(no subject)
You know, in current video games nowadays, the graphics and the effects are no longer the prized commodity. Sadly, it's their stories and gameplay that have become 2-D, while everything else creeps closer and closer to amazing.
The order of the day has been to re-hash the same few characters and concepts into a slightly varied storyline and call it a sequel. And although I like zelda, mario, metroid, the whole FF series (actually, I have no complaints really about the state of the RPG now, so I'll leave much of that out), most of these mind-numbingly endless sequel-lines are really just because the formula works.
It's a way to commercialize what should be an art form. What is, what I think, a mostly-lost art form. Sadly, the third party companies that were good at it are all but extinct, it seems.
Case in point: The Guardian Legend.
http://shmups.classicgaming.gamespy.com/guardianlegend/
At the moment, this is really nothing more than an obscure, end of the 80's video game made by a company that no longer exists.
But what about this video game is worth bringing up now? First of all, there's an actual *story*. Not the generic "you're in this place, and you have to kill a bunch of bad-guys/scary things and/or rescue someone." Sure, now, the story sounds a bit cheesey: a constructed planet filled with nasty alien types is headed for Earth, and it's left up to this one lone android (that transforms into a jet-looking space ship, by the way), to activate the self destruct switches and blow the thing up. And speaking of gameplay? There's an action/adventure view when she's in her android form, where she collects items and finds passages, and then there's a shoot-em-up (which, by the way, is quite good even within the genre) where she battles enemies and bosses in her jet form to activate aforementioned switches and/or gain more powerups. Did I mention it's non-linear?
In all honesty, there'd really need to be just a few tweaks to the storyline and gameplay and it would fit perfectly into today's gaming palette. I mean, c'mon. A robot-plane chick, a more than respectable load of powerups and weapons, significant challenge, and a storyline that's just about fit for a movie. Not to mention the music, which is pretty cool of itself. And this was for the NES, not the playstation, not even super nintendo or genesis. This was for that regular bulky box of a gaming console.
And heck, I could use a good space shoot-em-up. I think starfox 64 was really the closest thing you could find to something like that, and there's still so much potential for all of this.
Anyway, I'm done for now.