Battlemouth

Remember when you bought a game and played it for nearly a year? Unlocking every little element of the game and fully immersing yourself in its story and gameplay? When a sequel to a game was a big deal, and a meant you were buying a newer version of the game you loved with more features and gameplay elements? Or when you used to have to wait months for the next big game to come out?

Those times are long gone, AAA titles are launched at us left and right, games dont even have to be good to get a sequel, and we’ve got a new game coming out on a weekly basis. Gamers are getting exploited by the very companies they rely on to provide them with quality games for them to play.

It seems as though your run of the mill game can be played from start to finish in a long weekend even by the most casual gamer. Then a year later you get an even shorter sequel to the game cranked out sometimes by a different publisher that feels nothing like the original game. Sure there are always exceptions to these things but for the most part this seems to be the general trend we’ve got going.

Videogames have changed from something you purchase and cherish into something you have to almost feel stressed about finishing in time so that you can start the next game up and keep pace with the release schedules. God forbid you fall behind and pick up a game a few months late. The online lobbies will be a barren wasteland due to the general gamer population moving on to the latest and greatest game to grace the shelves of their local videogame shop.

I no longer feel like I am part of the general gaming population, how some of these games being released sell a single copy is beyond my comprehension, yet they are still flying off the shelves. Its like this new generation of blind leading the blind gamers that only care about consumption, nothing about quantity whatsoever. Just the fact that I was driven to write this post makes me feel out of touch with the gamer hive mind.

Give me fully fleshed out titles with solid gameplay, 20 hours is not a full campaign. Adding multiplayer to every game is not a feature we want. 90% of games coming out dont have to be FPS’s, where are some awesome RTS games or a great 2d platformer? Im quickly becoming jaded by the titles that are coming out, stuff like Bioshock 2 and God of War 3 which should be games that have me jumping up and down with glee, instead have me pessimistically looking at them waiting to hear some reviews on the game before I’d consider purchasing them. Its just that I’ve enthusiastically purchased too many games lately that have ultimately been a let down. I’ll refrain from naming them for the sake of staying friendly with the videogame bubble, but I’m sure you’ve experienced the same thing.

One adequately patched and supported online FPS is all we need in any given month or months for that matter. Instead we get 5 or 6 half assed games with glitches and exploits galore, which completely drains the playability of the game. This goes for RPGs, Sports, and Music games too. How different can a football sim be every year? Just release a new track pack for the game, not a whole other $60 installment just so I can play 50 more songs. I dont want to have to pay $5 to get another sword or armor. What happened to earning things in games by playing the actual game?

Whats most depressing about this is things are only going to get worse. Hell I just had the next instance of a game get announced on the day the current one was released, really? Its turning into an assembly line, and until we stop buying they’re not going to stop. But thats the issue, we’re gamers. We love games and playing them. We need to go along with what the publishers are doing cause we have no other choice. The videogame industry has saturated up all the best assets, collected them under 3 or 4 big names and now churn out game after game. Occasionally we get a great indie game but a month later the company is snatched up by a bigger one and made slaves to the corporate video game sweat shop.

Not to mention we’re expected to dish out 59.99 or more on games now, with more focus on promotional special edition versions of the game rather than substance and quality. There are hundreds of people with crappy night vision goggles and a game that has a 6 hour campaign. How about no goggles and a fully fleshed out game next time?

I guess I’ll end this with in spite of how I feel, this very moment I’m worrying about how I can finish Mass Effect 2 in time to play Bioshock 2, Dantes Inferno and Bayonetta before I get so behind on games that I’ll never be up to date with the top notch titles out there. The videogame industry is going to burst at some point, at this rate it’ll be sooner that later, people will eventually get sick of shoveling their money over for sub par titles. I hope.