The video game industry may have evolved by leaps and bounds, but it has in a lot of ways regressed, as well. Today, the cynic within takes a look at ten of the most annoying trends plaguing the video game industry.
Motion controlled gaming
Do you really wanna be the controller?
Oh look at me, I’m controlling this character with my body. Oh wait, no, go left. No don’t drop the weapon pick it up. Not the pistol you dumbass, pick up the freaking shotgun. In case you missed the point of that rather exaggerated example that was me trying to control my character without a controller failing miserably at everything. Be honest, when was the last time you played a game on the Kinect or the Move and felt in complete control of your character? Yeah, thought so.
Multiplayer for the heck of it
Did BioShock 2 really need MP?
I love me some multiplayer games. In fact, most of the games on my Steam list are multiplayer ones in which I’ve spent countless hours killing dudes on the battlefield. But, do I want multiplayer in every single game out there? No, I don’t. I am perfectly happy with games that offer an engaging and enthralling single player only experience, as well. Forcibly putting a multiplayer component in there just to appeal to the Halo/CoD crowd is just plain stupid.
Anal checkpoints
What!! I have to kill aaaaal of them again?
You’ve killed that annoying boss and his legions of minions, but that battle has left you on the brink of death. You wonder why Autosave didn’t kick in when you kicked his butt. You stumble around searching for health desperately but instead of medical aid, you come across a whole bunch of people baying for your blood. You try to survive but you go down faster than a Chicken McGrill (why are those burgers so freaking small?). And guess what, you have to restart the game aaaaaaall the way before the first boss fight. You scream, you break the controller, burn the game and slit your wrists. See what happens when you don’t allow players to save where they want?
Short games
Huh? Game's over? Already?
I’m down with the whole short and sweet mentality, but then there’s something called painfully short. I’m talking about games that finish in under five hours making you wonder if the developers ran out of ideas or were just plain lazy to complete the game.
Quick Time Events
Kill that monster for me. I'll be back in 10
Back in the day, when studios were limited by the power of consoles, Quick Time Events were designed to let players experience jaw dropping moments simply by pressing a few buttons in succession. Today with all the tech at their disposal, it just seems a tad lazy when at the press of a button my character can leap into the air, dodge rockets, blast fools in the face and land on his feet with cigarette in his mouth. Why don’t I just sit back and let the game play itself for me hmm?
Weapon limit  I need moar GUNS! I play games to forget about the real world and shoot people in the face. I don’t need my shooters hyper realistic limiting me to just two or three weapons at a time. I would like to return to the days gone by where the generic space marine/earth’s savior/ultimate badass could easily carry nine weapons without breaking a sweat. Crappy rushed sequels  Shame on you BioWare I’ve touched upon this topic a great deal in my opinion here and sadly this is one trend that’s taking the industry down fast. When a sequel’s done right, not only does it please fans of the series, but it allows the developer to draw in a wider audience. A rushed crappy sequel churned out to capitalize on the other hand is just appalling. Incessant whining  Cry me a river Now this obviously isn’t an issue from the developers; it’s the gamers and journalists (yes us) at fault here. Even though both the Xbox360 and the PS3 released eons ago, there are still console wars igniting forum threads the world over. And then you have these “video game journalists” who instead of quelling these wars pour even more fuel on them with articles like “PS3 version of Battlefield is sub-par” or “Xbox360 version of Black Ops is sub-Hd” and so on. In fact just the other day I came across an article on N4G where the author seemed butt hurt simply because there was no animation of entering or exiting vehicles in Battlefield 3. Really now? Movie to game adaptations  Why do games like this exist? Nearly a decade and countless crappy movie to game adaptations later and it’s still not dawned on people that for some unfathomable reason, this transition really doesn’t work in the real world. Yes, there have been a few exceptions to the rule but compared to the gargantuan amount of crap, it’s really surprising large studios are still spending huge amounts of the green stuff on horrible cash-ins. Downloadable Content  The evil that started it all Like sequels, when done right DLC allows players to enjoy more of the same. Studios like Rockstar actually offer players a ten plus hour experience in some of their DLC packs completely justifying their price tag. But for every Episodes from Liberty City there are shameless add-ons that should have been added into the base game itself. Yeah I’m looking at you Bethesda for starting all of this by the way. So anyway, that’s pretty much it from my end. If you feel the need to rage against the industry further, don’t feel shy and pour your feelings out in the comments below. |
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