Just not doing anything for me...

I dont know what it is, but there hasnt been very many recent games that I actually feel motivated to finish. Take Bioshock for example I've been at the second to last level for 3months now. It's a good game, even a great game. But it doesnt do anything different enough to warrent the insane reviews it got. It does a great job with atmosphere and the setting is great, but the shooting and plasmids just get old. I also recently played the Crysis demo. It was interesting for about 15 minutes then it just felt lifeless. Again it's the same old same old, it wasnt nearly as free-roaming as I had expected.

Maybe I'm growing out of games. Anyone else feel games lately have been uninspired? All the dev's just seem to aim for the latest graphics, and throw in the same old shooting controls that have been around since 10years ago.

I know what you mean, There seems to be a "lack" of story in recent games... Or rather no new stories...

It is not just games tho, movies seems to be hit aswell... with very litle new under the sun.

And music, thats all been done to death.

This is not the entire truth, there are games that breaks this trend, altho theyre generally harder to find, seeing that all game sites focus on all the games with worn out stories. It almost seems, that alotta people likes that the games have no shock or awe value, apart from the graphical side.

The advise I can give you is to seek out games that comes from new publishers, both stalker (altho it really is lacking in some areas) and the witcher, is a fresh take on a genre.

also portal brings something new (altho the rest of the orange box does absolutely nothing for me). I hope this stops with a few games comming out in November/December, which looks decent, and "new at heart"

The more I play newer games the higher I start to rate STALKER. I hated it and then enjoyed it and now I really like it. Even though i beat it months ago.

Bioshock was overrated. I think Crysis will be lots of fun to play with due to immersion. However, story who knows.

Hopefully Assasins creed will give us a good story

And I honestly don't know how you got bored of crysis in 15 minutes.nutcrackr

Because it's nothing new. It felt like 3 years ago (Far Cry) but with better graphics, less free-romaing, and some gimmicks(modifiers) thrown in. It's sickening that someone can 'create a new game' by improving graphics, and throwing in some gimmick. Dont get me wrong by today's standards Crysis will be a great game to many people. But I just miss the days when a game would come out and it was like nothing else you've ever played. I will say that I thought 'Shadow of the Colossus'(Ps2) was a great step in the right direction. I guess companys just arent willing to take as big as risks as they used to.

If you're looking for entirely different gameplay, go pick up a Wii. It's doing more innovative things than the formerly most innovate platform, the PC. I do agree with you that Crysis isn't really that much of a change from the norm, or even that fresh and new. It's a tech demo on top of far cry for me.

Otherwise, if you're looking for something entirely different, wait for Spore to come out. World in Conflict was the last game I took a sick day for, I just got sucked into the single player and really wanted to see the conclusion, plus the gameplay was refreshingly different from your standard RTS. I'm like you though and I'm a level and a half from finishing Bioshock, and I just lost interest.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and go grab The Orange Box for Portal. There's some quality gameplay for you. You'll beat Portal and love every second of it.

But really, how much inspiration is left in shooters. Gears of War coming out for the PC might actually be bring the most change to the genre we've seen in a while, and it is more of an action game than a shooter imo. Sad when ports are bringing more to the table than games developed for the PC.

I dont know what it is, but there hasnt been very many recent games that I actually feel motivated to finish. Take Bioshock for example I've been at the second to last level for 3months now. It's a good game, even a great game. But it doesnt do anything different enough to warrent the insane reviews it got. It does a great job with atmosphere and the setting is great, but the shooting and plasmids just get old. I also recently played the Crysis demo. It was interesting for about 15 minutes then it just felt lifeless. Again it's the same old same old, it wasnt nearly as free-roaming as I had expected.

Maybe I'm growing out of games. Anyone else feel games lately have been uninspired? All the dev's just seem to aim for the latest graphics, and throw in the same old shooting controls that have been around since 10years ago.

AceOfRims

I know exactly what you mean. That feeling was blown away when I purchased CoD 4.

If you're looking for entirely different gameplay, go pick up a Wii. It's doing more innovative things than the formerly most innovate platform, the PC.

teirdome

???????????????

Crysis seems like it will be fun on a technical, gameplay basis. However, an impactful story that has you caring about the characters is what really will make a game stick in your head for a number of years to come. Crysis' premise is an alien invasion where you play as a super cyborg soldier sent to investigate and neutralize the threat, more or less. Not that the game won't be fun or innovative, but you can't exactly give Crytek originality points for the premise...and with a premise like that, it's hard to imagine the character development or immersion factors are going to be anything to write home about.

But who knows. It's not the story, it's how you tell it. Hope for the best. ;)

I know how the OP feels, it seems that until recently, I wasn't excited about anything in gaming anymore. It had been so long since I had one of those games that really felt like it was worth every second of waiting and playing.

However, since I recently got a new pc, this has changed somewhat, I couldn't care less about Crysis at first, but then I played the demo and it turned out that the game itself was pretty fun too, besides the visuals.
Now, Bioshock is another story, it seems to me a lot of people here didn't play System Shock, because no matter how good the game looks or how great the atmosphere is, SS2 is better, trust me on that.

Of course, I'm still looking for my "ultimate" game, if it's ever coming out. And I still fear that it's gonna take a while before it gets here.
You should wonder, though, hasn't it always been like this? Seriously, how many games can you name where the game was brilliant from start to middle to ending, and while the credits roll, you have this feeling that you'd gladly pay thrice as much for a game of similair quality?

If you're like me, you should quit wanting to play that "ultimate" game, and enjoy the games there are for what they are.

P.S.: You might wanna try out The Witcher. :) I've only played it 1 evening, but that alone was better then a bunch of AA+ games I could name.

I'm the same way, but for some reason the games I end up playing the most are the A-AA games.

I was able to play Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy online for years without boredom, yet Halo 3 bearly lasted a month.

I'v spent more time playing the reviewer-bashed Dynasty Warrior games than I have nearly any other game.

I can also sit and play through most RPG's as long as they don't have terrible storys at least once to see what's going to happen.

Even when I was younger my favorite MMO, still the one I enjoyed the most(Before they ruined it), was Graal, a free online 2-D zelda type MMO, though it went pay-2-play and pretty much died. It's still around on life support, but it's nothing like it used to be.

I also spent a couple years in 98'/99' using a onling gaming program called BYOND that allows players to make their own online games using SNES level graphics and a custom C++ based programing language.

But I never find myself playing the hyped up big name AAA games for more than a couple weeks or a month.

Hmm. Someone needs to develop a Wii-like controller, get it cheap to manufacture and voila, the PC becomes a Wii. Or at least, capable of Wii-style play.

That has always been the thing that infuriates me about PC, the lack of drive when it comes to HDIs. Had there been a united effort in the PC Gaming Industry, we could have full motion-tracking headsets, motion-sensing joysticks, etc.. But because the sodding PC lacks centralisation, we'll never get such things in mainstream acceptance. Sure the PlayStation as the EyeToy, we just have generic webcams. We have had the technology for longer than ever, but because the game developers are petrified of commiting to a peripheral that if it goes out of production, it'll render the game immediately obsolete.

Microsoft really should be plugging unified architecture/standards (more than just DX10) and peripheral support and standardization than simply slapping a price tag on our beloved *free* online gaming. Thankfully, however with the presence and dominance of Steam in online distribution and online gaming community, GFW's paid service won't last - provided Valve don't start charging either.

Bioshock is overrated?!? What the heck?!? The story is brilliant. I really didn't see that coming. Without going into details my prediction was in the right direction however for all the wrong reasons.Azghouls

SPOILERS!

I thought it was all very predictable. But I didn't expect the "would you kindly" part. However, I thought it was retarded how you killed that guy. Why didn't he just put a shotgun in his mouth or just control you from the beginning. Well, maybe it is explained later into the game but I stopped playing shortly after the would you kindly part because I honestly do not care about saving the world. The only reason the story was slightly interesting to me was because in the beginning it was not about saving the world, instead you had to get away. But I always knew since the beginning that the guy would turn on you and then you would have to fight him to save the day. It was just so damn obvious... bleh.

To whoever said that The Witcher isn't an AAA title, I really do not agree. To me it's a very high quality game that has everything that has been missing from most games that come out these days. Nice gameplay, nice graphics (sure not the best but still nice), nice story and a decent amount of freedom. What else would you want? Most games these days only focus on one thing. Either good gameplay but crappy graphics and no story. Or excellent story but **** gameplay. Or the best graphics but crappy everything else. etc. But this game has it all.

To me it seems that only the eastern block countries are creating the creative games these days. Western games just seem so bland and boring lately. All the eastern block games I've played recently are excellent. But they all have one problem, not so good graphics. Some have nice graphics, though.

.... Way to judge the game off a demo.Graedien

That's usually the point of a demo you know?

Anyways to the OP, there are some great games out there, you just gotta look around. You may just need to take a break from gaming for a little while if you found Bioshock to be dull though. Pretty much all shooters get a little repetitive at some point, but it's usually the story or atmosphere that keep things interesting and both are top notch in Bioshock.

Games are fine, its you that has changed. Your older I suspect and you have played years and years worth of games, so nothing can surprise or entertain as much as it use too. The same thing happens for music and movies. I have been playing games for 33 years now, and I somtimes feel the same way as you. Ususally what helps is to take a break and also not go in with high expectations. Last great game I played was Portal like everyone else. And now I dont know what to play or buy next...looking at Super Mario for my Wii. Or maybe Witcher.

RS

That is why I only play MMORPG or MP games for the last 8 years..... All the stories in the SP have been beaten to death already....gamenux

To be honest dude, stories in MMO's are slim to none. How many times can you feel motivated by plot to go out and kill 50 manbearpigs, and then return to the quest giver to recieve some piece of equipment you may not even be able to use?

[QUOTE="gamenux"]That is why I only play MMORPG or MP games for the last 8 years..... All the stories in the SP have been beaten to death already....SentientGames

To be honest dude, stories in MMO's are slim to none. How many times can you feel motivated by plot to go out and kill 50 manbearpigs, and then return to the quest giver to recieve some piece of equipment you may not even be able to use?

I'm looking forward to Warhammer: Online, first MMO I'm actually really intrested in.

There are multiple choices you have in how you advance, regular quests that have multiple paths to completion, Large scale Public Quests where you and any allies in the area work together to complete a goal that leads to advances in the RvR war, RvR/PvP Quests that involve going into dangerous zones for better rewards, grinding, PvP, PvE instances, Open RvR, instanced RvR. They all give rewards so you can do the activitys you enjoy in order to advance in the game instead of being forced to grind/do bland quests for hours straight at a time until you're high enough to do the little bit of intresting content(like most MMO)... and the world has dynamic control points that lead to capital city raids so the game isn't completely stale.

When it comes to single player RPG's story is huge for me, for MMO RPG's all I care about is the gameplay, and most games are very limited and extremely boring in that degree- like the kind of quest you just mentioned.

i suspect its a case of games not changing that much, while you have. Whose to blame? No one really. Remember, games are still a fairly new medium of entertainment, people are still managing to make fantastic games using the same concepts as a base. Half life 2(and everything related to it), halo 3, crysis, bioshock, cod4, all are amazing at what they do, and yet they are, essentially , similar.

I guess one thing to do, is just try not to judge games based on 15 min of playtime (not saying your stupid for doing it with crysis). Its similar to music - you know what kind of music you like, but once you get to a point, you just dont enjoy new stuff of that type on the first listen(this is true for me, at least). It takes time to get figure out exactly how good it is, and if you like it or not; sometimes even for your favourite bands. Of course theres exceptions - every now and then, something amazing comes along.

The same can be applied to games, the more you play, get used to, and discover about them, the more you realise just how good/not good they are, and how much you like them. Only a few games have the instant 'THIS GAME RULES!' factor these days, portals being one of them. I know i didnt conciously think 'wow' about crysis (other than the graphics, obviously), but after playing through the whole demo, i realised just how much i enjoyed it. And still do.

I have felt the same way about a lot of the new games. Some games seem to lose my interest well before the end of it.

Then I found a solution.

First being budget games. For 10-20$ there are many decent games to buy from if you dont like it or finish it, well it was cheap. Some games even from unknown studios. Or even genre you would never play to begin with. Titles like shadowground where its like robotron redone to mimic halflife. I tried some spiderman and dreamfall type all cheap but can offer a new sensation since you will not be using typical game play styles.

Second was things like HOTAS, throttle quadrent and TrackIR4 from NaturalPoint. This head tracking unit has made my flight sims and ArmA a thousand times better. Friends and family who have tried it cannot believe how well it works and the immersion into games. You can even use software to use head movements as a mouse or macro keys when you look to a spot(scroll rts map with bound arrow keys while mouse and left hand are free).

For a game that appeals to adults, and has a great storyline, I *highly* reccomend The Witcher.

The plot in this game really sucked me in, and I basically couldn't stop playing till I beat it. Took me about 60 hours with side quests and everything. The combat system is also quite good and deceptively deep.

I think that recently a lot of games have come out that target teenagers and kids. Its nice to finally see a game that caters to an adult audience

If you're looking for entirely different gameplay, go pick up a Wii. It's doing more innovative things than the formerly most innovate platform, the PC.

teirdome

I really hope that was a joke...

I thought I was the only one feeling this. I love games and I have hundreds (no bs) and the current crop leaves me wanting. What exactly I can't pin down. Bioshock was great fun but I thought to easy. When their not to easy they're too short. They've traded length for graphics in my opinion. It takes 8 gigs anymore toinstall a game for 10 hours of play. And don't get me started about online to play. I think it's a detrimentto gaming these things and it's bringing them and my interest down.Rickylee

Now there's a game I can waste hours and hours playing online without getting bored. The online and the community for JK:O/JK:A are more enjoyable/addicting than any boring MMO.

try out the mods made by players

some mods are very well made