I noticed certain things not in games any more and i will just say 1 of them
Music/Sound Test to listen to all sounds and awesome music while your doing the cleaning.
Where the f'ing hell did that go i used to love that feature.
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I noticed certain things not in games any more and i will just say 1 of them
Music/Sound Test to listen to all sounds and awesome music while your doing the cleaning.
Where the f'ing hell did that go i used to love that feature.
Yeah, I loved sound test too. When I was a kid, I'd take my Talkboy tape recorder and hold it up the TV speakers and record my favorite game music.:)
I never quite understood the sound effect part of test, but the music part of the test? I wouldn't want them to bring it back, most modern game soundtracks bore me to tears.Quote:
Originally Posted by morcar
But I sure did love listening to the Streets of Rage music, good times.
Me three. It's funny how in some Genny games, the only available options are the Sound FX and Music.
P.S.> The one soundtrack I remember listening to the most (in fact, I listened to it as much as I played the actual game, perhaps more) is the Vectorman music.
lol you'd be the 4th Quickscifi.
You never see cheat devices like Gameshark or Game Genie anymore. This is most likely to prevent people from using them to cheat in online multiplayers.
I loved the sound effects as i used to sample them on my amiga and write little games using them
Sound tests were hella useless.
Music tests are fun, but nowadays you can just rip the CD to listen to the music if you want to. In PC games they're usually in the install folder.
And cheat devices? What for? We have the internets.
In conclusion, all these functions have (better) alternatives available nowadays.
Olls got it right. Games aren't hard enough to need game genies, and besides - now we have mods, which are better than Game Genies ever were. You can create your own perfect version of the game you like, or redesign it entirely. As far as music tests - they were kind of cool, but now you get full OSTs with everything so why bother?
I'd say it's because of the introduction of firmware updates; the GC AR used to work on the Wii until Nintendo blocked it in an update and the exact same thing happened with the PS3 when Sony released a new firmware update to stop the PS2 AR Max from working.Quote:
Originally Posted by cheaterdragon1
It's just not fesible for a company to produce a product like that, it would be useless in the space of a few months; though, for the homebrew scene, most firmware can't do diddy to stop them.
Haha. Well, apparently Kamahl "never quite understood the sound effect part of test", so perhaps that might make me 3 and a half. ;)
I second (I hope I'm second :?) the Gameshark and Gamegenie comment as well.
As for me:
I miss how relevant (or at least resourceful) gaming magazines (i.e.-Gamepro) used to be. I have a couple of 1990s Gamepros I can compare to a 2005 one I have. That 2005 Gamepro screams Game Informer wannabe (and I mean that in the most terribly offensive way possible). It's just sickening what's happened to the gaming magazine industry. Most of all, I miss the detailed panoramic mappings of each level of a particular game (mostly platformers), the Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and other fighter's detailed moves/combos and even fatalities. That used to be so awesome. Add to that the many hints and pre-programmed cheat codes they would publish. 'Just golden, I tell 'ya.
Blame the internet. I used to love reading game mags before their decline around y2k. Haven't touched one since.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
you still buy magazines lol ... damn .....Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
I'm not sure I want to. I thank the internet. It has been helping me achieve gaming grandeur since 1997. But I just miss the hardcopy, detailed elements and graphics of games in gaming magazines of old. Just reading, as I write, through an old gamepro on the subject of Earthworm Jim is like having another "definitive" aspect of such game for which to collect. There's just so much goodness involved... I'm now on another, looking at Weaponlord and how beautiful the designs look that were specifically hand-drawn for that issue of Gamepro. It makes that particular issue a must have if you were, say, a Weaponlord fan. That was just so awesome. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Olls
Sound tests were needed back when game sound hardware wasn't capable of streaming sound data itself and needed to be told what to do and how to sound to make sure that you didn't have bugs or misprogrammed SFX. Some games did realize that eventually we got good at sound driver design and just had jukeboxes... But now we don't have to worry about actually making the sound work ourselves; just use recordings =P
Konami's arcade games, sadly, had sound tests which would play each sound in sequence for a short period of time before moving on to the next. I guess that's proof enough that they were intended for testing the sound driver and programming :/
How would Game Genie work on a modern system anyway, with its multi-core CPUs and use of PC-like graphics hardware with shaders and loading data from CDs and the like? Actually, how did GameShark even work on disc-based consoles?
That does not explain why they're kept in the game :p.Quote:
Originally Posted by andlabs
EDIT: All the game genie and game shark do is alter stuff in memory, you can do that nowadays too, I did it by hand (not copy paste) in flash games lol. The problem is that nowadays memory positions aren't static, so it HAS to be done by hand, you can't get pre prepared codes.
The lack of beat em up games really sucks.
Agree, and add shmups to that. I guess these games are too repetitive and simple for today's crowd?Quote:
Originally Posted by segaddict
Luckily the homebrew scene offers many great beat em ups.
Last modern shoot'em'up i played was on the PS2 and it was Thunder Force 6 and it wasn't too bad
I love sound tests. There some games that do offer sound test, albeit you got to unlock it or otherwise reveal it (piece by piece). Sound tests tended to be Sega thing, you don't really see them in Nintendo or others' games...
I miss drawn/painted box art the most. Some games still do it, but it's pretty rare. Ever since the rise of the 32 bit era box art has been so lame, lame 3d rendered graphics that are supposed to look like the gameplay but don't really because they've been shopped to hell. I miss it when companies actually had to hire artists to draw/paint a cover for the game.
I miss the side scrolling Action/Adventures of the past.
Nah, shmups are too hardcore and difficult to master for today’s crowd. Still, PS2 had a very big library of excellent shmups. Gradius V is one of the best shmups of all time. Beat em ups on the other hand are a different story, in a way, you could say that they’re replaced by Hack n Slash games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olls
Yeah, but I meant simple as in not elaborate. People these days want achievements, unlockables, different characters, level editors, online play, 3D graphics etc. etc.
I guess it's just the fact that shmups don't work that well in 3D and neither do beat em ups. You could say that hack and slash games are somewhat of a spiritual successor to beat em ups, except a lot less simple.
Now what I'd like to see is a hack and slash game in the same vein as the diablo series, but situated in the present time like Streets of Rage. That would be something.
I would argue most 3D beat-em-ups (hack and slash, etc) are actually a lot simpler than some of the better beat-em-ups of the past. Games like the Streets of Rage series, Sonic Blast Man 2, Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and to a lesser extent Separation Anxiety have a hell of a lot more depth than Dynasty Warriors or even DMC. 3D beat-em-ups have a lot of combos, but very simple mechanics. Most are dial-a-combo. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Ninja Gaiden/Black. It was pretty good. It had its flaws, but it definitely was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, Ninja Gaiden 2 took several steps in the wrong direction. Bayonetta is pretty decent as well. Neither game has the depth of Streets of Rage 2, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olls
I too miss classic beat-em-ups. Scott Pilgrim VS the World is actually a damn good beat-em-up, but it is the only one I can think from this generation that can stand up to the games of the 16 and 32 bit eras.
I haven’t play Scott Pilgrim VS the World yet, but Castle Crashers was very good too.
XBLA is the best console of the HD gen.:p
Are there still cheat codes these days?
Brevity. It's scarcely optional anymore, everything seems designed to have 100 hours put into it, unlike, say, the Playstation FF games where most ardent gamers would put 100 hours into finding secrets, completing battle arena type scenarios, maxing out spells/eqp, but could all be completed in under 30 hours. Now it seems that even racing games are designed to take longer than that to finish.
I think this is why so many game companies are in financial trouble, people buy fewer titles now that each is so big.
How about cartridge formats in general? Most of the current generation game systems are disc format. Also downloaded games/content are becoming more popular. For me, collecting cartridges just has a certain charm or appeal to it.
I miss passwords.
Games with long passwords where 0 looked like O, 1 looked like I and so on were so awesome.
I hope when Skyrim comes out it will offer a 200 digit password to save your game.
Cave still puts out their shmup line on the 360 and XBLA/PSN have a lot of fun shooters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olls
Yeah, but on the other hand you had a bunch of covers that didn't represent the game. But I agree for the most part - custom 'painted' artwork for the box covers was sweet. It's cool when a game comes out and still has that style of cover.Quote:
Originally Posted by djshok
Mind = blown. DMC, NG, and Bayonetta are very challenging and require a lot of practice and dedication in order to master. Streets of Rage 2 is the pinnacle of 2D beat em ups but it's not even in the same tier of complexity (nor should it be).Quote:
Originally Posted by XeroShinobi
The game companies that are in trouble got that way by putting out bad games that people didn't enjoy. I'm not sure how you think the consumer is losing out by getting more game content for the money - that's a good thing 90% of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by StarMist
Cartridges are certainly much more durable for long-term collecting. Too bad they cost so much to produce.Quote:
Originally Posted by csgx1
I really wanted to say originality :rofl:
But I will go with simple gameplay and chip tunes
Shit, I know I could just google this, but: can you list some of these shmups? I only know of Geometry Wars.Quote:
Originally Posted by Genesis Knight
Who are Cave?
As for beat em ups, Castle Crashers (a lot of references towards Golden Axe) and Revenge of the Wounded Dragons (very Double Dragon-esque) are the best I've played and definitely have that oldschool feel to it.
Cave are the bullet-hell geniuses behind Don Pachi, Do Don Pachi, Guwange, Progear, ESP Ra De, Dangun Feveron, Espagaluda, Ibara, etc. Hardcore Gaming 101 has a some good articles on them: http://hardcoregaming101.net/company.htm#cave
Anyway, some of the old Treasure greats like Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun are on XBLA and PSN. There's also Raiden Jet Fighters, Raiden IV, Raiden Fighter Aces, Omega Five, Triggerheart Exelica, Mushihimesama Futari, Shoot 1UP, PixelJunk Shooter, Soldner X, R-Type Dimensions, MuchiMuchi Pork, Pink Sweets, Senko no Ronde, Shikigami no Shiro III, DeathSmiles, Shooting Love, OtomoediusG, Ketsui, Galaga Legions, Gyruss, DoDonPachi Resurrection, and so on for both retail and digital download. You just have to look around; these games don't really get marketed a ton. I know I forgot a lot of them.
Awesome. :ok:
One likes to beat games, or at least get a glimpse of the finish line; one factor of those bad games is their bloat. Isn't that all grinding is? Except that grinding was originally a very reasonable and desirable means of expanding a tiny game, such as Dragon Warrior, on a medium too small to give the game the true size it deserved: coding more story, more monsters' stats and esp their sprites, more towns/dungeons/world map, &c was spacially out of the question, so battles were multiplied. Now nothing of the sort for any genre is needed. Do you really enjoy building up car after car in every racing game; did it annoy you in the MD Outruns to simply begin with a fast car? And grinding isn't more content, it's the same content recycled. Most unlockables and kin bonus stuff is likewise recycled off the cutting room floor. 90% of the time they're getting recycled crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Genesis Knight
But my precise point was that shopping for new games is less appealing when each game takes weeks or months of singular attention to beat: there's at least the problem of lacking time, add to which when one doesn't beat them the very frustrating vision of buying another title for another forty hours of play to get nowhere. Lastly, if the gamer does like what he's got it now lasts him weeks or months, as opposed to the former hours or weekend.
That was all I meant.
Also, I miss the durability of cartridges. I know that optical storage is the reasonable way to go, but I'm always so worried about my disks getting scratched or finger printed. Nothing beats a nice solid cart that you can drop out the third story of your house and still have work for the next 20 years.
I agree. CD's scratch easier than some people realize. I remember back in the 90's when I got my first CD player everyone said, "They're better than records because they don't scratch so easily". What a pile of crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by djshok
That wasn't crap back then. CDs are made much more cheaply and poorly now.Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiespruce
With original CD's from the 80's it was sometimes possible to scuff and scratch the crap out of them and they would still play on a quality CD player without skipping.
Discs made since the turn of the century or even mid to late 90's will skip with even the slightest hairline mark.
I had read about how the substrate of aluminum that the data is written to was refined and made substantial thinner to conserve materials and increase manufacturers profits, it is my belief that the data pits are not as pronounced as they had been when CDs were first introduced. Whether this is engineered obsolescence or simply a by-product of more profitable manufacturing, we will probably never know. Not enough people recognize nor are aware of the difference.
All a matter of profit. Having to re-buy the same CD because the old one got scratched up means more profits.
The same reason why pretty much every other product has a limited life cycle.
Well, I stand corrected. They always cheap out with stuff in the long run. Same thing with 8-Tracks. Some older ones "Circa 1972" still work great, but later manufactured tapes were not very durable. I put a Neil Diamond 8-Track in my machine and when track 1 ended, everything went silent as normal, but it didn't change to track 2, like it's supposed to. I hauled the cartridge out and low and behold, the tape had snapped apart! But my older pressed 8-Tracks can be played over and over, they just got cheap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zz Badnusty
They make their stuff more durable at first to get more people to buy it.
Of course I do. Getting the feeling of progression is what is rewarding and thus fun to gamers. Building up cars is no different from leveling up your characters in an RPG and almost every genre incorporates this in some way or another.Quote:
Originally Posted by StarMist
If you think this isn't fun I'd suggest looking for another hobby, because this trend seems to be increasing.
And yes, Outrun would be more fun if you could build up cars and upgrade them. Even a simple system like the one in Road Rash would've given the game a much higher replayability.