What makes a game fun is PLAYING a game, can a good story, characters and dialogue help with the presentation of a game? Absolutely but does a game with no stoiry like Tetris make it a bad game, no. That's what I am getting at story doesn't make a game. Gameplay makes a game, this is why a title like say Shadow Madness with a good story and dialogue isn't a good game in most people's opinions. Because the gameplay sucks. Gameplay makes a game. Not all types of games are story oriented. If a game is about keeping with a beat and freestyling like a music game or precision quick touching of a touch screen or shooting with a light gun, does the lack of a story make it a bad game? I don't think so. Games like Point Blank, WarioWare, and most music games are perfect examples of this. Innovations in control have created innovations in gameplay. Not storytelling GAME PLAY. Not all innovations have to deal with presentation.
Gee. What a wonderful, colorful world you are painting the gaming world to be. Who cares if something doesn't have an ounce of creativity in it. As long as it's innovative and new, we will play it and love it because our unevolved minds must be challenged by innovative gameplay, because that is the primary reason we play games.
Man. That's boring as hell. I always wondered what tunnel vision must be like. Now I know.
So, you're telling me that without a story, games like Halo, Quake, and Doom would be just as fun? Hmm. I beg to differ, mon senior. That cheese does not smell good.
Among my friends are the hardcore first person gamers. Yes, they are slightly mindless and spare little time doing things other than eating and sleeping, but they are good at that genre, better than I. They love their first person shooters, but you know why? It's not just the running around and killing thanks to the 360 degree control. Because they love the stories of those games too. They get a huge kick out of emersing themselves into the role of, say, the Master Chief, and blowing away covanent ass to save the world.
Why do people like playing sports games? Because they can take on the peronsa of todays hottest athletes and pretend to live that life. In addition to good gameplay, which the Madden games excel at, that sounds like a great story to me, and the millions of Madden fans will agree with me.
So tell me this. How does a game begin? Where does a game development start? Does it start with a gameplay board? No wait. A hardware board? Umm....oh, I know.
I believe it's called a story board. Games do not exist without the creative aspect that you are so calously tossing aside. I embrace the nice things that hardware enables, but that hardware is useless without a good game that has it all with story and gameplay. You are so intent on pin pricking my arguement apart, you are failing to realize your own mistake. Games can't even begin without someone coming up with a creative idea or story behind it. You are tossing aside creativity like its an extra appendage that can be done without, leaving just nuts and bolts gameplay.
As I said. Tunnel vision. A game needs it all to be good and worthy of good investment. All the best games have a compelling story aspect to them of some sort to go with that innovative gameplay you worship. But strip it all away, and you are left with Tetris. A boring game that people play when their brains are dead at work and they are just wasting time til the clock hits 5 PM and they can go home and play something more engaging that titilates their mind with a great story to go with that gameplay.
First off it's not an open poll. The main rating comes from professional game critics reviews. It's not a "hot or not" of game reviewing. It's as good of a system of gauging the quality of anything out there provided a title has enough reviews to be ranked.
Second are college gamers really the most diverse group of people or is it right in Microsoft and Sony's target range (18-30 year old males) who as a result may favor those platforms. I'm not sure.
But, dude, that doesn't change the fact that it's still a poll, limited to a select few people who are bolstering it with their opinions. You yourself agreed with my statement that interviews and magazine rating systems are fluff now a days. So you are saying, that these people who write fluff articles are going to be the ones whose opinions will be averaged, thanks to the might of the internet, and that I am supposed to trust them?
Again, magazines as professional reviews this day suck beyond suck. I don't trust them now, and I am not going to trust them for a long time. I talk to my friends and other piers in the gaming world to get a beat on what is good and what is bad. Or, I spend a few cheap bucks and rent it myself before buying it.
And yes, college is a diverse ground for gaming. Never did I see a more diverse group of gamers thanks to personalities, game playing habits, and general views on life. Again, you are trying to gloss over a human fact by tacking on a faceless number to dehumanize it. It's not about the numbers, it's about the people, and what the people want. And people want to own a system that will provide them with the widest variety of games that reach them on multiple levels...not just fascinate the eyes with gameplay.
I think I'm almost out of the tunnel. I can see daylight.
Mario Kart is a great game for parties, Mario Sunshine is a single player game for individuals, obviously you're going to have more fun playing a multiplayer title like Mario Kart (even the two player SNES original) over a single player platformer like Mario.
That still doesn't change the fact that everyone who I know who owned a Cube laughed at it and chose to play better single player games at the party and in private playing. Again, personal experience trumps your numbers. Sorry, mate.
Next.
What you were saying was Nintendo wasn't and isn't innovating and isn't making quality games, two things I completely disagreed with and popular critical opinoion is on my side. That's not being a fanboy, being a fanboy or a "hater" is doing things like spouting unsubstaniated rumors to help support opinions and dodging areas where you are clearly wrong.
Not all games are about storytelling or multiplayer modes. This sems to be the emphasis of your argument rather than a lack quality titles or innovation which you tried to pass it as. Critical opiinion in general is that Nintendo's key franchises are generally high quality titles with only a few rare misses. They also are innovating the way games play to create new genres. Your arguments seem to primarily but not soley related to a lack of storytelling in Nintendo's titles. As I said, the game play is what makes a game, not necessarily the story.
Oh, sorry, wrong again. No cookie for you.
Never said their are not innovating, I say that their innovations are not helping their situation in the gaming market. That new controller is a waste of time and effort, because it is not condusive to intense gaming. I also never said they don't make quality games. My point is that their true quality games are very few and far between, which makes it a waste of money to buy their consoles when they are expensive. If they had consecutive releases like a top notch Zelda game, a classy shooter like Halo, something akin to a quality Mario game, or some adventure titles that truly did break the mold, all released with a relative amount of time after one another, then Nintendo would look as good as Sony or Microsoft as an investment of time and money.
But in reality, Nintendo releases that great Zelda game or that cool Metroid game veeeeeeeeery far apart. And in between you have their slosh of other games, which they admit are geared towards trying to attract multiple age groups first, instead of satisfying the age group they already had in their pockets from long ago.
That's part of the crux in a nutshell, amigo. Nintendo is so worried about getting that multi-demographic you like so much, that they forgot about the consumers who made them what they were for almost 2 decades.
So I'm not spouting rumors as a "hater", as you put it. I am talking from the standpoint of an old fan, who wonders why he was left standing on the curb by a company he was doggedly loyal to for so many years.
"Why?" I wondered that fateful day. "Why is Nintendo making a more expensive system in the N64? Well, maybe I'll give it a chance. Hey, wait a minute. What are these games? Yeah, a couple of these are nice to play once or twice, but where is that long term, replayable quality games I'm used to from Nintendo? Well, there seems to be a new Zelda game coming, but that's a few years away. I don't think I want to wait."
And that is now many of us reacted that fateful day back in the mid '90's.
The emphasis of my arguement, as you miss the target again, is not just about story telling. I don't know where you get multi-player from, cuz that is not something I've touched on at length. A game is the sum of its parts, and while Nintendo, when it does get it all, does a great job with that high end game, they don't do it enough to get my full time business, or that of plenty of other consumers, which is why they are considered to be at the back of the pack.
You keep going in circles trying to level me with empty points concerning numbers, specs, and opinions based on compilations of people who have the worst abilities to judge games in this world. You seem to be of that ilk that excuse all the failures, as long as you get that single good game once in a while. For people like that it's "Who cares if we wasted all that money and time waiting. We got that one great game that makes it worth it!"
Well, I hate to break it to you, but most people don't like waiting for that gem game, great as they may be. I never said those great Nintendo games aren't great, they just take...oh wait...I'm starting to repeat myself. I wonder how many more times I have to say it before it sinks in? Okay, here's a new line to go out on.
Things are expensive, and there is more out there than just games. Life has made me a frugal person, and many others like myself thanks to college loans, over expensive bills, and now gas. People want to be entertained to relax, and now a days it's the videogames that provide that for us. We all try to find that right game rythem that does it for us, and involves finding that right system.
The innovation you are so proud of is not a garuntee for relaxation. People want reliable sources, because when they come home they don't want to have to wonder if their toy will actually help them relax. Innovation is a gamble, at any stage, but for Nintendo it's a desperate gamble for them at this point in the race (and don't try to deny that it is not a race). They still make that occasional inredible game, but in this day and age people are not patient or tolerent enough to just wait for it. Sony and Microsoft may take the shotgun approach, but they are hitting more targets than Nintendo when it comes to reliability for gaming comfort.
And that is what it comes down to.
Comfort.
Myself and many others are not comfortable with the combination of Nintendo and console anymore. I'm not talking about handhelds. Nintendo has made themself top dog in handheld (pun intended), even at the expense of a console, which is, in the end, the main course. Nintendo and console just does not inspire that feeling of sure thing success anymore.
Plain and simple.
Okay. I think I'm ready for the next wave of stats. Wait, let me get something to eat first.
