This is a tough one for me so I will take the easy route and say Hideo Kojima. Even though I do not understand why he is deified by so many I must concede that he creates some of the most interesting and memorable characters in gaming
Voldo from Soul Calibur. Total weirdo creepshow.
I really enjoy character designs that incorporate some sort of exo suit. Runner up: Halo's Master Chief has a great set of power armor and the characterization is excellent...the stoic savior. Runner up: Shepard from Mass Effect has a large selection of suits and the option to choose your personality.
Winner: Isaac from Dead Space has a great set of suits but his characterization is the most compelling. He is a non combat engineer who is thrust into a very dange...
My disdain falls squarely on the money hatting issue. Supporting indies is both laudable and necessary. Imagine a world without Cuphead or Journey...I wouldn't want to. I reserve my ire for anti competitive deals like Rise of The Tomb Raider and Street Fighter 5 (the latter being the most egregious of the 2). I just cannot see how these types of deals have benefited gamers or gaming as a whole. Those monies would have been better spent elsewhere. I also want to make it clear that I ...
I would love it if old school, sprite based run and gun games could be remade or iterated upon using newer/different animation and rendering techniques. I love the classic pixel art style but I salivate at the idea of Metal Slug or Contra being made with today's technology.
Maybe not solely but predominately. MSFT was the king of the 3rd party timed exclusive last gen. PS2 was indeed the biggest offender in its era. PS4 is now continuing a trend that just doesn't benefit anyone except the platform holder. Only zealots can perceive some benefit where there is none.
Narrative driven melee/shooter action/action rpg games. This includes TPS, FPS and H&S. Some examples are Destiny, Horizon 0 Dawn, Witcher, Uncharted, GOW, Bloodborne, Darksiders, DMC, Hellblade, Wolfenstein, Mass Effect, Gears of War...Halo series but only up to 4. 99% of the games I enjoy are single player. I usually never play MP.
How so?
I really hope the timed exclusive goes away. It doesn't benefit the consumer. PUBG, Tomb Raider, Destiny, COD and even RDR2 all have something in common. They are all third party, multi platform games that have locked content or the entire game to one platform for some predetermined amount of time in an effort to attract consumers to the offending platform. This was solely a MSFT tactic last generation but Sony is now the king of the timed exclusive. From a corporate standpoint this ...
Greater exploration of adult, sexual themes in mature, mainstream games. It is funny that we have fetishized physical and gun violence but we are apprehensive and reluctant to fully portray real, human sexual interactions in mainstream games. Movies and mature rated television shows do it all the time and do not find their success negatively impacted (ie. Game of Thrones). It seems as if the industry is actually moving in the opposite direction with Sony imposing greater censorship and res...
The living world/shared world/persistent world concept. Games like Destiny, Anthem and Sea of Thieves didn't exist in the console space prior to this generation. World events and random collaborations with strangers to complete tasks were key features of RPGs on PC. Nowadays more games are using elements of the persistent world concept to push the idea or concept of gaming as a service. Whether you are a fan of this trajectory or not GAAS is probably where the industry will inevitably...
Lair PS3. The graphics and the dragon animations were great for a launch game but the motion controls were abhorrent and atrocious. Even after they patched in the analog control I could not bring myself to complete that trash.
I've played a lot of games in my life but the one that always sticks out is GTA5 campaign. It took me about 3 months to complete that game because I found myself foregoing the story missions for simple side missions and activities. I didn't do this because the story wasn't interesting. In fact it was the opposite. The story was so well done and the characters were so well developed that I wanted to prolong the experience. The side missions were also very entertaining.
The first games I ever played were on the Atari 800XL...Jungle Hunt, Choplifter, Mr. & Mrs. Pacman, Star Trek and Frogger. The 2 games that thoroughly blew my mind and made me a gamer for life were Super Mario Bros and Duckhunt for the NES. Writing this makes me come to grips with the fact that I am a dinosaur.
The Switch didn't snipe Vita. It was long dead and rotting before the switch showed up. A better analogy is that the Vita was a stinking rotting carcass in the desert and the Switch came along with a twelve gauge and desecrated the corpse. Vita never had a chance to compete with the Switch. If Sony treated the Vita like the PS3 or 4 we would have a different story.
I thank the universe everyday that I broke free from the addictive grasp of Destiny 1 back in July of 2017. I never bought a single unit of in game currency nor did I make a micro transaction but I did buy every "expansion". I will not be too harsh on the game itself because I did derive hundreds or thousands of hours of enjoyment though it was through uninspired, mindless repetition. I have no such qualms fully criticizing Bungie and Activision for their lazy, money gouging re-...
Bingo!
Looks fun. These modders are truly talented
...because it's awesome. One of the best single player campaigns to date.
Two way tie. Hideo Kojima and David Cage. Their games can be a bit heavy handed, overwrought and unnecessarily convoluted. They both attempt to weave meaningful messages and subtext into their stories but regularly fail at doing so effectively. To me, Kojima is talented but over-designs and lacks focus. Cage, on the other hand, is of middling talent and lacks nuance and impact in his writing.