Gaming: Out of Ideas

Let's face it, the game industry has been churning out a lot of different titles. Some have been good, some great, a considerable portion however have of course been easily forgettable.

As I played a few demos (Titan Quest, Darkstar One) I realized, aren't we just playing the same fundamental games over and over again? FPS games in general have more or less followed two basic icons, Quake and Half-Life. The all-action, low plot, and the intermingled storyline driven shooter. The only real delta these days is how much technology and how well threaded the stories are.

Flight sims and other high-complexity games always repeat the same basic game physics and principles, while strategy games have more or less remained beholden to the basic ideas of resource, units and abilities.

With a few standouts that come to mind (Katamari Damacy, Brain Age, The Sims franchise) there really aren't that many games lately that have broken the mold. Most are just different takes on established genres.

Then you've got the most over-abused genre of them all, the MMO. Let's face it, if you were a PnP D&D'er you've probably got the basic formula of avatar, stuff, attribs down. I'm not a power player when it comes to MMO's but even I have to admit the voracious appetite of MMO'ers is mind bobbling, especially when you consider all the titles are fundamentally the same.

I'm not saying we need games that are totally new, in fact I realize the reason we repeat the same patterns is that human nature is centered around comfort zones. But at the same time aren't you guys getting bored with the same gameplay day in day out?