- 54
- United States
The year is 2022, and people still think that "next gen" is even possible anymore, despite two (soon to be three) entire generations to the contrary.
Back in the '80s and '90s, gaming was changing massively every few years because tech was changing alongside it. Since about 2006, gaming has not really changed, not because developers are getting "lazy" (they're quite the opposite), but because tech reached a certain point.
The PS5 is just a PS4 Pro II. That's all technology will really allow anymore. Dread them, run from them, but upper limits arrive all the same.
Naturally, there are also examples of the opposite. Take Halo, for example. It's not a very original game at all; it's an arena shooter sort of game made by a company that had already been known for a series of those, the Marathon series. Halo, at least at first, was modeled quite a bit after Unreal. The things that Halo genuinely does differently are questionable at best, and often have to be changed over the years; did you know that vehicles cannot be damaged whatsoever in the first Halo? Who thought that was a good idea? But everyone calls Halo this gamechanging masterpiece, and it's for a very specific reason that has nothing to do with the game itself; it just happened to come out in the right place at the right time.
The idea of bad games, however, is merely treated as an opinionated minefield. The truth is that there are actual ways of figuring out what a game does wrong and precisely why it's doing anything wrong at all. Gran Turismo historically not having damage, and this somehow being some huge detriment, is a matter of taste and opinion. Gran Turismo 5 having cars that permanently disappear from the used car lot is a clear error, as it means that you require outside and perhaps even esoteric information; someone else has to go through the effort of testing it and also to be sure they're actually right.
Back in the '80s and '90s, gaming was changing massively every few years because tech was changing alongside it. Since about 2006, gaming has not really changed, not because developers are getting "lazy" (they're quite the opposite), but because tech reached a certain point.
The PS5 is just a PS4 Pro II. That's all technology will really allow anymore. Dread them, run from them, but upper limits arrive all the same.
No. Whether a game is "bland" or not is almost entirely up to opinion. It's a dirty word used to describe games one merely dislikes. All throughout gaming history, there are examples of bizarre games that were called "bland" by people who fundamentally cared little for anything those games were trying to do.
Naturally, there are also examples of the opposite. Take Halo, for example. It's not a very original game at all; it's an arena shooter sort of game made by a company that had already been known for a series of those, the Marathon series. Halo, at least at first, was modeled quite a bit after Unreal. The things that Halo genuinely does differently are questionable at best, and often have to be changed over the years; did you know that vehicles cannot be damaged whatsoever in the first Halo? Who thought that was a good idea? But everyone calls Halo this gamechanging masterpiece, and it's for a very specific reason that has nothing to do with the game itself; it just happened to come out in the right place at the right time.
The idea of bad games, however, is merely treated as an opinionated minefield. The truth is that there are actual ways of figuring out what a game does wrong and precisely why it's doing anything wrong at all. Gran Turismo historically not having damage, and this somehow being some huge detriment, is a matter of taste and opinion. Gran Turismo 5 having cars that permanently disappear from the used car lot is a clear error, as it means that you require outside and perhaps even esoteric information; someone else has to go through the effort of testing it and also to be sure they're actually right.
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