The Perils of Pointless Innovation In Games 260
Negative Gamer is running a story discussing the need felt by the major game developers to create the next huge blockbuster, which often leads to innovation and change for their own sake rather than simply focusing on what makes a game fun. Quoting:
"There seems to be this invisible pressure to create something that is highly 'intuitive' and incorporates the highest level of innovation that we have ever seen. The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off another title. On the other hand there are series that feel the need to completely revamp a game that played perfectly fine before into something completely new that falls flat on its face. ... There's a critical problem with popular, mainstream video games that isn't as large with other mediums; they are expensive to make and require a lot of time and effort put in to create something masterful. With that, games must take cautious paths. I fully understand the risks, but adding unneeded material to certain games is not justifiable."
Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of shit has been happening ever since there were companies competing for market-share of the same domain.
And I doubt it is even related to software alone.
Dead on.... wish I had mod-points... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, though, even though 98 out of 100 improvements turn out to be flops, those 2 out of 100 seem to have carried humanity from flint tools all the way to nuclear weapons and internet porn. Well, that's some improvement!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, then how did we get to flint tools?
Re:Dead on.... wish I had mod-points... (Score:5, Funny)
An eleven-foot long black cuboid.
Re:Dead on.... wish I had mod-points... (Score:5, Funny)
My 9 foot long orange rhombus would only teach me how to make paper throwing stars...
Re: (Score:2)
An eleven-foot long black cuboid.
Considering that the universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter, that cuboid is doing pretty well for itself.
Re:Dead on.... wish I had mod-points... (Score:5, Informative)
Hey!
Re: (Score:2)
and internet porn. Well, that's some improvement!
Telltale Signs You're On Slashdot, Vol. 3.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most modern science would be impossible without the technology engendered by earlier science becoming engineering. We wouldn't (and couldn't) have a fraction of the knowledge we do about astronomy, biology, physics, or chemistry if we didn't have telescopes, microscopes, computers, spacecraft, airplanes, or a host of other products of "applied science". Hell, even most higher mathematics, an absolute necessity for modeling nearly all modern science, is an application of earlier scientific discoveries. In
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the newest ideas ... are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off ...
This describes the majority of products marketed by infomercial. It is (once again) not unique to software.
Re: (Score:2)
indeed, my first thought was about movies, not games...
newest ideas - LOLWUT? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are ... or blatantly ripping off another title.
Newest ideas. Blatantly ripping off another title.
One of these things is not like the other.
Re:newest ideas - LOLWUT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Particularly because you're also hounded if you haven't brought along the good stuff from the last generation. I particularly noticed it in RTS games which I played from Dune to many of the C&C series, Warcraft and so on. thinkgs like smart queues, formations, configurable hotkeys, command groups, AI tactics and so on. I went back to play the original Dune II once, it was still cool but damn how many annoyances it had with things you just expected in newer games. And I say this as someone that loved it and finished the campaign with all three, even the useless Ordos. You can't make a stunning good RTS without "ripping off" a lot of what's already been done. Then you can add something extra spicy on top...
Re: (Score:2)
It's not quite the same thing, but I went back and played Mario 64 recently and was frustrated by how primitive the camera system is compared to newer 3D games. You feel like you're fighting with it the whole time. It's still one of my favorite games, but hey, progress is progress.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The game I've logged in the most hours on recently was Road Rash 3, and before that it was Cool Spot. For whatever reason I just never got over the allure of 16-bit gaming, especially platformers and beat-'em-ups.
But I think you could make a clear case that the camera systems in 3D platformers have come pretty far since the early ones. The checks against "is the camera about to end up somewhere really stupid?" have gotten more involved. I don't remember even noting the camera in, say, Okami.
Re:newest ideas - LOLWUT? (Score:4, Funny)
What are you talking about, they never made 3D Sonic games.
Re: (Score:2)
And that spice is the life.
Re: (Score:2)
You choose the "brand name" office suite because it is a rock-solid solution that scales.
There are no show-stoppers for the one-man office. No show-stoppers for the business with a clerical staff of 15,000.
The obscure function your temp needs is where she expects to find it.
It won't matter whether you recruited her in mid-town Manhattan or Nowhere, Nebraska.
Integration with Small Business Accounting and other software and services will be - at least ideally - butter-smooth.
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:4, Funny)
Yup, it's been downhill since we abandoned feudalism.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think you need to read some more history books- the pastel view of feudalism that shows up in fantasy novels doesn't count.
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it is truly horrible. I'm paying more in taxes than my parents ever earned. Of course, I do so because the government payed for my education, which has given me valuable skills, but I see now how selfish its action were. The government only lifts people out of poverty to expand the economy in order to produce more tax revenue, which it uses to continue to raise the standard of living of all Americans. It's a vicious cycle!
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Funny)
All that money wasted.... :(
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government only lifts people out of poverty to expand the economy in order to produce more tax revenue
A government doesn't lift its people. It is carried upon their backs.
Re: (Score:2)
If you think a word means something different than everyone else has thought it meant for a hundred years, I'm inclined to think that everyone else is right.
Just look at the word conservative.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which people? At whose expense? Be specific.
Forcing people to regress into a time that never actually existed is hardly the sterling achievement you seem to think
Ah. If you would, please point out where I mentioned anything like that, OK?
There's a hell of a lot of progress necessary before we can consider it in the same realm as pointless
Change for the sake of change doesn't identify a specific problem, propose a specific
Re: (Score:2)
Which people? At whose expense? Be specific.
Whoa, there! Shenanigans! You threw out the first generalized, nonspecific criticism:
The Perils of Pointless Innovation . . .|Where Have I seen this before?|Office Suites|And "progressive" politics.
You gotta be specific first -- you started it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But that was specific! "Progressives" are utterly rudderless in their idealogy, goals, strategies - their only coherent thought is that however things are (no matter the topic, or scale, or people, or interests involved), they have to Change (as in, the undefined Change We Can Believe In that so many people blindly voted for, and are now seeing rather lurchingly and alarmingly playing
Re: (Score:2)
It's called metamoderation.
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Insightful)
making lives better? Oh, yes, by not allowing people to make their own choices.
Gay marriage forced me to choose between my faith and not being an asshole.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Modded insightful? Hello? Is there anyone still here? I know there's supposed to be a good point in there but it got eaten alive and spat back out with copious amounts of troll saliva.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when do animals get married?
Being anti-religious on Slashdot isn't interesting or clever anymore, sorry. This is coming from a jaded agnostic. But I'm sure the college kids who think it's edgy to mock religion will give you a +5.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When a bird first returns to the colony it will dance with many partners, but after a number of years the number of birds an individual will interact with drops, until one partner is chosen and a pair is formed. They then continue to perfect an individual language that will eventually be unique to that one pair. Having established a pair bond that will last for life, however, most of that dance will never be used ever again.
...
The "divorce" of a pair is a rare occurrence, usually only happening after several years of breeding failure.
(From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]).
That sounds more like a marriage than today's 'til death (or statistically, til about 7 years pass) do us part'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, religious people are delusional fucking retards who foster bigotry, impede progress, and propogate the spread of socially acceptable psychosis.
Why should I listen to a bigot?
Seriously, whoever modded this guy up is full of hatred themselves. Sure you might justify it by saying Religious people are asking for it, "just like" the blacks, Jews, gays, witches...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So I guess you think that if someone is running around with a swastika on his arm or wearing a white hood while burning a cross on someone's lawn, that people shouldn't discriminate against him?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with discriminating against people who are actively doing evil things. "Bigotry" implies that you're discriminating against people for things they have little to no control over, like the color of their skin, their nationality, their disabilities, etc. There's nothing wrong with tre
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that there have been a fairly steady number of homosexuals throughout history. Which argues for either a recessive gene that passes through non-homosexual parents, non-genetic causes of homosexuality, and/or a spectrum of sexuality that allows some homosexuals to breed because they "swing both ways". Most likely some combination of these factors. Oh yeah, and you're a dumbass. If homosexuality was going to be bred out of existence it would have happened centuries ago.
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that 99.99% of Christ's followers here in the USA firmly believe that gay marriage is horrible and must be banned, and that somehow Jesus would have wanted this. So if you run around calling yourself a Christian, or a "follower of Christ", you're going to get lumped into that group unless you immediately disclaim your involvement with any church.
Better Than Stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
There seems to be this invisible pressure to create something that is highly 'intuitive' and incorporates the highest level of innovation that we have ever seen.
Well, this is certainly the first time I've heard someone complain about innovation and change in gaming.
... blogger? looks pretty young on this article. I wonder if he recalls playing 2D sidescroller after 2D sidescroller? Or if he realizes that a lot of games come out based on the same engine and it really bores me when I realize that I'm just playing a re-textured version of Doom 3 (or whatever the first game was that used that engine).
The picture of the
On the other hand there are series that feel the need to completely revamp a game that played perfectly fine before ...
Then play the first game over and over. There are some people that prefer to play something different. Yes, at some point you should draw the line but there are so many games out there you should just read the reviews or rent it and avoid it.
Given enough competition, innovation is a very good thing regardless.
The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off another title.
What you are complaining about does not sound like "innovation" but merely something that annoys you. How is it innovative to do any of those things? It sounds more like you're just upset about some franchise being ruined for a title or two so you needed to vent. This isn't "pointless innovation," it's copycatting.
Re:Better Than Stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. Innovation when done well is fine by the author, it's the half baked interface tweaks that add nothing to the experience which he's labeling pointless.
Over time there have been a relatively large number of really interesting mechanics added to games which have made for a good time. But change for the sake of change isn't what causes that. These are developers that had an idea and integrated it into the game in a way that people could handle without a lot of hassle.
Sometimes it's a graphics technology which just adds a wow factor, other times it's more complicated to integrate such as a 3rd race in an RTS or the ability to interact with the environment the way that one can in Assassin's creed or Crysis. Sure one could do a lot of that before, but not to that extent.
But what those all have in common is that the developers thought things through and made the changes work into the game so that they fit.
Re:Better Than Stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's the game engine that bores you, but that the story and gameplay is boring and isn't keeping you compelled. Who cares what the engine is? Once I'm running through the same mazes, trying to find the same keys, the game gets boring. Take Assassin's Creed. The first city was amazing. There was a ton of stuff to do, people to save, soldiers to fight. Then you beat them and find out the next 9 levels are exactly the same, down to the mission structure and number of guys to save, etc. It hits boring almost immediately after that realization comes. Other games, however, have new things for you to do every level, even keeping it within the structure of the game - such as God of War. It never feels like you're doing the same thing twice. That kind of stuff is independent on whether they've licensed the Unreal engine to do it, and there's nothing really "innovative" about it. In God of War, the mechanics of the big boss battles are taken straight out of Dragon's Lair from 1983. Hit a point in the path, press a button. If you get the button wrong, try again.
fail early (Score:5, Insightful)
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, it seems like the video game media likes (and praises) innovation quite a bit, which could be why the developers do it. The fans will be upset no matter what, but at least they can try to get the media on their side, regardless of whether the innovations in question are any good.
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo, at least on your first point.
If they change it people bitch: "I loved X, the changes in X-II make it completely different game!" If they don't change it people bitch: "Why should I pay $50 to play X with a new skin?"
However, you talk about the 'media' praising change and innovation. I disagree. The 'media' is as obnoxious as the fans. I think its actually more obnoxious. They love utter shit, they shit on true genius. Gaming media for the most part doesn't have an objective bone in their body, their just balancing the fans with the advertisers and they say whatever generates the most revenue. Whether its pooing on a triple-A title to generate a shitstorm (and boost ad impressions) or passing off poo as pure gold to appease their advertisers.
The developers themselves pretty much do a little of everything. Some innovate, some imitate, and the reality is that the market genuinely wants some of each, so its no real shock that we get just that.
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't. (Score:4, Informative)
The implicit assumption you've made is that there is a need to make X-II. Very often, that's not the case at all, and that's where the problem often comes in.
The article makes a great point: games these days are often planned to be series, not just good games. That leads to the assumption you made.
Let's take Full Spectrum Warrior. That was an amazing game. It had a sequel, but I never got around to playing. I didn't feel any need, the first game was all that it needed to be. The sequel would either be more of the same (fun, but not enough for me to go buy/rent instead of another game) or have some kind of "innovation" that may have ruined it.
Even the games that get this all somewhat right (like Advanced Wars, which in the end added too many units ruining the simplicity) wear out their welcome by cramming so many sequels out (I know it's a long series in Japan, but they had time between releases some times didn't they?).
Re: (Score:2)
Even the games that get this all somewhat right (like Advanced Wars, which in the end added too many units ruining the simplicity) wear out their welcome by cramming so many sequels out (I know it's a long series in Japan, but they had time between releases some times didn't they?).
To answer your comment about time between releases, not really, 4 games were released within a few years of each other, Game Boy Wars II and Super Famicom Wars were both released in 1998 and Game Boy Wars III and Advance wars were released in 2001, but on the rest of your comment Advance Wars is one of those games in a genre where each new game will feel more like an expansion pack then a new game. There are a few reasons for this:
A) The hardware is advanced enough to provide all the gameplay without
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
For example, many Sonic the Hedgehog fans have been begging for a Sonic game with absolutely no innovation whatsoever, just pretty graphics and genesis-era gameplay. Sega acted ridiculous by announcing that Sonic Unleashed would be old-school Sonic gameplay--with the innovation that Sonic could now turn into a werewolf that punched things. Seriously, if somebody shoehorned in Sonic 2 game logic into a modern graphics engine, I wouldn't mind, just stop the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I can't remember many examples of this.
Doom 2, perhaps ... but then people were specifically complaining that the game didn't have as many new weapons as they'd hoped it might. They weren't upset that the basic gameplay was the same.
Get your definitions straight. (Score:5, Informative)
M-W.com defines:
Intuition:
1: quick and ready insight
2 a: immediate apprehension or cognition b: knowledge or conviction gained by intuition c: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference
Innovation:
1 : the introduction of something new
2 : a new idea, method, or device : novelty
These two things, although they often overlap, are not the same thing. Intuitive means something is easy to use without having to work hard at it (Boy, this point and shoot interface in this first person shooter game is intuitive!). Innovation means that the idea is new (Wow, I never knew it would be fun to roll a ball of trash around and make it as large as possible until I played this game, katamari damacy!). You can innovate without having an intuitive interface. You can make a new game with an intuitive interface without bringing anything new to the table.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Proper nipple use is not instinctive, at least for humans. Ask any nursing mother about the first breast feeding of her children, and be prepared to cringe.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If it ain't broke... (Score:2)
Another one that comes to mind (Score:2)
Re:Another one that comes to mind (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, man, your first version was fine. If it ain't broke...
Re: (Score:2)
One of the biggest problems with US Game developers is that they are constantly outsourcing artwork to generic the chinese artists and then asking their talented US artists to 'fix' it.
If the management/developers would put more into their own artists and programmers (by hiring appropriately instead of putting them in 'CRUNCH' mode constantly), than they put into expense-covered corvettes and parties --- maybe the games will come out more REFINED and of some form of actual QUALITY.
One thing I am sick of as
Re: (Score:2)
If it ain't broke...don't fix it.
Except if it's an airplane... Because if it breaks, you might be too busy screaming on your way down to fix it then.
Same actually applies to many businesses, including game business. The trick is to know when to fix it. Fortunately airplane service manuals and air traffic regulations tell when to fix an airplane. Unfortunately there aren't such manuals for running a business.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to be innovative instead of trying to build the biggest epeen how about trying to build the most fun FPS? Serious Sam? fun. SoF I&II? fun. NOLF I&II? VERY fun. Deus Ex? FUN. See a connection here? None of these games were top of the graphics charts when they were released, yet folks still keep talking about them and coming back for another round because they were F.U.N. with a capital F.
Games are becoming more and more like movies in this regard. Back in the day, just showing a train coming into a station was enough to wow the audience. But as the audience got more sophisticated, more was required to impress them. Then you ended up with market segmentation. There's the people who want tits and splosions, there's the people who like Woody Allen movies, there's the people who like screwball british comedies, etc. But even within those genres there's good work and bad. Everyone can do explosi
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of games where I've seen people complain about the AI. The idiots are playing on Normal or even Easy!
Yeah, some games make it Hard by boosting the enemy armor and giving them more damage. But not the best ones. The best games are nerfing the AI on Easy or Regular just so you can win.
Don't complain about the AI unless you've played the game on the higher difficulty levels.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No one's produced a computer game I've wanted to buy since about 2005 with Falcon 4.0 Allied force. The combat flight simulator genre is dead. The Space Flight Sim is dead. And the FPS's these days are all pretty much the same. I loved the early Tom Clancy games: Rainbow 6, Rogue Spear, Black Thorn, Ghost Recon, Desert Seige, Island Thunder, etc.. Then all of a sudden the elements that made those game fun, such as tactical planning before you went into a mission, were gone and the Ghost Recon and Rainbo
100% true (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're trying to fit a mechanic into your game instead of building a game around a mechanic you will fail. If it doesn't fit, don't shove. Honestly I think I'd be happier playing Twilight Princess with an ordinary gamepad, ala 'Cube, than with the Wiimote.
Problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
... the author makes some good points but when he started lauding MGS 4 as the pinnacle of what good game design is I had to take a step back.
The amount of cutscenes in Japanese games is offputting while the gameplay is often lacking (or the companies don't have a clue of what was fun about it).
You can especially see how stale the JRPG genre has become by going "simple" (read: cutting corners, cutting the best parts out they had in previous games going way back to the early 1990's). I would love to run a JRPG company and kick a lot of crappy developers and so-called visionaries out, some JRPG dev's are seriously stagnating and backtracking in RPG's in recent years.
Also I couldn't stand FFX and MGS 4 for same reasons, too much cutscenes too little gameplay options. In FFX they simplified the weapon and armor system so radically I felt cheated. They also reduced the number, variety and quality of NPC monsters and did a worse job in terms of art for them, etc.
When "simplicity" means cutting corners it's bad game design.
While I enjoyed Shadow of the colossus, it too had major problems with the land being so barren and having to waste a lot of time travelling back and forth from boss to boss without much happening in between could be a real drag after the novelty of the big world wore off.
Truth be told many game developers don't really have much insight into what works and what doesn't in their games. I can't be the only gamer that feels like game developers of late are flailing around blindly in many regards in terms of what made their games fun.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the way people seem to like FF games and MGS games. It seems to be the way the developers want it and they do it. But they try things. The Gambit system in FF XII was good, it wasn't FF6's battle system for the 18th time. And while new things are added to Metal Gear Solid, they usually don't feel like they were just added to be a bullet point in reviews that turns out to be really obnoxious in real life (I'm looking at you friend system in GTA IV).
As for the vast emptiness of Shadow of the Colossus,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MGS4 had plenty of gameplay. It's just that the Solid part of the Metal Gear series has been since 1998 dedicated to gamers who now have lives and professional careers and can't spend endless amount of hours crawling through games anymore. Play it in a weekend and be done.
The only aspect of gameplay cut from MGS3 to MGS4 was the healing and feeding systems. Which given the time elapsed from the start point to end point of missions, the food requirement made no sense. The sneaking suit's already camo, an
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. I stopped playing after FF8, but even there I'm having trouble thinking how it could have been simplified any further, given that FF8 doesn't have armour.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Ugh, so you're suggesting taking out the cutscenes (story) from a JRPG? This is why current JRPGs like FFXII and Last Remnant are total garbage."
Uhm no... FF 12 was garbage because the lead designer was from FF tactics, he tried to bring his mundane crappy story + crappy MMO battle mechanics into FF world.
"Hate to break it to you (and Square for that matter), but JRPGs are supposed to be story-driven games. That means you must, from time to time, take a break from smashing the controller against your foreh
Another area where developers fail (Score:3, Interesting)
Another area where developers fail constantly is that they don't seem to look at prior solutions, it's almost as if some developers don't actually play games themselves.
Only fools learn from their own mistakes.
I second that (Score:2)
4 things broke game industry in mid 90s :
* advent of 3d and easy, mass production of games through usage of 3 - killed strong story and fun : everyone took easier route for competition - 'hey our game has more polygons'.
* pointless innovation of the type described in the article
* 'challenge' disorder. each game has been made into major struggles you have to take on in the still of the night at your home, instead of entertainment.
* 'play time' bullshit. it become added to a game's 'value' as a measurement -
Oh yeah, because Portal was a huge flop... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see what's trying to be said, but look at games like Portal. They took a simple concept, portals, and built an entire game around this one simple idea. Sure the game is not long, but it's a brilliant game. It's loved by almost every single person who plays it. Not just enjoyed... loved. And if you listen to the commentary while playing the game, you can really see just how much thought and effort they put into even this simple game.
I just don't see the problem with this. Game creators should continually try to innovate. No, they're not always going to hit their mark, but occasionally they will totally nail it, like with Portal, and gaming as a whole will take one more step forward. That's a Good Thing.
Re: (Score:2)
If Only I had mod points!
Trial and error is a remarkably good way to discover good new tricks. So let's try and try until something good comes out!
Re: (Score:2)
Portal is one example, another is World of Goo.
Left for Dead isn't exactly cookie cutter either. Sure there have been other survival horror games, but L4D really made it blossom.
Of course, some of my favorite games (like Mindrover) were never a big hit.. so maybe my opinion isnt exactly representative of the market.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right. They innovated. They perfected the thing they made. THEN THEY STOPPED.
Portal was short, and they were fine with that. But if it was most companies, it would have been padded out to 2-3x that length. We'd have had at least one sequel by now that "innovated" in some pointless way (like the one-way green portal and the come-out-upside-down purple portal, and the...).
Valve did what they needed to. They made a fun game, planned it to be one game, and balanced it well.
Most companies just plan to make se
Re: (Score:2)
Have you listened to the commentaries? There are plenty of references to plans for further Portal games. Sure, no such thing has appeared yet, but nor has HL2 ep3 ...
MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL (Score:2)
But if it was most companies, it would have been padded out to 2-3x that length. We'd have had at least one sequel by now that "innovated" in some pointless way (like the one-way green portal and the come-out-upside-down purple portal, and the...).
Exactly!
Plus there would be portal ports to other, more PG-friendly franchises so by now we would have a Mickey' Portal of Mistery, Hannah Montana: The Portal To The Other Side (where you would change between Hannah and Miley depending on the portal color) and perhaps even Port-A-Portal - a tetris-clone for your mobile phone where you drop different colored balls through various portals and then the balls, get ready... THEY CHANGE COLOR! Wouldn't that be AWESOME!!!111eleven!
And it wouldn't be Portal but Por
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you. Yes, I can recognize there's a time for developers to sit back and polish what they already have (Halo, for instance), but overall innovation is what developers should be aiming for, and I know I'm not alone when I say I'd rather pay for a game with a failed innovation over a successful me-too.
More World of Goo, less CoD: World at War please!
Some Examples (Score:2)
Might and Magic IX - Went for eye candy over game play.
The third Krondor game - More eye candy, virtually no game play.
Thief 3 - "Consolized" the game. Missions were composed of several small linked play areas instead of large rambling areas to explore. This was done to adapt the game to console hardware limitations.
MOO3 - An example of change for its own sake. Did anyone actually like this game?
Wing Commander III and IV - Examples of challenge disorder. There were too many missions in these games that were
Re: (Score:2)
I'd disagree strongly regarding SimCity 2 and later, and Civ3/Civ4. For SimCity, the earliest simcity games were far too simple; the mid games in the series brought it to an appropriate level. It's when the went for Sims tie-ins that the series collapsed, at least from my view.
And as for Civilization- every Civ game has at least a couple low difficulties that should be trivial for anyone who enjoys that sort of game. Challenge disorder is when challenge gets added for no apparent reason, but I can't see any
Civ and SimCity (Score:2)
I'd be inclined to agree with you on Civ3 and Civ4...I've kept to Civ2 myself.
Civ 1 --> Civ 2 is a great example of where *useful* things were added (the fixed combat mechanics, and a few novel new units; my favorite of the new Civ II units was/is the Marine). The AI was still dumb, but not *as* dumb & trickable. (cough diplomacy cough) Hell, "Civ 1 with isometric graphics" would have been a useful upgrade by itself.
Colony micromanagement I don't recall being any worse in Civ2.
SimCity 1 to SimCity 2
Re: (Score:2)
I have to disagree with you on the Wing Commander and Civilization fronts; in both series, iterations 3 and 4 were not particularly hard to beat at all, at least on the low difficulty settings. And I say this as a fairly casual gamer.
Wing Commander 2, now, that was hard to beat. Or the Wing Commander Secret Operations packs. Never got through those without cheating.
Same thing elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a critical problem with popular, mainstream video games that isn't as large with other mediums; they are expensive to make and require a lot of time and effort put in to create something masterful.
Like.... movies?
Games that cost hundreds of million dollars to make aren't the best place to experiment. I think big game studios should create R&D departments where they'd make small games to test a new concept and give it to a number of people to test.
Consider Mirror's Edge (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the game still has its flaws, but the parkour interface is very innovative (and fun) and will likely be copied by other games. Assassin's Creed attempted something similar, but ME shows how it can be done right.
Also consider Portal. At heart a very simple concept that was quite difficult to figure out how to implement, but in gameplay led to really interesting and innovative puzzles.
On the other hand, there are failures. For instance, setting the grass on fire and needing to take the prevailing wind into consideration in Far Cry 2 was an interesting novelty that probably took a lot of time and effort to develop, but didn't really add much to the game.
FPS - add useless, remove important (Score:2)
I focus on FPS. These are getting dumber, dumber and simpler with every release
Rainbow six :
1. team of 10 -> team of 3.
2. full FPS with lean -> cover system 3rd person
Battlefield :
1. drive everything, huge maps, many players -> maps with mostly tanks and cars only
2. sniping game too - now you cannot even lie down
Ghost recon :
1. teams - one team
2. planning, positioning - run and gun
As the flight simulators died out almost completely people do not feel the need to have a good team experience and choo
Blatent rubbish (Score:2)
I hear you on this (Score:2)
I can think of a couple of great examples of this.
Back in the early days of the RTS, the formula was that you had one resource to harvest. In order to create complexity, games started adding more resource types. This ultimately made the game more cumbersome to play without adding as much material benefit. The counter to this is what newer games like Dawn of War does with adding strategic locations to the map, hold the location and you get request points for more units.
The original Master of Orion was an exc
Confuses "innovation" with "number of features" (Score:5, Insightful)
Citing Shadow of the Colossus as an example of why we don't need innovation is confused. SotC doesn't have a huge list of asterisks on the back of the box (you know, *Multiplayer! *Online Player! *User Modications! *Physics simulator!). Nonetheless, SotC stands out from the pack. SotC's innovation was omission--like it's wikipedia entry says, "The game is unusual within the action-adventure genre in that there are no towns or dungeons to explore, no characters with which to interact, and no enemies to defeat other than the colossi." It was unusual because of what wasn't there. Well-designed simplicity is innovation.
If you just re-worded this rant to be against adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff instead of against innovation, then it would been making a rather insightful point. As it is, it's just flamebait.
Maybe you didn't like Mirror's Edge, but whatever problems it has are unique problems. Citing it as an example of what's wrong with the industry is deeply obtuse.
Limted shared resources. (Score:2)
It's actually really horrible that every single new game has to just about recreate everything. It would be like every new book requiring that the rebuild presses and typefaces to print them. Sadly, copyright infringements 'threats' are being used to make things harder. You can't use an actual car in a game, so they have to make a car that *looks* similar to the real th
innovation is progress (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe because without innovation, any art form dies?
People who start thinking innovation is pointless are entering what is called the "old man" stage of their life. What they fail to realise is that it is hard to motivate a group of artists to do the same shit they did last year, and artists almost always are the ones driving any successful project. Of course you need to get your fundamentals right, but without innovation, there is no progress. Even if innovation flops, it still progresses the art.
While we're at it, why not ask why physicists work on pointless theories that won't pan out in the end, or ask why mathematicians design models that no one will ever use? The reason is because every once in a while, something catches fire and changes the way we think about things, and the only way to know if that will happen is to publish.
Yep, yep, yep. (Score:2, Interesting)
So then what did they do for the sequel? They decided that they just had to make it *different*. It used DirectX and ran on Windows 95, so it was *not* particularly zippy -- slower on a
Games do need innovation but the right kind (Score:3, Interesting)
But innovation isn't just about completely changing everything. We don't need completely new control schemes to innovate. Just don't make every damn game feel the same.
Case in point, the BioShock 2 gameplay footage: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47807.html?type=mov [gametrailers.com]
Yes the graphics are nice but that was exceptionally boring to watch. If you give it early 90's graphics it's effectively Wolfenstein 3D. Where is the innovation in fun that really makes it exciting to those that have played most FPS games? There is none and quite frankly it looks like something to pass on. I don't care how many scripted sequences it has, we've had those, done properly, since at least Half life 1 and it's not really that exciting anymore no matter how good the graphics are.
I think we just need more variety. Look at Street Fighter 4. It's not really that innovative. It's SF but in 3D. But a lot of people think it's great. I personally think that's because you don't really get fighters these days. They've sort of died out. So to get one that's of decent quality is a great thing. So companies just need to quit copying each other and repeating so much crap.
Useless Developers Pride (Score:2)
There is also another element: the fact that the good game programmers are so full of themselves that they reinvent the wheel everytime.
(I know: I have been a game programmer myself).
All the good programmers that I know always rewrote the code that they have to integrate in their code, and all this work is lost, since they mostly restart from zero in the next game.
Graphists have also the same behaviour, by redesigning everything from scratch at the start of a project.
Also, everybody wants to experience some
Gameplay vs Content (Score:2)
As a very very basic example think of Loderunner. It's gameplay elements were pretty simple. And it's content was it's maps.
In such a game say if the original only came with a few maps, it did not but for the sake of argument, then offering something beyond that original could be as simple as adding new maps. The problem comes in with asking for more of someone's money just for adding some more maps. Simply adding more simple content is rarely enough to justify asking for more money.
So lets say that the
Forget innovation, let's talk length (Score:2)
Innovation and the damndest graphics mean squat when I'm only getting 7-10 hours out of a game, with maybe an extra five if I try to be a "completionist". I'd much rather have well-designed but standard mechanics with decent graphics and have a 20-40 hour game.
So much focus is given to presentation now with less and less to content. If this keeps up, I'm just going to stick with older consoles because I'll get tired of playing movies. (Incidentally, movie length keeps getting longer and longer.)
Dead Space complaints (spoiler alert) (Score:2)
"Pointless" innovation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever you luddites stop shivering, maybe you could actually try to understand that such "pointless" innovation is necessary for the survival of the game industry. Game development is a process of continual trial and error. If developers don't keep pushing the envelope, they risk having the user become bored with their products. And if you remember the video game crash of the 1980s, offering too many similar-looking game to users is typically a bad thing.
Sure, we've seen some of these "pointless" innovations fail the first time around on numerous occasions. But, when these innovations are picked up elsewhere and reworked, they can eventually lead to titles that go down in history as being revolutionary.
So yeah... "pointless" innovation might be bad at first, but we f---ing need it!
Re: (Score:2)
Then why don't they just remake old good games with modern engines?
Marathon on the Halo engine!
System Shock on the BioShock engine!