A Crotchety Gamer At Age 23

 No, what I'm not happy with is the loss of imagination and daring new ideas that the technology of today and developers of now have seem to become comfortable with. 

 I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let me step back, provide some history, and set the stage to hopefully convincing you, dear reader, to agree with me.

When I was a young lad growing up, I was very poor. My family couldn't afford many luxuries and while all my friends were talking about bionic commandos and those crazy Italian plumbers, I was stuck trying to convince them that playing with G.I. Joes was still cool. A little later down the line, my mom bought a Commodore 64 from a friend thinking it was a home computer for me to do homework on. Lucky for me, I convinced her that Metal Gear was teaching me arithmetic. Because of my poor standing, I was always a generation behind. My friends would have the NES, I had the Commodore 64. They had a Super Nintendo, I had a NES. It wasn't until I got my first job that I could buy my own games and systems and not until after college that I could keep up currently. 
 

 This brings me to my first point: Imagination.

Games of yesteryear didn't have much in a way of story. If we were fortunate to have the manual, we could bother ourselves to read why were were plumbing the depths of Zebes or fighting Dr. Wily. Even if we did this, we still had a conquered game that we would have to keep playing. As kids, our imaginations were already running crazy, but the games also allowed our minds to fill in the blanks. If I beat the game, I would make up a plot in my head to justify my second playthrough. I defeated Wily and saved the world, but now, Wily stole my girlfriend and I had to get her back .

Games today just don't let us to fill in those blanks anymore. Everything is force fed to us and explained in insane detail. Your wife is your bionic arm and Liquid Snake was imprinted onto Ocelot.  How cool would it be if nothing in BioShock was explained? Just a few tape recordings sprinkled around held together by an abstract plot, leaving you to decide what the game's message is or what everything is about. That's the game I want to see.
 

Retro games also pioneered more frequently then today's games. We saw a new IP almost weekly on older systems and game companies took more and more risks. Yes we still saw sequels on these older systems, there were six Mega Mans on the NES alone,  but we also received a ton of new IPs. 

These days, we are almost drowning in sequels. Activision  has perfected bringing out it's catalouge of Guitar Heros, Call of Duties and movie Tony Hawks to the masses every year. Bungie can't seem to escape Halo and Nintendo makes the same core game every console generation with its mascots. Sorry kids, Zelda hasn't changed since 1987 and when it did with Majora's Mask, everyone complained.

Where's the innovation and bravery to make new IPs? What happened to a game companies sole purpose being to actually create virtual worlds and amazing interactive experiences instead of  acquiring a movie or comic license and proceeding to milk it every year? 

I'm not naive to the workings of the industry and I understand why new IPs are hard to market, while established brands are easier to make money on. I still want a return to those old ideals. I want game companies to create new ideas and challenge us as purveyors of the hobby. Find a way to create a new world for us to explore or a new way of interacting with a old genre. Place a spin on everything we've come to be comfortable. Shake up our ideals and produce something utterly groundbreaking and new.

Yet, this doesn't seem to be the direction the industry is taking and until this happens though, I feel I'll have to stay confined to my rocking chair made of NES controllers and Atari joysticks and crow about how the old days were better. I'm a crotchety gamer....and I'm only 23.

 No, what I'm not happy with is the loss of imagination and daring new ideas that the technology of today and developers of now have seem to become comfortable with. 

 I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let me step back, provide some history, and set the stage to hopefully convincing you, dear reader, to agree with me.

When I was a young lad growing up, I was very poor. My family couldn't afford many luxuries and while all my friends were talking about bionic commandos and those crazy Italian plumbers, I was stuck trying to convince them that playing with G.I. Joes was still cool. A little later down the line, my mom bought a Commodore 64 from a friend thinking it was a home computer for me to do homework on. Lucky for me, I convinced her that Metal Gear was teaching me arithmetic. Because of my poor standing, I was always a generation behind. My friends would have the NES, I had the Commodore 64. They had a Super Nintendo, I had a NES. It wasn't until I got my first job that I could buy my own games and systems and not until after college that I could keep up currently. 
 

 This brings me to my first point: Imagination.

Games of yesteryear didn't have much in a way of story. If we were fortunate to have the manual, we could bother ourselves to read why were were plumbing the depths of Zebes or fighting Dr. Wily. Even if we did this, we still had a conquered game that we would have to keep playing. As kids, our imaginations were already running crazy, but the games also allowed our minds to fill in the blanks. If I beat the game, I would make up a plot in my head to justify my second playthrough. I defeated Wily and saved the world, but now, Wily stole my girlfriend and I had to get her back .

Games today just don't let us to fill in those blanks anymore. Everything is force fed to us and explained in insane detail. Your wife is your bionic arm and Liquid Snake was imprinted onto Ocelot.  How cool would it be if nothing in BioShock was explained? Just a few tape recordings sprinkled around held together by an abstract plot, leaving you to decide what the game's message is or what everything is about. That's the game I want to see.
 

Retro games also pioneered more frequently then today's games. We saw a new IP almost weekly on older systems and game companies took more and more risks. Yes we still saw sequels on these older systems, there were six Mega Mans on the NES alone,  but we also received a ton of new IPs. 

These days, we are almost drowning in sequels. Activision  has perfected bringing out it's catalouge of Guitar Heros, Call of Duties and movie Tony Hawks to the masses every year. Bungie can't seem to escape Halo and Nintendo makes the same core game every console generation with its mascots. Sorry kids, Zelda hasn't changed since 1987 and when it did with Majora's Mask, everyone complained.

Where's the innovation and bravery to make new IPs? What happened to a game companies sole purpose being to actually create virtual worlds and amazing interactive experiences instead of  acquiring a movie or comic license and proceeding to milk it every year? 

I'm not naive to the workings of the industry and I understand why new IPs are hard to market, while established brands are easier to make money on. I still want a return to those old ideals. I want game companies to create new ideas and challenge us as purveyors of the hobby. Find a way to create a new world for us to explore or a new way of interacting with a old genre. Place a spin on everything we've come to be comfortable. Shake up our ideals and produce something utterly groundbreaking and new.

Yet, this doesn't seem to be the direction the industry is taking and until this happens though, I feel I'll have to stay confined to my rocking chair made of NES controllers and Atari joysticks and crow about how the old days were better. I'm a crotchety gamer....and I'm only 23.

I'd suggest hitting up the XBLA and PSN titles...or maybe just stop buying shooting games.  =  /  There's plenty of innovative and unique titles that have come out.  It just happens to be something that the mainstream frowns upon. 
 
Don't worry, though.  Borderlands will fix it all.  = D

The best cure for the glut of shooters and licensed games is the indie game.  The last shooter I bought was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and before that... I really couldn't tell you.  I find, however, that with downloadable games being a big part of the console market and Flash games and indie games becoming more relevant in recent years, innovation is still around.  Look at last year.  World of Goo and Braid are two of my favorite games of 2008.  The games you're looking for are out there, but you have to do some searching.
 
Don't worry, though.  Borderlands will fix it all.