Oliver's Blogs

This is my first blog post so far and I may be dismissed as being one of those people who struggle to adapt to change, or don't want to accept things can't always stay the same (like my girlfriend's dad!), but I just want to say before I begin that I do like the current crop of games that are coming out, and have several on my shopping list, this blog post just highlights a few things I wouldn't mind seeing come back.

Please forgive me for using PS3 games as most of my examples. It is the only console I own, so I can't speak for the 360 so easily.

Our gaming world is changing, and in some ways, it's not for the better. I remember going over to a friend's house when I was younger and playing against him on Sonic 2 on his Sega Mega Drive II. I could never beat him, but that's not the point. The point was having a good time with your friends who were in the same room as you. A few years later, me, my friends and sometimes my brother would go down to the video shop and hire an original PlayStation or a Dreamcast and later on a PS2 or original Xbox. We'd hire a single game overnight and play it until the early hours of the morning. There were only two things we looked for in a game, which were an exciting looking cover, and the amazing ability that games used to have called 'Two Player'.

_{I don't remember it saying 16-Bit in massive writing... I guess it didn't mean anything to me back then!}

You just don't see it much these days. Sure, there are some games that have a very minimal co-op mode, or two player racing, but these games never seem to be the blockbuster games... The games you wait for. For example, on my PS3, I have three racing games: Burnout Paradise, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and now Midnight Club Los Angeles. Of these three games, only Prologue has a two (or more) player mode, and because Prologue is only half a game, the offline multiplayer aspect is really only half a mode. The 7 or so tracks get boring a lot quicker with your friends, and you're limited to using only purchased vehicles which makes it not very exciting... Plus there's no damage so what's the fun?!

The thing is that these days, developers seem to think that online multiplayer is where it's at, and I couldn't disagree more. None of my friends would easily be able to afford a PS3 or Xbox, and if we all could, I bet we wouldn't all choose the same system. See, I would much rather play against my closest friends or family than acquaintances from the internet or that I've met through online games, and the only way to do that realistically, is on the same system in the same room! Being in the same room also allows for that good old trash talk that makes things that bit better!

I understand that the sand-box style free-roaming games that are becoming far more common these days is one of the leading factors in this death of offline multiplayer. To have split-screen gaming in a sand-box environment would mean that much of the game would need to be rendered twice at exactly the same time — Something that I'm pretty sure the PS3 and Xbox 360 couldn't pull off easily. But that leads me to my next point...

Developers seem all too keen on making these sand-box games now, and they use it as a major selling point. On the back of the Burnout Paradise case it has three references to its free-roaming capabilities in just four sentences:

"Welcome to the Ultimate Driving Playground"

"Paradise City - Explore over 250 miles of open road, discovering new jumps, stunts and shortcuts."

"You shape your path through Paradise."

_{See what I mean? What? You don't? Oh...}

This is all fine and dandy, and I love this open world style of gaming when it works! Grand Theft Auto is a perfect example of this type of game working well, and Midnight Club does it well too. But Burnout Paradise's Paradise City is a very flawed city! There are far too many barriers and buildings jutting out and so you find yourself crashing everywhere you go! The only enjoyment I get in the game is when I'm on the smooth walled mountain roads. In the city, driving is too tedious. I'm going to come straight out and say it: Burnout was better as it used to be! At least you could easily go back to the start of the race when you didn't finish first...

So I ask, do we need these open environments? Games were great back in the day with their closed levels or simple race circuits. I remember hiring out Burnout 2 on PS2 and having a great time on its closed off race tracks, and I greatly enjoyed both Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator on my PSP and they had no open world racing at all! If Burnout Paradise had stuck closer to its origins, then they could have included a great offline multiplayer which me and my friends would greatly enjoy, especially those Take Down events and all the swearing they would cause!

_{A metaphor for Burnout Paradise being a broken game? I think so.}

Next in line for my scrutiny is online play. These days too many games seem to be focusing on their online play. Some games are marketed almost solely as online games, like that MAG (Massive Action Game) which to me sounds crap — I don't want to be online all the time! Plus it has a crap title. I think online games are great but it seems to be getting just a bit out of hand. This focus on online play often means that the offline single player experience is neglected, and often it is shorter and not quite as polished as it could have been. I think maybe developers should be less eager to have a finished product, and maybe take a few extra months to put some good work into both sides of the game. Make them on par with each other.

I don't think that online play should be scrapped at all, but I do think that there should be more of a balance, because the amount of reviews I've been reading lately which list "short single player campaign" as a negative aspect is growing rapidly. LittleBigPlanet is one of these. There is a huge online portion of that game, but according to reviews, you won't be occupied for long if you have no internet connection, or don't feel like being social that day. I know I have days when I just want to be alone. Alone time they call it, funnily enough. And it's a shame really, because LittleBigPlanet missed out on 10/10 on some sites and single player campaign was a contributing factor.

Also, some games cost up to $120 to buy, and that is by no means cheap. I remember seeing PS2 games for $80 and thinking that was a serious rip-off! Now I'm paying several hundred dollars every few weeks to play these games. When online play doesn't offer up any storyline beyond shooting up random strangers or bashing them into a wall, it's hard to justify a $120 price tag. Single player modes often have in-depth storylines that really suck you in and get you playing them, and sometimes it's great to be able to just play the game on your own. Once again, I think GTA really has the balance of offline and online just right. But it is disappointing that many games are beginning to neglect it.

Another thing that I've noticed recently is all the betas. I may be wrong, and forgive me if I am, but from my point of view it seems like there have been a hell of a lot of betas lately. Call Of Duty 5, Resistance 2, LittleBigPlanet, Home, and Metal Gear Online just to name a few! There is of course nothing wrong with this. The developers get free game testing, and the players get to see a game they're interested in before it reaches completion. I've never been fortunate enough to make it into a beta, and I wish I had got into the LittleBigPlanet one, especially with this delay we're all experiencing!

_Zing!

Anyway, the thing I noticed was that with all these betas, we aren't seeing many demos anymore, and I wonder, are betas the new demos? I know there is no planned LittleBigPlanet demo, and there are reasons for this that I know of. Now that I think about it, MotorStorm 2 did have a demo, but from what I saw, it seemed more like a beta to me — It had limited entry just like all the betas I've come across, and it was in an unfinished stage of development.

I kind of think that today, with our quick internet, developers are taking advantage of us to spread the word about games, rather than spreading it themselves. It's easy to download a 1GB beta file and play it and then blog about it telling the world how great the game is, and it saves the developers putting there time and effort into isolating a level and releasing it as a demo! Conspiracy theory? Maybe. Paranoia? Probably.

The last thing I want to write about now is game ratings, and we've seen a lot of arguments before about this subject. GTA IV suddenly springs to mind... And that's precisely what I'm going to write about. GTA IV received a score of 10/10 from many websites, and it wasn't alone in achieving such a high score. In the last few months alone I can list several games that scored 9 or higher on a majority of websites:

GTA IV, LittleBigPlanet, Fable II, Metal Gear Solid 4, Saints Row 2, Dead Space, WipeOut HD, Portal: Still Alive, Rock Band 2, and I don't even think I'm close to naming them all.

_{Rock Band can't be that good!}

Are there really so many excellent games coming out now? Or have we let our expectations slip? I can never remember a time during my (admittedly short in comparison to many who might read this) gaming life when so many games got such high scores within just a couple of months. I remember about a year ago I was browsing through a game review list thinking that there weren't many good games among them. I was disappointed. Now it seems like every second game is 8/10 or better. Even with these serious lackings I've talked about? No offline multiplayer? Short single player storyline? I've played some of these 10/10 games and they're far from perfect. I can tell you, if I had my own gaming review site, these games wouldn't be scoring so high... Please bring offline multiplayer back!

I've just now realised how damn long this blog is, so if you got to here, thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say! Please anyone feel free to leave a comment below! Cheers.