|
MAGNUS-8M
|
 |
« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2008, 06:15:27 am » |
|
I'm not sure the two ideas are really all that related....innovation doesn't automatically mean 'casual gaming', although yeah I'd agree that some people might feel that it is just by association.
If you just think of the basic meaning of innovate, every new game is an innovation unless it's just a straight-port with new level designs or some basic tweaks. You could say that the Japanese SMB2(Lost Levels) didn't innovate at all....and yet, you could say it did just because it threw in things like poison mushrooms, "wind", Luigi's jump height(I think it started in this game, if not, it was the USA SMB2), and the infamous 'invisible-coin-block-of-death' and other 'unfair' traps.
But really, as a whole, SMB2-Lost-Levels was hardly innovative at all, especially compared to all of the side-scrolling Mario games that released after it. I don't know the sales data on that game, like how well it did in its first run in Japan, but I don't remember it being very phenominal, if it sold well at all.
So really, it depends largely on what sort of 'innovations(changes)' are made to the newest game in the series, or if it's a new game, how it differs from the rest, and if it's a new system, if the new changes are enough or work well in concept and in useage.
In other words, 'don't make new crap and think it's better than old crap....but don't keep making the same old crap either'.
I don't think there's any real, concrete side to this. It's good and bad, same with everything else: the real key is knowing how to use it properly, or when to not use it. "Innovation" as a word has been so overused anyway, and I think it's really starting to lose its meaning....half the time, 'innovation' seems to take on a negative aspect because of the way people have abused it or made something stupid look epic. Honestly, I'm tired of the word and could do without it.
NOT innovating(ugh), however, is definately just as bad. Sure, yeah, you have the advantage of making what everyone has established as something they like....but you can't just live on the same thing forever. I don't need Contra 50 after I've played through 49(or so) of them previously. Personally I'm sick of the 'hard core' trend: looking at X360 and PS3, you get the idea that the best-games-ever are always shooters, whether they're third person or not, and that everyone likes them. I don't. There are very FEW "shooters" that I like, even if I did count the Metroid Prime games. And I can definately say that I look at those two systems, and the first games that come to mind are almost always FPS games, and if not, 3rd Person shooting games(and after that, probably sports games). RPGs are also a 'hard core' type of game that rarely innovates in anything REALLY different, save for a few tweaks to its battle system and stat-records. When they do innovate, it can be good, but they have a reputation for having very similar battle systems, and it can start to really bleed through once you get to the 'obligatory level-grinding' sections of the game, no matter how good the new story is.
Anyway, I just think this is kind of double-edge....you can't "not-innovate", but you can't over-innovate. It's less about how casual a game may or may not be, because you can definately innovate beyond simply making the game easier or make the control-interface different than we're used to. It's more about how different newer games are from previous games before it, and whether those changes make for a 'better' game, a good game in its own class, or worse than before.
|
