The evolution of PC gaming.

[Quazick]

I was sitting here and thinking about how PC games have evolved from simple games on the Atari 800 to the complex 3-d games like Everquest.

But really...
Has PC gaming changed for the better or for the worst?

PC RPGs have all but dried up! The only ones on the market are shipped with online play as their main focus.

The last PC RPG I looked forward to was Final Fantasy 7 because I thought It might have some changed.

So what is everyone's thoughts about the evolution of PC gaming in thep past 20 or so years?

[YoshiM]

Wow, good question.

Personally, I think PC gaming of today (for the most part) is utter crud.

I really didn't start computer gaming until the early 1990's. Sure I had a Color Computer, but I didn't play anything "off the shelf" or mainstream until I got an 8088 12 MHz 640KB IBM/PC Compatible with Hercules/CGA monochrome graphics. This was like 1991-92, my computer was already 3 generations old (I think 386 machines were on the way out and 486 machines were becoming dominant).

Looking at the PC market then, it was a goldmine of gaming pleasure. There were deep adventure games by Sierra like the "Quest" games (Police, Space, King's, etc), simulations like F15 Strike Eagle II, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Flight Simulator 2, RPGs like the newer Bard's Tale games, Might and Magic and The Magic Candle. We had espionage games before Tom Clancey got popular thanks to Covert Action. Shareware was a great way to get great games cheap: Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, EGA Trek, etc. There were many other great games, but what was great was that they could all be enjoyed on practically any PC. Graphics didn't matter, it was all about gameplay.

When 1993/94 rolled about, you HAD to have a 256 color VGA card and a Sound Blaster compatible card for a lot of the games. Not because they wouldn't work (though many games didn't have an option for lesser graphics modes, so they would not work), but because you'd miss out on a lot of great things. This was the golden moment of computer games, I think. Lots of stuff to play, no trends being etched in stone as to what's hot and what's not. RPGs galore with more Might and Magic (Clouds and Darkside [?] of Xeen), Ultima 7, Darklands(?-quasi real-world setting from Microprose), etc. More shmups than you could shake a stick at with Zone-66, Traffic Department 2147[?], Jetpack and others. FPS games came to light with Doom, Blake Stone. It was a great time to be a computer gamer and this continued for a few years until say about 1997/1998.

This was when the marketing machine took hold and plunged everything, IMO, straight to Hell. Without the handbasket.

When we started seeing groundbreaking games like Warcraft come along, all of a sudden everyone HAS to make a game just like it. While there have always been "me too" games, they almost always fell to the wayside and never reared up again. For the last four or so years the shelves became a glut of junk of popular genres. For the longest time we saw rehash upon rehash of RTS and FPS games and it's still going on. Now it's a "gimmick", being multiplayer (which isn't always bad, but games don't have to have it JUST to have it), MMORPG's, other genre pay-for-play online games like Sims, Wing Commander-esque games and racing are being shoved in our faces. Few are great, some are average, most are crap. Paging through three months worth of PC Gamer in a row showed me that most of the games they review rarely got above 50% on their rating scale. You know it's bad when a reputable magazine does reviews like that.

I do agree today gamers are given games with tremendous production values for their money. Graphics that can rival TV, sound that screams for surround sound. But it seems the games have no soul. So far there has not been a new X-Wing or Tie Fighter game. No game that beats X-Com: UFO Defense. Adventures games are pretty much dead (even though there are a few fires still buring: see Full Throttle 2 for example). Computer gaming has become mainstream. It's been homogenized. It's become a fast food burger chain that offers up the same processed patty but with different condiments.

This is why I still keep a DOS partition free so I can get my Kyrandia swerve on or maybe remind myself what was so secret about the weapons of the Luftwaffe.

That is definitely my 5.7 zenny on this....

[BHvrd]

Wow, definitely a good topic, and one that needs to be touched on!


I would agree that PC gaming has rapidly been going downhill in the quality, and creativity department.

Of course the olden days will never be toped as the creativity was at an all time high, no need disputing that imo.

The first transition to 3-D was a good step, but now that things are stepping into better graphics with more realism, it's really getting worse, and the technological advances are not 100% to blame, but the developers.

A good example would be Unreal 2k3. It looks better sure, and has good gameplay, and strategy to it, but it just doesn't feel like a "video game" anymore, and I blame the developers more than the advance in technology. They went for the more realistic approach, and to me "an Unreal Tournament fan" it really dissapointed me. It lost all the style I loved, and is nothing more now than a Q3 wannabe.

While I have to disagree with alot of your opinions on the online RPG games, I love those, though they need to improve the quality for sure, such is the case for many games.

It's not necessarily the advance in technology that makes games get worse, it's a lack of creativity in developing.

While I like the new steps in graphics, and some ideas are really great, I think that developers need to keep in mind that these are still "games", and above all else to me that's what matters. Developers need to get out of this routine of making a "showcase" game, and get back to their creative roots.

[CrazyImpmon]

I remember back in the old time when I wanted to have just ablout every games that came along. Back then I had C64 and just got a disk drive, my first was Ultima 5 (naturally because of Exodus for NES)

Today, only 2 moden games grace my PC wish list: Simcity 4 and Stronghold: Crusader. No 3D first poerson POV game, no shoot 'em up, no Doom wannabes, etc. A lot of other games were either unoriginal, uninteresting, or an expensive recycled version of older game. I don't think I've bought any fantasy game since the original WarCraft II. (I have Diablo II but my bro loaned it to me since he's addicated to Everquest.)

[tom]

Pc gaming evolved since 1964 'Space War' on the DEC. In the 70's we had MUD and the Zork-style text based RPG's on big IBM mainframes. Most of those games came on 'punch cards' and didn't even have a screen, only a huge printer attachment (That took up a whole room by itself). I remember playing those games at work in my lunchtime, it was exciting. Famous People like Marc Blank and the William's (Sierra) got hooked and formed companies to bring gaming to the masses, mostly on Apple II.

1983 our workplace got one of the first IBM desktops, together with a copy of 'Microsoft Adventure'. The first PC graphic games started to appear (see Yoshi post) as well. Late 80's early 90's saw many great PC games, SSI gold boxes, Mean Streets, David Wolfe, Larry games, Wing Commander and many more.

I started PC gaming in the early 90's my first PC was a 286, which I had for 2 month and then I upgraded to an HP 386 PC, which kept me happy for 5 years. Also in 1994 I got my first 'single speed' CD-Rom, I think it was one of the first to buy cheaply ($250.00). Maniac Mansion 2: DOTT and Return to Zork were amongst my faves.


With the arrival of 3D gaming my enthusiast for PC gaming went downhill, and now I mainly play oldies like Alter Ego (yes, I also kept my 51/2 FDD)

[buttasuperb]

A good example would be Unreal 2k3. It looks better sure, and has good gameplay, and strategy to it, but it just doesn't feel like a "video game" anymore, and I blame the developers more than the advance in technology. They went for the more realistic approach, and to me "an Unreal Tournament fan" it really dissapointed me. It lost all the style I loved, and is nothing more now than a Q3 wannabe.


Personally I think UT2K3 rocks, as long as I find a good server with some good competition, I can play online for hours. I don't see how it lost any style, it pretty much plays the same as UT, but with a different sniper rifle, new maps, and best of all, better speed.

As far as PC gaming on the whole, sure there are less good games out there these days, but for me all i need is one good one online FPS to play, and one good real time strategy game to play and I'm set. So, for the time being, UT2K3 and Age of Mythology stack up pretty damn nice to any 2 console games for any of the systems, as far as I'm concerned.

[YoshiM]

While I have to disagree with alot of your opinions on the online RPG games, I love those, though they need to improve the quality for sure, such is the case for many games.

Not sure to whose opinions you're targeting, but IMO online RPGs need a TON of work before they can escalate beyond the "deathmatch-with stats and dice" realm. While I haven't played many (I was a beta tester for Sierra On-Line's The Realm and I was a player in Asheron's Call), the worlds are not overly dynamic and what the characters do really doesn't effect the world hardly at all. I understand that there can't be "unique" weapons as it would not be fair to other players, but the idea of going through a dungeon beating up monsters and the main bad guy and then waiting in line to get the quest item after it respawns is just insane. I was really turned off when someone set up another character to be a "pack mule" to hold items so their main character isn't bogged down.

Another player nit-pick is that there really wasn't any "role playing". I guess maybe because I've played D&D over the last, oh, 14 or so years and I role play that character and not as myself. I never ran into anyone being "in character". Sure I met friendly people as if I was in a gigantic chat room, but that was the extent of it. No thought as to why their character exists, no emotion that fits the character they chose, I'm sure you get the drift.

Maybe I expected too much, but overall I was left with a fairly dry experience for my $10 a month. Could've been Asheron's Call, though. I've never tried EverCra....er..Everquest, so that could be a totally different experience.

But as always: different strokes for different folks.

[InfernalCheese]

I really think that if devlopers put as much time into the graphic realism as into the storyline of games the pc market would not be in the sludge like state it's currently in. The reason the market seems so craptacular is because the amout of game dev's has drasticly incresed in the past few years. This can probably be traced back to game engine liscensing.Yeah it's great that anyone with the time/cash and knowledge can dev a pc game with grapincs and sound. Heck, thats how some of the early pc game greats got their start right? Ok, right behind the talented and untalented gamers yearning to create their own game are the greedy/evil coprerate people. Many really bad games are being created simply to make a little $. There focus is not what is should be. Sure a person might want to make money by doing what they like, but most of the $.99 bargin bin trash is only there to pry your eyes away from the "real" games. Is the pc game market a dry spell at the moment? I say yes, but with all these little games that reuse engines and take 5 min to make cluttering the market how can't we expect it to be difficut to find a few needels of good gameing the in the video game market of hay/garbage? And why should lazy dev's want to create a totally new and different game when they can recycle everyone elses ideas and software?

[gamingguy]

I bought a copy of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. I can't get it to work. I hate PCs.

(reaches for his always-reliable PS2 controller)

[TheTallMan]

I bought a copy of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. I can't get it to work.

Sir, we are not surprised.

[Smorgy]

I go back to the old "tape recorder" non-graphic games where Gameplay was the king. Even with the advent of Atari & C64s, gameplay was still king --- all the creative juices went into it.

Once the PCs started concentrating on Graphics, they lost me.

Was a time I'd buy 70-85% of all titles released each year --- now I'm lucky if I find 1 or 2.

The other problem with PC Gaming (since Atari & C64s were the bosses) is continual streams of patches --- like, can't these people even program correctly?

I started losing my love for PC Gaming soon after "Darklands" was released --- great concept, great potential game but hardly anything worked!

Chris.....a.k.a. Smorgy
www.smorgasboardofgames.com