Modern Warfare came out on Tuesday to predictably high sales, but the reviews have been abysmally low. The game is fun, with no glaring flaws, but consistently low scores plague it. I think of Modern Warfare as the WoW of First Person Shooters, and I feel that this article spells out a lot of what gamers were feeling. What are your thoughts on gaming? Is it alright to deliver that comfortable standby shooter? Do you think indie games, and smaller, more unorthodox games are better? Where do we draw the line between being a homage, and being derivative?

EDIT: URL moved here. Blasted forum upgrade. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/10/modern-warfare-3-internet-hatred

Personally, I'm very supportive of indie gaming. They have a whole other development mindset than the big-shots do. Instead of making a game and say "This is what you'll like", the indie games I've played are rather the opposite; they tend to take suggestions from the players, and actually ask "What features would you want". Heck, I'm playing the beta of A Valley Without Wind from time to time, and I even pre-purchased it, and I feel confident that they will at least listen to my suggestions, even if, of course, they don't always make it into the game. That, at least to me, is one of the major perks of indie.

Making safe games is a natural consequence of AAA games being so time consuming and expensive to make; you have to make something you are fairly certain will get returns. I blame the expectations for physics engines and high end graphics; both are very time consuming to make and implement.
The backlash against the game is compounded by the seeming dead-end of first person shooters; only the odd game pushes it forward (Halo for regenerating health, Gears of War for the stick-to-the-wall cover system, ect.) while the vast majority just languish in the same mechanics. I feel that the backlash against JRPGs come from something similar, nothing substantially new, just gimmicks.
I believe that indie games, with their smaller reliance on graphics, have much much more opportunity to innovate. Indie innovation isn't always good, far from it, and I don't believe that indie games are intrinsically better than AAA titles, and I would even say that the ratio of good to bad games is about equal between the two.

More and more I find myself preferring indie games lately over big triple A titles. Not only are indie games more willing to take risks, but I find the prices are far better for what you get. For instance, I've gotten more enjoyment and playtime out of the $5 I spent on Binding of Isaac than on the last $60 game I got (battlefield 3), which I really did not think was all that great of a game.

The thing is, indie games aren't necessarily better, they just seem more varied and typically infuse their games with a lot more humor. There's still a lot of bad indie games out there and just hearing about them can be an issue, but for $5/$10, I don't feel quite so bad getting one and seeing I don't like it (as opposed to a AAA title where you're out a lot more).

There's still innovation in the big title games though. Take a look at Dark Souls which was a pretty big release and was absolutely amazing.

Article was a good read, had some food for thought. Though I still don't care about MW3 and the FPS genre in general, but that's just me. If people have fun playing it, then good for them.

I'm just looking forward to Skyrim and Terraria 1.1.

I will look forward to Skyrim in about six months. Buying Bethesda at release is a exercise in frustration thanks to their lazy bug checking.

Turnus:


There's still innovation in the big title games though. Take a look at Dark Souls which was a pretty big release and was absolutely amazing.

Indeed, I played Dead Space, and it is an absolutely amazing game (except I suck at using the ADS cannons... don't ever trust me to asteroid defense!) It's the only game that has ever managed to make me, and I quote the person who made my play the damn game, squeak like a tiny stuffed orca.

That said, I've never EVER paid full price for a game. I typically buy them a year or two after release, when most of the bugfixes are out and the price is down. The only exception to that is that I purchased Starcraft 2 at full price because... c'mon, Starcraft.

Tervic:

Indeed, I played Dead Space, and it is an absolutely amazing game (except I suck at using the ADS cannons... don't ever trust me to asteroid defense!) It's the only game that has ever managed to make me, and I quote the person who made my play the damn game, squeak like a tiny stuffed orca.

That said, I've never EVER paid full price for a game. I typically buy them a year or two after release, when most of the bugfixes are out and the price is down. The only exception to that is that I purchased Starcraft 2 at full price because... c'mon, Starcraft.

Go get Skyrim man. You will do it tonight, and you will forget you have responsibilities to take care of for two weeks.

Kialkarkea:


Go get Skyrim man. You will do it tonight, and you will forget you have responsibilities to take care of for two weeks.

No don't! Buying a Bethesda game at release is a terrible idea! The bugs! The bugs! They're everywhere!

Kialkarkea:


Go get Skyrim man. You will do it tonight, and you will forget you have responsibilities to take care of for two weeks.

I'm going to be on a business trip in Texas for the next week, so no gaming for me :(

Tervic:

I'm going to be on a business trip in Texas for the next week, so no gaming for me :(

Welcome, pardner!