Gaming Retrospective: the lost piece

This was a final part to the Gaming Retrospective that I wanted to do, but only recently finished. It is a bit long winded, but I hope some of you enjoy it.

If I were to describe the gaming scene of 2005, I would immediately think of the word “quiet”. This seems surprising even to me, the person who says it! Was this really a quiet year? After all, we saw the launch of the PSP, the Gameboy Micro, and the first entry of the next generation, the Xbox360. The Hot Coffee mod brought huge amounts of attention and scrutiny from some of the biggest talking heads in Washington. The Playstation 3 was finally revealed, and the speculation is at a fever pitch over the possibilities of the Nintendo Revolution. And it seemed that for a while, it was impossible to get through the month without Florida attorney Jack Thompson opening his foul, flame spewing mouth to accuse the community of some foul act on par with Pearl Harbor.

So was it really that quiet of a year? In terms of news and announcements, I suppose it wasn’t. But at the end of the day, the industry is all about the games, and in this respect 2005 fell a bit short. At least, it did compared to 2004. Last year we saw the release of San Andreas, Halo 2, Half Life 2, Metroid Prime 2 and World of Warcraft all within two months. Combine that list with some of the other great holiday releases and the other ten months of the year, and you have a sickeningly good line up of games. 2005 on the other hand saw most systems getting one standout title and a few lesser and/or niche releases.

The Gamecube started incredibly strong with Resident Evil 4, but eventually lost that as an exclusive, while rest of the year was filled in with a few 3d interpretations of some Game Boy Advance games (Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars). Of course the delay of Twilight Princess was a huge blow to the Nintendo faithful, so much so that preorders were being canceled because of it. The entire industry is waiting to see what the Revolution can do, but as a result the Gamecube (a faithful companion to me since launch day) is on its last legs.

As usual the Playstation 2 had some solid titles in pretty much every genre, but God of War is the only one that stood strong throughout the entire year. Gran Turismo 4 came out, but it released sans online multiplayer and with graphics that showed both how much juice you can squeeze out of the PS2 (ie. Beautiful car models) as well as how old the console is getting (ie. Blocky bus model next to car). Driving game fans ate it up, but it didn’t make nearly the same splash as GT3 did years ago.

The Katamari Damacy sequel was released to not even half the hype and buzz that the original did. If we are to believe a certain crumudgeon game journalist, there’s a reason for this; We Love Katamari is a rock star, the one that fully knows how popular it is and won’t think twice of reminding you. It can piss off the fans as much as it wants, because it knows they will keep coming back to it. That’s a jarring feeling to have, and perhaps fans weren’t quite sure what to make of a game that is bold enough to call itself “We Love Katamari”. Or maybe they just didn’t want to spend the extra ten bucks it costs at retail. Cocky bastards at Namco… still, I hear it plays damn good.

Many of the PS2’s best games from 2005 were decidedly niche titles. As much as I love Shadow of the Colossus, it is geared towards very specific crowd of people, and no amount of praise from journalists will help if the general populace doesn’t understand it. Dragon Quest 8 closes the book on Japanese RPGs this generation as far as I’m concerned, but a lot of the genre’s fans had their minds on nothing else but Final Fantasy 12 and Kingdom Hearts 2. Though to be fair, DQ8 did see a huge spike in popularity over at Gamefaqs shortly after Christmas; perhaps there is a chance after all.

With all of the hype over the 360, the original Xbox was somewhat of a bastard child in 2005. Forza Motorsport was a strong entry that gave Gran Turismo a serious run for its money, but otherwise there was a severe lack of good exclusives during the year. Jade Empire released to such little applause that I almost forgot it was released, and Far Cry Instincts was….well, it was Far Cry again. Look at any other GOTY list for Xbox and it is chock full of multiplatform releases, and with the possible exception of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, none of them inherently play better on this platform than on any others (besides some polished up visuals). Looking into the crystal ball for 2006, I can’t find any knockout titles for the Xbox as support ramps up for the 360. Rest in peace Xbox; you did damn well in your rookie season.

Speaking of the 360, it is certainly feeling some post launch blues. The majority of its lineup is multiplatform, and the only game that really seems to play better on the system is Call of Duty 2. As for its exclusives, there’s doesn’t seem to be much of an evolution. We all know that Project Gotham 3 looks a whole lot better than PGR2, but I haven’t heard a thing about whether it plays any better. Rare has two new games, but from the looks of it the N64 might be calling to ask for its gameplay back. Still, the PS2-esque nature of the launch could be a sign of future success.

Earlier this year most of the gaming community was waiting for the inevitable destruction of the Nintendo DS at the hands of the Sony PSP. Instead the PSP struggled to produce quality titles after its launch, while the DS became arguably the most impressive console of the year. The PSP cheerleaders in the gaming press are still reeling from it, but slowly they are learning that a few PS1 remakes and stripped down PS2 games are not enough to sell a system.

Oh, and then there’s the PC. Civilization 4 came out and blew us all away, and Battlefield 2 impressed for a little while (until the fanboys took control). But once again the only game that mattered was World of Warcraft, which can now call all other MMOs its bitches. Even the mightiest of gamers can fall to this siren’s song, to the point where the only thing they can think of outside of sleeping, eating and working is increasing their honor points and defeating Ragnaros. Damn you Leeroy Jenkins. Damn you to hell.

Make no mistake – this was a year of learning. We learned that developers are going to continue to push the limit of acceptable content in games, and that someone needs to grow up and learn to defend the industry from the increasing amount of sound bites and threats from politicians. We also learned that Rockstar games will not be the ones growing up. Sony discovered that it doesn’t matter how many times you say that a piece of machinery is sexy, or how many features you can cram onto a circuit board. If your console can’t produce enough quality games, it will suffer. Microsoft found out that the worldwide launch of a console simply results in more headaches, and that Japan may like Gaijin culture, but they still don’t like Gaijin electronics. Nintendo learned that it can still throw down in the handheld arena, but that it cannot compete as a traditional console maker any longer. The Revolution is the company’s biggest bet since the NES, and they’re putting all their chips behind it.

Yet the most important thing the gaming community learned in 2005 was that gamers are not stupid. As 1up points out, Acclaim is dead, Working Designs is dead, EA’s sales were down, and several Japanese companies have merged together in order to protect themselves. All because something happened that I never would have expected:
Publishers flooded the market with average sequels and licensed games in 2005, and gamers actually got sick of them. The third Prince of Persia was released to incredibly mixed reactions, and the seventh Tony Hawk game in seven years received record low scores. GTA and Madden, the biggest franchises in gaming, saw new releases, but Liberty City Stories wasn’t able to jump start the PSP, and even diehard Madden fans have been disappointed with the 2006 entry. Remember all the hype that Final Fantasy 10 received the year before it came out? 2005 wasn’t nearly as kind with FF12.

I do not believe that the gaming industry is headed for a crash. We already have one next gen console, with two more on the way this year. Meanwhile the current gen should fill the first half of 2006 with their swan songs. However 1up indicates once again the glut of mediocre titles and the rising costs of gaming, which are exactly the problems we now associate with the years 1983 and 1995. The industry has definitely slowed down, and not every gamer is completely enthusiastic about the next generation.

My advice? Everyone, especially developers, should take a look at a few of the most talked about games of last year; Resident Evil 4, Kirby’s Canvas Curse, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, and Geometry Wars. Some of them are more radical than others, but each is a fresh new take on a classic game or gaming convention. Let’s figure out what it is they’re doing right, what it is they’re doing wrong, and use that knowledge to make the next generation a better one.