This phenomenon known as fanboyism or flaming the other side has been the most single juvenile sign of our industry and it’s consumers… Any gamer knows that you have to have more than one system. Even in the Sega vs Nintendo era both S & N had unmissable exclusives (eg. Sonic & Shenmue for S, and Mario & Zelda for N). And even now the same rules applies. (e.g. Gears, KOTOR, fable for Xbox and Heavy Rain. Killzone, Last of Us for PS) To name just a few…Real gamers love gaming not systems…

It’s really about time that GS got a facelift, but I fear we might be experiencing a face off aswell…

+ Cool color palette

+ Mainstreaming of scores

+ Good video player

+ Excellent use of screenshots

- Cannot click on a game company to see their chronological release history (very useful GS only feature)

- GS vs Metacritic side by side score is gone (worst part of the new design)

- Cannot easily choose which platform (Xbox / ps / pc / etc)

- Messy layout, +/- + conclusion and score should be on top

- BoxArt gone!

- Download gone (not too bad)

Score 7

Joseph Salomonsen

Here is my response to Rob Pardo in GDC'10:

http://gdc.gamespot.com/story/6253464/blizzards-pardo-serves-up-game-design-secret-sauce

Well Mr. Pardo gives some very good insights into Blizzards design philosophy, lots of brilliant ideas. But it also reveals his EQ roots, and highlights the weakness in Blizzard.

1- That he didnt understand why developers spent "time crafting a 10-hour single-player campaign", well that is IMHO the biggest weakness of blizzard, their games are shallow story wise, and the narrative resembles a teen essay compared to BioWare or Bethesda.


2- That he did not understand why graphics was important. Well that is the the second weakness of blizzard, their games are never cutting edge graphic wise. WoW is a good example, it was not even "cutting edge" in 2005. And the reason its important is that now in 2010 its looks are irritating, the the UI for example is flawless.

An open letter was published recently by Richard Garriot about him leaving the industry. Here is my open answer:

Greetings

As an avid follower of your craft from the days of Akalabeth to the apogee of Ultima VII, and the flawed yet innovative Tabula Rasa it makes me sad that you are leaving. Not as much for you leaving Destination Games, but more so from the sounds of it Lord British leaving the gaming industry.

For me Origin indeed created worlds, worlds that people like me partly made to our habitat. But perhaps your most lasting and influential achievement is introducing a paradigm of morality in games.  Principles like truth, love and courage, and virtues like compassion and humility totally nonexistent in gaming and increasingly becoming foreign in a modern world, became hopefully a integral part of our behavior. Indeed with your endeavors, our "blank slate" became somewhat edified.

Godspeed