The "Currently Playing..." Topic

Poision Envy

2010-02-28 12:28:17 am

Club 27 Goals

Played Robot Unicorn Attack again just now, got 24K :D

arkarian

2010-02-28 03:52:21 am

red chamber dream

my recent "play old ps2 games" trend continues - this time it's sly cooper, a game i'd wanted to play for years. finished the first world and really liking it so far. seems to have just the right amount of everything - not too much or annoying combat, not too many things to collect, no overly long levels, really fluid controls and graphics, etc. only thing that sort of sucks is the occasionally shitty frame rate ... oh well, can't have everything i guess.

Opium

2010-02-28 03:54:01 am

Hmm...I'll look for that one next time I'm at a used game store. The only PS2 games I have are SotN and GoW 1 & 2.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2010-02-28 03:58:51 am

2010-02-28 03:55:39 am

red chamber dream

sly cooper is like $3.99 in the gamestops near me. definitely check it out.

oh yeah, and the stealth in the game isn't the retarded type of forced stealth you get in a lot of other games. it actually works really well.
the voice acting and story are also surprisingly decent.

TheGreenManalishi

Edit history:

TheGreenManalishi: 2010-02-28 09:39:15 am

TheGreenManalishi: 2010-02-28 09:39:02 am

TheGreenManalishi: 2010-02-28 09:38:28 am

2010-02-28 08:15:23 am

Quote from Gaius_4:

Quote from TheGreenManalishi:

The PS1 version is harder because you need to get two rounds on him.

...And because you have to play using a PS controller. Twisted Evil

I'd love a good PS3 arcade stick, but they're ridiculously overpriced for what they are (a single analogue slab of plastic with some buttons slapped on)

So there's this series called God of War, you may have heard of it. People seem to really like these games, so when a demo appeared on PSN I made the mistake of thinking there might be something I'd like about them.

Nope.

ryu

2010-02-28 01:40:53 pm

Quote:

a single analogue slab of plastic with some buttons slapped on

I don't know what the heck those things cost, but you realize they have to make sure the arcade stick a) is comfortable to hold, b) won't break too easily, c) can endur several billions of button mashes and d) does actually work?

TheGreenManalishi

2010-02-28 02:10:44 pm

In the UK the standard Mad Catz SF4 sticks cost about the same as two brand new recently released games, or two controllers which, considering they are about half as functional as the controller (no rumble, no dpad, no trying to cram everything into a small space) seems too costly. I can't say much about comfort, as I've never actually used an arcade stick outised of am arcade.

ryu

2010-02-28 02:23:33 pm

Mad Catz seems to be competing with Hori, so their sticks should be about the best available.

Honestly, these are not really needed anyways. I've never held an arcade stick before and am doing just fine with the PS2/3's controllers for beat'em ups.

ryu

2010-03-01 10:50:02 am

Friday will be fucking awesome. Going to grab off the Nintendo Store Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth, Mega Man 10 and ALTTP. Cool

Quietus

2010-03-01 11:34:14 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

You can never get enough Zelda 3. extra_smug

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-01 04:03:05 pm

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-01 04:03:00 pm

2010-03-01 04:02:35 pm

And once again... I get to the same spot I always get to these days in Blaster Master before dying a horrible death. That crab in area 5 is the bane of my Blaster Master runs. Evil or Very Mad

Have never gotten past him yet.

Oh a happier note though, I've got enough points now to buy Overdrive later, so I'll probably be playing that pretty soon.

Poision Envy

2010-03-01 06:53:35 pm

Club 27 Goals

I've given SpellForce 2 a chance, and its actually really fun. Has anyone else played this? I've never heard of it until Steam had the big sale.

Quietus

Edit history:

Quietus: 2010-03-02 05:37:03 am

2010-03-02 05:34:23 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Still caning Borderlands at the moment. I'm a level 34 Soldier now, and have recently gone to Old Haven. Dang, the Crimson Lance are a jump in difficulty. I spent an age looking for the darned Claptrap (I'd already found the Repair Kit), eventually gave up and looked online, only to find that he's not there until you go elsewhere to do another mission. Grr... Evil or Very Mad

I've noticed that the game pays homage to a lot of things that were obviously favourites of the developers. The most recent, obvious, one was the mission where you have to destroy three boats named Righteous Man, Great Vengeance, and Furious Anger. Hmm, heard that somewhere before... aiwebs_011

Prime Hunter

2010-03-02 11:00:30 am

MAN, that felt good! Fully Charged Gun + Crab Boss of Area 5 = Die Crab, Die! grin new

Now I can finally move onto the ice world of Area 6 for the first time in Blaster Master. And I've only used one continue so far, so I'm very thrilled with my progress right now. Of course, I'm finally back in uncharted territory, so I have a bad feeling I'm going to screw myself over any second now since I have NO idea what's coming.

Quietus

2010-03-02 11:09:42 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

That was / is the best thing about the NES era: the games did not forgive you. If you cock up, and you die, it's your fault, and that's all. Of course, there was the odd game that just didn't want you to win at all, but most of them were of the former variety. It bred better gamers, if you ask me.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-02 01:29:18 pm

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-02 12:45:54 pm

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-02 12:19:26 pm

2010-03-02 11:32:40 am

Huh... I've never been inside this area before, and yet I somehow knew EXACTLY where the boss was. Both in the overworld and inside his interior area. One shot and I took him out. (Didn't hurt that I went in with a lvl 7 gun and ended up with a 3 or 4 by the end.) Now to find the lava area and see what that has in store for me. (Oh, and I realized I wasn't completely right with my comment before - I've seen the bosses and some late game footage, but not the entire layout of the final three areas, so I'm still flying blind for pretty much the rest of the game.)

But yeah, I kind of miss that in some ways. As long as the difficulty is fair and most of the problems you will come up against lie in the player themselves screwing up, I can live with that for the most part. Some are definitely more unforgiving than others (Battletoads comes to mind here) but there's a magic to some of those games as well because they keep bringing us back to them no matter how many times we fail. How many games these days can do that with this kind of difficulty curve? I'd guess that a lot of players would probably give up after a few tries, or at least those who weren't born in the NES era or earlier where this was very common.

Because now that you mention it, Blaster Master and Battletoads are two of the most "notorious" NES games as far as this type of difficulty is concerned, and yet they're definitely within my top 5/top 10 favorite NES games, no question.

Edit: And now... the Frog Mk II.

Edit 2: Wow, that Frog battle was intense, even with having a fully charged gun practically given to you as you made your way to him. But now I'm entering Area 8, the Tourian of Blaster Master in a way. And yet I still feel unprepared for this, since I have next to no additional weapons other than my blaster for SOPHIA heading into here.

Edit 3: Brick wall

ARG!

I was going in circles in Area 8, pretty sure I wasn't far in at all either. There's this one room I found that looks like it would be more of an exit than the path I needed, but it was the only road I could see. (Looked like I needed to hover over a patch of spikes to get to the other side of the room and the next transition.) So I ran back to the first interior area I saw looking for supplies. I saw what I needed (I'm pretty sure) in the last room of the place, and DIED because I got too close to an enemy! Next I know, the title screen is staring me in the face.

There's a perfect example of what we were just talking about: Because I screwed up royally, I killed my own chances. At least now I know what to expect from the other 90% of the game though, so hopefully I can get back here relatively easily next time. (The Crab and Frog Mk II are without a doubt the hardest points in the entire game until I arrived in Area 8.)

Huh... I've never been inside this area before, and yet I somehow knew EXACTLY where the boss was. Both in the overworld and inside his interior area. One shot and I took him out. (Didn't hurt that I went in with a lvl 7 gun and ended up with a 3 or 4 by the end.) Now to find the lava area and see what that has in store for me. (Oh, and I realized I wasn't completely right with my comment before - I've seen the bosses and some late game footage, but not the [i]entire[/i] layout of the final three areas, so I'm still flying blind for pretty much the rest of the game.)

But yeah, I kind of miss that in some ways. As long as the difficulty is fair and most of the problems you will come up against lie in the player themselves screwing up, I can live with that for the most part. Some are definitely more unforgiving than others (Battletoads comes to mind here) but there's a magic to some of those games as well because they keep bringing us back to them no matter how many times we fail. How many games these days can do that with this kind of difficulty curve? I'd guess that a lot of players would probably give up after a few tries, or at least those who weren't born in the NES era or earlier where this was very common.

Because now that you mention it, Blaster Master and Battletoads are two of the most "notorious" NES games as far as this type of difficulty is concerned, and yet they're definitely within my top 5/top 10 favorite NES games, no question.

Edit: And now... the Frog Mk II.

Edit 2: Wow, that Frog battle was intense, even with having a fully charged gun practically given to you as you made your way to him. But now I'm entering Area 8, the Tourian of Blaster Master in a way. And yet I still feel unprepared for this, since I have next to no additional weapons other than my blaster for SOPHIA heading into here.

Edit 3: :brickwall_orig: ARG!

I was going in circles in Area 8, pretty sure I wasn't far in at all either. There's this one room I found that looks like it would be more of an exit than the path I needed, but it was the only road I could see. (Looked like I needed to hover over a patch of spikes to get to the other side of the room and the next transition.) So I ran back to the first interior area I saw looking for supplies. I saw what I needed (I'm pretty sure) in the last room of the place, and DIED because I got too close to an enemy! Next I know, the title screen is staring me in the face.

There's a perfect example of what we were just talking about: Because I screwed up royally, I killed my own chances. At least now I know what to expect from the other 90% of the game though, so hopefully I can get back here relatively easily next time. (The Crab and Frog Mk II are without a doubt the hardest points in the entire game until I arrived in Area 8.)

tomatobob

2010-03-02 06:00:48 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Quietus:

That was / is the best thing about the NES era: the games did not forgive you. If you cock up, and you die, it's your fault, and that's all. Of course, there was the odd game that just didn't want you to win at all, but most of them were of the former variety. It bred better gamers, if you ask me.

Rose colored nostalgia glasses itt. Cheap deaths were the name of the game back in the day, and it didn't breed 'better gamers' just a bunch of manchildren who whine endlessly about games being too easy these days because BACK IN MY DAY WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND BOSSES WERE HUGE AND ALSO MEN YOU HAD THREE LIVES AND THAT WAS IT! MAYBE A CONTINUE, BUT THOSE WERE FOR BITCHES AND EXISTED ONLY AS A BADGE OF SHAME! BACK THEN WINNING WAS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR ONLY THE MOST SKILLED OF VIKING WARRIORS!

I love older games play more of them than new ones myself, but I leave most of the NES titles alone because 99% were actually crap and the SNES/Genesis era was a million times better. PS2/Gamecube/Xbox had arguably the best lineup of games ever, all of them easier than the NES era.

But if we're talking about hard games, I've been playing the Strike games on Genesis, Desert Strike isn't too hard, but it's the one I played most as a kid so I was more familiar with it. Jungle Strike, though, could get balls hard. You got a level that takes place entirely at night and it's pitch black and you don't have any supplies marked on you map so god help you when you need fuel or ammo because if you hadn't found and memorized the location of some of those pickups you're boned. And you have the magical snow level where everything is guarded by forty billion tanks that get their stats boosted just because and they do not in any way need that boost to murder you with incredible efficiency. That level is ridiculous.

[quote="Quietus"]That was / is the best thing about the NES era: the games did not forgive you.  If you cock up, and you die, it's your fault, and that's all.  Of course, there was the odd game that just didn't want you to win at all, but most of them were of the former variety.  It bred better gamers, if you ask me.[/quote]
Rose colored nostalgia glasses itt. Cheap deaths were the name of the game back in the day, and it didn't breed 'better gamers' just a bunch of manchildren who whine endlessly about games being too easy these days because BACK IN MY DAY WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND BOSSES WERE HUGE AND ALSO MEN YOU HAD THREE LIVES AND THAT WAS IT! MAYBE A CONTINUE, BUT THOSE WERE FOR BITCHES AND EXISTED ONLY AS A BADGE OF SHAME! BACK THEN WINNING WAS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR ONLY THE MOST SKILLED OF VIKING WARRIORS!

I love older games play more of them than new ones myself, but I leave most of the NES titles alone because 99% were actually crap and the SNES/Genesis era was a million times better. PS2/Gamecube/Xbox had arguably the best lineup of games ever, all of them easier than the NES era.

But if we're talking about hard games, I've been playing the Strike games on Genesis, Desert Strike isn't too hard, but it's the one I played most as a kid so I was more familiar with it. Jungle Strike, though, could get [i]balls hard[/i]. You got a level that takes place entirely at night and it's pitch black and you don't have any supplies marked on you map so god help you when you need fuel or ammo because if you hadn't found and memorized the location of some of those pickups you're boned. And you have the magical snow level where everything is guarded by forty billion tanks that get their stats boosted just because and they do not in any way need that boost to murder you with incredible efficiency. That level is ridiculous.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-02 06:43:17 pm

2010-03-02 06:40:58 pm

Quote from tomatobob:

I love older games play more of them than new ones myself, but I leave most of the NES titles alone because 99% were actually crap and the SNES/Genesis era was a million times better.

Sure, if I had to choose one era over the other I'd definitely go with the SNES/Genesis, because you're right. Most games in that age are SO much better than the majority of those on the NES. But there are still gems to be found, and those are the ones that keep me coming back. I've played my fair share of those horrible NES games in the past, and unlike games such as Blaster Master, there is little worth going back to them for. And half the time they were practically broken as far as the difficulty goes, to the point where it was insane to try to finish them. (Although you could probably put Battletoads into that category based on the description I just gave, but I still kept coming back and eventually beat it regardless because I was still having fun with it.)

And I absolutely hate cheap deaths, I'll agree with you there. I remember playing through Ninja Gaiden on the Virtual Console (Never finished it - Still have a save at the last world because I couldn't defeat the final boss.) and one of my biggest complaints with that game is the random bats/birds that fly in and knock you out mid jump so that you fall into the abyss. Those kinds of deaths are what turn me off from a game if they are everywhere. But deaths that were brought on by the player, such as not dodging an enemy's attack or taking too many hits during a boss battle, those are the type I learned to accept from that era and have few problems with. (Might get frustrated with those though, such as I am now with the final boss on Blaster Master since I can't dodge all of the boulders he keeps shooting at me and will have to restart the game from the beginning due to running out of continues.)

I'll also agree that difficulty doesn't always make the game better. Depends on what type of game I'm playing without a doubt, but even then it comes down to whether or not I'm enjoying the experience, difficult or not. A game could be the easiest thing in the world, but if I still have fun playing it, I'll keep playing it long after I finish it the first time around.

[quote="tomatobob"]I love older games play more of them than new ones myself, but I leave most of the NES titles alone because 99% were actually crap and the SNES/Genesis era was a million times better.[/quote]
Sure, if I had to choose one era over the other I'd definitely go with the SNES/Genesis, because you're right. Most games in that age are SO much better than the majority of those on the NES. But there are still gems to be found, and those are the ones that keep me coming back. I've played my fair share of those horrible NES games in the past, and unlike games such as Blaster Master, there is little worth going back to them for. And half the time they were practically broken as far as the difficulty goes, to the point where it was insane to try to finish them. (Although you could probably put Battletoads into that category based on the description I just gave, but I still kept coming back and eventually beat it regardless because I was still having fun with it.)

And I absolutely hate cheap deaths, I'll agree with you there. I remember playing through Ninja Gaiden on the Virtual Console (Never finished it - Still have a save at the last world because I couldn't defeat the final boss.) and one of my biggest complaints with that game is the random bats/birds that fly in and knock you out mid jump so that you fall into the abyss. Those kinds of deaths are what turn me off from a game if they are everywhere. But deaths that were brought on by the player, such as not dodging an enemy's attack or taking too many hits during a boss battle, those are the type I learned to accept from that era and have few problems with. (Might get frustrated with those though, such as I am now with the final boss on Blaster Master since I can't dodge all of the boulders he keeps shooting at me and will have to restart the game from the beginning due to running out of continues.)

I'll also agree that difficulty doesn't always make the game better. Depends on what type of game I'm playing without a doubt, but even then it comes down to whether or not I'm enjoying the experience, difficult or not. A game could be the easiest thing in the world, but if I still have fun playing it, I'll keep playing it long after I finish it the first time around.

tomatobob

2010-03-02 11:02:30 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Oh yeah, I'm not saying that there's nothing there to pick up again, some games were legitimately good, it just that a lot of self diagnosed gamers look at the NES era as some golden age of video games where it was all great and sure the games were hard but they were supposed to be because video games were not for the 'casual crowd' like its something to be smug about. Ignoring the fact the limitations of the NES had just as much to do with the difficulty as the developers.

arkarian

2010-03-02 11:29:24 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from tomatobob:

PS2/Gamecube/Xbox had arguably the best lineup of games ever, all of them easier than the NES era.

fuck yes.

Prime Hunter

2010-03-02 11:44:09 pm

Quote from tomatobob:

Ignoring the fact the limitations of the NES had just as much to do with the difficulty as the developers.

Yeah, no kidding. laugh new

"Yes, we deliberately made it so that you have no save feature in order to increase the challenge! Oh, and you can only fire THIS many shots at once and in THIS many directions on top of that! Wait, you say you're stuck on a (cheap) boss because you only have a handful of actions you can take, none of which can protect you from their overwhelming attack? Too bad! Good luck, gamers!"

I could go on with that, but you get the idea.

As far as which era had the best lineup, I'd probably argue for the SNES/early-to-mid 90s seeing as a lot of my favorites are from that time frame. Either way, each generation has their share of gold to go along with the duds, so depending on who you talk to you're going to probably see every system being supported to a degree.

arkarian

2010-03-02 11:50:42 pm

red chamber dream

fuck snes

Prime Hunter

2010-03-03 12:00:29 am

Now that I think about it, my favorites kind of span most of the gaming generations anyway, so it's hard for me to pin down one specific set of years as the best. But even with that, I'd probably still say the same thing in the end and put the SNES era on top as far as I'm concerned.

Any particular reason I'm forgetting for why the Cube era is #1? (I will admit that there are a lot of high quality games that came out 5-10 years ago and a bunch of my favorites fall into that time frame as well, so it'd probably rank #2 for me if I had to put them in order.)

arkarian

2010-03-03 12:21:14 am

red chamber dream

i just like playing gamecube games (and other consoles from that gen). the graphics are appealing to me because they're from what i see as the first generation where graphics actually started to impress me. also the games feel much humbler than the current gen somehow ... shorter, don't try to do as many things as once, and all the better for it. also really like the gc controller.

J_SNAKE

Edit history:

J_SNAKE: 2010-03-03 12:52:41 am

J_SNAKE: 2010-03-03 12:46:27 am

J_SNAKE: 2010-03-03 12:33:26 am

2010-03-03 12:32:29 am

Quote from tomatobob:

Quote from Quietus:

That was / is the best thing about the NES era: the games did not forgive you. If you cock up, and you die, it's your fault, and that's all. Of course, there was the odd game that just didn't want you to win at all, but most of them were of the former variety. It bred better gamers, if you ask me.

Rose colored nostalgia glasses itt. Cheap deaths were the name of the game back in the day, and it didn't breed 'better gamers' just a bunch of manchildren who whine endlessly about games being too easy these days because BACK IN MY DAY WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND BOSSES WERE HUGE AND ALSO MEN YOU HAD THREE LIVES AND THAT WAS IT! MAYBE A CONTINUE, BUT THOSE WERE FOR BITCHES AND EXISTED ONLY AS A BADGE OF SHAME! BACK THEN WINNING WAS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR ONLY THE MOST SKILLED OF VIKING WARRIORS!

Capture a talk about it is interesting for me because I dont think the issue is trivial. I guess both sides have something right and wrong. I am convinced that if a game is criticized
to be too hard it is often an indicator for interesting gameplay-design (but not necessarily). Personally an easy game cannot be interesting for me since there is no challenge. It implies that the user has to artificially generate some challenge for himself in order to keep it interesting. An easy game is Super Metroid. But you can artificially create your own challenge, like making a low-run or use certain-paths only and so on. Just imagine you cannot mesuare time in SM. The game will be dead for some gamers. Personally I prefer some natively implemented challenge. And if I am still not satisfied with that there can be always room for generating my own challenge.
I agree that not every hard game does breed better gamers but well-designed surely do.
While on the other hand an easy game does not force a player to get better.
I have a good example. A game for the snes called Timeslip. All people I hear off are complaining the game is unfair and too hard. But for me it is a decent snes-game. It separates from many games in one aspect: You get enough toys to deal with the situation, but
you have to use them and you are rewarded for that. I see like chess in some way. If your opponent is asleep or easy there is no need to engage your units. You can eliminate him in a "poorer" and more boring way.

In general I think that today it is much much harder to design a good game. It has something to do with the scale. And of course the meaning of the word is changing
since more aspects like visual qualities, story-telling and so on are added. You have more room to run in fallacies and mess something up than in the nes era. You have to deal with several aspects in parallel and some are more attention spend than others. If visual-aspects have a higher weight the gameplay-aspect will go more down. While nes era could only impress with gameplay and the possibility space was significantlly smaller you had some good chances not to mess too much up and provide some challenging, interesting and more balanced gameplay, simply because there was less other focus left. Today you stand like a child and try to grasp the huge universe. The nature is more complex, you try to implement some concepts and look how they work, without knowing some consequences they may take, kind of it can result in an atomic-bomb but you are not able to watch that deep.
Some bigger companies even claim to brig a huge game with interesting combat and weapon design while at the same time for some it is obvious no one of them knows how to use the unreal-engine right if it comes to specific technical issues.
So once you found a concept that selled well(let alone worked well), as a big company you cannot take any risk, stay inflexible, and repeat all the same stuff which hardly changes since you are afraid you dont know or cannot grasp it will be a train-wreck or an atomic-bomb otherwise.
Thats my view of some companies today.

[quote="tomatobob"][quote="Quietus"]That was / is the best thing about the NES era: the games did not forgive you.  If you cock up, and you die, it's your fault, and that's all.  Of course, there was the odd game that just didn't want you to win at all, but most of them were of the former variety.  It bred better gamers, if you ask me.[/quote]
Rose colored nostalgia glasses itt. Cheap deaths were the name of the game back in the day, and it didn't breed 'better gamers' just a bunch of manchildren who whine endlessly about games being too easy these days because BACK IN MY DAY WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND BOSSES WERE HUGE AND ALSO MEN YOU HAD THREE LIVES AND THAT WAS IT! MAYBE A CONTINUE, BUT THOSE WERE FOR BITCHES AND EXISTED ONLY AS A BADGE OF SHAME! BACK THEN WINNING WAS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR ONLY THE MOST SKILLED OF VIKING WARRIORS!
[/quote]
Capture a talk about it is interesting for me because I dont think the issue is trivial. I guess both sides have something right and wrong. I am convinced that if a game is criticized 
to be too hard it is often an indicator for interesting gameplay-design (but not necessarily). Personally an easy game cannot be interesting for me since there is no challenge. It implies that the user has to artificially generate some challenge for himself in order to keep it interesting. An easy game is Super Metroid. But you can artificially create your own challenge, like making a low-run or use certain-paths only and so on. Just imagine you cannot mesuare time in SM. The game will be dead for some gamers. Personally I prefer some natively implemented challenge. And if I am still not satisfied with that there can be always room for generating my own challenge.
I agree that not every hard game does breed better gamers but well-designed surely do.
While on the other hand an easy game does not force a player to get better. 
I have a good example. A game for the snes called Timeslip. All people I hear off are complaining the game is unfair and too hard. But for me it is a decent snes-game. It separates from many games in one aspect: You get enough toys to deal with the situation, but
you have to use them and you are rewarded for that. I see like chess in some way. If your opponent is asleep or easy there is no need to engage your units. You can eliminate him in a "poorer" and more boring way.

In general I think that today it is much much harder to design a good game. It has something to do with the scale. And of course the meaning of the word is changing
since more aspects like visual qualities, story-telling and so on are added. You have more room to run in fallacies and mess something up than in the nes era. You have to deal with several aspects in parallel and some are more attention spend than others. If visual-aspects have a higher weight the gameplay-aspect will go more down. While nes era could only impress with gameplay and the possibility space was significantlly smaller you had some good chances not to mess too much up and provide some challenging, interesting and more balanced gameplay, simply because there was less other focus left. Today you stand like a child and try to grasp the huge universe. The nature is more complex, you try to implement some concepts and look how they work, without knowing some consequences they may take, kind of it can result in an atomic-bomb but you are not able to watch that deep.
Some bigger companies even claim to brig a huge game with interesting combat and weapon design while at the same time for some it is obvious no one of them knows how to use the unreal-engine right if it comes to specific technical issues.
So once you found a concept that selled well(let alone worked well), as a big company you cannot take any risk, stay inflexible, and repeat all the same stuff which hardly changes since you are afraid you dont know or cannot grasp it will be a train-wreck or an atomic-bomb otherwise.
Thats my view of some companies today.