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Old 12-29-2009, 02:22 AM   #1
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Default So the 00's are over. How would you rate gaming in this decade?

Ah, the noughties. It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

I remember at the start of this decade when games like Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, Hyperspace Delivery Boy! or a number of old school genre titles would come out and be greeted with... yeah it's fun, but a cheap throwback. This is "budget software".

Now as we enter 2010 (The teens? Teenies? The tennies?) the number one stocking stuffer had to have been New Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Wii with many game reviewers having nominated it as best of the year next to cutting edge titles like Uncharted 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2. (Plus, there's a 2D HD Sonic game coming next year!) BTW, the number one selling gaming console? The Nintendo DS... So retro.

It was much the same for adventure gamers... We started the decade with 'adventure is dead' and are now ending it with a Monkey Island game and a number of Sam and Max titles. That's not to mention the hype surrounding Heavy Rain... I would have never thought that an adventure title would have as much pre-release interest to console gamers as action and fantasy fare like Bayonetta and FFXIII.

So, in comparison to the 90's (Which was like the silent era for me that ended with 3D becoming the standard) this decade seems akin to a transitional era where developers were attempting to streamline game development and then had to humble themselves in understanding... there's a place for every type of game. The kid playing Saints Row 2 is also playing Scribblenauts, and here's hoping that the new decade brings even more variety because of this.

Boy, that seems like I wrote a fair bit... It's all conjecture anyway, what did you think of this decade?

Last edited by thejobloshow; 12-29-2009 at 02:31 AM.
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Old 12-29-2009, 09:01 AM   #2
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Well for me it was a decade with the PC mostly (after getting my 1st PC back in 98, and loving Half Life and the Thief series). This decade certainly kicked off well with Deus Ex and Operation Flashpoint, both ground breaking games, then just got better and better "insert games titles", that brought fresh and new ideas into gaming.

2000-2010 has been a great decade for gaming imo, and the next decade, 2010 onwards looks promising. with Mass Effect2, Mafia2, Deus Ex3 & the Star Trek/Wars MMO's penciled in for 2010 alone. I think the 2000's is going to be a big decade to beat, and 2010-2020 is going to have to step it up a BIG notch when it comes to origional ideas.
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Old 12-29-2009, 09:24 AM   #3
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For me, the 2000's belong to the Jade Engine games (Beyond Good & Evil, the Prince of Persia series), the BioWare games, and Diablo II and its many, many enjoyable clones.

I haven't yet played any adventure games from the 00's that can compare favorably to their 90's counterparts. Even Dreamfall, which was enjoyable and probably my favorite AG of the 00's, is nowhere near as good as The Longest Journey, though I believe it's closer to being "on the right track" for adventure gaming than anything else out there.
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Old 12-29-2009, 10:28 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thejobloshow View Post
Ah, the noughties. It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

I remember at the start of this decade when games like Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, Hyperspace Delivery Boy! or a number of old school genre titles would come out and be greeted with... yeah it's fun, but a cheap throwback. This is "budget software".

Now as we enter 2010 (The teens? Teenies? The tennies?) the number one stocking stuffer had to have been New Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Wii with many game reviewers having nominated it as best of the year next to cutting edge titles like Uncharted 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2. (Plus, there's a 2D HD Sonic game coming next year!) BTW, the number one selling gaming console? The Nintendo DS... So retro.

It was much the same for adventure gamers... We started the decade with 'adventure is dead' and are now ending it with a Monkey Island game and a number of Sam and Max titles. That's not to mention the hype surrounding Heavy Rain... I would have never thought that an adventure title would have as much pre-release interest to console gamers as action and fantasy fare like Bayonetta and FFXIII.

So, in comparison to the 90's (Which was like the silent era for me that ended with 3D becoming the standard) this decade seems akin to a transitional era where developers were attempting to streamline game development and then had to humble themselves in understanding... there's a place for every type of game. The kid playing Saints Row 2 is also playing Scribblenauts, and here's hoping that the new decade brings even more variety because of this.

Boy, that seems like I wrote a fair bit... It's all conjecture anyway, what did you think of this decade?
I totally agree, so I don't know more to add.
While I think that this decade offered many quality titles (very few of them adventures, though), conventions are so established now that most games only improved on existing gameplay mechanics, templates, without truly inventing something new. So, the big titles were kinda conservative.
Okay, music games like Guitar Hero are quite popular now. And open world games like GTA3. I think these were the most important advancements.

Last edited by ozzie; 12-30-2009 at 02:51 PM.
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Old 12-29-2009, 05:46 PM   #5
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The 00's seemed like the age of shifting platforms. Consoles rose to the top, PC's titles have all but vanished from bricks and mortar retail stores, and hand held gaming took nearly everyone by surprise.

Sandbox games definitely hit their stride. Publishers ate each other and their young and now mega producers are making games with hollywood budgets and hollywood stars.

Thankfully digital distribution also took off, giving developers an affordable means to ship their products and try their hand at innovation with less risk, and provide older back catalogue titles without the overhead of boxes and shipping.

I think in the future we'll see a convergence of handheld gaming and mmorpgs, and a greater acceptance of gaming as an adult passtime everywhere but in Australia.

Yes, I don't think Australia will get its R18+ category in the next decade either. More games will be shoehorned into the M15+ bracket, doing more harm to those the lack of an R18+ category is supposed to protect.
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Old 12-29-2009, 08:52 PM   #6
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I'm a gamer from the 90's, i was heavily influenced by the late 90's early 00's videogames, and i still think that period was the best in this young industry.

However, this decade was interesting, and we saw a lot of changes.

The industry grew very fast, games became big mainstream blockbusters and more expensive to make. Developers now have less artistic freedom and need to play safe because of those huge investiments.

Independent gaming became a legitimate alternative, presenting new and fresh ideas.

Consoles became the lead platform for gaming with the new HD consoles (2004 was the real last PC-centric year with monsters like Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Doom 3, World of Warcraft, Rome: Total War).

Valve took a HUGE risk and revolutionized the industry in 2004 with Steam. It is now obvious that digital distribution is the future (for PC is already the present). Even if Steam closes, it will be in history as the first successful example of digital distribution for the masses.

In 2006 we saw the introduction of the Wii and the motion controler that seems that all the other competitors are copying and apparently will became huge in the future. And the Wii also brought a lot of casual players to the industry, replicating what The Sims had done in 2000, in a huge scale
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Old 01-10-2010, 09:10 AM   #7
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The first years of the decade was in my opinion terrible for a few reasons.

First, the adventure genre seemed dead with even Lucasarts canceling their adventure games in developement (Sam & Max and Full Throttle).

Second, the strategy genre which had been evolving steadily during the eighties and early nighties, became increasingly stale and were "institutionalized" into the "dune 2"-model which made us see no more new innovative games like Imperialism, X-Com and Pirates. Instead strategy games became synonymous with RTS, which is a fun genre, but killed of the innovation. Luckily, there have been one bright light for strategy gaming during this decade, that is, the paradox games. However, by now, even they are getting stale and unimaginative.

Third, piracy have steadily been killing of the traditional pc-based genres like the mentioned adventure and strategy games, and have pushed developers to the consoles, which is a problem because

Fourth, the development of the console wars were in my opinion were bad for the industry. First, the Dreamcast with its highly innovative games lost out early on, while the gamecube by Nintendo also did very poorly. Of the two traditional console makers, Sega was gone, and Nintendo widely considered to go the same way in a few years. This meant that the companies that have always been about innovation and games imaginative games were on their way out, to make room for Sony with the boring "new console, better graphics"-perspective and very traditional game production, and M$ with its Xbox who is only pumping out FPS's like Halo, which leads us onto the

Fifth and final point, which is how first person shooters, over the top-action games, and generally M-rated games increased in both critical reception and popularity, which made less rooms for both traditional genres and new games that focus on things like innovation, mature themes (no, Gears of War is not a mature game even though it has the M-stamp), puzzle-solving etc.

I would however say, that this bleak start of the decade have grown into a much lighter end. The popularity of the DS, and the following success of the Wii shows that there is an audience for games that are different, imaginative, and gameplay-based, and have also made great tools for adventure games to finally become more popular on consoles, while digital distribution and companies like Telltalle have almost single-handily put adventures back on the map for the PC. And then we also have the retro-wave that has hitted with the virtual console, Mega Man 9, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Project Needlemouse, Street Fighter 4, Tales of Monkey Island etc that shows that a lot of gamers wants to go back an age not only dominated by graphics, gore and shooting.

All in all, the end of the 2000's have given a lot of hope for the future, and hopefully, the trends we are seeing now will continue well into the next decade!
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