Kyros on 17 September 2008
I'm baffled over the love for Super Mario Galaxy.
I think that's the key answer here. Innovation is overrated. What you want is a great game. Now some concepts get old when they are used to too often but in the end it only matters how good a game is. And you cannot improve a platformer in a radical fashion and you also cannot innovate in a big manner on a cinematic FPS. The concept is pretty much perfected and the actual story, art direction etc. are much much more important than any new gameplay feature. This genre has matured.
And this is the area CoD4 simply outdid everybody else. The last minutes of the marine in "Baghdad", the English SAS which were not exactly nice guys (which didn't deteriorate into the classic we are suddenly on the other side story) ... the screenplay was simply amazing. I think this will be one direction more and more games will take. Use a true and tested game engine with finished balancing etc. so the main work is on the "director" and "screenwriter".
