I started playing Ghosthunter for PS2 on Sunday.  I began playing through the beginning "tutorial" level and was having a ton of fun.  You get rid of enemy ghosts you had to capture them (ala Ghost Busters) with a capture grenade that you throw at a ghost.  It embeds itself in a ghost and then you have to keep shooting the ghost until it's health is depleted before the ghost is captured with the grenade.  A ghost's health can be wore down without the grenade but there's no indicator of how much health it has left until you throw the grenade.  The advantage is that the grenade imobilizes some ghosts making it a slight bit easier to get a bead on it.

Pretty cool mechanic.  But then I began playing the first level.

I get through what I think is about halfway through the first level and I get a message in my journal saying "there's a weird ghost type coming up and you can't capture it with the grenade".  Ok, I figured it was a type of boss which is fine, because a boss is always different or more powerful than the average enemy.  No, I was wrong.  Every enemy henceforth has been an "uncapturable" type.  One of the coolest mechanics of the game was "ineffective" in the first level!

I really hope this doesn't continue throughout the game as I really enjoy the strategy of using the capture grenade with multiple enemies.  It was interesting and fun but just running around shooting "ghosts" is kind of dull, especially since the cover system isn't good and there's no quick dodge.  It feels more like a bad shooter.  But since I haven't completed the first level yet, I'll keep playing for awhile still.  These levels are long.

The idea that what I just purchased is already obsolete kind of irks me, in the gaming industry at least.  Very few games get the privilege of being talked about frequently for some time (e.g. Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2) and of course those games earn the privilege because they’re great games.  I don’t like knowing that playing games long after their initial release date usually means no one online is talking about it, much less making a post about it and getting many people to talk about it.  Now that it’s out and the public can have it, makes it not quite as interesting as something that hasn’t been released yet.

This happens to most games (that aren’t hugely popular) usually about a month after they’ve been released.  Forums stop chit chatting, news posts slow down to almost nothing unless there’s new content or issues with the game.  Any people you do find still talking about it, unless it’s a problem, there’s not very many willing to chat about it.

This of course only applies to what is called, as coined by Topher Cantler from Retroforce GO!, Retro-Limbo; games that are too old to be new but too old to be retro.  Currently, these Retro-Limbo (R.L.) games fall between the latter years of PS1 - the Xbox, PS2, Gamecube era, with Dreamcast being excluded (because of the game types that were home to the system).  It even seems like early 360, Wii, PS3 games are included in this R.L. category.  There exist an incredible amount of games during these years that are just not talked about anymore, at least online.

What generates this frustration for me is that the gaming industry constantly pushes the “next big thing” always saying it’s better than this or better than the last one.  It makes you feel like if you don’t pick up now you’re “missing out” on something.  Nothing else compares to this game.  Of course these expectations are virtually never real, but everyone falls for it anyway, me included.  So us gamers rush to get all the new games, afraid we’ll miss something.  Then we end up with too many games at one time, with no time to play them all and some games either sit on the shelf for a long time or we get frustrated and stop playing at all for awhile.

Before you can play all the games the industry says you should, holy cow here come more and they’re better than everything you just purchased.  The cycle of never being satisfied starts.  When you’re not satisfied with something it makes it really hard to enjoy the item in question, and the gaming industry wants to make sure you’re never too satisfied so we keep biting the worm on the hook.

I know that this is how it goes with any product-demand situation, but if gamers love gaming in general so much, why are R.L. games just forgotten?  There are many retro minded websites and podcasts out there but the R.L. games are avoided as a subject and sometimes as a rule.

I love playing video games.  Not just new ones, but all of them.  I’m sure there are others out there who share in my frustration, and I hope they can overcome the pressure of the gaming industry.

Please Disregard

Introduction

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Putting It All Together

*EDIT*

Just for you guys, I've taken the time out to take some photos of the collector's edition of Fallout 3.  Follow the images down and explore the very nice packaging of Fallout 3!

Lunch box side 1

IGN's Review of Web of Shadows was just released and was given a score of 5.7.  You can find the review here.

But I don't normally trust IGN either.  I tend to disagree with their reviews alot.  It seemed like he was really nit-picky with the review as well.  Mostly was disappointed that the graphics had some issues sometimes and that the missions and combat were repetitive....  I'm going to attempt to save everyone reading this from dismissing this game based on the fact that: 

A)  it got a 5.7
B) it's not as good as spider-man 2 before it (according to this reviewer)

The reviewer really likes Spider-man 2 and is basing his review on that game.  I want to make sure that you don't make the mistake of blindly agreeing with him that Spider-man 2 is SO much better.

The Accusation

Excerpts from his review of Web of Shadows

The Defense

Excerpts from IGN's Spider-man 2 review (different reviewer)

Conclusion

I've recently discovered the artist Jonathan Coulton.  He's recently become popular for writing the song for the Valve video game Portal called "Still Alive".  After hearing the song at the end of the game, I became interested in discovering more about this artist.  I found his website and was surprised to find as much material as there was! 

I quickly browsed through his songs and got them all.  His songs range from being about everyday complications to girls to video games and more!  It seems he's got a least one song that would appeal to someone.  Very creative lyrics and ranging musical styles really keep everything interesting.  My current favorite is "Code Monkey" from "Thing a Week Three". 

For those of you who've only heard his Still Alive song, I encourage you to check out the rest of his material.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I feel that splitting Starcraft into a separate game for each respective race will mainly be unfair to new gamers who didn't play the first game but would like to get into it.  Some people can't truly find the one they like by just playing a quick and limited demo to determine which one they would like.  I think it's going to lock out a good amount of newer players simply because they won't know which game to get. 

It rewards the hardcore players because, yes, there will be added value for the veteran that knows he's a Zerg player but the new player won't have a clue.  Maybe a bundle should be offered at a lower price for users that want all three race campaigns?