Romance of the video games
I was awestruck when I first saw shops showing gameplay of Tekken, 3D graphics...full-motion video story telling, a leap from the days of my playing bit-graphics of Contra and Mario on NES-clone. PC games was still king especially in my favourite genre, real-time strategy, with the likes of Dune and Warcraft.
But videogames offered a simplicty and laid-back couch gaming. So, I made the jump and invested in my PSX (the original Playstation) in 1997. I continued my path with Sony and bought my Metal Gear Solid 2 PS2 on one Easter weekend while I was in UK and I was one of the selected few that participated in the PS2 network beta program, and SOCOM II was my first foray into online multiplayer shooter. I was very happy when I got my launch version PS3 in 2007, even though the launch price was relatively high initially. It was also the darkest history, as this generation saw two PS3s (one original phat and one slim) broke down with hardware failures.
PS4 was a different journey, Sony wised up to their PS3 mistakes and I bought my PS4 late 2013 during Malaysia's launch window in support of this new approach.
2016, marks the 20th year of my gaming days on Sony, so I take this time to look at how things have changed over the years.
Things got complicated
Video games used to be straight forward, pop-in the disc, sit back and start playing. Nowadays, it is slowly becoming quite a bit of a chore at times.
First, different versions of the game...with various bonus contents associated with pre-orders. Some may not be sold separately until a later date. Once you made your choice, the first thing probably have to do when you pop-in the disc to play is the Day One patches...often a large patch to address some of the issues found after the gold master was sent for manufacturing. This means, with no internet, you are pretty much stuck with a sub-optimal version of the game. Another sore point is Downloadable Content(DLCs) and Season Passes....the issue I have with these is that publishers/developers seldom spell out clearly the kind of content / experience in terms of length or variety of the DLCs that you are getting with each pack or season pass. This is not acceptable. Season passes should be be sold until you have your first DLC/expansion pack released. Why are consumers pre-buying content?
Finally, a year on, a game may have been patched multiple times (which is a good thing in a way), for example, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, bugfixed and optimized...offer a vastly improved experience for the player. Some might argue, you get a better game, as in the case of Destiny : The Taken King, priced the same as Destiny a year ago...with the cumulative content and improvements, making it a far better experience and giving better value. Some games even offer Game of the Year Editions ...eg. Dragon Age Inquisition, with all the add-on DLCs released together in a nice package without the premium price of season pass.
Things getting worse
With the advent of a networked console, console gaming has improved and evolved. No longer limited to problems associated with the past, eg. a random game breaking bug that can never be patched. Bugs can be fixed post-launch. New content can be added to further enrich the gamer's experience. Day one patches, or constant updates of fixes, fixes that broke things that needed a re-fix, is only a minor passing inconvenience.
Unfortunately, things also degenerated to new lows, to the less savory side of gaming, publisher gouging on consumer's naivety. Game story/content carved out for exclusive pre-order bonuses, season passes and micro-transactions. This tri-vecta of evil will be a major factor of why I believe some day, I will look back and say, those were the days when I used to play some video games.
The beginning of the end
Once I was an avid watcher of anime, then it got repetitive. Themes begin to repeat, my interest slowly wane. Football is another past time that I never dreamed of not watching regularly but it happened too, when I find myself not watching it regularly to justify the subscription spending.
My holiday 2015 game spending seems to be a difficult one even though it seems to a season with loads of games. Fallout 4 and Black Ops 3 are the two games that I am looking to get this seasonThe others, well, let's take a look at them.
Rainbow Six : Siege - multiplayer only game - with no single player story
Assassins Creed Syndicate - franchise fatigue
Need for Speed Reboot - not a big fan of driving games
Just Cause 3 - new franchise but not sure if campaign is worth playing or it is just a game for laughs
Star Wars Battlefront - fantastic audio visual but lacks of campaign, and EA's evil tri-vecta killed any enthusiasm for the game.
Fallout 4 - I feel I should wait till Oct/Nov 2016, and play Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition since Bethesda will release add-on content and patches regularly for the next twelve months.
This leaves Call of Duty : Black Ops 3. I have been burned before. Last year's instalment was hailed as the best in recent years, it was not to my tastes. The campaign was not great, multiplayer felt repetitively tiresome.
Maybe Gravity Rush Remastered, maybe Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition for PS4. Fall/Christmas used to be a season when you can't decide which games to buy...it should be a time when you cannot decide one a game to buy.
Like I say, some day, I might look by to 2015, as the beginning of the end of my video gaming phase.
