Thursday, December 13, 2012

Keep it simple, stupid

In my day, games were simple. Simple graphics, simple gameplay. Of course, they had to be, by necessity. Back then video games were in their infancy (although some say they still are.) But for the most part, the games were still fun. Well, a lot were.


Nowadays, games have to contain everything but the kitchen sink. A playtime of at least 40 hours, multiplayer, achievements or trophies, voice acting, state of the art graphics and sound, and a novel length story. Granted, new games cost 60 dollars this generation, but back in the day Nintendo games could cost up to 40 dollars. That's just 20 dollars cheaper than games today, minus, well, just about everything the bloated games of today have.

It seems like gamers today, especially this generation, are asking for more, more, more in thier games. Enjoyment and fun have taken a back seat to how much is crammed into the game. Game reviewers are notorious for this, knocking a game if it doesn't have this, that, or the other damn thing.

Call me old-fashioned, but gamers today expect too much from their games. There is a difference between games that are simply bad and games that people hate because they don't have "robust" multiplayer. What matters is if a game is enjoyable to play, and people seem to be losing sight of this. I've seen games that were good but simple in concept lose to huge open world games where you can do 300 boring things. But hey, open world! So many inane things you can do!

Simple can be fun. Too bad so many people have forgotten this.

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