Lately, it seems that modern video games impress me less and less.

I'll save the "What's become of our arcades!?" rant for a later date, and focus on the console titles for the moment.

Basically, it seems to me that a lot of new titles lack a certain magic that older (pre 2000) titles used to have. It wasn't the 'classic' gaming thing, where you could pick it up and play, and the objective was to eat all the dots. It wasn't the idea that the score was the objective.

I'm not talking about things that old. But I look at well made games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I've got a handful of flaws I can point out about that game, most of which could actually be considered to be my own fault, since they involve knowing where to go and what to get there. Anyway. Castlevania: SotN is a fantastic game that's relatively straight-forward. You walk, you jump, you hit things with your stabbiter, and so on. But then it builds on that. You can get a whole bunch of nifty items. You can get dozens of different weapons. You can find all these secrets.

SotN is a game with a lot of things to find, and is very rewarding to explore. Even if you never figure out the magic spells. But then you look at the PS2 Castlevania with such a forgettable name I can't even remember what it was.

I don't remember much about it except that it was very very uninteresting. Also, I was paid 5 dollars to take it. No, seriously. EB was running a promotion that gave you 5$ extra on each game you traded in if you bought one of their five 'hot new releases'. I had enough games to trade in that the extra 5$ per game gave me 5 extra dollars after picking up the new Castlevania. Wouldn't have picked it up otherwise, and when I finally got around to opening it (some months later) I promptly traded it in for cash value at the EB again (netting a cool 13$, which shows you how much the game depreciated in value over the course of about three months).

It seems to me that a big deal is made about innovation in gaming. But there's a whole lot that's either TOO innovative, and just so complicated/clunky it's not even worth it, or so non-innovative you have to wonder why.

Too much in gaming these days is rehashing or bad sequels. It's not that sequels are bad. It's just that ... well ... most sequels are bad. And games, as a rule, are far, far, far too trendy.

For example: "Like Devil May Cry with...."

I'm reasonably sure that if a gamer wants to play Devil May Cry, there's nothing keeping him from picking up ... Devil May Cry. And if they want a sequel, I've been told one already exists. This is where the lack of innovation comes in.

Are gaming publishing companies afraid to break new ground for some reason? I could see that. A lot of 'ground-breaking' games are pretty suck-tacular. But many of them are cool, too.

And as far as thinking they're taking the safe road by exploiting a popular genre, they'd probably get much more reward for more risk. From what I can see, knock-offs and clones tend to sell worse than even crappy 'revolutionary' games.

But I guess it costs a lot less to develop games based on something you've seen in action, versus something you make up yourself.

Either way, bottom line, I find myself caring less and less about more and more of the games that are coming out lately. I seem to prefer fewer titles.

I guess that's a good thing, though. Goes easier on my wallet.