What do you think of current games?

I've been feeling really nostalgic of the times when gaming use to be 4 people sitting in the same room and sharing 1 screen and having fun. Just bought myself a gamecube game today for a measly 10 bucks just because my cousin and i would reminisce about the times we used to play splitscreen. Was wondering what other people thought of the increasing release in generic games (ie MOHW and COD 10) and the direction that games are going in now.

I agree with your statement and I am nostalgic of the old times specially with your first console and what you grew up with and what not. For me, I could say I grew up with Nintendo and seeing them change heaps. My last console with them was Gamecube, I never bothered to buy a Wii simply because it was too expensive. Although of course, I had the good ol' phat blue ds when that came out and an onyx ds lite bought off a friend but that's about it, not even owning the 3ds (yet).

Looking towards the future though, it's something to get excited about with all the uncertainty of what's going to happen. Especially with news of Virtual reality headset thingys goggles that make gaming seem real life which is pretty cool because back then we'd never think of something like this. Or even 3D although it seems a bit of a trick ish, once they perfect it, it'll actually be something great.

I was recently watching on Node (a youtube channel by Freddie Wong) where he has videos of LAN parties where he and a group of friends gather around one night and play games in the same room. Honestly, that seems better than online but with the way games are made nowadays it seems inevitable.

/endessay

The more console generations we cycle through, the harder it will be for small to mid-sized developers as rising costs is surely going to increase the barrier for development. Triple A titles are already costly as it is, so I can only imagine that the trend of sequels will definitely be all you will see in the future bar some exceptions.

I definitely want new IPs, but I doubt many publishers will take the risks. So I guess I miss the PS-era days where most games were original IPs!

Personally, no, I'm not nostalgic for the old couch co-op. Now, let me first say that I do enjoy couch co-op, I've loved playing halo, resident evil, dynasty warriors, mortal kombat, gears of war, goldeneye etc with my buddies in the same room, HOWEVER, few games have been as fun as playing stuff like the battlefield series online, with an even larger group of friends.

I also disagree with the sentiment that games have become more generic. Gaming has grown significantly, so of course there will be more of those samey games, but as a percentage of what's released, it hasn't really changed much. It used to be that there was a lot of samey WW2 games released, now it's iraq war games. I assume in the future there will be a lot of near future games too.

Again, I also disagree that there's a lack of new IP's. There are plenty, and yes, there is also a lot of sequels. For good reason though, people want to revisit these worlds they've come to know and love, and have new experiences in them.

As for specific new IP's, we've had a bunch that have come out recently, or will come out in the near future:

CD Projekt Red is starting production on a new Cyberpunk RPG. Bioware is starting production on a new IP. Square recently released Sleeping Dogs. Capcom recently released Dragons Dogma and plan to release Remember Me. Mistalker is pumping out new IP's every few years with stuff like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, The Last Story. Platinum Games pumped out Vanquished, Madworld and Bayonetta. ID released RAGE. Nintendo with Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandoras Tower (not sure if they own the IP's or their respective deveopers do though). EA with stuff like Shadows of the Damned.

Now, let's look at the indy's and kickstarter stuff. Lone Survivor, FTL, Project Eternity, etc. There is seriously a wealth of new IP's and stuff out there. Also Dishonored, it's awesome.

Yeah It definitely seems like more and more generic titles fill the stores each year. Look at platformers for instance which nintendo is basically the only ones left making compared to the snes, N64 days when every second game was a platformer.

While the cost of creating new games is increasing massively smaller devs are moving to mobile devices and facebook, which are platforms that are quickly growing, I have doubts that there will be a next generation of handhelds (3DS, vita) unless they are turned into phones are media consumption devices like tablets.

I definitely think that games have a lot of space to grow, humour in videogames is still at a pretty weak level the only game i've seen that was geniunely funny was portal and a few others but few games use humour as a selling point. And then there are games like "Heavy Rain" that are more like interactive movies which i'd like to see more of if they are released at a more reasonable price.

In conclusion I think console devs will focus on making a profit with mobile growing to support games worthy of the N64 (it's a start) and if apple makes a controller for the iphone then android will follow and with it a flood of new and actually decent mobiles games =D