Wow he admires games that will never, and I stress never be released. go spore! Guitar hero? give me a break, they have had arcades of basically the same thing in Japan for a very long time.

Halo 3 is Starcraft in first person! not doom, you fool!

He's just bitter because he can't do the driving missions in GTA. Old people just don't have the reflexes--everyone knows that.

Unfortunatly for Mr. Bushnell and everyone else out there born with an underdeveloped logic center in their brain, not every game released can be this super innovative new experience. Be great if that were possible, however there are limits on this kind of thing (both on the technological and human sides of it).

Adding to this, games like halo 3 do something argueably equally as important as the vaunted "innovation". They "evolve". Mankind didn't just suddenly one day go "Time to innovate!" and become what we are today. We took time and evolved. This is similar to what most games do. Take pre-exisiting ideas that are well liked and enjoyed, and build on them.

And if he (or anybody) were to actually play halo 3 and doom 1 right after one another he may notice that this evolution has been doing a great job.

He's right and all you fanboys are too distracted by your shiny limited edition Halo helmets to understand. Videogames could be one of the strongest mediums of our time: period. But you guys just keep eating up the newest crop of pretty FPS games until ... what? Your damn medium is just an oversized pinball machine.

If he believes Halo 3 is Doom 1 in different clothing, then he must believe books and movies are pure, unadulterated trash too.

But isnt Doom 1 Wolfenstein 3D in Hell's clothing?

I think what he's saying is less production values and more concept innovation. Can't blame him but in the case of GTA he may be overlooking some aspects of the game. Some concepts aren't for everyone.

this guy has no idea what video games are now a days

Yeah, and driving games are all updates of Pole Position. And the Mona Lisa is just an slicker version of a cave painting. What's your point; once one game has shooting from a first-person perspective everything else is automatically crap? And what's wrong with Doom in different clothing? Doom was good!

@Tulkamir: Evolve. How? Better Graphics, better AI? Those aren't exactly Halo 3 evolutions, and they're not much evolution anyways. The core gameplay is still "shoot stuff, run, maintain ammo". Wait, is evolution making it so you heal, so that any challenge in the game is thrown out, as you can just hide for 30 seconds at a time during battles? Halo 3 evolves nothing. It is, at it's core, the same game.

@Kirbytheslayer: The only problem with that argument is that is could be applied to every single art form in existence.

Huh? Repetition and lack of innovation? Hell, when I was a kid, Chuck E. Cheese had three or four arcade cabinets that featured the same damn beat-em up format, made by the same damn company..only they differed in terms of the property they were trying to promote. The Simpsons, T.M.N.T., X-Men, Aliens..etc. I mean, c'mon. Although admittedly, I did love those games and must've spent who knows how much money in quarters playing them every damn time I waltzed in that animatronic puppet wasteland.

And thus Nolan Bushnell's relevance continues to tumble.

maybe Halo 3 just wanted to get into Doom's pants.

Every single painting since the first one is exactly the same, because when you get right down to it, it's just "paint on something." The image depicted by the paint is utterly irrelevant, it's still paint.

Those people who paint with feces? VISIONARIES.

@Kirbytheslayer:

First, I'm guessing you've never played Doom. Mainly because it's like saying Starcraft and Civilization are the same. They're both stratagy games. In both you build up little cities, get resources, attack enemies etc... But you'd have to be off your rocker to say they play the same at all. Same with Halo.

Different things Halo has done? Minor things I'm guessing you wouldn't notice or understand. Things like forcing the player to have 2 weapons only adds an element of strategy. The multiplayer experience is phenominal and took shoot multiplayer, especially console shooter multiplayer, to a place it's never been before. In fact, most console shooters are still struggling to catch up to Halo 2's multiplayer. I could go on, but I doubt there's a real need.

I get the idea from you that you are one of those foolish people that feels that your opinion on these things is fact, but has never actually spent the time to create a solid base for that opinion.

"it's really Doom 1 in different clothing"

At least they did more enhancements than change the level design and add a little bow on the top of the character's head.

As much as I respect what Nolan did in the past...I think he has a very distorted view of what went on when he was still relevant.

Sure... he may have the beginnings of a "point"... but...
 
Doesn't like GTA... okay, sure... but I must've missed all the social commentary in his own games... must've been a really deep layer in his copy of Pong that I missed... maybe it was in one of the games developed later by his company "Sente"... maybe Chicken Shift... maybe it was Night Stocker? [kotaku.com]
 
And he said in a previous interview that his favorite game is breakout... but isn't that just pong in different clothing too?
 
Lead by example, Nolan. Put all that money where your mouth is and show everyone what they "should" be developing. Can't wait to see all the great ideas. I mean, other than making lousy pizza and scaring children with animatronic nightmares, stealing Pong, and copying everyone else's ideas in your following companies... badly... what is it you've done again?
 
Oh... that's right... bitch. You're hell at bitching.

I can see where he's coming from. We always complain about properties getting "hollywoodized" for mass consumption, and then we want games that are more "hollywoodized" in turn.

When people got fed up with the hollywood system they turned to indie movies, and we can see the same thing happening now with videogames. I guess he just didn't notice the indie movement...or chose to ignore it or something.

He IS cranky.

And uWink is just a Chuck E Cheese in different clothing, now that you mention it...

The old man's bashing FPS's, and yet, every Chuck E. Cheese I walk into has at least ONE FPS Coin-Op.

Personally, I think he's a little bitter because he's out of the market, and there's no sign of him stepping back in. Video games have become too powerful for a one-sided mind like his.

Kthx.

BTW I'M NEW. LAWL.

I can't believe someone so IMPORTANT to this industry could turn out to be such an ass.

How insulting! Doom is far superior to Halo 3.

And im being 100% serious.

@Moonshadow101:

your last line was a killer. :D

Ah, Nolan is just bitter

Yes. Halo 3 is just Doom in different clothing. Also, Chuck E. Cheese is an LSD trip realized by animatronic animals.

Yesh! the 80's were so original...

Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Jr. Pac Man, Super Pac Man
donkey kong, donkey kong jr., donkey kong 3
galaga, galaxian, space invaders, 1942, any of a bazillion shoot-em-ups

pong, breakout, yar's revenge, arkanoid, arkanoid 2, tournament arkanoid

@XvCowboyvX: Ironically, guess who was responsible for Chuck E. Cheese...

Anyway, Bushnell has an excellent point. The whole concept of "bigger, faster, better" did make for more money in the coffers of companies, but the truly memorable games are the ones that were unlike anything I've ever seen.
I think lack of innovation has also contributed to my decrease in gaming over the years. There was a time when I would've bought every and any game that I had an inkling of liking - money be damned - but now, I say to myself "I played that game when it was called "X""

Every review of Halo 3 I've ever read or watched has said that it isn't "evolved", but rather "refined".

Also, to hit on GTA: this is a guy in Bushnell who got the video game industry started based on the social experience. GTA - a game that is inherently about being solitary - goes counter to what he's believed.

All of this speaks to an old debate I had about Psychonauts. Wasn't here, though...

He has a point though. It's rare to see any new innovation that gives you a different feeling than another game. Face it, FPS games are overdone (thanks XBOX)and it's the same way any thing is when people join the hype train. Why bother doing something different when the "same ol" sell because noone knows any better. This is what happened to the fighting games and platformers of their time.

Now no one really knows how to make a game that gives you a sense of accomplishment (at least not like they used to) I remember when PS1(X) first came out and it had games noone else were doing. "What the heck is a warhawks?" we said. Now were just aping the same stuff over again but with new larger less jaggy worlds.

We need the shiny along with the innovation. And also the fun factor.

@onlysublime: LOL Good point. Guess this has always been the case.

I guess it's human nature to go the easy route.

First of all, he's only doing this to get press. He's got something to sell (his new restaurant) and he knows that he can get people talking about it by making ridiculously sweeping statements that will be repeated and debated around the 'net. That's why he said it.

Secondly, some of the best games I've played have been very innovative - Mario 64, tons of NES games, Katamari, ICO, SotC, and GTA to name a few. But the rest of my catalog of best games are just polished titles - Super Mario World, Link to the Past, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy 6.

A good game doesn't have to be innovative just like a good movie doesn't have to explore new ideas like, say, Brokeback Mountain. There's room for both.

Halo 3 doesn't evolve, it believes! ;)

To the point at hand though, like Tulkamir said, pretty much everything is starts with an innovation at the top and everything else branching out below it.

@baberg:
First of all, he's only doing this to get press. He's got something to sell (his new restaurant) and he knows that he can get people talking about it by making ridiculously sweeping statements that will be repeated and debated around the 'net. That's why he said it.

Worth repeating. Clive Barker tried the same thing with Jericho.

Also... just want to add this out there, now that I think about it...
 
Nolan saves the real venom for the Grand Theft Auto series, saying that it "values antisocial behavior" and the particular title at which he heaps his most scorn.
 
So dring a car around while shooting people is anti-social, right Nolan?
 
[kotaku.com]
 
I fully expect to see you personally jam all the associated arcade cabinets up your crabby ass, you hypocritical moron.

Now that he's clarified himself I have to agree with his stance. The majority of first person shooters are just an attempt to make video game variations of Aliens or Starship Troopers. Portal seems to be one of the rare attempts to do something different and innovative with the genre. A damn shame it only lasts 5 hours. The creative well at Valve runs only so deep, I guess.

As for GTA, I don't really see the problem since I don't believe it causes the kind of anti-social behavior it promotes. Xbox Live, on the other hand, I'm afraid brings out the worst in people. Live is the biggest step back in social interaction I've ever seen. Instead of going out and interacting appropriately with other people, it encourages us to stay at home, alone in the dark where we can be as homophobic and racist as we like.

But that's not going to be a very popular opinion here, of course, among people who regularly feast on the trash Bushnell talks about.

While I'm inclined to agree, games like GTA and Halo are also, you know, fun, which is the whole point of gaming.

The industry will grow, but calling it names just forces fanboys back into their reactionary shells.

By this logic, virtually every creative medium is pure, unadulterated trash. For every movie like A Clockwork Orange, there's a hundred like Live Free or Die Hard. For every band like the Beatles, there's a hundred like Daughtry.

You can either become an elitist prick that's admired by a pompous minority, or you can just appreciate what you think is worth appreciating and ignore the rest.

This guy should play Kingdom Hearts, or Metal Gear Solid, or Gears of War, or Katamari Damacy, or Bioshock, or Portal.

There are so many modern games which are amazing, and can change the future of games. Even if they aren't the most revolutionary games; WHY DO GAMES HAVE TO BE INNOVATIVE? Who cares? I mean, if it's fun, stop complaining -_-

This is pretty rich coming from the founder of Atari, considering they made their name off Pong, which was derived from of one of the games that Ralph Baer had developed for Magnavox. And it turned out that that was functionally an evolution of Higinbotham's Tennis for Two. And of course they're all derived from table tennis and/or tennis, and so on.

i love doom!! please dont compare it to halo :(
even if the comparation makes no sense ....

@Tulkamir: I'll admit one thing. I play PC shooters, not console shooters for the most part. Halo innovates nothing on the PC, and Doom is a PC game. Therefore, Halo evolves and innovates nothing for me. Maybe for people who have never touched a PC, that's really innovative, but Online Multiplayer? Oh My GOD!! We haven't had that for a decade already?

Oh, and you're Starcraft Analogy? Faulty on one key point: THEY'RE DIFFERENT GENRES, IDIOT. Civilization is turn-based and focuses on diplomacy, Starcraft is real-time and combat oriented.
And if you want to compare Warcraft III to Starcraft, except for heroes, they're essentially identical.

So he adores casual games and detests hardcore games ?!

And what he says is nothing morew than the truth, all "next fames" in the ps3 and the 360 are the same exact games from the 90's, yea they are way more easy so even the worst gamer can feel he kicks @ss, and they have hd and 5.1 audio, but they are the same games...

@Ryivan: Well DOOM is a real hardcore FPS game, halo is a ultra easy fps, to play doom well you need to play a lot to even complete a mission...

poor nolan. all that cocaine and hot tubbing with the secretaries back in the 70s and running atari into the ground have apparently left him a bitter man, left to rest on his laurels. i wonder when was the last time he actually played a video game was. and chuck e. cheese's pizza was always shit. just sayin'.

@EnigmaNemesis: And isn't Wolfenstein 3D just Catacomb Abyss in Nazi regalia? (Why does nobody remember Catacomb?)

Oh, it's ON. YOU DO NOT DISS HALO 3 WITHOUT HUMOR. I forsee firebombs in Nolan's future...

If this guy took the actual time to play through real titles, we'd probably listen to him. As it is, he just sounds like another rambling old man, whatever his background might be.

I mean, the guy praises three casual games, two of them very similar, and commends one that hasn't been released yet, so how are we supposed to take him seriously? (without even considering this is the man who allowed the E.T. game to gain entrance to our households)

As someone who owned the early Atari gaming systems (2600, 5200, 7800), as well as their home computers (400, 800, 800XL, 520ST, 1040ST) I can honestly say that Nolan Bushnell wasn't even relevant back when he was relevant.