Praxis wrote:Exactly, and I figure further in the future these kinds of convergences will increase.
Of course, since it's a bloody obvious idea that has already been done countless times dating back to near the beginning of the medium. The problem is that it pretty much always sucks. When I load up an RTS, it's because I want to
play an RTS. If I wanted a first-person shooter I'd play one of those instead. I consider it an immense failing of a strategy game if I have to go in and micromanage individual units. That's not the point of that type of game.
Of course, RTS/FPS hybrids are a somewhat extreme example. There have been instances where combining genres has worked rather well, such as in the Hero's Quest series and Guardian Legend. The thing is, in both those cases, the genres that were being combined were fairly similar to begin with. RPGs and graphic adventures are both fairly slow-paced games that rely on the player's ability to think their way through the various problems they encounter, instead of being primarily a test of reflexes, and action/adventure games and shoot-'em-ups are fairly similar for precisely the opposite reason.
I actually hope that game companies
stop trying to constantly "innovate" by tossing togeather gimmicks for no reason other than the fact that they haven't been done too many times recently. I don't care if a game is made using a well-used framework, as long as it's a well-done use of that framework and, above all, fun to play. For instance, one of my favourite games of all time, The Longest Journey, is essentially identical from a gameplay perspective as The Secret of Monkey Island, produced a decade before, however is was still good because it was extremely well-executed and because the gameplay model it was based on
worked, and worked well.
Of course, then they decided to throw all that out for the sequel and make it yet another hybrid game, but I'll reserve judgement on that until I play it.