[Rant] What's Wrong with Video Games These Days?

My main problem with the industry is that there is not enough variety. Yes we have our Okamis, our Braids, our Psychonauts, our Worlds of Goo, our Little Big Planets, our Katamari Damacys and other handful of games that tend to buck the trend. I really don't mean games that just dress up a genre in a pretty new gown of graphics.

Where are the games that take place in the Victorian era? Games that take place in the Stone Age? Games that show an alternative history that isn't riddled with zombie Hitlers and werewolves? What about chick flick equivalent games? I don't mean Barbie dress up games with extremely mediocre gameplay but something with substance that a woman or even a guy could be proud of to play.

Games hold a lot of potential to be more than just 'entertainment'. I've always felt that games could combine the best of all the other mediums out there. It could have the best stories of books, the best storytelling of movies, the best soundtracks of music all within an interactive package that the user can change the outcome in some cases. I'm not saying get rid of the formulaic games but have more of a variety. There's only so much that you can do with science fiction, fantasy and World War II/Modern warfare.

I'm glad for Wii's success on opening the gates of gaming to a much broader audience but deplore the developers who just use it as a flea market to peddle shovelware. The Wii was purposefully designed to be less powerful so developers will take more risks as the cost of development will be cheaper. There are a handful of games on the horizon that I feel have some unique aspect to them such as Fragile, Let's Tap and a few others.

I don't feel that this generation is worse than previous ones or that the previous generations had more gems than what this one has. I feel the ratio has been constant and in fact the past few years for gaming has been pretty damned exciting overall. While I do want to see more variety, a lot of the genre staples are perfecting the formula to grant a great gameplay experience which trumps all storytelling. However, why can't we have our cake and eat it too?

Jam it back in, in the dark.