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[disabledHeliocentric]

About a year or so ago there were a lot of platformers and critics dissed them left and right.
There was a lot of talk about how these platformers were outdated(bad characters, collect-a-thons, mario 64 clones, bad camera, self parody etc.). This gave critics something to write about at least. Some games evolved into new genres, like Ratchet and Clank and Jak 2. Some successfully held their ground, like Mario Sunshine. Most of the others fell by the wayside. A lot of action adventure titles veered from platforming too. This was unfortunately the case with Castlevania: Lament. Thankfully others didn't, notably Metroid Prime, Ninja Gaiden, Prince of Persia.
So, a few years later and a lot of platformers either aren't coming around for a sequel, or they have evolved.

Now, I wonder, what other genre will critics harp upon so they can fill pages and meet deadlines, or to vent notable frustrations? What genre is so stale that people will tire of it and what are the reasons for this?

 

[belgurdo]

RPGs/FPSes

 

[disabledHeliocentric]

Well, I think FPS have been stale, since Halo, until this year. Now there's actually a lot of really exciting and interesting FPS coming out. I do think, though, that these World War 2 themed FPS are getting a bit much.

As for Turn based J-RPG's I think the staleness is very much present and apparent in most every facet of most releases in this genre.

 

[djtiesto]

They've already turned on RPGs...

I really hope FPSes and GTA "Free roaming gameplay" type games

 

[thom]

Any game that has enemies standing around explosive barrels just waiting to be

shot.

 

[Raise Havok]

GTA-type games.

 

[Mashing]

I"m going to be quite upset if free form games without a strong story element start to dominate. I like freeform games as much as the next guy, but I also want good structure (and some linearity) in my games. This is usually accomplished with a good story.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

well seeing how gta style games are so open ended and can essentially take anything they want from ANY genre and intergrate it into the game I see those as the easiest games to evolve.



Tommy Killed 15 Grandmas "level up"

Tommy Walks Into Stadium "Home Run Derby"

Tommy Holds up a Bank "Virtua Cop"


etc etc

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

GTA style(you'll always see comparisons to GTA, no matter how different the game might be), FPS, and Action Adventures.

 

[belgurdo]

Yeah, I don't think too many people are going to start compaining about "sandbox" games any time soon, unless of course, devs decide to stay their current course and just make "GTA killers" for the next 7 years

 

[Arcticfox]

It is definitely going to be FPS's eventually. One day reviewers will stop giving glowing reviews for the latest graphics engines and actually start playing the games. They will eventually realize they have been playing the same game over and over for the last 10 years (with a few exceptions). It's the same as what happened to RTS games a few years back. RTS games just weren't lucky enough to have fancy graphics to distract the masses.

I think RPG's have been going through this process for a while now, though I don't like the way they are headed. Designers don't want to get a bad review for having a classic turn-based battle system so they are changing to realtime. I wish someone would stick to turn-based and add some strategy instead.

 

[skip]

giant rolling ball of garbage simulators.

 

[fennec fox]

I am a critic and I am getting a little sick of 'missions' in general.

 

[AniHawk]

GTA clones and FPSers are what I foresee.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Stealth, GTA clones, and FPS. Stealth mainly because too many companies just throw it into their games because it's a popular genre despite not having any clue as to how the mechanics of the genre work.

 

[MC Safety]

Stealth, GTA clones, and FPS. Stealth mainly because too many companies just throw it into their games because it's a popular genre despite not having any clue as to how the mechanics of the genre work.

Stealth is the new crate smashing.

Or is it the new shooting?

Hm.

 

[Xellos]

Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment Online

 

[Kai Dracon]

I'm surprised nobody has said MMORPGs. Yeah, yeah, you could say MMOs are already "bagged on" thanks to the constant Evercrack jokes. But those are just jokes, not very serious with most critics I've seen. The problem is, the MMO genre seems to be heating up in competiton - now it seems like everybody is throwing their hat into the MMORPG ring.

And the problem here is, in their current form MMORPGs still rely on timesink designs and other staples of the genre that I suspect will cause a problem with many games crowding the genre. Already, we have people impossibly torn between being able to -afford- both time and fees and frustrated with trying to decide between Everquest, FFXI, City of Heroes, and Star Wars: Galaxies. When another half-dozen MMORPGs are out... I can see critics starting to come down hard on the genre's tactic of sucking up as much time as possible to conveniently maintain a desire to keep paying signifigant monthly fees past the basic price of the game.

I think it'll be a little while before critics start to come down on GTA or its clones, particularly in the US, where people seem to worship GTA like they worship Madden. IMHO, it took a long, long time for critics to start to pick on FPS (to whatever degree they have so far, at least) because of the literal worship the genre recieved starting in the glory days of Quake/Quake II and the dawn of widespread netplay.

 

[Kefkaff]

GTA-Esque Games
MMORPGS
FPS'

 

[Tellaerin]

Well, I think FPS have been stale, since Halo, until this year. Now there's actually a lot of really exciting and interesting FPS coming out. I do think, though, that these World War 2 themed FPS are getting a bit much.

As for Turn based J-RPG's I think the staleness is very much present and apparent in most every facet of most releases in this genre.

I don't see how you can say that FPS's are inherently any more 'exciting and interesting' than JRPG's nowadays. Greater draw distances, prettier graphics, and some long-overdue AI improvements ('Now instead of being dumb cannon fodder, enemies will... *gasp!*... actually use rudimentary tactics against the player, and even run away if hurt!') hardly represent revolutionary advances, objectively speaking. Don't confuse your personal preferences ('I'm bored with JRPG's but not with FPS's') with qualitative differences ('JRPG's have grown stagnant and boring, while FPS's nowadays are bursting with innovation, making them undeniably fascinating to everyone'). Of course, despite there only being incremental advances in both genres of late, I'm still not tired of either one.

And if there's one genre I'd like to see critics turn on, it's 'stealth action'. Pushing the analog stick forward a fraction of an inch to creep slowly down a corridor when a guard's head is turned in the opposite direction is not my definition of 'action', stealth or otherwise.

 

[disabledHeliocentric]

I don't see how you can say that FPS's are inherently any more 'exciting and interesting' than JRPG's nowadays.

I don't see how you can say that I can't say this. Especially considering how I wasn't saying this.

Greater draw distances, prettier graphics, and some long-overdue AI improvements ('Now instead of being dumb cannon fodder, enemies will... *gasp!*... actually use rudimentary tactics against the player, and even run away if hurt!') hardly represent revolutionary advances, objectively speaking. Don't confuse your personal preferences ('I'm bored with JRPG's but not with FPS's') with qualitative differences ('JRPG's have grown stagnant and boring, while FPS's nowadays are bursting with innovation, making them undeniably fascinating to everyone'). Of course, despite there only being incremental advances in both genres of late, I'm still not tired of either one.

Objectively speaking? How can you speak objectively? You're stating your opinion when you say what improvements are "revolutionary". Vastly improved graphics, Physics, AI, and enemies using rudimentary tactics are huge improvements; I associate the term revolutionary more with violent transer of property and power, or maybe things like the printing press,universal Turing machine, and heck maybe even Mario 64.
The context I laid out, platformers that survived critical scrutiny, did not use one example of a game I'd consier "revolutionary".

Also, in seeking to contrast "qualitative differances" with "personal opinions" you merely stated two potential personal opinions using different grammer and perspective. Establishing qualitative differance would need additional information braking things down to its components and examining quality in more detail to back up assertions.
And lets not even get into treating informal GAF speech as if it was somehow formal and academic.

And if there's one genre I'd like to see critics turn on, it's 'stealth action'. Pushing the analog stick forward a fraction of an inch to creep slowly down a corridor when a guard's head is turned in the opposite direction is not my definition of 'action', stealth or otherwise.

That's funny. I find Splinter Cell kind of lacking in this way, but games like Riddick(also an FPS) and Metal Gear Solid? Nope

 

[Tellaerin]

I don't see how you can say that I can't say this. Especially considering how I wasn't saying this.

You deride JRPG's for their supposed staleness, yet classify FPS's--which have enjoyed similarly modest, incremental enhancements in AI and visuals over the years--as 'exciting and interesting'. If you weren't trying to say, 'One genre is interesting while the other isn't,' then you've done a piss-poor job of expressing yourself.

Objectively speaking? How can you speak objectively? You're stating your opinion when you say what improvements are "revolutionary".

Perhaps I'm guilty of being a piss-poor communicator myself, then. The point I was attempting to make was that the JRPG genre has undergone the same sort of gradual technical evolution that FPS's have, in many of the same areas, yet that doesn't save them from being labelled as 'stale' in your eyes. Yet slap these same improvements onto FPS's, and suddenly they're fresh and exciting. And yes, I would attribute your inability to see this to a lack of objectivity.

Vastly improved graphics, Physics, AI, and enemies using rudimentary tactics are huge improvements; I associate the term revolutionary more with violent transer of property and power, or maybe things like the printing press,universal Turing machine, and heck maybe even Mario 64.
The context I laid out, platformers that survived critical scrutiny, did not use one example of a game I'd consier "revolutionary".

Again, the point I was trying to make here was that neither genre has seen anything that could be construed as a revolutionary advance of late. However, gradually increasing visual quality and improving AI from 'virtually nonexistent' to 'rudimentary' is apparently enough to keep FPS's fresh and vital as far as you're concerned, while applying the same technical refinements to JRPG's (in addition to the numerous minor, and rare major, gameplay developments that have occurred in both genres) isn't enough to keep them from being stale. To me, this sounds more like 'genre x is tired and stale because I'm tired of it, while genre y is still exciting because I'm excited by it,' with no real effort made on your part to examine both genres with a critical eye and determine the ways in which they've advanced (or failed to).

Also, in seeking to contrast "qualitative differances" with "personal opinions" you merely stated two potential personal opinions using different grammer and perspective. Establishing qualitative differance would need additional information braking things down to its components and examining quality in more detail to back up assertions.
And lets not even get into treating informal GAF speech as if it was somehow formal and academic.

Hey, if this reply isn't enough to clarify my position, I'd be glad to expound at length on the points I've raised and provide supporting arguments to your heart's content. That's really up to you.

That's funny. I find Splinter Cell kind of lacking in this way, but games like Riddick(also an FPS) and Metal Gear Solid? Nope

*shrug* We're all entitled to our opinions, and I was just engaging in a bit of wishful thinking with that remark. I make no bones about the fact that my dislike of the 'stealth-action' genre is a personal one, rather than an implied failing of the genre itself. I know there are some people out there who love games like Splinter Cell, but I'm just not one of them. Sneaking and hiding just aren't game mechanics I enjoy--I don't like moving slowly, waiting motionless for enemies to pass, or avoiding confrontations in a game. If I want to play a game where the goal is to collect things and avoid enemies, I'll play Pac-Man--at least that's fast-paced enough that I'm not in danger of falling asleep while playing.

 

[TheGreenGiant]

GTA-type games.

bing bing. We have a winner.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

well the fact your calling the genre "GTA type games" leads me to believe that GTA itself will never be guilty of this.


I mean it seems to add more to the gameplay, and alot to the imerssion with each installment, I mean everytime a new one is announced haters come out saying itll be the same and then its not its better and etc etc.

Now we can do without shit like the getaway/driv3r/true crime that *tries* to be gta and fails



imo the second rate metoo games pull down the genres (any genre) then the front running games that "made" the genre to begin with.

 

[Gattsu25]

every genre

 

[gunstarhero]

FPS.

But not until the next gen consoles hit IMO. You can already see Xbox is getting flooded with them (how many freakin' war FPS games do we need??).

By the time PS3, Xbox2 and Cube2 (or whatever they are going to be called) come out, FPS games will be as familar as platformers in the 16bit days.

GTA style, open end games = just getting started. We'll see a lot, but not as much as FPS games imo.

 

[Gattsu25]

heh...yeah...it does need to be said: War based FPS games suck...devs, stop making them!

 

[Deku Tree]

I'm going with Stealth.

 

[Prine]

J-RPGs

So boring these days.

 

[Gattsu25]

If anything, I think J-RPG releases are dying down in America compared to the PSX days


War-based FPS games though >_<

 

[disabledHeliocentric]

You deride JRPG's for their supposed staleness, yet classify FPS's--which have enjoyed similarly modest, incremental enhancements in AI and visuals over the years--as 'exciting and interesting'. If you weren't trying to say, 'One genre is interesting while the other isn't,' then you've done a piss-poor job of expressing yourself.

I'm not classifying anything. I'm making an informal inquiry. What genre will the critics turn upon next? Which genre do you find stale, and why?. I think I've expressed myslef clearly here.

I never compared JRPG's to FPS. I compared each to its own past. And in doing so I find a lot of upcoming FPS exciting compared to what's come out in recent years, and very few JRPG's exciting compared with the JRPG's I have played in the past.

This is not due to technical reasons alone. In fact the reasons I like a game might be difficult to quantify for qualitative judgement. It's almost an intuitive thing, what effect a certain image or a certain game system has; the controls, the design, the music, the art, ballance all together. This exists through technology and technique, but I'd rather not reduce it to tech specs, as a gamer.

Perhaps I'm guilty of being a piss-poor communicator myself, then. The point I was attempting to make was that the JRPG genre has undergone the same sort of gradual technical evolution that FPS's have, in many of the same areas, yet that doesn't save them from being labelled as 'stale' in your eyes. Yet slap these same improvements onto FPS's, and suddenly they're fresh and exciting. And yes, I would attribute your inability to see this to a lack of objectivity.

I have not once tried to compare the JRPG genre to the FPS genre. Rather I compare each genre to itself. I think it is a mistake to compare them the way you have. And while certain 3d graphic technologies are common to both they manifest in wildly different gameplay, game structure, level design, aesthetic and ultimately the effect games form each genre has on the player is a tad different. So I'd conclude each genre has evolved differently and each can be stale but for different reasons. I think is an understatent.

Again, the point I was trying to make here was that neither genre has seen anything that could be construed as a revolutionary advance of late. However, gradually increasing visual quality and improving AI from 'virtually nonexistent' to 'rudimentary' is apparently enough to keep FPS's fresh and vital as far as you're concerned, while applying the same technical refinements to JRPG's (in addition to the numerous minor, and rare major, gameplay developments that have occurred in both genres) isn't enough to keep them from being stale. To me, this sounds more like 'genre x is tired and stale because I'm tired of it, while genre y is still exciting because I'm excited by it,' with no real effort made on your part to examine both genres with a critical eye and determine the ways in which they've advanced (or failed to).

Hrm. I think you're just trying to throw out a lot of annoying points so you can save face.
If I'm tired of a genre it can mean I think it's stale, or it can mean I've just played it a bit much of late.
Ultimately, breaking a game down into component parts is a valuable way to learn about it, but you won't necessarily get to why it sends shivers down your spine, and what you discover will in no way be objective.

Usually one starts with the intuitive feeling they get from a game and rationalizes that through inquiry where they begin with a conclusion. i.e., you like a game and want to find reasons to support this, or the other way around.
I've never NOT liked a game and then picked it apart and then discovered "Oh wait...this SHOULD be good even though it's not, so it must be good!". So, I think trying to be objective in the way you're trying to describe is moot.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

They've also already turned on Survival games in case you haven't noticed.

 

[radioheadrule83]

FPS makers are begging to be ripped several new ones. I hope they get their wish.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

Dynasty Warriors. One can hope.

GTA-type games is just seriously wishful thinking from some. Open-ended sandboxes are just getting started, and I think what'll carry them further is their adaptability. Sure you have the me-toos like True Crime etc. and the wholesale lifters of the gameplay like JakII, but there are games that are emerging that are showing a more sensitive adaptation of the style like SSX3.

MMORPGs, don't know if it'll be a critical backlash but with so many coming out there's going to be a bloodbath for subscribers, particularly if some don't shake up the invest massive amounts of time and money in order to get anything model.

 

[SolidSnakex]

They've also already turned on Survival games in case you haven't noticed.

That's because they never really evolved. That could be the one thing that saves stealth games from this, the actual serious stealth games actually evolve quite a bit with each version, it's just the games that aren't stealth based but still throw the feature in anyway because of how popular the genre is.

 

[Ranger X]

RPGs had their bashing with the "it's always medieval - fuck them".
After that it was the platformers because "it's only a platformer bleh".

Next target is the FPS and the racing games. After Forza and GT4, they may decide that the racing genre is totally blend and useless.

Anyway, this phenomenon that looks like a get-together-to-hate-a-genre is very stupid and useless. Now we hear people who complains that the RPGs are now always futuristic looking and other people saying there's a lack of real platformers... .

Anyhow, this bad phenomenon happen when there's too many lookalike games in a genre during a short period of time i guess.

 

[Tellaerin]

Usually one starts with the intuitive feeling they get from a game and rationalizes that through inquiry where they begin with a conclusion. i.e., you like a game and want to find reasons to support this, or the other way around.
I've never NOT liked a game and then picked it apart and then discovered "Oh wait...this SHOULD be good even though it's not, so it must be good!". So, I think trying to be objective in the way you're trying to describe is moot.

Maybe you work that way. I feel that's a pretty sad excuse for legitimate criticism, for the simple fact that it doesn't allow for objective judgement. The best critics are aware of the distinction between their subjective enjoyment of a given work and its objective quality, which are often but not always linked. I feel it's important for people to strive for that degree of objectivity and self-awareness, to the point where you can acknowledge the quality of a work even if you don't personally enjoy it, recognize the audience to which it will likely appeal, and recommend it to them in good conscience.

I think this is what precipitated my first post. You posed the question, 'What will be the next genre critics turn on?' Then you went on to state that JRPG's are stale while FPS's are not, based solely on your personal preferences. From your responses, I don't get the impression that you even once tried to separate what you were excited or bored by with how you thought critics in general might feel. That's kind of like me predicting an impending stealth-action backlash based on the fact that I hate the genre. Meanwhile, I was at least making an effort to look at the genres in question as objectively as possible (in terms of both nuts-and-bolts elements like technology and play mechanics and more nebulous attributes such as immersion and storytelling) so I could make a fair and even-handed assessment. After a bit of pondering, I concluded that if you were to call one genre stale, in all fairness, you'd have to say the same about the other. FPS's and JRPG's both continue to develop on a number of fronts from release to release, yet truly earth-shaking, paradigm-redefining titles in both genres remain rare. The point is, there's a big difference between the way I arrived at my conclusions and your 'pick your favorite outcome, then work backward and rationalize it' method.

 

[Ghost]

Stealth games are next, seems like every game these days has a stealth element and whats more they are all the same, even the specialist stealth games dont seemingly do it any better than the games where its just a tacked on after thought.

RTS games (on PC) hit a graphical wall and thats caused the genre to go stale in my opinion, even the biggest games of this year (Dawn of War, LOTR) still dont use proper scale, i look at games like Kingdom Under Fire and think thats the future of RTS.

HL2 and Halo 2 will keep the FPS going for another couple of years at least.

GTA type games are Still the next big thing, sure loads of people have tried to rip off GTA but the truth is, as a genre, they still havent reached their pinnicle in terms of AI and graphics. So reviewers and gamers alike will be impressed as this genre develops long into the next generation of consoles.

 

[ferricide]

oh, we're sick of every genre. expect every game in nov/dec/jan issues to get a 1/10 except for katamari damacy.

 

[disabledHeliocentric]

Maybe you work that way. I feel that's a pretty sad excuse for legitimate criticism, for the simple fact that it doesn't allow for objective judgement. The best critics are aware of the distinction between their subjective enjoyment of a given work and its objective quality, which are often but not always linked. I feel it's important for people to strive for that degree of objectivity and self-awareness, to the point where you can acknowledge the quality of a work even if you don't personally enjoy it, recognize the audience to which it will likely appeal, and recommend it to them in good conscience.

I disagree here because I think you're misapplying the terms objective and subjective.
You're confusing these terms for a review based on a criteria of technique and form AS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO IS SUBJECTIVE vs. one based on an a priori intuitional feeling(both are subjective). The first is not any more objective than the other. For one you're analyzing and stating judgements based on breaking things down from your subjective perspective, and the other you're playing a game and enjoying it and because of that you decide it's good(from your perpective). These are both subjective. To be objective you'd want a room full of gamers who you then have play the game as you gauge their response to the game using sensors and cameras while having them answer questions afterwards which are then examined by expert interpreters of text. It would help to have a controlled environment and variables. This way you have aperspectival data which gets closer to understanding the object's relation to the gamer. Yet this is still quasi-objectivity.
The objectivity you strive for, imo, is something other than objectivity.
I think the pretense to objectivity when there isn't sound experimental data behind it is hypocracy. I also think that I have been very fair and open about where I stand. I think any criticism is only legitimate in a certain context, under certain conditions. I have not claimed more than that.

I think this is what precipitated my first post. You posed the question, 'What will be the next genre critics turn on?' Then you went on to state that JRPG's are stale while FPS's are not, based solely on your personal preferences. From your responses, I don't get the impression that you even once tried to separate what you were excited or bored by with how you thought critics in general might feel. That's kind of like me predicting an impending stealth-action backlash based on the fact that I hate the genre. Meanwhile, I was at least making an effort to look at the genres in question as objectively as possible (in terms of both nuts-and-bolts elements like technology and play mechanics and more nebulous attributes such as immersion and storytelling) so I could make a fair and even-handed assessment. After a bit of pondering, I concluded that if you were to call one genre stale, in all fairness, you'd have to say the same about the other. FPS's and JRPG's both continue to develop on a number of fronts from release to release, yet truly earth-shaking, paradigm-redefining titles in both genres remain rare. The point is, there's a big difference between the way I arrived at my conclusions and your 'pick your favorite outcome, then work backward and rationalize it' method.

Actually I was not intending for the thread to exactly play out in a formal and academic manner %100 on topic. I didn't just ask what people think the critics will turn on, I also asked what do they think themselves, and why, which is a very open ended question.
And frankly, I find your jump to judgement rash and dense.It is more for self serving ends to bolster your argument than an attemp at objectivity. I find your posts in this thread far less objective, in the sense you puport, than mine. In fact you have changed your tune slightly in each post. This tells me you're less concerned with the objective reality of my posts than trying to win an argument which starts with your conclusion prior to any research, the research which you then use to back the conclusion you began with. In criticising my post you are commiting the same offenses you have accused me of commiting in criticising certain genres.

This whole critera of earth shaking, paradigm shifting, revolutionary change is not a criteria I consider necessary for a game to be unstale.
In fact I stated that I find FPS have been stale. I stated war based FPS imo are stale. I'm excited about a game like Half Life 2, though. Why? Because I really enjoyed the last one and the new one looks really sexy. I'm also noticing a lot of other genres being mixed with FPS. I think new physics and AI really make a huge differance in a real time and action oriented environment, much more so than in a turn based gameplay system, and in fact as a lot of JRPG's have technically improved I have liked them less. Yes, that's right, I far prefer most of the RPG's I played on PSone to those I'm playing on ps2. On one hand, a lot of companies copy square, on the other I'm not sure square is its old self-- the character designs get more grotesquely mannered, the plots more annoyingly melodramatic, the characters more whiny by the sequel. Final Fantasy XII might change this, next year. But, the market is left with a lot of imitators using the same old franchises and story cliches and square kind of getting lost in the wilderness.

 

[CrimsonSkies]

Japanese RPGs. You can feel the shift now.

 

[Azih]

Ghost: I think Dawn of War actually does use proper scale because none of the buildings in the game are actual unit creation structures (like barracks or factories would be), all the buildings are just transfer stations.

 

[Warm Machine]

Japanese RPGs really have it coming. Anything that hasn't had a substanial evolution in gameplay in a long time will get nailed.

FPS won't for a while because of their substantial immersion recently, shift toward story based gameplay, and multiplayer mechanics. Though in the late 90's FPS games were getting nailed right left and center for lack on innovation which was true.