Is this the worst videogame generation yet?

What do you think?
 
Many bashed my topic about reasons to buy a next gen console, but it seems that i'm not the only underwhelmed by the quality of this gen titles.
 
Barla Von, a member of Edge, in his blog wrote this article...
 
 

Is this the worst videogame generation yet?

This gen has been modest in terms of quality, so far, to say the least.

Last generation it was just about games, but now consoles have just become minimum spec PC's with frequent firmware updates, game installs, game patches, DLC, and  built-in browsers,etc.

Also, i really miss Japanese developed games, last gen there was loads, high quality games that offered truly unique experiences.

Now the market is dominated by mediore western titles, titles that are so over-hyped (Mass Effect, Killzone 2, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Resistance, etc), proclaiming to be triple-A games, when in fact they aren't even anywhere close to hold such status.

In fact, i'm so underwhelmed by this generation, i've went and bought a PS2 to play the huge back-catalogue of games i missed out on the first time around.

So, Is this the worst videogame generation yet? For me personally it is because a) i played way better games last gen b) it was all about the games last gen, not your console trying to be a million things and c) the rise of western (mediocre) titles is seriously unfullfilling me.

BV
 

I think the guy writing it has a point that is immediately made less agreeable when he says that there have been no "masterpieces" this gen. Bioshock, for example, was a HUGE step in the field of storytelling in a genre that mostly consists of space marines. Among other reasons, I can say without any hesitation Bioshock was a masterpiece of this generation. On the other hand, I do feel like if the market continues to favor rehases and quick cash ins over new ideas or fully fleshed out sequels, then the industry is only going to go downward. I truly hope people will stop buying Guitar Hero for no reason other than "It's Guitar Hero", because that kind of logic is what is going to give us as consumers more products that offer nothing unique.

Well i have more fun this gen than last .

I agree. I haven't been very impressed at all by the so called AAA games the past few years. The true winners this gen has been small downloadable games, and that's saying something.  
I guess me getting older and becoming harder to impress might have something to do with it, though. 

wish i could find the post to link to.
 
there have been more games rated 80 or over than ever before.
 
i can name more quality titles this gen than i can for last

I totally disagree, this person should stop consuming crack. Its not good for the health. Seriously.

Does this guy actually write for EDGE?  Even as an informal blog post this is complete poop-on-a-stick for a professional writer. 

No.
 
  

Well, they guy liked Mass Effect enough to take his nickname from it. Furthermore, I'll have to agree with turbomonkey138.

I kind of agree, but it isn't that simple.  I agree that the so-called AAA games are not must haves, as they just simply are not what I enjoy.  With last gen though, I though that the Xbox was the most boring console ever.  I have 60+ games and find none of them to be memorable.  The Gamecube was excellent and the PS2 had many awesome JRPG which is where most of my fun lies. 
 
 
With this generation, the 360 has some good JRPG and nothing else for me, but in fairness, a lot of games others love.  I haven't got a PS3 and there is very little calling out for me to buy one, bar a small number of JRPGs.  The Wii has some excellent titles and is a lot of fun, but it really still needs some more"special" games, but it is rivalling the Gamecube for me. 
 
I think that many of us are simply becoming jaded, as it is difficult to do something new and special, as it is largely last gen again, but with prettier graphics.  The games are probably as good, but our expectations may b just a little unrealistic.

So the guy likes shitty Japanese games...
 
And no, this is without a doubt the best gen. 

Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy are two that I'd easily call must have games, I'd even go as far to say they're two of the best games ever made. 

There's also been a huge influx of indie developed games..  things like Castle Crashers, Fat Princess and 'Splosion Man, etc have all been excellent, and they're types of games that never would have existed last generation.  So the market is definitely changing, perhaps away from your personal tastes.. But I've enjoyed gaming this generation just as much as I did when I was a wee lad with an NES.

" I think that many of us are simply becoming jaded, as it is difficult to do something new and special, as it is largely last gen again, but with prettier graphics.  The games are probably as good, but our expectations may b just a little unrealistic. "

" @Jeust: That's the worst blog article, yet. "

" @oldschool said:

" I think that many of us are simply becoming jaded, as it is difficult to do something new and special, as it is largely last gen again, but with prettier graphics.  The games are probably as good, but our expectations may b just a little unrealistic. "

I think you just touched a very important point.  Many games really are like the last gen ones, but with hd resolution. Probably the increase in graphics have been barring inovation and focus on fields like gameplay and inovation. "

Umm... I'm gonna have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you.... yeah....

Thats a whole lot of hyperboles without anything to back up his opinion. Plus anyone who describes modern games as "Triple-A" titles just comes across as being archaic to me. Games have evolved so far since that old moniker. They are more like interactive experiences rather than just a set of gameplay mechanics put together with a story to tie it together. I just think the game industry has evolved and is getting progressively better each year while the author of that article is still stuck in the 90s.

I wish the guy that wrote the article had put up examples of the games he's talking about on the PS2.  
 
I can kinda understand where he's coming from, if it's on a JRPG-level.  
 
One type of game that I would like to see come-back in full-force on consoles, not hand-helds, is the 2D side-scroller.  Be it adventure/exploration (like Metroid, Castlevania II, SOTN, Wonder Boy 5, and/or Zelda II) or action (like Ninja Gaiden I, II, and III and/or the old Castlevanias I, III, and IV).  Some have tried, like Shadow Complex, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Muramasa, but we need more... so much more.  And they need to make them hard as hell like they used to be :) 

Hmm, I almost agree. What I think the point was that there a no (or very few) 'classic' games. For example in 5 years time nobody is going to sit down and play Bioshock to relive old memories, but people do sit down and play Smash Brothers, Zelda and Goldeneye (a game that has never been topped), and yes, I know those were all 2 gens ago (and 64). Also I feel that developers seemed to stumble a little with the power of the new consoles, in particular the PS3. There were clear limits to what you could do in games last gen, so far more work went into making a game good with what you have, these days developers seem to be a little in awe of consoles processing power, and don't really know how to craft a 'masterpiece' game with so much power.

I don't think anything can be called a "masterpiece" until some time has past.  We are able to look back on the games of previous generations with greater knowledge of how they impacted what followed.  This generation is still being written and the games that have found their ways into our libraries are too new to get a good feel for their actual importance.  Plus, though no fault of the industry, the current economic climate limits the amount of risks game companies and game consumers are willing to take.  Publishers have to be more cautious these days otherwise they will not survive until better days.  I think this generation has produced some very good games.  I'm certain in a decade several of them will be regarded as truly noteworthy and rank them alongside the best of previous generations.  Maybe lists in the future will include Portal, Bioshock, Little Big Planet, Super Mario Galaxy, or something we haven't even seen yet.  Only time can tell.

Yea no this generation is awesome I am in the middle of Playing Assassins Creed 2 Dragon Age on the PC and doing MW2 MP on the side and helping my 11 year old sister on the weekends play through the first Rachet and Clank with me anyone who says this stuff isn't fun is just suffering from Nostalgia-ic overload or something these games are the results of years of refining formulas till the point of Near perfection Never look back my friends the future is where its at.

This gen is fine, maybe less games that I will look on with fond memories as super-awesome, but more good games overall. That point about having no true masterpieces (yes, I've played BioShock and Braid and Portal) is the only valid assertion in the article.
 
Also he takes his nickname from Mass Effect and calls it "mediocre" and "overhyped" what?

" @Jeust: I've had more fun playing Demon's Souls than I did Wind Waker, so at least by '09 this generation hasn't turned out worse (for me at least).  I'm tempted to say that my disappointment is Nintendo's move towards gimmicks...but then I recall the power glove and R.O.B. "

I miss mad japanese games, everyone is turning to western design, even jrpgs are not what they used to be, now they try to be "action" jrpgs  to suit a broader global market and when an old style rpg like Lost Odyssey comes out they bash it to death till they fail miserably. I think the problem is that now we have the 360 and the ps3, western focused consoles and Nintendo that has turned to the casuals, at some point we had Sega as a console maker, which was as mad as a japanese company could be, someone has to fill that category of crazy cheap games that are fun and don't try to be the second coming of Christ. Just watch the bayonetta new trailer, that man is right, he just wants to deliver some crazy and fun nonsense violent game and it have already paid, it is selling as hot bread, we need more games like that

BioShock
Assassin's Creed
Super Mario 3D
Super Mario 2D
Metal Gear Solid
The Elder Scrolls
Uncharted
Metroid Prime
Call of Duty
Halo
Dragon Age
Mass Effect
Zelda
Ghost Recon
Battlefield
Fallout
Grand Theft Auto
Half-Life  
LittleBigPlanet
Left 4 Dead
Rainbow Six
Mirror's Edge 
Resident Evil
Gears of War
Fight Night
Dead Space 
Forza
 
Those are just some of the franchises that have been great to awesome this generation. We are seeing an unprecedented number of great games coming out year after year after year. Have people forgotten about comparing 2007 to 1998?
 
The games are there and they are great, no doubt. If people are dissatisfied with the current generation it's due to jadedness and nostalgia more than anything else. I get jaded, too, from time to time, but some of my all-time favorite games have come out this generation (BioShock, Oblivion, Uncharted 2, Dragon Age, Orange Box).  On one of the Bombcasts, Paul Barnett talked about what he referred to as our personal "Golden Age" of gaming, which is a time that we look back on fondly and remember all the games we used to love, and think that was the best time for games. I agree 100% with that and I think that's mostly all this is.
 
Saying that nothing has changed between this generation and last aside from graphics is plainly wrong. Think of how far storytelling has come in genres that previously didn't give a damn. Think about the expansive, populated, and living worlds games like Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Oblivion, and Dragon Age create. Think about the way persistent online functionality has changed the way we play FPSs. Think about the way that DLC (though sometimes used shadily) can add legs to a game that you would have otherwise long ago put on a shelf. Think about the way that games like Left 4 Dead have created great cooperative experiences. Think about the crazy, dramatic set-pieces that games like Call of Duty can now create with the power at hand. Think about how the motion control of the Wii can be used to interact with a game like never before. Think about the way the proliferation of online functionality as a whole has allowed people to interact with others through games more than ever before. Think about the way that games like LittleBigPlanet promote user-generated content, and how things like XBLA/PSN/Wii Marketplace bring us smaller games we otherwise may never have played (Braid, World of Goo, Geometry Wars).
 
What did people want out of thise generation? How is any of what I mentioned any less of an increment over what the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube offered over the N64/PS1? Really, the biggest "innovation" I can think of there is making FPSs work well on a console, but that's still a genre that was in existence on PCs for a long time. I'm not saying advances weren't made in that leap, they certainly were, but I don't think it somehow outdoes the leap between the current generations. 
 
If someone thinks that the current generation of consoles doesn't offer anything new or good, they need to go back and play some last-gen titles. Very few games hold up at this point. They just seem so barebones, offering limited gameplay mechanics and options, choices to make, online functionality, and so on. And, as much as people like to complain that it's just prettier graphics, they really do make a difference in making a world come to life, especially when combined with realisitc physics.
 
Besides, if people want innovation, they should have bought Mirror's Edge.

The guy doesn't mention any masterpieces of the last generation though? Which is odd when refering to new gen titles.

Videogames have never felt as good as they were back when the N64 was around, to me. The last two generations of consoles have gotten worse, in my opinion. I still enjoy videogaming, but nothing will beat those times when videogames and consoles had major evolution, in my opinion.

I wouldn't call it the worst generation. But I must admit I had a lot more fun playing games last gen.

" Well i have more fun this gen than last . "

no I'd say it's one of the best but it was very slow out the gate

 FireBurger brings up alot of good points about the advancements we made this generation. But it's somewhat hard to imagine a techonological leap such as Super Mario 64 (for example) to have any parallells today. The step from 2d to (good, functional) 3d was just huge. But going from there to somehow making the point that this generation is the "worst" I don't buy. It's just that alot of the innovation has been moved to the indie-scene, which is readily avalible to everyone today via Steam, XBL, PSN and so on.. 

I'm playing some of the best games I've ever played. The only thing this generation doesn't have that previous ones had is the nostalgia factor, and that will come with time.

" I'm playing some of the best games I've ever played. The only thing this generation doesn't have that previous ones had is the nostalgia factor, and that will come with time. "

While I agree that the PS2 gen was more focused on the games for games sake. I think that article is a load of crap. The reason western games have come to dominate is because the masses had their fill of the Japanese stuff last gen. Most people are tired of the over the top hormone powered adolescent heroes and villains that fulfill the same cookie cutter token roles in each of their games, which all boil down to some whiney brat and his friends and their drug dealer on an acid trip of  self discovery ,coming of age, and to save the world.

I hold the opposite opinion of the paragraph you posted. I'm a long time gamer. I started on Atari, played through the 8-bit and 16-bit console wars, and was mainly a PC gamer all through the 90's and up till 2004. So far, I am very happy with the choices of games and the options available with the modern consoles. There is just a lot more variety now than ever. Also, I don't miss Japanese developed games. Western games have gotten a lot more innovative from a design and technical level.

Mass Effect overhyped? Fail.  
 
This generation was host to many masterpieces, including Uncharted 2, GTA IV, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Super Mario Galaxy but to name a small fraction. The person who wrote that article sounds like they haven't laid hands on a controller for the past 4 years.