AJ wrote:

I wasn't aware Destiny brought anything new to the table. What did it do?

The raids alone were unlike anything I’ve ever played before.

PvE challenge with puzzle elements requiring a very high degree of teamwork and co-ordination to complete.

Shame I never got to see a raid. Got too bored with all the rubbish before it.

Yossarian wrote:

PvE challenge with puzzle elements requiring a very high degree of teamwork and co-ordination to complete.

Yossarian wrote:

Should mention, co-op PvE.

That does sound pretty decent. It also sounds like a natural evolution of stuff that was happening in UT over a decade ago which probably should have happened sooner, though.

It's just occurred to me that the move of focus from PCs to consoles probably has a lot to do with interesting developments disappearing for a time.

Probably a bit of both, tbf, most things are.

I'm bored to tears with shooters now, even ones with new ideas or interesting stories (Wolfenstein).
15 years of it being a dominant genre and I just don't care about shooting stuff in the face anymore.

I did play through MW remake which I liked but I would say it was the sections that had me doing less shooting gallery stuff that I found more enjoyable.

I don't think it is anything about the FPS mechanics over platformers or racers etc that have made them feel dull to me, just the sheer saturation over the last two or three generations.

Thankfully I think the industry is moving on a bit. Plenty of them still being made and there probably always will be, but there's also more variety alongside them, which I think 2017 represents quite well.

I recently finished Ultima VIII: Pagan, and despite being the worst-controlling game I think I've ever put up with, it was loaded with neat ideas and respect for its players. It seemed at the time that we'd move on to ‘more of the same but better’, but it hasn't worked out that way.

There are no maps or markers or helpers — you have to work everything out by reading books and talking to NPCs. I found that disappointingly refreshing. There are some incredibly opaque bits that reek of its rushed launch, but nothing that the odd glance at a walkthrough doesn't sort.

I enjoyed the freedom to kill story-related NPCs, whereafter they simply don't appear where they would have. And you can carry pretty much anything, including vases and pillows if you care to. There's a lot to relearn from what old-school devs were driving towards. Spector's one example of a designer who was forced to abandon certain approaches. Deadly Shadows came in for criticism over its commercial-led changes back in 2004.

You knew in the '90s that if you made something impressive you'd probably sell lots of copies. Whereas if you sell lots of copies now, it doesn't matter if it's impressive. And when it comes to sequels, that's preferable.

Yossarian wrote:

No, you need to reach a certain level first.

Edit: moot.

Why?

Andy wrote:

JonB wrote:

It's not completely arbitrary to think of game releases in years though, since they are organised around a yearly cycle, especially nowadays.

A yearly cycle is in relation to the times of the year that people buy games. It’s got nothing to do with any sort of unifying quality of games in a calendar year.

No, but that's not what I meant.