Hmmm - how exactly are games like the ones in the Zelda franchise or e.g. the Super Mario franchise crap? Are they any more crap than MS and Sony's offerings which mostly can't detach themselves from tits, gore and 20 shades of brown?
It's not that Nintendo makes (or licenses) crappy games - it's just that all the companies are very entrenched in their respective "style" of games and Nintendo's audience just happens to be more numerous than Sony's or Microsoft's and that's because there's much fewer hardcore gamers than initially thought and with video games having become such a mass-culture phenomenon there's no reason to NOT target the widest audience possible.
I enjoy Nintendo's games more often than not because they offer me a completely different gaming experience from the PC while the XBox360 and PS3, even with their exclusive titles, are just more of the same and I was never in a position where my PC was so shitty that it couldn't keep up with video game graphics.
I don't have to confirm my manliness by playing "hardcore" games all the time and mislabeling all other games as being for children or women - a good game is a good game unless it's a specialist title and you really don't fall inside the target demographic, which is rarely the case for Nintendo, since like I noted before they try to cover a very wide spectrum.
I don't see much difference in the games that Nitendo bring out, if you want to talk more of the same, they havent changed in 20 years. Mario then equals mario now, just in 3D. Same game play, same settings, same plot. Same goes for Zelda. And while there is a difference in gameplay between Nintendo and Sony/Microsoft, honestly I could have stuck with the N64 and had the same experiance. While there's precious little innovation on any platform I can't think of a single game on any nitendo system since N64 that I thought was unique, or event different. I'll concede however that I really enjoy the games especially mario galaxy I also really enjoyed Little Big Planet for the same reason it felt very retro and well made.
I don't see the entrenchment when games like flower, pixeljunk eden, spore, noby noby boy, flow, echochrome and even fat princess point at people trying something different. Games like shadow of the colosus, katamari, loco roco even Schafer's Psychonauts often dont sell as well as hoped because they're seen as too quirky or arty or are labled as not for western markets, I had to join a year long campaign to bring Katamari Damacy to Europe.
I will however except that shooters are now beyond boring, generic and lifeless. Like most hollywood films or pop artists, it sells because thats what the market buys. I too keep buying in the hopes that I'll get that Doom - Unreal Tournement - Half Life - Counter Strike experiance once more or even better that System Shock - Deus Ex - Theif 2 - Portal expericance.
Ah well back to Jeff Minter and reclusive llama based games.
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I take it all back. FFFFFFUUUUUU cardboard!!!!!