Is Gaming Really Dead?

I am so sick of dragging my feet down to the closest video game shop and spending my hard-earned cash on a game that will either last a total of four hours, OR will make me want to peel my own eyes because of how bad it is.

I will admit that most games that are outrageously short usually turn out brilliant; but this does not excuse them! For instance: when you find yourself sitting playing a game that’s awesome and before you’ve even had time to come to grips with the controls; it abruptly ends. It drives me insane. Don’t these people look back on their previous games and think: “Remember when we made ’Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls’? (Bethesda Xbox)”
I tell you, that game had no end! Sure it’s a little dated now, and sure it’s a bad example since its successor: ‘Oblivion’ (Also Bethesda: the demigod on the Xbox360), is one of the best and longest games I’ve ever played. But my meaning is sound.

I have played many games over the years; on dozens of consoles from the first Nintendo to the Xbox360 and everything in between. I even own a DS! (If that can be counted as a console) I enjoy almost every kind of game there is to offer, my favourites: first person and third person shooters, real-time-strategy, horror, racing… the list goes on. I enjoy both online and offline. But it seems the pickings are getting slimmer. I don’t own a Wii: for reasons I do not wish to go into.

You buy a game this year for full price, £45-50, and you get barely four hours of game play. I have my file booted up on Oblivion in the back ground: 200+ hours and still going. Where have the epic games gone? I can’t complain about PC games because I really haven’t explored that area for no other reason than I simply don’t have the money to update my system every 18 months. So PC game fans I am not and have no right to complain when it comes PC gaming.

I’m not saying that there are no good games left, occasionally a spectacular game comes out that you know you’re going to keep as long as your eyes can see and your hands can move; but out of the hundreds of games I’ve played; only a small percentage remains on my shelf. Maybe I’m just picky and complain for the sake of arrogance, it is probably true, I only wish that when looking forward to a ‘best seller’ series producing its next installment that it meets the standards I expect. I don’t wish for the impossible, I dream for that, I merely pray that the ‘next-gen’ gaming is better than the predecessor.  

It’s sad in a way. Gaming is dying. Hardcore gaming: to sit and play a decent game for hours and hours until your hands bleed or your eyes dry out; with friends or family making you hate and love them at the same time (depending on which game you choose to play) is dead. 

And this nonsense with achievements! What is that about? I thought games were there to have fun, play together, conquer impossible odds, and yes be really, really nerdy! Not about getting a score; achievements (Xbox360) are bull****. It makes a non-competitive game competitive. Personally I enjoy ‘co-op’ gaming; it makes the game fun and no arguments start: you work together as a team. I understand competitive games, of course, but the fact that ‘achievements’ are now a part of the entire xbox360 experience it turns everything into a p*ssing contest!
Achievements are basically a score you get from each game you play. Each game has a list of things you may do in order to receive ‘Gamer Points’ which adds to your total. For instance:

*Game: Oblivion(xbox360 Bethesda)
*Achievement: Starting the game.
*Received: 10g(gamer-points).

Then your grand total would be 10 gamer score. The more games you play the higher your gamer score goes up. Sounds like fun? No it doesn’t! Shouldn’t the game be the fun part! Not the stupid point system. Did I mention that your gamer score doesn’t do anything! It is simply there to show off to your friends. Ridiculous.

Back to games, excuse me; I know this rant is all over the place and I apologise. 

I miss games that take a hold of you from start to finish. I miss the feeling of waiting to get home and knowing all you were going to do that night was sit and play it until you passed out from exhaustion. I miss games that take more than one setting to finish. I miss games that when you finish, after weeks or even months of game play, all you feel like doing is restarting and playing it all again. What happened to games? Now all we get is four hours of game play with poor graphics that have obviously been copied and pasted to each level. All we get is a pathetic excuse that makes you shiver when you complete it at how disappointed you are.

I’m not asking much, I just want games to have some effort put in, some ideas that come out are fantastic but they are unfinished and flawed making them painfully awkward to play. I know this rant is a nerdy one but that’s me, if you were a book or movie lover and suddenly all that came out were poorly written, badly acted, half baked wastes of your time you’d be pretty annoyed as well.

I conclude that the only thing to do is sit back and enjoy the old beautiful games; keep my fingers crossed, my chin up for the future and fill my head full of painkillers.