Hell in a Handbasket

So last night I was walking to class in the light rain when there was a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder. Lightning and thunder. In Novemember. A thunderstorm in November. Is that wierd to anyone else? 'Cause I thinks it's pretty damned strange. Maybe I'm over reacting.

On another note I have to thank Activision and Neversoft for saving me $50. According to Gamespon, GUN clocks in at aroung 6 hours. This seems to be a trend in some recend games (from what I've heard F.E.A.R. was about 10 hours of gameplay), that I find disturbing. With more and more focus on multiplayer action it seems to me that deep, immersive single player gameplay is falling by the wayside. This trend is most obvious in the RPG genre where I can count the number of "great" single player games in the last five years on one hand; likely I'll have room to spare. The FPS genre suffers from a similar problem with generic gameplay that rarely if ever introduces a new and exciting element. All this becomes even more distrubing when you realize that despite the relative success of the gaming industry there has been little to no market growth. I'm not a doomsayer or anything but I think the game industry needs some kind of reality check lest it wallow in stagnation.

Don't get me wrong there are a number of new and exciting games out there. Some even with innovative and interesting features, but these represent a very tiny percentage of the market and the vast vajority of games are bland and unattractive. Take a look at Blitz: The League. Here one has an interesting and exciting idea in the creation of The League as kind of anti-NFL. Unfortunatley the gameplay was the same old Blitz garbage. So my message to you Gaming Industry is to get outside the box. Stop going back to what is safe and start experimenting with things that are new. The potential for for failure can often breed the greatest success.