[Rant] What's Wrong with Video Games These Days?

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

But when you see all these titles - Rainbow Six, Gears of War, Halo 3, Team Fortress, Call of Duty, etc. - and they all seem like the same game with different paintjobs, that's what's wrong. If I want to see that kind of grim depiction of warfare, violence and mankind's bleak outlook upon itself, I'll watch the daily news. Video games are supposed to transport me away from that shit, not reinforce it.

Maybe we just take ourselves too seriously now, maybe we think we've come this far and now we're too good for some of the stuff that provided gaming sustenance over the past years. It's okay for games to be silly. That's part of their charm. I think it's why I prefer Pokemon over Halo: Instead of a gun, I get a giant, fire-breathing dragon. That's pretty cool.

Threadsniping here because FPS are my life~*

Your comparison seems a bit farfetched there. I don't think I'll look on the news anytime and see mankind's bleak outlook against invading aliens or any Team Fortress-esque wackiness anytime soon. Part of what makes First Person Shooters so much fun to play is part of the ability to run around and shoot things with guns and feel all manly without having to actually you know, put yourself in any real danger. It's a flight of imagination just like any other genre. Come on, rail guns, rocket launchers? Your fire breathing dragon ain't got shit on a Proton Cannon Spartan Laser.

The genre is also greatly varied. For every Halo there's crazy shit like Serious Sam or Duke Nukem, which is far too silly to be considered grim and bleak. Most of them play differently as well, but then I'm just being asinine in that regard since in the end you are at it's most basic, shooting guns at other things.

Also mirroring the sentiments that nothing has really changed. There's tons of Okami's, No More Heroes, Little Big Planets, Patapon's and so on that take games in an interesting and new directions. Hell, even old titles get awesome makeovers, like Kirby did with Canvas Curse. If you aren't seeing enough variation or innovation it's just because you aren't looking hard enough.

*Grammar and shit may be wacky, I blame being up at 5am.

How ya doing, buddy?

If it makes you feel any better the leaderboards clock 29 GFFers with Call of Duty 4 and only 9 with World at War.

I know russ bought it to play with people he works with and Frank is just dumb, but how dare you even assume the rest of us would buy a Treyarch game. Ever.

Seriously though yeah, fuck WW2 shooters

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You can never own enough copies of Ikaruga.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Saying that Gears and Halo only share aliens and guns ignores all the other themes they share. Badass space marines killing waves of aliens in exotic locales. What differentiates Gears from Halo is the cover system and an environment caked over in 36 flavors of mud and grit. The game was designed to appeal to the Halo crowd, and the fact that there's such a huge overlap speaks to that. Being a shooter in the spirit of Halo isn't a knock on the game. My main complaint was that everything compelling about the game is ruined by the people that play it.

Man, where to even begin. They share a theme, that's just about it. The two are about as far removed from each other gameplay wise as day and night, proof you haven't spent enough time on either title.

Halo focuses on long range and vehicular combat as opposed to Gears' close range shotgun fests. That's it at its most simple, but really?

The vehicles for one are a huge standout. Gears has maybe all of, two vehicle sequences in the game? And that's in a tank. Halo has a large number of missions/sequences played in the games large array of vehicles, not to mention fliers like the Banshee. None of that exists in Gears. The MP in Gears features guns. The MP in Halo relies upon a variety of weapon tactics, vehicle usage, and teamwork on a larger scale.

Where is Gears' equivalent to the Spartan laser? The brute hammer? The energy sword? Active camo? Overshield? Not to mention the ability alone to jump, the man cannons, the significantly larger maps both online and offline? The game types?

Anybody that's spent a decent amount of time playing both games know they're two different things in their entirety. Hell, even the campaign in Halo focuses more on large scale battles and field tactics where as Gears' has always been about small stop and pop/adrenaline rush affairs.

They aren't even close to the same thing. The only part you have right on this is that they both are about shooting aliens with guns. Once you get past that it's a whole different ball game. I'm not even going to comment on the game being a "meme" because I play it thoroughly (my stats will attest to this) and enjoy it. That's just ridiculous and makes zero sense.

Oh, and calling all the titles Omagnus listed as not good? Ahaha, just how many of those have you played?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Enough to know that not all of them are very good. You don't have to play Big Mutha Truckers to know it's not that great either from things like gameplay videos and word of mouth.

I certainly know a lot of them aren't worth paying 60 bucks.

Gears probably would not exist if it weren't for Halo. I don't need to go through all the differences in Frontline: Fuel of War to explain why it wouldn't exist without Battlefield.

All of those games weren't 60 bucks. A few were arcade titles like Castle Crashers and Braid ($10 or so), stuff like Patapon was $20, SST retailed for $40, and I'm pretty sure NMH was less than full. I'll go back and check the rest but not right now.

Also just because one wouldn't exist without the other doesn't mean they're the same thing. Not that I agree with you on that point at all but you're more or less ignoring the huge differences between the two.

That and I doubt the game was made to appeal to the Halo crowd. Most of the fanbase of Halo abhors GoW for being shotty roadie run bullshit while the Gears fanbase hates Halo for being a Sniper/Battle Rifle snooze fest. There are obviously people who enjoy both, but you know. It's a huge testament to the fact that they both have their own unique play styles and are separate games.

I was speaking idiomatically.