My 2 cents: Big games are overrated because more often than not, you have to sift through hours of crap to get to the good stuff, a la FFXIII. There's a decent game in there somewhere, but for several hours, you'll just be watching cutscenes and hitting the X-button.
I partially agree with this. I wouldn't say these games are necessarily overrated but some games have real pacing problems. I don't mind cutscenes but they've got to be GOOD. I have to find watching the cutscenes to be entertaining and that also means the story has to be half-decent as well. I see the whole concept as something suitable for some games but is unfortunately used for all.
It seems what we need a punk movement for games. Right now we're like in the game equivalent of progressive rock where everything has become a little too pretentious and bloated. There was a time where practically all games just dumped you in the gameplay and away you go. Not everything should be like that but those types of games became rare, which is stupid, really.
My problem with non-games is that they cut the filler but it's not like you get the same experience as a core game with all the cutscenes skipped. You get something considerably more simplified. What I'm looking for is more like NSMB Wii in that it's a return to the days where with a Mario game you started it up and jumped right into a level. The gameplay retains the same complexity as a bloated game would. When I suggest "punk games" I mean something straightforward but without compromising the gameplay.
Final Fantasy XIII does it all wrong. It simplifies the gameplay but keeps the filler. The towns and sidequests and nonlinear design was the fucking gameplay. It's force feeding the player an embarassing story that needed to be scaled back.
I see two extremes that both suck. On the casual side we see games the strip out challenge, depth and complexity to attract the mainstream and on the core side we see games that are so wrapped up in the narrative and presentation that they become more linear and give the player less control and make the player watch the coolest parts of the game instead of playing them. We need something in between.
I'm not going to argue much on FFXIII specifically, since before I pass a complete judgement on it, I want to get to the part of the game that's relevant to the big picture, and it's too far in for me to be there yet.
Rather, I'm going to say that we all know the issue with "casual" games is that many don't have the polish needed to become a good game. Still, that's not what the argument is about, but rather why casual gamers are more picky than hardcore ones. It's not about casual games versus hardcore ones, but rather casual gamers vs. hardcore gamers, in the aspect of how they discriminate in their purchase decisions.
At this point, I'd be willing to say this: Games casual gamers like are social. They're titles that either other people can sit down and watch them play and enjoy, or titles they can play with or against other people. Something like Uncharted 2, while I've never played it, seems to be marketed with this aspect in mind. Remember the commercials with the gamer talking about how his girlfriend thought it was a movie? Nintendo's response is to involve the second person, and even let them become a "back-seat" gamer, with Super Mario Galaxy and Sin and Punishment 2 both having Wii-pointer shooting controls, but no on-screen avatar to physically represent the player. I'm not going all out, and I'm not mentioning everything partly because that would take some time, and partly because it's something I've been toying around with writing an article or a series of articles on PixlBit about, but that's one basic thing successful "core" games have done to make previously single-player titles more social.
Topic: Casual gamers are more picky than you (Read 28102 times)
