The great video game 'crumple' of 201x?

[Slothy]

Could you really say MGS4 is radically different from MGS1? Especially when you compare them to their impacts on the console and the gaming industry? Not really. MGS4 is simply MGS1 with better graphics and controls and a few "gimmicky" abilites that MGS1 lacked but did MGS4 really radically change the series? No.

You know, I agree with you a lot of the time about a lot of things WK, but seriously, I have to wonder if you really played MGS4 when you say something like this. Did it change a lot in terms of features? Not really, but those few changes lead to a massive upheaval of the MGS game design. Not only was it now possible to sneak through an area (and sneaking was quite a bit different compared to MGS), but you could run and gun quite viably, you could side with one faction early on or neither. The games are massively different in terms of gameplay and MGS4 offered a variety of viable play styles that not only worked, but all worked pretty much perfectly. I have to say that it's by and large one of the most brilliantly designed titles I've ever played and a far cry from it's PSOne predecessor.

Nintendo and its motion controls may have brought in the "casual" crowd of gamers and flooded its own market with shovelware (though that's a completely different problem and has little to do with the casual market as much as Nintendo's own quality control problem), but they have also brought forth new ways into thinking about game design as opposed to Sony and Microsoft who only perpetuate the idea of better graphics and audio.

Adding in poor motion control that at it's best mimics a computer mouse reasonably well and at it's worst is a laggy inaccurate pile of waggle doesn't lead to more innovative games. The fact that 95% of games don't use it well and the other 5% would be better off with a traditional controller or mouse kind of proves it. I honestly can't think of a single Wii game that really impressed me in terms of motion control implementation. Are they more accessible for those who are afraid of a lot of buttons? Sure. Do they offer any experiences that can't be done just as well with other control methods? Not yet, and I'd say never if they continue in their current form.

Has the PS3 and 360 really brought in a new generation of gaming, or has it just done what's been going on since the 3D revolution of Sega Saturn, PS1 and the N64, re-releasing those generations of gaming. Sure Sandbox gaming became more mainstream as well as other genres like RPGs and FPS but they are hardly innovative as much as its just simply becoming mainstream, as many of those genres existed before the 3D revolution. (The major exception of course being LittleBigPlanet)

You don't have to create a new genre to innovate. The existence of Portal alone proves that. But while we're on the topic of how much innovation in terms of gameplay these companies have brought to the table, LBP is more than Nintendo has done in 14 years. The fact that we can also credit Sony with Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, producing Heavy Rain, Echochrome, and probably more that I'm forgetting makes Sony the most innovative console manufacturer out there as far as I'm concerned. If you want to talk about a company who rides the minimal changes sequel wave for all it's worth, Nintendo would be the poster company for it if Activision and EA didn't exist. They haven't made a new game since the N64 died.

Wii Fit and Wii Music may not be groundbreaking games that everyone enjoys

Wii Fit isn't a game. There I said it.

Calling Wii Music a game is a bit of a stretch too though you could make a better case for it than Wii Fit.