Style over Substance?

[Chaz Sexington]

I feel there's more than a few rose-tinted glasses being passed around, even though I agree with the general sentiment. Remember, there were plenty bad games back in the day that didn't deserve being bought, never mind replayed.

My main gripe is the consumer. The absolutely mindless sheeple that buy the re-skinned CoDs. The mindless masses that prefer shiny graphics to gameplay. The retarded console kiddies that don't understand why some games are inherently better on other platforms. All of this leads to sub-standard games, with little innovation (CoD), with bad console-ports (yes, you Skyrim) with the emphasis on making it look pretty rather than play well. Their market has increased with the availability of computers and consoles, and the sheeple market massively outcompetes the serious gamer demographic on voting power. I don't blame the companies - they just cater to what we want. If you don't like their games, well, don't buy them. I personally refuse to buy anything Bethesda or Total War anymore - their games have lost too much quality over the years. ****, Rome was just about the last playable one imho.

Don't get me wrong; quite a few good games have come out the last few years - Civilization franchise, Witcher franchise, Dawn of War, Mass Effect franchise, Dragon Age 1 etc, but one the whole I do feel they're getting worse, relative to their age. Furthermore, the growing indie and small companies of the video games industry are doing well - Football Manager doesn't have anywhere near the developmental or marketing budget of CoD, but does exceptionally well against it. Mount and Blade (******* dumb name for a game though) is absolutely brilliant etc.

Until they bring out a new game worth playing, my money stays in the bank and I'll keep playing X-Com UFO Defence, a game from 1994.

 

[GodCubed]

You know what I just finished playing?

Grim Fandango. And all these years later, it blew me away yet again. Not one game - not one - holds a candle to it as an adventure game. The humour, the graphics (!) but most of all the storyline is just ridiculously good. If you never had a chance to play it when you were young, you haven't felt happiness. Go play it now.

 

[Jak]

What is your gripe with total war Chaz? Although I think Rome still is the best of the series I think that's because that is my favourite time period in history and also obviously it was a great game. Yes Medieval II needed a few patches to get everything right, it is a very good game (Kingdoms is arguably my favourite expansion pack in the series). Empire I will admit wasn't great. It has a lot of technical issues but is still a decent game. Napolean fixed those issues but is a much smaller game. Still has very good gameplay and I enjoyed the multiplayer campaign mode a lot. Shogun II is another good game. There are a few things I don't like but I still don't regret buying it. I disagree with you saying the series has gone downhill over the years, especially enough to make me not want to buy the next instalment. Personally I can't wait for the next one, hopefully it will be a sequal to Rome and it will be great (difficult but they can do it).

 

[Lee]

MGS3 is dull and repetitive, worst in the series, IMO. MGS4 is great, but it's about 20 hours of video and 5 hours of gameplay, I've completed it on Big Boss Hard in less than 6 hours. I can still play MGS1 now on PS3 and love every second, even with the blurry faces. I don't know if you've MGS4 without watching all the cut-scenes, but it's very short. That, coupled with the fact that they've continued to recycle the bosses over and over, boring.

Interesting you choose to respond the day someone wrote an article on Gamasutra saying that MGS3 was the series high point. Saves me having to write a response myself.

 

[GodCubed]

I love the Total War series as much as anyone, and owned every one up until Shogun II. However, it was plain to see the decline from Rome, and the ridiculous insistence in sending out a game for sale KNOWING that it had several game-breaking bugs just turned me off completely. For that reason (and because my lappytoppy is getting on a bit and can't run it) I didn't fork out for Shogun.

 

[Jak]

I love the Total War series as much as anyone, and owned every one up until Shogun II. However, it was plain to see the decline from Rome, and the ridiculous insistence in sending out a game for sale KNOWING that it had several game-breaking bugs just turned me off completely. For that reason (and because my lappytoppy is getting on a bit and can't run it) I didn't fork out for Shogun.

I knew there were game breaking bugs (people posting about them online) but I never experienced them myself. Maybe that's why I don't see as much as a decline as you make out.

 

[GodCubed]

I knew there were game breaking bugs (people posting about them online) but I never experienced them myself. Maybe that's why I don't see as much as a decline as you make out.

Take the two-handed unit bug from Medieval II (which made two handed units, even supers like the Varangian Guard, *****) and the ridiculous accuracy of the unpatched mortars from Empire as just two examples.

 

[Jak]

Take the two-handed unit bug from Medieval II (which made two handed units, even supers like the Varangian Guard, *****) and the ridiculous accuracy of the unpatched mortars from Empire as just two examples.

the biggest problem with empire was that it ran extremely poorly. It required a lot of processing power but for some reason was made to use only 1 core, not 2 like most games. Suppose don't buy the games immediately after launch, wait a couple months for major bugs to be fixed. I never saw a bug that made me think "why the **** have I bought this, I'm going to stop playing" (although I didn't buy medieval II straight after release I will admit).

 

[Chaz Sexington]

What is your gripe with total war Chaz? Although I think Rome still is the best of the series I think that's because that is my favourite time period in history and also obviously it was a great game. Yes Medieval II needed a few patches to get everything right, it is a very good game (Kingdoms is arguably my favourite expansion pack in the series). Empire I will admit wasn't great. It has a lot of technical issues but is still a decent game. Napolean fixed those issues but is a much smaller game. Still has very good gameplay and I enjoyed the multiplayer campaign mode a lot. Shogun II is another good game. There are a few things I don't like but I still don't regret buying it. I disagree with you saying the series has gone downhill over the years, especially enough to make me not want to buy the next instalment. Personally I can't wait for the next one, hopefully it will be a sequal to Rome and it will be great (difficult but they can do it).

First of all, when it comes to turn-based strategy games, Civ 2 set the standard imho (though I prefer Civ3). Based on that, I've got two main gripes with TW. I've played all TW games bar Shogun 2, and my favourite was definitely Shogun. The diplomacy in TW is ******* bad. There's no two ways about it. When I first started playing Rome I thought the diplomacy was bad due to a bug, not terrible design. The games are buggy as **** on release, and if they decide to patch them, they are very slow in the coming. I remember watching my brother stay up one night trying to play a single battle in Empire - it just crashed that much.

 

[Jak]

First of all, when it comes to turn-based strategy games, Civ 2 set the standard imho (though I prefer Civ3). Based on that, I've got two main gripes with TW. I've played all TW games bar Shogun 2, and my favourite was definitely Shogun. The diplomacy in TW is ******* bad. There's no two ways about it. When I first started playing Rome I thought the diplomacy was bad due to a bug, not terrible design. The games are buggy as **** on release, and if they decide to patch them, they are very slow in the coming. I remember watching my brother stay up one night trying to play a single battle in Empire - it just crashed that much.

Ye I agree that diplomacy is something they still need to work on. Although it has slightly improved over each version, it is still a weakness of the game. Personally I find it much easier to put many hours into playing a TW game than civilization but that's just me. Empire was definitely the worst (bug wise) and probably put a lot of people off. The Napolean engine is what Empire should have been really.

 

[Chaz Sexington]

Take the two-handed unit bug from Medieval II (which made two handed units, even supers like the Varangian Guard, *****) and the ridiculous accuracy of the unpatched mortars from Empire as just two examples.

I loved the hilariously overpowered Byzantine horse archers.

Ye I agree that diplomacy is something they still need to work on. Although it has slightly improved over each version, it is still a weakness of the game. Personally I find it much easier to put many hours into playing a TW game than civilization but that's just me. Empire was definitely the worst (bug wise) and probably put a lot of people off. The Napolean engine is what Empire should have been really.

That they need to work on diplomacy is the understatement of the year.

Furthermore, I don't like the fact that they are completely unbeholden to their economy. E.g. they have a bizarre way of getting gold, soldiers and improvements. In Rome, you could only beat Egypt with the Seleucids by having them train so many soldiers there weren't people left in their cities. That is a major design flaw.

Btw, try Mount and Blade. It's similar to TW in some ways.

 

[GodCubed]

I loved the hilariously overpowered Byzantine horse archers.

And the hilariously underpowered pikemen in Med II, which would drop their spears as soon as one of them died from hand-to-hand combat and pull out their swords. Made conquering Scotland easy as ****.

 

[Ride The Walrus]

 

[Chaz Sexington]

And the hilariously underpowered pikemen in Med II, which would drop their spears as soon as one of them died from hand-to-hand combat and pull out their swords. Made conquering Scotland easy as ****.

Conquering England was hilariously fun with Scotland. I exiled England to France! King Angus the Mad and Crown Prince Malcolm the Insane were awesome.