New Name and Design

Yes, I realize that I haven't been updating my blog in a while. Things have been... interesting, to say the least.

So I suppose that I should just try again, get back to updating.

However, it should be noted that my old design was, well, bad. So I've traded it in for a bare-bones style until I can remember how to do some web designing.

I'm a bit rusty.

Well, a lot rusty, actually.

This current design will probably stay up for a long, long time.

Nevertheless, I decided to change the name, based on my current attitude towards gaming.

Its not that I don't like prety graphics. I "ooh" and "ahh" at the trailers and commercials just as much as the next guy. I see the Splinter Cell commercials and I am amazed at how great the game looks. Of course, half the time in the game you have the night vision goggles on, so the pretty colors go away, but still, its beautiful. Gran Turismo has always had an amazing elegance to it, and the most recent version is no exception.

But so what?

Graphics don't make the game. People still play Counterstrike, despite its age and poor graphics, because its a first person shooter that, like few others, relies on lighting quick reflexes, twitch skills, and a good amount of strategy. There are other games like that, but prettier, but still Counterstrike remains.

And its not just Counterstrike. Starcraft is widely held to be the best Real Time Strategy game ever. Not because of the nostalgic feel of it, although that does help. People still love it and play it because its the most well balenced RTS out there. Diablo 2 has a strong cult following, and its one of the few games released in the last five years to still use sprites instead of collections of polygons.

Baldur's Gate 2, Final Fantasy 6 & 7, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, Super Mario 64, Metroid Zero Mission, Pac-Man, Minesweeper, Sonic the Hedgehog, Bejeweled, Street Fighter 2. These games have been released throughout the years. Each one of them is an excellent game, and possibly the most perfect example of their genre as can be. And yet, few of these games are graphically awe-inspiring. They've become classics because of their gameplay, not their graphics.

True, some games are both visually amazing and also excellent games. Half-Life 2 is just freaking beautiful, and contains one of the best, and most fun, physics engines known to man. They give you a gun for the sole purpose of throwing your environment at your opponent! And its also magnificent from a graphical perspective. Just look at the faces.

However, for every Half-Life 2 out there, there are fifty Doom 3's. Doom 3 has an excellent lighting system and an overall sense of wonder and dread. But the gameplay isn't anything new. Bad stuff starts to shake around, and monsters come out of the closet to kill you. You kill all of them, move onto the next area, and then more monsters appear out of nowhere.

There are some redeeming aspects of Doom 3, true, but its still an average shooter coated in a sugary shell. Yeah, its great at first, but the core of it is still bitter.

That's the problem I'm seeing with gaming. We, the gaming culture, are far too focused on the graphics and not enough on the gameplay. When a game reviewer talks about the graphics of an RPG without mentioning the storyline, then we've got a problem. Presentation should not count more than Gameplay to a quality game.

Or is it just me?

Well, me and all of the good reviewers, the Counterstrike, Starcraft, Diablo 2 players, and all of the people that play games that weren't released last week.

Probably not just me.