Where have all the platformers gone?

[Marcus Dublin]

First I’d like to state that I’m an old school gamer, I grew up in the 8 bit and 16 bit golden era of gaming. By the time the original Sony Playstation came out I was already in my late teens, up until then my favorite genre’s growing up were platformers, RPG’s, fighting games, and shooters “ie” top down and vertical shooters! With that said technology has advanced further and further giving us much more realistic and immersive worlds to play in, and has bred new genres like shooters, sandbox games, etc! What has me bothered as I look across the gaming landscape though is the extinction on one of my favorite genres which is the 3d platformer, I mean the only game of its kind I see on the horizon is Mario galaxy! The new Ratchet & Clank while awesome looking isn’t really a tried and true platformer and leans more in the 3p shooter category. Something like Mario, Crash, and Sonic, even Nights represent the true essence of what I love about the genre.

As much as I enjoy fragging it up with my buddies in the latest shoot em up bang bang game I can’t help feeling deprived in my gamers diet! I fired up my PS2 and loaded up the original Jak and Daxter and had a blast, it’s been so long since I’ve played a game that just rewards me for getting from point A to point Z without firing a shot! It’s a truly relaxing thing to just runaround and play in an environment without worrying if you’re going to get sniped. I realize the new generation of gamers grew up on Master Chief instead of Mario but are all these kids today playing FPS’s and sports games? I had such high hopes for Nintendo but it seems like casual games hijacked the market much like FPS’s in there hey day and my hopes of seeing titles like this coming out of the big “N” are pretty much futile. Anyway I was just wondering if there are any other platformer fans out there and if you guys miss the genre as much as I do. By the way does anyone know of any game along these lines coming out, or better yet is anyone working on something like this?

Marcus

[Hito]

Raiden FTW.

There's always Metal Slug Anthology; that's on Wii I think.

R-Type final is pretty good, kinda slow though. Not bad if you find it in a bargain bin.

[East]

I think all of us end up feeling the way you do about our favourite gaming genres. For me, it's the traditional story-driven adventure games (like the Quest games, and Infocom's text based ones) that lay close to my heart, and as we all know, they are long past their days of glory and grandeur.

Your best bet might be to look beyond the bigger publishers, and developers, and dive into the more independently developed products. That's where I get my fixes nowadays, and you'd be amazed at the quality of things you find.

I agree however that it's a shame that a developer like Nintendo focuses more on the casual market, and their biggest announcement at E3 is a product like Wii Fitness. I can't blame them, though. We're but a very narrow, small group, us "normal" gamers. Right now Nintendo is in it for the money, trying to cash in big time, and infiltrate every house, apartment, and cottage.

Despite this, I have a feeling we'll see somewhat of a renaissance in the true platformer genre before long..

[Masakari]

Hum... i really really dislike platform games ever since they transitioned to 3d - give me Mario, Sonic, or Disney in emulation any day of the week! I grew up with them on NES, GB, SNES, Master System, and Megadrive (Genesis for those in the US), and i think platform games don't translate well to 3d. They become akin to the first Tomb Raider game, but without guns.

The point-and-click adventure is another genre that more or less bit the dust, but is one of my favorites - the Space Quest series, King's Quest series, Larry's, Beneath a Steel Sky, Sam & Max hit the road, Day of the Tentacle, Indy 3 & 4, The Dig, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango (this one already in 3d), all great classics. With the PSX breaking games into the mainstream, what casual gamers really want is a quick fix, thus this type of game just disappeared, which was a shame!

[Kalango]

Yeah i realy think the portables will handle the plataform games untill....the next portables i think?

[xvampire]

2d platform (non side scroll)
Flash back!!!

point and click -
Monkey Island series

giveee baack my lovely genreee T_T