Hi Jeremy.
while I agree to an extent, this sort of comment also makes me rather
concerned that developers are narrowing their focus too much.
If everything has to stick in that narrow band betwene too different and too
much the same, we'll just see fewer and fewer games.
take the fps genre.
currently we have a number of first person games like sarah that are not
shooters in the truist sense, in the shooter catagory we have audio quake,
shades of doom, technoshock and, if we stretch the deffinition a litle, gma
tank commander (first person tank driving and shooting).
Terraformers is far more puzle based.
suppose someone were thinking of a shooter game.
shades of doom, while undoubtedly very much revolutionary and certainly the
game that got me playing audio games, isn't all that is possible in the
genre.
suppose I were a developer and decided to create an fps game. Even if I
wanted to do something fps horror there are so many other options. I might
set the game on a space station you are sent to investigate, picking up
messages from the dying crew, and give you weapons like pulse rifles and
lasers.
I might have you investigating a post apocalyptic radiation drenched area
fighting mutants.
i might have you in fact in the dreaded zombi appocalypse, fighting through
everyday streets and shopping centers, where shotguns are rare and your
having to mow zombies down with shopping trollies.
I could have something gothic like resident evil set in a mantion with dodgy
experiments, ---- afterall Shades is set in a high tech base deep
underground.
I could have an ancient cave system where a bunch of investigators find some
mysterious creatures living.
These are all different settings with their own weaponry, plot, possible
puzles etc, and all would be different from shades, yet all would be first
person shooter games.
I'm fairly confident that if anyone created any of these, so long as it was
well made enough it would be played and enjoyed by the community, despite
being the same action and genre as shades.
Remember, in mainstream game developement there are hundreds of games out
there, often even in the same series.
Look at mega man or mario. Same character (or broardly the same), same basic
idea for each game, different level design, different enemies, different
weapons , and some different mechanics.
Not to mention continuing the actual plot from game to game.
My personal view is if developers constantly say "we need something new, but
not too new" we'll just end up cutting the amounts of games available, sinse
while I'm deffinately all for new design concepts and interesting ideas, I
don't think every single game has to be absolutely! different.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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