This is good:
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/the-death-of-the-video-game-expert
It is an exciting time for the gaming and game journalism industries. But for me, it is also a bit of a sad time: The diversification of knowledge and opinions about video games is becoming so large and stratified that it is impossible to take it all in. Ironically, just as the pool of hopeful game journalists begins to explode, the writers themselves will find their prospective audiences narrowing. Which of the new breed will you become?
and very, very true.
From the time the DC died in (lets say) 2002 I bought a ridiculous number of games over the following 5 years, and it reached the point where I barely played anything for more than an hour. Why? Well I'm more interested in innovation than I am in playing a good game, so I would normally seek out anything interesting first, and anything good second (hoping that the two intersect reasonably often).
From around the point of the DS's second year that simply became impossible.
I probably was a 'video game expert' as the article describes it, but not for the last three years, as the quantity of worthwhile games became impossible for an individual to get a rounded experience of. Now an informative bit of games journalism or writing or opinion can only come from specialists, which is why in general games journalism has nose dived, as it is impossible to editorially cover the entire spectrum in a balanced way.
I've restricted what I play now to arcade and music games, as well as being interested in the hardware itself (so I'll have a nose at other genres that do interesting things with hardware). Its a real shame, as there are some really great games I know I'm missing, but... not enough time to play them all.
Similar here. I'm very focused on Arcade titles, which for me, a lot of the time this equates to 'retro' gaming. Since I started my console obsession with the Saturn (near death too) I missed a load of stuff first time around. At the moment I'm camped out on ebay just picking up random Sega stuff for a pound (delivered) and checking it out. Also just got myself a Master System 1
.
I just don't have the time to flirt outside of my preferred niches. FPS, RPG, Strategy and a bunch of other genres are perfectly fine, but not my poison. I do tend to read up on these periodically to keep myself reasonably well informed even if I've not played the latest and greatest. Very occaisionally a game will come along that hooks me and that can be from any genre.
Innovation and strong concepts or mechanics sell me titles, the other thing is price. If I can get a game for a quid or two it just seems rude not to.
Perhaps part of the problem is that games are more technically involved. There's a lot going on under the hood these days, that's not to take anything away from older games, but the systems and rule sets aroud today are so complicated you could write a 400 page guide on.... oh wait!
A lot of the time I think I'm able to critique a game and tear it apart regardless of genre or my experience. Usually this will be against my own inate metrics, but I hope I can still understand why certain development decisions were made during the creative process. For example: I absolutely can not get on with the huge length of time it takes to change weapon in COD MW2, but I understand why it takes an age and how that impacts on strategy and the game as a whole.
Current games do not necessarily carry any meaningful complexity. Take SF4 for instance, lots of moves that have little use and serve as fluff, such as Sagat's fake kick whose window is so small you'll be lucky to even pull it off whilst your opponent launches a projectile or triggers a command throw, it's not a viable option. Another scenario is the one where the game is buried under so much content and locks you in a corridor (FF13) before it opens up in full - or spread thin with too much content, Trials HD could certainly be condensed into fewer and tighter track designs.
I hope to see more games adopt Daytona's Rolling Start - get to the point please!
Rolling Start -- I like that sentiment
I'm really enjoying Trials HD. I'm still trying to get to grips with the skill set needed to navigate the courses efficiently.
What's slightly upsetting about it is the early easy tracks are really focused on speed runs or big flipping jumps, but the further in you get the more technical and jiggly the tracks get. I would have liked to have seen some harder faster paced courses in the higher difficulties
. That's not to take anything away from the technical tracks, which are also fun; they're just so different to the tracks in the demo version.
How about placing them in categories based on their nature? I had that in mind playing it, and selecting the best of each flavour because most tracks do not get more than a handful of runs.
Trials HD collapses in on itself with some naive difficulty arc. I am official stuck/no more/can't be bothered to try where they just have an obstacle which you need to accelerate to a point where the back wheel can get traction, whilst the fuselage is on it. Apparently a lighter bike might do it , just a shame it slaps you in the face so thoroughly.
Be nice if there was a per obstacle sort of demo room so you could practice.... wait, you can design levels... hmmm....
The level designer seems to be well implemented. There does seem to be some sort of weight shifting technique that is required to pop up onto the more vertical obstacles, but I can't get it down. Also I'm not convinced that the weight shifting is as analogue as I initially thought there only appears to be about 3 rider positions, which makes me think it's a digital thang. I've not been able to get anywhere on Extreme
and I'm being rinsed by you guys on times for most of the tracks (save a couple 
)
I thought rider position was digital too. I've not played it enough to know for certain, I got to medium/hard when the difficulty spikes too much and gave in to frustration.
Hmm, there's defo some nasty difficulty spikes in there. There are certain obstacles where I'm having to fluke my way over them. It's telling that even when I pass a difficult obstacle I don't seem to be able to replicate what I did to get over it. There's also an annoying trade off between the two 125 scorpion bikes. The tracks feel like you need to use both in a run to get over everything cleanly.
Still love the game though. Instant restarts, minigames and the presentation is bob on too.
This thread is waaay off topic