Il Duce wrote:
I share your sentiments, biiin.

I actually hanker for those old 8 or 16-bit days of the Commodore 64 and Amiga when there was just a deluge of good ideas rather than emphasis on graphics and cutscenes. And also current games are mostly recycled ideas and fall into tried and tested genres - FPSes, RPGs, with exactly the same format.


Yeah, but keep in mind that there were a lot of shitty, exploitative games for those old systems. One smart thing that Nintendo did with the NES was put a limit on how many titles each company could release per year, which kept the number of cheap B-list titles to a minimum (what essentially killed the Atari was a storm of inferior product by companies programming "pong" ripoffs, etc, which confused buyers). I think Nintendo made exceptions for Capcom and Konami, but were wise in keeping the output of non-hitmakers to a minimum.

The problem with new games is just the opposite - rather than trying to put out a sellable product with as little effort as possible, the goal now is to make HUGE EXPENSIVE looking blockbusters, while playing less attention to the gameplay and design. Of course there are exceptions, but as long as gamers go nuts for these mediocre titles ("Gears of War" being just the most blatant example), then I think we'll continue to see the market slanted in favor of graphics over game design. As for whether that's better or worse than what happened to the Atari, that's a matter of personal preference.