Console limitations - How much truth in such claims?

[Dev_Anj]

Soulcucker Top notch trolling of a grade A asshat, I approve!

 

[Ash]

Mod or no mod, it's highly regarded as good game content, and I have full creative control, meaning there is an art to it. It's also far, far from your everyday mod. Meanwhile you're a fan of Gears of War so it's safe to assume whatever you've shoveled is pure shit, if you had any creative control whatsoever.

Also I would not call your kitchen sink design good, interesting but not good.

Argue from a stance of logic and reason. But of course, admitting you think it is good would be admitting defeat.

You produced a mod for one of the greatest games of all time kiddo. That is like filling in a paint by numbers made by Caravaggio and claiming to be an artist.

No it isn't. Just because it's a mod for Deus Ex doesn't automatically make it good. There are shit Deus Ex mods, there are good Deus Ex mods, and there are great ones.

 

[Soulcucker]

Almost every modable great game has piles of highly regarded mods, www.reddit.com is this way if you wish to receive thoughtless praise and upvotes.

 

[Dev_Anj]

I now want Soulcucker to write the official Codex GMDX review.. if he's willing to.

 

[Ash]

Right. Because it's a mod, everything accomplished after four years of hard work is redundant. Gotcha.

So, what have you produced? What are you, soulless AAA or shovelware indie? What shit are you very, no, extremely likely to be shoveling?

 

[Soulcucker]

Redundant, no. A very low level accomplishment, yes.

 

[Ash]

Compared to the likes of great game developers creating their games from scratch? Absolutely. Compared to soulless shit shovellers? Nope. The label is "Incline", not "Decline", and fighting the good fight is what is important in this day and age, and even mods can make an impact on a smaller scale.

Enough about my accomplishments. Tell me about yours.

 

[Soulcucker]

Making a kitchen sink mod for one of the greats and thinking you are preserving the incline is like adding a couple of notes to K.504 and thinking you are keeping classical music alive.

 

[Ash]

And what are your contributions to the medium? It would be a shame if a mere mod was a more valuable contribution than the projects you were involved in, wouldn't it? You're on a forum of generally high standards that thinks half of the works in modern gaming if not considerably more are pure worthless garbage killing the industry, meanwhile they think my work is great, even if it's a small contribution. Chances are, to them I've made a valuable contribution and yours is killing their hobby. Put it to the test.

 

[Soulcucker]

I remove kitchen sinks.

 

[Dev_Anj]

And what are your contributions to the medium? It would be a shame if a mere mod was a more valuable contribution than the projects you were involved in, wouldn't it? You're on a forum of generally high standards that thinks half of the works in modern gaming if not considerably more are pure worthless garbage killing the industry, meanwhile they think my work is great, even if it's a small contribution. Chances are, to them I've made a valuable contribution and yours is killing their hobby. Put it to the test.

Ah, argumentum ad populum, the best defense for badly thought points.

 

[Ash]

I remove kitchen sinks

Right, well you're certainly smart enough to remain in anonymity, you don't get Dev_Anj type characters following you around like a butthurt wierdo that way, for one. Good day then.

 

[Soulcucker]

Bye, kitchen sink faggot.

 

[abija]

So you're a programmer yourself, meaning it's safe to assume you're likely to be at least reasonably intelligent, yet you like Gears of War. That's a paradoxical.

You clearly haven't been around programmers or intelligent people.

 

[CreamyBlood]

I understand the limitations with regards to graphics and details for consoles falling behind PC, but now, with next gen machines they are not really as bad as they used to be in last gen.
The only thing left to compare is design and innovation from pure gameplay standpoint, which I fail to see how consoles have been falling behind PC.

The OP seemed to have had an interesting question in there and there are a few good insights buried in this thread as it isn't all black and white.

As someone that was playing the first games that used punch cards on IBM mainframes long before home computers of any sort existed, I might have some perspective. I definately don't consider myself or my opinion some kind of 'expert' just because I'm old or whatever. Back then some of us had 'lives' and I haven't spent the entirety of mine on games and computers. (We used to have to hang out with actual people in person - called 'parties', guitars, women and drugs, etc so some of it is hazy.)

To sum it up in a very general fashion that I might have to think about and expound upon at some time in the future when I give a shit:

- The eighties and ninties had an awesome tech race in both hardware and developers.

- Most of the people making those games were nerds and/or people with at least an average IQ and were into, games and computers

- A crap load of shit games were made back then as well. Nobody remembers anything except the 'classics'.

- It was probably easier to be 'dazzled' by a shit game, but sometimes we forget about that.

- Consoles were for kids and the masses, computers ruled for serious gamers/graphics whores

- The XBOX seemed like another console thing, who cared?

- The XBOX/PS2 started trying to get developers to make games for them.

- Mass appeal, no worries. PC master race will prevail.

- Developers made shit games to both appeal to the masses AND fit with in the shit technical limitations of the consoles

- Money in the masses.

- Entire generation or two(?) in this thread growing up not knowing different. Shit games are now the new normal.

- Consoles finally mature enough to not provide excuses anymore for shit technical limitations.

- Shit games are still pumped out on assembly lines as it is the new 'normal'. What is the financial incentive to change.

- New generation of developers that only know the new 'normal'.

- Catering to people that barely remember how fun a 'game' can be are not profitable, a niche and always were.

- I've haven't looked forward to a new game since the early 2000's.

- My favourite games since the massive acceptance by the masses are DayZ, Arma and... what? Dirt 2?

- I seem to only play stupid grinding coop survival crafting shit now like ARK? Space Engineers? Shit, I'm playing another one now. (FTL was fun)

- I should shoot myself in the head, but wait, there's still beer in the fridge. I can possibly make it to 2036, possibly longer with advanced medical technology, maybe then they will make games.

- Have more fun reading about third generation shit millenial faggots talking about 'pressure sensitive' crap console controllers in 'new normal sanitized' codex than actually playing video games.

- Decide to shoot self in head again. Resist. They are idiots, not worth my death.

- Wanted to look forward to Prey. Expect disappointment. Nevermind, it IS disappointment. Will get drunk with friends instead. Maybe one day games will be fun again.

- Realize that maybe I'm just old and don't actually like video games anymore and that they are still fun and I'm actually wrong. Could be true.

- Crack another beer, start harvesting some iron and cobalt so I can continue building spaceship. Current goal is to get out of the atmosphere and make it to Earth. Smile to myself and tell myself I'm having fun. I am, right?

 

[GrainWetski]

I don't think it's the capability that is the problem, but rather the audience that either one is seeking to please.

Having only gamepads limits things by quite a bit.

No idea why mouse and keyboard aren't already packed in with consoles. Could have proper shooters and RTS for the retards.

 

[Gerrard]

10 years later retards still think Crysis was some technical marvel and not a pile of poorly implemented prototype graphical features further cementing the fact that it was a tech demo.

Here's an example: the ambient occlusion method that it uses is so fucking slow that even today's cards take a massive performance hit when using it compared to the ones we have in modern games.
You might as well praise GSC for being the first to have real time GI with radiosity. It drops your FPS to single digits? So what?

^Well it's not like Invisible War had amazing graphics or anything.

When it came out having full dynamic shadows was pretty amazing, it was just starting to be a regular thing.

 

[Infinitron]

Are next gen consoles still not to the point where we can see the differences narrowing down between PC and Consoles after all these years - outside the graphical capabilities - in terms of being capable for more complex and better gameplay experiences?

Making a game multiplatform definitely no longer has the same assured negative impact that it used to (although of course it depends on what sort of game the developer is intent on making).

Funnily, some PC gamers are so traumatized by consolization that this has only made them more paranoid. "Grid-based inventory, small fonts...AHA, look at that color scheme, THIS USER INTERFACE HAS CLEARLY BEEN CONSOLIZED"

 

[Outlander]

Saw a chart once which, IIRC, showed that the only instance of a console surpassing PC, hardware wise, was the original Xbawks. And it lasted only a couple of months, until some new GPU was released.

And gamepads are only good for platformers (and maybe racing games if you don't have a wheel). They are inferior for FPS, TPS and everything else.

 

[Soulcucker]

I wonder how the Dreamcast and PS2 would fair. I remember Gran Turismo 3 and MGS2 looking better than PC games at the time (at the cost of resolution) and Soul Calibur being amazing in 1999. The Dreamcast's GPU had some pretty interesting tech for the time, specifically hardware based texture compression and tile based deferred rendering done in hardware.

 

[SCO]

It's true though. It's hilarious how the harebrained shadowrun engine mandates item descriptions are shorter than the single line that was reserved for the name of the items on the infinity engine. It doesn't even do this 'honestly' with a hardlimit and QA testing. It just reduces the font size into illegibility. And scrollbars for a extended description? Forget it, that's UI sorcery.

Not even going into how the GUI simplifications inspired system simplifications and vice versa in a unvirtuous circle. You want stealth? Here have a cookie attempt in Hong Kong that just turns on TB combat mode, is limited to when you have opponents on screen, doesn't actually do anything story wise and that doesn't work as well as the mod from where it was copied. Don't walk with all your team into ambushes or tactically position your team before combat, why do you even want that scum? Frankly i'm bothered that i've played snes games with better UI.


The most hilarious thing is that even with all of their simplifications they still make obvious design mistakes. Like for example, i was going to update a little dll hack mod i did to have a deck without having to sacrifice a inventory slot. It's actually rather easy, just insert it on the matrix equip screen (based if you own it ofc).
However... the Hong Kong scripts have 15-20 conditions in 'dialogs' with the matrix access points they used to choose between isobel and pc as a decker (because like dragonfall was too hard or they wanted to engage dialog for more info and conditions). These dialogs filter out pcs to have decking > 0 and a physical deck. How do they check for a deck? Not from a function iterating over inventory/hands checking for if it is a deck no. They enumerate all of their 'game' decks to see if the user has it. Ie:i'd only make those dialog triggers if i cannibalized a deck item in the game (which is a bad idea since they equip opponents) or edit all those conversation files.


Great extensible design on a game made for mods uh?

 

[sullynathan]

gamepads are only good for platformers (and maybe racing games if you don't have a wheel). They are inferior for FPS, TPS and everything else.

And fighting games and character action games/hack and slash. TPS in the modern age are very fine with controllers since most of them are modeled after gears of war which is a console game.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Fighting games being better on a gamepad is up for debate. While a gamepad does allow for easier "circles" you can reconfigure the directional buttons on a keyboard and make it easier to execute combos. Hack and slash games, maybe, but usually they tend to come with an enemy lock on system anyway so I don't think it's a big deal. Platformers, personally I've played quite a few platformers on emulators and never run into any controlling issues, and there's also the fact that you can reconfigure keys to make using moves easier, so again it's up for debate.

 

[KILLER BEAR]

^In many 3D Brawlers you need to fight while you are surrounded by enemies, so being able to strike in any direction instead of the 8 that WSAD allows for is much preferable. And there is stuff like MGR where you must strike exactly in the direction of the enemy in order to parry.

 

[Black]

Hack and slash games, maybe

Since consolefags tried to steal "hack 'n slash" from Diablo-like games, no.