Monday, November 19, 2007

The State of Gaming

This post was inspired by a friend's note he posted on facebook regarding the state of gaming today. To paraphrase what he said he was dissapointed in the quality of recent titles such as Guitar Hero 3, Halo 3, and Assassin's Creed. He felt letdown by those games and was wondering if the quality of games was falling, or if developers were running out of ideas.

I don't believe that the quality of games is falling, but rather with the large volume of games being released we see more bad games getting the spotlight, like Lair. But when you sit back and realize that this fall we've been treated to titles such as Bioshock, The Orange Box, Call of Duty 4, Mario Galaxy, and Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass we must look back and see that this year is one of the best years of gaming ever. On top of the above list of games, Mass Effect and Rock band will be out shortly after this post is up. Games haven't been getting shittier, we just need to be careful to choose the right games.

A message to those who played games such as Halo 3, Guitar Hero3, and Assassin's Creed and felt like they were let down. To those who played Halo 3 and GH3 specifically: You are playing the third game in a series and expected the game to change??? Bungie and Red Octane are gonna stick with the formula that worked for them earlier. I'm not saying that more of the same is bad, in certain cases it can be good. But in more cases than not MOTS will let us down. Halo 3 was a letdown to me for its sheer lack of ideas, espically evident now after I've beaten Call of Duty 4. Halo 3 was advertised as some epic adventure that would culminate in a massive battle of the human and covenant forces. In the end we went to the ring making facility, which ironically looks and feels just like the previous other two rings. In Halo 3 you fight scripted waves of covenant and flood, and guess what the ending is?? You end up driving a warthog to your ship before the whole place blows up.....just like Halo 1.

The fact that people were letdown by Guitar Hero 3 leads me to ask "what the hell were you expecting?" You can't change Guitar Hero. Yeah the boss battles changed it up a bit, but it wasn't enough in my opinion. Rock band is looking to shake things up even with its $179.99 price point, because it has so many better songs available with the game and for download.

I've been talking mostly about the 360, but the PS3 finally has pleanty of AA titles available. The new Ratchet and Clank game looks beautiful, although I haven't played it, this is a game that I wouldn't mind MOTS, because it is one of the best platforming games ever. Folklore looks good, and Eye of Judgement takes advantage of the Eye Toy for a truly innovative take on tabletop card games. MGS4 will be great when it eventually comes out, and we can expect God of War III to be a good game.

All in all we're looking at, in my opinion, an age of gaming that we have never seen before with so many different titles for people of all different gaming preferences.

3 comments:

Kenske said...

Hmm. See, as a long time console-gamer, I'm finding myself being slowly sucked into the PC realm. First off, I can't afford the new systems, and secondly nothing reaches out there and grabs me by the balls, demanding my attention so I become a better person by playing it. Looking back at games like Metriod 3, Final Fantasy IV, or even Golden Eye or cult classics like Xenogears, these games had something that wasn't found anywhere else, even next shit like Superman 64, Bubsy 3D, or Rapjam.

If I had to come up with a reason, I'd say at the moment say that games have become main stream, made for the general public as opposed to pure gamers. Really, Halo's just a really good FPS, but every frat boy out there knows how to play it. Why make a better game when every Greek house is gonna have a 360 and Halo no matter how good it is?

Either way, I think that before games can get REAL good again, the market needs to find a time when okay games aren't acceptable (back in the day, since only gamers gamed, no one bought them, which is why there's 5 million cartridges of ET for the NES in the New Mexico dessert). While gaming isn't particularly bad, I wouldn't look back too fondly on these times.

Anyway, I'll go back to playing Warcraft II and Counter strike 1.6 with my friends, amusing myself with shareware games and ROMs.

KillerAzN said...

I think the biggest problem with games right now is that there is so much crap thats being hyped, that the average gamer doesn't know what to pick. The people like me who have been following the development of Assassin's Creed since it was announced for the PS3 almost two years ago know what titles will be good and worth our time, because by the time the game is out we know everything about it except for how the story unfolds.

I agree with you when saying that developers have less incentive to make good games today with the increasing gaming population. But those games don't sell very well compared to the good titles, except for halo 3. Look at games that were hyped like Jericho and Lair, but those games were shit and they didn't sell.

Oh and thanks for being the first person to comment.

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