We Reap What We Sow - The Quality of Current Gaming

FUCK!!! When reading this, I realize that the gaming community is fucking going to be like the music community. For music, its like

"I listen to Metallica before the "Black Album" and then they sold out."

Now its going to be like:

"I played "Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman" before they sold to Sony, and now they are not indie anymore. FUCK THEM!!!"

In other words, I am not happy with that. If it is a good album, its a good album not matter if it comes from a record company you never heard from or Capital . If it is a good game, it is a good game. No matter where it comes from and if they change up a little, I do not mind or else it'll be like Dynasty Warriors. Now if its something like "Devil May Cry 5 is now an RPG" I will be angry. Same thing like "Dream Theater will now play 50s music" I will be angry.

If you want different and creative games, most likely your gonna have to make them or look hard. LIKE MUSIC!!!!

The last halfway good game i played was MGS4 Sons of Liberty on PS2. Over the past few years i have noticed that my desire to play the newest titles has dropped drastically. Its not that i want to stop playing console games; its just that i have seen nothing new or original in about 4 years. Im a first generation gamer which means that I am old enough to remember and have played the Atari- the world's first major commercially viable gaming console. So here in 2009, 7 major consoles and about 200,000,000 titles later, I just feel like I have seen everything and that the developers just dont give a crap about out-doing themselves the way they used to. But to be fair i will admit that although im not an enthusiatstic fan, Bungee and Production 4 studio has really pushed the standard for their respective major title's genres (Halo, Res Evil). The author is right about how there is a surplus of graphically stunning but crappy games. And the first-gen gamers just cant stomach anymore pretty-but-dumb games. Kind of like dating the hottest model out of Playboy; after the prettiness and back-breaking sex, one discovers that you can only have so many dinner conversations about what happened on 90210 and if kittens are cuter than puppies. Gamer can not live on beauty alone.

The companies have been busy getting us to buy there "next gen" consoles, this in part, is a reason game quality has been lacking. But its not just gaming, keep your eyes peeled on all types of media and notice how many things are repackaged and fed to us over and over again! YUMMY!

I agree with the author. Games now tend to focus on the mind-blowing graphics instead of story or game play. There are many beautiful games out there. Most of them suck. I think part of what the author is trying to say is that games back in the day HAD to rely on good game play and story to push it forward. People knew what to expect and they were fine with it. There were a few genre changers out there, but nothing too crazy. I feel like the genre's being changed with every new game that's a hit, and every game then has to emulate that. Let's look at an example:

Resident Evil 4 really put forth the idea of quick time events (pressing buttons randomly to keep you on the edge of your seat) to gamer (though games like Shenmue did this first). Quick time events are now gimmicky, since every game now feels like it needs to include them in order to make their game better. The karma or alignment system is also like that too. Games that don't really need it (Infamous) are forcing players to make choices between universal good or universal evil, without exploring the greyness of ethics and morality. The few games that do it right are the Fallout series and the KOTOR series.

Too many games are just trying to carbon copy certain elements arbitrarily without explaining why it's needed in the game.

Story has gone down the drain too. Who cares about story anymore? I do. It's a major selling point for me. If I'm going to explore this sandbox world, what motivation is there for me? Why is it important to kill creature or person X? What is (are) the problem(s) that I'm trying to deal with? The list of questions goes on, but the problem is that many games don't answer these questions. And that is a shame. I yearn for good games that explain elements of the central story to me as I go on. That is why I love Final Fantasy VI. Story was what had to drive that game. Without a solid story, the game would have been terrible. But it had an immersive story. I really got into the characters, but it left some mystery for the players to figure out on their own. Like, who is Gogo, really?

Regardless, I believe that the quality of games has dropped. There a still a few diamonds out there, but again, there's a lot of unprocessed coal out there too. I definitely believe that developers should get back to that 'do or die' mind-set with gaming. If your game didn't produce a hit, your company failed. It produced new, innovative, and mind-blowing games in the 90s and I think they could emulate that.

Signed,
An avid player of Sonic 2, Final Fantasy VI, and Xenogears.

Of course they are. No doubt that people will buy a sequel before a new game.

First!

The story is kinda lame. For some reason the author thinks that most video games used to be great and innovative until a few years ago. That's just not true. There have always been an abundance of crappy games and knock-offs. From NES to PS3.

Also, both games he criticizes, Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4, received high reviews from reputable game review sites like Gamespot.

The guy also comes off as cocky and stupid when he suggests that coming up with new ideas isn't hard and then he lists some ideas that are supposed to impress intelligent gamers. Of course ideas aren't hard, its implementing the idea that takes intelligence and talent.

And to top it off, his logic is retarded. "if the average person is an idiot, this must mean that half of the people in the world are even more stupid than the average person" No. That's not how averages work. Half the numbers in a set can be below the average, but half can also be above. I guess he's not as intelligent as he thinks...