E3′s Dirty Little Secret

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i am not playing those games, not just because they are not on PC, but because i dont like them. Its same thing if someone would tell me to play fifa games, i just DONT LIKE that game. Its the matter of taste, not platform.

Same way I LOVE DIABLO 3 and i got 100h++ in to it and game is not even out a month, but i wont be pushing that game on anyone who does not enjoy hack and slash with hoarder syndrome mixed in.
I love my ps vita and i bough Mortal kombat on it, even if i already own it on xbox360! Its a console too, but i buy game, because i love it.

My argument was: Dont use PC to show of graphics, and put on console badge on it, then bash how pc is **** and how PC gamers are fanboys, because they dont like to be LIED to.

Ah, but here we get to the crux of the matter from your perspective, ShadowHearth. It's not that games aren't innovating, surprising and advancing: it's that you don't necessarily like the games that are doing it. Now don't get me wrong, I look forward to playing Diablo III in the near future, but even its biggest fans will happily admit it's a few tweaks and a coat of paint applied to an age old formula. Similarly, Mortal Kombat (and - IMO - give me Street Fighter any day of the week) is a riff on a long-established franchise, and for its modern bells and whistles is hardly the pinnacle of forward-thinking either (the opposite, if anything, with its proudly seedy, exploitative tone). This is evident elsewhere in the support being enjoyed by PC gaming Kickstarters - all the most successful of which are looking backwards, not forward (although I trust Tim Schafer to have a few tricks up his sleeve). For many - not all - gamers, PC and otherwise, the past remains the primary draw. And sure, we will always seek solace in the familiar, and that's entirely you prerogative to do so. And yes, sometimes I lust for an FPS with the ambition of Half-Life, Stalker or Deus Ex too.

And yet! Look at all the games out there experimenting with form and function in highly ambitious ways. Not always successful, but always fascinating. Whether it's the incomparable emotive force of Journey. The haunting, provocative presentation of Dear Esther. The deconstruction of the traditional hero's quest in Superbrothers. Fez's or Gravity Rush's giddy distortion of perspective. The aesthetic triumphs El Shaddai, Okami, Madworld, Marasuma, Kirby's Epic Yarn. DayZ's hardcore survivalist thrills. New storytelling challenges constantly tackled by Valve, Bioware, thatgamecompany, even old David Cage (bless 'im). Nintendo's brave steps towards a universal, accessible gaming language: sometimes misguided, sometimes insanely successful. And that's not even going into the revolutions in input, gameplay, visuals and storytelling being undertaken by hundreds of iOS developers, or the constant positive changes being applied to old standard-bearers and genres (from Civ 5 to Street Fighter 4 to Left 4 Dead). I really could go on.

No, technical / artistic / storytelling / gameplay innovations advances are occuring almost daily in every format: from consoles to PC to tablets to portable. Most embrace the eccentricities and strengths of their chosen format. Some make stunning use of graphical advances (Infinity Blade, Dear Esther), others opt for an endearingly low-fi aesthetic. All take risks, and all are every bit worthy of player attention than the traditional forms. I'd personally argue more so, but that's just me. You call for advances and yet you don't have to look far to find them.

I always wonder why there's always a call for new tech, especially when many seem content to accept mere graphical updates and technical 'streamlining' (which, as I've said before, I don't consider to be the obscenity others do) to traditional franchises. No, there's countless developers out there abusing the current technology to giddy effect, and IMO it's rarely been so exciting to see the changes that are occuring almost everywhere. Eventually we'll need new technology to keep pace with all this experimentation, but most seem to be getting along fine as is.

This is so much more than a mere simplistic format war - this is an ongoing revolution, an evolution. Embrace it, and you'll find all of the advances and forward-thinking you'll ever need.

There's these grand assumptions again. 'Killing gaming'? Or indeed killing challenge? Not in the slightest. Yes, a mouse and keyboard is the preferable input method for certain genres, such as the FPS, RTS and very specific types of RPG. But the controller is still the optimum input method for several other genres. There's a reason Street Fighter IV players - and I think we can all agree SFIV, where the best players rely on individual frames for reaction time, is the pinnacle of required action times - use arcade sticks. Try playing that with a mouse and keyboard. They are more accurate for that given purpose, and I certainly don't think you could call SFIV an 'easy' game (the people who play little else will attest to that). Similarly, Cave shooters - with their insanely mathematical combo systems and challenging bullet patterns - are more at home on consoles and iPhones than they are with a mouse and keyboard. Try getting a good score in Akai Katana - every bit as demanding on the senses and reaction times as anything the PC has to offer. Geomotry Wars and similar twin stick shooters demand a good pad. Not to mention Dark Souls: designed from the ground up to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of a joypad. And you seem to forget that several of the hardest, most challenging games of all time - from Ghouls and Ghosts to the Megaman games - originated on retro consoles, which had even more limited reaction times (and the designers were inspired in the way they dealt with that). It's frankly a ludicrous statement to even for a second suggest that consoles and control pads by their very nature make games easier. Again, you just seem to be looking in the wrong places.

I also think challenge in itself is not the be all and end all. There needs to be a good mix. I wouldn't sacrifice the difficulty of Dark Souls, but nor would I want Journey to suddenly have a fail state. And maybe Watch_dogs is designed around tactics? Why would they make something take four or five buttons when they can do it in one or two? Not all streaming lining and efforts towards accessibility are worthy of vitriol. Only some of them

As for the 'graphics' argument proposed a few posts above. I can only wholly agree that art design will make a game look infinitely more pleasing than mere tech specs. Crysis is certainly a shiny series, but is about as artistically ambitious as the Transformers films. Meanwhile, games like Rayman Origins are El Shaddai are closer in visual tone to 2001: A Space Odyssey or Spirited Away. Yes, a generation of solely cel-shaded games would be unfortunately one-sided. But I'd still take it over a generation bland, 'realistic' shooters.