As much as I love the gaming industry, it seems that we are stuck in a repetative loop when it comes to designing games. It seems like every other game being released these days is a generic FPS with the same story-line. Now I know that FPS’s are where the money is at these days, so I cannot really blame companies for pumping them out. As designers go, though, we cannot keep depending on making these games over and over again. I, for one, am getting almost bored with video games these days. I cannot play the same game over and over again just with a different title. I found this situation to get rediculous when the new PS3 FPS Haze went into production. Looking at the character art, I noticed something…they looked just characters from Halo. Yes some design aspects were changed around, but none-the-less they were Halo inspired. I remember the first thing that came to my mind “so…they are taking designs from a game that took designs from another game.”
I just wonder, why can’t professional designers make the leap to bring out a truely original game? You don’t have to have your game come out like everybody elses. Katamari for an example, they went out on a limb and took a chance with this highly abstract game; and it was a commercial success. Katamari proved that you can have a AAA game without having to kill something every five feet. I feel that we as designers have an obligation to explore more abstract game concepts, because if we dont…our industry is going to get real stale really soon.
