The Hot Topic Returns

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah, probably rpgs for me too, JRPGs in particular. I think the genre needs a bit of of a kick up the arse again. You get a lot of, what feels like, b-tier anime style ones, which might be alright but don't look interesting enough to withstand their giant run time. The likes of Persona and Dragon Quest are treading old ground, which is fine, but they need to be good versions of that. Persona 5 was good, DQ11 was a bit flat 

 

I'm still looking forward to Shin Megami whenever that finally arrives because at least that's tonally different to everything else. 

 

Western rpgs have as much bloat and as many middling entries, but Witcher 3 and Divinity are so much more interesting as game worlds despite being well trodden fantasy settings. 

 

So I don't know. I'm not too hopefully in the short term and I still think the loss of the 3DS is a part of that, but in 3 or 4 years time who knows where we'll be 

[OCH]

I absolutely loved DQ 8 when it came out. The first entry in the series I ever played. Even went back and played some of their earlier ones. But I haven't played any of them after that. In a similar vein, I didn't really care for Persona. But I have had SMT recommended to me instead. Haven't gotten around to that either.

 

Complacency is a more common failing of the J/S/RPG genre than others. Which can last for years at a time.

[mfnick]

Racing games. Favourite is PGR 2 or 4.  Perfect handling model between sim and arcade, fantastic track design, look incredible, kudos system was great. 2 probably just nudges it due to the sheer amount of content. 
 

As for how it will evolve this gen. Well to be honest racing games have been getting worse and worse over the years. Last gen was particularly bad apart from the slight shine in the darkness which were Driveclub, Horizon and Dirt Rally. Even Motorsport became a MtX mess and fucked about with stupid cards and crap I just don’t want. Plus more and more are open world type, which I don’t enjoy in racing games, apart from Horizon. I much prefer track based ones - real and fake. 
 

So I’m not expecting much. With Evolution being closed and Codemasters being purchased by EA I can only see my favourite genre getting even worse so not really excited to see what this gen will bring in that respect. Good job there’s a lot of other genres I love too. Plus got a bit of hope they’ll fix Motorsport this time at least though as they seem to have realised it fell of last gen since they’re taking another year off from it. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I don’t really like to pigeonhole myself into genres anymore, I was only really in to Platformers and Racing games as a kid and FPS/dude-bro shooters until my late teens/early 20s and missed out on a lot of cool games because I just didn’t even consider other genres, I never finished an RPG until Fallout 3 in 2010 for example as I had no idea what I was meant to do in them when I was younger and got bored.
 

I’ll play pretty much anything now really although RTS, 4X and God Games, Roguelikes don’t do much for me on the surface, I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand though, same with Roguelikes, but I have enjoyed a few games with Roguelikes elements in the past. 
 

Saying that I do have some genres I look more fondly on that others at the moment. JRPGs, open world games, Platformers, Survival Horror and Soulslikes. 
 

I do like straying outside my comfort zone and trying something new or a genre I’ve not played in awhile every now and again. I adored Injustice 2 but every fighting game since hasn’t resonated the same way and I never found the time to play MK11, same with Returnal coming out at the end of April, no idea if I’ll like that but I wanna give it a try, that uneasiness and apprehension is a good thing. 

[bellow]

I'd say RPGs.  I like the Japanese ones for the sense of magic and other worldliness. But for the real journey it's the western ones for me, the ones that really take time to build a world and populate it with believable characters and lore.

 

As for the future, I often think they could do with taking a step back. The last one I played, Greedfall, while not being the most expansive, really made sense of upgrading and specialization. You were always aware of the path you needed to take to get the character and gear you wanted.

[Maryokutai]

I'm also in the RPG boat. JRPG usually have more interesting combat and they're more "out there" in terms of character designs and world building whereas western RPGs are mostly better written and more immersive.

 

Which also makes it easy for me to determine how they could move forward and evolve: just learn from the other one. Make a western RPG with combat that I don't want to avoid by turning my character into a stealthy ranged fighter and start writing dialogue for JRPGs that doesn't sound completely fake and robotic.

 

I think one of the reasons why I like FFXII and Mass Effect so much (just to pick two example out of the big pool of personal favourites) is because FFXII has a wonderful script and ME is just fun to play in addition to their, let's say, pre-defined strengths of the genre.

[HandsomeDead]

I'm gonna say character action games as they are ones I get pretty into when they turn up but they're not common, so I get thankful when they turn up.  But it's mostly just Capcom and Platinum Games that do them.  God of War as well, granted.  But the b-tier ones rarely have the depth and consideration that those ones have.

 

I dunno what I expect from the genre in the new generation because they are so gameplay driven.  I dunno if why they lack in places is because of technology or a lack of imagination.  Because I do believe more can be done with the genre but progress seems to happen in one direction and is never explored to it's fullest during a generation.  The 360/PS3 generation comes to mind that was longer but not a great deal of innovation happened, in the AAA space at least.  And I don't at all believe it was because of technology.

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't really have a good answer, I guess it could be character action but the only one I've ever really got invested in is DMC (Metal Gear Rising to a lesser extent). DMC arguably ruined the genre for me cause other games in it don't go for the whole 'free flowing swiss army knife' type of gameplay design as that does.

 

Playing Control recently tho makes me wish these games would think of ways to use phyics and the environment to complement the combat. In DMC5 you could use the punchline devil breaker to skate into cars and do flips off of, I kept trying to find more stuff like that in the game but they literally just play with environment stuff for a single level and then fob the idea off. In Control you can absolutely devastate your surroundings and rip everything to shreds, as well as your CPU uptime. So these new consoles should be capable of something more impressive in this area.

 

Right now the genre I'm most into is immersive sim type stuff I think but it's hard to find a good one of those that isn't 'stealth games with RPG elements'. I'll have to look through some eurojank wikis to find some more and get my fix.

 

Also I hope horror/stealth games use RT for their gameplay somehow, I think that'll be more of a next next-gen thing tho

[spatular]

23 hours ago, mfnick said:

Racing games. Favourite is PGR 2 or 4.  Perfect handling model between sim and arcade, fantastic track design, look incredible, kudos system was great.

 

mine used to be racing games, and i agree with the pgr choice. i think there's been some pretty good ones out in the last year or so - art of rally, hotshot racing, wrc9, dirt5. and i liked the previous entries in the console sims - gt sport and forza 7. but yeah i generally agree they are going downhill a bit as there's nothing as good as pgr or driveclub these days, or ridge racer/outrun 2 on the arcade front.

 

i think i'm more into rhythm games or shmups now, and they're in a much worse state than racing games so maybe that's why i think racing games are doing ok! it's pretty rare for big publishers/devs to make these sorts of games any more, lots of indie stuff about. favorite music game is probably rock band (any of them really but lets say 3), and more recently beat saber and the persona ones. still play beat saber most weeks. shmups, most of my favorites are cave games (like ketsui), so more modern bullet hell shmups but still ~20 years old!

[Nag]

For me it would probably be an equal split between third person horror and third person action/adventure... which are almost one and the same so it's allowed.?

 

Give me something like Horizon, RotTR or Resident Evil and I'm as happy as a pig in muck. 

 

As for where things could theoretically go this gen, lighting could play a massive part with HDR pretty widespread now, I'd kill for Dead Space remasters (or better still Remakes) and the Callisto Project really does have my attention. You could probably have some fun with reflections in horror too with the use of Ray Tracing.

[Maryokutai]

I actually wonder how raytracing might impact genres that rely strongly on lighting to set the mood. I feel like it'll be easier to still do all that stuff manually and choose which areas are dark and which aren't compared to using Raytracing and designing the level in a way that there's no path for the light rays to reach a corner, for example. Unless you can use some tricks to not let it encompass the entire scene but then why even use it in the first place when it uses up so many hardware resources.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah artistic intent and RT is going to take some working out

 

There are scenes in Metro Exodus for instance where the baked lighting looks 'better' than the ray traced global illumination. Realistic lighting is cool but not always as cool artistically.

 

For me tho what I cant wait for is RT shadows and lighting for horror. Quake 2 has this flaregun which casts flickering shadows from dynamic objects/entities. Lots of spooky potential. But right now devs are obsessed with RT for reflections only cause it made Control look amazing and everyone seems to be following its lead a bit.

[Nag]

 

Quote

Readers discuss their favourite video game franchises that are over 25 years old and what they hope from them in the next gen.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Grackle and is based on the fact that there are a lot of major series celebrating their 25th, 30th or even 40th anniversary this year. So we wanted to know which is your favourite franchise that’s at least 25 years old?

 

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo dominated a lot of the answers, thanks to Mario and Zelda, but no more so than The Elder Scrolls, which many may not realise is due to celebrate its 27th anniversary next month.

 

[OCH]

1995 was a really long time ago now. In spite of the fact the last game I played in the series was twelve years ago and the last actual entry was Japan-only in 2012. When it comes to Next Gen hopes... A revival would be nice.

[Cyberpunk]

On 02/02/2021 at 13:52, radiofloyd said:

Here’s one.

 

 

Thinking about Black and White brings back a lot of memories.

I loved Black & White. And this game gave me my honest to goodness first video game scare.

I'll have to set the scene before you understand why a god-rpg scared me. First off, as some of the older members may remember, I'm deaf in my right ear, due to surviving a small cancer years ago within my middle ear. Second, more often than not, I play games in the dark with headphones on. My gaming PC is in my bedroom. So years ago, I'm sat at my desk, in the dark, playing Black & White which was at the time a new game. I'm not doing anything of importance in the game, just mousing around trying to teach my creature stuff, and the like. And I hear over my left shoulder, very faint, and ominous voice saying "deeeeeath!!!" WTF!!! I turn around, and of course, no-one there, just a dark bedroom. A little while later... "Deeeeeeeath!", slightly louder this time. I jump up, pull off the headphones, and look around. Nothing. Of course it's nothing. It's the bloody game telling me villagers are dying in a part of the map I'm not looking at. And my hearing difficulties made me hear is over my left shoulder.

 

As for my favourite long running franchises, I'm going to pick a few daddies of gaming. Doom to start with. I've played every id Software game over the years, and have always loved Doom. Ok, the franchise took a bit of a wrong turn with Doom 3, effectively turning a horror based action shooter into a horror shooter, but Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal are two of my favourite recent games.

I'm also a big fan of Sim City, and city builders in general. I still occasionally run the original Sim City using a virtual machine.

And finally, I love environmental puzzling, introduced to me way back when with Prince of Persia - Sand of Time. So as well as the Prince games, include Assassins Creed, Tomb-raider, etc. I finished Shadow of the Tomb-raider just before Xmas, and enjoyed the story, but found it the weakest of the new TR games.

[mfnick]

Most of the game series’ I liked 25 years ago have basically died so tough one for me.
 

Im looking forward to a Sonic Mania 2. But nothing next gen can bring to that which can’t be done now so.... fuck knows. 
 

If I include ones which have died then my list grows considerably but the ones Id like most is a new Panzer Dragoon in the style of Saga and a proper full blown Shining Force 4 with the budget and effort a Final Fantasy gets while keeping the old tactical turn based, grid combat. 

 

[OCH]

1 minute ago, mfnick said:

Most of the game series’ I liked 25 years ago have basically died

Same. Virtually all of my favourite games seem to be in the past-tense these days.

[mmmark]

On 02/02/2021 at 13:52, radiofloyd said:

Here’s one.

 

 

Thinking about Black and White brings back a lot of memories.

Oh man I loved that game. Lionhead a genuinely brilliant English sense of humour. 

[Nag]

Easy one for me...

 

 

25 this year.

[one-armed dwarf]

For Resident Evil the ultimate 'next gen' request I have is still a first person VR ready remake of RE1.

 

The slow pace of it and the VR reloading mechanics just suit the style of game perfectly. I can't really get 'immersed' in a game that goes first person unless it does some basic VR support now.

 

Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners has some interesting ideas around inventory management that could maybe suit an RE game if capcom ever go back to VR. Holding out hope for a PSVR2 announcement and REVIII VR port to it.