Yet another high-profile title gets under my microscope, as I examine Microsoft‘s Halo-substitute and saw together a review of Gears of War.
While I understand why shooters, be they first-person, or over-the-shoulder, are incredibly popular, I always thought it was a real shame such star power is wasted on such a bland genre.
Sure, some shooters have their moments, but the lot of them are uninspired rehashes that still manage to make millions: Call of Duty 4 was great and well-deserved of its success and recognition; Call of Duty 5: World at War was, at best, an average game and something I’ve already seen a million times before. I cringed every time I saw it topping the charts, while the magnificent World of Goo trailed miles behind, despite retailing at a quarter of the price and still being considered an unexpected hit.
But this is a debate that could go on for hours and feature predictable name-dropping, like Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. So let’s just say I find even more worrying that a lot of games feel the need to add as many FPS elements as they can; I loved Fallout 3, but I would have liked to have seen the original turn-based strategic system the previous Fallouts had.
I don’t want all games to have one of, like, three different gameplay styles.
