Rant: Lamenting the Death of Strategy Gaming
As you could determine from the game reviews on this web site, I’m not that much of a “twitch” gamer. I don’t care for first-person shooters as a general rule, unless they deliver something more than a “shooting gallery” experience. Half-Life 2 did that, in its challenging puzzles and interesting story line. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse did that with humor and interesting twists on weapons and strategy. Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (not twitch games but not really strategy games) deliver in a sort of “wish I could do this in real life without hurting anyone or going to jail” kind of vein. To a lesser extent, even the “Battlefield” and “Star Wars: Battlefront” games provided a strategy experience in that you have the chance to play cooperatively with someone else to achieve your mission goals. Unfortunately, the gaming industry seems to want to deliver more and more “twitch” gaming and less strategy/simulation gaming (aside from the latest, greatest Microsoft Flight Simulator release). I miss good strategy/simulation games.
The last really addictive strategy game for me was Capitalism II. There were a ton of opportunities to play the game from different perspectives and in different scenarios. I could try to corner the market on a raw material and gouge the computer players out of business. I could focus on research and deliver products that were far better and much cheaper than my competition. I could buy them out in the stock market. There are seemingly endless ways to attack the problem of dominating the business world in that game. True, there were arbitrary limits on the size of shopping centers and factories, but that became a part of the strategic problem (how to maximize space). It’s such a good game, in fact, that I still dust it off occasionally and play it – over four years after its release date.
The only strategy games I see coming out anymore are the
"Tycoon" series, and they all pretty much suck. It’s
kind of like "strategy for dummies" or "strategy for the
short-attention-span crowd". I tried playing the Mall of
America Tycoon game and found its interface confusing. Once I
figured out the interface, I had to figure out why it would only let me
place certain kinds of businesses in certain places, facing a specific
direction. It only took about an hour to decide I didn’t need any
more of the hassles. I’ve tried other "Tycoon" games
since then and had about the same reaction.
Some of the
real-time-strategy (RTS) games that come out are decent. I found
some enjoyment, for example, in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War but not
enough to bother playing the sequel (at least, not yet). To tell
the truth, I’m getting bored with the whole RTS category.
"more of the same". A pattern of "build up an army,
build up technology, attack, repeat" pretty much won the
game. When you play something like that, you more or less feel
like a flesh robot, going through the same motions over and over without
really thinking or reacting.
Just to give you a feel for how
I see the gaming industry right now, below is a list of the "new
releases" on GameSpot for the past week and what my initial
impression of each game is (without necessarily having played it):
- Bowl Bound College
Football: The fact that it’s a management simulation might
get my attention, but the fact that it’s sports related takes it right
away. Interest level: 0 out of 10.
action puzzle game. Doesn’t sound like anything I’ll be spending
any money on. Interest level: maybe 1 out of 10.- Gems Cubed: Another
puzzle game. Interest level: 0.
name alone turns me off. I enjoyed my last trip to Vegas but I have no
desire to try to replicate that experience on a PC, even if I
could. Interest level: 0.
role of a criminal mastermind, creating a criminal empire. Based
on the number of typos I see in the screenshots and the rather strange
concept of a mastermind getting smarter by reading comic books, my
interest level drops from maybe a 6 to 1 on this game.- Diner Dash: Sounds
like "restaurant strategy for kids" and holds no interest for
me. - Strike Ball 2:
Described as an Arkanoid clone, and I never cared for that game,
so call it another zero.
So the best the entire
gaming industry could do for me this week was a single game that looked
like it might have my attention, then quickly dropped it as soon as I
saw screenshots. I didn’t even need to download the demo to decide
I wasn’t interested. How sad is that?
Even looking at
the "future releases" list on Amazon.com, the only games that
even warrant my curiousity are Half-Life
2: Aftermath and Rome Total War
Gold Edition. Half-Life 2: Aftermath interests me because
Half-Life 2 itself was an incredible gaming experience. Rome Total
War interests me only because I’ve heard good things about it, not
because I’m actually that interested in Roman battle strategy or
historical gaming.
I can remember a time, not long ago, that
I had more games on my wish list than money to buy them. Nowadays
it’s harder to find a single game that interests me than it is to buy
all of them. I don’t think my tastes are that much more
sophisticated now than they once were. I just think the game
industry, like television and movies before it, is taking the
"safe" approach anymore and cranking out the same old crap
with flashier visuals and hoping we line up to buy it like we did the
last release. It’s very insulting
and disappointing.
I know there are some great,
creative game designers and programmers out there. I just wish
they could get the funding they deserve to produce good, innovative
games. I really DON’T care if they’re visual masterpieces or
feature star-studded soundtracks. Capitalism II has none of that,
and it’s a game I go back to again and again. Think about it, game
industry folks… Please.
A good business simulation (and
I’m not talking that "Tycoon" crap for kiddies) needs only
reasonable graphics (like Capitalism II had) and sound. What’s
more important in strategy gaming isn’t a splashy set of visual effects
and a top-40-studded music track, but a solid intellectual experience
that challenges the mind. Compared to a Half-Life 2 style game,
you could crank out a dozen great simulation games for the same amount
of money and satisfy the needs of a market that’s being sadly
neglected.