Overpriced or Over-Entitled?

Its becoming a frequent argument now to hear a game is overpriced. This is especially the case with the PC market and steam where it the main source for Triple A launches, popular indie games, experimental mid-priced games, betas, pre-betas, Free to play, mobile ports, and obscure indie games all sharing and competing in one spot along with giant sales across any of these mentioned type of games. The prices are everywhere, and while you can grab some amazing deals you'll also spot games that just don't quite match up to some other values and feel off. This was brought up not long ago with South park and adventure time RPGs costing pretty much at the max retail price. Meanwhile how about those guys that got a strong action RPG fill with Torchlight 2, a game easily stronger than the big budget Diablo 3 for many and has over 100 hours worth of content to those it appeals to. Oh and mod support, good old mod support is there and full of life. So how much was all that.... $15 my friend, and its had time to go half off and beyond a few times and will probably be doing so again this upcoming spring sale. So by comparison a quadrupedal priced South park RPG is a hard sell, especially if people are going to look at it with the licencing aside.... even worse is adventure time RPG, which doesn't even bother to make the graphics look any better than a gameboy game nor does it use the license quality to its fullest potential like Southpark does.

For starters lets get the most obvious thing out of the way.... nobody is promising you a cheap game, or something that wins the deal by a landslide, or something that is even remotely appropriate. We just had Rambo the sloppy budget rail shooter hit steam at $40. The thing is though that it was never under our control. What's also sad is that we must consider the licensing and fees that may go behind it all, which sadly don't make it easier on the dev's end. It is also something worth of value to costumers to. South Park fans really should be excited for the stick of truth, and it looks like it goes beyond a solid RPG to deliver a great south park episode experience within it. I'd personally say that's more of a $40 value, but then again I'm not an RPG fan nor do I really care that much for the show so maybe this is just my slanted view speaking. Space Hulk was another example of a weirdly priced game at $30 and much less for a slightly watered down mobile port. However in addition to steam they had to pay a lot of money towards the company that owns the W40K license, who is admittedly pretty greedy in reputation so the bill probably wasn't very light. The indie team, retailer, and license were all keeping them from a light hearted price. However why did they decide to go much cheaper on mobile.... well I think that is the ultimate answer to this topic and raises another good question for the developer team. It was a matter of competitive pricing, however they clearly missed their mark with the steam community that was fussy about it.

The prices today have gotten pretty good in a lot of areas. With indies and digital distribution high on the scene, its pretty easy to see why so many people have started expecting these smaller prices. Its kind of hard to sell just a solid linear RPG for $60 now, because you can get good ones from anything ranging from free to $20. You can get Dota and LoL for free and their at the top of their genre, so it wouldn't make sense to see a full priced MOBA launch either. This has been the question with online games for quite some time to, with many focused online FPS games being at $15-$30, or even free, what is to really sell you on Titanfall for double? Even the publisher's other online game, plants vs zombies garden warfare launched at a lower price of $40.... because that's the competitive thing to do. This is the natural way pricing should work, and I strongly encourage developers to be within reason with their asking prices. Even with the licensing, was space hulk really worth $30 in a world and market where similar games have been passed for much less and it looks more like a mini PSN downloadable game rather than half of a triple A game? I really don't think that was a bright move. Going back to that adventure time RPG, that was just flat out stupid and the same could be said for Rambo. However going back to the other point, there was never a promise for fair and competitive prices,  so we'll sadly have to wait that sort of thing out or you'll have to really test your idea of whether or not its worth it. To be fair if Torchlight 2 probably could have gotten away with a $60 release, and it would have been worth it to fans as you get ridiculous amount of content and depth out of that sort of experience. So if there was someone out there willing to pay top dollar for a digital space hulk experience, yeah go ahead there.

This is also how you answer the question of length. This was the concern for MGS's miniature prequel game that could supposedly be beaten in 2 hours for the price of a budget retail release... pretty steep to those just looking at that surface value. However some veterans of the series know the game is replayable and good enough to them to warrant that price, but its still a pretty solid topic to discuss back and forth and there is no clear right answer. In a world where we might pay $30 for the best quality of a simple movie clocking in often quite a bit under 2 hours, its kind of hard to just knock out a short game based on just being short. Heck games themselves used to be worse, reviewtechUSA's youtube channel brought in a good reference to how short a golden axe game was (less than a movie length) for well over the cost of the modern game. However its in large part again thanks to competition, because people have come to know $60 as meaning a lot of modes, quality, and stuff to achieve, they know it as a lot of content and want that content to be paced right to get their entertainment right. Hearing that something is less for the same or similar pricing is a bit unsettling... however with media like gaming being an art form, the content has a certain amount of impact to it that can give us the value we came for. The people that realize this might pay a lot for a strong short game. So it comes down to whether or not the experience itself outweighs the price rather than just total content. Personally speaking, I'm a content guy a lot of times, especially for big purchases. I think a good game will be one that has a lot to enjoy and a lot to replay, and I like being able to access and enjoy it easily... so to me an online only game is a tough buy, even at $20, as I'm worried its length is tied to its servers and my connection. Similarly if a game is linear campaign focused, I'll be hoping it has 12 hours at least, or about 10+ levels. So when I was so excited for Dishonored, and eventually heard a number count on its levels at 9 (8 counting tutorial) there was a tiny bit of a concern creeping up. Campaign only, and only 8 real levels, I also considered that one or two of them might be "bad" levels leaving me with a very limited range on how much I could love about the game. However this is also where the exception steps in and its not only about the content, but the experience shows through. I'm a fan of tricksters characters, and the romanticized thief, and this matches a bit in my taste of gaming where I love going through things and eavesdropping but in a space where I can still be the "good guy" about it. So the stealth genre as you might figure is certainly something with my interest, and Dishonored with its world, style, detail, and the mechanics to toy with it all and play the role of a super charged thief/assassin was just amazing. I loved and adored every bit of those 9 levels, even the tutorial, and it became one of my favorite PS3 games of all time. Despite its multiplayer component, the same can be said with Killzone 2 for being such a master at the corridor shooter experience.... never mind its typical 6 hour campaign and the bad mech level, it was just amazing at the end of the day and I put in over 30 hours into playing it and still return to it. Would I have liked more? Of course! Still, I got my value in what was there.

In the end I think it depends on what you want and where you place your priorities. I think that developers should always be fighting competitively for the best value and give gamers great games for a justified price, but we can't make them do it and honestly they'll have a different idea of price from you, so things wont always work out that way. However when an overpriced game comes by, well we're here to support with our wallets and maybe you should take it elsewhere when a game is reaching for too much. We can wait it out. The last purchase I made was from a game I found overpriced (Aqua Kitty), so I got a discount coupon and bought it for the ideal price. Its not that hard. That's my suggestion for those complaining about South park, for those that think the new MGS idea is theft, and to those that scoff at Gone Home's $20 tag for a game that can be speed through in less than a minute. I've got to admit this is a very strange time to talk about prices. We have incredible and outright legendary games going on sale or even lasting at the price of a simple cup of coffee, a box of gum, or a couple songs, but we also have far more expensive games with a bigger presentation and far less content within them. However that doesn't always mean that the latter is ripping you off, or that you were ever promised a good deal to begin with, and it all comes down to what you value and your patience and intelligent spending skills. In addition to these deals and coffee prices, we're also living in a world with hats that cost over $100 just for being in some fancy or special theme store, and where a game like Rambo thinks its on par with Deadpool and Gardern Warfare. You just have to learn to deal with the BS prices and keep your sense and dignity with that.

When accessibility is done right

Thief was recently received after a weird mix of anticipation and hateful views or just outright skepticism. It sort of scored among mixed results as well, hitting everything between 5-9's range. I rented it myself, as while I was a massive skeptic on it the developers were making some clear compromises since the original bad reveal and the footage from reviews and early folks seemed pretty fun. The reason so many people, myself included, have been quite skeptical or even hateful is because Thief was following the trend of advertising itself as the more accessible edition of a series, and something more streamlined, while also being a reboot. This has been quite common in gaming lately, and we're seeing a lot of old beloved titles or just new ones following respected ideas under ways that are viewed as too easy or too simple. Publishers wont let budgets go reasonable anymore, so they don't want to risk the action being too hard or the gameplay to have too much of a learning curve. So common platforming in games has been reduced to quick time events and mashing one button while moving forward, searching or interactions are as easy to make as switching on a super vision that's a little too convenient, and there's always a HUD piece to direct you where you go.

The problem people have with this is that its just too convenient or too helpful, or just too simple to really enjoy a game for what it is anymore. Your not supposed to have arrows and highlights for everything because you should be exploring, platforming should be fun if its there at all, and the gameplay needs to be proud to be itself rather than giving you crutches for every elements so you can turn it into an on-rails experience. Even though the idea here is that this makes it for "the COD audience" it really seems more like a trend that Assassins creed and Batman started more so than anything else. However to be fair games like Killzone, Battlefield, and 3rd person shooters suffer from that sort of "COD accessibility" fate so its not like that concern doesn't exist. However for the most part shooters have shot themselves in the foot for going 1 direction and so it looks natural when they're all using the same helping tools, but when everything non-shooter related in the action gaming area is following common stepping stones for lesser players it becomes its own weird category of bad accessibility. People are hating this for a pretty good reason to, as it really is a shame that for all that time Tomb Raider, AC, or even uncharted shove platforming in that none of it has any depth to it whatsoever, and the same can be said about achieving the whole experience with collectibles, enemies, etc. Its actually funny that people want to call out AC on its repetitive stalking missions, when that's actually a nice bit of focus on stealth while the rest of the game lets you go unpunished for how careless you are against foes. It isn't all about the difficulty or depth though, its also about the controls and free will of the player. Sometimes this supposed bare platforming is the same button as run, and climb, and maybe some other mashed together option. Thanks to the stream lining process, you wont have to have a lot of buttons to remember but you will have to fight with the control of your character to get them into the right spot and this can honestly break the game at certain moments.

Pictured here: stealth kills

However I'm here more to talk about the good than the bad... I want to get it out of the way and say that Thief is far above its similar fellow action stealth games.... partially because the "action" barely exists and the game proudly does stand on itself as a strong stealth game with some good accessibility to change it based on how good of a gamer I feel like I am. Thief sadly trips on pretty much everything I've talked about here, but with one major piece that steps it up above the rest... options. Well for starters I could turn off the stupid bits of HUD I didn't want. That was nice, but nothing so new.... but hey, I feel more encouraged to explore rather than pushed on. Then there's the fact that I can turn off the entire super vision "focus" mechanic and still play it greatly. I can then set a ton of other little extra rules in place to make the game harder, and I'm rewarded with trophies and points for that. I've been walking with less speed, I'm not aloud to alert guards, limited take downs, and again there are no magical tools to help me. It basically all comes down to my skill, my purchased tools, and getting all the loot I can. The game feels like real stealth, I've got enough depth to play around with it, and you know I can easily loosen up and play through the game with everything on if I find myself trapped within my own customized difficulty. Though it does mean restarting, that's kind of good as if the option was always there the whole time you'd just find it too convenient and use it, it would be like in other games where your telling yourself to not go in with the vision mode to begin with but its still clearly there. However for sticking to my custom options I'm rewarded for playing it tough by trophies and a score multiplier that scales for each hardship I put myself through, and I can tone it up to some insane ones. There's even a modifier where its total perma-death, if you screw up the entire save file is shot. In addition to this customization and scoring system that goes with it, each level has a giant list of things to check off, stats its tracked you by, small side objectives to hit, and rates your style with one of 3 titles and adds those stats in a separate stat tracker for the total game as well. The total effect of it all gives Thief a weird meta-game value to it, like there's an arcade score attack game in addition to the stealth game you thought you were buying. It is brilliant!

Other games may have tried similar options before, but it feels hamfisted there. For example, some games have it so that super vision is forced off in the top highest difficulty.... yeah that's nice that its there for perfectionists, but some of us don't like the bullet sponge enemies, glass health, insane shop prices, or whatever other weird rules you'd impose on us in brutal mode just to get rid of the super convenient vision. Thief gets it right by letting us build our easy, medium, hard, and brutal modes ourselves, and not the other way around. I especially appreciate this as I'm not a fan of hard for the sake of hard, and I like playing my games where the natural depth of the game provides its challenge more so than stupid odds, so I really love being able to toggle mechanics on/off while keeping other things normal unless I choose otherwise. Honestly I've been having a hard enough time as it is with my own choices, but I feel good about beating the missions and a victory feels fair and well earned while a defeat often is on my part and leads me to learn more and more about my environment until I've conquered it. I simply wouldn't have bothered with that though if it was an all or nothing affair with the difficulty and mechanics.

Now thief still does some wrong. Most notably, that streamlining stuff I mentioned before feels overboard here and its not something you can just flip off. You have a run/climb/grapple button that magically transports you where you conveniently need to go and always keeps me safe, rope arrows are restricted to highlighted bits that are so rare I just honestly forget the concept even exists during play, level design is severely trimmed and simple compared to older games or even Dishonored, and probably the worst thing of all is that next to everything is mapped to friggin' square. This constantly gets in the way, especially the conflict between peak and pick-up. If there's a big crate with a piece of silver on it, and a guard right by it, I might try to swoop in and grab the loot before hiding... but nope, it registers that my command was a "peak" around the crate leaving me glued to it and getting caught by the guy right there. This is the best example I have ever seen of why this one-button-fits-all mentality is so terrible. So honestly while Thief gets the idea of accessibility down perfectly, allowing anyone to play it very loosely and unpunished but an incentive to crank it up to test their abilities and give themselves a learning curve is genius, but the game falls a bit when it comes to streamlining. Streamlining here is just done way too simple. Its a brilliant game, and it keeps its theme of stealth better than any other recent game due to its intentionally terrible and clunky combat system and most modifiers aiming to challenge you sneak and loot grabbing abilities. Meanwhile Dishonored and Splinter cell and other games like it can easily lead you down a path of a gun wielding lunatic if you desire it, but Thief gives back that loss of playstyle with the ability to customize your stealth experience beyond what others are capable of. It really is a great move, I just wish the streamlining didn't hurt as bad as it does here, it would be fun to have more buildings to climb or go through, the ability to jump when you wanted to test where you could go to, and they really need to remap the peak button in a patch.

I suppose unless something better comes up, you could also count this as a non-endgame review of Thief. I pretty much described the prime points that I love and hate, and honestly anything else (graphics, story, sound) are kind of brushed off to the side and out of my care really. The game is about stealth, and if that's what you want your going to love it. Fans of tricksters, mischief, and of course thieves will find themselves at home in this game and will probably be thrilled with what you could do and wont have to worry about it being too easy or hard for you, though it probably wont top whatever your favorite stealth game is. Otherwise if you wanted a big story, or a big action game, or some pretty tech show you are way off of your course.... like way, waaaaay off. My main message though was on how to get accessibility right. Its not about dumbing down the game, or lowering the standard down to where everyone and their grandma can play, its about giving the player options and the freedom to find the game they wanted within it. I truly do believe that's a big part of the reason COD caught on in the first place. Sure its stupidly easy on paper, but honestly its also one of the few super content packed shooters that also just so happen to hold a great split-screen mode and has an extensive private match list of game defining options while one of its biggest competitors is charging you to even start a private game last I checked. Ok this isn't really the best example, but you get the point. I also feel like Torchlight 2 was accessible in a similar way. There were no typical RPG barriers, and instead what you wanted out of your character you could build. The brute could use magical wands and bows while using his typical brawling powers, the gun slinger could use claws in addition to summoning undead minions, and the engineer could have a wand in one hand, and a pistol in the other, and at any time in the game you could give your pet any spell you wanted to if you had the spell to give out. The game was super open ended without compromising its difficulty at all, and it lead to possibly one of my top 10 favorite games of all time. However if you were a traditionalist, the game encouraged and could be well (if not better) played by being by the book with your role. You could do what you wanted with your pet, you could stick to very specific gear for your class and build, and you of course had full control over how your leveling worked. Game industry... we need more of this. Freedom and custom experiences is what lets in the masses while keeping the loyalty from the serious gamers, and gives us all amazing and memorable experiences you (the developers and to an extent players) designed.

My most anticipated titles

Well usually I'd like to do a list like this withing a year's worth of release.... but I just don't have the same hype and expectations as everyone else right now, and didn't feel like what I want was within the year itself as much as what I'd just like to see more of that stands a good chance of coming out overall. Anyways here's my list.

10) Tekken X Street Fighter

The backwards brother of this game was launched quite some time ago. I rented it because.... what the heck, maybe it'd be fun, and after the tag system settled in and I understood it I started really enjoying it. I mean really, really loving it. Short term addiction sort of thing. I temporarily got back into the genre, and sadly when I had to take it back after keeping it for a rediculously long time I tried to find a good replacement for it with no good result except... almost Tekken 6. The game played with my favorite cast of character from Tekken, while using the art style and freedom of solo vs exclusive to street fighters and innovated on what I knew with the tag system to the point where it all came together as an incredible fighter game that I adored. Now I'm still biased towards Tekken, and if it wasn't for the lack of a better solo mode I would say the Tekken Tag that came after that wins out by a landslide, so when I heard there would be a follow up game made more in the style of Tekken.... fuck yeah. This is just going to be really good if it turns out like I'm hoping. Hopefully without Capcom developing it there wont be any locked up DLC characters delayed to the public for the sake of delaying for 6 months post release with this entry.

Oh and if my excitement isn't good enough just basing it on the idea of another freakin' Tekken Tag, there's also confirmation that they're adding demonic twists over street fighter characters giving them some life where as I usually find them to be some of the dullest among fighter casts out there. That's a nice extra bonus. Mostly though I'll be glad pairing King and Balrog or vega up against Bison and heihachi on Tekken turf and beating the crap out of them in whatever silly decorations the deeper customization it might allow.... that is assuming the typical Tekken costumed system is there. After playing Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag 2, I felt like SFxT was a little weak just letting me color people. Anyways this has me pretty excited, though probably the least amount possible because honestly there is little information to go on and I'm just not a major fighter fan that finds $60 worth in these things.

9)The Order 1886

I don't care if the developers themselves deny it, but this is a triple A budget monster filled victorian steampunk shooter. Yes please! Ok to be fair now with gameplay getting reveals there is stuff people are concerned over and people are already coming forward to call it generic... and honestly I agree with them. Setting and aesthetics aside, the core gameplay is essentially Gear of War off of what we know and the team themselves sound content with being safe or "tried and true". Still I enjoyed Inversion, so that sure wont stop me from enjoying this game if they get the pacing of the gameplay and gunplay down well enough. I'm not totally ready to go grab this when it hits, but I've got my eye on this game.

8) Mario Kart 8

Love this series. I adore the DS version the most, but got hours out of the Wii one as well regardless. I had the horrible inconvinience of being left out of the 3DS one, and I wont be making that mistake with Mario Kart 8. If rumors are true that it'll have a track editor, than what I have to say is simple: It's about time! Seriously, Nintendo really needed this for some of the mario games but I feared they were always staying in this old way where they could continue to push sequels with replay only being in the linear adventure and bonuses. Well finally they might have got wise and set up a better creative system for people to push a great game to its limits and really sink their time into it.

7) Infamous: Second Son

I don't know squat about this game, and that's the way its going to be until I see it discounted and pick it up blind. Its just a tradition for this series... ignorance is bliss and keeps the enthusiasm out of the way so I can get games I know about and I don't have silly doubts on infamous. Then when its in my hands, I know nothing and everything is a discovery, feels fresh, surprises me, and I run around as a super hero withing a fun little sandbox world with new mechanics and fascination. Basically to cut it short, this is on my list because I just know the series is too good but I never try to analyze it. Its just one of those games where there's no need to, and doing so would only hurt it. Oh and no worries about "supporting the bloated triple A game" because its been pretty much the most generally hyped PS4 game ever so far that supposedly people are ready to buy the console for. So I'm hyped for the day that I play this, but no rush.

6) Smash Bros 

Its smash bros. Oh, being made by the Tekken team this time around. I guess I'm slightly concerned for some of the casting choice (wii fit? -_-), but I'm still more dazzled by what I said in the last sentence to really care. Yeah, 'nuff said, moving on.

5) Prey 2

Prey 2.... why did you have to go wrong? It was so perfect, just the concept alone skyrocketed up to my #1 hyped game all of a sudden. It was an all alien open world game on a foreign dark super sci-fi planet casting you as a free running bounty hunter under an FPS style. That's without mentioning the optional prisoner system that comes with part of the job, the traps, and the boss teaser that was later revealed with footage that backed up such a bold concept. Oh this would have been so good. It ran into trouble that nobody can exactly come out and say for sure on, however what it looks like is that the studio making it is done for, bethesda cut them off and owns the IP, and arkane was given it and told to basically turn it into their spin of a system shock game. Honestly this sounds horrible except for one tiny detail that makes my entire perspective melt in pain and joy at the same time.... Arkane studios.

Arkane studios is among my favorites of developers out there, and I seriously think its a shame that they only just now caught the public's attention with Dishonored. If it wasn't for them, every bit of this turn of events would have been bitter pain that would have probably damaged my stress levels. However having a developer who's name means gold to me supposedly remake one of the greatest concepts ever attempted to gaming isn't exactly as bad to me as it should sound. However I'm still kind of holding out hope that we get the true Prey 2 experience I watched trailers and that E3 reveal to. That game was simply too beautiful to kill. The game has been pushed aside on the hype train to me for better and more visible gaming experiences, I mean Killzone had at least 2 announcements and game launches since I heard of this, and with all the sad news I can't help but keep it back a bit. However it still looks like it could hit, and whether it shows up trying to be modern System shock or the real Prey 2 I'm excited to see it and play it with the hope that Human Head or Arkane made a very incredible sci-fi FPS that properly thrashes on the typical form shooters come in now.

4) Destiny

Ok I'm actually pretty sure I'm giving this game too much credit putting it so high on this list. However I'm expecting it to really make an impact... and a legit fresh impact unlike what I'd say for its accused competitor. Destiny is an interesting FPS with an awesome looking world, a promising team that brought us halo, and some solid looking gameplay with good guns, classes, and exploration and battles. If that's all it did, it would probably be a solid and great experience to go and pick up sometime in itself. However it doesn't stop there... try the fact that its bringing all of it in a Console MMOFPS form. That's something that hasn't been well done yet if at all. Its an unmarked territory with no icon except maybe Planet Side 2, but even then that's PC side we're talking about where its flooded with other options and kept Planet side 2 back a bit. I predict Destiny is pretty much going to be Halo all over again in MMO form with the impact it'll have. A part of me is a bit afraid of that, but another part of me will be glad when the generic military shooter gets pushed back for something else. TitanFall might be an incredible game, but it wont be doing revolutions by being the same thing we've seen 6 years with wall jumping and mechs slapped into it. Destiny is another story. I have no idea how long it'll actually feel good to play to me... I'm no MMO fan afterall. However what I've seen looks like wild fun, and I'm kind of excited to put this game to the test and enjoy it. Oh and I will also state that the art style is just brilliant. I adore the psudo-knight + space marine style design of the characters and armor, and the world just looks great to explore. I'm really looking forward to it just for the setting alone to be honest, but the gameplay looks like a good thing to back up such a nice place in.

3)The next Ratchet and Clank

Screw announcements, this is just something needed and I couldn't make this list without this. I've been waiting and excited for the next entry ever since Crack in Time was so good, but sadly the awesomeness was postponed for some lamer spin-offs until we finally got a sample of a new adventure with Nexus. It may have been short, but damn was it good. I replayed the heck out of it and happily grinded away for my first ever platinum trophy, and enjoyed every minute of it. Everything was at its A game and they truly showed a lot of love and care into that entry. Now its time for a real full sized adventure to follow up something that good. Please Insomniac, do it! These games always have me smiling, immersed, and just having fun, not to mention I tend to replay each game 4 times through before I tell myself I'm done with them (and that's only until I come back some other time later).

2) Dark Souls 2

Coincidentally enough there are only 2 reasons why I shouldn't be anticipating this game... 1) Working on the first game still. So good! 2) I can't decide between regular and collectors edition, and either one burns money. Apart from that, there's no excuse to not be hyped. I suppose you could say its 80% likely to get a better current generation port, but then I guess the fans and myself will just buy it twice. Deep combat, deep world, deep emotions, deep mechanics, this games so deep you need proper scuba gear to survive the pressure. Apart from the series just being amazing with depth, the world itself is just so awesome and it'll be amazing to go into the next one. Unlike my issue with Dark souls 1, I will gladly go into this one without concerns over spoilers to. This game will be worth it, and the thing is its barely even list material anymore.... its really coming soon.

1) Wolfenstein: New Order

Were you really expecting something else from me? Ok fine, maybe Dark Souls 2 will be a superior game in every way imaginable, Smash bros will have more replay value and depth, and Destiny might be the next big thing with mainstream sensation, and Infamous or The order has the attention of the common sony leaning guys. So why some silly under the radar single player only shooter when you have too much shooters already flooding the market? Why is it the thing your checking on and hyping above all else in this list? The answer is simple really: Wolfenstein is everything I have been asking for for a very long time. It has everything on a big check list of "how to make an awesome corridor shooter" and passed in colors. It has a good setting, cool enemies and a variety of types, great gunplay with slight innovation, Solid dark visuals backed by strong gore, cheesy "grim dark" story, a promising corridor shooter direction, and above all else... AN ACTUAL HEALTH SYSTEM in addition to armor and power-ups! Finally! What the heck is wrong with this industry when such a game is a rarity when they used to be so common and easy to produce. Thank you Wolfenstein for keeping your head together and giving me promise for the corridor shooters I grew up with. Oh yeah, and recent announcements say I'll probably be entitled to a Doom 4 early access, so yeah that's nothing short of awesome.

I've got to admit though, there are concerns. For a starter, its ironic that this is a list full of "yeah I trust and love this series" while the #1 thing comes from a game in a series that has always been on par with Bioshock as being great on paper but just not clicking right for me. I've also heard a trusted critic with his hands on impressions say that for all the amazing gameplay I mentioned above, its sadly all just as scripted and force fed to you as a call of duty campaign. That is very concerning. However as we all know Metro did exactly what COD does in every campaign, but to such a higher quality that its like comparing a muffin top to a towering multi-layered cake. I have confidence that if they nail the pacing down just right, it can be a brilliant game and will be the shooter I've been waiting for.

Now playing- Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender

Well honestly I have to accept the fact that I can't seem to fully get as immersed in gaming as I used to. However while I have my game hopping under better control than it used to be, I still just don't get sucked up quite as much anymore... or sometimes there's something in my way of doing so. Like right now I'd love to be working on my Dark Souls profile, but oh hey save lock is making my need for location and PS3 swapping more of a pain than it should be an makes it impossible for me to play my main profile unless I'm over at my father's side.... so basically I have to skip out on all that progress, depth, and stuff for a week and go play something else, and when I return I've lost the mood quite a bit. However this isn't about that, so moving on....

What this means though is that I'm honestly very easily capable of making a very strong series of First Impression like videos. When I throw in some game I never finished, was away from for a while, or just grab a new dirt cheap game I often find myself kind of talking about how good it feels. So... why not put that into a blog series here? It doesn't present as much pressure, effort, or demands as making a review but gets some interesting bits across. So.... lets talk games here, and lets talk about what I'm currently playing.

Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender

Aqua Kitty is basically a retro arcade shooter done in the style of defender... but with a lovely neon arcade-like shine to it, and a light hearted cat theme. Despite my usual feeling towards arcade games, I like it. $7 was a bit much for it, so thankfully I got a nice 30% off coupon and I feel its worth the Starbucks coffee price of it that came out of that discount. Funny story actually, to get that coupon I asked a total of 3 different sources that were generously offering it for free but never returning the call. I was a bit paranoid about getting responses, and tense and worried I had done something wrong to offend them by daring to take up their offers. Over time I was just getting more and more excited to play some twitchy reflex arcade game with the novelty of cutesy looks which I would usually hate. So there was an odd tension and build up to grab this game and play it, even though its not my kind of genre to intrude into. However... the 3rd guy answered, I was thrilled, and then I launched up the game and got hit with another realization..... everything was as simple as could be from the interface to even how your turning didn't flow naturally and needed a key separate for it. My first 3 minutes were kind of miserable, and I was beginning to wonder if that doubtful side of me had been right to say I was silly. I couldn't change the resolution, there was no scale for quality, no control mapping, controls are mapped side by side with xbox prompts and that's if your lucky (some screens just have xbox prompts only), and to restate myself there was an awkward turn key totally throwing my rythem off compared to anything else in the arcade style I had played.

However I slapped my stupid attitude out of my head and just played the game and took what it offered me. I started really enjoying it and blasting through enemies with a smile. My panic attack over settings was kind of dumb save for the controls that I had to keep checking up on as if I were grabbing cheat codes out of a manual per level. Supposedly this is being worked on, and has been the biggest common issue people have had (even with controllers in mind).  I was blasting through levels and doing ok even on normal, and just had fun.... I kind of let go of my typical gaming demands and just relaxed with it. It was stylish and beautiful to look at, frantic but decent gameplay, rocking music that might be one of the best "chiptune" soundtracks I've ever heard, and a general aesthetic that I couldn't be mad at. I also started to like the turning for the most part. It can be a love/hate thing working to its benefit at times and being an annoyance at other moments. It also gave the developers room for an achievement on blasting through the end world of the second set using only one direction.... that's hardcore. So the game was coming off as pretty good once the poor knee-jerk first impressions were cast aside, and I was enjoying it despite the very simple and reflex based nature. Sure having mines swarm the screen while jellyfish mechs take your milk miners away for the 10th time is frustrating. However when your fail message is the same friendly kitty captain saying "Fish that cat out and lets try that again" every time with a (n_n) style smiley face, it can't really break your own smile. Worst case scenario you'll be deciding to call in a break and come back later (my plan after this post). The rest of the game is like that to. Its just very friendly, charming, colorful, and all that mixed with the arcadey bones of its structure make it an experience that make it just "fun" all around. It wears the fun careless happy video game nature on its sleeve. Its the kind of game that backs me up when I talk about things like the "mature" gaming scene and how pretentious and overly "proper" that line of work is. No Aqua kitty isn't going to go competing with Last of Us and no its not going to change some film critic's view on if a game is "art", but its doing all that it ever should need to do: Pleasing gamers with a full does of fun and charm. Also while we're talking about charm, there's a scoring system based on both combos and shots in addition to your main goal of keeping at least 1 milk miner around. Missing out and losing a miner but succeeding on a whole will give you a score screen where the appropriate amount of miners have been replaced by "missing" milk cartons with their wanted picture on it. That's a very clever and funny little charm they put in that I just love and had to mention here. 

Now the main problem I have with this game comes in two forms.... 1) yeah its still arcadey. I love the game, but.... I dunno, I can't guarantee I'll be waking up early and playing it for hours on end or anything like that. Its a fun little game and I'm enjoying it more than I should, but once the novelty and new-ness of it wears off I fear for its lasting power over me. I just tend to want more than a 2D plane and some restricted pre-set modes to go through in most of my games. I couldn't get into gaming very seriously until I had a full extra plane to roam around and get immersed with, and I tend to stick best with games that have a better system of skill and depth to them that go beyond reflex and score attack. However like I said I'm getting my fun by trying to push that aside and just take it for what it is... the question is how long does that last even with a more respectful perspective? I still have work to do with it though, and I'll be happily playing it some more. Its honestly a great success that it's clocked 2 hours in 1 day already. 2) Arcade upgrades seem to be broken for me. I can't upgrade my weapons right because I can't figure out the control the menu and get my stuff. This basically feels like it sort of breaks the mode for me, unless I'm missing something and its supposed to be a random buy.... but if that was the case, why is it even in there to begin with instead of automatic? Why do I have the option to buy hearts by the looks of it, but when I need it the most I can't seem to scroll over a piece at all to get them? I just don't get it, and can't find any help as of yet. Despite these issues, I still love this game and its charm. I'm going to be playing it for a bit more at least and will try my best to complete it and enjoy the fun it has to offer. Maybe one day I'll even do a little review for it. So much subtle detail, care, charm, and fun is in it for such a simple game. It'd be a shame to have missed out on it, and I'm glad I got the chance to play it and enjoy it.

The flappy bird that fell

Flappy bird was a fast and interesting little sensation that caught on out of no where. It was a free game where you had to get a bird through some open spaced in between pipes, and keep him up and going. You got a score based on how many in a row you got, and that was it. Nothing really wrong with that, it was a fun little thing to play for free on your phone or ipod if that was your kind of game. Suddenly though... the maker is removing the game. That struck out as a weird decision and at a time when the game was just hitting net wide popularity with memes, reviews, and community chatter. Now usually I don't care much about this sort of thing because the game isn't for me, it wasn't on a platform I like, and as usual the stuff that gathers craze just isn't for me. However even with all that said, this topic still feels a bit special in how it was done and also some of the extra talk surrounding it. For starters when the reason was finally given, it was about how the maker simply wanted things to be simple again, and that's quite a different sort of topic from the usual drama in gaming.

It is not a common day thing in the gaming industry that the same guy who plays with basic designs on an over-saturated phone market that is still struggling to be taken seriously, is the same guy that becomes the new craze over night and starts earning buckets of money off a free game. He didn't intend to do anything serious or earn special paychecks from it, he simply made it for the fun of it and wanted someone to be entertained for a bit. People were just supposed to play it for a couple seconds, put it away, and move on with their lives while he toyed with more basic development. Suddenly he's earning excessive money he doesn't exactly care much for, he is receiving death threats from people that take the game too seriously, and he's being thrown into the spot light for his app trending. A lot of people just aren't made for that, and its as simple as that. Most might think of it as ridiculous, but contrary to popular belief not everybody is in it for the money nor do they even want it even if it were being thrown at them, and its especially more stressing when you've got hate mail. Some just wont a modest amount to get by on life and enjoy things. It got a bit stressful and screwed up as he was being pulled aside by media in his local community, being threatened, being told he was hated for "ruining" people's lives, he was being accused of theft, and rumored to have been harassed face to face with people. To add salt to the wound, he was even life threatened when he tried to make the drama a thing of the past and remove it. Meanwhile several other tweets seemed to be glad the game was being removed as if they benefited from having one less game out there and could care less if they were insulting someone's work by being relieved at its removal.

Now don't get me wrong, I usually despise the idea that the solution to the problem may keep people out of having fun. He was going to pull his game down, and that's awful and he let some idiots spoil it for everyone. However.... there are a couple of major details that keep this from being that sort of tragedy. For starters flappy bird isn't anything even remotely new. Everything from very design to even the actual art assets are nothing new. Even if you couldn't find a game that came before that though, don't worry.... Flappy bird was literally remade in an hour after news hit that it was being taken down. Sure the new textures look a bit off, but its honestly everything within a really simple game. I'm not trying to brag, but heck I actually made a more complex game in flash before myself back in high school (though without the mario-like assets my games looked way crappier). This thing isn't that complex. The next defense for this "pull it from the store" move is that what I was stating before about a bad pull move mostly applies to a company just being jerks. If the company gets so scared they're pulling their game, something is either terribly wrong with the game or they made a really stupid move to pull a big game. Meanwhile this is one guy, with a simple life, and a simple view who did not intend to do game design as anything more than a little side hobby and to give something to people. He didn't take it seriously, nor should he if his heart wasn't that into it... and now he's being attacked over it and singled out about it. Its no wonder it was time to pull the plug. If 10 or more guys worked into a cool project that caught headlines and they just decided to rip it out of the consumer's hands because of publicity they disagreed with, that's awful. However what we're actually looking at here is some infant concept of a game that got out of control and has lead to a single man getting bullied and losing sleep, time, and happiness over it. I cannot find a single reason at all for him to keep the game up given his situation.

Next question is how the heck am I supposed to see this topic apart from what I've already said... on one hand its awesome to hear of a modest man just trying to entertain himself and others in a calm life. On the other hand its the latest in showing the darker side of an entertainment hobby: those who can't handle the entertainment part. Its just awful that we have people so venomous and hateful that they're willing to go around hating on such a simple and joyful hobby like this and the people that make the games for it, and the ironic bit is that its from the gamers themselves. It actually makes those violent game protestors look good by comparison, because at least they have more of an excuse as to why they're so stupid and ignorant. Meanwhile the gamers that go around sending death threats to a guy over flappy bird.... seriously guys? Just..... no. People like the one blaming flappy bird on their horrible addictive cases, sending out death threats to keep around a dime a dozen "helicopter" clone, and making a simple man's life a miserable hell are the guys that don't deserve their phones and ipods to begin with. It honestly surprises me they're competent enough to find the address bar to use the web if they're that stupid, that cold, and that toxic to the rest of this world. The only thing that just might be a little worse than them is the other fun little mobile disaster this is competing with.... dungeon keeper. No I take that back, Obsessive toxic internet haters all gathering to pressure a passive guy that gave them a free game are far worse than some typical "mobile game" scam that you can just ignore.

With that being said I hope this was a good lesson to the game creator as well. Truth is you just need thick skin to get by in this world as an entertainer. Its sad but true.... and again its sad that it has to be that way. Its one of the things that life would simply be better without.... in addition to parasites, but then again that might be the same thing. Still pulling games shouldn't become a habit or anything. You've got to be able to take in hate and tolerate a bit of publicity. Now with all that said and done, I hope we can move beyond this issue and hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon. Thankfully news on this case is dying down more giving the guy more of what he wanted: peace.

Is it good to not care?

You know I use this blog all the time to throw around opinions and make little careless unpaid game journalistic bits here for my own entertainment and hope that somebody out there might enjoy reading it just as much as I do writing. I've really dug deep into gaming culture, the market, the bloggers and forums, the commentators and youtube celebrity voices, and multiple sites and it all goes towards the passions I have for this hobby and how my mind bends and reacts around it. As a result I really do take gaming beyond the telivision and beyond simple casual fun. Its actually kind of awkward for me to talk to anyone else about it in real life considering I'm surrounded by non-gamers, and what few do play a bit bascially dumb the hobby down to "nice graphics" even on 2007 games or after they told me the same on a much better game. Or they'll ask me if its any good and get lost as soon as I use the word like "mechanic" or try to make a description beyond saying yay or nay. Honestly though as much as I want to call these people out on how dumb they sound, its not exactly their fault or anything... its just what a major and passionate hobby does to people, and it works the same with sports, cars, boardgames, giant movie fans, musicians, etc. However I have to wonder sometimes, is this nerdy passion for your hobby always a good thing? Is there ever a bit too much? Sometimes watching the casual reactions to your games, or watching someone else play and love a mediocre game is a bit of an eye opener. You just see them having "fun". They can't compare it to anything, analyze it, nor are they spoiled or predetermined with an opinion from the exposure of others to the same game before hand. Its all some surprise from a rather foreign media to them, and when they get in control they either like it or walk away from it figuring their time is best spent elsewhere. Either that or even sometimes the super nerds themselves are the eye openers and send a message to you from a gamer to a gamer to lighten up a bit, or they'll express their passion in such a way that has you reflecting on your own differently. These sort of moments cause a voice to creep into my head that just says.... "Why do you care so much? Let it be, go have fun. Relax."

relaxing now!

Honestly do you remember a time when you were young and gaming? No internet sites for it, no predetermined ideas or goals, no real cares? Everything was about discovery and interacting with a fresh medium that you were enjoying. I remember enjoying the demo of Bubsy 3D...... freakin' Bubsy! Sure I still had some type of an opinion. Mario bros couldn't hold me for long at all, and Turok 2 was just a game for getting lost in, but I was still easily pleased and just kept trying anything and everything until it worked. Spyro made me a gamer and I really loved it and sunk some serious time into everything about it. However that didn't stop me from just being a careless fun little kid gamer and enjoying whatever I touched. It was a simple and fun time without much negativity or influence and I never cared what a game had until I dove into it and found myself hooked or just distracted. Compared to now... now I feel a bit bitter about Last of Us being praised as the best thing ever when it was merely an awesome 3rd person shooter adventure with a well crafted cinematic narrative. I can't stand to see people carelessly praise Tomb Raider when it offered nothing new and in fact took away nearly every sense of freedom and interaction the genre would usually offer. I will probably also be stating until the end of time that Modern Warfare was horribly overrated back in its day, and I still don't understand why its taboo to say anything bad about it despite how the rest of the series is a pinata to the internet now. Meanwhile I feel fear for Wolfenstien's sales when it hits eventually this year because I want it to be proof that amazing corridor shooters with depth can be successful, but meanwhile its not getting the marketing or trust it deserves. I mourn Starhawk's sales defeat because it failed to do similar for online shooters. I feel a tad bit too sensitive whenever someone bashes Killzone and leaves out the details that make it great like excellent gunplay. I also question whether or not I should look into Destiny because Activision's name is stamped on it.

Ok so I'm probably overgeneralizing myself here as I'm not really this bad most of the time, but these thoughts are more of a thing now than they ever should have been for a fun little hobby. Yet I can see where each of them stems from, and it all makes sense and is a part of me. I care about what I love, and I'm kind of getting these emotions out of love and care that goes into a hobby that you learn deeply about across years. Though of course now that I pay $60 for a new game that doesn't help much either. Its the same reason I harp on the decline of the FPS genre, and felt so relieved to see Sly 4 fill the gap in 3D platformers enough to give it GOTY 2013 for basically just executing typical genre staples of its kind so well. I do it out of love for those game styles, and because they gave me fun where it lacks a bit now. However its not like the fun itself is dead... otherwise I wouldn't even be a gamer. I simply seem to have that "mature" mind to seek out and analyze things and I know certain things aren't as fun as they could be. I analyze stuff to figure out what works, what doesn't, what angers me, what makes a fantastic game, to think about the consequences of having or removing X or Y features, and to wonder whether or not my money is supporting a good group that puts entertainment first. Years ago I was buying whatever looked good off any source that had a good deal to sell it, and sinking up to a month of time on the game or even more, fooling with cheats and finding every single scrap of replay out of each heavenly game. Don't get me wrong, I still had opinions and could tell that Battlefront 2 was a sloppy sequel, I knew something was terribly wrong with Spyro Enter the Dragonfly without learning about its history or dev team, and I know I like Mario 64 much more than Super Mario World. I have also always had an odd distaste for the mainstream games.... not trying to sound like a hipster, but its true. The big popular craze game is often the one I could never get into. Instead I went with the cult hits, the secondary winners, or even loved games nobody ever heard of (maybe more on this another day and in another article). However now I just seem to over-do the opinions a bit too much. Sometimes I get ahead of myself. Sometimes I overlook something, or don't give it enough attention because I turned my head up it too early over something silly. I hear "Okami is like zelda" and it loses my interest... but then I hear its like spyro and suddenly there's a huge conflict of interest there. Meanwhile back in 10-year-old land I would have spotted a wolf on the cover, look to the back of the box to see if I could really play that role, and it would be a target wish list item and turn out to be a great game rather than some internal mind struggle that risks ruining the magic with walkthroughs "to be sure". Meanwhile I finally got to play Shadows of the Colossus, which should have turned out just right by every indicator known to mankind, and a game I was personally recommended for years and years on end.... but before even the first major piece to it I was bored with the game and found the set-up counter-intuitive and convoluted. Good thing it was free on PS+.

really guys?

Then there's not just how this effects good games, but how it effects ones I'm more disappointed with. I get angered at the thought that someone out there is out around praising the newest Tomb Raider.... why? Why is it a bad thing that somebody is finding enjoyment with a game? Well I think it comes from a crusade-like mentality. In this expensive big budget industry where people rarely do creative things, there is sort of this odd tension to wanting the weaker expensive titles leveled out rather than being praised through the roof. I don't want Tomb Raider to sell its ridiculous target numbers because I seen what COD:MW did with that to the FPS industry.... but does that justify hating love? No, it does not, it just means the industry is full of idiots and I should aim my attention towards that. Thankfully I really do aim more at the industry when I talk about this sort of thing. Still its hard to resist the urge to question another's opinion when they run around telling people how incredible and bar raising Tomb Raider was with all its 1 hour of player input cinematic adventure gameplay.... and that's a problem not just with me, but with the majority of the internet gamer community out there with other games. We seem to throw up toxic and vile hate over high scoring titles and praise that we don't quite agree with. How often do you see a positive COD or GTA view getting bashed for it? How hard is it to come out and say "I love angry birds!" on a big gaming site and expect to get away with it free of any complaints? Maybe the new Devil May Cry and Bioshock infinite also fit here. Its tough, because they've become games where its so ok to hate that apparently somebody that likes it is worth pitchforks and torches over. Sometimes we need to just be more loose and relaxed, and remember that games are for joy and entertainment and different people will find different things to love and praise.

I think honestly this could be best expressed personally with a subject I'll probably begin bringing up more often... super obscure games. One of the inspirations for this article, beating Alpha Prime and then later re-watching a Jimquisition episode on the evil of hating other peoples favorite games began to make me realize a lot on how the two went together. I remember just not understanding how someone could hate Alpha Prime.... I didn't really defend it either as it isn't much of an amazing game on the critical spotlight, but on a gamer to gamer basis it fullfilled that sense of fun and sent me on an action packed nostalgia fueled adventure in space with fantastic corridor shooter flare. So I loved this game, was baffled at the hate it got from several people out of what few even knew it existed, and yet I couldn't find myself actually defending it beyond telling stories on how much fun I had with it. I shrugged off the hate pretty well, loved the game, and this kind of moment made me see just how stupid it looked to hate on the game with such intensity. Just chill out and let it be, its not a crime someone likes it and it certainly wasn't quite as horrible as they were perceiving it, it was some random obscure game... if they left that page they'd probably never remember it existed. I then went a step further and turned up with a new question on myself: why am I constantly ranting about the FPS genre decline when I could have been finishing Alpha Prime sooner? Why was I off ranting and hating on a subject I could have been using to put a big grin on my face as lovely industrial techno rock ran through my speaker as gun battles played out? Don't get me wrong, I'm never done with the argument and disappointment in the FPS industry as it stands now, and we do need fresh games in the style of older corridor shooter. However I also realized I need to lighten up sometimes and think that I already have my games... they're just old and need to be played with some space in between them. Gaming is about fun, and when I let the corporates, the haters, the disappointments, and the fears stand in the way of that.... I'm the one that loses out. If I ever had any particular stand out skill with gaming or maybe even life itself, it is adaptation... but sometimes I don't show it. I've still loved some of the newer games out there, I still get through some of the crap put out, and I'm able to endure and adapt through common complaints and obstacles because of how easy I adapt. Sure Killzone Shadow Fall was a clumsy mess that would have been far better with more raw gunplay and static health bars, but honestly I got through it and loved it. I also went beyond that and mock the haters because they got stuck on simple gunfights and survival rounds while I went through some trial and error to adapt to it and come out swinging through and having a blast. I could speak similar about how I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2: It was a bit different and not exactly my style but it was good enough that I could find its relate-able grounds and have some good times and laughs with it, and even if I become bitter about it.... hey Alpha Prime still didn't go anywhere. Or I could plug in my PS2 and pop in Turok evolution or Timesplitters, and pull a "sit down, shut up, and game" sort of motto. The games I love and praise and cherish didn't move out or modernize over time, they stayed as data on a disc and I can feel free to go and play them. I can even research some games of that era and style that I missed out on giving me new experiences in the same routine I loved. Want another "mascot" 3D platformer? I wonder how much scaler is going for on Ebay. Want another old school shooter? I'll wait for the summer sale and grab the quake set that I still haven't played. Meanwhile just being angry that the industry isn't making a game I want that doesn't exist doesn't actually get me very far. At best case scenario I'll inspire some more thought into my cause, but honestly is it worth the time wasted?

With all that being said and done, I'm not exactly talking about giving up or promising a change of ways here. Its just a part of being human and growing up, and a part of being big with the hobby. Its also another way to look at adapting.... you simply can't afford to be an "ignorance is bliss" gamer and a hardcore gamer at the same time right now. Publishers are bullying things through that shouldn't be, tacking DRM on games in places you wont want them, and games simply aren't as experimental and free feeling as they used to feel unless your only looking at digital markets from indies and no name brands (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). You can't go placing random $60 everywhere, and even if I decided to bargain bin everything I'd still miss out on multiplayer, pay for something with horrible modes that aren't clear cut on the box, or risk bumping into DRM crap that would have been easily avoided if I spent 10 minutes online learning about the game ahead of time. I also now just feel better about supporting the games that do something special and stand out, something else that would be missing out completely if I just waited and bought whatever looked interesting under $20 used. Its also an age in which where consumers and developers are also just naturally on a closer level with each other, even if some choose to ignore it. If you communicate and get your opinion out there, it really does stand a chance of being heard or making a difference.... and that's the sort of thing I hope to accomplish a lot when I often talk about how much better the shooter genre used to be. However I'm not rendering this whole article as some useless discussion that went nowhere either. I guess what my main message and the point of this article and reflecting upon myself is that sometimes you just need to relax. Sometimes looking too far into something, or being too worried over it, just isn't worth it. Its also just not worth it to get angry over it, as again... you just dig yourself a bigger hole for yourself even if the topic at hand is seriously provoking. Say what you need to say, and then continue to follow wherever the fun really is at, because at the end of the day that is the spirit of gaming. Sequel turned into a F2P scam? Go play the first game, look for influenced better games, or escape to another genre. Publishers being jerks? Don't buy from them, there's plenty of good guys still left and even if your favorite game ever is held hostage... you'll be fine, I'm in that situation to yet get amazed quite a bit at what is out there in recent times. You don't need to be miserable, troll forums, or argue with everyone on the blog... that's just not a healthy habbit nor is it what this hobby was about. Losing track of that makes you just as guilty as money grubbing publishers, or maybe even worse. Just relax, and go have some fun.

Keep the fun times up and rolling

Soldier of Fortune Review

Little note here. I haven't done reviews on this blog much, but I may change that up a bit and I'm bringing out a new review format which is nothing like I've done before. The new format revolves around talking about my experiences with the game, explaining its basics, and adding up the two as to how much fun I had. I wont be talking much about analytical stuff I don't care about anymore unless the game gives me a good or bad reason to care about it. In the end I'm going to give the game a card that reveals 1-4 pros and 1-4 cons and a general score that can go from high to low as follows: Legendary, Awesome, Ok, and Heresy. They sort of speak for themselves honestly. I'm considering adding one or two more, but for now those 4 get across any major point I can think of at the moment. Sadly they may appear glitched off a bit at their size since I cannot get it down to a blog friendly size and keep its integrity, and can't figure out a work around... however it will still be very clear and visible, just a little odd looking. Anyways in this new format I cut out the junk that doesn't matter and get more to my honest and heart felt enjoyment or hate in a game. For example who cares if a game has 8/10 graphics... what even is that? What is an 8 in graphics? It tells you nothing but instead trains you to assume number spots, something that has gone a bit stray and wacky on mainstream review formats. If it looks great, or bad I'll mention it. If its not mentioned, its probably not worth mentioning and will be put aside for what got my attention and what I think should be addressed. I'm hoping this style works and delivers a better review experience for each submitted review, and I honestly think it'll detail the game better for gamers rather than the weird way its done more formally. Now with that being said, on with the review!

Some people just want to watch the world burn

Soldier of Fortune is an old PC FPS game released by Raven Software back in 2000. I don't like going with the typical retorts the internet has for FPS games, but honestly... this game can be best summed up as absolute mindless dumb violent shooting gallery. Odd coming from the guys that were behind bringing you the stupidly over-complicated mapping to the hexen series. However I'm not here to wave that around as an insult, as it turns out to be a pretty fun game at the end of the day.... its just a simple trigger happy dumb sort of fun.

You charge in going level to level blasting enemies to very gorey bits with no other excuse or story than "You're an elite mercenary chasing that chews up terrorists and stops nukes on a daily job". Once I had blasted through the opening level with a shotgun and ripped enough limbs off to replace a forest fire's worth of damage I was then rewarded with a mission update and one of my first cut-scenes. The terrorist leader stood on top of a train and rode off with my character following the pattern on a separate train.... and yeah at that point I knew the type of game I would be playing. 

SoF in a nutshell.... or shotgun shell?

You have a basic inventory system that holds items like grenades, C4, nightvision, healthpacks, and flashbang grenades as well as a vague weapon limit. Don't worry you can still hold far more than 2 weapons, its just that there is a limit and it feels like it comes down to how many big weapons you can carry at once, however you'll be carrying the majority or at least half of the total weapons the game has. However if you have something like... two pistols, both SMGs, a sniper rifle, a flamethrower, and the knife you'll have to put down one or two weapons before you can pick up a rocket launcher or shotgun. Speaking of this system, before each major level or chapter swap you'll be given a menu to equip stuff. This is less free than your total carry limit, but you'll be filling in the blanks quickly as you go along. Once you're in that level, you just go where there's enemies and blast them to pieces and occasionally flip a switch and watch what happens. To keep you from going but so numb there are usually friendly characters or civilians of some kind in these levels, and you'll get a game over if you kill too many or shoot an important NPC. This is what you'll be doing through missions ranging from New York, Iraq, Germany, Africa, Japan, and other locations. Usually the chapters or levels come in sets of 3, with a rare appearance of an agent HQ but it honestly doesn't add anything to the story and seems more like just a tiny scripted break in between the action back when these scripted sequences were still a bit new and being played with.

Now one thing that becomes really obvious is the aesthetic in shooting. The guns not only have power, good visuals, and serve their purpose, but they all impact your enemy in super violent ways that honestly have even left me feeling a little shocked even after my years and years of FPS and violent gaming. I played Turok 2 when I was about 6, which is a game with a weapon made for the pure purpose of drilling through the brain and blowing off limbs in meaty chunks, yet SoF is one of the first shooters (if not the only) that actually had me react in discomfort with its violence..... think about that a bit. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not prepared to call myself offended by this. Quite the opposite. I've always believed that great gunplay aesthetics are vital to helping a shooter be great, and part of that involves drawing out blood and violence to a gorey extent. Its kind of like how you want a car to sound loud and good in racing games, or a card game to have good art. This game capitalizes on the violence, possibly going overboard and has "gore zones" all over its enemy models so you can rip them apart in pieces and leave stumps and blood everywhere. That is also coupled with animation of course. They twitch and roll around with arteries hanging out (sometimes still pulsing), they grab their limbs and scream in agony, they splatter their insides on walls, and when they lose limbs they don't come clean like most rebelliously gorey games.... they instead actually leave behind ripples and torn flesh that hang onto whatever was left while dripping blood. Its no accident that they worked on all these gibs and gore either, they open the game with a scene of terrorists blowing off the front half of someone's face (yes I mean that literally, again the gibs aren't cut clean).  Further scripted events play out that just make it a recurring theme that constantly reminds you this game is super violent. Scripted sequences of people in explosions, walk into trains, enemies that mindlessly kill innocents in situations that just don't even bother to make sense, and then there is an entirely unnecessary part of a level where you walk through a big cow meat processing place full of just endless gore. In this scene you watch a person who somehow got on a conveyor belt wind up in the grinder with a horribly wet ripping sound specific to that sort of death, enemies that are just more trigger happy on their cows than they are towards you, and you end the level up under the grinder and dumping area of it all where it looks like a sewer of pure blood and some bones. Its like some hidden sick vegetarian propaganda was thrown onto a piece of a level (fools! I like chicken more than beef, so they didn't change my ways at all!).

You get the point by now. I'm not hating the game for it, but it sure has a thing for violence. I personally am fine with anything up to Killzone 2, Turok, Alpha Prime, or FarCry 1's level of gore, but seeing it go above and beyond isn't so bad. If you can't handle it too well, just don't think about bothering with this game. Despite the blocky models, dated visuals, poor face work, and general mindless silly tone of the game, it all holds up as one of the most shockingly violent games I have played to this day. 

Remember kids... Have fun with it!

Still the game gives details in other nice little areas to. Again gun animations are good, most textured buttons and tech can be broken to an impressive amount for a 2000 game, and other nice little touches like an idle flamethrower animation where your own character singes their hand for a second. With all being said here, there are still problems here. Animations for individual guns play as they swap around, like tossing the shotgun with a slight style before gripping it, but it seems like this bit interferes with the actual weapon swapping itself. I've been scrolling looking for a specific gun as I'm zipping down the corridor racking up the body count only to have a weapon I want pulled up slug through its animation, lock up a second as I'm trying to fire it, and then it switches another gun or even one after that. The switching is a little too sensitive and a little too slow to respond well enough to keep up with the fast paced action. Carefully scrolling through each weapon is a bit of a drag as well due to this. Now you might just be able to dismiss this with hotkeys, but honestly with a new inventory to select from and gun swapping going on its not exactly a game where you'll be memorizing and using full hotkeys efficiently. This could have been an easy fix and they could have left in the animations by simply adding in a little HUD bar that pops up and highlights through your weapon list like Team Fortress 2, Quake wars, Unreal Tournament, and quite a few other shooters did. While I'm still on about animations, I've also got to say that the game is quite unstable in FPS. I'll admit my laptop isn't the best, but being capable of running far superior and more recent games closer to max (including those games running on quake 3, the successor to this engine), and then jumping onto this blocky muddy mess of a game and seeing it lag itself into almost unplayable moments when things get hectic just doesn't add up. At first I noticed it happened when there was a lot of fog (odd considering that should help considering low draw distance)  or a lot of corpses in a short area. However it also started happening later in the game in a closed up garage with just 2 civilians, so in the end I don't know what the heck is going on here but an ok looking 2000 game should not be acting like this.

The final major problem I have with this game is some poor level design moments. You'll be blasting away mindlessly killing soldier #923 and suddenly you recognize a hallway and some dead bodies. So you clearly missed you exit. It might be a simple door way.... or it could be on some obscure window ledge with no indication that you have to walk it around a good chunk of the building until you come across a window of a room that was locked from the outside. Or you might have to push a special button on a giant machine that didn't look interactive, or was only sensitive to a tiny bit of it's area. OR you had to blow up that generic looking explosive barrel long after conflict stopped and you thought that would be pointless. You get the point, there's quite a good list of moments when I just hit a halt in gameplay because of some really dumb progression bit that didn't make sense. Now I'm all in favor of doing different little tasks that get you to think, and I love a bit of solid FPS platforming in between the mayhem, but this game still remains as a mindless shooter because honestly none of the extra stuff they throw at you makes any sense and it'll often stump you for a good second until you've tried about everything and just start doing dumb stuff out of boredom to beg that it works a way out. To explain that window situation into detail, I had been fighting in a japanese corporate building and was wiping out offices. One of two tiny boxed up lone rooms had guys in them I killed, one guy stylishly came by on a window cleaning platform and I just wiped him out and moved on. You move ahead 3 rooms shooting up plenty of enemies and then unlock a door leading you to the beginning of the floor where you had already been. I went around for about 15-20 minutes checking everything, breaking things, mashing the use button on locked doors, pushing tech, wacking corpses, "using" paintings to find a hidden switch, anything that would get an elevator code I needed to proceed. Well it turns out that I had to walk out on that platform, go against the window sill, go right by instinct (nothing else kept me from going left which would have been painfully more time consuming), I turned a few lumpy bits on the building corner and right as I was questioning virtual suicide from going the wrong way I came across a clear window with some hostages being held up. I smashed through the windows, gunned down the terrorists action movie style, and they told me the code and lead me out the same "locked" door that I had passed and tried to open from the other side well over 7 freakin' times. There was nothing remotely good about that level design, everything lead me away from where I was supposed to go, the path was presented as an enemy gimmick, there was excessive use of rooms that lead me in a circle, and to add salt to the wound it was all behind an obvious door in the first place that was just artificially locked to prevent me from continuing the games typical pacing and gameplay.

If this was only one moment in the game that pulled a stunt like that, I could forgive it. But no. I had to push a button on a machine to watch a grab claw animation that did nothing.... well apparently I had to push it again redundantly in order to trigger a door which just didn't make much sense (and again, for some reason they have the option to leave the right path by backtracking through a door that was previously locked that could have avoided the machine altogether). In another level I felt like I was glitching my way around invisible walls to progress across some roofs and find my way back on track. Then there was a moment where a tank was beside a very obvious red explosive barrel surrounded by TNT crates. Of course the thing that occurs to a clever player's senses will be that it looks like a giant weak-spot, just set off the big explosions with 1 well placed bullet. I wasted a bunch of ammo and health standing out and taking shots while the bullets didn't trigger the barrel like they usually would. Apparently you had to just go straight for the tank with 4 rockets, and the tank explosion triggers the explosives what have been previously shootable for the past dozen levels of the whole game, and once those TNT crates are gone there is an opening out of the area. So they basically used the strongest enemy in the game to hide the exit through a wall of explosives.... I cannot begin to describe how stupid and counter-intuitive that is in game design, especially when the rest of that game's design is mindless action and over the top explosions.

Hint: best gun

Now these flaws don't overshadow the fun factor or point of the game entirely. They are annoying bits that get in the way, but overall the game doesn't stop being one of the best dumb shooters I've played in a long time. Its fast, tests the reflexes, it has extreme gore giving a powerful sense to the weapons, it tallies up points for everything you do, and its pretty simple and easy while staying fast and over the top to keep you from caring too much. With that being said there are custom difficulty options, and a limited save tally you can change, but in the end the game is a bit on the easy side making it down to scoring and just the raw fun of a well made interactive shooting gallery. You'll be going from level to level essentially just shooting everything "bad" (which gets above 1000 kills according to my stats) and going from A to B with a couple annoying stoppers along the way. Its as linear as shooter get while still keeping gameplay at the center focus and dropping off bits of an excuse to kill with a nuke themed terrorist story. Honestly its kind of like how I imagine a mod would be for Modern Warfare's campaign if it was done in this day. I suppose if I'm disappointed, its not really in its gameplay as much as what it could have done extra. The real-ish weapons, and straight music are working against the game's over the top cut-scenes, gameplay, and gore to create a rather uninspired after taste left in the game while something like Duke Nukem bathes in the action hero sillyness too much to forget or pass up as easily. However again I'm judging the game on what is there, and it holds up as a solid off the wall shooter experience.

Verdict:

Soldier of Fortune is a lot of fun for what it is and I felt like giving it an awesome verdict at first thought. However in the end I realized it really doesn't do much other then provide insane fun through a linear path of nearly nonstop gunplay within a gory shooting gallery under a more old school style. Its a very simple game in the end, and even manages to make some really annoying mistakes while being such. There isn't any real sense of a "quiet time" nor enough interactivity to put it on par with the greater old shooters, but it isn't exactly doing anything too bad. It hits some hard bumps in level design, but still provides a fun insane and action packed experience with some of the strongest gore I've ever seen in a shooter. However it doesn't go beyond, and doesn't even challenge you while its doing its thing. So in the end, my viewpoint is that it just sits at "Ok". It is an ok and solid game, but I wouldn't recommend it strongly except for maybe a mindless game to work on off to the side, and I especially would not recommend it to those with a bit of a sensitive side towards digital violence. Still its a fun game, and kind of unique in its simplicity and action experience... so it wouldn't hurt to check it out and I may revisit it again one day myself. For now though, I feel satisfied with it and am willing to move back onto better old school shooters.

What will become the classics of the 7th generation?

Whoops, wrong gen. Still a classic. :)

Classics happen in every media. Something gets a big hit or a passionate cult following for its niche, focus, or accomplishments, and it goes down in history as something big or something that truly held a major impact. Something people remember and associate with its medium as something special, or something that got a ton of attention and keeps people talking. Gaming is no exception as we clearly have our big classics, icons, and masterpieces. A good old fashion example might be something like Pac-Man, Final Fantasy, and most obviously Mario. However what were the big ones here in this passing generation? We've had plenty of length and time to think of the classics and see what games made an impact through either audience or raw influence within the market. I'm going to list some of the ones I hear about most often, and those that probably will stick to memories and association with this generation and maybe even iconic for the medium itself. That isn't to say they're all great games in my own opinion or that I think everyone will like them, and I may not even like them myself. Heck I know personally I only "like" two of these on the lists becoming classics while the others I have a more ify time judging. Instead this small list is of a few simple ones I base off their core work and accomplishments mixed together with how well they are received and talked about. So yes LittleBigPlanet and Dishonored are incredible games that should be classics, but honestly I don't hear of them nearly as much as those that make this list nor do they have that standout media grabbing appeal. Yes maybe one or two of these are overrated, but because of the massive overrated status they have they'll be remembered and go down big time in history. I want to make this a short list though, so lets get some honorable mentions out of the way and restrict the list to games within a simple straight forward 5 game list. Then I'll get to a straight top 5.

Honorable mentions:

Skyrim- Yeah Skyrim is amazing, but then again when haven't the elder scrolls gotten big hit status? They've sort of always traveled that odd line of getting big attention and kind of being the mainstream hit WRPG without feeling like a mainstreamed game. Its actually kind of a given to just let skyrim be considered special, just like oblivion before it, and morrowind before that. And then when the next comes out (hopefully we're talking about a real one not the MMO) it'll replace skyrim with some people arguing over which was better, complaining the new one is dumbed down, or saying its so brilliant and amazing it raises the highest bar of scope. You know of its amazing scope, you knew it would do some incredible changes, and you know it'll top the last in the series except to die hard of the last game that complain the new one is too easy, so lets leave the list a little more free and chat about some more fresher entries. Besides I honestly can't help but think of skyrim as that middle of the road RPG. Sure its amazing, but chances are there is a better niche appeal to some stronger focused RPG.... and while most don't get a big enough following to consider a wide classic, there is a certain one that I think goes higher on this list and goes above and beyond what skyrim pulled off. So skyrim stays off the list.


Minecraft- Ok I'll admit this is a bit unfair as it really deserves this list. But honestly I was running out of space when I suddenly remembered #5... I was going to place that here when I really thought about it. I'm not a fan of either game, but honestly people remember and are more fond of what I put in minecraft's place. MineCraft is a great game and a masterpiece that has a big amount of gamers playing it and has had quite a lot of influence, however the community has kept to themselves compared to some other games. It makes sense to that Minecraft players are a bit more quiet, as the game is very open canvas based and centers more around what you do with the game rather than what the game did for you. So I opted this out in place of the game that gets more people loud and feeling more vocally nostalgic for as well as something that had more direction and focus to become a classic.

Anything Nintendo or Valve related- If I tried to measure which of the Wii's library really deserved strong memory and achieved a big status and impact it would be.... well quite challenging. As for Valve, they're primarily PC and those don't really have the big generation impact, its instead sort of in its own line of things much like Nintendo. Don't get me wrong Portal, TF2, and if you consider it a part of this gen Half-life 2 are all classics in their own right but they're a bit dislocated from the more common market I'm measuring. If anything just give this the same reason I gave to skyrim.... its nintendo and valve, of course they're off making their weird classics and big hits but they measure up differently compared to the classics I'm aiming at for this list.

Now with honorable mentions out of the way, lets get on with the list....

5) Bioshock

I've got to say I'm not a fan of this when I totally should be. I just don't know why.... it just doesn't click with me. Combat certainly is clunky, but that hasn't stopped me from loving other games with that issue. Still its become a big hit and one of the few non military shooters with great and creative ideas behind it to get good attention and it really deserves its praise as it stands to be a strong game. Sadly its not exactly been a solid hit throughout the whole series with 2 losing its "new" charm and getting hate for it, and then the 3rd (infinite) becoming a pinata for elitists to bash on..... because apparently shooters aren't allowed to do a single thing wrong in a story to be good. However despite this people still adore the original. People are still buying and witnessing the magic of Rapture's original discovery. People still talk about the atmosphere, the ending, the horror themes, the politics, and some of the goofy quirks within its style. The game is held up as a classic, and really gets people talking of good times with it. It was also released long ago around the time Modern Warfare was getting hype and ready to go big, and despite that Bioshock's legacy still held through all the fads COD brought. Bioshock really will go down as a classic.

4) Journey

Journey is one of those that deserves not to just be considered a classic, but honestly one of the best games out there as it masters its own genre and I can't see anything beating it in that regard yet. It brought out strong hype, presented itself beautifully, had outstanding and innovative ideas, integrated multiplayer in a special way flawlessly, and delivered all we hoped for in a well constructed package worth replaying again and again to explore the rich adventure and collect everything. Oh yeah and there was a freakin' cheat code outfit to show off, how cool is that for an artsy indie game? It was widely and well received to the point where it was grabbing awards in typical events where it was usually triple A budget games, it got reviews and stories circulating high praise and amazing journeys all over the net, it stayed on top PSN sales months after it released, and it is still being talked about and replayed by the many fans to this day despite being just a 2 hour linear trip. This game is an honest classic and one of the biggest indie success stories I think we've seen in this generation where the scene exploded. You know what... I agree with every single high praise it gets, except maybe the music wasn't too special, but everything else about this game really made me melt with joy and I can agree with the masses on this one. I personally loved how it explored a spiritual theme, the anonymous co-op system that went in and out giving way to random but lovable assistants, the encouraged exploration despite a linear path, the emotional impact the ending had on me even after I beat it several times, the surprise threats and secrets behind the game, and just.... just... everything! The game is simply genius and put faith in the idea of these artsy walking adventures being solid gaming entertainment. It is an incredible game and experience for its short length and is every bit of a classic. 

3) Last of Us

Well I've sort of discussed my feelings about this game before. I think it is a tad bit overrated because its hype is a little too built up around a movie-toned story and people get carried away saying its the best thing they'll ever see. I will give it some credit for tying in the tense feeling into the gameplay though. However that wont stop it from being the top game ever to some people, getting tear jerking emotions pulled up, keeping people from seeing it in some glittered spotlight, and I've admitted before it still is a genius game that made it ok among the best PS3 games list even though I only rented it. It is a little early to go around saying for sure if this is a classic, but honestly to suggest that it wont be one is a bit.... well sheltered to put it lightly. The game has been getting nonstop love and praise everywhere and is being considered the highest point so far in a company that has always delivered massive hits, its sold a long lived and now slowly passing console, its holding its very high price point months after it released, and it honestly was a game that was crafted with true care and effort put into it in an age where publishers are bullying that out of our industry for the sake of money. This is a well crafted game with a massive spotlight and lots of love going for it, and honestly it beats Tomb Raider getting the praise over high budget movie stuff since this game actually has decent interaction and substance. I think that it will be looked back as one of the big final hits and possibly one of the biggest linear games out there as history goes on. Long campaign, high budget and focus on top performance all over the place, solid gameplay that stands out from the crowd and keeps you tense alongside the characters and brutal world, and to top it all off even if the story is heavily based on big performance stuff it really delivers strong and it is in part due to the game's general effectiveness as an interactive adventure. Oh yeah and that ending is just.... wow. I can truly see this becoming a massive classic, if not the "greatest game ever" to many.

2) Dark Souls

Even before I recently went on my still ongoing playthrough, I knew there was something different about this game that made it stood out and stand up a bit further than the average 2011 game. Some amazing games came out that year, but the only two that really endured the discussion, legacy, and community enthusiasm is Skyrim, and Dark Souls (maybe infamous 2). Clearly they were doing some good stuff. Sadly I do feel like Dark Souls wasn't exactly being held up as a classic for the right reason, and with time this kind of came to light. The original phase of people saying it was just a great difficult game was kind of silly as it was really more of the depth and execution that makes it such an amazing game. Yes it was difficult and stacked you in some poor odds, but it was because it expected a smart player that could learn from mistakes and use the system to its full advantage that it really held up as a fun game. The community that realized this is the one that stayed.... and then started leaving traces of the rewards across the internet. Cool tricks, interesting lore interpretations, parodies playing on the quirks that only really deep games have, interesting experiences and stories to tell from adventures, or simply spreading the world about various features. This is how it caught my attention in itself, as my rental time with it wasn't really the best showcase for it.

Like pretty much all the games on this list, The game doesn't do a lot that is new in itself, but its the way things are executed that make it stand out a good bit. You have different checkpoints distantly apart from each other that are also your main leveling stations, restores health and health potions, and can alter your condition a bit. Then you have strong combat and enemies that can do nearly everything you can... block, parry, heavy/light attacks, combos, and similar stuff and they can deal out high damage. Between the checkpoint walks, the limited health supply, and high damage they very basic enemies will keep you tense and on your guard while also fully enjoying and using the deep combat system. If you die though you drop all "souls" which just so happen to be the life driving RPG element here. Souls lets you level up, is the currency, and even gets you by a few other things like an NPC task, so dropping them is bad. However you can recover them if you make it back to your death spot. This whole set up creates a genius system of determination and drive that brilliantly pushes you forward and keeps the player motivated to learn from their mistakes in a way you simply don't see in another game. On top of that the player over time will likely learn to take advantage of the game in ways like finding a safe zone to shoot a boss's tail off to get a secret sword. Then there's a critical point on the Tarus demon boss. Moments like this and other quirks have been discovered from hardcore players that really are determined to get things done, all in a generation that has actually been about safe mechanics, bottling freedom and interaction, and emphasis on narrative over gameplay or Hollywood appeal over gamey appeal. Dark Souls not only calls upon older insticts to exploit, and delivers a very strong mechanic heavy tense experience with a good atmosphere, but it hits with a strong sense of discovery and meaningful moments that put it on par with games like Limbo and Last of Us's story telling acclaim while also being more of a game than most games are being. That is why people keep talking about Dark Souls. That is why its become a major hit without going mainstream. That is why its sequel has been begged for across all major platforms including even the Wii U. As a result.... I'm naming this as one of the more powerful classics we've seen come out of this generation, and it looks like its sticking to it until the closer ending as Dark Souls 2 has made it clear that there is no next generation release in the works yet.

1) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Ok this one requires a good bit of explanation. I'm not happy with it, but I've got to say that modern warfare is a big hit classic and possibly the most obvious one to choose and thus possibly the biggest classic. It didn't innovate on anything itself, it didn't do anything too special on paper, however it not only qualifies itself as a classic in fame but it is also the most obvious thing that other developers have been constantly drawing upon throughout this whole generation and its fame still lasts. I also think that while it didn't innovate, it was executed in such a way that hasn't been seen before and brought in a brand new market to shooters and gave casuals a place among the genre. Personally I think this game is overrated. I'd also much rather go for deeper shooters that I can hardly find anymore and I think what it brought to the industry is one of the worst declines because it made it so that very few shooters or general action game could be deep and "successful" games by the new budgets. Still this has been this generation's Halo, counter-strike, and Unreal as a "competitive" (I use that word loosely) leading online game, it has been the big hit FPS that sticks with people and has had the internet talking about it to this day, it has been that game people share memories about sinking hours with their friends over, and it has been that shooter that again has gotten people playing follow the leader behind for years and years down the line of the longest console cycles out there. Even with the hate wagon at high for the series, they still look back at modern warfare as an outstanding achievement in FPS gaming. I don't even have to explain the game or what became popular about it, its just been talked about to death and its influence has impacted pretty much all of action gaming in some way by now ranging from skinner boxes to regenerating health.

Thanks to this game, Call of Duty is about as well known as Mario and it doesn't even have nearly the amount of time or charm mario has had to get to that status. People remember this game for its addictive skinner box themed fast paced multiplayer, action packed campaign, and just feeling good and nailing the pacing and feeling to a wide audience. For those reasons I really do believe it deserves a spot on this list. Which spot? Well that was difficult to decide, but honestly it was the most blunt, copied, and still a very popular to discuss sort of game that has stood through time as a popular shooter that has been the standard of this generation.... for better and worst. I feel bitter about this, but Modern Warfare really does get the top spot on my list because it really is a big hit game that refuses to fade from time and brought on a heavy influence that lasts even through the "bash it like a pinata" phase the series is going through. Honestly I do have some respect for the game for doing its job and bringing in a casual flare to the genre, and I think it was a matter of very well executed use of older mechanics and ideas from other genres that brought in a strange but satisfying mix and finally brought the modern setting in before it was common. So well played Modern Warfare.... now FPS industry, please grow the hell up and respect your thought provoking and creative roots a bit more.