The Gamer Problem

During the last generation of consoles, I started following gaming news more intently than ever before. I subscribed to many gaming websites, podcasts and even two magazines, participated on gaming-related forums mainly on GameSpot and reddit, started following a slew of gaming channels/websites on Youtube and Facebook, etc. In other words, I dove in the gamer community/culture like never before.

The gaming community is extremely big. Bigger than it has ever been and it's growing by the minute. I've been entertained by the immense creativity of many and by the sheer madness of others. I've enjoyed some passionate discussions on forums and read the most interesting and/or hilarious comments on Youtube. I've read thoughtful letters in magazines and listened to heated debates which swayed my opinions in many ways. I've learned a truck-load about the gaming industry as a whole, the relationship between developers and publishers, how critics tend to analyse games, the meaning of terms like DRM, Third-Party, DLC, Indie, etc. I know also a lot more about gamers in general, how they react to certain companies and genres, how they interact with each other, which games they tend to venerate or hate and how they feel about basically everything gaming-related.

And that's where it started to fall apart for me.

First off all, the amount of hatred generated in gaming circles is staggering. Hatred towards certain publishers (mainly EA and Activision, but not a single one is safe), hatred towards the gamers who own that "other system" or towards the company itself, hatred towards anyone who doesn't adore whichever game/genre/franchise you love with a passion, hatred towards developers for delaying an otherwise-unfinished product, hatred basically towards anyone who doesn't think exactly like you do.

It's mind-blowing. It has become a problem to the point where I'm genuinely surprised whenever I read some love or positivity in forums and/or comments. I'm aware there are people who like to write anything just to piss off others - the so-called trolls - but it's only a fraction of the gaming population.

I've read some of the most spiteful, degrading and inhuman stuff on the Internet for video games. People wishing death, painful sickness and generally horrible things upon others for reasons such as delaying a game a few months. I've read some people on forums who received threats of bodily-harm in their private inbox because they had a different opinion of whether or not a game was good. On this very blog I received a comment which was basically "awful blog, kill urself" (Side note : I gladly accept criticism, let's just be constructive and not suggest suicide). And, obviously, we've all heard of the multiple death and rape threats developers, critics, journalists, publishers receive on public media (mainly twitter), of all places.

I mean, are you fucking serious? Really?

I know "Internet hate" is a phenomenom which has repercussions well beyond the small-but-growing world of video games. I'm a basketball and football fan, and man, the hatred in there is immense. Towards teams, players, journalists, leagues, managers, agents, commissionners, owners, etc. Hatred knows no bound in sports. I get that you don't like the rival team, but wishing painful death upon the whole coaching staff might not be the sanest thing you can do. You might not agree with this national writer, but don't go insulting his whole family whom you've never met and will likely never do. "Internet hate" is prevalent everywhere where religion is mentioned, where politics have a role to play, where movies are discussed, where journalists abound, where religion is debated, etc. Basically everywhere. But this is a gaming blog, so we'll stick to gaming.

The second problem of gamer is closely connected to the first. It has happened quite often that people will display hatred whenever they feel they're owned something. Gamers have an IMMENSE sense of entitlement. If a game is delayed, many will completely go beserk and claim that the company owes them the game or something. Which makes absolutely no sense ; since you haven't bought it, you aren't owed anything. Or when a "weaker" month of PS+ free games come around, thousands will claim that Sony owes them better games than those. Which, again, makes no sense at all. You subscribe to a service which promises two free games per month. It never says anywhere that the two games offered will be $100'000'000-budget games or that you will even like them. If you don't like the games offered, then unsubscribe or simply don't "buy" them. It's really not that hard.

I feel that people need to understand the notion of "voting with you wallet". I've read countless gamers rejecting an game because of the amount of content it proposes. That's fine. If you don't like what the game offers, don't buy it. Simple. The game isn't worth 60 or 70$ for you? Don't buy it. If you buy a game and feel like it's not enough, you can voice your opinion saying that the game isn't as complete or vast as you thought, but not that the developer/publisher owes you anything. YOU chose to buy the freaking game. Live with the consequences. Give it a low score on your blog, don't buy the sequel or whatever, but nobody owes you anything.

Finally, the constant whining in video game-related media is impossible to ignore. It seems like every single gaming-related post, forum, video, comment or other is filled with negativity. Nobody is ever satisfied with anything. That game is too short, too long, controls are too complex, graphics suck, the colors are weird, not enough guns, too many guns, killing someone isn't satisfying, too much gore, not enough gore, not realistic enough, "too" realistic, whatever.

Look, I understand the concept of "not settling for less" and "striving to be better". I'm all for it. It's disappointing when a game fails to meet expectations. However, there's a way to voice our opinion as gamers without sounding like whiny kids. Constructive criticism is what we should aim for as gamers, especially adult gamers. There's a difference between saying "Tis gaem sux ballz" and pointing out what you found lacking or unsatisfying like a normal, rational human. It doesn't help anyone to be overly negative and critical if you're not being constructive and coherent.

And that is the main reason why, instead of spending a few hours per week on gaming websites, I now try to spend less than 30 minutes, if not 15 minutes, per week. And it's a shame because I know I'm missing out on some good stuff and some great people to meet.

Seventh Generation Review - The Best Games

The games being released exclusively on seventh-generation consoles are getting - unsurprisingly - more and more scarce. I know there are still some AAA titles coming on those platforms, most notably Assassin's Creed Rogue, Borderlands : The Pre-Sequel! (which I'm eagerly waiting for and is even pre-ordered) and Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD.

As far as my personal tastes and budget are concerned, only The Pre-Sequel! has a chance to make some noise in my personal "Best games of the Seventh-Generation" list. The rest of this homemade list is pretty much set in stone. For the sake of "transparency", let's look at the list of all the seventh-gen games which received a rating of 9.5 and higher on the list and the console I played them on. I won't put the exact scores next to them, as it would be useless if you know the first one has 9.9 and the last one 9.5. Keep in mind that the order is not final, since it's very possible my opinion changes during another playthrough if it ever happens. But usually it really doesn't move around that much. Also, it has to be said I'm usually not big on online multiplayer, so I put an * next to the titles I haven't played much. It doesn't mean the MP isn't good or even great, it only means I honestly didn't try it that much.

The Last of Us* (PS3) - Best Overall Game / Action-adventure Game / Survival Horror Game
Bioshock (PS3) - Best FPS

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - Best Platformer
Fallout 3 (PS3) - Best RPG / Open-world Game
The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim (PS3)
Bioshock : Infinite (PS3)
The Orange Box (Half-Life 2 and Portal only) (PS3)
Portal 2 (PS3) - Best Puzzle Game
Batman : Arkham Asylum (PS3)
The Walking Dead (PS3) - Best Interactive-Adventure (??) Game
The Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword (Wii)
Tomb Raider** (PS3)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves (PS3)

Batman : Arkham City (PS3)
Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare (PS3)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception** (PS3)
Mass Effect 3** (PS3)
inFamous (PS3)
Borderlands (PS3)
The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess (Wii)
Journey (PS3) - Best Indie Game
Battlefield : Bad Company 2 (PS3)
Borderlands 2 (PS3)
LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
Red Dead Redemption* (PS3)
Bioshock 2** (PS3)
Dishonored (PS3) - Best Stealth Game

Best Racing Game (None were 9.5 or better) : Tie between Gran Turismo 5** (PS3) and Forza Motorsports 4* (X360)

* I haven' tried those games' multiplayer component.
** Those I did, but I merely scrathed the surface (usually less than 3 hours).

Now, the first reaction might be "Holy crap there are so many games you think are 9.5 and up". Yes there are, I realize that. The way I see it, the faults of a game have to be massive in order to downgrade the score if I'm really enjoying myself playing said game.

For example, I don't think the first Borderlands and Kirby's Epic Yarn are without faults, but I enjoyed myself so much playing both those games (in fact, I went through Borderlands 3 or 4 times) that I really didn't care if Epic Yarn was really too easy and that BL's characters were almost all massively under-developed. That's why I gave them such high scores, because I freaking enjoyed them. And while I love games that give you unique experiences (see : The Last of Us and Bioshock, unsurprisingly at the top of the list), I also like - forgive me cliché - having "good ol' fun".

Anyway, we had a truly great Seventh-Generation of consoles and games. And I'm pretty damn sure I missed many gems along the way, most likely exclusives to the XBox 360, which I owned for 3 years but only played 6 or 7 games on, or to the PC, many of which I can't play because I use a MacBook with limited gaming power.

What Am I Playing Now - Part VI

Damn, it's been a while.

As far as gaming is concerned, this summer has been particularly light for me. I moved in early July, been stuck in boxes for basically 6 weeks and - more importantly - my wife gave birth to our first child (it's a girl!) two weeks ago. So I was missing both time and money in the last 3 months to truly enjoy every shiny new game on the market. Thankfully I didn't really miss that much.

I bought a Wii U (the Legend of Zelda limited edition) so I played a bit of Wind Waker, which put a massive smile on my face for the 5 hours or so I've put into it. Even my wife enjoys watching me play it. It truly is a joyful, colorful and still - 11 years later - very beautiful game. You can't help but be happy playing it.

Also on that same Wii U I found the Call of Duty : Black Ops II game for a whopping 4.99$. I'm not known to be a massive CoD fan, but a few days earlier I played a bit of Zombies mode (in the first Black Ops) with my brother at his place and rather enjoyed it. The way I see it, I bought the CoD Zombies mode for five bucks, and that doesn't sound half-bad, even if the Wii U GamePad is quite massive to handle for a twitchy FPS like this. I might do the Single-Player campaign at one point. More on that if it ever happens.

At the hospital for basically a week with the wife and baby, I had time to try a few handheld games. I got to the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time 3D and through the first two worlds in Super Mario 3D Land on my 3DS XL. Zelda is awesome because it's freaking Zelda, and Mario is great so far but I'm still getting used to the control scheme. It feels a bit unnatural how they did it. Anyway, the level design is - so far - simple but still very enjoyable.

Still at the hospital, I started Dragon's Crown on the PS Vita. Fun game so far, since I'm a sucker for loot-driven games. The story so far is uninteresting and most ladies involved happen to have exceedingly massive breasts (which at this point are a turn-off more than anything else), but the satisfying gameplay makes up for it. I'm not even two hours in though, so we'll see how this goes.

Back home, I played a lot of Fez (Free on PS+) on the PS4, but I still don't feel like I get that game, however fun it is so far. It's kind of funny because before starting it, a guy from a podcast I listen to weekly talked about how that game made him feel not smart with all its secrets and weird stuff going on. I understand how he feels I think. The game says I'm more than 70% in, but I don't feel closer to the end than 6 hours ago.

With the PAX sale going on this past week on the PS Store, I got Transistor and Trials Fusion for 13.49$ each, but I still haven't installed them on the console. They're definitely next on the PS4 list along with Plants vs Zombies : Garden Warfare, which I got for 18$ (!!) brand new yesterday. I can't wait to give all those a try, but it will be hard since Destiny is right around the corner...

And on the PS3 I'm veeeeery slowly going through MGS3 HD, enjoying it somehow even if I'm really terrible at stealth games. I'm almost 7 hours in but I'm pretty sure it took me 15+ realtime hours to get there. After that I'll go through Crysis 3 (free last month on PS+) then it's all Borderlands 2 DLCs and The Pre-Sequel.

Reading all I've just written, I realize this summer wasn't THAT light. But when something as important as the birth of your first child is involved, everything else seems insignificant!