Gaming: Back Then and Here Now

So I don't know if anybody else thinks like me (face it we're all alike
but different), but I'd have to say today's gaming isn't on par with
what it was say 1985-2005 (just using those as starting and ending dates
because I'm no historian). I mean within those years we saw Zelda
(yay), Mario, and Pokemon just starting out. I mean I like what they
have done with almost every Zelda game but there are some games out
there that I feel the series should probably just come to an end. I'll
use a non-Nintendo game, Halo for example. I can't speak for everyone
but I loved Halo CE through Halo 3, ODST was a bummer and Reach wasn't
that great to me. Now they are going to release Halo 4 which isn't made
by Bungie (I think most of us knew that lol) and I'm not saying 343
doesn't have it together, but I am saying can they really do what Bungie
did and will the series still have its spark? Pokemon kinda falls to
this as well, then again it's just my opinion. I mean Red, Blue, and
Yellow were fantastic.

I kinda lost touch with Pokemon at the 3rd
generation because I felt like it was carrying on for too long, like a
never ending story. I'm not saying that these games are bad in terms of
gameplay but what I am saying is that hasn't the story lived for too
long? I understand Mario will never die out because that is Nintendo's
icon, pretty much their key money maker. Everyone knows Mario. I feel
Zelda should still continue though because with every game it seems they
are able to just mold together events and everything seems to make
sense. Also there has been no real ending, no key event that signals an
end... it's just as the game suggest it's a legend and with that I feel
they are able to make more titles. I did not mention Call of Duty
because I know those games are created for the multiplayer aspect
more
than the campaign/story aspect. I was just feeling that perhaps the
idea of gaming and how it changed should be touched upon.

Gaming has changed a lot over the past decade, not just in the actual
games, but the culture as well. You have to remember that gaming is
still a rather young form of entertainment. Video games began in the
early '70s, but consumers really didn't get to experience them until
later in the decade. So, as a consumer product, gaming is just over
thirty years old. When it was just getting started, gaming interested
people because they were controlling something on a screen with just a
touch of a button. No one had any expectations for what a video game
was. Game designers could make anything and as long as players had fun,
it was successful. When you combine an easy-to-please audience with an
extremely creative group of designers at Nintendo, you get amazing
games.

Technology, of course, has become more sophisticated and in the '90s,
that lead to more diverse games, especially with the introduction of 3D.
I know I don't need to remind anyone here of the innovation OoT made.
All the innovation in games made it fresh and gamers judged a game by
their overall experience. Of course, this is also the decade that began
the intense console wars and, unfortunately, introduced the fanboy
mentality.

I don't know when things began to get nasty (for lack of a better word)
in the game world. In the past ten years or so, gaming is finally
settling into an entertainment medium that can stand on its own. It's no
longer a weird but intriguing piece of technology or a toy to occupy
children. However, this also means it gets subjected to the same
problems as other art forms, the main one of course being creativity vs.
consumerism. There are so many gaming genres that people now expect
certain things from them and doing something extremely different is a
gamble. Popular genres also make the most money, so game companies will
produce more of that genre.

Really, when you look at it, the game industry is much like Hollywood,
which means a lot of copy and paste happens. That's why first person
shooters are so common. With the internet, that fanboy mentality I
mentioned earlier spreads like a virus and makes a very volatile gaming
culture. Essentially, people now actually have types of games they like
now and so leads to diverse opinions.

When it comes to the games themselves, technology has really improved
and so has increased what games are capable of. Personally, I also
believe a possible con of this is the decrease of difficulty, at least
in combat. More modern games seem easier than ones from the NES and SNES
eras. It just seems with improved battle controls, it's much more
difficult to create enemies that present a challenge.

Now, is gaming worst today than ten years ago? Well, I would say that
it's neither better nor worst; it's different. Gaming culture has
developed and the industry has grown more diverse. It also gains quite a
few cons. Different types of fans have popped up, creating some discord
when they interact (hardcores vs. casuals being the biggest). Annoying
fanboys show up all the time and opinions will clash now that there is a
wide variety of games to choose from.

* I'm not even bothering with online multiplayer. That is more of a result of our culture as a whole rather than just gaming.