The More Things Change… The Clink all the way to the Credits.

As a fun rebuttal to the Angsty Gaijin’s take on the “wisening” up of game companies, I am afraid that the industry has shown that they haven’t wised up, in fact they pull the same old pony tricks.

Now, and this is hardly sentimental, I look at games with a very particular lense of my adolescence. I believe that the greatest period of games began with the coin clink at the beginning of Super Mario World and ended with Halo 2’s credits.

That’s a hell of a period, but I’ll explain why.

There were games of varying quality in this period, but I think you could point to any game of any merit (including Spyro, Final Fantasy 8, and even Super Mario World) and you could single out the faults. Looking back at the developer diaries and making of the games, you can definitely see that games had some cuts. You could see the rush.

Super Mario World has been considered rushed by its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. But it is a fantastic game. Its color palate is still unbeaten, and you can see the tiny points where rushing may or may not have occurred. It’s not a game without its flaws, but in truth it was a semi-rushed release game that withstood any evident criticism. It also displayed Mode 7, in some very rudimentary forms at the end. But Mode 7 was the beginning of mature 3D console gaming. It showed an imperfect solution to a huge gaming problem…

great minds can overcome hardware limitations.

Steven Hawking would agree with that.

And if you look at most games from that era, be they on the Nintendo 64 with Star Wars: Pod Racer, or Final Fantasy 7’s numerous discs, there were few problems that couldn’t be solved with a little bit of spitshine and polish.

With the Xbox’ storage and horsepower, a lot went out the window. Gone were the ideas that you couldn’t have a massive game, gone were the ideas that online gaming on a console wasn’t a mere diversion, but a serious competition for the PC.

Also, with that game, it marked the first time that a well-made game would be considered irrevocably flawed. The criticism of game decisions was never louder, the flaws of the experiments never more glaring.

Now, if you have to change discs, it’s a crime (RE4). Or don’t have progressive scan. Or use and ship with a ridiculously expensive and poorly assembled controller (DDR). You can’t have a shitty camera (Ninja Gaiden II) the way you could with Ninja Gaiden. Even the big lads can’t escape. Since Halo 2, no Mario, nor Metal Gear, nor Final Fantasy, nor Smash Brothers, nor Zelda has been considered half as good as what came before.

Take it another way. Ico is a fucking brilliant game. Shadows of the Colossus is better in many ways. But most gamers harp on about Colossus’ length and pant heavily at the thought of more Ico.

Criticism… has changed.

There are things about Halo 2 that unleashed a different wave and mentality in the internet, the way no semi-perfect game had before. It raised the bar and made gamers more aware of a game’s flaws. Suddenly, the experience of a great game was jarred by deadlines. Choices were made that weren’t vetted properly. And it affected the game every single step of the way.

Spyro couldn’t cut it in this climate. The great early games of the Gamecube, the charm if imperfect world of the Prince of Persia remake. All those games of PS2 and PSX origin that you can smile about now (Ehrgheiz)… ah. Those were the days. Tony Hawk used to make great games. You wouldn’t know it now. In a post Halo 2 world, no Tony Hawk game has come close to the hype or plaudits of the original.

That’s not to say there aren’t great games. That would be a lie. It’s just to say that there’s a remarkable difference in the way a game’s flaws are perceived by the buying public that has made anything short of perfection forgivable.

Mirror’s Edge, as a hasty 3D Playstation 2 concept, would be forgiven for its poor mechanics 6 years ago. Banjo and Kazooie Nuts and Bolts would be forgiven for spending too much time not having fun. Metal Gear would be forgiven for its lengthy prose, and the Wii Codes wouldn’t be such a pain if we didn’t know any better.

But Halo 2 was the shifting point.

Now flaws are unforgivable, and concepts have to be perfectly executed. This falls in contrary to the publisher’s main goal of making money. They need to make shortcuts, but nothing ever captured the cheesy and acceptable charm of Bowser floating around in bad, pixely Mode 7.

Now games like Superman 64 existed before Halo 2; this is not an argument about bad games or the like. Bad games are bad. Flawed games are now bad, when before they were damn neat and maybe a ton of fun.

Part of the problem is that, yes, the economy changed. But gaming opinion took a more negative slant on itself faster than the financial markets. Games still sold, but suddenly store like Gamestop were considered a prime threat. Why would you ever want to sell our neat game?

The other part of the problem is that games in 3D, with such elevated graphics and story, cannot settle for anything short of perfection. Is marketing finally loosening its grip on the consumer?

No such luck, I’m afraid. Hype floats the Wii in many forms, and Motor Storm still sold a ton. If you took any of the recent Sonic games and push Spyro in his place, you wouldn’t sell half as many of the same game.

Marketing still works. Games will always have flaws and rushed cuts and deadlines, but until our mindset changes, it will be game over for more good ideas. Will it change? No clue, but I do know what Mario did. It began with a clink, opened a colorful world, and began a time where anything, truly, was possible. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it sure was fun. I hope we can go back there someday. That’s a fight we should finish.