15 Dec 2008, 1:06 am / Disappointed
SpikeTV's VGAs 2008 is now over, and I'm very proud of the chosen winners. However, I'm only going to focus on two awards. Best PS3 Game: LittleBigPlanet Studio of the Year: MediaMolecule (Developer of LittleBigPlanet) And this leads me to my lament: LBP, unfortunately, is a game pretty much doomed to fail. It just doesn't look like the game PS3 owners would enjoy playing. And that's the main problem with the industry these days: With games becoming $60, people think twice about buying games. It's a real shame, because LBP is truly a gem of a game. I want to use three games as an example of excellence: LBP, MGS4: Guns of the Patriots, and Okami. LBP's Metacritic score: 95 out of 100 Gamepro gave it 100%, saying: "There's really nothing I can say other than this: if you own a PS3 and you don't buy LittleBigPlanet, you are robbing yourself of one of the most unique gaming experiences ever designed." G4 TV gave it 100%, saying: "It’s so satisfying to finally have a game that not only lives up to the hype but exceeds it so many ways it’s almost unfair." IGN gave it 95%, and said, "Media Molecule has created a brilliant platformer, and then given you the tools to recreate the whole thing over again, or better yet, to create your own ideas from scratch." Now, MGS4's Metacritic Score: 94 of 100 (One point less than LBP) IGN, with a 100%, said: "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a title that exceeds all of the hype that was attached to the title." Gamepro also gave it their highest rating and said, "The Playstation 3 finally gets its "savior", Kojima gets his masterpiece, and gamers get one of the best games of all time." And G4 TV gave it 100% while saying, "While debate will no doubt rage over the story and its outcomes, there really isn't a single wrong move in the gameplay sections." Okami's Metacritic score is 93 of 100. (one point less than MGS4 and two points less than LBP) GamePro called it "A stunningly gorgeous and unique masterpiece that effortlessly blends art and storytelling with puzzles and amusement." And said, "Miss this landmark effort at your peril." IGN also said it was "a game that any self-respecting PlayStation 2 owner should pick up." G4's X-Play said it was "Gorgeous, gorgeous, and gorgeous!", that it "Gives you layer upon layer of beauty while keeping the gameplay equally captivating". Now what is my reason for bringing these three games up? Well, to put things in perspective. MGS4 was the long-awaited sequel with a very large fan-base. It was destined to succeed even if it didn't receive those scores. Meanwhile, LBP and Okami are completely new IPs. What's scary? Well, because these games are too different from typical gameplay norms, even excellence can't save it. Critics the world over lauded Okami and suggested everyone who owned a PS2 to go buy it. What happened in the end? The Studio behind it went bankrupt and fell apart. Well, not immediately, it was given a second release on the Nintendo Wii, with the hope that casual audiences will at least embrace it. They didn't. LBP is in that current predicament. A completely new game that the critics absolutely love... but that no one is buying. Trends like these ruin gaming as a whole, because those who make truly ingenius games are pretty much doomed to fail, just because they don't have scantily-clad vixens, and macho-men lead players with chainsaws attached to their guns. In other words, it's not like every other game out there, and therefore "weird". No one likes "weird". Continuing on with my lament, I've become a jaded gamer. I can honestly tell you that no game has me excited right now. When SF 4 was announced? Not even a quiver. RE5? Nope. It was only LBP that really kept my hopes high for gaming as a medium. It made me think that games really weren't going stale and that people were still willing to take risks to try and move the gaming industry forward, instead of sitting on its laurels and fattening until it doesn't go anywhere at all. Then it released, and I can say that it had accomplished everything I had hoped for. It even sent a message. But the problem was it didn't send the message I wanted it to. I wanted it to tell other developers, "Hey, you don't always have to rely on shooters. You don't have to go with the tried-and-true formula, you can experiment, and let your creative juices flow freely, instead of hampering it with what is now normal and accepted from a game." Heh, of course, it instead sent the message to other developers, saying, "Don't try to make anything unique. Just make sequel after sequel. Just make the same game over and over again with better graphics, and a different enemy to 'spice things up', because unique games are doomed." If that truly is the case, then the gaming medium will continue to grow stale. It will continue to degrade to a point where, well... the next great innovation... will be how to put every single type of enemy on screen at once so you can shoot them all at the same time. So I hope that with the awards that LBP had won last night, the world will give it a glance. Now that gaming has become a mainstream hobby, so-called "Hardcore Gamers" have become stubborn, narrow-minded elitists. It's such a shame, too, because they're the one sustaining the PS3 and Xbox demographic. They think that any game that even looks remotely like a kid's game is "Casual Gamer Garbage". So, in closing, I will share a picture of each game: MGS4, LBP, and Okami: 
And because I couldn't find a good picture of Okami, here's a trailer. (Found in the Comment Section below.)
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