The Gamer's Quarter

[Bai]

[SuperWes]

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[disneyland]

[Mr. Mechanical]

What about the fact that every Final Fantasy game boils down to level grinding for the final boss and no matter how different the cast of characters and locations are it's pretty much the same type of standard RPG systems prettied up to look new and different? Same game, different coat of paint. But that's just arguing the details, not that I don't agree with the "pro-sequels" crowd on this, because I kind of do.

I can kind of see where Bai is coming from on this though. Derivations on a standard formula are nice to see, especially if you're a fan of that particular formula to begin with, but after a while it all starts to feel the same. Nothing really jumps out and grabs you because nothing is really that new on the surface. You have to dig deep, sometimes pretty deep, just to get to the fresh meat of a game.

That's kind of what scares me about developers today. They seem to want to focus more on systems(as in gameplay systems and such) instead of ideas. It's fine now because there are enough established systems out there to mess with but nobody really just seems to come up with an idea on the fly and decide to make it into a game these days, which is what a lot of people thought would start happening as technology advanced. Instead it seems internal politics are causing friction due to increasing costs of development and a sort of backwards thinking within the industry have led to a sort of comforting homogeneity within the ranks of the elite.

Not really a bad thing, if you think about it, because who doesn't like comfort? Just that it's nice to see new things come out based around ideas instead of formulas. Right now I'm really interested in Shadow of the Colossus because it all seems so beautifully simple in idea, yet elegantly grand and complex in execution.

[Mister Toups]

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

Well, in that context, Killer 7 is great fun.

[SuperWes]

I was waiting for that. I'm sure to some people Killer 7 is pretty fun. I thought getting my wisdom teeth taken out was fun, but I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone as a great weekend activity.

-Wes
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[Shapermc]

Well... I mean... I do really like killer 7. I just know not everyone will agree.

[dark steve]

Killer 7, like Silent Hill, seems to be a sign of games maturing. Games that exist to enjoy via "appreciation," say.

I mean, who saw the Twin Peaks movie? Or Happiness?

[simplicio]

Why do games have to be "fun" & "artistic" at the same time though? I'll concede that I'm more interested in that artistic side of things, but I can appreciate games that only want to be fun too. I only worry because development is increasingly expensive and artistic games don't sell; if publishers decide the best idea is to focus solely on proven financial successes, we'll all be shorted the vast possibilities inherent in games as a serious artistic medium.

[dark steve]

They don't! And to use more wildly inappropriate movie analogies:

Ninja Gaiden is to Blade 2 as Killer 7 is to El Topo.

[Lackey]

I'm hoping that people will eventually recognize the many shades of gray in the medium. A certain amount of fractionalization is necessary to see that there's different ways to play games and different reasons for doing so.

This doesn't seem to be working so well with other media, film for example; where the vast majority of what you see is the mainstream Hollywood stuff.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Mister Toups]

DARING, BOLD, POORLY THOUGHT OUT DECLARATION:

Games don't have to be fun OR artistic.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Lackey]

[dark steve]

I think 'conceptual' qualifies very broadly as artistic.

Also OCD as impetus goes without saying.

[simplicio]

yeah, I should have outlined a third category of something like "addictive," cause lord knows I had no fun with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance but I played it through anyway even when I had much better games sitting around. Is there a better word for this particular quality or should we coin one?

[Mr. Mechanical]

Yeah, "Dungeon Hack". Note: It doesn't actually have to be an RPG type game to be a Dungeon Hack, just to have that kind of play that compels the OCD side in all of us to come out and rear it's ugly face.

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

[SuperWes]

[dessgeega]

[dark steve]

[dhex]

happiness isn't pleasant. but unpleasantness can be attractive. (not the movie to see on new year's eve, btw)
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[Shapermc]

Let me restate "got over" for Happiness. I thought it was fantastic for a while. Some "great movie" but then I realised it was just good and pretty honest.

[dark steve]

So games don't have to be anything. Glad that's out of the way.

And if you're just plain itching for the pilot, shaper..

[Shapermc]

[Bai]

Maybe I'm getting tired of games. Fun is subjective and my interest in gaming is to explore different worlds and new experiences. I never suggested replacing entertainment with 'art' (whatever that may be!), rather than entertaining games should be more artistic. Nor did I mean that innovative gameplay means nothing, just that it is compromised. But it says something about the industry that franchises are a necessary first vehicle for innovative ideas because there isn't enough money or trust to let those ideas stand on their own. I don't blame it: there just isn't the demand or the means.

Well, I wouldn't see The Island by Jerry Bruckheimer but I do enjoy a good popcorn flick (I saw Sin City on the weekend, pretty good). But if I got tired of The Island and Sin City, there would be *plenty* of other original, more experimental films on offer (Moolaade, 2046, The Yes Men, Three Dollars, Nobody Knows). This isn't the case with videogames. Maybe I'm being too harsh but in my home country (Australia) where games retail for $100, it's too expensive for me to buy new games unless I feel that they offer a really different experience to the games I already own. And let's be honest: the innovations in most sequels are often incremental, overrated and unimaginative.

Mr. Mechanical correctly alludes that most games are sequels, sequels are primarily the interest of gamers who are fans and therefore that most gamers are fans. There is little incentive for the so-called 'casual' gamer (like me) with no franchise loyalties to persist with the hobby when there are few original releases annually and even fewer good original releases. And then you have to borrow your mate's credit card and buy it off eBay because someone's already bought the only one copy in the entire country! I'm aware that my taste in videogaming is a minority which explains the lack of supply. But from visiting discussion boards like these, I don't think I'm alone. There's a remarkable amount of intelligence and thoughtfulness in the gaming community but collectively, we seem to consume rehashed product because it's better than the alternative (no game at all).

All your arguments so far seem to presume that gaming is about sequels and licenses and that this is somehow the natural way of things and we shouldn't ask for anything more than for developers to produce better licensed games. As mentioned before, this is simply the dominant view, structured by market interests with weak journalistic and intellectual opposition. It's not the obvious or natural one. The videogame industry doesn't naturally exist to add momentum to existing licenses. It's just the most economically convenient path, given this particular moment in history. If the situation changes, if we decide that we're tired of sequels and franchises, so would the market.

At the moment, the videogame industry resembles a kind of passive, secondary industry that re-iterates other industries and existing ideas with few unique voices of its own. I regard efforts like the Spiderman, Batman, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings videogames as extensions of film marketing and I can rarely accept their worth beyond something that was designed to flog an existing idea for more money (intent is crucial here though exceptions exist). This continues because we, the gaming population accept it as the 'norm'. The ideology among gamers is that rehashed gameplay is ok with a different setting and that rehashed setting is ok with decent gameplay. There's little demand for both and it's almost like we're too afraid to ask! This explains the lucrative success of the industry: gamers are more willing to accept derivation as part of how videogames are and it's easy for a corporation to make minor changes and sell the same game over and over. Not only do I believe that the industry is capable of creating really interesting and challenging works, but that there is a market for it, if only gamers would be more assertive with their tastes.

[player 2]

Bai-

If that is how you feel you need to pick up a couple games from this list:

Rez
Ico
Shadow of the Collosus (soon)
Beyond Good & Evil
Resident Evil 4
Killer 7
Eternal Darkness (if you can find it on the cheap)
Metroid Prime
F-Zero GX
Silent Hill (any)
Winning Eleven
Phantom Crash (if you can find it cheap)

I'm sure there are more, but... yeah... As far as this generation goes, these have been the games that have kept me interested in games as a form (whatever the fuck that might be). RPGs have died.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[Bai]

Hey thanks mate. I've played a few on that list (Ico, Rez) when I had my PS2 which I've since sold (to calintz actually ). I don't have a Gamecube so I'll miss Beyond Good & Evil and Killer 7 which look damn interesting, along with Viewtiful Joe, Animal Crossing and Pikmin. I'm sure there are a few on the Xbox as well.

[Mister Toups]

[SuperWes]