I listen to a lot of podcasts these days, so I can’t remember on which one I heard it on, but on the topic of Microsoft wanting to branch out into the casual market, with Rare leading the way, someone said something to the effect that Rare is not exactly a family friendly game studio.  They have a strange sense of style.  Take Viva Pinata.  It was heavily marketed towards kids, but the people really enjoying it are adults that “get” the game, if you know what I mean. 

The other argument I hear is that Xbox Live Arcade is the vehicle to get casual gamers onboard 360.  Well, that just seems silly to me.  I mean, who’s going to buy a $300 system to play Hexic HD, and if Hexic HD is targeted towards the mothers and sisters of hardcore gamer, how does that expand the installed base?  That guy was going to buy the system anyways.

Getting to the point, I don’t generally consider myself an anti-Xbox, pro-PlayStation gamer.  In fact, if you were to bash the 360 in front of me, I’d be perfectly capable of standing up for the system.  Yet here I am, writing a blog almost entirely on PS3.  It might have something to do with the fact that there’s just a lot of PS3 hate out there, so I feel like I have to defend it, but mostly, I’m just more excited about the games coming to Sony’s machine. 

I’m not really a hardcore gamer.  I just like playing games.  If you show me Lair, that’s really easy to understand.  It’s about flying dragons, and you fight a lot of bad guys.  I have the basic idea that it’s an action game and a vague idea of how to play it.  I think a lot of people would “get” Lair as easily as that. 

Now, show me Mass Effect for 360.  It’s a space story of some sort and it’s an RPG, but that’s not what’s cool.  What’s cool is the game’s incredibly realistic looking facial animations, innovative interactive dialog, and customization features.  While I’m sure that a lot of people would agree with me that these things are cool, most of those people have probably played an RPG before.  They’ve at least seen RPGs with awkward, stilted dialog, which Mass Effect is going to do away with.  To see this more refined immersive experience is what’s cool about Mass Effect.  Still, to be excited about something like that is to be a game nerd.  Hardcore.  Or at least core.  See the difference?

I spent some time today thinking about why PS3 games seem more exciting right now, and I think this is why.  They look immediately exciting and fun, where as 360 games look exciting and fun, but it’s more under the surface.  It’s harder to get to.  Lair can be communicated in a screenshot, Mass Effect can not.  I think a lot of the games I’m looking forward to on the 360 are like that.  Halo 3, Bioshock, Blue Dragon, and Splinter Cell aren’t simple games.  They’re complex ideas that need a gamer’s mentality to really appreciate. 

Does that make Lair shallow?  Maybe, but it sure seems exciting.  It’s like summer blockbusters versus the movies that win Oscars, but sometimes you just want to watch blockbusters.  So there’s my justification.