| ckmlb said: How many times can you fight Bowser? How many times can you drive in a circle in Mario Kart? How many times can you fight Ganondorf? How many times can you collect the same Pokemon and fight other Pokemon? How many times can you use a gravity gun to throw objects at enemies? I could go on forever but this can obviously apply to all sequels and/or games of the same genre... |
Do people realize I'm not just talking about GTA? We have GTA, Saints Row, Godfather, True Crime, Simpsons Hit and Run and I'm sure a pile of them I don't even know about.
I'm saying that the "sandbox" horse has been beaten to death, and I'm not suggesting that there aren't any OTHER genres that haven't likewise been beaten to death (FPSes being the primary culprit here) but it just seems like the GTA crime sandbox formula was hit hard and fast and when the genre consists of the same action no matter where you find it, I can't see why the genre stays afloat.
I admit that Godfather Blackhand was one of the most enjoyable games on the Wii with the motion control being as awesome as it was, but after becoming the don of NYC, I couldn't fathom ever playing a sandbox crime game all the way through ever again, just like I only ever played ONE Pokemon game (Ruby) just to see what the fuss was about and then never again. I couldn't fathom playing another one of those either.
Fighting Bowser is a different story because you're not always fighting him the same way. You could be jumping over him to hit a switch, throwing enemies in the air to hit him, spinning him by his tail into mines, firing his projectiles back at him, etc. In each case, the game is asking me to perform a different set of actions to succeed.
In sandbox games, you perform use the same controls to perform the same action each time. Running people over is still running people over, just as there's no tactile difference between beating a hooker with a bat in one game than another.
I realize that gaming in general suffers from this problem, but some genres do a good job of keeping it fresh while others just vomit out the same stuff over and over again and people keep buying them. Perhaps GTA IV will bring something new to the table, but I can't be the only one who has seen the explosion of the sandbox genre and its inevitable horse-beating.
"I mean, c'mon, Viva Pinata, a game with massive marketing, didn't sell worth a damn to the "sophisticated" 360 audience, despite near-universal praise--is that a sign that 360 owners are a bunch of casual ignoramuses that can't get their heads around a 'gardening' sim? Of course not. So let's please stop trying to micro-analyze one game out of hundreds and using it as the poster child for why good, non-1st party, games can't sell on Wii. (Everyone frequenting this site knows this is nonsense, and yet some of you just can't let it go because it's the only scab you have left to pick at after all your other "Wii will phail1!!1" straw men arguments have been put to the torch.)" - exindguy on Boom Blocks
