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Aren't "Best X of the Decade" lists a little odd for video games?
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Why not both? we also do have list of "best games of all time, etc.."
But which ones are better in the last decade?
But which ones are better in the last decade?
You're not wrong, but QOL changes doesn't make a game better, it only enhance the experience of playing.
Dark Souls 1 doesn't have any of the QOL improvements that Dark Souls 2 & 3 has and yet it is still widely considered as the best one.
QOL is like resolution, sure BioShock in 4K is great but it was just as great in 720p.
Remember this chestnut from earlier last year? Ranking the top games of the Heisei Era, a timeframe that literally spans almost the entirety of the modern gaming industry. And yet plenty here clucked on about how it was a meaningful list and not just dumb clickbait.
good games are good no matter what console they were released on
a game that becomes less good after its console generation was never good to begin with
a game that becomes less good after its console generation was never good to begin with
I agree OP.
It's not as bad this decade, but last decade consisted of three console generations, and there were a lot of games, mainly shooters and third person things, that immediately felt dated the second Gears, CoD4 and RE4 came out, no matter how good they were.
Like, MoH Underground is a top 50 PS1 game according to Metacritic, so it's basically one of the best shooters on the platform, but you compare that to CoD4 and it's awful in comparison. Story based games and RPGs don't really suffer from this problem, but gameplay focused titles obviously improve as time goes on.
It's not as bad this decade, but last decade consisted of three console generations, and there were a lot of games, mainly shooters and third person things, that immediately felt dated the second Gears, CoD4 and RE4 came out, no matter how good they were.
Like, MoH Underground is a top 50 PS1 game according to Metacritic, so it's basically one of the best shooters on the platform, but you compare that to CoD4 and it's awful in comparison. Story based games and RPGs don't really suffer from this problem, but gameplay focused titles obviously improve as time goes on.
Honestly, if the question is "is there any value in creating lists ever?" I'm not going to go to bat for the process regardless of what the parameters are. Generally speaking if I were to say they have any value at all I think it's more just in what it can tell you about the author of the list more than the pursuit of trying to craft any sort of Definitive Video Game Canon or whatever. I think things like recency bias are certainly a thing, sure. But the thread's overall premise of the PS3/360 generation versus the PS4/XB1 generation creating games that are too different to compare is just bizarre to me.
The value which I can think of is for people in the future who want to go back and look for works of a certain type. For example, if right now I wanted to go watch films from the 1980s, the films that will most likely interest me are films decided by general reception and word of mouth to be worth checking out. If I get a deeper interest and dive deeper than the "cream of the crop", then that's great too, but I think analyzing a decade has the value for people of the future interested in checking out works from a decade for one reason or another to have on-hand what was the "cream of the crop" of the decade in question.
Right, but I'm saying even with that you are basically talking about the Video Game Canon idea I kind of disregarded just because I agree with you here that this isn't something well-suited to pop-culture listicles. In that regard I really don't see how next year's (or two years from now or whenever we declare this gen over) "Best Games of Gen 8" lists are worth any more than this years "Best of the 2010s" lists.
I don't actually believe this is true even a little bit. What I tend to find with video games is later refinements to certain aspects of games can retroactively make certain things feel worse. That does not mean they were bad when they released, just reiterations and transformations on those core ideas became standard later which can make some of the older works harder to go back to with a modern lens.
I feel that doesn't mean, "The thing in the past was always secretly trash!" I just think it means that a lot of what that game did was reiterated and improved upon due to evolution of ideas and design. Time and place do factor into the quality of something. And some aspects of games will age worse due to improvements and refinements that were made due to specific things being reiterated and brought forward by experimentation.
Time, place, and how certain aspects of games have evolved over time do absolutely play into the aging process of how a game may feel to a modern eye. And types of games that have been greatly refined down the line will feel like they've aged more than games that use ideas that have not been explored as thoroughly.
Goldeneye was already weak shit compared to Doom and Quake the moment it came out (though it's still neat in its own right). That game didn't age poorly; it was on release what it is now.
"The Grapes of Wrath is in black and white, no way it deserves a place on the Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time List now"
"Spoken dialogue was such a big quality-of-life improvement that we cannot in good conscience keep Metropolis, a silent film (horrors!) on our Top 50 Films of the Century list"
Sheesh.
"Spoken dialogue was such a big quality-of-life improvement that we cannot in good conscience keep Metropolis, a silent film (horrors!) on our Top 50 Films of the Century list"
Sheesh.
I agree, but it doesn't mean that a game company will always make as good games.
Look at Bioware for example. Last gen, they released the Mass Effect trilogy, probably the best RPG trilogy ever released. This generation, they released Dragon Age Inquisition and Anthem. I don't think anyone would say that Bioware are has released better games this generation than the last one.
Now, look at Obsidian. Last generation, they released Alpha Protocol, Fallout New Vegas and South Park: The Stick of the Truth. But in the beginning of this generation, they can't find any contract with a major publisher and were near to close. They have released Armored Warfare (I don't think anyone care about this game), Pillars of Eternity I & II and Tyranny. The last three games are great, but they just didn't have enough money to make them even better. The first Pillars of Eternity, for example, feels incomplete and still has a lot of bugs. Then, they finally released The Outer Worlds (I haven't played it yet).
Finally, let's talk about CD Projekt. Last generation, they have released two amazing games, two RPG that RPG fans will remember for decades, two games which remain really great now, The Witcher and The Witcher 2. Then, they only make one mistake: they decided that The Witcher 3 should have "100 hours of original content." Then, they have been forced to forget almost every choice made by the player in the first two games, they have been forced to create a boring, linear experience where the played only have a small impact into the world in order to reach this "100 hours of original content" goal. The Witcher 3 isn't a bad game, it has a lot of qualities, but it's the worst Witcher game. CD Projekt also released Gwent and its single player, Thronebreak, two great games, but not as good as The Witcher and The Witcher 2.
So, even if I also think that video games are better now than in the past, it doesn't mean that every studio release better games now than in the past. For different reasons, Obsidian, Bioware and CD Projekt, the three kings of RPG, has released worst games this generation than the previous one.
And I don't even talk about dead IP/studio, like Bioshock.
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I was with you until you started talking about witcher 3. Like my mind can't even start to comprehend your opinion about it. And I can guarantee you 100% more people will remember w3 than 1&2. W3 is what put them on the map, w3 is the game that's appearing GotG list. W3 is the game that still holds the most accolades. Like come on.
Man, as soon as tangerines got released, I totally stopped eating grapefruits. Can't wait for lemons this year.
Well, I haven't played a game from this generation quite as awesome as Xenoblade Chronicles, so I can't say I agree.
My point is, back when it came out, it was considered one of the greatest games of all time. It probably wasn't deserving of that, but back then there was no real competition on consoles.
Obviously it feels dated now, but back then, that was the best console FPS you could get.
As another example, Shadow of the Colossus. It had universal acclaim, but go back and play it at 10fps on the PS2. You can't say it's a bad game, but it's aged horribly.
Shadow of the Colossus would still be an engaging game with a well presented minimal story. Bad framerate hasn't exactly gone away in console games, one of the best PS4 exclusives has bad framerate (Bloodborne)
Goldeneye was getting some massive "for a console fps" free pass, and hasn't stood the test of time it's contemporaries like Doom n Quake have for that reason.
Like anything else the game didn't get worse overtime, players became more aware of shit, and more literate. It's shown that goldeneye was not one of the best games of its generation but in fact wildly outclassed in its genre because console FPS were less than mediocre at the time.
The framerate was considered terrible back when it was new though. Had it not been such a great game we might not have been so persevering with its performance issues. The same is often said about The Last Guardian this generation.
I bet OP is one of those weirdos who threw away their old console as soon as the new one was announced.
Because no one has played The Witcher 1 or 2 :D. But I know it is an unconventional opinion, that's why it was the last example I gave.
I played it multiple times . And I dare to say W2 is the weakest witcher game all things considered, despite being a solid game .
If a game doesn't age well, then it's not a great game to put in the best of a decade list.
When reading a "top games of the decade list" I want to know what games are still the best to play today. I don't care if a game was good for it's time but not good anymore. It defeats the purpose of acknowledging the games that were and still are great to this day.
Shadow of the Colossus got plenty of points docked by multiple outlets specifically because of its performance. .
It's not like people magically started noticing framerate issues our of the blue one day in 2012. It was the biggest issue most people had with that game when it released in 2005.
But there were and still are plenty of people willing to look past performance issues providing the rest of the game is engaging and well put together.
And I do still go back to it and it's not suddenly unplayable because the date changed. Its still the same game it was in 2005 and it's still my favorite game.
I was a little bit disappointed by The Witcher 2, because even if it was a really great, it feels to short. Then, years later, I played The Witcher 3 and it shows me how wonderful The Witcher 2 was.
The funny thing is that I played Mass Effect 3 (you know, the game that everyone hates) after The Witcher 3 (the game that everyone loves). Mass Effect 3 is exactly how The Witcher 3 should have been, in my opinion. Mass Effect 3 respects all your choice (except one), which can led to the death of one of your previous companion. In The Witcher 3, all your choices are ignored, except one. There is also a lot of characters who has completely disappeared, even if it doesn't make any sense.
The Witcher 3 is a great stand alone game, even if I think it is too long and has an uninteresting main story. But as the last chapter of a trilogy, I think it was worst than Mass Effect 3 or than Dragon Age Inquisition.
I mean Witcher games were never designed or marketed as games that will carry save data to the next one . CDPR did that as a bonus thing for people who stuck with these games . They were always pitched as standalone games with Geralt being the protagonist
Mass effect games on the other hand were desgined , the whole elevator pitch was that games gonna remember what you did and react accordingly . And save data gonna cary over .
And when you say mass effect 3 respecting all your choices , All i can think is wraping a nice bow on the series , solving all the conflicts , giving fans what they always wanted . And I can't honestly call that good writing , it felt to me like a lot of time ME 3 was pure fan service instead of delivering actual narrative
There are lots of past gen games better than current gen ones. I'm not sure I understand the analogy
Considering many people consider Dark Souls and The Last of Us to be the best games of the decade (both of which came out around the start of the decade on the previous generation consoles) I don't really see what you're worried about.
Like many people consider Skyrim to be the best game of the decade despite the fact that the Witcher 3 and other later games surpasses it by pretty much every measure, simply because of the former game's atmosphere and more free-form gameplay, plus the huge modding community. The latter is something that only exists because of the game's age.
If anything I feel like people are more willing to nominate games at the start of the decade then ones from the latter years - is either God of War, Breath of the Wild or Red Dead 2 the best best game of the decade? Some would say so, but honestly it feels way to early to say and I feel like as time goes on people start having a more balanced view of those games like they do with the ones from the earlier years - all those games have their own flaws (yes, including BoTW).
Like many people consider Skyrim to be the best game of the decade despite the fact that the Witcher 3 and other later games surpasses it by pretty much every measure, simply because of the former game's atmosphere and more free-form gameplay, plus the huge modding community. The latter is something that only exists because of the game's age.
If anything I feel like people are more willing to nominate games at the start of the decade then ones from the latter years - is either God of War, Breath of the Wild or Red Dead 2 the best best game of the decade? Some would say so, but honestly it feels way to early to say and I feel like as time goes on people start having a more balanced view of those games like they do with the ones from the earlier years - all those games have their own flaws (yes, including BoTW).
Chrono Trigger still feels great to play.
Mario 3 still feels great to play
I don't know. I think there is a good connection between 1 and 2. You see some characters of the previous game and it affects the story (for example, if Radovid has married Adda in the first game, it doesn't say it would marry Anaïs in the second one).
In the Witcher 3, everything just feels weird for me. I don't understand why Radovid hunt sorcerers, as it is married to a strige and I revealed in the second game that all of that was made by Nilfgaard. I don't understand how Kaedwen, which has successfully conquest Aedirn, has been defeated by the Redania so easily. I don't understand why Alvin didn't participate at the attack of Kaer Morhen. And I could continue for a long time.
The story of The Witcher 3 isn't bad, but this isn't mine story, that why I can't enjoyed it.