3d games meh :\

[Swoosh So]

Is it just me or has the progression to 3d gaming been a flop for many game series out there? ill give some examples of games ive played that have gotten worse with the step to 3d.

Shogun/mtw to rome/mtw2.

Fallout1&2 to the new fallout3.

Baldurs gate to neverwinter nights.


I would say as a multiplayer experience totalwar was totally destroyed, single player fallout became a shade of the former games in terms of depth and gameplay and neverwinter nights in singleplayer just dident live up to the baldurs gate games.

Just my two cents, anyone else experienced this or the reverse with the games actually getting better?

[CountArach]

I play a lot of (very ugly) hex-based games because, the way I see it, companies put more effort into enhancing gameplay if the graphics don't matter.

[CrossLOPER]

It doesn't really matter because Thief II: The Metal Age is the best game ever.

[Husar]

Well, technically Shogun and MTW were already 3D games, except for the campaign map and the soldier graphics.
You are however somewhat right but I do not think the blame lies on the 3D graphics themselves but rather on the added attraction they give to games which attracts more casual players the companies then try to cater to.
3D graphics offer some great possibilities as well, if the developers use them, but in many cases they just try to make everything easier so the game almost plays itself, one could say they make games more like TV shows because that is what people are used to, but if you think about it they could do the same with 2D graphics so I think the connection to 3D is coincidental and there are some pretty good 3D games out there as well.
Personally I liked M2TW quite a bit, sure it wasn't perfect but I had a lot of fun with it, then there is the Thief series which started out in 3D and many here like a lot(personally, as usual, I just played the demos ).
And I would like to add Gothic 1 and 2 which also never had 2D versions and are pretty excellent if you don't start crying about the controls for reasons I never understood, the third part however was pretty botched and incidentally was also the first part the publisher wanted to make big in the USA...go figure...

And then you have quite a few games from the russian-sphere or Eastern Europe/Russia like Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault(though with StarForce afaik), the Stalker games etc. IMO no matter what graphics they use, the eastern games companies usually make pretty cool games they release in a pretty buggy state, usually they draw me in for weeks even though there are bugs and problems, quite different from all the accessibility and streamlining that turn many western games into a bunch of quick action scenes between a bunch of cut scenes.

But generally my point is that the 3D graphics are not to blame, they just made gaming more popular which made many companies change direction towards less depth, something I find fun as well now and then but not in every game and genre.
whether less depth was actually demanded by the masses or just assumed by the publishers I find hard to answer and could end in endless discussions.

[Fragony]

It doesn't really matter because Thief II: The Metal Age is the best game ever.

You almost got it right! Thief II was fantastic but not as good as the first, better in execution, but when it comes to atmosphere the first beats the second hands down. I will never forget opening the Cathedral and the building sighs, owwwwwww zombies!! Huh what is that hammerite doing in a place like this, better knock him out. *thump*

BY THE BUILDERS ITS UNDEAD

join join us join us noooooow

I haven't touched the game for months after that.

By the way, you do know there LOADS of absolutely fantastic fanmade missions, some even better then the originals?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZHwfu5TGJ8 <- oh memory's

[Whacker]

My opinion varies per game series. Some examples:

(+ == improved, - == declined, = == steady, no improvement or decline)

= Baldur's Gate/NWN series - I think this has aged rather well, except NWN2's interface leaves much to be desired. I liked NWN1's interface and handling very well. The Baldur's Gate games based on the infinity engine were all fun, the ones I played at least, but it is a bit painful to go back to them now because the interface is a bit old and clunky these days.

+ Dark Forces up to Jedi Academy - Love em. All of em. They aren't designed to be anything more than shooty goodness with a bit of story attached, and they do this very well. If anything I think they became more fun as time passed and they adapted them to the newer game engines.

- TW series - I think it was great up to M2TW. STW is an immortal classic for me, MTW was ok, I absolutely loved Rome. M2TW however was a poor investment in my view, as I do not like where CA has been taking their games, paying lip service to modding and all. Thus I'd say they're going downhill.

- Fallout - There is no such thing as Fallout 3. *closes eyes and covers ears and chants to self*

----- Need For Speed - Need For Rice. Need 4 Spinnahz. The series peaked at NFS5: Porsche Unleashed and has been a harsh, steep downhill slide ever since.

= Doom and Quake - I think these have aged well. In retrospect, these games aren't really anything more than tech demos, including the original games. id Software doesn't really make games so much as they make game engines and frameworks to sell to other companies. I've enjoyed all of the Doom and Quake series to date.

Nothing else comes to mind as of now, so I'll leave it at this.

[Husar]

So where does the step from 2D to 3D come into these, Whacker?
Nevermind that Shogun already was 3D, at least the battlefields, but I'd still call that a 3D engine.

[Whacker]

So where does the step from 2D to 3D come into these, Whacker?
Nevermind that Shogun already was 3D, at least the battlefields, but I'd still call that a 3D engine.

All of them except for NFS and Quake started as 2D/2.5D.

[Meneldil]

Agreed.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I barely have fun playing recent video games. I enjoy NWN2, but don't find it nearly as fun as BG2 or even 1.

I played MTW for hours, finished it with a bunch of factions. I never finished a game of RTW, let alone M2TW, despite some of the excelent mods available. The only thing that kept me interested in RTW was trying to mod it.

Final Fantasy 10 and 12 have been huge letdowns. Nothing like FF6, 7 or 9.

So yeah, it often happens that I close a game, launch my emulator, and play an old Snes or GBA game (Secret of Evermore is still as awesome as it was ten years ago).

[Husar]

All of them except for NFS and Quake started as 2D/2.5D.

2.5D

I haven't played all of them so I didn't know about all of them.
You can stop now, it's beginning to hurt.

[Whacker]

2.5D

I haven't played all of them so I didn't know about all of them.
You can stop now, it's beginning to hurt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5D , my dearest bunny frogger. It's a quite well-known term.

[Rilder]

I play a lot of (very ugly) hex-based games because, the way I see it, companies put more effort into enhancing gameplay if the graphics don't matter.

Proof = Dwarf Fortress

[Zenicetus]

The XCOM/UFO series might qualify, since it started as an isometric "fake 3D" game at first (or 2.5D, whatever). I never played the later 3D remakes like UFO: Aftermath, but I get the impression it didn't make much of a splash in the marketplace. I don't know if that was due to poor design, or the essential flavor of the game not surviving the move to full 3D, or just the gaming market having moved on from turn-based to realtime strategy games. Maybe a combination of the three.

Others do though, and I don't think a general case can be made that moving from a classic 2D or 2.5D game to full 3D is necessarily a bad thing. It just depends on the developers' skills, and priorities.