My OperaThe Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Gaming 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 3:00:06 PM
The Good
Dragon Age: Origins (PC)
Bioware came out swinging with DAO this year, putting to rest any thoughts that the adventure RPG was dead. After a couple terribly sad failures from other companies like NWN2 from Atari, it was a breath of fresh air to see such a polished, well developed game come out for this genre. Flaws like release date DLC, no multi-player and a defunct editor couldn’t keep this otherwise fantastic game from success in 09.
Demon’s Souls
This is a typical conversation among gamers in the days following the release of Demon’s Souls;
“Dude, have you played Demon’s Souls yet?”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a new game from Atlus and it rocks socks.”
“Who the hell is Atlus?”
Yeah, some people probably knew Atlus from Shin Megami, Ogre or Persona but most didn’t. This game hit most gamers like a kick in the face. It was very challenging, terribly unforgiving and absolutely fantastic. The difficulty reminded us all about how gaming in general has shifted over the last few years and single-handedly broke more PS3 controllers than all previous titles combined.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Naughty Dog knew exactly what they were doing when they started work on this masterpiece. They took everything that was amazing in Uncharted 1, polished it, added to it and kicked everything that sucked to the curb. Amazing script and voice acting, fantastic flow of game play elements and a multiplayer mode that holds its own against other games made specifically for that purpose make Uncharted 2 one of the best of 09.
The Bad
Aion: Tower of Eternity
More like “Aion: Grind for Eternity”. I have played MMO’s since EQ and am no stranger to the grind. I was the first L70 on my server back in my WoW days and one of the first MB wizards on Bertox. Even still, a grind for the sake of a grind is just plain terrible. Level 40 hits most gamers like a plate train. Add on to that the relentless botting / RMT / phishing, a terrible first few weeks of release and an absolutely horrendous endgame and what’s left is a pretty game powered by a phenomenal engine (Thanks Crytek) and not much more.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)
Fat Activision Exec: “All right, let’s get MW2 on the shelves before Christmas 09”
Senior Game Designer: “We only have 8 hours of single player content and haven’t figured out a solution for dedicated servers for the PC version. We need until March 10 at least”
Fat Activision Exec:”We’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden. Box it up.”
I assume that’s how the conversation went some time in early 09 when they announced the release date for this steaming pile. If anyone purchased this game for PC, I’m so sorry.
Diablo III Release Date
“Next Few Years” read the slide at the Blizzard conference, and babies around the world started crying. Seriously, I know you guys are busy copying and pasting content from Burning Crusade for your next 15 WoW expansions but with the cash you are generating every month from your 13+ million subscribers, you’d think you could hire a couple more folks to get D3 out the door? Oh wait, you don’t want it to be released until you’ve milked WoW for every possible cent, since D3 will inevitably take market share from WoW and doesn’t generate recurring revenue like WoW does.
The Ugly
Microtransactions and DLC
We all saw it coming when the guys at Bethesda started selling saddle bags for 5 bucks in Oblivion. I had hoped the public outcry against DLC would have stymied its adoption but that proved to be too optimistic. The truth is, DLC and microtransactions will probably become the status-quo within the next couple years. What this will mean for gaming as a whole has yet to be seen. Among the sea of fail that is microtransactions, we’ve seen some glimmers of hope from the paradigm in the form of Free-To-Play options like Dungeons and Dragons: Online but so far that has been the exception, rather than the rule. With terrible omen like Dragon Age: Origins launch date DLC and others, gamers have reason to be concerned.
And we are faced with the hard truths of the proliferation of gaming. As titans like EA and Activision push harder and harder for their 16% margins, it is the gamers that suffer. And unlike the typical voting process, copy/paste titles like MW2 still sell like monsters, reinforcing the concepts of their progenitors. And all we can do, the dedicated few, is mock their paradigms from afar on blogs and forums and hope that the developers of conscience continue to exist and create fun, complete games for a single, fair price.
Dragon Age: Origins (PC)
Bioware came out swinging with DAO this year, putting to rest any thoughts that the adventure RPG was dead. After a couple terribly sad failures from other companies like NWN2 from Atari, it was a breath of fresh air to see such a polished, well developed game come out for this genre. Flaws like release date DLC, no multi-player and a defunct editor couldn’t keep this otherwise fantastic game from success in 09.
Demon’s Souls
This is a typical conversation among gamers in the days following the release of Demon’s Souls;
“Dude, have you played Demon’s Souls yet?”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a new game from Atlus and it rocks socks.”
“Who the hell is Atlus?”
Yeah, some people probably knew Atlus from Shin Megami, Ogre or Persona but most didn’t. This game hit most gamers like a kick in the face. It was very challenging, terribly unforgiving and absolutely fantastic. The difficulty reminded us all about how gaming in general has shifted over the last few years and single-handedly broke more PS3 controllers than all previous titles combined.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Naughty Dog knew exactly what they were doing when they started work on this masterpiece. They took everything that was amazing in Uncharted 1, polished it, added to it and kicked everything that sucked to the curb. Amazing script and voice acting, fantastic flow of game play elements and a multiplayer mode that holds its own against other games made specifically for that purpose make Uncharted 2 one of the best of 09.
The Bad
Aion: Tower of Eternity
More like “Aion: Grind for Eternity”. I have played MMO’s since EQ and am no stranger to the grind. I was the first L70 on my server back in my WoW days and one of the first MB wizards on Bertox. Even still, a grind for the sake of a grind is just plain terrible. Level 40 hits most gamers like a plate train. Add on to that the relentless botting / RMT / phishing, a terrible first few weeks of release and an absolutely horrendous endgame and what’s left is a pretty game powered by a phenomenal engine (Thanks Crytek) and not much more.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)
Fat Activision Exec: “All right, let’s get MW2 on the shelves before Christmas 09”
Senior Game Designer: “We only have 8 hours of single player content and haven’t figured out a solution for dedicated servers for the PC version. We need until March 10 at least”
Fat Activision Exec:”We’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden. Box it up.”
I assume that’s how the conversation went some time in early 09 when they announced the release date for this steaming pile. If anyone purchased this game for PC, I’m so sorry.
Diablo III Release Date
“Next Few Years” read the slide at the Blizzard conference, and babies around the world started crying. Seriously, I know you guys are busy copying and pasting content from Burning Crusade for your next 15 WoW expansions but with the cash you are generating every month from your 13+ million subscribers, you’d think you could hire a couple more folks to get D3 out the door? Oh wait, you don’t want it to be released until you’ve milked WoW for every possible cent, since D3 will inevitably take market share from WoW and doesn’t generate recurring revenue like WoW does.
The Ugly
Microtransactions and DLC
We all saw it coming when the guys at Bethesda started selling saddle bags for 5 bucks in Oblivion. I had hoped the public outcry against DLC would have stymied its adoption but that proved to be too optimistic. The truth is, DLC and microtransactions will probably become the status-quo within the next couple years. What this will mean for gaming as a whole has yet to be seen. Among the sea of fail that is microtransactions, we’ve seen some glimmers of hope from the paradigm in the form of Free-To-Play options like Dungeons and Dragons: Online but so far that has been the exception, rather than the rule. With terrible omen like Dragon Age: Origins launch date DLC and others, gamers have reason to be concerned.
And we are faced with the hard truths of the proliferation of gaming. As titans like EA and Activision push harder and harder for their 16% margins, it is the gamers that suffer. And unlike the typical voting process, copy/paste titles like MW2 still sell like monsters, reinforcing the concepts of their progenitors. And all we can do, the dedicated few, is mock their paradigms from afar on blogs and forums and hope that the developers of conscience continue to exist and create fun, complete games for a single, fair price.
