The Game Trash Bin

[EAS_Intrepid]

All right, I was in 3 multimedia stores and 2 "dedicated" game stores.

I was looking for an older classic of the space sim/combat/strategy genre:
Homeworld 2. (there are two beautiful BSG and B5 mods out )
It is no longer in stores... the guy in the game store did not even know Homeworld

but what have I found?

The Farm Simulator
The Bus Simulator
The Communal Carbage Collection Simulator

I understand Train Sim and Sims for ships as well as Flight Sim, of course (I play all three of these), but a simulator that enables you to drive the dump truck and collect carbage? A simulator that puts you into the position to milk cows and drive tractors?
The Bus Simulator is kind of understandable, too.... I guess.


Additionaly: Hundreds of bad-made FPS and stupid RTS games about World War II.... guys... about 5.000 years of documented history and you can come up with ideas from 1939 to 1945 only?

There are only a few simulations that really make you feel like in the skin of a modern world soldier, namely the aging Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault, Full Spectrum Warrior and of course Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter...
(Okay, okay, these are already quite a lot!!)



So, in your opinion what games do belong into the Game Trash Bin?

 

[StarBlade]

Anything like Sims or Second Life. I have no idea of what the point of having a second life is if you're not living the first.

 

[Freyr]

Pretty much everything released since 3D accelerator cards started becoming popular. Designers seemingly thought they could compensate for not having interesting gameplay with fancy graphics.

 

[Syf]

^I agree with that^

It is so hard to find a good, long lasting gaming experience these days.

 

[SquireJames]

I wouldn't mind but they don't even focus on 1939-45. They focus on 1944-45, maybe 1943 if your lucky, and 99% of the time the smegging 101st Airborne. I have nothing against the real life 101st Airborne, in 1944 or now or any time in between, but PLEASE, as a reenactor and a wargamer, I've had enough. Even the 82nd would be an improvement, especially if they focused on pre D-Day operations in Italy and North Africa.

Basically, some numbskull games company manager sits down, and decides "hmm, what will make us cash?" and yes, ANOTHER awful WWII US, Normandy Theatre 1944 game is produced.

I appreciate that recently, we've had more focus on the Soviets and us British (and hey, CoD2 even broke from tradition and had no cockneys at all, just an ordinary sounding officer and *shock* a Scotsman. A northerner indeed. Amazing, since every American i've met since i've moved here decides to imitate some form of Dick Van Dyke-Mary Poppins crapping awful cockney accent when anyone mentions I'm British.)

That said, why can't we have a WWII Shooter based around the Polish Airborne, or even something in the dark days of 1940 fighting as the French or the BEF.

Of course, without being offensive, i'm forgetting that there were no Americans in the BEF, therefore no game studio gives a hoot. Won't make money with the Halo 2 playing We-all-think-that-the-US-won-WWII-single-handedly-and-we-like-to-post-this-bias-view-on-forums teen jerkheads that jump all over every FPS.

However, we have arcady flight sims, and flight sims made for the enthusiast. We have simple RTS, then we have realistic wargames like Combat Mission, Hearts of Iron or the Sudden Strike/Blitzkrieg Series. (although the latter trade a little bit of accuracy for a little more gameplay, still compare Sudden Strike or Blitzkrieg to Empire Earths representation of WWII....)

So, why can't we have gamey shooters like the Medal of Hono(u)r series, Battlefield 1942 and so forth, and then a more indepth, realistic approach shooter. If theres a market for extreme realism wargames, wouldn't the same players generally appreciate the same sort of detail and focus on tactics and thinking in their WWII FPS?

I personally think there is a demand for more realistic FPS, but unfortunately, the FPS market is still dominated by the kind of thinking that leads to the insane bunny hoppers of CS and CS, the Halo series, and the "OMG i'm s0 1337" crowd who are (happily) laughed at in mod forums like FH2, Project Reality and Day of Defeat.

There have been some, Hidden and Dangerous 2 and Op Flashpoint spring to mind, and from what i've read they were well recieved, so why the downturn?

 

[Freyr]

^I agree with that^

It is so hard to find a good, long lasting gaming experience these days.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

Act of War: Direct Action (+ High Treason, the expansion)

Conquest: Frontier wars

Master of Orion II : The Battle at Antares (ok, so its a 1996 antique, its was a 4X strategy game better than empire at war when a good computer was a 486, and its still a lot of fun)

Maybe Crysis, but its while it does have a good storyline its got no replay value and half the attraction is the graphics.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

World War II Games...

I wouldn't mind but they don't even focus on 1939-45. They focus on 1944-45, maybe 1943 if your lucky, and 99% of the time the smegging 101st Airborne. I have nothing against the real life 101st Airborne, in 1944 or now or any time in between, but PLEASE, as a reenactor and a wargamer, I've had enough. Even the 82nd would be an improvement, especially if they focused on pre D-Day operations in Italy and North Africa.
Basically, some numbskull games company manager sits down, and decides "hmm, what will make us cash?" and yes, ANOTHER awful WWII US, Normandy Theatre 1944 game is produced.

We have already quite a lot games, that also take into account the operations of the early WWII (Fall Blau = "Code Blue", Invasion of Poland) as well as the Invasion of France. But I agree, most is the 101 against the Nazis.

The problem with the Polish Airborne is... that they didn't make it that far.

However: I am tired of WWII in general. It is an interesting topic in history, but in games it is done!
I usually skip WWII games... the last one that was good, but highly inaccurate in historical terms, was Codename Panzers.


My problem is that you can buy all this stuff but real good games like "Nexus: JI" or "Homeworld2" are no longer available. I can play the bad depiction of the Normdany Invasion 20 times over.

 

[SquireJames]

This is true, i'd rather see something focused elsewhere also.

I went into EBGames recently looking for X2 or even X3, nothing. So I share your pain.

 

[Atlantis]

I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of COD/MOH-style game set in WW1, to be honest. So many people (myself included) know so little about it, because everyone always concentrate on WW2. In fact, pretty much all I know of WW1 is what I learned watching the 'Blackadder Goes Forth' TV series.

Lol, as for 'Bus Simulator', I saw this last week... to be honest I was surprised. Though I guess the flood gates opened when they made Ship Simulator. Planes and Trains ok, but after that it was possible to stop it. Now, as we can see, it's going to just go out of control. Postman Simulator, anyone? Or how about a game of Lift/Elevator Simulator?

Other games for the bin...

- The Simpsons: Hit and Run. A completely annoying (but fun and addictive) game. I still play it! Put it in the bin to stop me! Please! =)

- HalfLife and all it's ilk. A brilliant set of games, but has to run through the bloody stupid (and 99.9% inoperative on my system) Steam program.

- Dreamfall. Cool graphics, interesting system, great potential. However, a VERY depressing storyline that had me so down (or even upset) by 20 seconds into the introduction that I didn't feel like playing the game. The intro shows your character (a vibrant, energetic, happy, sweet, mid-teenage girl) in a coma, dying, and thinking back on what's happened. Then you play the game, and are completely unable to change this fate. Every objective this girl has to do, fails. That thought put such a damper on my initially high spirits that I closed down the game, and have not picked it up since.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

I agree on the WWI games. There is one game featuring WWI I saw... and that one looked terrible.

A good game about WWI in the scale of "Codename Panzers" (Mission/Graphic-wise, though much more accurate in history) would be great.

Of course there are mods for existing games like OfP... but all these games have limitations. A WWI game that is really up to the tactics/strategies of that war would need special scripting and coding.

 

[SquireJames]

Being a First World War Reenactor I'd definately welcome a well made WWI shooter. In mod communities I often hear people say "Well it was just "leave trench, get shot" how fun can that be?" but this merely shows how little people know about the war. Until late 1915 things were still fairly fluid. The deep, well made trenches we see on things like Blackadder did not exist until that time, the average entrenchment in 1914 being little more than sandbags and a slit trench.

Mid to late 1917 it picked up again, and the first modern war of movement began, setting the stage for the Blitzkrieg seen 20 years later.

In a game perspective, we play plenty of WWII scenarios that were just as difficult as a WWI Trench Battle. Look at Omaha Beach, Stalingrad, Berlin. All just as deadly, just as entrenched, but they've been made into playable, enjoyable games.

Maybe its because there were very few (2 operational models I believe, the Mp18 Berghman and a twin barrelled Italian weapon) of personal automatic weapons. The closest you got to "portable" was the Lewis Gun, and let me tell you neither the Lewis nor its replacement in WWII (the Bren) is anywhere near light enough to be used as an assault weapon. Yes, the Bren was used in that way, yes for an automatic, full calibre weapon it is light, but its still close to three times the weight of a Lee-Enfield, and boy do I know it! It was only used firing from the hip because it had such a comparatively light recoil due to its weight and therefore was very stable and easy to aim. Then Sten was very light but this made the recoil horrendous, even with 9mm Pistol rounds.

Most shooters i've seen favour "spray and pray" tactics, which just don't work in a WWI environment, not on the attack anyway. On the defensive definately so, what with Vickers, Maxims and Hotchkiss guns all over the place. Lots of oppotunity for MoH/CoD style defensive battles.