Bring back the wonder
March 27th 2008 00:56
Of course, Wizards of the Coast's line of illustrated cards aren't the only magic boxes in my life; as long as I can remember, I've played video games, starting with the original 8-bit NES. I was always impressed by the ability of such apparently simple things to hold people's attention and imagination (I lost entire days to Tetris and Super Mario Brothers, and some of you probably did too), and there was a time when it seemed that society at large was finally beginning to "get it." In 1999, an obscure European company called Funcom released an adventure game called The Longest Journey, an adventure game that bent the conventions of gaming and was almost more of an interactive movie or graphic novel than a video game. It was reviewed in glowing terms by such esteemed media outlets as Time magazine and the New York Times, which praised its immersiveness and sophistication and predicted that gaming was to become a fundamental of our cultural experience.
So what happened?
At some point, game design seems to have fallen into a rut. I walked down a PC games aisle at a nearby store the other day, and I noticed that all the recent releases seem to fall into one of four categories:
1) First person shooter, usually with a historical setting. Medal of Honor is the archetypical example here.
2) Overhead multi-screen adventure game, almost always with a fantasy setting. Recent examples include Guild Wars and Two Worlds.
3) Educational software with some game-like elements. Brain Trainer for the Nintendo DS is the most obvious example.
4) Remakes. This includes straight remakes such as the Game Boy Micro's re-issues of Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda, and arguably includes near-remakes such as the DS's New Super Mario Brothers and Mario Party DS.
In some sense, though, I suppose you could even call many of the shooter and adventure games remakes - ignoring the difference in appearance and setting, is the gameplay of Medal of Honor fundamentally different in concept from that of the 1993 version of Doom? Yeah, you can perform a higher number of game actions in Guild Wars than you could in Baldur's Gate II, but isn't the essence of the two games - explore areas, interact with characters, fight fantasy enemies, collect magical items - pretty much the same?
I think it's just easier and faster to make another shooter set during World War II than to develop your own world (I don't recall a truly unique FPS setting since TimeSplitters), and companies need to reduce overhead and keep the new titles rolling. Similarly, it takes a lot less effort to lift a game concept or style from the past than to make a new one. And it doesn't always make a bad game - the aforementioned New Super Mario Brothers is one of my favorite DS games, as it keeps the excitement and skill-testing of the classic Mario format with expansions and twists. But if games are ever to live up to their potential, designers also need to regain their courage and their sense of wonder, a desire to try something different and edgy instead of dressing up an older, popular title in 3-D graphics.
So what happened?
At some point, game design seems to have fallen into a rut. I walked down a PC games aisle at a nearby store the other day, and I noticed that all the recent releases seem to fall into one of four categories:
1) First person shooter, usually with a historical setting. Medal of Honor is the archetypical example here.
2) Overhead multi-screen adventure game, almost always with a fantasy setting. Recent examples include Guild Wars and Two Worlds.
3) Educational software with some game-like elements. Brain Trainer for the Nintendo DS is the most obvious example.
4) Remakes. This includes straight remakes such as the Game Boy Micro's re-issues of Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda, and arguably includes near-remakes such as the DS's New Super Mario Brothers and Mario Party DS.
In some sense, though, I suppose you could even call many of the shooter and adventure games remakes - ignoring the difference in appearance and setting, is the gameplay of Medal of Honor fundamentally different in concept from that of the 1993 version of Doom? Yeah, you can perform a higher number of game actions in Guild Wars than you could in Baldur's Gate II, but isn't the essence of the two games - explore areas, interact with characters, fight fantasy enemies, collect magical items - pretty much the same?
I think it's just easier and faster to make another shooter set during World War II than to develop your own world (I don't recall a truly unique FPS setting since TimeSplitters), and companies need to reduce overhead and keep the new titles rolling. Similarly, it takes a lot less effort to lift a game concept or style from the past than to make a new one. And it doesn't always make a bad game - the aforementioned New Super Mario Brothers is one of my favorite DS games, as it keeps the excitement and skill-testing of the classic Mario format with expansions and twists. But if games are ever to live up to their potential, designers also need to regain their courage and their sense of wonder, a desire to try something different and edgy instead of dressing up an older, popular title in 3-D graphics.
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