Like clockwork, the latest Zero Punctuation showed up on Wednesday afternoon. I think the gaming world shall go mad if Yahtzee misses a week. How are we ever to know that it's Wednesday?
Australia's grumpiest gamer weighed in on this year's E3 with a pretty hilarious ejaculation(!) of mild outrage: seeing as E3 2008 was as exciting as discount hamburger, Yahtzee had the right to punch the event in the solar plexus. He did bring up one point I've been thinking about: with the surge of sequels we've been seeing for established franchises, it almost seems as if no one's had an original game idea for a long time. Yahtzee makes mention of crazy old NES games that starred French chefs "riding on stickbugs and armed with guns that shot velociraptors."
It's a common complaint and it seems as if we're hearing it more than ever these days. It's not like there's reason to dismiss it as hyperbole, either. When the most unusual title at a big name trade show is a Mega Man title, it's time to descend into Hell and thaw out poor Satan.
I haven't decided if I'm totally in agreement with Yahtzee. I remember the NES very well, especially my family's weekend trips to rent games. My two brothers and I took turns with the weekly rentals. Pity the fool who picked up a second-rate platformer game because s/he wasn't renting anything else for three weeks. I quickly learned how not to become a victim. It was a painful journey full of disappointment, floaty controls and terrible tinny music because boy howdy, there was a lot of crap on the shelves of those Mom n Pop video stores.
I will admit that developers were more eager to try new ideas in gaming's infancy. Imagine if Miyamoto announced that he was turning the Zelda series into a sidescroller in this fertile age of fandom and Internet rage. The fandom popped a collective hernia when Link returned to his cartoon roots on the Gamecube--even though the gameplay for Wind Waker was not changed dramatically from Ocarina of Time.
We have comfortable formulas now and developers aren't eager to fix what ain't broke. Still, I don't believe gaming will stagnate. Yahtzee himself admits that Mirror's Edge looks fantastic and Fat Princess looks like a riot, overblown controversy aside.
If I can play a Mario Galaxy in between a batch of solid titles, I'm happy. Yeah, don't call on me to lead a rebellion against a corrupt Government or anything. I'll disappoint you like crazy.
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