The rise, fall and rebirth of Western Videogames

[Brats]

I'm hardly reaching.

Eye Toy is as innovative as anything you could care to mention. PD online is a brand new gameplay concept. GTA3 has taken open ended gameplay further than previously thought possible and is arguable the most influential game of this generation (although the copies are mostly pretty woeful). Frequency/Amplitude have arguable taken the musical ideas of Rez to a far more innovative domain.

Moto GP, Halo, Burnout 2 and POP have all innovated and taken existing genres forward with new gameplay ideas.

All this and more has come is just over two years. Only five years ago it would have seemed impossible that anything as innovative as Eye Toy could have come from the West. This isn't just additional polish. It's a gradual change in ethos and thinking. We're not there yet, but what has been achieved so far should be celebrated by everyone.

[innovator]

I disagree and will leave it at that. I agree 100% on Eyetoy though and would like to try it out sometime.

Check this out though:

"Ubi Soft Announces UBU
Ubi Soft Entertainment announced today a new action platformer from Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil creator Michael Ancel. The title, tentatively titled UBU: Search for the Lost Treasures, is based on a young boy named UBU who leaves his home after hearing of a lost treasure in a neighbouring village. The game is designed to give the players a perspective from a childs point of view, and is said to use a new innovative game mechanic- imagination. Ubi Soft has not disclosed as to what this new game mechanic can do, but has assured us that it will be unlike anything we have seen before.

UBU: Search for the Lost Treaures is to be unveiled at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more details."

Now that's what i'm talking about.

[Papercut]

Whaaaat.

Eye Toy is as innovative as anything you could care to mention. PD online is a brand new gameplay concept. GTA3 has taken open ended gameplay further than previously thought possible and is arguable the most influential game of this generation (although the copies are mostly pretty woeful). Frequency/Amplitude have arguable taken the musical ideas of Rez to a far more innovative domain.

Eye Toy is a cool bit of hardware, but the games themselves are dull as dishwater. The tech demo at Game On was much more exciting, but Sony shied away from anything really exciting dumbing the game down instead.

PD online is a brand new concept - how?

The mission structure of GTA3 is not very open ended at all, and if you mean the aimless wondering around Mercenary (a Western game!) did that years ago. Gave you a whole planet to play with too.

Frequency and Amplitude are good, but take their game design very obviously from DDR. They have nothing to do with Rez whatsoever, apart from the pale imitation of Rez' visual design.

[Brats]

Now that's what i'm talking about.

Cheers for that. It's a definate sign that things are getting much better, which was the entire point of my post.

Eye Toy is a cool bit of hardware, but the games themselves are dull as dishwater. The tech demo at Game On was much more exciting, but Sony shied away from anything really exciting dumbing the game down instead.

The games are down to personal opinion. I found some of the games great fun and still play them now with friends. Any personal opinion of the games is irrelevant to the discussion though, Eye Toy is a huge innovation.

PD online is a brand new concept - how?

In the way that it takes two completely different teams and pits them against each other with completely different directives. It is also the first game where the combination of stealth and a team environment is mandatory. It's nothing at all like the single player game whatsoever, which is polished if slightly derivative.

You really have to play it (which judging by my XBox Live score table, you haven't ).

The mission structure of GTA3 is not very open ended at all, and if you mean the aimless wondering around Mercenary (a Western game!) did that years ago. Gave you a whole planet to play with too.

It was a planet only in name. At the time it was wonderful, but the open ended nature of Mercenary really is a complete joke compared to GTA3.

Frequency and Amplitude are good, but take their game design very obviously from DDR. They have nothing to do with Rez whatsoever, apart from the pale imitation of Rez' visual design.

It does have something to do with Rez in that the player controls the complete score of the music based on their input and ability. This is very loosely a part of Rez (although Miziguchi hinted in previews that it would be a major part of the gameplay), but Frequency/Amplitude did so much more with the concept.

The visual style of Rez is hardly innovative when taken by itself. Besides, Frequency and Rez were developed at the same time.

[Papercut]

Frequency/Amplitude really do have nothing to do with Rez whatsoever... we'll just have to disagree.

[Brats]

If you like, although both games inspirations are obviously from the same place:

The designer visited a music festival where 400,000 people were moving as one to an incredible combination of music and light. Mizuguchi "thought it'd be great if I could control all this music and light by myself."

[Ish]

Come on dude, you're really reaching it with those examples. If those games are as innovative (haha) as western gaming gets then you've proved my point. Hopefully more publishers will follow Sony and Ubi Soft's lead.

Fair enough.

I've asked this before in this thread and I'll ask again: where and what are these hallowed Eastern examples of innovation?

[Brats]

There are loads, although not always in the most obvious places. A lot of the big Japanese franchises haven't really innovated at all and have just given us more polished versions of what has gone before (FFX, Onimusha, Zelda:WW, Mario Sunshine, etc), but imo the real innovation has come from the 'smaller' titles.

Monkeyball was something new. Psyvariar took the shmup and turned it on its head. Katamari Damashi is a great little title with loads of innovative touches. Animal Crossing was wonderfully unique (although strictly speaking not this generation).

There have also been games that have innovated in subtle ways. VF4 Evo's career mode of making the player feel like he was moving around the arcades of Tokyo (rather than some overblown story of fighters coming together to battle) was a revelation at kept me hooked on the title.

For the record, I don't actually think Rez is that innovative. It's left field for sure, stylish and fun, but not really innovative.

But overall both areas have been innovating and it's been a great generation. Papercut thinks GTA3 isn't innovative because Mercenary got there first, whereas I've heard some people say that Monkeyball is just Marble Madness from a different perspective. They both might be right, but I think they're missing the point. Innovation isn't always the invention of a new genre like say Populous or Donkey Kong. It's about refining what has gone before in new and exciting ways.

And both the East and west have done plennty of that this generation. The West for the first time in quantity for over 20 years on consoles (which again was the point of this thread) .

[Ish]

Agreed (even with your Rez comment - I love that game to bits but it is just a stylish on rails shooter). I think I should have been more precise:

What I meant was examples of eastern innovation that innovate in a way different to how western games have been innovating. In other words examples to back up the arguement that the east has been innovating while the west hasn't.

[Papercut]

Papercut thinks GTA3 isn't innovative because Mercenary got there first, ...

That isn't what I said. I was arguing that GTA3's open ended nature wasn't very innovative because the missions are tightly structured, and the aimless wondering around is no better than Mercenary (or Mercenary 3, which is probably a better comparison).

... whereas I've heard some people say that Monkeyball is just Marble Madness from a different perspective. They both might be right, ...

Both of those comparisons are right.

... but I think they're missing the point. Innovation isn't always the invention of a new genre like say Populous or Donkey Kong. It's about refining what has gone before in new and exciting ways.

No points are being missed there, innovation in video games nearly always takes what has gone before and improves it, I agree.

To take the two examples, the most enjoyable aspect of GTA3 was the aimless wondering around, and in that respect it didn't do anything particularly new. The missions sent me to sleep (save for some of the voice acting). It was very pretty and very polished, but it didn't do anything really new. Whereas Monkey Ball takes the basic idea of Marble Madness and expands it in many interesting ways.

[Brats]

examples to back up the arguement that the east has been innovating while the west hasn't.

Well I don't think there is such an argument, except that Japanese publishers are arguably more open to left field ideas than Western ones. But then if you read some of the more extrovert Japanese developers, they're more outspoken in their criticism of the Japanese games market than Peter 'Satan' Moore (not Main as per my first post ) :

he said Japanese games companies weren't looking for new challenges, singling out Sega as he attacked a conservative attitude and a general reluctance to attempt new ideas, something which echoes the harsh comments of Xbox man Peter Moore............. He also cited this 'fear of the new' as the reason he left Sega.

I think you could argue that Japan has been more innovative this generation, but the West has made great strides to lessen the gap and I think they are getting there.

[Brats]

To take the two examples, the most enjoyable aspect of GTA3 was the aimless wondering around, and in that respect it didn't do anything particularly new. The missions sent me to sleep (save for some of the voice acting). It was very pretty and very polished, but it didn't do anything really new. Whereas Monkey Ball takes the basic idea of Marble Madness and expands it in many interesting ways.

I'd argue GTA took the 'aimless wandering around' of other titles and expanded upon it in many interesting ways, but I disgress as we're going around in circles.

I've been playing videogames for a long, long time now and I can recognise innovation in many titles. Where they come from doesn't have any bearing in the slightest.

So either I'm mistaking Western polish for innovation (whilst strangely giving due credit to Japanese titles where it's due) or some people are dogmatically refusing to believe that the West is capable of innovation in the current generation and will criticise at any oppurtunity.

Or something . Now I'm off to play some soulless Western game. Pity me .

[Corrupt Rose]

I wish I was hardcore enough to be able to distinguish over where a game comes from.

[Ish]

I wish I was hardcore enough to be able to distinguish over where a game comes from.

Surely they come from the shop

[Corrupt Rose]

I wish I was hardcore enough to be able to distinguish over where a game comes from.

Surely they come from the shop

OMG TBH!