Mass Market Gaming Getting Stale

bcullers brought over DarkSector last night for the 360. As he started talking about it, he immediately brought up gameplay references like Gears of War and Army of TWO (which is a Gears of War wannabe in it's own right). We shared a sad laugh about yet another Gears clone and then we both said, "Well, if it works..."

It was something I hadn't thought about playing Army of TWO. Instead of the whole time playing the game with an angry cloud over my head because the gameplay in it wasn't original, should I have been more focused on what new things the game brought to the table instead of what it didn't? I'm not sure what other things like that exist in the world like this. When I buy a new game, unless it's a sequel, prequel or derivative IP, I want it to be genuine and different. Music is a possible comparison if you really like music and not a genre. Books too. But I think with games I always want the next game of that genre to fix the things that were broken in the last game.

I think, overall, I find it really hard to not reference other games when playing a new one. Unless it's a game like Katamari Damacy for the PS2 or Brain Training for the DS, your getting a game that is specifically set in a genre (football, driving, FPS) and there is little you can do to differentiate it from it's members.

But most of the games I own (and keep) I like very much. So getting a new game with elements of my old ones should be comforting. But I want new experiences from gaming constantly. I don't want another Gears of War game with a different set of characters, voices, and graphics. I don't want another Forza Motorsport that touts more cars and tracks. I want new experiences and games that make me think in a different perspective. Having sold on eBay Mass Effect (a mediocre space RPG) and Army of TWO (a clone of another game), I can tell my purchases are going to start getting far and few between and overly scrutinized.

A new hope in gaming recently is Penny-Arcade's The Greenhouse. This is a game related comic-drawing duo that has it's hands also in charity work, game expos, and now with Greenhouse, independent game developers. Not much has been said about Greenhouse other than right now it's a platform to release their new game (another hand) "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness". But I wouldn't mind starting to play games on a PC or Mac if meant getting really good content.

1 Hour Review: Forza Motorsport

I'm just an hour and twenty minutes, about 5 sessions, into Forza and I have to admit: it's a total Gran Turismo killer. This is coming from someone who not only played every Gran Turismo game, but just got Forza a few weeks ago. I know I'm not getting a PS3 anytime soon, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to test the Xbox sim racing waters, also known previously as 'that other racing platform'.

Gran Turismo was our Bible; the Holy Grail of racing games. But not anymore.

Even with all that Gran Turismo under my belt, Forza has won me over in just over an hour. The reason it probably took that long was because I finally started racing tracks that exist on both games (Tsukuba, Laguna Seca) and I actually couldn't tell the games apart. Now I wasn't sitting side by side, shot for shot with each course, but I'm not that particular about anything.

The game already had it's strong points over GT. What I would call a marriage of Need for Speed: Underground and Gran Turismo. Two of the very best genre racing games out there. Forza has the pedigree of GT with the street slang of NFS:U. Having the ability to do layers of tweakable graphics (better than the static graphics of NFS:U) and painting cars was, honestly, one of the more annoying things left out of each Gran Turismo game. Affective body damage is also nice, but nothing I really complained about in GT.

What I don't like so far is the progression system. You have to level up your profile to get harder A.I. and bigger cars. So far it seems natural, but it's impossible to take one car to the top. You have to win cars in sets of races to complete, say the novice races, before moving to the professional races. The licenses in GT could be fun, but they were also helpful in learning how to sim race. That whole system is just gone here.

The camera system also sucks. You do get more views for racing (just one), but the beautiful replays only get one "t.v." camera. The others are normal racing views from the different angles of around or inside the car. So many times I've pulled a sweet drift around a corner and I can't watch it because that happens to be a turn where the t.v.-style camera jumps to the cockpit view of the race.

But all in all, it's a better game than Gran Turismo. If you want to test the waters, pick up a used copy for under $20 and realize that you don't need (and possibly not even want) a PS3 anytime soon to fill your racing jones.

Forza Motorsport 2: Car list (no suprises)

Well the list is out.

So far it looks on par with the latest outings of Gran Turismo. And that's too sad. That means there needs to be a third true-sim racer in the mix. Why?

Because there's no real sim racer for the everyday guy. Gran Turismo's first car list was something we all really appreciated. There are no more Honda Accords or Legacy Wagons. There was never a Nissan Maxima or Ford Probe, that's for sure.

Obviously these cars would have sucked, but the dream of taking our own cars and turning them into racing beasts will just never be realized in a racing sim. Sure you have your Need for Speed Undergrounds and Tokyo Xtremes, but that's all arcade fluff. We need a new racer on the shelves. We need a racer that puts us behind the seats of our Mercury Cougars and Ford Escapes, kick our baby seats to the curb, and lets us realize the impossible.

GTA IV: Trailer

I still haven't finished San Andreas, but with this trailer flying around the internet today for GTA IV, I'm definetly going to have to put SA back into the rotation.

And thank the gaming gods it's coming out on the 360, or I might go through some sort of guilt syndrome with the addition of not being able to play Gran Turismo as well.