Sunday, October 28, 2012

Why So Serious?

Why So Serious?

Why the fuck are games so serious now? Back in the day, games were made to be fun. Now, a lot of the time, it seems to be that games are made to approximate the experience you get in a Hollywood blockbuster or whatever. They have to have all of the elements in place that make a big, immersive, “realistic” experience, and while that can be, and often is, great, and effective.....CHILL THE FUCK OUT A BIT! Sometimes I hear the word “realistic” in an interview or read it in a press release and I inwardly groan, because in my view, this often time comes at the expense of fun.

Think about it: “Realistic” means no cheats. No new game+. The restrictions imposed by the rules of physics and such. You know, sometimes it would be nice to be able to jump 30 feet high, turn on no gravity, big heads, paintball mode, infinite ammo, and other cheats, start a game with an overpowered character, and just HAVE FUN. No story, no drama, no rules, no realism. Just quirky, chaotic, crazy fun.

Like the old days.

And yes, I know these games still exist, but you must admit the balance has certainly shifted towards the serious and “realistic.” Take the FPS genre for example. I'm bored as shit with FPS games, and perhaps this realism thing is a part of it (perhaps, I'm not saying it is for sure, and it certainly wouldn't be all of it!). Every shooter seems to be a military shooter with real weapons. How about some crazy jumping, get those reflexes ready, twitch based craziness with completely over the top weapons and abilities? Let's get crazy!

Look at Earth Defence Force 2017: The game looks like shit, sounds like shit, has terrible dialogue, terrible cutscenes, a poor story, broken fucking vehicle control, ridiculous, over the top....well, everything, and it's a FUCKING BLAST!!! It reminds of me of old school games. You start shooting and you don't stop shooting until every last gigantic spider and gigantic, acid shooting out of their asses ant is dead. You use a huge variety of all sorts of fun weaponry, half of which are ridiculously unrealistic, and, get this: the gigantic space alien bugs that you fight drop weapon, armour and health pickups that are represented by a terrible looking 2D icon. I LOVE THAT! Just adds to the old school game/'B' movie vibe.

Realism can be great. Some games are so incredibly immersive because of their realistic and serious tone, but it can get really fucking redundant when they all start being made in a similar vein. Crazy jumps, wonky physics, out of control situations, over the top dialogue, jokes galore, etc. Games are supposed to be fun. I often wish the focus would be more on fun than it is on making the game 'AAA' and shipping 5 million units because the kids got to feel like they were a U.S. Marine for 8 hours.....or at least think they felt like one (they have no idea....and neither do I, but I know a game certainly doesn't approximate the experience). That's the thing, a game will always be a game, so maybe they should keep that in mind.

But maybe it's just me.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Bullshit of DLC

The Bullshit of DLC

Note: This is an old post that was sitting unpublished in my draft list. It may be outdated in terms of some specific details. 

Okay, so I have been bitching about DLC for quite some time, on an intermittent basis. While I have provided some examples in the past of what I believe constituted bullshit, ripoff, exploitative DLC, and what I considered fair DLC worth purchasing, I never provided an open shut case for my stance.

This time, however, I have done some homework, and I think what I have come up with constitutes damn near investigative journalism. Hey, if the 'pro' video game journalists don't have the balls to do it, someone has to step up and do it for them, right? Might as well be me!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Thoughtcrime in Christianity

Anyone who has read the seminal dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell will be familiar with the concept of thoughtcrime, which is quite simply illegal thought. In Orwell's portrayl of a dystopian future, the totalitarian government surveys the thoughts of the people via 'psychology surveillance' (should have been called psychological surveillance imo).

Contrary to popular belief, however, the concept of thoughtcrime is not original to Orwell and his great piece of fiction. The concept actually appears in another piece of fiction, about 2000 YEARS before the release of his novel!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus Announced

This was announced last month but I just now found out:

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/09/19/ninja-gaiden-sigma-2-plus-coming-to-vita-in-early-2013/

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus is coming to the Vita in "early 2013." This is completely expected but still great news for Ninja Gaiden fans, even if NGS2 was a ste'p down in terms of quality (as compared to the 'vanilla' NG2).

Friday, October 5, 2012

Any Classic or Legendary Games This Generation?

NOTE: This is an older post that was sitting in my drafts. 

Here is a list of games that I think I'm safe referring to as legendary in the sense that a significant portion of the video game community see them as being the cream of the crop, and the review scores for each of these games were very high. Of course, I personally don't like all of these games, and neither will you, but I think it's inarguable that they are highly esteemed and influential, and/or were important/noteworthy at the time of release: