My guilty pleasure – I am a video game snob
I’ve been getting comments from coworkers about how picky I am when it comes to gaming. The truth is, I’m just a snob when it comes to my favorite hobby/passion/whatever you wanna call it. Sometimes, though, it’s just that I hate sh*tty games. Period.
I hate sports games. What in the bloody hell is the point in releasing an entirely new disc, every single year, most of the time including nothing different than an updated roster? Ever heard of DLC? Is there seriously so much changing in the game that one disc with a yearly $20, $30, even $40 downloadable upgrade or patch couldn’t cure? I doubt it. They still use cardboard cutouts for the audience; I mean, come on! The latest issue of Game Informer has shots from Madden 2010, another fantastic franchise by NFL bed-buddy, EA. I’m unfortunately unable to locate said cardboard cutouts due to the focal range of the real-time depth-of-field introduced. Sneaky bastards.
Ehhhh….still look like cutouts to me. Go Dolphins…yay.
I hate Gran Turismo 5. A trailer was released at E3 2009. It had clips of NASCAR and flashes of WRC. OK, so…you’re including NASCAR because EA finally got a clue that there’s just no money in the franchise in terms of video games, and you slapped a WRC label onto your pre-existing rally races to…amaze everyone to your ability to obtain licenses with ease? The trailer also had snippets of people interested in the commotion of a race apparently taking place in their neighborhood street; keyword here is “people”. Oh, and to all the n00bs drooling over “car damage”, please just go back to your corner and munch on a grenade or something. Vehicle damage is sooo not new to the racing sim genre that it hadn’t even dawned on me that’s what they were conveying during the trailer. Not only was it not real-time, but I’ll bet you the price of the game minus 60 bucks that it’s only cosmetic. Mark my words: Damage simulation in Gran Turismo 5 will have no impact on driveability. I played the sh*t out of GT and GT3. I bought GT4 and traded it for a Tony Hawk game about 7 months later. A Tony Haw game! I still own GT and GT3 to this day.
Seriously…
I hate playing online. Unless I’m in a group of people where I know everyone, give-or-take a couple, I will not see you online tonight. I’m sorry to disappoint you. My frustration of dealing with no-lifes and their ridiculous uber pwnage, underage kids that shouldn’t even be playing the game let alone telling me to keep the swearing down, and/or the inevitable connectivity & networking issues undoubtedly outweigh my possibility of an online extravaganza. I must seem like an antisocial recluse when I tell friends or coworkers that I’ll gladly not sign on to Xbox Live so I can get raped by some middle-school-emo-worshiping-no-life-nazi I don’t know while you laugh it up having a great time & I sit with my nerdy headset hating life. Online play could even be considered it’s own genre of gaming. I loathe online-only games like Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress, & the like, especially MMOs. “Teehee! I’m gonna pay 60 clams for this piece of round, plastic PC food; then pay another 20 clams every month just to play it! TEEHEE!” Just……die.
“Hey man, so your mom helped you shell out the $20 subscription for the month? Yeah?! OKAY! *serious face* Let’s go.”
I’m starting to hate new release pricing. “Hey dood, you should really go buy this game and check it out!” No thanks, brah. I’m not gonna go relieve myself of 60 bones to come home and play it, then wish I’d spent that money on a nice, big, fat, chargrilled rib-eye steak from Outback and a movie with my girlfriend. Seriously, gaming is probably part of many gamers’ monthly budgets. Thank God for programs like Gamefly. When I had a subscription I was able to get in a collection of games a month; what would have easily added up to over 200 in green if I’d bought each game individually. The awesome thing was, if a game sucked you don’t have to go trade it for 1/3 what you paid for it. Special editions of games are becoming cheap ploys to make a quick buck on a popular title, and most of the time there’s really nothing “special” about it. I guess I’ll be okay as long as games to go for $70-$80 a pop like they did back in 1997…
I’ll eventually find an ad to put here for your viewing pleasure. Until then, scroll up and start again from the top. 🙂