A treatise on the sorry-state of video games (incoherent ramblings masquerading as intellectual discourse)

in #gaming8 years ago (edited)

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Booting up the console - or computer - and playing one of the contemporary games of today, I am left with a feeling of longing: an unsatiated appetite, like only having half a slice of cake instead of a whole slice, or not getting to spunk over the Mrs' tits and face to appropriately end a wild fuckathon. Do today's video games leave you wanting more as well? They do for me, because video games are life, video games are bae, but then I'm a nerd who values video games more than human interactions - seriously fuck small talk: nobody cares about your opinions regarding the weather or how your weekend was. You're so boring for bringing up those topics, you make me want to stuff pig shit into my ears so that I never have to hear about how your rhododendrons are "coming along nicely". But I digress.

Sorry to sound like an old fart, but games just aren't what they were used to be. Do you agree? I hope so, because agreement with my opinion makes you automatically sexy (no homo) and gifts an automatic 50 points to Hufflepuff #FuckGryffindor.

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Back merely seven years or so ago - like with the state of political correctness - the landscape was vastly different. You unlocked features in games through skill and completion rather than paid "DLC" and micro-transactions. (I'm looking at you Rome 2/Attila total war.) You had to actually think and weren't hand-held throughout those entire games (Ah Morrowind, my first real love). But now it's devolved into money-grubbing and dumbing-down to please the filthy casuals who play our beloved franchises for all of ten-minutes before putting them down because they suck at it. The solution to which, from a corporate standpoint, is to betray the core audience by making games even MORE expensive and easier, rather than providing value for money and expecting players to attempt to get better.

So many iterations of established titles are now being catered towards casuals who have the attention-span of soiled knickers. But just because they spend the fat-stacks on these neutered video-games, Mr Boardroom thinks that Fallout 4 is the best Fallout ever because "look at the monetary statistics, biznatch!"

Yep, Preston Garvey telling me that "another settlement needs our help" like a broken-whiney-cunt-of-a-record is the crescendo of Fallout: the climatic epitome of modern video games; the culmination of decades of RPG Bethesda experience. Fuck the nuanced story-telling and mechanics of Fallout New Vegas because that pile of stinky takes the proverbial biscuit for a difficulty level of over 9000. No, the lessons learned from the success of that game were that we need to take away player autonomy and hold their hand like a drooling, special-needs moron lest they make the wrong decision yet again and get sliced up into a carpaccio de casual by an irate death claw mother on the rag - for the zillionth time (what part of that's a high-level area is hard to comprehend?). Well maybe not that example. But THE END IS NEAR DAMMIT! They already cut out the Cazadores! Death Claws are the next on the endangered list if something is not done to prevent Global Warming.

Why do Bethesda and other studios insist on "stream-lining"? Steam-lining was supposed to mean polish, with a little pragmatic ergonomic thought involved when it came to improvements for filing-down the rough edges. Not castrating the game of its cajones, 'til it becomes a vapid, empty shell.

Little MattyBooLamb envisioned future games as being Morrowind - but with better graphics, or Halo 2 - but with better graphics or Fable 1 - but with better graphics, or Leisure suit Larry Magna Cum Laude - but with more titties and more cum laude. Definitely NOT the visually-beautiful games of today which may speciously be better than their predecessors because the virtual pickled gherkin skins have never looked as immersive, but with the games overall having as much soul as a ginger step-child. Immersive virtual vegetables are not enough, damn your eyes! Not enoughs I tells you! Maybe if you threw in some hair works wool for virtual livestock, then MAYBE we'd get close.

So is it just me? Am I the only one who actually gives two figs for the glory-days of video games? Or is everyone cool with paying more for ostensibly less? Do you lie awake at night ruminating about the logistics of a Cheetos anal fetish? Whoops, wrong blog. Do you lie awake at night wishing that games were deep, thought-provoking, mentally-stimulating works of fairly-priced interactive art, rather than beautiful turds? I know I do - that and my plans for world domination through the use of nuclear sheep.

Honestly the only modern game which is deep, fairly priced with actual DLC rather than cut content DLC; is hard to master, has an amazing story, looks great and has a pleasantly-surprising amount of superfluous titty-ness is the Witcher 3. Witcher is hope for a brighter future, Witcher is bae.

What are your thoughts? Are you in agreement? Have I offended you with politically-incorrect languaged unfunnies? Did you mistakenly stumble across this thinking that is was a recipe for Sourdough bread? Do you think that weaponised sheep are a feasible option for an authoritarian world regime?

I want to know your thoughts.

Stay sexy, and may I say that your hair looks lovely today (full homo).

Love from your Lamb

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I enjoyed your rant, but must disagree. :) Gaming is still a new and fast evolving industry. I agree with you that The Witcher 3 is a fantastic game, but I think Fallout 4 is pretty great too. Those radiant quests are a poor move though, but can easily be ignored - that's what I did. The storytelling was top notch and in my opinion superior to The Witcher 3.

Anyhow, back to the point, your rant is very similar to how people reacted when sound was added to the movies. Gaming is pretty much at that point at this moment. Things will change, evolve, and some old school gamers will be disappointed. But I'm sure, over time, most will learn to adapt.

Have you played Dark Souls 3? Sounds like something right up your alley. :)

Thanks dude, this post was my first to pop my steemit cherry so I wanted to make a formal and polite impression on the community, free of vulgarity and expletives because I'm a family-friendly type of person...plus I make one hell of a spaghetti bolognese ;p

Yes, I was being mostly facetious and hyperbolic, but the underlying tones of systemic greed and dumbing down is becoming a lot more prevalent in newer titles perpetuated by AAA companies. The introduction of enhanced aim assist and/or larger hit boxes for sniping in the likes of FPS games such as Destiny and Halo 4 exacerbates the compressed skill-gap travesty, facilitating game play by changing certain mechanics to favour inexperience more than ever.

I actually enjoyed Fallout 4 for what it is, it just irks me that it could've been so much more. The minecraft spin-off should enhance the game - and it does - but I feel that they've unduly emphasised it as a main selling point of the game at the expense of the story and RPG elements, as reflected especially by its DLCs. I feel that they're attempting to dilute the game to become many things at once - a jack of all trades, as it were - to entice as wide an audience as possible, but the game just isn't of the best quality in any of those genres. I think that it might have been better to focus more on the story and RPG and let the minecraft gimmick take a backseat. The FPS-ness of the game has improved SO much, but the story and RPG are just so mediocre. If it were my first Fallout, then I'd say it was one of the best games ever, except I can't ignore that the original ones exist plus New Vegas, so I have to (perhaps unfairly) expect more of them.

Did you really like the story-telling? It felt odd to me. Lots of cliches and very hand-held choices, which simply boiled-down to "agree and do it" "disagree, but then do it anyway" "Sarcastic agreement" "Choice which feels like an autonomous different decision, but is actually de facto agreement".

There were also no revisited effects of your choices, like in New Vegas, such as how the particular choice you made affected Novac or Goodsprings or The Strip (such as the psychotic results, the independence result, the NCR result or Caesar's result) in years to come. How they flourished or faded into obscurity, you know?

I actually love change, though it might not seem like it. I just want the change to make the new game more challenging, not easier. I don't actually want a regurgitation of old games with new graphics in reality, but instead new games that make those old games look primitive, both graphically and mechanically. But seeing as things are instead getting easier, right now, I'd be grateful with just graphic enhancements of older games. The Witcher 3 is the exception as that is superior in size, quality, mechanics, story and DLC than any past game I listed. That's new school, that's popular, that's won game of the year from both younger gamers and older ones, and it did so by treating them like adults and not like noobs incapable of understanding concepts higher than amateur.

I've not played Dark Souls - thanks for the tip dude!

Thank's for reading and commenting, a picnic hamper containing cured meats is en route to your location!

Much love

MattyBooLamb

Firstly I believe weaponized goats would work way better than sheep and I wouldn't mind a nice recipe next time ;)

But I only partly agree with you.... Yes gaming has changed over the past few years and yes not all of it has been for the better. Yet change is exactly why I love gaming.

I have no idea what type of games I am going to be playing in 5 years. Maybe I will be in SAO learning sword moves that would put Kirrito to shame. Maybe there will be a game where you can explore an exact replica of earth. Maybe I will have completely virtual lightsaber duels with people on the other side of the planet.

And yes there has been a lot of disappointments lately but there are a lot of great games that have recently been released. The gaming industry has also grown considerably in the past 10 years. You can now find games on almost everything and everywhere.

I don't think the end is near...I think we have barely finished the tutorial!!

I love your optimism! Like I said to Liberosist, most of this is tongue-in-cheek as I'm sure you know, with a little histrionic exaggeration on the side because I love a good moan.

I will make a recipe for you! It will be paella which will be none-authentic, which if an actual Spanish person saw, would have me killed with chorizo colonoscopy!

Yes I need lightsaber duels! Darth Lamb will be ruler of the galaxy mwhahahaha Do you think that they should implement force choke too? Or is that too much?

Much love dude and thanks for reading. I WILL share my tic tacs with you. Not even my own mother lamb has that privilege!

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