I'm so sick of Western third parties!

[Ady]

there's just as much dross from Japan.

Yup, there is. I can only assume that the original poster was 'picking on' western 3rd party devcos as it was an easy frame of reference.

[Andy_T]

sequels and licenses are symptomatic of an industry in sharp decline, grasping on to cash cows for dear life. compare Japanse sales figures now with those of a few years ago, for example. i'm sure devcos would love to work on something more challenging and inspiring but unfortunately they're not the ones holding the purse strings.

that said, you're right of course. just because it's a license or a sequel shouldn't mean it's bad by default. of course we're only echoing what Warren Spector has been saying recently.

[Bomberman UK]

Theres that one on the gamecube thats made by western developers that was quite good. It has a bird as the main character. Its not a FPS, although it looks like one. Got GOTY in a load of magazines, but i cant remember the name of it.

Oh yeah, that one on the xbox. Has someone called master chief in it. Its supposed to be good, but I havent played it all that much.

God, try reading topics before replying to them. Even the message's title says 3rd party games.

And I agree mainly. It's true that there was always poor games from Western publishers, but I don't think they were constantly topping the charts like they do now... back then it was only quality titles like Mario, Sonic or Street Fighter that performed in high numbers, while now we see lacklustre software like Harry Potter, The Getaway and Spiderman selling in massive numbers.

In fact, it's almost got to the stage where most Japanese developers have become "niche". Hard to believe Namco were once the top Playstation developer!

[Andy_T]

The Getaway

err

[KempStar]

Theres that one on the gamecube thats made by western developers that was quite good. It has a bird as the main character. Its not a FPS, although it looks like one. Got GOTY in a load of magazines, but i cant remember the name of it.

Oh yeah, that one on the xbox. Has someone called master chief in it. Its supposed to be good, but I havent played it all that much.

God, try reading topics before replying to them. Even the message's title says 3rd party games.

And I agree mainly. It's true that there was always poor games from Western publishers, but I don't think they were constantly topping the charts like they do now... back then it was only quality titles like Mario, Sonic or Street Fighter that performed in high numbers, while now we see lacklustre software like Harry Potter, The Getaway and Spiderman selling in massive numbers.

In fact, it's almost got to the stage where most Japanese developers have become "niche". Hard to believe Namco were once the top Playstation developer!

Heres one for you- dont ****ing condascend me like that again, got it? I read the thread thoroughly and it seemed to be a dig at western developers in general, so I replied accordingly. Im sorry that I dont have the natural intellect that you clearly have

[Max M]

Nah, I've enjoyed Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's western games, I was only talking about third parties, so it baffles me to see people listing games like Halo.

If I'm some kind of strange Otaku then why were my favourite games back in the day, things like Flashback, Dizzy and Tempest? I used to love Western games and the C64 was my favourite machine of all time.

I'm just annoyed by the slew of generic games that have been announced lately. Why couldn't the developers of Vectorman kept him as a green character made of balls instead of turning him in to a brown Master Chief rip-off? Why did Full Throttle and Broken Sword have to be turned in to 3rd person adventure games? Oh, that's right, because everyone else is doing it!

Once again, I am far from anti-Western, but I would KILL for a Western 3rd party title had as much magic as Lemmings, Turrican or Another World. Point taken, that cowardly publishers have a lot to do with it, but I did mention that in my post, pointing out Midway as an example.

Admittedly, games like Burnout 2 and Timesplitters 2 are a step in the right direction, but they're still too rare and I think this will become clear at E3 next month.

[KempStar]

Nah, I've enjoyed Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's western games, I was only talking about third parties, so it baffles me to see people listing games like Halo.

OK, OK!
Ive got your point now. 8)