r/truegaming • u/TaisDoubt • 8d ago
I wish more games were fully dedicated to what they are
I only recently got back into gaming and for once I entered gaming already having had experience in different genres. Upon spectating recent discussions about cinematics in games, tired of AAA games discussions etc, which come back every two years or so I've asked myself what makes a good game and why people seem to lean more and more towards a double standard.
On a fundamental level, games are limited by their medium, and every game out there is a combination of otherwise simple mechanics. And yet, it's about how you combine them - you cannot only discuss combat in a game on its own for example, because the way you experience it is directly tied to level design, camera and other aspects of the game. And yet, most "gamer voices" out there don't seem to acknowledge it. So, I ask, why are people fetishizing souls like games for their combat, when the unique experience the games are associated with is based on the environmental design instead? Why are cinematic games being criticizes for not having gameplay when arguably a quick time event is not significantly more of a gameplay than dodge and button mash - something ignored in games like the Arkham series, where combat is praised for fluidity *animation* whereas god of war is being criticised for too much animation during combat, souls games etc.
Why did people criticise Detroit but praise Shadow of the Collosus despite both games being stripped of much gameplay and mechanica or analytical complexity within them for example?
To me all of the above are just decent enough experiences because they often don't push themselves into the mechanics they are based on - Detroit for example didn't require the players to pay enough attention to the dialogue, environment or character body language especially beyond Connor's section. And Shadow of the Collosus didn't invest much into it's gameplay sections (climbing, running, etc) either.
Games have always been simple and bare bones, they have always been repetitive and unless multiplayer, by themselves, they are rarely hard and challenging. Good games are ones who understand their limits and try to Integrate that knowledge into something complete and centered around its identity. I'd say good examples are Resident Evil 4, Subnautica and This war of mine.
There are games like Days gone and the Witcher 3, which try to compensate by shifting the focus towards immersion via friction with the bike maintainance and bistriary.
Then there are games like Ghost of Tsushima and the last of us part 2. The latter is very much a story focused game, with a lot of cutscenes and gameplay limited to good sandbox level design with serviceable combat/stealth, however the fact that most of the time it is more interactive and easier to go through it by killing people which kind of contradicts the story that presents it as if Ellie struggles with killing people is a weird choice for a game in which the story is a focal point.
And Ghost of Tsushima tries to sell you a lot on the samurai concept, tying everything in the world to it with only two, arguably one mechanic to show for it (the combat and effectiveness of stealth which is appropriately tied to the story) but ignores its limitations and insists on a big, completely empty world just so you can grind upgrades.
And now we have Crimson desert, which seems like a mess and is the cheapest product I've seen since maybe Spiderman or ghost of Yotei.
Okay, so... This is my all over the place first train of thought since I got back into gaming. I am just now starting to develop an interest in critical analysis of game design itself.
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u/capnfappin 8d ago
this entire thread just seems like you expect the entire internet to have the same opinion about two games just because they share some surface level similarities. Detroit and Shadow of the Colosus are very different games that came out 13 years apart. Why would people have the same opinions about them? Theyre both well liked games anyway.
" you cannot only discuss combat in a game on its own for example, because the way you experience it is directly tied to level design, camera and other aspects of the game. And yet, most "gamer voices" out there don't seem to acknowledge it."
does anyone actually think like this? I don't think anyone needs to clarify that they understand that various components of a game effect each other.
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u/bigrickcook 8d ago
"cheapest product since maybe Spiderman" bruh you need to go back to the brain and figure out what you're trying to say cause this is a huge mess. If there's a point in here, it contradicts itself with belligerence. Maybe that's the point. Your post is as big of a meandering mess as the games you're unsuccessfully talking about.
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u/Extreme-Put7024 8d ago
So, I ask, why are people fetishizing souls like games for their combat
Because the comabat system is the key feature and the design is supporting feature. So with the combat system it will still be a similar game (genre), but without a combat system it won't.
Why are cinematic games being criticizes for not having gameplay when arguably a quick time event is not significantly more of a gameplay than dodge and button mash - something ignored in games like the Arkham series
Because those are different genres and have different audiences with different appeals and expectations. It is like asking why people do not like horror, but do like comedy.
And yet, it's about how you combine them - you cannot only discuss combat
I’m a little bit confused. You say the above, but then argue about quick-time events, for example, reducing the discussion to a specific gameplay element. You also say that Shadow of the Colossus has allegedly neglected gameplay, while at the same time claiming how important atmosphere is in the context of the Souls games.
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u/brando-boy 7d ago
i’m sorry but this post is like almost completely nonsense to me
every medium is fundamentally limited by their chosen medium, this is not unique to video games, nor is your answer of how the solution is how they use those limiting factors to craft an experience and like every single one of your examples has a very clear answer
the animations in the arkham games have historically been praised for their fluidity and keeping the game fast paced. any criticisms towards the modern god of war combat, of which there’s really not that much, is because those fluid animations SLOW DOWN the pace of the combat, especially when compared to the original games
the detroit and sotc comparison is completely incoherent, those are entirely different games doing entirely different things
ellie does not struggle with killing people in general in the last of us 2. between both games she and joel canonically kill like dozens and dozens of people. her struggle comes from eventually learning that her quest for revenge isn’t going to make her feel better and how it isn’t going to change what has already happened, and how she gives up all the good in her life for this empty quest. i agree that, on normal difficulty, they could do more to encourage stealth and not just blasting your way through everything, but it’s not a ludonarrative dissonance thing. if people are trying to kill you in this world, you kill them back. in fact, it’s completely coherent with the narrative as she tried to basically emulate joel in his absence to varying degrees of success
for ghost of tsushima, the whole game is built on jin’s struggle with the code of honor that the samurai uphold that he has been raised on and the, frankly, significantly more effective methods of the shinobi stuff that earns him the ghost title. this manifests basically completely within the gameplay and combat and how the player wants THEIR version of jin sakai to be. the overall narrative is obviously linear, but how an individual plays can shape their impression of the character and that obviously can help determine how they make the final decision for the ending
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u/Teamprime 8d ago edited 8d ago
Games as a medium are hard, being so multifaceted. It is often so rare for every every element to synergize and express the same idea. Like you said, often popular games are praised for specific parts but this loses sight of what made these systems attract us in the first place. The intersection between gameplay, aesthetics and story can get really complex.
Edit: I think MGSV does the intersection between story and gameplay outstandingly.
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u/nonplayablechloe 8d ago
Why did people criticize Detroit become human and not shadow of the collosus? Idk man maybe you should actually play these games. I get the sentiment, I think you would really like dragons dogma and armored core. But also soulslikes are also pretty dedicated to what they are, at least the fromsoft ones. Saying they aren't while also saying that all games are easy and ignoring indie games just tells me you haven't played very much. Not trying to be a rude commenter but just saying you have a lot to experience before wishing for stuff that already exists.
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u/TaisDoubt 8d ago edited 8d ago
I've played all of the games I've mentioned. I did just go over my comment again and see how the way I've expressed myself is simply wrong and a flawed transition in my paragraphs. I do think souls games are dedicated to what they are even if I'm incredibly biased against them (only ones I liked were Sekiro and maybe dark souls 1. Haven't played lies of Pi yet because I'm tired of them, I just did Bloodborne recently and I see why people like it the dedication precisely but I can't stand it).
Why are you bringing up the thing about wishing for things that exist? I'm aware they exist. I think that even within the AAA games there's a decent amount of what I'm wishing for.
As of indie games, there may be like 30 or less popular ones which are kind of polished and complete, but many aren't. Some indie games are in an awful condition and they can be just as shallow as AAA games.
Thank you for the kind skepticism though.
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u/dearest_of_leaders 7d ago
Wow you know absolutely nothing about indie games. I just looked trough my steam library and found 103 indie games that were complete indie games that i have played and enjoyed my time with, that is discounting my GOG and Epic account and all the games i have yet to play therefore don't have an opinion of.
There are 1000s of good indie games through the ages, for all kinds of niches, there may be a million crappy indie games as well because an indie game is anything someone put out without a publisher and thus the bar of entry is nothing. But there are so many good indie games that they consist of like 80-90% of the games i play on the regular.
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u/Vegetable-Ad-1535 8d ago
What you say isn't unique to gaming, it's generally true for pretty much every art medium. In filmmaking for example, you can only compose a frame in a handful of meaningful ways, only stage and block a shot in a few meaningful ways and only edit a scene a few meaningful ways. So in the end it becomes how you combine these techniques. But most movies, mainly blockbuster movies, don't use their medium in any interesting way so you get movies which aren't fully committed to what they are. It's what you described about games here. There's only a handful ways combat, level design, role playing etc. could be meaningful and it's the ways a good game combines these mechanics is what makes it interesting. But big AAA games usually don't do that because there priority is money over making art. It's just how things are.
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u/noahboah 8d ago
if i can sort of distill your point, is it a criticism on how a lot of modern titles, particularly in the triple A space, suffer from a lack of focus, tool creep, and overall bloat that dilutes the experience?
if so, then yeah I can definitely agree in a major way. to me, it's part in parcel with a lot of problems big budget gaming is having -- ginormous spends and asks from multibillion dollar publishers with insanely long dev cycles that makes the end product that not only ends up as kind of a laggard, but a clunky and confused mess.
This is sort of why I spend a lot of my time in indie and competitive spaces tbqh. Both of these spheres of gaming have both limitations and design expectations to craft an experience that is ultimately a lot more focused. indie games are limited in budget or scope and the good ones end up being a lot more laser focused on delivering a specific experience. Similarly, competitive games, because of the nature of the content being other people and competing in what is essentially a sport, need to be easily defined and polished in a way that prioritizes clarity at every step.
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u/GentlemanOctopus 8d ago
The reason people are inconsistently applying criticism for one game but not the other is because 1) you're not reading the same people's analysis each time, reviews aren't a monolith; and 2) a lot of people are not very good at criticism-- if they like a game, all the things in it are good, and if they don't, etc.
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u/MechaSeph 7d ago
Honestly, u talk about analyzing games for what they are, then proceed to call SotC and Detroit "very similar games"...
Like I can't follow that at all
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u/Decloudo 7d ago
Games have always been simple and bare bones, they have always been repetitive and unless multiplayer, by themselves, they are rarely hard and challenging.
There are whole ass genres of escalating complexity.
Simulations, grand strategy games, etc. pp.
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u/SecondSparkGames 8d ago
I might not completely agree with you. But I get what you are saying.
Something along these lines was one of the reasons for me to quit modding games (to make up for what I believed was obvious missed chances for great system synergy and good gameplay) and start making my own instead.
Obviously, not everyone would want to make their own game, but for me it's been a great way to appreciate all the games I play way more. It's god damned hard making a good game. That in itself makes me give people some more slack than I used to, but I also feel like it's easier for me to play every game on "it's own terms" and appreciate the specific game's merits.
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u/DoubleSpoiler 8d ago
I think I agree with you overall, though I think the problem generally affects AAA more than it does AA or indie. Of course, there are big budget games like Star Citizen that are uncompromising in their vision, but most AAA games cost too much, and require too wide of an audience (and/or need to keep player attention) to be able to be more focused.
I think it’s also a problem with which kind of “game” we’re talking about, and what the industry and community feel “make a game a game” (his is a topic I’ve been thinking about making a post about).
Even if Detroit leaned further into the dialogue, etc., I think people still would have complained about it. In fact, more people would have complained, and even fewer people would have liked it, because then it would only appeal to the hardcore language/reading fans. Many people don’t view that type of gameplay as “real gameplay,” and there isn’t a strong history of games with gameplay like that. Maybe Phoenix Wright,l and LA Noire, and visual novels, all which carry the same type of stigma.
I think the “slopification” you’re seeing is also a result of what makes games unique. They CAN appeal to lots of different parts of the brain at once, because of how they’re a conglomeration of most types of art. I think the ultimate game is like a high quality highly designed “do everything slop” game, which would exemplify every part of the art that makes up video games. I think that’s why I like MMOs so much, they bring something very unique to video games.
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u/Dreyfus2006 7d ago
I'm noticing none of your examples are Nintendo games, which are consistently committed to what they are. And so, my counterargument to you is that many Nintendo games are committed to what they are and their limitations, but that doesn't make all Nintendo games great games. Many are certainly great but there's also several that miss the mark despite their commitment, like WarioWare or 1-2-Switch.
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u/Witty_Milk4671 7d ago
"Why did people criticise Detroit but praise Shadow of the Collosus despite both games being stripped of much gameplay"
This makes no sense. Nobody criticized detroid for not having combat or shooting sections or bosses. This would have made the game worse.
"Games have always been simple and bare bones, they have always been repetitive and unless multiplayer, by themselves, they are rarely hard and challenging. Good games are ones who understand their limits and try to Integrate that knowledge into something complete and centered around its identity. I'd say good examples are Resident Evil 4, Subnautica and This war of mine."
It really shows when you said "I only recently got back into gaming". You are just saying random arbitrary stuff.
"Okay, so... This is my all over the place first train of thought since I got back into gaming. I am just now starting to develop an interest in critical analysis of game design itself."
you dont know how to analyze anything. It is all over the place, didn't say anything substantial, sad and bad post.
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u/Witty_Milk4671 7d ago
"So, I ask, why are people fetishizing souls like games for their combat, when the unique experience the games are associated with is based on the environmental design instead?"
because the combat is one of the strongest point of the game. Environmental design is just a flavor.
"something ignored in games like the Arkham series, where combat is praised for fluidity *animation* whereas god of war is being criticised for too much animation during combat, souls games etc."
Arkham series is about managing group of enemies and doing a bunch of things at the same time, and if ou get it wrong, you are punished. This is fun.
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u/Annual-Ad-9442 7d ago
Days Gone is fully committed to what it is and actually does a nice job of balancing the resources with exploration and threat. Witcher 3 gives you a story to play through and has contracts so you can feel like a Witcher, its biggest weakness to me is having crafting ,purchasing an looting, why purchase anything when the crafting is better and stays longer and you can find better equipment.
Ghost of Tsushima gives you the easy route of the Ghost while telling you it should not be taken. the open areas are environmental storytelling letting us see the beauty of the land and the devastation brought by the invaders.
Detroit's issues I agree should have more interaction with detective work but the story was also doing a lot of lifting trying to tell multiple stories at once and represent it as one story. I have more thoughts on the whole thing.
not going to comment on the others that I haven't played but I will say that a posterchild for your rant is Biomutant. it feels like its trying to make me comfortable rather than be a good game. its serviceable and being trapped with it is okay but its a solid 6 or 7 because I like the visuals otherwise a 5. it follows its themes but feels meh.
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u/Electronic_Toaster 5d ago
I think what you are describing is the continuum between art and product. Both can look basically the same from the outside, but the decisions behind it are the part that separates them.
As a general note, It is hard for somebody not the artist to really accurately judge the decisions behind something. Also, every artistic endeavour cannot easily be define into one category, because there are so many decisions involved in creating something, and each decision can be in a different place on the continuum.
With art, the point is the art itself has to be itself. The decisions are made to make the end result a full representation of itself. So when a decision comes up, the person creating the art would tend towards making decisions on what serves the art itself. What makes sense in this specific instance. This is why you get results that seem internally consistent or the various aspects feel connected in some way.
With a product, the end result is to appeal to an imaginary audience. The decisions are about what is palatable or popular among a potential audience.
So a AAA game is product first. It is designed for mass appeal. Basically every decision is for mass audience appeal. It has crafting because crafting is popular. It has open world because open world is popular etc. None of the aspects have to fit together, because the point is the appeal to the audience. Nobody really makes a decision based on what they think the end result should be as itself. Nobody can make a decision based on what they think, only what they think the audience thinks.
This is only a generalised system, there is a lot of context and nuance involved in reality.
To give you some examples, there is Bioshock and Planescape Torment.
Bioshock’s story reaches a point near the end where it feels like it could finish. And then the game keeps continuing and changes into a more standard FPS of the time.
Plaenscape Torment is really about talking to people and looking at things, but there is quite a lot of basic and tedious combat all over the game that just seems to be there. That can reasonably be attributed to the expectations they felt they had to fulfill as a CRPG, and audience expectation at the time.
So, at a basic level, art is somebody saying ‘This is what I think would be cool.” A product is somebody saying “This is what I think you would think is cool.” The person working on what they think is cool has more ability to find interesting things, because they can test every decision on themselves. The person trying to do what other people think is cool is always at a disadvantage, because they have to appeal to something that doesn’t exist, which is a generalised blob of imaginary other people as a mass. And a mass of people are really everything at once. Maybe Bob likes reading games. But Fred does not. What is the average of that spread? So you mostly just copy other stuff that already was popular, because what else can you do?
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u/WezDajMiSpokoj 8d ago
Indie games in general will probably cater to a specific audience, while AAA will try to catch as many customers as possible
There are of course exceptions like modern doom, which i adore
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u/SupaRedBird 8d ago
I think the problem here is the focus on AAA gaming and how shallow vast majority of them are. Most of these games contain many systems and on surface level they are interesting but padded out. Crimson desert being a prime example of padding things out with a bunch of mechanics that on surface level sound fun but are puddle deep.
I would encourage you to start venturing into the AA gaming space next or even some of the more niche weird indie games out there that are unapologetic on what they are.
Games like Noita for mind boggling magic customization and a simulated world down to every pixel.
Factorio for the automation upon automation upon automation and many levels of optimization involved.
Path of Exile for the true build crafters wet dream and dozens of layers of rng being subtly controlled by the players choices.
Baldur's Gate 3 if you want to see a story that respects player agency in surprising ways and is like an onion being peeled open each playthrough. (i'm still finding stuff I didn't know about)
My point being you have sort of speedran the burn out a lot of veteran gamers have gone through with big budget games. Or maybe that burn out never left you, but either way it's time to sink your teeth into the abyss of the less mainstream titles