Platforming

3D platforming is all based off of Super Mario 64. That game came out in 1996. Since then, there has been a lot of good platformers that followed it. Spyro had fewer moves but varied game play. Crash Bandicoot had a really quirky sense of humor. Sly Cooper was a solid platformer with a good atmosphere. Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank were some of the best platforming gamings on the PS2. But since mid 2000's, there has been a dearth of new platformers. Not counting Mario, the only platformer that still has any legs is Ratchet and Clank, and a lot of that game is about the wacky weapons.

My personal favorite

Now, I realize that platformers have a bit of a kiddy image to shake. On the PS3, the only platformer is Little Big Planet. Its a good game, but its 2D. And no matter how popular First person shooters are, jumping puzzles in FPS fail. You can't see your freaking feet in FPS, so forget about jumping accurately. I think the industry is pinning for a platformer with a more mature bent that can match up to Mario.

The closest thing was Jak II. It was a big step from its first game; it took a much more Grand Theft Auto route in the second game. The game had a lot of shooting sections, but the first thing you learn in the opening tutorial is jumping and rolling. It also only had four basic and practical weapons, so you never felt like a death machine. Some of the best platforming was in Jak and Daxter, and it carried over pretty much untouched to Jak II. So its not like developers don't know how to make a good 3D platformer, they just need the guts to actually make it. Sadly, Naughty Dog has abandoned Jak because they pretty much ran the story line into the ground. So lets go game developers, don't let Nintendo hog this market. I grew up on platformers, so give me something new to chew on.

COG: Animal Crossing: Wild World

I'm about a hundred thousand bells away from paying my mortgage. Shot Pete out of the air today so we could chat. Apparently Pelly is the one who sometimes posts on the bulletin board as "Talking to Myself". The other day she wrote" Bird Bird Bird. Bird is the word."