GameBump's Most Wanted List for 2008: It's time for changePosted 11:56pm Fri Jan 04, 2008 by Shiva Stella Tags: editorial, features, GameBump, 2008, most wanted

We are not paying $50 bucks a year to beta test your product, Microsoft, and the more than lackluster service provided during and immediately following the Christmas holiday is not something gamers expect from the company behind the industry's current #1 console. Thankfully Microsoft is offering both its gold and silver members a free Xbox Live Arcade game as compensation for the screw-up, which is nice, but we'd rather have the stable, reliable service we paid for. For 2008 we'd like to see zero hiccups from Live as well as bonus material implemented for gold subscribers to further differentiate between gold and silver membership.

Gamers are wondering why they are spending $60+ on incomplete games, essentially spending more money for less game with pretty graphics. Developers, we beg of you, please do not release a title that is damn near unplayable and then expect for us to be happy when you release patches to fix what should have been functioning properly to begin with. If that means your game isn't on store shelves for a holiday, so be it; if it means delay after delay in order to get it right, go for it - we'd rather have a full, complete game upon release instead of playing through beta versions for the six months it takes you to launch a patch. Remember that the very first gamer in line to purchase your product the day of release is your target audience and your strongest support: do not forsake him/her by selling an incomplete product.

We also don't enjoy games that require guides to decipher their ends; we at GameBump are especially tired of titles that end just as the plot is really getting good. An ending should tie together all the previous plot elements into a complete, cohesive picture that leaves the player with the feeling that he just spent 20+ hours of his life solving a mystery that was "worth it."

Dialogue has joined plot design on the back-burner of game development as of late, with developers seizing the opportunity to portray content to an adult market by "faking" adult; "fuck this" and "shit that" every single line does not offer quality entertainment, and in fact does nothing but enable Nancy Grace, Hillary Clinton, and attorneys that shall not be named to insult the industry by pointing out our nonsensical violence and trashy dialogue. While we're on the topic...

Especially those that provide no entertainment value whatsoever and actually sicken the player with their pointless, extreme gory action that depicts the industry as excessively violent for no other reason than gamers are just murderers in the making. If we never type the word "Manhunt" again it'll be too soon.

We love Mario. Everyone loves Mario. Mario is quite possibly the most recognizable icon on the planet, and we just about swooned over Super Mario Galaxy and its stupendous release on the Wii. The problem as we see it is that every Wii game not made by Nintendo does not reach the level of quality that Nintendo itself strives for, and in essence, reduces the console to a gimmicky, expensive paper weight. The Wii is an interesting device that has the ability to differentiate itself from its competition thanks to the popular Wii remote, but Wii Sports and Mario's offerings from the 90's aren't cutting it.

For that matter, where are the Wiis being offered at base price ($250) to customers who can not afford the $500+ idiotic bundles that retailers keep forcing down our throats? We'd like to see Nintendo take great steps toward increasing the Wii's availability at retail and forcing retailers to offer the console at base price. I'd buy a Wii and I might even play more than Super Mario Galaxy on it - assuming I could find one.

I've spent most of 2007 shuffling between Blockbuster and Gamefly for rentals and have been nothing but disappointed by the high prices of both. I would love to see some increased competition in this area, especially from a company that actually has games in stock to rent out as opposed to some of these other, more affordable "options" (affordable apparently means "out of stock").

Some of us are of the notion that publishers should go back to yearly release limits like those previously imposed by Nintendo of America. Now that a company can release dozens of games a year there is zero incentive for anyone to produce a quality title - the industry just wants something, anything on the shelf, which is usually a something not worth buying.

Maybe instead of a grizzly, 30-something, short-brown-haired dude starring in every game, how about a kid or a black dude or a female who doesn't belong on a Maxim cover? We'd love to see some games that actually reflected a realistic demographic, one in which all Muslims weren't terrorists and all women weren't damsels in distress or prostitutes meant to be run over by a Grand Theft Auto character in a nice car.

We encourage our gaming journalist friends to adhere to their own strict integrity policies before selling content to the highest bidder; we'd also love to see publishers spending less money on marketing pieces of crap in deceitful, gimmicky ways and more money on releasing quality titles. Remember Metal Gear Solid? The original Tomb Raider? Mario Kart? That first Final Fantasy you picked up pre-VII? These are games that managed to sell due to their own quality and innovation - they did not require nor rely upon multi-million (or billion) dollar advertising campaigns to get the word out. Gamers, who are the people spending money on games, will do your advertising for you; all the industry has to do is create and release a quality product. The consumer's purchasing power and the gaming counter-culture will handle the rest.