The rise, fall and rebirth of Western Videogames

[Brats]

First of all, this is not a West vs Japan thread, so if you have any such witterings about the 'supposed' fall in Japanese creativity, stop being Peter Bloody Main or start your own thread .

This is about a celebration of what I feel is a genuine rebirth of Western videogames (as opposed to computer games).

First of all, there was Atari. Atari were the dons. How can you not be with talent like Al Alcorn, Dave Thereur, Ed Logg, etc, etc... Then there were other arcade manufacturers like Williams and then Activision followed by other third parties and it was good.

And then came the crash and pretty much all of talent buggered off to develop for computers, mainly the Spectrum, BBC B, CPC 464 and C64 in the UK and C64 and Apple II in the US.

After a daliance with the ST and the Amiga, then came the dominance of the PC in the computer field and most Western developers migrated from the computers to the PC, save a few like Rare and Codemasters.

But this generation, they've come back to consoles!

When I look at the games in my videogame collection from the last generation, they are mainly all Japanese titles. Save for the Rare games, Colin Macrae Rally, Tomb Raider, Wip3out, Silicon Valley, Tempest 2000 and Body Harvest, the West didn't produce that much that could be described AAA.

There was plenty of good Western stuff on the PC of course. Doom, Half Life, Civ, System Shick, Thief, Giants etc, etc. But PC games are different to console games (in more ways than just the hardware they run on).

But this generation, they've come back! And they're not just any old twaddle like the Lost Vikings or Bubsy either.

Halo
Frequency/Amplitude
KOTOR
Metroid Prime
Prince of Persia
GTA3 & Vice City
Burnout 1 & 2
Beyond Good and Evil
Moto GP 1 & 2
PGR2
Pandora Tomorrow
Eye Toy
Rainbow Six 3
CMR4
Top Spin

And many more. Okay, so people's opinions differ and no doubt someone will say 'Game X is rubbish! How can you describe that as a great game! etc, etc', but I think that misses the point. I believe the West has come back in a big way to videogames for the first time in twenty years and I think this is a cause for celebration.

More importantly, all of the above games are videogames and not just PC games ported over. They have been devloped with console hardware and player's expectations in mind.

Strange when you think about it that this is a really big deal and yet I see very few (if any) magazines or websites mentioning it.

[Ady]

I agree. Western developers have really sunk their teeth into the console market this gen and it's looking good.

may it long continue, and put paid to the 'east vs west' mentality still entrenched in the minds of many gamers.

[Moodmon]

Maybe it's linked to the same trend in Western RPGs. There was a long lull without any good ones. Then, all of a sudden, Baldur's Gate, Fallout et al came out, and the rest of the industry started to blossom (well, you get the idea).

[hankwangford]

I *sorta* agree, although I would certainly deem the 8-bits *hugs his beloved C64* under the "console" bracket. Sure, they were computers but who the bloody hell would run computer apps on a C64 even back then? Madmen, that's who!

Really, the console crash for Western developers (in a gaming quality sense) came when consoles became a huge portion of the pie. How many casualties did we suffer when those famed 16-bit heroes just couldn't make the transition to the 32-bit systems? Too many. RIP Sensible.

[Cacophanus]

Metroid Prime isn't really a Western game though. The rest of that lists is sound though, as is the appraisal that Western games design is on the up. I still think the medium has a long way to go however.

[Brats]

From what I know of the development of Metroid Prime (there is an excellent article in the GC Equip amongst other web sources), MP's core gameplay and engine were pretty much all Retro. Nintendo's influence came with some of the style of the game and stuff like the music. Retro had actually started developing an untitled first person game when Nintendo approached them and asked them to make a new Metroid title.

So although it was a joint effort, the most important components were Western developed, but as I said I don't want to get into a silly East vs West thing, just celebrate the good stuff that we have now.

Think of Eye Toy. This is exactly the sort of thing that a few years ago people probably would have said that the West was incapable of developing and yet here it is.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Western developers (particularly in the US) started going off the rails at the advent of CD's used as games media. They started churning out masses of FMV clag, and got stuck in a rut, seemingly doomed to make gyppo rubbish forever.

But recently, even a self-confessed JPN-oholic such as myself is becoming less snobby about where my games originate from. Not because I've lowered my standards (perish the thought), but because developers (especially those US folk) have improved considerably.

[Kron]

Its genuinely frightening how western dev's are unable to create what I would class a character piece of software (BG&E and Metroid Prime are possible exceptions, Allthough they both are heavily influenced from non western ideals).

Those games that you've listed all adhere to set in stone boundries, Guidlines and principles. Possibly one reason why I have such difficultly finding a genuinely interesting or diverse experience with western developed software.

Playing a videogame used to be about doing something you couldn't do in real life, Its a complete reversal of those principles now in todays market and innovation is suffering massively because of it.

[Brats]

I'm not sure I follow your argument. POP, GTA3, Pandora Tomorrow, Burnout and KOTOR all allow you to do something that is not possible in real life (well, you could act out GTA3, Burnout or PD, but you risk getting arrested and sent down for life ).

Also, do KOTOR, GTA3 and POP not fall into your definition of character piece of software? If not, you might have to elaborate on what you mean by this.

GTA3, PD and others are massively innovative. I'm completely tortured now .

[Papercut]

Those games that you've listed all adhere to set in stone boundries, Guidlines and principles. Possibly one reason why I have such difficultly finding a genuinely interesting or diverse experience with western developed software.

I was going to post as much, but that sums it up perfectly. In all but the rarest of cases I find modern Western games clinical and dull. As inventive as even Prince of Persia is, it adheres to a strict formula that dampens the experience for me.

Not since the Spectrum, C64 and Amiga have I found Western games truly innovative and ground breaking. What happened to games like Paradroid, Creatures, Mercenary, Monkey island, Lemmings and Alternate Reality?

[Ish]

Those games that you've listed all adhere to set in stone boundries, Guidlines and principles. Possibly one reason why I have such difficultly finding a genuinely interesting or diverse experience with western developed software.

<doctor evil>Rrrriigghhhttt</doctor evil>I would argue that many of the titles Brats listed at least evolved a genre, some of them going further that that (Eye Toy, Frequency / Amplitude).

I can't remember the last time I came across a game (whether from the east, the west, north, south, or in my belly button) that actually did more than evolution. I certainly don't see any region or company consistently breaking established 'guidelines and principles' on anything even approaching a regular basis.

Edit (for both papercut and kron): Which games, precisely, do you feel then are innovative in a way that western games are not?

[Tom Salter]

The way I see it is that each region excels in different areas.

Arcade/RPG games are the East's obsession.

Adventure/racing games are the West's obsession.

[Cacophanus]

From what I know of the development of Metroid Prime (there is an excellent article in the GC Equip amongst other web sources), MP's core gameplay and engine were pretty much all Retro. Nintendo's influence came with some of the style of the game and stuff like the music. Retro had actually started developing an untitled first person game when Nintendo approached them and asked them to make a new Metroid title.

So although it was a joint effort, the most important components were Western developed, but as I said I don't want to get into a silly East vs West thing, just celebrate the good stuff that we have now.

Metroid is a Japanese franchise, not only in terms of its core (and unique) game mechanics but also due to the historical fact the series was developed in Japan. Retro merely translated it. It shouldn't be on that list Jez, otherwise your pushing the distinction of what makes a game Western in origin.

[Papercut]

I disagree, Metroid Prime is a game with clear Western design. That it takes its setting from a Japanese series of games doesn't change that, the fps game mechanics are Retro Studios' work.

[Ady]

Playing a videogame used to be about doing something you couldn't do in real life, Its a complete reversal of those principles now in todays market and innovation is suffering massively because of it.

Shenmue?