I never really considered myself a gamer. In fact I didn't realise the title existed until a few years ago. Perhaps I was in denial of all the years of pissing away my youth playing games on my Sega Master System, Super Nintendo, 486, Pentium and PS2.
I think with the exception of a few childhood obsessions up until recently I'm what most gamers would refer to as a "casual" gamer, merely dipping my toe into the realm of games. I think before I bought my Xbox 360 my PS2 and Wii just sat gathering dust and gaming quite frankly just didn't seem worth the time.
I was overseas for about a year backpacking and probably played games a grand total of twice while away, so when I found my forgotten Xbox 360 at home still in storage I went on a bit of a gaming binge, finding myself unemployed for a few months didn't help as I had a lot of time on my hands.
In 2 months of unemployment I played through Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Gears of War 2. There were probably times where I'd spend an entire day playing games, something I can't really remember doing since my childhood. When I finally got a job I remembered spending sleepless nights playing Left4Dead and Fallout 3.
6 months later my gaming library has exploded from about 4 titles to 20+. It may not sound like much, but I played pretty much all of those games all the way through sometimes multiple times. I feel as though the world of gaming has opened up a little and I'm more aware of it than I was before. I'm still not really a core gamer and still use my Xbox 360, although mostly for financial reasons and I'm considering going PC at some stage. I think I fall somewhere between casual and core gamer, intermediate if you will.
However as the world of gaming opened up and the light was shone on amazing new games I never knew existed, the cracks in the current state of gaming started to show.
So here are the 3 things I really hate about modern gaming:
1. Console wars are still raging
Console wars are generally stupid and reading the comments of fan boys is much like watching monkeys flinging their own feces at each other. When I bought into the console market my decision was primarily a financial one, as nowadays with the exception of Nintendo consoles have the same games with the same graphics.
If you look at the video below without looking at which screenshot belongs to which you'll notice something...
The PS3 and XBOX 360 are almost exactly the freaking same.
With the exception of sharper textures on the 360 you would really not know the difference unless you were looking for it. Which blows my mind when people still try to deride you for choosing the 360.
2. Special editions and DLC
Ok so maybe I'm getting old and nostalgic for an era where the game was released, you bought that game and that was that. They might release a game of the year edition with some new maps and content a few months or a year later.
These days they release "special" editions with all the stuff you'd expect in a special edition, but simultaneously with a "regular" edition at the initial release date. Think about that for a minute, the game has already been developed, all the content is there yet it is intentionally witheld to try to get you to buy the ultimate 1337 N3rd Edition which has the 5 "extra" guns, the pink jumpsuit and the "extra" mission where you save zombie Jesus from the aliens. I'm sure the development of this content is in the overall budget and development of the game.
To put it another way this is basically like releasing a movie a the cinemas and an extra "special edition" simultaneously for an extra $20 with extra scenes and multiple endings. Seem retarded? that's because it is...
Developing something and deliberately witholding it to squeeze a few more bucks out of consumers is not the same as a "bonus" or "extra".
3. PC games still haven't gotten their shit together
I'm a fan of consoles, not because I like playing games on my TV with a controller, but rather because I just like playing games opposed to dicking around downloading patches, constantly upgrading my graphics card and using hacks and workarounds to get games to work (and screaming at my computer when they didn't).
The sheer lack of user friendliness in the history of PC gaming is probably what put me off it in the first place. My amazement is that in this day and age things have actually gotten worse. Games will be released poorly tested, only to have patches and updates released days later. The philosophy of development nowadays seems to be build it and let the user beta test it for you so you can fix it along the way.
Annoyingly this trend has creeped into console gaming too, but on the whole it is a much more pleasant experience, just let us play the freaking game.
So there you have it, my long winded musings on the current state of gaming. Some of these points borrow liberally from www.cracked.com articles, shit I even stole the format, but I felt my frustrations needed to be vented.
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