I'll start with NCAA, since that is fresher in my mind and I'll be better able to trash it... err, articulate my displeasure. The number one reason that I was looking forward to NCAA this year was the new Teambuilder feature. After so long, I'd finally be able to create a school and use it in online play. (Sure, I would also be able to use it in dynasty mode, but I'm less prone to playing dynasty these days since it has become a bloated and overly intricate shadow of its former last-gen self -- too much focus on boring recruiting instead of a streamlined and fun experience.) Naturally, this expectation was shattered by the wizards at EA, as created schools are not available in online play, but rather only in Play Now, Dynasty, and Online Dynasty modes. As all dynasty modes in this current console generation have become a mess that I refuse to put up with, that leaves me with only one option: Play Now. In other words, in order to play against another person with my North Florida Tiger Cats or South Texas Toros, two teams that I have spent many hours tweaking and perfecting, I have to go the old fashioned route: sitting in the same room in front of the same TV. While I actually prefer that method over online, distance and time constraints make it almost impossible to pull off very often (if ever). As such, the main reason for getting the new version of the game has been nearly negated, as my ability actually to use my created teams is effectively crippled. Fortunately, the game itself plays well, and has some really cool animations and plays (the flexbone is actually right in game, if not in dynasty simulation). I'm just disappointed that the game's major feature (for me, at least) didn't meet my expecations.
While NCAA's failings are in everything but the core gameplay (though I have some quibbles with that too), Ghostbusters is pretty much the exact opposite. It makes me really sad to say that, as Ghostbusters was part of the triumvirate of games (along with the as-yet-unreleased Brütal Legend and Beyond Good and Evil 2) that led me to get a 360 in the first place. My enthusiasm was still at its peak after my birthday, when I received the game as a gift. A couple hours in, I was still pretty psyched, as the game starts off in an exciting fashion: capturing Slimer, knocking the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man off the side of a skyscraper and crashing into the New York pavement below, and just the right blend of trademark Ghostbusters humor. Unfortunately, it started to get pretty bland from there. I've come to the conclusion that the game's lack of core variety is to blame. Though there are numerous locales, all of which are very well done and mostly interesting, the basic gameplay revolves around what amounts to little more than a generic clone of Gears of War -- a game that I'm not very fond of to begin with. There is only so much that can be done with the basic concept of shooting ghosts, and even at the game's six to eight hour length, the concept is being stretched pretty much to its limit. The story, though decent, feels like it would have been better as a movie -- at least until the latter third, in which it all starts to fall apart. Of course, in that case, why not just watch Ghostbusters again and enjoy true quality instead of slogging through uninspired gameplay to get a Ghostbusters fix? They did capture the feel of Ghostbusters, but the game itself wasn't nearly as fun as I thought it was going to be. I sincerely hope that the other two-thirds of the triumvirate are much more rewarding than this game was.
A lot of the games of this current generation have only solidified my belief that too much of a good thing is never actually a good thing. In the case of the two games I touched on above, I was much happier with previous incarnations of the intellectual property. NCAA 07, for example, was leaps and bounds above the latest current gen offering. I got more quality enjoyment out of that game than perhaps any other NCAA game I've ever had, and that's saying something since I have bought the game on day one every single year except for 08. 07 had excellent playbooks, solid gameplay both online and off, and the classic PS2-era dynasty mode that I still believe is the best dynasty concept yet presented. In fact, the only flaw that mode had was the in-season recruiting, but apart from that it was pretty much perfect. The stats were simulated well, teams that overachieved were invited to change conferences, and there was a very streamlined presentation that is lacking on the 360. My participation in the BSW league only enhanced my enjoyment of that game. (Furthermore, created teams were actually able to be customized, though they still could not be used online.)
Likewise, the original Ghostbusters movie (and even Ghostbusters II to an extent) is so much better than the recent video game outing. Though this is in part an example of the perils of switching medium (to which I am pretty strongly opposed), it's also an example of something old being resurrected to ill effect. Of course, it's still supposedly the best Ghostbusters game ever made, but that's not saying much. I'm not necessarily convinced that it's the best, as the old PC version of Ghostbusters II did a much better job of conveying the feel of being a Ghostbuster for hire via its gameplay than this new game ever did. In that regard, the old game was much more effective at using the strengths of its medium to convey its core idea twenty years before the newer game. (Interesting... I'll have to pick back up on that thought at some point.)
So many other games just feel like they've been done better in the past, especially on the PS2 or Super NES. More of my favorite games of all time are on those systems than on any others, which might make me biased to a degree, but perhaps it's just proving my point: there were fresher, more solid gaming experiences to be had on those systems than anywhere else (though PC has a strong argument). Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is much better than the reimagined Prince of Persia on 360 (and the two SoT follow-ups for that matter, furthering the argument that too much of a good thing is in fact a bad thing), BioShock is little more than a tweaked Doom 3 or Half-Life 2, and there's really nothing yet that can compete with the artistic qualities of Ico or Shadow of the Colossus. It's not that the newer games are bad -- I actually enjoyed both Bioshock and Prince of Persia. It's just that they don't seem to innovate to the same degree that some of the older games did. I can't really remember who said it, but the saying that "when you've got complete freedom, you tend to go with what you know; it's when you have to work under constraints that real creativity occurs" really holds true. Technologically, developers can do pretty much anything they want to these days, and it really shows -- both graphically and in the sense that they are sticking very closely to what they know.
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