As well as the
OzChat Posting Board, one of the other forums I frequently... er... frequent is the
Penny Arcade Phorum. One of the subject of most of the rants going on there at the moment is
"Why videogames suck so much these days". Don't get me wrong, video games
rock, but these days the market is being inundated with so much
crap that it makes me wonder whether these game developers actually realise that their game has to be
good to make them money. Graphics seem to be taking pride of place over
gameplay, and the quality of the CD-filling FMV sequences seem to take preference over the story actually being told. But I think for myself, there seems to be more to it than just this.
I think for me, it was the step up from the
Commodore 64 to the
Amiga... I remember vividly saving for weeks until I could afford the latest release, whether it was '
Skate or Die', '
Spy vs Spy' or '
Paperboy'. I would then rush home, pop the cassette in the datasette,
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, then go do something for 20 minutes while the game loaded. Once loaded, I would play the game until beaten or until I needed sleep. The technology was new, the graphics were great, sometimes I'd just leave the
chip-music playing just so I could listen to it. It was an uber-happy time of my life.
Now, I have a disposable income which has been spent on over 50 games across 4 platforms, any of which can be loaded in 5 seconds, played for one minute, then set aside. Over 2000
MAME roms at my disposal, and all I want to do is play
Galaga. The exceptions are exceptional...
Xenogears and
Final Fantasy rock my werld on the PSX.
Conkers BFD and
Zelda, likewise on the N64. My DC gave me many hours of enjoyment through
Skies of Arcadia and
Soul Caliber. And I'm battling through
Monkey Island 3 &
4 on the PC. Nowadays, if the game doesn't eat away a
chunk of my life, it hardly seems worth playing, let lone buying.
My point is, I think, that enhanced graphics and 3D hasn't neccessarily driven the nail into the coffin of decent gaming. I dont care if a game's been done before: I enjoy every
Final Fantasy or
Megaman game I play. I just think that the answer is different for everyone depending on their gaming history and what attracted them to games in the first place.
