A moratorium on trends in the current video game market

An industry that once prided itself on original and fresh entertainment has fallen victim to a disgusting plague of sequels and shooters, completely devoid of anything compelling. Video games these days fall under three categories these days:

*The Casual Market. This is the sector of the industry that makes so much money that it's going to be completely impractical to discontinue them. While simplistic games have been around since their inception, never have they been so prevalent. The advent of the Nintendo Wii, as well as the Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade have carved a rather large niche for simple, enjoyable games. Unfortunately, for every Puzzle Quest and Bejeweled, we have to contend with truly atrocious garbage that floods the market; most of it on the Wii and even published by the bigwigs at Nintendo themselves! Wii Music is not a fucking video game! Carnival Games can be replicated by going to a fair while stoned on eight tabs of LSD! Casual gaming is a cornerstone and essential building block of the industry, but the popularity of the Wii has simply turned it into a bunch of imprecise stick-waggling nonsense that isn't so much video gaming as it is random stick waggling with the occasional button press.

*Sequel mania. Once upon a time, about five years ago, I used to rag on Electronic Arts' rehashing of Madden NFL every year, implementing few changes and cornering the market with that ridiculous exclusivity fiasco. With the benefit of hindsight, I think we can agree that while Madden's staleness has gotten significantly better, and the teats of that cow are somewhat fresher. However, the same cannot be said for a certain franchise called Guitar Hero, a series that has been so exploited, it might as well be renamed Frederick Douglass. Originally a series that was crafted with loving care from the music maestros at developer Harmonix, once Activision passed the money-grubbing franchise to the hack studio Neversoft (developers of the tenacious Tony Hawk franchise, another series that gets rehashed to death every year), who have released an ungodly amount of sequels and expansions to the series, each as needless as the last. The greed that has taken over this series is really quite sad, but just to give you a taste of what the franchise used to be, here's a timeline:

Under Harmonix's creative control:

Guitar Hero - 2005
Guitar Hero 2 - 2006
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's - 2006

Under Activision's creative control:

Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock - 2007 Neversoft.
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - 2008
Guitar Hero: On Tour - 2008
Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades - 2008
Guitar Hero: World Tour - 2008
Guitar Hero: Metallica - 2009
Guitar Hero: Modern Hits - 2009
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - 2009

I think you get my point. It's not just Activision that's wringing this cash cow's nipples dry, there's a Call of Duty sequel every year, Gears of War seems to have a certain release schedule, and even the holy BioShock, one of the greatest, most original titles is getting the sequel treatment. There are such things as good sequels, but the bad ones, the Guitar Heroes and Maddens are still the same rehashed garbage as they always have been.

*Gritty, realistic games. Here's my biggest beef with the industry. Why is it that these games, with their high-end graphics, impressive production values wasted on the same plots, the same scenarios, and the same bullshit? Killzone and Gears of War have the exact same plots, basically a bunch of huge, war-mongering dickholes march into battle with their guns mounted on their improbably huge power armor gruffly screaming the virtues of murder while occasionally spicing it up with ridiculous and unbelievable melodrama that fools no one. I'm so sick of these games; they may have the best gameplay in the world, but none of that matters when we're playing in the same environments, following the same linear storylines, shooting the same aliens in the same ruined environments. Are we so devoid of creative ideas that we can't put a fresh spin on shooters? What's with all the Space Marines? Shooters could have spies, Native Americans, and misogynists as their protagonist, are we that afraid of change? Come on now.

My ideal industry is one that pumps out creative, innovative and fun-to-play games. I'm willing to overlook flaws in exchange for experimentation, which is why I loved Mirror's Edge so much. The most exciting release this year is Brutal Legend, led by legendarily creative mind Tim Schafer, in his take on a heavy metal action game. It's creative. It's new. And it's what the industry should be experimenting with instead of Zone of Kill War Gears 9: Revenge of the Hell Locust.

PS. I hardly even play video games any more, which makes this incredibly long-winded entry ironic, or something like that.