A gamer with an opinion about today's stunted game market:

[JCvgluvr]

I think this guy makes a very good case. Besides that, he's very blunt and easy to pay attention to. He doesn't barf out a bunch of cheery fluff. He gets down to the friggen' point.

But do you agree with his overall opinion? What's your take on this?

[zircon]

Definitely agree; all excellent points. Not much more to say than that. I hope the next generation of game designers will take this type of stuff to heart.

[Bigfoot]

I like this guy. I agreed with pretty much everything he said.

And I still need to get No More Heroes.

[FiremanJoe]

Amazing stuff. Spot on.

[The Tiger]

A gamer with an opinion? Well, that's something we haven't seen before!

In all seriousness, I like the points he makes, which are pretty solid. I'm not sure I get the whole "big words" thing. To be honest, I never found his use of language to be particularly challenging so it becomes across as a bit insulting; does he think gamers are an uneducated bunch? That's nit-picking, of course and I shouldn't take it too seriously.

Reminds me of how much I like Katamari Damacy...and kudos for him for his use of Hieronymus Bosch.

Edit: I quite enjoyed this as well...

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=9iNs5iG2h34

[Triad Orion]

I appreciate his bluntness, though the swearing card is becoming overdone in a lot of these "angry gamer" rants. It's just at this point it tends to make them look more stupid than anything else and it ends up detracting from what would be an otherwise good argument. Not that I have any problem with swearing, it's just at this point in these sorts of rants, it's extremely passe and needs to be put to bed for awhile.

Anyway, onto his actual argument. I gotta agree with him. I like the zanier stuff, and I appreciate that he acknowledges the Wii's place in the current console generation. But yes, many lead characters in high profile games feel derivative. I don't agree with putting Snake in that group; he himself has gotten enough development to be a good character in his own right and the Metal Gear games are actually worth the praise they receive. But I would like to see more creativity in titles. That's one reason why I really like the Wii, is that it can cater to that sort of thing more easily. ...Even though it's having a tough time convincing third party developers to actually DO that.

Also, I'm surprised he didn't mention Okami while he was at it. Seemed like another mind-blowingly good example of a creative, modern title.

[DiLEWSKI311]

nerd alert.

seriously.

[The Joker]

I agree with everything he said... almost. While the Wii is a current gen console, it pretty much is only living on the fact that college kids & moms dig the simple party games, no matter how much they suck. Let's be honest, other than the first party ttiles, the Wii isn't good for much.

As for zanier stuff, yeah, I like them & all, but really, how many of us will willingly go out & buy a game starring a big bright chibi style hamster, trying to save his people from the vacuum cleaner? Not many of us. As for No More Heroes, that really panders to the same stuff the FPS's do. It's violent, full of sexual innuendo, &... well, it's violent.

[Monobrow]

A gamer with an opinion? Well, that's something we haven't seen before!

In all seriousness, I like the points he makes, which are pretty solid. I'm not sure I get the whole "big words" thing. To be honest, I never found his use of language to be particularly challenging so it becomes across as a bit insulting; does he think gamers are an uneducated bunch?

gamefaqs ? ?

[The Coop]

This guy doesn't cover any ground that hasn't been discussed here many times over the years, or in issues of GameFan back in the 90s ("another brown game on PS1" was their thing). However, if he wants to address creative design (or the lack thereof), then perhaps he should have used better examples of games that broke the proverbial mold besides the ones in the last year. Games like Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, where bizarre and personality-laden characters, and equally out there weapons, were the norm. Or perhaps Shadow of the Colossus, where cinematic battles and "HOLY SHI-!"-bosses ruled the roost. Or how about Black and White, Katamari Damacy, Okami, Glover, Giants Citizen Kabuto, and scores of other games over the last fifteen-plus years that thumbed their noses at what was the norm at that time, or went their own direction?

He does a fine job lambasting the current generation of designers by pointing to 8bit titles and saying "See how goofy that shit looked and sounded? Why don't you try doing that next?", but he completely jumps over the instances of more modern day "goofy" ideas that did happen in-between now and the 8bit era. And it's this oversight that punches a nasty hole in his "no creativity these days" argument. He's complaining about the games that are being pimped as mainstream titles, while giving no voice to niche stuff that comes out all the time during a given year. What does he expect... the niche and goofy to become mainstream? If it did, would he then start griping about that two years down the road?

The creativity is there, it just doesn't always get noticed by people. Maybe he should stop ranting, and try digging around on the store shelves a bit more (or the import shops). He might be surprised at what he comes across.

[Strike911]

Didn't dig this guy.

He just wants to bitch and moan. He sounds like an old 80 year old talking about how things were better in his day. And like a scenile, 80 year old with Alzehiemers most of his 'facts' are largely uninformed and pulled out of his ass. For crying out loud, he was bitching about the COLOR BROWN... come on... he sounds like he wants fantastic worlds that take place with fantastic characters, but he's leaving out a ton of games that are brightly colored and imaginatively awe-inspiring that have indeed been released recently. I mean, Ico was incredible and semi-modern... meh, this guy is off his rocker. I hope his oxygen tank doesn't blow up while he's drinking his prune juice. Guy above me mentioned Shadow of the colossus. That game had beautiful art direction, but look, the game is heavily populated by browns and greys, and only a little green, which stands out like crazy in that drab environment.

... I'm half expecting one of those "I walked 3 miles in the snow, backwards" kind of comments from this guy...

Oh and the "BIG WORDS" thing. Haha. People only start talking about their "big words" when they've been digging through the dictionary to draw attention to their new found vocabulary words in hopes other people might think they're intelligent.

I mean, by all means people can have opinions but... come on.

I do have to give him credit on the Madden comment though. DLC does make sense, but as long as those damned games keep selling like they do that'll never happen.

This guy has brought nothing new to the table except for a lack luster emulation of Zero Puncutation's video style...

[The Legendary Zoltan]

I too liked his video and despite the fact that I am familiar with most of the games mentioned, he sort of opened my eyes to the fact that all the heroes are semi-bearded white boys and I'm SO glad he dissed that for me cause lately I'm getting sick and tired of people who look like me. And I especially agree with the whole beige ruins theory. I too have noticed that a lot of fun games are set in places like that. I've always said that I would love to play a game like Devil May Cry (It's got the color, but it's always dark) a lot more if it were set on a sunny beach or something.

I think Monobrow had a good point when he said GameFAQs, though. There are lots of different kinds of people reviewing the games there. I'll never forget the time I read a Guilty Gear review and the guy referred to the music as "stereotypical hate rock." I'll never get over that one! Hahaha.

I wonder if that guy is from Hawaii, because he said two things that I always say: "... brah." And "... is nuts." At least I THINK it's only in Hawaii that people use the word "nuts" to mean cool.

[I-n-j-i-n]

That was rather cliche really. That was the oldest gripe of the new console generation I've heard. I do think there should be more new, wilder characters though.

lol at the "Todd McFarlane = chains" idea because it's true.

On the optimistic side, they do tend to create some more out of the blue ideas in games once they settle down on a console. Godhand, Okami, God of War, Sky Gunner, etc etc on the PS2 was a good example. I just wish they start doing more of that on the 360/Wii. PS3 maybe eventually.

[Schwaltzvald]

Well that settles it, gonna pick up Godhand and No More Heroes, if only to try something different

[herograw]

This guy doesn't cover any ground that hasn't been discussed here many times over the years, or in issues of GameFan back in the 90s ("another brown game on PS1" was their thing). However, if he wants to address creative design (or the lack thereof), then perhaps he should have used better examples of games that broke the proverbial mold besides the ones in the last year. Games like Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, where bizarre and personality-laden characters, and equally out there weapons, were the norm. Or perhaps Shadow of the Colossus, where cinematic battles and "HOLY SHI-!"-bosses ruled the roost. Or how about Black and White, Katamari Damacy, Okami, Glover, Giants Citizen Kabuto, and scores of other games over the last fifteen-plus years that thumbed their noses at what was the norm at that time, or went their own direction?

He does a fine job lambasting the current generation of designers by pointing to 8bit titles and saying "See how goofy that shit looked and sounded? Why don't you try doing that next?", but he completely jumps over the instances of more modern day "goofy" ideas that did happen in-between now and the 8bit era. And it's this oversight that punches a nasty hole in his "no creativity these days" argument. He's complaining about the games that are being pimped as mainstream titles, while giving no voice to niche stuff that comes out all the time during a given year. What does he expect... the niche and goofy to become mainstream? If it did, would he then start griping about that two years down the road?

The creativity is there, it just doesn't always get noticed by people. Maybe he should stop ranting, and try digging around on the store shelves a bit more (or the import shops). He might be surprised at what he comes across.

Well, to be fair, his point wasn't that goofy games no longer exist, but that they are now an exception to the rule when they used to be the rule.

As for the actual video- good points, but like most nerd rants the profanity was unnecessary and felt forced. Visuals reminded me of the zero punctuation guy (who I'm not especially fond of) but they essentially worked.

It's not so much that he uncovered any previously untouched information. Rather, he put it in a nice, concise package. And yeah, what's with the "white men with stubble" trend??

[Vivi22]

I didn't care for the video to be honest. Lame attempt to emulate the Zero Punctuation reviews, and he mostly left me bored. What bothers me most is that he can't pull his own head out of his ass long enough to recognize that just because the days of Cheetahmen, and Bombermen ruling the game industry has largely passed, doesn't mean that there is a lack of creativity in game design.

I find it funny that he lumps Snake in with every other game attempting some realism, or with a scruffy-faced white hero. Granted, it has that last part. It also has more off the wall, what the hell was that, stuff going on than most of the games this guy talks about. Add onto that the fact that the series has consistently been (in my opinion) the most game series ever made, and you've got all the creativity and innovation this guy wants, but because it doesn't feature a gorilla with a robot arm as the main hero he's not interested. The topic of his rant goes both ways; just as there may not be as many off the wall, colourful and fanciful concepts as their used to be, he also ignores the stuff that is genuinely creative, original and/or well designed, despite seeming like another realistic action game at first glance.

It basically seemed to me that he's hung up on the visual side of game design. Maybe instead of focusing on that aspect, he should focus instead on games where the gameplay is actually well designed. I'd love to see more off the wall games, but only if they play well thank you. I don't care how insane the story and characters are if the game is a complete pile of ass as soon as you pick up the controller.

[anosou]

I think Monobrow had a good point when he said GameFAQs, though.

hehehehe :3

loads of text

I agree. It feels like he's not really looking through the massive ammount of games for the odd gems.

Lemme name some games that, according to me, has some creative design even though they might sometimes lack a main character or.. well characters at all. Frequency/Amplitude, Flipnic (best take on flipper ever), Graffiti Kingdom, Gregory Horror Show, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Mad Maestro, Okami, Psychonauts, Steambot Chronicles (just because of the crazy mix of stuff), Katamari Damacy, Mercury (really, and a lot of other creative puzzlers). And this is just PS2 games that I personally own!

But still, the NES rant is not my kinda thing. He's loving all upon the most uninspired stories ever made. Honestly I think the Castlevania and Bionic Commando stories are horrible and probably something they slapped on the game to appeal to the kids these days, I mean it WAS the 80's. It's the same reason developers today are making shooters with beefy main characters and war-games. Give it to the large, general audience. The difference is, the large general audience now isn't as short-sighted as this guy and we're many, many more.

If he complains about the huge-ass mainstream games btw, why buy them? Why not rummage around the intarweb and the stores to find something different? it's not like they aren't out there, as Coop pointed out.

AND, OH OOH! Fun, he complains about bomberman's chain with the phrase "is this 1992?" when he obviously wants it to be 1992 because of the AWESOME CHARACTER DESIGN

Okay, one more thing before I push "Save". I think he's partially right, it WOULD probably be more fun for us nerds if there were some goofy games released at current-gen systems but 1. they would not sell much and therefore not be profitable for a company, 2. the games we get today are still fucking amazing games, 3. there ARE tons of games that ain't FPSes or macho-man games and finally 4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl? How unique is that now?

that is all

[OceansAndrew]

Wow, that's the first time I've seen the new bionic commando game in motion.

It looks pretty sweet, brah.

Video was decent and I generally agree, but i'm a cranky old gamer too and you whippersnappers had best get off my lawn before I OW MY HIP@!#@@#$%

[zircon]

People here keep missing the point. He's not saying there aren't odd gems. He's saying that those odd gems should be the NORM, not the exception.

[FlagshipAmadeus]

He said "mandasory" haha

[TheSnowStorm]

gamefaqs ? ?

You mean GameFags, because that how they act, a bunch of butthurt fags.

Since I'm at school, I can't look at the video. Can you guys give me a general idea of the the opinion.

[Vivi22]

People here keep missing the point. He's not saying there aren't odd gems. He's saying that those odd gems should be the NORM, not the exception.

I don't think any of us are really missing the point. He wants quirky, off-the-wall games to be the norm, but doesn't acknowledge the games that are a little off-the-wall these days, or the merits of the ones that don't feature cartoonish characters and mayors beating down a gang of thugs. What he (and a lot of people for that matter) fail to realize is that many of the ridiculous stories of the 8-bit days are best left in the 80's. I'm all for titles that pull some fun stuff like Maniac Mansion, Castlevania, and Mario Brothers, but some of those stories are best left forgotten. In fact, the only reason those premises worked was because they didn't try to give us any more than the bare minimum in terms of story (and didn't have to since the gameplay was amazing). Who are we, what are we doing and why. There's still a place for those, and even a place for oddball games with good stories, and if you ask me, when you look back on the best titles of the last few years there's a good mix of those, and more realistic modern titles. They may be a small part of the market overall, but they're rarely a small part of the list of best titles of the year as titles like SotC, Ico, Okami, and many more continue to prove.

If you ask me, this guy's rant failed because he ignored the oddball games that are out and amazing, and the more modern games that are also amazing, and the fact that we get more a better mix than most people ever really bother to notice. Oddball games may not be the norm, but why would we want that any more than we want all games to be serious and realistic?

[OceansAndrew]

ok, ok, sorry for being offtopic.

I agree that i'd prefer the majority of games to be quirky and more creative, but as it was mentioned in the video, with the Playstation came a whole new demographic of gamers; the Alpha Beta crowd, and with them, their money. Game companies see this new money and make a few games for the crowd, and find what sells well to them. It just so happens that this new demographic buys more games than the existing one, so of course they are going to be pandered to.

Every time a new group of gamers enter the fold, the game businesses will clinically find the sweet spot for this target market, and make games that pander to their sensibilities. My wife is pretty new to the gaming scene, and loves Mario Party style games something fierce. You know, like all those minigame collections? Those games are aimed at her. Warioware, Rayman Rabbids, Carnival games? Loves them all. My sister and her boyfriend (previously non-gamers) play that type of game too. That and guitar hero/rockband. I'm certain that you or someone you know has bitched about these types of games as well. It's pretty common for people to dislike change.

I know some people who rail on both the "macho" games as well as the "fluff" games, and they tend to be in the same boat as the guy in the video. Basically the video dude's point is, "Make more games that *I* would like. I am the only *real* gamer, and since i've been around longer, only my opinion is valid."

I agree that i'm pretty sick of washed out colors and stubbly white dudes (shit, I *am* a stubbly white dude), as well as mini-game collections, but there are plenty of other options out there for me; and that's my point. There isn't just one type of gamer anymore, there are several. It just tends to be that the extra creative games (dare I say neo-classical?) aren't as profitable. I think if we are going to see more of these types of games, they are going to be lower budget, to further fit the number of sales they could be expected to create.

[Skummel Maske]

For crying out loud, he was bitching about the COLOR BROWN.

Thing is, alot of devs seem to go down the "brown = realism" path these days. Alot of games look bland and uninspired because of it, IMO.

[Ramaniscence]

I have to go to class, so I can't say anything TOO much but...

I somewhat agree with the whole "brown" thing...desaturation and over use of "earthy tones" is getting really annoying, but doesn't nessacarily make a game bad, and I don't particularly think it targets the audience.

Example:

Far Cry is one of the most over saturated games I have ever seen.