The Top 6 Reasons Why Video Games Suck (Part 1)

So you think video games are all fun and games, huh? You couldn't be more wrong. The world of gaming is sinister and full of deception and lies and for that reason, I have created this guide as a warning, hoping to discourage all from a life that can bring no joy. Anyway, on with the list:

(Pictured above: The average gamer)

6. Brain Clutter/ Useless Knowledge

I could tell you the difference between a Phoenix down and a Phoenix pinion, or name five differences between Claude and Dias' respective "air slash" attacks from Star Ocean 2. I could tell you five different ways to mix a Nectar smoothie in Dead Rising or the evolved forms of all basic Pokemon (from the first 150).

At the same time, I wouldn't be able to name more than 10 words I learned from 4 years of Spanish classes, or tell you anything more about my year and a half of trigonometry besides "it involved triangles". Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but the point is, after playing so many games, I feel it's begun to replace information that I should be able to recall easily, and even begun to compromise my common sense.

In time, I'll no longer remember how many ways to look before crossing the street, or what series of actions to take in the even of a fire. However, I will be able to tell you what levels you get all the perks in Call of Duty 4 or know the map of Liberty City by heart.

They say the average brain can hold about a million pieces of information, and I'd estimate that the average gamer brain contains about 900,000 pieces of useless garbage.


5. Poor Starting Job Options

(Pictured above: Approximate quality level of an average game-related position)

If you're seriously into video games, it's likely you;d consider a career in the business. The video game market is by no means small, and being relatively recession proof, it still thrives during times of economic stress (like now for example). There are plenty of high paying jobs in the industry, but in order to get to any of them, you're going to have to deal with a whole lot of s**t first. Let's break it down:

Game Critic:

Many kids dream of reviewing games for a living and I can tell you first hand, it's about 100 times less glamorous than it sounds. Say you make about $150 (U.S.) per review. That sounds pretty reasonable, especially if you get the game for free as well. What you have to realize about the gaming market is that a great game comes about once every 3-5 weeks, and considering you're likely to be working with a team of people, you'll likely be paid to play a game you would actually buy maybe 2-3 times a year if you're lucky. For the rest of that time, you're in hell. And, even when you get a game that's actually good, you're getting an "advanced" copy, a.k.a. a glitchy, unfinished, bug-riddled copy. If you actually plan on playing said game as God intended, you're gonna have to take the money out of your own paycheck.

Now, be prepared to spend15 hours of your life slogging through a crappy experience just so you can tell the world it was crap, when everyone likely knew it was crap in the first place. Factoring in time to write up the review and finding any additional information, screenshots, and the like, that $150 is now just about minimum wage for a seriously mind-numbing experience.

Game Tester:

Wow! This sounds even better! It's like being a reviewer but without all the written work. Well let's see...where to start? Let's say your playing the first level of a game for 15 minutes. Hey, this is actually fun! Yeah? Well, are you still going to be thinking that after you've played that same level 86 times, each time making a note of every tiny little glitch and inconsistency? You might not even be able to finish the game, as a company's likely to assign people to specific levels, so enjoy playing those first 25 minutes of the game again...and again...and again...and again, for the next 3 weeks straight.

Imagine watching a movie based around the concept of repetition, like Groundhog Day. Now imagine having to watch Groundhog Day 20 times straight. Now imagine Groundhog Day is a really, really sh**ty game. Okay, that last part doesn't really make sense, but you get the idea.

Also, throw any notion of not having to do any write-ups out the window. A huge part of your job will be compiling a formal assessment of all the bugs and problems you've found to be submitted to the dev. team. Still sounds like fun, right?

Game Journalist:

This one actually isn't so bad. You have to do a ton of research for your articles, but at least it doesn't kill as many brain cells as the previously mentioned jobs. However, where it really starts to suck is when you have to try to work with or get feedback from the online public. The gaming online public are of a different breed than say, that of news or politics. If your working online as a journalist for a world news magazine, for example, you'll be dealing with intelligible people, capable of forming educated and comprehensive opinions.

The gaming world is the world of flame wars, 1337 speak, and excessive fanboyism. If you are so unfortunate as to have to cater to the online community, you'll be handling the exact same people who allowed Icanhascheezburger.com to become the 8th most powerful blog on the internet. I hope you're all proud of yourselves.

4. Disappointment

(He just paid $60 for Alone in the Dark)

There are few things more disappointing than being super hyped about a game, pre-ordering it, counting down the days until its release and finally popping it in, only to find it average at best. It's easy to look at all the media buzz around a game and all of the very positive reviews, and think that it's going to blow you away. Even though I enjoyed GTA IV very much, I couldn't help but be disappointed after it received one of the highest overall average scores on gamerankings.

Well, now you're probably thinking, "Say bro, doesn't that stuff happen with things like TV, movies, music, and whatnot?" Well, inquisitive reader, I have constructed the following chart based solely on mathematically fact that evaluates the suckiness of disappointing games compared to other forms of media:

Bob's Chart of Dissapointment

For the purpose of this data, I have used Bob, an average male gamer who makes $25 dollars an hour, and I take into account that he could be making money while wasting his time.

Money wasted from...

1. Bad TV Show: $0 (cost) + $12.50 (30 mins.) = $12.50 wasted [Bob's slightly annoyed]

2. Bad Song: $1 (cost) + $1.50 (~3.5 mins) = $2.50 wasted [Bob couldn't care less]

3. Bad Movie: $10 (cost) + $50 (2 hours) = $60 wasted [Bob's somewhat angry]

4. Bad Game: $60 (cost) + $250 (10 hours) = $310 wasted [Bob's F**king Pissed!!]

Therefore, buying a disappointing game is over 5 times more sh**ty than the next leading form of disappointing entertainment. That's a lot of suck, especially since that 10 hours is being conservative. Play through a disappointing RPG, and you've just wasted the equivalent of about $1000.

Alright, look for the rest of this list tomorrow if I still have nothing better to do.

The Best and Worst of Prototype

Prototype, the new open-world action game from Radical Entertainment, the developers of Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Scarface, has been looking pretty good, and will likely only continue to look better as team approaches the 2009 release. However, despite some impressive previews (it's definitely worth checking out Gametrailer's recent exclusive) and taking into account the company's solid track record, I remain hopeful, but somewhat apprehensive.

What's Got Me Hopeful:
As purely an action game, Prototype seems impressive. The anti-hero protagonist, Alex Mercer, is super strong and agile, and as a result, both combat and platforming/exploration elements of the game look promising. The game also allows Alex to "evolve", becoming stronger and gaining new abilities, and some of his powers look devastatingly powerful.

One of prototype's most talked about features is the ability to consume anyone in the city, gaining their body as a disguise, as well as their memories. Being able to shapeshift into anyone in the city could present some interesting ways to approach different missions. The ability also ties in to the game's main plot device called the "web of intrigue", which I'll get back to later.

Also, Radical hasn't disappointed with most of their previous releases. Ultimate Descruction was one of the better superhero games of the last generation, and leaps and bounds better than this year's Hulk game. Also, Scarface was a lot better than I initially expected and though saying the game was "inspired" by GTA would be one hell of an understatement, Radical still implemented a lot of cool and unique ideas here.

What's Keeping Me Apprehensive:
If you're following the game, you'll know by now that it takes place in New York City. At one time, the idea of a sandbox game set in NYC was truly incredible. However, after countless open world games including The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man 2, and of particular note, GTA IV, have used the city as their backdrop, I've really started to grow tired of the idea. Granted, Prototype is different in that the virus actually affects how the city looks, but I'm as of now unconvinced that this will be enough to keep the city form feeling stale.

The web of intrigue, which I mentioned earlier, also has me worried. While it's a genuinely unique way of telling the story, from what I've seen thus far, it consists mostly of a bunch of still images with sound layered on to it. If this isn't the primary way of telling the story, then I won't mind so much. However, telling the majority of a story through slide shows just seems like a cheap cop out that will undoubtedly make the story seem less powerful.

Aside from the story, one of my worries on the gameplay side of the spectrum is that the game is just too ambitious. Shooting, acrobatics, offensive and defensive skills, shapshifting, etc. While it's certainly good to have ambitions, biting off more than you have often lead to a game feeling tragically unrealized. While I'm glad that the team is taking the extra time to polish the game, I can't help but feel that having all these different mechanics is going to drag the overall quality of them down.

The final potential nail in the coffin is the possibility of no online or co-op. Granted, normally I wouldn't get too hung up on this and granted, perfecting the single player should be their primary objective; however, given the open-world environment and the awesome abilities that the main character has, passing up this chance to do at least co-op, if not full online multiplayer would really seem like a serious loss.

Top 5 Best Uses of RPG Elements

The games on this list are hardly what you'd consider textbook roleplaying games. Rather, they are games that run the gamut from shooter to platformer that have the most well implemented and realized RPG elements that make them a cut above the rest:

5. Dead Rising (Xbox 360)


Dead Rising was a game with many flaws, but had so much new and exciting gameplay to offer, that most were willing to forgive them. One of the game's most glaring flaws was the save system, which forced you to use one slot, and overwrite that slot for every save. Because the game was timed and forced you to be at certain places at specific times, it was totally possible to save yourself into a point where you can't reach the next mission on time, forcing you to restart the whole game.

The main thing that stopped me from tossing the disc out the window when this happened to me was the RPG system. Everything in the game, from killing zombies and rescuing survivors to using the stove in the food court awards the player with PP (Prestige Points). Once enough was accumulated, Frank (the main character) would level up, awarding him with a handy upgrade, like an extra slot to store items, more health, or a cool, new ability.

Since PP and character level are saved when the game needs to be restarted, it makes the game more tolerable, knowing that you'll be that much stronger next time.


4. Call of Duty 4- Online (Xbox 360/Ps3)





Granted, COD 4 wasn't the first online shooter to use a leveling system- Rainbow Six comes to mind. However, it made it far more rewarding than any other shooter had, with tons of weapons and modifications to unlock, as well as perks, powerful abilities that allow for a heightened level of customization that also mark one of the highlights of the multiplayer mode.

Gaining experience to level up to unlock that next shotgun or cool perk made the multiplayer so much more addicting, and even more importantly, it made losing games fun, or at least far less frustrating, as you'd still gain valuable experience to help level up.


3. Warcraft III- Heroes (PC)



Originally, WC III was touted as a hybrid that was supposed to be as much RPG as RTS. Clearly, the final product ended up being much more RTS than RPG, but the RPG elements associated with the hero characters still shone through.

Though still an RTS, WC III is smaller in scale than most. It involved a lot of micromanagement, especially with upgrading the hero characters. Each hero could level up, learn skills, and hold items in their inventories. Choosing how to upgrade the hero characters and what equipment to outfit them with added a whole new layer of strategy to the game that made the campaign far more dynamic than most other RTS games at the time.

Also, one of the best aspects of WC III's RPG mechanics was how the community used it in developing their own online games. Entire RPG sims were created, and it actually became entertaining to control just one character in an RTS (something that Dota highlights on an incredible level), something that would never have been possible without the RPG implementation.


2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, Xbox, PC)

To list the number of mechanics and systems that San Andreas added or improved over Vice City would take hours. However, one of the coolest new features was the ability to upgrade CJ. Nearly every facet of the game had a stat that could be improved through use. Use your uzi enough and you'll become more accurate, eventually being able to dual-wield. Drive a lot and car handling would improve. Work out in the gym and you'll be able to throw harder punches.

The sheer amount of stuff that CJ could improve at was staggering. It's still totally beyond my understanding why this was removed from GTA IV (though Rockstar stated that they removed having the player become skinny or fat because it caused too many graphical glitches on the new engine) simply because it was so unintrusive- you could spend as much as with it as you liked, or ignore the feature altogether and still get through the game just fine. Being able to upgrade essentially all aspects of CJ from his underwater lung capacity to his plane flying ability, made it way more fun to just mess around in the open world and increased the game's lifespan exponentially.


1. Ratchet and Clank series excluding the first game (PS2, Ps3, PSP)
The first Ratchet game for PS2 was a charming action/platformer with a bunch of cool and creative weapons. However, when Insomniac released the sequel, Going Commando, with the newfound abilities to level up both Ratchet and his arsenal of crazy weapons, it became hard to imagine that the series had ever existed without it.

Gaining experience for Ratchet's weapons, and watching them transform into new, more powerful weapons is an intensely addictive and gratifying experience reminiscent of leveling up and evolving pokemon. Sure, the first game is charming and fun in its own right, but the RPG systems later implemented brought the series to a whole new level.

Guitar Hero World Tour: Do we really need it?

After the success of Rock Band on both the 360 and PS3, and with the recent release on the Wii, I wonder if the market truly needs another full band music game. It seems to me as though the market for this sort of game is pretty much saturated at this point, and I doubt that many people who already own Rock Band will be racing to go out and spend $190 on a game they more or less already own, but with different songs.

Okay, that's not really true. Neversoft seems to be trying their best to distinguish World Tour from Rock Band. Their strongest new feature looks like it will be create-a-song feature, however only time will tell if this new offering proves to as fun in practice as the concept sounds. The new instruments do look better though, and the addition of a bass career mode is sure to appeal to enthusiasts. The guitar also looks more solid and realistic and the addition of cymbals to the drum kit is definitely a plus.

But, are these additions really enough to justify having both? My bet is not really. With other peripheral based games, a single franchise (like Dance Dance Revolution) is typically able to monopolize the market. The main difference here is that both Rock Band and Guitar Hero are so high profile that the public is hardly liable to let either fade into obscurity. If you ask me, this will likely be Neversoft's first and last venture into full band games, and they'll continue their success with what they've already established themselves with: guitar-only games.