Today I just remembered about four years ago I waited in the cold and rain for hours to be one of the first people to get my hands on one of those fat black shiny boxes we call the PS3. Fours years, how time flies, its crazy and nearly four years for the Wii and five for the Xbox 360. Then I started thinking to myself, this gaming generation should be coming to a close...but the end is no where in sight.
This generation is different from the last due to the colossal investments Sony and Microsoft made when they were developing their consoles. These companies need to make their money back at the very least and they would enjoy making a profit as well. This is why Playstation Move and Kinect were created, to extend the consoles life cycles so that the consoles this generation can be profitable.
But what about the Wii you might ask. Well the Wii has been somewhat of a wild card this generation, I never suspected that I would become half as popular as it currently is. I think that Nintendo will just milk the Wii for everything its got and swim in their sea of money. I mean it would be nice if Nintendo introduced a "next-gen" incarnation of the Wii with HD visuals, a hard drive; you know all the basics that a next-gen console has. A console that would cater more to the hardcore gamers like me, none of this casual gaming nonsense. To me it is logical since Nintendo would theoretically would have a head start in the latest generation of gaming (I still consider the Wii as previous generation technology).
But this is all just wishful thinking, it seems like we are in the long haul for this one. With a gaming generation with an end no where in sight, I feel like my launch Day PS3 was worth every dollar.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
So Many Sequals, So Little Time...
Like many of you know, Call of Duty: Black Ops (COD7) was released recently and it got me thinking. I really don't like how COD games are released every year like it's some kind of sports game and I feel like this diminishes the video games quality.
I feel that COD games have been getting progressively worse after COD 4, it seems like the developers can get away with creating games that fail to impress me while maintaining record sales numbers. If they wanted to, the developers could release a half-assed game and still make a mint off of it due to the fact that the consumers are sheep, purchasing the game because its track record and being somewhat "loyal" to the franchise. Honestly, if a new game is released every year, even with 2 alternating developer teams (each team creates a game every 2 years) I feel that the developers are more inclined to minimize the improvements in each installment to allow them to save time. For example, I still fell like the last 2 COD games look like crap compared to games like Killzone 3 and Crysis 2. It's like the more recent games in the COD franchise hardly look better than COD 4 which was released quite some time ago.
What I'm trying to say is that the COD games look and feel dated and the developers don't really have any incentive to make huge improvements in each new COD because they would not be able to crank out COD games annually and be swimming cash like they are as we speak. So hopefully at some point the developers will space out the launches of these games, put more effort into them. I want a game that has more atmosphere, you know more stuff going on in the background and weather that sort of thing. I want better visuals(significantly better) because the games look like an attractive woman that didn't age very well. Above all, I a damn single player experience!
I feel that COD games have been getting progressively worse after COD 4, it seems like the developers can get away with creating games that fail to impress me while maintaining record sales numbers. If they wanted to, the developers could release a half-assed game and still make a mint off of it due to the fact that the consumers are sheep, purchasing the game because its track record and being somewhat "loyal" to the franchise. Honestly, if a new game is released every year, even with 2 alternating developer teams (each team creates a game every 2 years) I feel that the developers are more inclined to minimize the improvements in each installment to allow them to save time. For example, I still fell like the last 2 COD games look like crap compared to games like Killzone 3 and Crysis 2. It's like the more recent games in the COD franchise hardly look better than COD 4 which was released quite some time ago.
What I'm trying to say is that the COD games look and feel dated and the developers don't really have any incentive to make huge improvements in each new COD because they would not be able to crank out COD games annually and be swimming cash like they are as we speak. So hopefully at some point the developers will space out the launches of these games, put more effort into them. I want a game that has more atmosphere, you know more stuff going on in the background and weather that sort of thing. I want better visuals(significantly better) because the games look like an attractive woman that didn't age very well. Above all, I a damn single player experience!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
I Have Beef With Online Multiplayer
Over the years I have realized there can be a divide between gamers who only want to play online multi-player games (mp) and those who only care about single player (sp). Personally, sp is far more important to me than mp, that being said I do enjoy mp games.
The thing is when it comes down to developing games, both a sp and mp experience is not always necessary. Often I find when the decision is made to add an mp component to an sp game, the mp can detract from the overall experience and vice versa. Like sometimes it will just feel half-assed and unnecessary. Prime example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (COD6), it honestly had the shortest sp I have ever played in this gaming generation; it took me around 5 hours to complete it. I found, the plot extremely convoluted and it was not conveyed properly, the game could at least had some decent cutscenes to enhance the experience slightly. It just seemed that they developers devoted all their efforts to creating the mp because most people who purchase COD buy it for the mp. Well why couldn't COD6 just be like MAG or Warhawk, where the games are mp only and cost less than the average retail price for a game. It seems to make to me, but that's just me.
These days it seems like developers are going through this "Me Too" phase where every game must have a mp component and most of the time ends up hurting the sp. I know there is a huge market for mp games but there is no point of trying to appeal to both sp and mp players if the game quality will end up suffering.
This is my beef, if the developers want to make a game with both sp and mp, they need do it right. They need to divide their efforts equally between the sp and mp components of the game. If not, make the game sp or mp only, it would save them money and more importantly it would save the consumer money.
The thing is when it comes down to developing games, both a sp and mp experience is not always necessary. Often I find when the decision is made to add an mp component to an sp game, the mp can detract from the overall experience and vice versa. Like sometimes it will just feel half-assed and unnecessary. Prime example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (COD6), it honestly had the shortest sp I have ever played in this gaming generation; it took me around 5 hours to complete it. I found, the plot extremely convoluted and it was not conveyed properly, the game could at least had some decent cutscenes to enhance the experience slightly. It just seemed that they developers devoted all their efforts to creating the mp because most people who purchase COD buy it for the mp. Well why couldn't COD6 just be like MAG or Warhawk, where the games are mp only and cost less than the average retail price for a game. It seems to make to me, but that's just me.
These days it seems like developers are going through this "Me Too" phase where every game must have a mp component and most of the time ends up hurting the sp. I know there is a huge market for mp games but there is no point of trying to appeal to both sp and mp players if the game quality will end up suffering.
This is my beef, if the developers want to make a game with both sp and mp, they need do it right. They need to divide their efforts equally between the sp and mp components of the game. If not, make the game sp or mp only, it would save them money and more importantly it would save the consumer money.
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