Fool's Gold

After a long winded run that witness the downsizing, downgrading and down syndrome of ‘modern’ games, degradation and shame in the quality of programming and design, the creation of a new form of vulgarity called ‘DLC’ and the decline of creativity in the insane pursuit of the almighty dollar, we finally are seeing end of one of the saddest eras in the history of video gaming. May this era be wholly documented in the anals…I mean, annals of history, lest we forget! Apologies, but nearly of decade of sodomy and arse pokery in concole gaming has taken its toll.

This generation of gaming examplifies the worst era in history. Never before have consumers been cheated out of their hard earned money in return for some of the most shameful programming to ever grace the idiot box. The Playstation 3, despite initially being a technical marvel purely designed for the true gamer, was placed in the hands of clueless people who failed to market the superior gaming console in a tightly contested console battlefront. Sony almost revealed that it is actually run by a bunch of chimps when they decided to create an uproar by removing certain features from the console. Stupidity seems to be the most prized skill in the world of gaming.

Microsoft fared no better. Having had the upperhand with the early release of the Xbox 360, the pirates of silicon valley stole the march on the Playstation 3. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from then on. Incredibly, Microsoft failed to capitalize on the Japanese market. If you can’t sell a gaming console in the most famous gaming nation in the world, then you are most definitely fucked up. Despite luring the legendary Final Fantasy creators into developing a couple of Xbox 360 exclusive RPGs in their efforts to woo the Japanese, Microsoft half hearted approach was rewarded with a good old ‘Kiss My Ass’ attitude from the Asian consumers.

To add insult to injury, there seemed to be a collective consensus from the major software houses and developers that led to the fraudulent next gen development guidelines propogated by the nefarious suits at Sony, Microsoft, along with third party monsters Electronic Arts and Activision.

Games were considerably shorter and less engaging. The multiplayer element seemed to supercede all the governing factors that went into the production of games despite the fact that high speed broadband was only available to a select few. The achievement/trophy reward system was introduced thereby critically stunting any efforts for modding. The age heralded the demise of homebrew development. Sony and Microsoft insatiable greed had reached unprecendented scales and served as a clear indication or warning regarding the future principals of video game marketing. Piracy would not be tolerated. In short, the old ‘Kill The Poor’ doctrine had finally festered itself in one of the biggest money making industries.

All these only served to guarantee the consumers expectations of a grossly limited range of genres that soon became known collective as ‘console type’. The market was flooded with First Person Shooters that copied the standard of the old Playstation 2 game ‘Black’ with each new offering extolling ‘nice graphics’ and nothing else, the action adventure genre managed to stay above the drowning waters by utilizing a combination of famous big name franchises and sly marketing promos that consisted of short spectacular trailers that were designed to mislead gamers by conveying over the top cutscenes and short high octane in-game footage which usually was about 5% of the actual QTE riddled game play.

The RPG market fared no better. Gone were the days of immersive elaborate extragavanzas. In its place, the deplorable ‘Action RPG’ concept that hardly held its ground in the Playstation 2 days was the de-facto standard. The once revered genre had decomposed into an unrecognizable state as many major RPG developers saw the exodus of their legendary workforce who refused to abide by the degrading new standard of RPG development. As a result, the influx of inept and unskilled programmers and developers quickly assimilated into the vacated positions. Their less than stellar abilities soon became apparent as gamers were force fed some of the worlds worst RPG games of all time. Even the greatest franchises brought shame with unforgivable offerings that were so inferior it remains hard to believe that they had passed a single quality inspection. SquareEnix who once commanded the respect of the masses were found delving into the bottom of rotting barrels to replenish their loss of genius. Bioware simply slipped into a steaming mire of shit by grossly underestimating RPG gamers the world over and seemed to have re-evaluated their strategy based on the ‘Dollar! Dollar bill y’all’ code.

The market was reshaped and corners were cut. Real programmers became extinct. Console manufacturers sat back and cashed their cheques. Third party developers aquired a new degree of arrogance. The software list for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 had soon filled itself with titles that would not have made it past the planning stages a little more than a decade ago. And console gamers? Well, they had now become those fuckers who buy games.

So, to all game buying fuckers out there, myself included, of course. The future looks bleak but being the fuckers that we are, we won’t lose hope even if hope abandons us by tapping us on the shoulder and saying goodbye. We’ve survived the boredom of a few Modern Warfare tours, hell, some of us got cheated badly into joining the Colonial Marines, we’ve seen Krikwall..once, at least and we frowned and sighed and made that choice closely based on our favorite color. And now, we stand upon the cusp of a brand new generation of gaming as we watch Microsoft and Sony struggle to squirt their premature new babies out of their disinfected anuses thanks to the panic induced by the WiiU from Nintendo, who still remain radiant as ever, unfazed and unchallenged by the Disk Operating System makers (kiss home-made programming goodbye!) and the creators of the Video Cassette Recorders (porn at home!) who both have a perchant for slyly slipping their cocks in the gamers ass. Well, we don’t care what is going to happen next, because we are all strapped in for the ride and none of us are bending over forward again. Let’s hope that this time the ride over the cliff is a short but good one.

Fool's Gold

Categories: