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Sanity: Not for me, thanks.
Posted on Sunday, April 20 2008 @ 05:02:50 Eastern

Lately, I've been getting more and more fed up. Not with difficulty curves so large it seems as if you've run down a hill only to run head-first into a wall made out of diamond. I'm not fed up with enemy AI so low that you honestly believe that you could program it better, despite only knowing a handful of basic Java commands.

No, I'm fed up with all the sanity in games nowadays.

It seems as if there was a grand meeting of every game developer in the world, and an unanimous decision was reached to stick to making photo-realistic, everything-reacts-as-it-would-in-real-life video games. Well, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say "To hell with sanity, give me back my crazy!"

I wanna go back to the days when I could save the galaxy with the power of rock, when I could kick a guy into orbit, when I could be a rapper despite being thinner than a piece of paper and having to learn how to rap from a talking onion.

Honestly, if you look back, most of the fun games out there were ones that had the initial reaction of "What the hell were they smoking when they made THIS up?".

I find myself looking to the Japanese developers for my relief from the world of gaming sanity, as they have time and time again released grand hits that were completely out-of-the-box, yet so insanely fun. No western developer would have come up with the idea for the game where you roll around big sticky balls. They would merely giggle at the sexual innuendo, then lay there mouths gaping as Katamari Damacy became a massive hit.

Then again, the Japanese also made an arcade game about sticking a plastic finger up a plastic butt. Perhaps some areas are best left unexplored. (Man, not even I can stand that pun.)

I'm bored with sanity, give me back my crazy!

Comments

petrucci
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Apr 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Man, I totally agree.

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StandardStache
Joined: Nov 2007

Posted: Apr 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Okami is giving me my dose of insanity for now.

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SugarRayGSR
Joined: Jul 2007

Posted: Apr 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I've been sporting some Killer 7.

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daemon45
Joined: Apr 2007

Posted: Apr 21st, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Let's not forget jumping on angry-looking mushrooms and turtles or collecting multi-hued emeralds to foil a fat, bald guy with a PhD.

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Mammoth
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Apr 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
My thoughts exactly. I'm tired of realism and logic. If I wanted that, I'd go out for a walk. I can only find the things I'm looking for in indie and japanese games. (oh, and you made a mistake in the last sentence)

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Tyrranis
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Apr 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Saw that, fixed it.

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Miscarriage
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Apr 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
That's actually why I really enjoyed God Hand, it was a break from what seemed typical of the time. Occasionally we'll get sophisticated games like Okami though and completely reanalyze what makes a game great.

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Hawk_one
Joined: Sep 2006

Posted: Apr 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I do agree that games with a bit of a "What the hell were they smoking" factor in it tends to be better, although, of course, not every one of them's a success either. FF X-2 was in fact almost too weird for me, though I know I tolerated the stuff in there a lot more than most other people. Oh, and anyone who wants a good dose of -fun- weirdness in their games and haven't picked up Psychonauts: Be ashamed. Be very ashamed. (Incidentally, I do tend to like "Western" style weirdness better than "Japanese" style weirdness. But as long as the Japanese are allowed to go wild to a much bigger degree than US game makers, I'll have to take my weirdness where I can find it.)

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Hawk_one
Joined: Sep 2006

Posted: Apr 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Also, there are three degrees of weirdness in the video game: First, you have unintended weirdness, where a game is weird because it seems that every single aspect was worked on by different people who had no contact with each other (which is usually not good). Then there are intended weirdness, where your mind just boggles at the possibility that you're doing the video game equivalent of LSD (Psychonauts). And then there is Shigeru Miyamoto, who manages to put in all sorts of weirdness in his games, but at the same time makes it feel so natural, you just couldn't imagine it being any different. A raccoon tail? Sure thing. A dinosaur popping out from and egg with a saddle ready for you to ride? No worries. Redefining gravity itself in the levels? Oh yes, that's it, baby. All of those things, I didn't know I wanted, but Shigeru knew I wanted it, and they are all just so right, you forget that it's all really weird.

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shandog137
Joined: Mar 2007

Posted: Apr 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
I agree, realism is fun for a while but people get addicted to crazy. Its funny how I finished Ratchet, dark sector, ninja gaiden before having finished CoD4 or Uncharted. Both are great games but it was more engrossing to play as an animal with huge guns or a soldier who can grow a blade out of his hand than do what is humanly possible on CoD4 and Uncharted

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StandardStache
Joined: Nov 2007

Posted: Apr 25th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Ah, Psychonauts. One of the best, under-appreciated games I have ever played. Fits right in with the insanity thing (literally. The last few levels have you delving into the minds of insane asylum inmates.). As soon as I get a 360, I'm downloading it. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to run down the street with half a cantalope on my head screaming, "I'm a hamster! I'm a hamster!"

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oblivion437
Joined: Nov 2006

Posted: Apr 27th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Hawk_one, you've hit on the nail on the head. The trick is context; realism in, say, Earthworm Jim would be terrible. In Half Life 2 it's perfect. For some reason, in making games that are more 'grown up' an important fact may have been forgotten or ignored; adults watch Tom & Jerry too. Adults still play Super Mario games, and still find them utterly delightful.

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bomby139143
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Ninja gaiden and psychonauts were some of the best games I have ever played. People play video games to escape reality, its not fun to escape from reality just to enter the real world again. people seem to have a single minded perspective of "crazy" though, Crazy can come in many shapes or forms. Bioshock is crazy because you are exploring a futuristic-looking underwater city in the 1960's. Halo was crazy at the time for creating a whole universe where you get to shoot at aliens until their toothpaste-blood covers the ground. Many successful games have been crazy, but other successful games are successful because they were just good. CoD4 is a good example.

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