Gaming and me.

I feel numb. A realisation over the weekend has made me feel, well…quite sad. But let me start at the beginning. For the best part of twenty years I have been playing video games on a regular basis and more or less, loved every minute. The first game I ever played was Wonderboy in an arcade somewhere in Clacton-on-sea. It was like playing a cartoon, my tiny mind couldn’t comprehend just how amazing it was. I dreamt about that game, riding around on a pixel skateboard and throwing hammers at pythons, it certainly made an impact. A year or so later I was given an Atari when a friend upgraded to a ZX Spectrum.

A few years later I dabbled with a variety of home computers and consoles, from the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, NES, Master System and eventually the Mega drive and SNES. I only ever owned a Commodore 64, Gameboy and a Master system myself, these other console experiences were at friends houses. My Commodore was bought for me after months of nagging for a computer. It wasn’t exactly what I was after; even when it was bought it was considered a bit ‘retro’ and preceded by at least 3 computers since its launch. I still used these systems until around 1996, by then it was practically archaic. Despite my friends constantly ribbing me about having a computer that loaded games off a cassette tape, I loved the Commodore. Some of those games, nay – experiences were so personal to me. Yes, the games were visually inferior to sonic the hedgehog, but they offered more. Amazingly; my favourite games I used to play were actually created by bedroom programmers, not big companies. Most people would baulk at the idea that a game, which often got nationwide critical acclaim and distribution was made not by a massive corporation, but by one lonely man in his bedroom. These games were classics and had an ingrained British eccentricism and humour. Despite having to wait 20 minutes for a game to load, it was worth the wait, often giving me chance to have my dinner whilst it loaded. Another beauty was that the games were very cheap, most £4 or less. Some of the bigger budget titles were a tenner, but they were usually worth the money. There was a time when a bout of envy made me want a Sega Megadrive more than life itself, but the realisation that saving for a game that cost £40 was going to take the best part of 6 months, I soon decided it was just easier to play them at friends houses.

Then, I longed for an Amiga 500. My best friend at the time had one. Its amazing graphics and sound at the time was paralleled by no other home computer. Not to mention that its best feature was what ultimately killed it. The games were easy to copy and in abundance. Often traded in school for the price of a Mars bar. Everyone I have ever spoken to who owned an Amiga never ever bought a retail game. A shame really, but you can hardly blame people when a packet of 20 blank discs that could be filled with all the new releases cost as much as one game. Of course, I used to go and see my friend for his company, but part of me just wanted to play on his computer.
Living on the coast, arcades were a regular addition to my gaming adolescence.
Spending all the pocket money I had on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade machine was a summer long experience I will never forget. Seeing Mortal Kombat for the first time blew my mind. I had never seen graphics that good. Hordes of people stood around the arcade cabinet recoiling in horror as Johnny Cage’s spine was ripped out. No one was prepared for that gory visual treat. A vivid memory is watching the game and racing home to tell my family about it over Sunday dinner. Sounds daft now, with some brilliantly violent games available. Back then; it was the first of its kind. When you go from cartoon cuddliness that is Sonic and Mario to blood spraying everywhere it plays havoc with a kids mind. It was amazing. The thing is, it wasn’t just the games that I remember. It’s the association to a time and a place. I remember what friends I was with and what ribbing exchanges were made if you died and ran out of continues. Checking all of the trays of bandits in the hope you would find another 20p so you could keep playing. The memories were equally as important as the pixels in my opinion.

I got a Playstation for Christmas ’96. The Playstation was not only a huge technological advancement, but also one of great cultural significance. Until the Playstation was released, gaming was seen as a geeky, outcast activity. Something only spotty teenage boys did in their bedrooms. Suddenly and seemingly overnight it was a cultural norm. Of course, spotty teenagers still holed up in their rooms played them, but the smug satisfaction of knowing that you wouldn’t get picked on for playing it far outweighed the technological advancements. The Playstation bought me some of my fondest memories of gaming. Some outstanding titles that still remain amongst my favourites of all time. Skip ahead a few years the Dreamcast offered a similar experience, but was more akin to the arcade machines I had grown up with. Shorter, more instant games like Crazy Taxi. Sadly, this died a death from a similar problem to the Amiga. Copied games. Oh, and the PS2.

Really, its amazing how quickly the gaming industry has changed. Pong to Crysis in about 30 years. A relatively short amount of time, it is also interesting looking back at just last generations consoles and cringing at the graphics and capabilities. I recently bought the Abe’s Odessy for the PS3. I LOVED that game back in its day, it feels a bit rose tinted in 2010 to say the least. Now I own a Ps3, Xbox 360, DS and PSP. All go hand in hand to feed my gaming hunger. Well, they used to anyway…
Here is the crux. I am tired of the same old nature of gaming. I was playing God of War 3. Sat there for about half an hour I paused the game and mulled my experience over. I turned to my girlfriend (who was playing Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, a far superior game) and said: “This is exactly the same as the other two. Really, its just Golden Axe with better graphics.” Solid Snake paused a moment later. My girlfriend looked up and replied, “They are all quite similar though. Uncharted is just the same as Gears of war, but with different graphics”. That was it. My entire gaming history killed in two sentences. This led to me trying to justify my quandary.

There is no innovation in gaming. Fact.

Not the hardware itself, you understand. The Wii, as inaccurate and downright unresponsive as it currently is, could be used for some amazing and innovative games. Sadly, we are left with crap aimed at 6 year olds. The ONLY amazing game I have played on the Wii has been Zack and Wiki. That lent itself to the technology perfectly. Exploiting both its foibles and its merits, it also reminded me of a old school point and click, for which, it gets a personal recommendation. Kinect, will no doubt be a great piece of hardware, but it needs the games to make it appeal to a hardcore gaming demographic. I fear it may go the way of the Wii and end up dumbing down content to make it as accessible as possible. IF indeed it actually works, which I am still hugely sceptical. The DS is also a potentially amazing piece of kit. But once again, only a handful of games have exploited the hardware and utilised it fully, without it feeling cheap. In the past few months I have grown increasingly tired with gaming as a hobby, that sentence was the killer blow. My girlfriend is right, all the games are identical but with different textures. They consist of either sandbox titles with the same “A to B” missions, third person shooters with steroid infused homoerotic protagonists or first person shooters that are…fucking hell, practically identical to Call of Duty.

It is laziness to the nth degree. Look at Red Dead Redemption. It IS Grand Theft Auto, but with horses. Even the missions are similar. Crackdown 2 is another. It’s the same game as its predecessor. EXACTLY the same, with a couple of additions. They could have released with as DLC, which I will get to in a moment.

I recently played the Medal of Honor beta. It is identical to Bad Company 2. The textures are the same! (it is the same developer also), it plays the same, it looks the same. Its exactly the fucking same!! Bad company 2, is the same as Call of Duty… Uncharted 2 is basically Gears of War meets Tomb Raider. Lost planet, gears, dark sector, stranglehold = all the same. The process starts again with Kane & Lynch 2.
You could argue of course, that not a lot has changed. In the 90’s we had a glut of cutesy platformers and side scrolling beat em ups. This is true. However, surely we should have moved on? With the technology available games developers should be able to create some truly outstanding and original games.

But then that has posed problems; I have noticed of late that some games feel very, very unfinished. Graphical and gameplay issues are in abundance and some online features don’t work. A few weeks later an update appears and magically fixes some issues. Surely games should be totally finished before they get released? If I wanted to apply patches to games I’d buy a PC. You shouln’t experience problems like this on consoles. It feels that the online capability of these machines is sometimes exploited to rush release games and fix them later.

Another gaming issue that has made me oh, so jaded is Downloadable content. Not that long ago, when the PS1 was around, if you progressed, or finished the game you were awarded with special items, clothing etc. Now you have to pay a couple of quid for it. Hang on a second… have I not just forked out £40 for a game, why the hell should I have to pay MORE (fake) money for content that should be included? The Resident Evil 5 debacle put an end to me buying anything digitally. It is heavily rumoured that the game included a multiplayer mode of the disc. Capcom decided in their greedy corporate nature to “hide” this feature and have the gullible fanboys pay for it. The download was only around the £3 mark. But it’s the principle of it. The content is included on the disc and you expect people to pay money for a 50kb file that unlocks the content from the disc?

Laziness and pure apathy is going to kill the gaming industry. My apathy for the same lazy, repackaged titles is escalating. People will hopefully realise that sticking some new textures on a game and re-boxing it will not stick. They should forget humping the 3D bandwagon and start creating some truly amazing titles. I am of course looking forward to the Last Guardian, the latest offering from Team ICO.

Until then, I might just take up reading instead.