Interesting, I actually agreed with quite a lot of that.
It's not about incredible graphics with awesome effects, and similarly, it's not about shitty graphics but good gameplay. It's not even about the compromise between them.
The problem is that technology increases, and everyone tries to make faster, more powerful machines, or machines that do things in new ways, or whatever. The outcome is that the companies create platforms which mean less effort for the developers. That's what it comes down to. The developers think, "oh, cool, we can create incredible graphics by just adding more polygons and higher res textures" and "they've given us such innovative technology, let's make sure to use it."
It's effortless, it's quick and no actual feeling goes into the game. Or movie. I hate just about every action film that came out after The Matrix. CGI got cheaper, so everything else in the film got cheaper too.
So they're given innovative technology, and instant amazing graphics. Right, so they should work on the gameplay to balance it out? That's not the way to go about making a game! You've missed out everything in between.
N64 Zeldas had ground breaking graphics not because they had lots of polygons, or good textures. What mattered was that the amount of effort put into creating, what was at the time, new technology - writing the 3D engine was a terrific feat, so accompanying it were huge amounts of effort into EVERYTHING else of the game.
Assassin's parkour has incredible graphics, sure, but into the actual animations, I think they could have tried harder. It still looks blocky, and digital. The textures don't cover that up. If you were to blur the screen a lot, it wouldn't be mistaken for real life - so if you were trying to make it realistic, you've failed. Don't tell me it's not meant to look real, course it is, that's the entire point of improving the graphics. And levels of detail, what's up with that? Crysis, yeah, great graphics, interaction with the world, zero out of ten. You can shoot the trees, impressive. Except you can only shoot certain trees. Great. You can pick up all kinds of objects, but if you actually want to do stuff with them, nothing. Most items and objects don't even have one destruction animation. If they put the same effort into interaction with the world as they did with the graphics, then, and only then, would the gameplay be satisfactory.
Every game on the PS2 I've ever played has looked blurred. I don't get what the deal is with that, I like the pixelated look of Ocarina of Time. It's not as pretty straight away, but the boldness of the colours and the symbolic detail it embodied was brilliant. Blurring everything into creams and greys is not.
If a game is too powerful or resource heavy for a console, its inefficiency is a disgrace. Make the resource-hog 'new technology' do what it can handle, and spend more time on the detail between the main areas.
I hate where Nintendo has taken itself recently. It's worked because they've appealed to a new audience, and just ignored the old one. Most of the old audience followed because they were too stupid to notice. Twilight princess is different to the others in a BAD way! "Retaining the Zelda feel" is what I hear all the time. What a !@#$% lie, it's lost every bit of it! You complain that there are long journeys between the missions, indeed. There used to be a reason for them. In Ocarina of Time, it was FUN to get lost in a field because there was so much to DO in that field. Now they give us more, more field, but much less to actually do in it. What the hell is up with corners with nothing in them? Zelda was about secrets and side missions everywhere you turn. TP was about a linear mission, all the way through. On my way through TP I encountered so many things like objects which are obviously useful in the future, but do nothing for now. That's a good tactic to use if you can make the player want to go to where it leads. TP didn't. It just threw too many at you at once without showing at all what would lie beyond once you got the item/object/whatever to get past the obstacle. Zelda was about tempting you to play on. About giving you a taster of an area ahead and making you think, "I really want to get to that bit, but can't, it looks so fun, I wonder how you do such-and-such, etc." I'm sorry, but looking at a FIELD almost identical to what you've just ridden in isn't enticing. The obstacles are so generic you forget them - originally, there would be just a few of these obstacles you couldn't get past and they annoyed you so much that when you finally got the item, you ran straight to whereever and used it. Not anymore. Think back to the old zeldas, say Link's Awakening, the very first thing you do is struggle through those spikey things on the beach with your shield, slowly pushing them out of the way. You get annoyed and think, surely there's a faster way to get through all this. Then you get the sword and, combined with the perfect music, you get a rush of power as you cut through them all, making them explode! Perfect release of the anger at them, perfect power, perfect lead into the very next thing. What is the next thing? Finding the feather, that lets you get over all the holes you've been annoyed at for the last ten minutes.
THAT was the Zelda feel.
Starfox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet was a good game. It wasn't trying to be epic, it wasn't trying to break new ground, it was just a pure and simple, good game. Most of the puzzles were copied. So what. It was the perfect length for you to not to get bored but not to be disappointed, it had a hugely diverse range of puzzles and methods of gameplay, it had brilliant music, and it wasn't trying to be something incredible - just a plain, simple, enjoyable game. I don't know why they don't make more games like that. All we get is new games, trying to break new ground, trying to be epic, trying to "wow" you from the first moment, or generic, completely copied games that are !@#$%. Apparently gamers today don't have patience, and if something annoys them they give up. And developers will listen to that because it's the general public that sells. The majority of gamers can't tell the difference between good, and epic. Most of the Sony market was it before, now Nintendo's changed its perspective and most of the proles are following them. Brilliant games aren't rewarded, and flawed games are over appreciated, all thanks to throwing in words like "innovation" and so on. Brainwashing.
The only people who care are being ignored, since what they want isn't what sells. Depressing thought, huh.
And that was a good waste of half an hour.
