Not many new ideas for games

[Ilwrath]

I guess I'm not one of those people who look back at the past with rose-tinted glasses.  It's easy to look back and cherry pick 10 or 20 great stand out titles from back then.  And conveniently forget about the mountains of crapware that was out back then, too.

I think modern gaming is pretty darn good.  Yeah, there are a lot of me-too titles.  But it's fairly easy to find the one or two titles that rise to the top.  Not really any different from the old days.  

And, if you're looking for innovation, check out flash portals like Kongregate.  There's a lot new ideas and new takes on old ideas bouncing around in those.  Same with the mobile market.  

Plus, we have it WAY BETTER in some ways.   Take modern simulators.  I loved Papyrus Indianapolis 500 for the Amiga.  And I COULD go back and play it any time I wanted... But why?  Any modern SimBin title features way more cars, way more tracks, and way better driving physics.  (And if I really want realism, First Racing League is out there...)  Fighter Duel Pro was awesome.  I loved it!  But seriously... Go back and play it?  Heck no!  Give me IL-2 Sturmovik.  The bar has been moved sky high compared to those days.  

I never understood the EA bashing, either.  Yeah, EA sells a lot of incremental update sports games.  Is that a problem?  I fully agree, NHL 11 is basically NHL 10 with a few bugfixes, puck bounces, and new hitting animations added.  Is this a bad thing?  Is selling an incremental update to the best NHL game I've ever played something to criticize them for?  I could go back and play Wayne Gretzky Hockey on my Amiga...  But what does it have that hasn't been completely surpassed?

In short, there's still areas in modern gaming where new ideas shine.  And we often have the best versions of old ideas readily available.  I don't really see the point in blindly picking a few crappy titles and clucking on about innovation and quality being dead.  You may have to look for it a bit... But haven't you always?

[Ilwrath]

RPGs were my favorites, The Speris Legacy, The Faery Tale Adventure and the few others that were made for the Amiga. Hate to say it but the best RPGs ever made were for the SNES Terranigma, Chrono Trigger and a whole lot more.

Well, I'll agree, it's rather a crappy time for old-school single player RPGs.  I don't think that has anything to do with dumbing down for consoles, though.  It has to do with everyone chasing after the profits of WoW, I think.  MMORPG is the buzz.  Anything with a semi-expansive world has to be a WoW clone to get published.  I hoping this trend should be wrapping up fairly soon, and we get a few good single player story RPGs.  Also, someone should get with Wizards of the Coast and do some real D&D games, like the old SSI Gold Box games were.

If 2D is not accepted as a full game anymore, it just helps to re-inforce my view about todays games being mind numbing. If you can't accept a game unless it is 3D then it only goes to show it worked, your mind has been totally numbed...

I don't really think so.  I just think the bar has been raised.  Except in rare circumstances where 2D actually IMPROVES gameplay (Worms?), you really need to be in 3D to meet expectations.  With the power of today's machines, this really isn't an out of line mark.