| Senlis said: I can only comment on the games I have played. Super Mario Galaxy similar to Super Mario 64 I could go on, but you can see how many games on your list are not really that original or genre defining. The only ones I see there that are is Portal and World of Goo. Any other games bear striking similarities to games before it. |
Well, if you want to be absurdly reductionist about it, let's take a look at those games from 1998...
Grim Fandango: Similar to every LucasArts adventure game before it.
Resident Evil 2: A bigger, better RE1.
Half-Life: A prettier, more story-based Quake.
Zelda OoT: Similar to ALttP, except in 3D.
Metal Gear Solid: Basically Metal Gear with polygons.
And so forth.
Very few, if any, games exist in a vacuum. Each is built upon the innovations of previous ones. However, just as one cannot discount the innovations of Half-Life's storytelling, OoT's seamless 3D dungeon-crawling, or Gran Turismo's realistic driving controls, nor can one deny the profound innovation of SMG's mind-bending gravity-platforming, Bioshock's immersive atmosphere, Zack and Wiki's stripping-down of the adventure game genre to its bare essentials, or L4D's chill-inducing co-op (seriously - similar to many FPS games before it? Name just one that involves anything remotely like tossing furious hails of bullets at hordes of brain-chewers while barking desperate orders at the three other guys on the couch playing your fellow survivors-in-arms.)
Innovation is alive and well in modern games.
"'Casual games' are something the 'Game Industry' invented to explain away the Wii success instead of actually listening or looking at what Nintendo did. There is no 'casual strategy' from Nintendo. 'Accessible strategy', yes, but ‘casual gamers’ is just the 'Game Industry''s polite way of saying what they feel: 'retarded gamers'."
-Sean Malstrom
