The Eight Least Compelling Games of E3
7/24/2008 1:08 AM | 10 Comments | Page 3 of 4
Chris Buecheler
Status: Muthaaaaa ... tell your children not to WALK MY WAY-HUH!
Onward, to more piles of bricks!
The
LEGO Star Wars series turned out to be an excuse to print money, so apparently I'm in the minority here, but I didn't find the combination of "Star Wars: Now With Mutes" and uninspired, platform-y gameplay particularly enticing. The idea of "playing the movie" is a fun one, but "walk to next screen, hold down 'assemble puzzle' button, repeat
ad nauseum" doesn't really seem to capture the full experience.
I'm not sure how they're going to apply this to the Batman franchise ... Here you'll have a game where, yes, the fans will be familiar with the characters, but they won't have an entire set of plotlines pre-filled with exciting action pieces that conjure up 30 years of fond remembrance. What you will have, though, is lots of little piles of puzzle-bricks hopping around, waiting for you to stand in front of them and hold a button until a little machine pops up and ... buh ... zzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa11111111111111 ... sorry, I fell asleep on my keyboard.
Spore's subtitle? "What the hell is going on here?"
Heresy! Sacrilege! No true gamer could possibly have any feelings about
Spore other than excitement, unremitting love, and possibly mild sexual arousal (judging by all of the things you crazy kids have been turning out using the
Spore Creature Creator). Will Wright is a god among men, and surely his latest creation will be yet another multi-platinum smash success and a true gift to the gaming world. Right?
Well, ok, I'll admit that it's possible. I didn't expect to like
The Sims, and I ended up spending way more hours than I'm willing to admit assembling ever-more-expensive furniture around my lesbian Mad Scientist and Sports Superstar couple. I played the hell out of
The Sims 2, too. Here's the question though: What, if anything, have you seen so far in
Spore that indicates there is
any kind of game there? I've seen a Creature Creator, and some mildly strategy-looking action that reminds me way too much of
Black and White for comfort.
I will concede that of the titles on this list,
Spore has by far the greatest chance of making me eat my words, but what I've seen
right now isn't really very compelling.
