Imagine that.

*sigh* Now this really bugs me. Like way more than it should, and I know it, but it really is one of those things that stimulates my mind and memory as much as it does my frustration, and that's usually when I've got to fuss about it in some blog article so here we go. I love a lot of things about gaming, and there's a lot about it to be loved. We have some of the best characters, most interesting worlds, some awesome adventures, and the offering to enjoy it all through our own interactions. That's a part of the wonders of imagination and creativity working with gaming. However as gaming tries to awkwardly put on a suit and tie, and look all matured to be taken "seriously" (whatever that means) some of the most stupid and immature stuff comes out of some the mouths of those behind it. Sadly it comes now from an incredible developer that thinks they're too good and mature to be doing the fun and imaginative stuff.

When asked about if Naughty Dog felt bad about missing out on their past, I get what they were thinking. Its fine to say that your new goal is with character driven games, and it really is. As a matter of fact I want to make it perfectly clear that despite my usual preferences, I think Uncharted and Last of Us are better than Crash and Jak & Daxter. For whatever reason I couldn't get into them quite as well, and when it came to people taking side with Insomniac or ND I was always with Insomniac, but Uncharted remains possibly my favorite 3rd person shooter, and Last of Us was incredible with its execution. Meanwhile I have little if any drive to look back to their older stuff. By contrast Insomniac's new IPs actually haven't been as good, though I still stand behind R&C's real games so there's still that. So... Naughty Dog do what you do now, and keep your good talent around, they're making great stuff. However shame on you for saying you've suddenly "grown up" just because you're busy making serious toned games, and/or implying that the past was some child's toy. Imagination is what fuels lots of modern day games, and its part of the whole incentive to enjoy games. On top of that, its just a disservice to yourselves. People loved Daxter's wise cracking jokes, the dramatic twist of who Jak was, ripping up the dessert in giant industrial cars armed with all sorts of crazy stuff as they took out huge dino-like beasts called "metal heads". We were sold on the idea of some guy in a silly cartoonified wombat suit going up and shouting mean things at Nintendo, only to then laugh at him in-game as he stumbles into dynamite crates leaving behind a pair of eyeballs and shoes. This was what you built yourselves up on, and if it wasn't for this you wouldn't be where you are today making arrogant statements and discouraging creativity in the biggest interactive medium out there. The medium that is supposed to be about fun, adventure, and exploring danger be it serious or surreal from the safety of our homes.

Adventure the video game way!

One of the reasons I got so into video games was the imagination. Before I even truly got really into it with Spyro, I was loving the animations of the putt-putt point and click adventures. When Spyro happened I was walking from realm to real to realm in amazing imaginative worlds with an enchanted charm to it all. Oh and the monsters! Wizards that shifted lands, metalic giant spiders that could only be beat with enchanted fairy fire, huge yellow horned beasts that weird penguin-like people tamed, and turtles that transformed into dragons when the light went out. It was so amazing! Then with the FPS genre there were so many awesome creature designs, interesting soldier uniforms, and crazy chaos in the palm of your hands with some odd ball weaponry. I especially loved awesome creature designs, like cyborgenetic lizard monsters. That carries well beyond just my quick favorites though. To this day I still look into games and take an interest if their art style is something special. Sure treasure hunting as Nathan Drake is a cool novelty, but not as cool as being a secret society that is trying to stop a rebellion that teams up with sub-human werewolf monsters in a retro-science fiction Victorian setting (I'm talking about The Order 1886 in case you need clarity). And that's just the surface of an imaginative setting, its still just another dark shooter with serious people. We could talk about BloodBorne's horrific tone, Evolve letting you play as a mutating monster and a bunch of super geared up elite squads of people, or good old fashion Mario who might as well be on a special kind of mushroom but we don't care, his world is silly fun and puts a smile on our faces as we enjoy collecting coins and shooting fire from our hands.

Gaming and imagination just work. While other mediums shows you someone's art, and lets you enjoy dreaming a bit, gaming is unique in that sense that you're actually a part of the imagination. You have input in this world, you have an interaction, you have a metaphorical (or maybe literal in a few cases) voice, and you're on a journey as much as the plot's scripted character. In a game like Okami you aren't just seeing a magical wolf help stuff under a nice art style, you're actually painting, playing with powers, and you feel so good when you make the innocent happy around you and bring their faith up. In Warhammer 40k you're not reading some space man story, you're either playing Dawn of War and waging your own war campaigns, or in Space Marine you're that supposedly unstoppable raw force slaughtering millions of orks with a chainsword. I'm glad I get to do that with games in addition to exploring their world, spying on fictional people, and picking up interesting documents detailing imaginative downfalls, hidden secrets, documents on aliens, and other nice surprises. That's what gaming is good for, more so than "grounded" story telling. Don't get me wrong you can still do that, and again Naughty Dog is good at it, but they still know somewhere down the line that they themselves need some imagination, otherwise there's no super stone to chase after, or it might be a really boring one. So it'd be great if they didn't scoff at their brilliant past, or limit themselves for the future. After all as one image puts it....