Quote Originally Posted by Vivi22 View Post
That's terrible reasoning for thinking that reviewers or gamers can't talk about game design. Hell, most of the people making them today, and especially 10-20 years ago would have no formal training in actually designing games, yet they do it every day. All it takes is the ability to look critically at how the pieces of a game work and work together, which can come as easily as studying games themselves as through any formal education (which you'd be hard pressed to find outside of a few schools). In fact, having as much experience as possible with games from all genres and systems will help, not hinder this. And the more experience someone has with playing games, the easier it will be for them to know when something is of that they really llike or don't like, whether or not they're able to put it into words. Some people are really bad at it mind you, especially that last part, but the only way to get better is to discuss these things with other people.
Maybe. The reasoning at the end is a little weak. But the point of this thread is words that get misused, not that have no meaning. And I think it gets misused a lot. Like I saw 4 Heroes of Light get HEAVILY penalized because it hasn't incorporated any of the design advancments since hte 8-16 bit era. But what exactly are the design advancements? FF's battle systems have been all over the place you really can't say there's been any definitive milestones that have been reached that changed everything, unless you mean a dynamic battle camera and a highly customizable character development system, which are both things it has. It kind of adds its own spin to everything with combined moves and your ability resources for every battle. As far as DS games go, it's hard to imagine it's outdated in any way, and I seriously doubt the magazine said the same thing about Bowser's Inside Story or any of the other Mario & Luigi RPG's.

As to your point, that people can design without training at all, I'm not sure if I entirely agree, granted you have a lot more experience with that kind of thing that I do. To me it seems like most games today, if not nearly ALL Games, simply use a previously existed gameplay mechanic, tune it the best they can, and deliver it with a cinematic experience. You make a third person action game, a first person shooter, a racer, an RPG, it's all based on everything that's come before it.

As opposed to actual GAME design which I feel only a few developers today really think about, which is on the level of Milton & Bradley, or the Parker Brothers. When I think of Game Design I think of Hiroyuki Ito and the battle systems he's created for Final Fantasy like the Gambit System, the Learn-or-Switch element of FFIX's equipment, the Junction System (which may just be inherently broken...er, scattered!) or ATB itself. I think of the early Command & Conquer or Warcraft games and what a nightmare they must have been to balance (aren't you making an RTS right now?) And I also think about the map design in games like Killzone 2, Counter-Strike, and even Call of Duty. Also, the sheer amount of primary, secondary weapon, equipment, special equipment, and perk combinations there are in Modern Warfare 2. Yes, the game was crazy exploited at the beginning but a lot of tweaking has gone a long way to remedy that.