G-pinions

I woke up this morning thinking Criterion should make a flying game. How is this not a great idea? Or couldn't the next Burnout have Planes, Trains and Automobiles? And boats and motorcycles? It could be the Diddy Kong Racing of 2007. It made me start thinking about what I'm looking forward to at E3, and more specifically, what I want. There are so many genres that have grown completely stagnant within this last generation; fighting games are all the damned same, platformers skipped evolution and turned into something else entirely (Ratchet & Clank, Psychonauts), and uninteresting genres like flying games became exponentially more boring.

I'm obviously dying for the quirky stuff like Loco Roco (tangent: I recently found out the game is so named since it uses only the L and R buttons - awesome!), but I'm almost more excited to see what next gen power and design can do to otherwise sedentary ideas. Developers always say that new technology opens up new creative avenues, I say we just need more Tim Schafers. I do understand how technology can hold some genres like flying back though, where immersiveness is half the experience. Physics open up new puzzle game possibilities, etc. Change is good, but leaving what works simply as such shouldn't happen as often as it does.

For example, I'm more excited about Too Human than Red Steel at this point. I'm sure using the revmote will be tons of fun, but I'd rather play a cooking game with it and save the shooters for a controller with triggers. Too Human seems to be doing something I know works well, with a savvy story setting and some interesting art direction. I'm glad the Rev can push pretty graphics too, but a bland, vaguely Asian action setting does little for my aesthetic sensibilities. We'll see soon enough, just a preview of E3 rants to come.