Pikmin + Fable + Dungeon Keeper = Overlord

[A Black Falcon]

You're talking to a hardcore PC nerd here, DJ. If it doesn't have multi-tier tech trees, heavy resource management, and a thousand different skills bases then it's dumbed down console fare that doesn't deserve a second glance.

While partially true, this argument breaks down when you consider that DJ is mostly talking about fighting games, a very much console-centric genre... :)

Do I have to write you guys an essay? Everything from the way the levels are designed, to the way the NPCs look, to the way that you're mostly set on a linear path, to the way your character moves all scream "Fable!!" at me. It's not rocket science here, folks.

Essay? Yes, that would be nice. :)

What it actually screams is "Generic Fantasy!!", I'd say. Not that that's a bad thing.

For my part, I can see a lot of fun even in a game like Pikmin. Sure it's rather simple, but you work within that simplistic system and you can get some pretty nice methods going, and you do have to do a lot of planning out of your next moves. I enjoyed that. Pathing took precedense over something like resource management or troop morale. I didn't need to worry about building a museum to keep up citizen spirits so I could raise the taxes I needed to afford researching the next military upgrade. I just needed to worry about using that 24 hour period to send troops in EXACTLY the perfect formations and spread to both get those great food pellets over there, two different ship parts, and also build a bridge and tear down two walls (true story). That means I'll be resetting the level like 20 times, but it's fun, and as with pokemon, there can be a level of depth hidden in what appears to be a simplistic system.

I didn't say that Pikmin wasn't any fun at all, just that it was really shallow and that simplicity got boring after a while... I'd consider getting Pikmin 2 if I saw it cheap though (to avoid the stupid time limit the first game has). It's definitely as much action game as it is strategy though, to try to make up for the lack of depth presumably...

I do enjoy complicated games though. Let it not be said I don't enjoy having to get my surfs to harvest all their wheat by the end of the 4th grain season and so on and so forth. I just enjoy a simple game (when done right) as well.

Like what, Settlers or something? :) Never enjoyed those Medieval economic sims...

... ancient city-building games were kind of cruel too. Caesar II must have been one of the hardest games I had ever played back when I was playing that game... darn that "you lost and became a galley slave" video! :D

Anyway, yeah, I know. You've played Starcraft and stuff. That is definitely a different kind of strategy and complexity from a fighting game... focused on reaction speed and strategy but not memorization of special moves and luck (if you can pull them off successfully) fighting-game style...

My disagreement is that making it harder to pull off a move because you have to press a ridiculous button combo makes the game better somehow. I consider that fake or forced complexity for it's own sake rather than something that actually genuinly seperates a player base. It's akin to games that create fake difficulty by using random elements you can't predict to determine a winner. If I lose a battle because my strategy sucked or I'm just not very quick on the draw, I consider that perfectly fair. Reaction speed and strategy are legitimate to me. If I lose because I forgot how to perform some controller move or in the middle of it my thumb slipped and so I couldn't pull off that pile driver, that's just stupid to me. Hardly a legitimate means of determining actual skill.

I know that luck is a big part of it, and even the best fighting game player probably isn't going to pull off every move every time they try it, but even so I like them a lot... luck may not be fair, but it's an acceptable gameplay element. Another example would be Rush 2049's stunt mode. It's pretty much luck as to whether you land on your roof or not (there's a little skill to it, and you can sometimes save yourself, but you will often blow up without any chance of saving it and with luck as the main element), but I've put 35-40 hours into that mode over the years and really, really love it... Best racing game ever, in fact. :)