I love Angry Birds, it's a great game. It's based on a simple concept that is well executed and instilled with a sense of humor and a specific style that sets it apart (after all, it was hardly the first 'fling things at stationary objects' game), so I read this article over on Kotaku with interest.
Should a 'game like that' be considered for game of the year awards? In my humble opinion, of course it should. It does make me wonder again about what people expect in games these days. To me, a good game is a good game, regardless of it's genre or styling. So I find it curious that there might be people out there that don't think a game like Angry Birds would be worthy of consideration for Game of the Year gongs.
There are of course those games that have huge budgets, elaborate storylines, and the good ones also deserve the credit they get and all those award nominations...but for me it is important that we also continue to appreciate the best games that are, well, you know...really good games.
...I could also go on about why I think Angry Birds actually deserves more credit than it gets (personally I think those damned birds and pigs have more character than some of the voice acted high rez characters I might mention), but really, the sheer amount of time many of us have spent playing the game should probably speak for itself.
So what about you guys? Do you consider a game like Angry Birds in the same context as Mass Effect or Red Dead Redemption? Or does a game have to meet some other standard for you to consider it worthy of award nominations?
Comments
Even if it isn't fair, some people just like railing on anything even vaguely linked to an Apple product.
This doesn't mean that I don't enjoy "simple" games like ohsay Plants & Zombies (never played Angry Birds). I sometimes invest ridiculous amounts of my freetime in them. It's just that in the end they are fun to play with until I get bored but are little more than time-killers or minute distractions that I probably won't remember that fondly. A good game should be like a good book. Fascinating, interesting, immersive and it has to get stuck in your mind and have you pondering on it.
Deep and entertaining story line, certain phrases, character expressions, moments (like the one where Leliana's sings a song in camp, i was mesmerized and will never forget), ost worthy of a big Hollywood movie (like AoC :) ), "realistic" graphics that immerse you in the universe, etc... all that together is unique, games like Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombie are really fun, but for me they will never be in the same context of triple AAA games.
And i say: "I find it curious that there might be people out there that think a game like Angry Birds would be worthy of consideration for Game of the Year gongs."
Well, I played Angry Birds and loved it...but the problem is that I played a lot of other games, and if you asked me what was your GOTY, Angry Birds would not be in my top titles, for example ME2 would be, AC2 would be, Civ 5 would be..well and Angry Birds would be..at the end of this list.
I cant compare the gaming pleasure that for example AC2 or DoW Chaos Rising MP gave me, with the fun of Angry Birds, its a fun game, loved it..but i loved much more those other games that I mentioned for example.
And I cant believe that for example in a list of GOTY 2011 with games like ME3, Crysis 2, The Witcher 2, Diablo 3, TES V, Batman AC, Portal 2 etc...(and supposing that you would have played all of those for example) you would vote on Crazy Birds as GOTY.
They are set on completely different gaming "standards" and I simply cant put them side by side.
But. I really don't like angry birds that much. :) so it wouldn't top my list.