind of thing going on. But you can really just ignore that subset entirely and have so many good games to play from smaller studios and devs.
It’s not really a new thing, I remember when Crysis came out and it was all about the graphics and hardware to run it the fastest.
The best games these days are almost all indie games, stuff about AAA & ray tracing etc etc is more of a nerd hobby fueled by the industry rather than entertainment.
Also there are many retro games that used to be AA & they are just as good today as they were 20 years ago. If you want good gameplay there are so many amazing games to play a lifetime is not enough to even scratch the surface.
Well, game journalists need to sell gaming hardware and AAA games. Those guys have the ad money.
Just play what you like.
I feel it’s a bit like any hobby. You’d see casual film enjoyers and then those who refuse to watch unless it’s a bluray on their 4k Dolby Vision TV with 1000 nits OLED brightness. There are some who just enjoy listening to music on their airpod knockoffs by streaming on YouTube music and then there are those who buy $500 headphones with high quality gold plated aux wire and a custom DAC and use some obscure format to really enjoy music. There are some who enjoy team sports and then there are those who know personal routine of each player and the wetness of the grass or the year of the ball’s manufacturing and its impact on throw.
It’s a spectrum.
Stalker 2 had bugs on launch yet it easily sold 1 million copies. Black Myth Wukong uses frame gen to achieve 60 fps on PS5 and otherwise it locks to 45 fps, yet it has broken all records. Elden Ring is still a stuttery mess on PC and barely hits 60 fps on consoles, even the $700 one, yet it’s beloved.
These people aren’t the ones talking about resolutions and frame rates on X, but just playing the damn game in millions.
Just like millions use sub par TV settings and stream music or don’t have much clue about team sports but still have a great time.
Elden Ring is still a stuttery mess on PC and barely hits 60 fps on consoles, even the $700 one, yet it’s beloved.
I have an old ass PC and a PS5 with the game on both and they run smooth as shit unless you’re using raytracing, which literally doesn’t even change the visuals in the game; it just makes it slower.
Stalker 2 is a busted mess. The performance issues have been fixed mostly after 3 patches, but the game itself shits itself once you get to a certain story mission. Literally nothing works beyond that point. The A-Life system does not work, scripted events are all jacked up, IDK if anyone else is getting this but every now and then I have my secondary weapon replaced with a random other weapon that I didn’t even have in my inventory, sound effects don’t play properly, the hud completely disappears, and so many more things that make me glad I’m only playing through GamePass and didn’t actually buy the game. There’s a good game under the mess, somewhere. But they should have just bit the bullet and delayed it another month or two instead of releasing what they did for the holidays.
The reason they sold so many copies though, is because pre-ordering. People bought them before they ever saw the game in action. And games like Stalker 2 are the reason why you shouldn’t pre-order. Because the chances of getting burned by busted-ass shit like this is increasingly more common. Again, because people pre-order the fuck out of games.
