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The Death of Immersive Sims?

Ash

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Where are you locked in bossfights in Bloodlines? The only ones I recall is Multidirectional's avatar and the final boss, and both had semi-believable reasons for it (e.g fire blocking doorways). Immersive Sims do sometimes lock you in too, only Deus Ex doesn't as a rule. Aside from having an easier time with scripting and whatnot, locking the player in is also good for challenge, so it's not all bad.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Platformers? NuTomb Raider, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, pure decline garbage like that.
Third person shooter, third person shooter, open world action game.

Actual recent platformers:
Shovel Knight, Super Mario 3D World, Rayman Legends. All fantastic. Don't get me wrong, there's shit platformers, but you don't know much about the genre either.
 

ColonelTeacup

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it has lost its true identity as an art form.
Gaming has no "identity as an art form". If it did have one then it's better off crushed.

:retarded:
Are we for realz right now cuckdex? In an age where nearly every genre has gone to shit, from RPGs to shooters to even fucking racing games. Where some genres simply don't exist anymore outside of indie efforts, and all that have cropped up in their place are walking sims. Where creativity is stifled by publishers more than ever. Where there are no more AA-tier developers with some very few exceptions. Where every AAA game is filled to the brim with decline business practices. Where gameplay is second to presentation, realism, and graphics.
It's a shame that there is no longer much in the hole between AAA and indies (outside of certain outliers like Paradox). I believe it is inevitable that since there is money to be had in niche gaming there will be companies going for that money. A fledling attempt would be Ninja Theory's "independent AAA" game Hellblade though they obviously focus on the wrong stuff (cinematics, graphics). Leave AAA to their shameless money grabbing ways and forget about ever getting anything more than "pretty nice" out of them.

1995-2002 in particular you could blind buy time and time again. Chances are the game would be at least decent. Blind buying in modern times, or especially the dark ages of 2006 to say 2013, this was hell. Since then every game gets extensive research.
Blind buying a game has always been a terrible choice. Sure, nowadays the bottom of the barrel is pretty damn deep but that is only natural since indies have a much easier time without the need for anything physical to sell (e.g. boxes, manuals etc.).

The stealth genre? Splinter Cell: Conviction/Blacklist? NuThiaf? Hitman: Absolution? Tenchu Z?
Invisible Inc? Shadow Tactics? The newest Hitman? MGS V? Not exactly Thief but not a bad haul.
Platformers? NuTomb Raider, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, pure decline garbage like that.
I don't care about platformers so can't tell what's good today but I wouldn't call any of those you mentioned platformers...
Many genres, like varying forms of strategy, are pretty much dead outside of struggling niches.
Which forms of strategy are those? 4X and Grand Strategy at least live on. RIP RTS of course. The tactical strategy games ala X-Com and Jagged Alliance are mostly indies outside of the reboot XCOM I suppose but Xenonauts was very nice despite being heavily derivative.
Even racing games are often stripped of content and full of decline shit. NFS: Most Wanted (2005) vs NSF: Most Wanted (2013) being a prime example of that since so much was stripped and so much decline crap was added.
Casual racing games may be less than they used to be though that could be argued (Forza Horizon etc.) but racing sims are better than ever.
Hack and Slash? Nu Devil May Cry, Darksiders, Diablo 3?
First of all, Diablo has nothing to do with DMC and Darksiders though they may both come under the umbrella term hack and slash. Personally I only call Diablo-likes hack and slash. As far as melee action goes, Soulsborne, Monster Hunter, Nioh, MGR:R...No problem there.
Anything crafted to a point of excellence can be considered a work of art, hence the compliment as a form of praise, exclaiming you'd done such a magnificent job, it can be considered art. Like a perfectly designed suit or armor can be considered art, same as marble statues are considered art, due to the quality, craftmanship and beaty of the objects. Gaming can be considered art, the issue is that the type of "art" prevalent in video games is the shit 2017 modern art version of art, rather than being a game made to such a high degree of quality it can be considered a work of art.
 

Ash

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Only in Cuckdex general gaming does Nu Tomb Raider in no way qualify as a platformer despite the shitty core gameplay consisting of 60% Platforming, 40% shooting.
 

wyes gull

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You spend more time walking than fighting in Skyrim and nobody calls it a walking simulator. Similarly, the challenge in Nu-raider is found in the QTEs and the more developed system is the TP shooting. The platforming requires minimal input, skill or preparation (unlike some of the previous games) and is pedestrian as a game system, barely a step above Asscreeds'; hence why it's more reasonable to call it a shooter than a platformer. Then again, you could just call it what it is, shit.
 
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praetor

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You spend more time walking than fighting in Skyrim and nobody calls it a walking simulator.

you failed your lore check. plenty of people, particularly here on the codex call Skyrim (and oblibion) a walking simulator precisely because 80% of the gameplay is walking.

of course, there has been a substantial "explosion" in popularity of indie "games" that are literal walking simulators so it has actually become a genre of its own (so much for the "golden age" of gaming, lol) [but Skyrim came out before all the various gone homos, dear esterbank etc]
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Bethesda games have been called "hiking simulators". "Walking simulator" has a somewhat different connotation.
 
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What's the earliest date you've seen "hiking simulators" term been used infinitron? Just asking because with this retroactive immersive sim bullshit happening caused me to have some doubt here.
 

octavius

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I thought Skyrim was all about fast travel and quest compasses? A walking simulator actually sounds better than that to me.
 

Grunker

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Where are you locked in bossfights in Bloodlines?

Off the top of my head:

Gargoyle, Ming Xiao, Andrei, Brother Kanker, The Chang Brothers, Chiropteran Behemoth, Werewolf

Maybe also Bishop Vick?

I'm sure there are more.
 
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Archibald

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I don't remember any boss fights in which you are not "locked" in one form or another.
 

Declinator

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Bethesda games have been called "hiking simulators". "Walking simulator" has a somewhat different connotation.
I've always disliked those monikers. Not because they are insulting to the games but because they demean the term "simulator." Not all racing games are racing simulators and similarly, not all walking games are walking simulators. They don't actually simulate almost any of the physics involved in walking. (Not to say that I would have any interest in an actual walking simulator.)
 

Ash

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You spend more time walking than fighting in Skyrim and nobody calls it a walking simulator. Similarly, the challenge in Nu-raider is found in the QTEs and the more developed system is the TP shooting. The platforming requires minimal input, skill or preparation (unlike some of the previous games) and is pedestrian as a game system, barely a step above Asscreeds'; hence why it's more reasonable to call it a shooter than a platformer. Then again, you could just call it what it is, shit.

Wut? The shooting is basic mole pop regen health cinematic garbage just as much as the platforming is brainless shit. Heck, there's even a level where they give you what is essentially an infinite grenade launcher and you just go through this mostly linear arena spamming it until everyone is dead.
Are you revealing you have an affinity for Tomb Raider's dumb mole-popping?

But yes, shit is shit. Still a platformer as much as it is anything else if not more, but shit and not worth arguing about.

I don't remember any boss fights in which you are not "locked" in one form or another.

The fire demon that arises from the Cain and Able paintings? the sewer vampire in the first Hub? Pretty sure you could just walk out...or maybe not. Sewer boss found in the notorious massive sewer level? You couldn't just leave on any of these?

What's the earliest date you've seen "hiking simulators" term been used infinitron? Just asking because with this retroactive immersive sim bullshit happening caused me to have some doubt here.

"Immersive Sim" pertains to a design philosophy first and foremost, and those big into LG-style games back in the day would have picked up on it, probably post-DX postmortem. It has risen in popularity over time as a result of those dedicated fans repeating the term first heard from the horses' mouth. It's not a marketing buzzword, but a name the developers themselves assigned to their own style. Or Spector/Church did anyways. It's simply convenient. Names and labels exist to add distinction, separate it from other, lesser FPRPGs. If we were to be accurate they're actually a mix of immersive RPG action stealth platformer adventure surivival horror puzzler shooter hybrids, and that's quite a mouthful.
 
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Burning Bridges

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The real deal breaker with Skyrim is not that it's a walking sim. But it has an absolutely shitty graphics engine and a laughably stupid UI, and it is a game designed for morons.
Morrowind was the last Bethesda game that had impressive tech, being able to move and place 10,000s of items all over the world, scalable windows with drag and drop etc was a joy, even though the game had such glaring weaknesses.
With Oblivion they had fooled everyone who thought it would have better NPCs and story while all the strengths would be retained. The final product created a permanent rift among games, a majority sucked it up while the minority was totally shocked, their big hopes dashed by this low res console engine, god awful UI, and even more retarded gameplay than MW. And herewith the trend of popamole games was born, which has not left us to this day.
 

wyes gull

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you failed your lore check. plenty of people, particularly here on the codex call Skyrim (and oblibion) a walking simulator precisely because 80% of the gameplay is walking.
Plenty of people, including myself. However I do concede that it's derogatory, first and foremost; ie- it's borne of the realization of the shittiness of the surrounding systems, the overwhelming disparity between its use and that of said systems (you say 80%, I'd go 90% easy) and more honestly, an attempt at portraying the dullness of it all. What it is not is a fair reflection of where you find the complexity and the challenge in the game. Hell, it could even be described as padding.

Wut? The shooting is mole pop regen health cinematic garbage just as much as the platforming is brainless shit.
And yet it still requires you to:
  • procure cover
  • aim at enemies
  • weigh weapons usage
  • decide target priorities
  • reload when necessary/advantageous
  • relocate when necessary/advantageous
  • deal with a declining health bar
By itself, the combat comprises 90% of the agency and player skill requirement in the whole of the game. Whether you think it suffices or not, it offers you the choice of sniping someone with a bow, strafing it with a machine gun or stabbing it in the eye with a climbing pick, and requires according input from you as a game. The QTEs require nothing other than reflexes (and you to hold your controller at all times) but hey, at least they require reflexes. Platforming, on the other hand, requires the most basic puzzle-solving ability (in picking out the often glaringly obvious route) and you to execute the most insultingly lax set of inputs, the only instance of which requires -any- degree of timing (and I'm being really generous here) being when you use fire (IIRC) to grab on to rugged surfaces with the pick (which you then proceed to climb by holding forward because fuck challenge). It is substantially less demanding than Underworld, which in itself had platforming that was so easy in terms of input and timing, you'd only ever fail because the camera position determined the direction of your controls and was often uncooperative or because you would attempt jumps that you knew you probably weren't going to make out of experimentation when you didn't immediately suss out the intended path/sequence (because it at least offered a bit of a challenge in navigation terms and also because it quicksaved every 5 seconds and destroyed the challenge of the game doing it).

Nu-raider may be many things but Mirror's Edge it is not.
 

Ash

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It unmistakably qualifies as a platformer (hybrid). This is just semantics and personal opinion over what you personally consider qualifies based on how much player agency and skill is offered, which is nonsense. What the game strives to be and what the player spends the respective time actually doing is what defines it. If Dragon's Lair suddenly grew into an in-depth RPG in the last five minutes it wouldn't suddenly make it a not-QTE-like guessing game.
 

Jacob

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
what is a video game genre???

why am I playing a romance anime game and it calls itself an "adventure game"???
 

praetor

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you failed your lore check. plenty of people, particularly here on the codex call Skyrim (and oblibion) a walking simulator precisely because 80% of the gameplay is walking.
Plenty of people, including myself. However I do concede that it's derogatory, first and foremost; ie- it's borne of the realization of the shittiness of the surrounding systems, the overwhelming disparity between its use and that of said systems (you say 80%, I'd go 90% easy) and more honestly, an attempt at portraying the dullness of it all. What it is not is a fair reflection of where you find the complexity and the challenge in the game. Hell, it could even be described as padding.

that is besides the point. you said nobody called it a walking simulator and yet plenty people here on the codex called it so (or "hiking simulator". same difference).

anyway, you can be certain it would've been called so on the 'dex even if these "new" so-called "proper" walking simulators were released before skyrim/oblibion, because the only difference between the 2 is that in Skyrim/oblibion you have something (of minimal interest and challenge, and for a very short period of time compared to walking, as we already pointed out) to do in-between the walking, while these others don't offer anything except the walking so calling something like Skyrim/oblibion a walking sim non-disparagingly isn't much of a stretch
 

DragoFireheart

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You spend more time walking than fighting in Skyrim and nobody calls it a walking simulator.

you failed your lore check. plenty of people, particularly here on the codex call Skyrim (and oblibion) a walking simulator precisely because 80% of the gameplay is walking.

of course, there has been a substantial "explosion" in popularity of indie "games" that are literal walking simulators so it has actually become a genre of its own (so much for the "golden age" of gaming, lol) [but Skyrim came out before all the various gone homos, dear esterbank etc]

If I wanted to play a good hiking simulator, Elder Scrolls isn't what I'll turn to anymore.

Golden Era of gaming? When? Maybe before EA become a pile of shit.
 

praetor

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You spend more time walking than fighting in Skyrim and nobody calls it a walking simulator.

you failed your lore check. plenty of people, particularly here on the codex call Skyrim (and oblibion) a walking simulator precisely because 80% of the gameplay is walking.

of course, there has been a substantial "explosion" in popularity of indie "games" that are literal walking simulators so it has actually become a genre of its own (so much for the "golden age" of gaming, lol) [but Skyrim came out before all the various gone homos, dear esterbank etc]

If I wanted to play a good hiking simulator, Elder Scrolls isn't what I'll turn to anymore.

Golden Era of gaming? When? Maybe before EA become a pile of shit.

i never brought quality into the discussion so i don't know why you quoted me

as for your "golden age of gaming" question: did you read the damn thread? have you seen the idiotic article linked in the OP?

edit: i guess i'm a bit too cranky and i'm reading your comment wrong? dunno anymore :)
 

wyes gull

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that is besides the point.
Not at all. Ash made the inference that it took Codex's craziness or whatever to call Raider a shooter, and I made the argument that it is more legitimate to label it a shooter than a platformer. Ash may have meant that deprecatingly but I didn't, which is why I bothered expanding on it. "Nobody" is obviously used within that context; meaning regular players labeling/explaining the game, not RPG fans demeaning it.

What is beside the point is this comparison with "proper" walking simulators, which I never made reference to, even though the mechanical differences between them and Skyrim are enough to give my argument some form of credence; that its label as a walking simulator is made mostly in jest. It propping up merely reflects the holes in Ash's theory (?) that a game should be labeled by whatever it makes you do most of the time; as in, Codex aside, people refer to Skyrim as a RPG and Gone to Rapture as a walking sim.

If Dragon's Lair suddenly grew into an in-depth RPG in the last five minutes it wouldn't suddenly make it a not-QTE-like guessing game.
It can qualify as a platformer, that was never the issue. The issue is whether calling it a shooter is a fairer representation of the game than calling it a platformer. I posit it is because of the reasons stated; you posit it is not because you should call it whatever you spend most of the time doing. You'd think using a RPG (admittedly a shitty one) as an example would reflect the implications of such reasoning. You go down that road and there are a lot of games needing re-genre-ing.
Also, by your own admission (and because I didn't bother finishing it), Raider is 60% one way, 40% another. So forgive me if I find your comparison of 1% is a bit flat. Games usually (admittedly not always) have the player play with their most complex/developed system for most of the game and rarely if ever do what your example purports.
 

DragoFireheart

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i never brought quality into the discussion so i don't know why you quoted me

as for your "golden age of gaming" question: did you read the damn thread? have you seen the idiotic article linked in the OP?

edit: i guess i'm a bit too cranky and i'm reading your comment wrong? dunno anymore :)

Elder Scrolls is shit, Oblivion marked the downfall of video games, I didn't read the article, and the raping of the Fallout series is a perfect metric to describe the current state of games.
 

Roguey

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