So the football season is over and Manchester United won the title yet again. Beck's future at the club is yet again cast in doubt and Arsene Wenger still insists his side is the best in the country.
It seems that things never change, and it's the same in the videogames industry. Bored to death with various football titles, each revolving around different elements be it the latest snazy license, bullet time or Roy Keane-esque tackles, we now enter the period of the tennis game. Already on Thunderbolt we have bought you various new stories on the latest tennis games, five to be exact. Thats five games all based on the same sport. Smacking a yellow ball over a net and grunting while you do it. Do we really need all these games?
Take the American sports series. This year around seven NBA games have been released. And that's only in Europe, where B-ball isn't considered to be in the top five rankings of crowd-pulling entertainment. The same goes for NFL and NHL games- so many for one sport? Surely there aren't enough hours in the day, days in the week and even weeks in the year to play so many similar games? Almost every genre is guilty of it- we had the rally franchise back in september last year which was all finished when the superb Colin Mcrae 3 came along and wiped the floor with the opposition.
That doesn't mean we should ignore them though. There are many fine titles leagues ahead of counter-parts, with NBA Street 2 being a great example. But it's the fact that developers don't seem to notice how many similar titles are being made and are already out. Maybe its this fact which explains many developers going out of business? So it well could be developers refusing to let go of a well-tired genre that's running them into the red rather than the 'over-priced' games speculation. With the benchmark titles being so technically advanced like Gran Turismo 3 making a game that will capture the publics imagination (as well as their money) seems to be getting tougher.
There's only so many cars you can have in a game, so many courses and a tightrope that is the difficulty curve. Whilst the more mature members of the community may well argue that it takes outstanding gameplay and not graphics to sell a game, sales would suggest otherwise. FIFA football is renowned for it's license and flashy graphics, but when was the last time you saw West Brom pummel Arsenal in a 20-goal thriller?
Exactly, never. Meanwhile, the critically acclaimed Pro Evolution Soccer doesn't have real player names or great graphics, but plays the game so well. It's as if you are playing a real football match, what with all the player movements and skills. But which of the two games do you think sells better? In the last ten years, FIFA beaten PES on each occasion, leaving hardcore fans astounded whilst 12 year olds plump for the better looking title.
Gone are the days when we would all have fun, glued to the screen for five days on-end playing a fantasy adventure with faires and the like. Now we get shallow, repetitive experiences, which look great but really aren't any fun or provide any real challenge. Why can't we have both?
Its amazing when we see such great titles such as Medal of Honour: Frontline, Gran Turismo 3, Halo, Timesplitters 2, Championship Manager, Devil May Cry, PES 2 and Metroid Prime arrive, and it makes us all proud to be part of such a great fanzine. The graphics of these games really show off the capabilities of the consoles on offer and are considered as flagship titles. But not only do they look great, they are actually very fun to play and will keep players hooked for hours, even days on end. It's when developers moan about poor sales and have to cut staff, stop producing as many titles or even close down over crap games like Johnny Moselys Mad Trix. If the games looked respectable, had plenty to do and were fun to play then maybe we wouldn't mind paying forty quid on a few of them. I certainly wouldn't.
However, as most of us know games making is an expensive business and if often takes thousands (The Getaway took a couple of million) to produce the average title. Add to that tax, staff wages and the cut from the producer and developers aren't left with much to invest in future work.
That shouldn't stop them from streamlining the companies and putting in a bit more effort to making a title much better, as my boss seems to rave on about the firm he's working for.
Of course, if all titles were great then we wouldn't need to be around making this column irrelevant, so it seems that bad titles may well be key to a console because it shows off how good the benchmark titles are.
Leaving on that note, things aren't as black and white as they seem. Without bad games we would have nothing to moan about, no great titles to be excited about and possibly no Thunderbolt.
So next time I'm launching through a bargain bin, shuffling aside the vast majority of Army Men titles, I will spare a thought that without crap games the benchmark titles wouldn't have anything to rave about. They wouldn't be better than anything else. Keep that in mind.
No comments
Add your own +