Today is a unique day in that I'm in an incredibly foul mood. So expect this post to be laden with all sorts of fucking shit. I don't care anymore. Buckle up kids cause this is going to be a rough ride.
The nightmare that is "next-gen consoles" continues. I know the PS4 was announced today, I'll get to that POS in a sec. But let me mention the new Xbox which drops the bombshell...
Look, I know motion controls is the "future" of gaming. But I will always loathe that piece of shit, the Kinect. First, I don't know how much this thing's gonna cost (I guess $150 but it may go down over time) but that's just more money that we must shell out. Then there's the games. I mean, Microsoft basically WANTS every game to have Kinect support somehow and it'll either A. provide useless features to the game or B. completely butcher the gameplay altogether.
An example of A. You say "start car" to start a car on NFS: Most Wanted. WHY IS THIS EVEN NECESSARY??? Sure, I don't mind the "start a car" feature (like in Hard Drivin') but I'd rather turn a key or *LE GASP* press a button to do so.
An example of B. Sonic Free Riders. I will NEVER forgive Microsoft (or whoever thought that it would be a good idea to not include REGULAR, OLD-FASHIONED JOYSTICK INPUTS) for butchering this game. I know Sonic Riders is a "meh" game but I always felt it had some potential if Sega would stop making serious blunders but relying on the Kinect's broken "controls" is the worst sin of all. So Sonic Free Riders is just a guinea pig in Microsoft's experiment to force people to buy a Kinect. I can't stand it, what a piece of shit.
Warning, lots of profanity but who cares. Fuck this shit. Fuck you, Kinect.
Oh, and one more thing. I'm not a tinfoil hat Alex Jones/Ron Paul type, but isn't the Kinect basically a camera that's plugged into the Internet watching your every move as you play the game? Ooooo, screw you Microsoft for the invasion of privacy.
And then there's the best video game company in the whole world, Electronic Arts. I'm going to go ahead and post a disclaimer here--I have a couple of really good friends who are actually employed by EA. They're great people and I'm fairly certain all those guys on the ground level working on the game are avid gamers who want their products to be best as possible. But I have no respect for the higher-ups at EA who peddle the same bullshit and no matter how much idiots like Reddit Gaming QQ about it, they still suck at the teat of the beast. I hate you EA.
But what did EA say? Well,
some EA guy's going on about how next-gen consoles won't have backwards-compatibility. Isn't that great. We've had the Xbox 360, the PS3, the Wii for about eight years now. We're sitting on a shit-ton of games. If those aren't playable with the new console, I simply am not buying it. I don't care if my Xbox deserves to be in a retirement home, I'm not about to let a massive chunk of my gaming library go null and void purely because Microsoft/Sony doesn't think it's worth supporting. Yeah sure, there's always the "stream" that they've been talking about. I know the PS4 has it and you can play PS1/2/3 games on your console. But only select ones that you probably have to pay for again. And even still, it's more crap that's only playable through an Internet connection/server (which I'll get to in a sec).
As for used games, well EA does something "right" in saying that they won't completely lock out used games. But this is the same company EA that'll embrace ANYTHING to ward away used game sales. DRM's, online passes, shitty Origin sales, free crap if you buy the game new, so big deal. Like let's talk about the new SimCity. I have no doubt in my mind that it'll be a solid game (gameplay-wise). But hell, look at what EA's doing. First, you have to download Origin (which I will not do, I'm sorry). Then you have to be online to play it. Okay, didn't we try stuff like that with Diablo 3 and look what happened with the server downage nightmare?
EDIT:A see-I-told-you-so-moment, BOOM, SimCity servers went down for a day or two now. There's also the possibility that your Internet connection might be broken. Whatever, it's just an inconvenience and nothing else, right?
What if, for some reason down the line, EA wants to kill the game. Unplug the server for whatever reason--EA wants to force us to buy SimCity 6 or maybe the SimCity franchise is just failing altogether so they're going to cut their losses now. Congrats, we have a AAA-title that can't be played anymore cause the servers have been shut down. What a piece of shit.
I remember it was't that long ago that OutRun Online Arcade would no longer be supported on Xbox Live and PSN because the Ferrari licensed expired and the game could no longer be purchased starting in 2012 or whatever. Do we want a bunch of games to live or die by servers that the game publishers themselves can flick a switch and be done with forever? What the hell happened to just buying a cartridge/CD, popping it into the slot, and just PLAYING IT???
Oh yeah, and then there's this. Reddit sucks ass but at least some of their members post some smart stuff.
And here's a Redditor posting legitimate complaints about EA's SimCity policies and is subsequently banned. Yeah, part of it was due to an "error" EA made but still, I have no respect for that company at all. I will not be buying the new SimCity nor anything else EA gets their hands on. Sorry.
Anyway, about the PS4, I think I covered pretty much all the aspects (
EDIT:If you want a PS4 rundown, check out this infographic) I wanted to about it except for this. Here's the first racing game to be available on the PS4. No, it's not another shitty Ridge Racer remake (boy I can't wait for that one). It's "Drive Club," another little sim racing game kinda like Test Drive Unlimited or Forza: Horizon but with less dubstep and DAT NEW GRAPHICAL PROWESS that'll sell copies. Give me a break. Game designers are so out of ideas now that they'd rather just make the same damn racing sim that we've played for the last 15-20 years. Although had they opted for something more wacky like Burnout, Need for Speed, or even Little Big Planet Karting, I'd probably hate that too. In other words, racing games nowadays suck.
I know this'll sound controversial but I'm serious when I say this. I think a good 90-95% of video games nowadays piss me off. I mean it. I'm sick and tired of the following (EDIT: added two things):
Sick and tired of games that are more interested in becoming a movie than an actual game and/or try to "grow up" and completely lose all fun in the process (the only exception to this rule is Shenmue cause it's awesome, that's why).
Sick and tired of the antics of EA, Activision, Microsoft, Sony, etc. and how gamers circlejerk but never actually do anything about it besides make stupid Internet memes.
Sick and tired of gamer culture like what we see on Reddit, GameFAQs, etc. and their over-infatution and group-think over the same exact damn game companies like Valve, Nintendo, Bethesda, Bioware, Blizzard, etc.
Sick and tired of the increasing amount of violence & edginess in games and how if you dislike it then gamers will attack you with, "you're an idiot, overprotective, hurting free speech, an insane Fox News right-winger, etc."
Sick and tired of motion controls, Facebook, Twitter, DRM's, online servers, monetization/DLC and and other hoops to jump through getting in the way of playing these fucking games.
Sick and tired of the screen bloom, shaders, motion blur, hue changes, and other unnatural that developers drown their game out with in an attempt to look "edgy" when a simple "blue skies" theme will usually do.
Sick and tired of all the stupid games the developers play with the on-disc DLC, stupid glitches that would take minutes to fix, rushed products, questionable game designs, interference from publishers, multi-million dollar budgets that go to make the game shiny but nothing to do with gameplay, and so forth that inhibit the ability to make decent games.
Sick and tired of the gaming media like Kotaku, G4, Spike, GameSpot, IGN and how they piss themselves over new consoles, companies, and gaming intellectuals like Cliff Blesinski, Notch, etc. while they dump on or completely ignore Sega and their impact on gaming all day long. Also the self-congratulatory speeches of many of the gaming talking heads/producers.
Sick and tired of Need for Speed and the countless awful remakes that do nothing but retard any advances made in the racing genre.
Oh, and I'm sick and tired of watching Sega retreat back to their abysmal selves every time I think they've redeemed themselves.
Fuck video games. If it weren't for Sega and the small, no, slim, no, INFINITESIMAL chance of being able to help salvage the racing game genre and blue skies I would never be in this position that I am in now as a video game programmer AKA "software engineer." I would've bailed and let it go down in the clusterfuck that it's in today. So help us God, that is all. Pray I don't get fired in the first week of my new job.
EDIT: Okay, I feel better now so don't be too offended from what I said. :(
If there's anything factually inaccurate about what I said in this post then let me know since I may be emotional and am calling it the way I see it but I'd also wish to be right as well.
...I will end on a positive note. I was reading
a Kotaku article on the Dreamcast and one user by the name of "Daemon_Gildas" who left a very inspiring comment about the Dreamcast's culture:
Honestly, if there is one thing I think the Dreamcast did right, it's that it inspired a "fun" tone of video-games.
I know it's strange to say that, because it literally has nothing to do with the hardware itself, but you have to admit; when you look at the Dreamcast's library, it consists almost entirely of "feel-good games".
Much of that was thanks to Sonic Team, who were really at the top of their game. I mean, hell, even Phantasy Star Online managed to be upbeat, and the actual story consisted of two planet-wide apocalypses!
I really wish games would get away from trying to be "mature" all the time. There was a wonderful article right here on Kotaku a few months back, on how Jet Set Radio managed to be relevant, without being violent (I'm too lazy to find and link it). I think that's something Gaming needs more of; games that exist simply to put a smile on your face, with no other baggage.Lord bless 'em cause he's right on the money.
