'Most games are really boring'

PS2 News | Says Mr Katamari Damacy.

The only game to have engaged Keita Takahashi recently is Ico. Keita who? Well, in case you didn't know, Keita Takahashi is the man behind Namco's splendid Katamari Damacy and its sequel We Love Katamari. And in a recent interview with Japanese rag Hardcore Gamer Magazine, Takahashi-san laid into games in general, claiming that 'most games are really boring.' To which we say: Christonabike, he's right!

In the article, Takahashi-san also admitted that he 'wasn't a big gamer'. When the magazine asked him if he was trying to appeal to female gamers, Takahashi-san moodily replied with, 'I did not try to appeal to any group in particular. I'm not a big gamer, so I don't feel as though I am locked into the same design patterns as most game designers.' He followed that up with his 'boring' quip, a refreshing view to hear from a leading developer in this age of careful PR and controlled soundbites. He rounded it off by confessing his admiration for Ico which, if we're honest, has only made us love him more.

Anyway, we'd like to hear what you lot have to say about this, so point your little PAL browsers towards our forums and get commenting.

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17 Comments

Capoeira

6 years ago

Katamari bored me Mr Takahashi. How you like them apples? Huh?!

Kidding, just a little shock value to throw you off...

He likes ICO. That makes everything he has to say correct.

Although I don't necessarily agree with him. I haven't played many games that have bored me. Actually I can't think of any that have bored me, off the top my head anyway. But I think Japanese people, especially talented, creative and slighty insane Japanese people (he did create Katamari) function on a different frequency than us lay people, so I'm not expecting his views to match my own.

Andronicus

6 years ago

I'd agree that SOME games are getting boring.
I find many new games to be quite stale and unoriginal.
That's not to say that they all are, but a number of them are.
Dont get me wrong, there's some awesome stuff out there right now.
I like quirky new stuff. I think games like Pikmin, Wario Ware, Katamari, and so on, have really given gamers something "new" and different (and dare I say it... refreshing).
I haven't owned an FPS for some time, as a find many of them to be cookie-cutter affairs.
I'd hate for my favourite game series to head down the same path.
I'm 100% for original ideas (which is why Nintendo's new concept is really up/down my alley).

NismoR34

6 years ago

Compared to his two brilliant games and the game he enjoyed, ICO, I think his comments are fair. The majority of games out there when compared to such gems are boring. When not compared, they fare better and well they aren't that boring. Yes I am being contradictive here, but hopefully everyone will understand the point I'm trying to make.

Thankfully, gamers like myself have a nice balance between the sequels/rehashes and the intriguing new stuff such as the aforementioned titles.

Chris-Leigh

6 years ago

Nah, I reckon he's absolutely spot-on. Being in a position where you're receiving review code really opens your eyes to how much shovelware really is out there. I think when you're a consumer shopping on a limited budget month in, month out, a lot of the crap seems to fly by without you noticing.

Jeremy

6 years ago

Of course there are boring games. Just like there are boring movies, boring books and boring people. I don't agree that a majority are boring, but there certainly are a lot of them.

armageddon12

6 years ago

I'd say the vast majority of games are boring, but we just don't notice them. I think in some respects in the Japanese market this is a more substantial criticism. Dating sims and RPGs are pretty much the main focus, both of which have incredibly boring gameplay (imo, highly generalised, its not like all of them have boring gameplay). So I think he's right to a degree.

realitybites

6 years ago

Matter of taste really. Like anything else in life you should always do your research first before purchasing.

I didn't find Half Life 2 boring at all.

Nor Jade Empire.

Nor Halo (original at least).

Nor Eternal Darkness.

Online gaming isn't boring either although I question the effect on people's lives when WoW and Guild Wars is more important than anything else around them.

I'm not partial to Japanese RPGs and I found almost the majority of them to be cliche and repetitive. But that doesn't mean all RPGs are boring. Just Japanese ones :

.

As for shovelware there is tons of it and with possibly over 130 different console titles to hit us before Christmas even if you follow the old 80/20 rule that means only about 26 are going to be half decent.

ObsoletE

6 years ago

like most people it seems, i partially agree to what he said.

some games are boring, some aren't, some have elements that are boring.

i'll use FPS games as an example, i personally loved Half-Life 2 overall, but there were parts that bored me during the game, mostly these were good scenes that went just that little bit too long.

Halo bored me the whole way through. well, kinda correct. i played through this game mostly on autopilot. maybe it was because i played the PC version, and by that stage FPS games had evolved using elements of Halo that it just didn't engage me, i don't know. i do wonder why i kept playing it though. maybe it was a slow game week or something. Doom 3 was also a bit like this, i initially enjoyed it though, but got too samey. i've yet to finish Doom 3.

and then FarCry i loved from beginning to end, i think i finished this in record time (for me). i am not usually someone who sits down and plays a SP game solely and solidly until finished, i usually swap around a bit. this i finished in a few days, then replayed it immediately after.

KOTOR i loved, KOTOR2, i'm yet to finish. suffers too much from "More of the Same" disease.

i also agree about Japanese RPGs, but then most Western ones have the obligatory "basement full of rats could you please clear them for me?" quest. more western Sci-Fi RPGs are needed, the last good one i can remember (non-SW anyway) were/are the Fallout games.

Kloppy

6 years ago

Jeremy wrote

Of course there are boring games. Just like there are boring movies, boring books and boring people. I don't agree that a majority are boring, but there certainly are a lot of them.

I would say most games are boring. For every HL2 there's a jazzillion mediocre FPS released, week in week out.

However, I think your comparison to movies is spot on. Just like I'm unlikely to go the the local aleph-null-plex to see Matrix 3 -even though everyone says how terrible it is- just too see how it ends.

(Like I'm not going to buy every year's installment of NBA Live. )

I'd rather spend my ticket money on seeing something different at one of the arthouse cinemas.

Another comparison could be to music; Sadly "most" people like pop. That's great, but for me it doesn't cut it. I can see that in a few years time, you can have your EB stores (say Sanity equivalents) and hopefully there'll be more specialty game stores (say Au-go-go equivalents).

Thor

6 years ago

Yeah but rolling around picking **** up is hell fun:|

Hunter

6 years ago

If all games were excellent then how would we know that they were excellent?

games are getting more boring because ideas for them are starting to run dry, there are only so many variatoins on a theme that you can produce to a decent level, so production has to focus on differant ways of presenting the idea, therefor once again only so many ways of doing that.

im in agreance that half of the games hanging around are boring, but differant games will be boring for differant people, its just the way things work.

But just because a game is boring doesnt mean i wont play it, for some reason i like a bit of mind numbingness on occasion to make the time go by

Coldplayer

6 years ago

I Agree Most games are relaly boring. out of the 16 Xbox games i currently have i only actuly like about four.

Halo/Halo 2
Project Gothem Racing 2
Dead or Alive Aultimate

the rest are just well, boring...

ZNMS

6 years ago

Boring? It just depends on the user.

Chris-Leigh

6 years ago

'Yeah but rolling around picking s--t up is hell fun.'

Spot the user who's never played Katamari.

Thor

6 years ago

No i havent but i dont need to really, its not the type of game that would interest me and i dont need to play it to know that.

Chris-Leigh

6 years ago

Well really, you should probably try something before knocking it down.

As a big fan of the game, I'm probably biased, but take my word for it: I've shown almost a dozen people Katamari Damacy, ranging from hardcore RPG fans to PC gamers to people with more casual gaming habits (SingStar etc), and they all ended up falling in love with it.

Seriously, if you can find it, just give it a try mate. It will probably defy your expectations.

Thor

6 years ago

Maybe, if i get a chance to play it i will.

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