I heard a bit of distubing news on "The Hot Spot" yesterday. It was pretty much unanimous that fighting games are pretty much old news. I dont want to beat a dead horse by saying "video games are not as inventive as they used to be." Instead, I will be more specific. When I first played powerstone I thought to myself that this is going to be the direction fighting games will go in the future. I'm not talking about the cartoony graphics, but the way you could interact with just about anything. Imagine a fighting game with a ninja, a samurai, a comando, a spartan, a barbarian, ext. done with todays graphics in fully interactive arenas ala powerstone. Used with weapon procurement on site. Each would have to play to their strenths.

For me, my opinion is just the opposite of "The Hot Spot". I enjoy halo 3. As I've enjoyed halo 2. And bioshock, gears of war, call of duty, the list goes on. I guess this will be the decade of the FPS. My problem is, with so many FPS out there, you would think there would be more innovation. The fact is, there has been very little. Halo 1 had the "lets make a FPS, and put vehicles seemlessly in there". Gears nailed the duck and cover. In my opinion, thats it for large inovations. Am I doomed to play gears of halo 6 for the rest of my ps3 and 360's life? If so, than they will collect a lot of dust.

On to innovation. I do not mean innovation should have some cute but edgy mascott who discovers their new powers that give a game play twist. On the contrary, I am to old and jaded to buy that garbage. Instead, give me choices. Even if it means developing a more versatile game engine. Now I know this takes time, but people, its worth it. I think that is why GTA is so big. Sure there is the mindless violence, but to me, that was not its selling point. It was that there was just so much to do. Even the missions themselves were varied. Why don't more developers make games with that kind of varied game play? I would have loved to have master cheif do a bombing run in a pelican to clear the way for my troops. Or set bombs at key instillations as a key objective instead of just kill them all. Or have him steal covenant parts to upgrade or make new weapons to bring to bear against the enemy.

Maybe as we move on, even the diehard halo fans will want more. No longer satisfied with doing the same thing for the past 7 years, a public outcry will finally be heard, and gaming can move on. Until then, I'll have to settle for pretty graphics, and some better story ala bioshock.