25th June 2005, 12:16 PM
Now: five million boring military FPSes
Then: five million boring platform game clones
:)
... yeah, things are different now, but... games are still great... maybe in the PC side things have gone downhill a bit on the retail front (freeware now is stronger than ever), though, in the past five years or so. The PC industry definitely has crystalized around FPSes and strategy games, for sure... (I'd say "since 2000", but Baldur's Gate II came out in 2000... :) But other than that, the only PC game made since 2000 (can't say "this century" because 2000 was the last year of the 20th centry, remember... :)) on my 'top 10 PC games' list is Warcraft III. Which, though stellar, I rate slightly below Starcraft...
Console gaming, though? Other than the additional commercial element in games, I just don't see a massive difference. Most of the genres that have faded in popularity were PC genres, after all (giant-robot sims (that are actually sims, not action games like most console ones are), space-flight-combat sims, graphic adventures, wargames, etc). Yes, originality in console gaming is a bit more of a problem now than it has been in the past, but... I can't help but remember old EGMs with page after page of mediocre platformers and action games...
The 'commercial elements' part, though, is completely right, as I said. There's more money in gaming now, so it attracts more advertising. This is more appropriate in some games than others, though... racing and sports games are a natural for this kind of thing, for instance, but in other genres it wouldn't work nearly as well.
Then: five million boring platform game clones
:)
... yeah, things are different now, but... games are still great... maybe in the PC side things have gone downhill a bit on the retail front (freeware now is stronger than ever), though, in the past five years or so. The PC industry definitely has crystalized around FPSes and strategy games, for sure... (I'd say "since 2000", but Baldur's Gate II came out in 2000... :) But other than that, the only PC game made since 2000 (can't say "this century" because 2000 was the last year of the 20th centry, remember... :)) on my 'top 10 PC games' list is Warcraft III. Which, though stellar, I rate slightly below Starcraft...
Console gaming, though? Other than the additional commercial element in games, I just don't see a massive difference. Most of the genres that have faded in popularity were PC genres, after all (giant-robot sims (that are actually sims, not action games like most console ones are), space-flight-combat sims, graphic adventures, wargames, etc). Yes, originality in console gaming is a bit more of a problem now than it has been in the past, but... I can't help but remember old EGMs with page after page of mediocre platformers and action games...
The 'commercial elements' part, though, is completely right, as I said. There's more money in gaming now, so it attracts more advertising. This is more appropriate in some games than others, though... racing and sports games are a natural for this kind of thing, for instance, but in other genres it wouldn't work nearly as well.
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