After recent disappointments with NWN2 (and its expansion Mask of the Betrayer), Oblivion: Shivering Isles (Oblivion was good, but not as fun as Morrowind) and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and giving more money that I can really afford to the Democrats I've been looking for something where the emphasis is on fun and game-play, rather than graphics and movie-quality cut-scene work.
The original title of this post was going to be "Are big studio computer games less fun these days?" But what is fun? Certainly modern computer games, in particular those mentioned above, are graphically outstanding compared to games of even five years ago, let alone 10 or 15 years ago. Yet I remember getting a lot of enjoyment out of such graphically-primitive games such as Legend of Zelda, Civ 2, and X-Com: Terror from the Deep (probably my favorite games of all time). Basically the ingredients and mechanics of game play of different genres of computer games really haven't changed significantly over the same time, and its game play that counts for a lot in terms of enjoyment.
As I also spent vast amount of time playing those games - not only did they take a long time to master and play through, but they kept my attention for the ~100 hours I put into them. If a game is going to be shorter, then I expect to pay less for it. Or to put it another way (combining both fun and value) bang-for-buck is an element in my relative enjoyment of something.
That is not to say pure economics (or buyer's remorse) is the sole determinant of fun (remember, game play counts), but I think it also a crucial part of the recipe. For example, a typical Hollywood big-budget movie (e.g. the latest Indiana Jones movie) might be more fun when rented through Netflix for a net cost of a few bucks, than if you went to the theatre and paid $9 + gas and parking to see it.
Personally, as far as games are concerned I think the paying less than or approximately equal to $1 per hour of first-time game play is great value (e.g. KOTOR, Morrowind, Oblivion), ~a few $ per hour decent (e.g. Far Cry, Half Life 2, Assassin's Creed), and more than $5 per hour (e.g. SW: TFU, Halo 3 single player) poor value for money.
So if my hypothesis is right, what types of games should be fun if I'm not liking the games produced by the current big game studios?
If game play is roughly the same, and graphics really aren't super important, and bang-for-buck is a factor, then games by small independent developers should be fun. They may be short, or lack graphical or play testing finesse, but they should be enjoyable. (The alternative is simply to purchase the big studio games about a year after they first came out, at which their reduction in price makes up for their imperfections.)
So instead of the big games studios, I'm going to give independent developers a chance. In particular developers who support multiple operating systems (I keep a Windows machine to play games on, but if I could play games on other OSs I would happily avoid the use of Windows).
Playgreenhouse.com is perhaps best known as the distributor of Penny Arcade's "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness", but it now has a few other games available, all for prices of $20 or less. To put my money where my mouth is I've purchased the old-school isometric CRPG Eschalon Book 1 (linux version) for the princely sum of $19.95.
I've spent about 10 hours playing so far, but will hold off on the full review for a while. In the mean time here are some reviews of the game (with screen-shots in some cases) of Eschalon Book 1, should you be interested in wasting a few minutes reading time:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/
http://jayisgames.com/
http://www.2404.org/reviews/
http://www.scorpia.com/?p=812
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