Japan is known for a lot in the Western world, especially on the internet, rape, being nuked, and cartoon drawings of girls of a questionable looking age. All these things resonate with the Western culture, indeed it is even difficult to go to a forum where teenage boys exist that don't have badly drawn anime girls, dressed like some sort of space prostitute. One such Japanese inspired creation also predominant with young adults, is Metal Gear Solid.

To many, Metal Gear Solid represents the pinnacle of gaming, unrivaled story, that is expertly crafting by Hideo Kojima, the creative mastermind behind the series. Indeed these young adults tend to be quite passionate about it, obnoxiously so.

I have taken it upon myself to create this blog, demonstrating a small part of the depth, the complexity of writing and thought put into Metal Gear Solid, my ultimate hope through this, is that we all gain a better insight not only into Metal Gear Solid but the thought provoking Hideo Kojima himself. Given this is a huge undertaking and due to his genius, which is very, very large in nature.I will put it in comprehensible terms, for those who may not have necessarily played through the masterpieces like me by simply taking a segment, as opposed to attempting to examine it on a whole.

We will start off with Metal Gear Solid 3.

The selected clip is taken as the example.

The opening explained We have ran into a few snags, these guys were after Sokolov too apparently they were taking orders from a grue colonel named Vulgin.

We have established people are after him, in particular someone named Volgin.

Boss walks out with two boxes, drops one and nearly knocks Sokolov off the bridge, she does this twice. We have established she is bad. She explains Sokolov comes with me.

We have established she wants Sokolov with ill intent.

She is surrounded by bee's. which proceed irritate snake and take Sokolov, she looks up at the helicopter explaining my friends, let us fight together again.

he has ill intent, not only wants Sokolov, but has now taken him by force with an unknown party she called friends who she will fight alongside.

She addresses colonel Volgin i.e. the bad fellow after him calmly retorting... Welcome to my country, and to my unit!

We have now established, ill intent, wanting and taking Sokolov by force with unknown comrades we now know is colonel Volgins unit (to which the boss and the Cobra unit are now apart of, obviously).

Boss, what is this? Snake retorts, while dribbling.

I'm defecting to the Soviet union you absolute fucking retard she replies explaining she is GIVING Volgin nuclear warheads.

After picking up the warheads Volgin asks Are we talking him with us? to Which she replies No.

Super secret well written non-retard logical man snake retorts What are you talking about?

She attacks him, breaks his gun then proceeded to break his arm.

Afterwords.... Volgin explains he's seen my face, we can't let him live... he must die to which The Boss explains she will take care of him.

She puts out her hand in friendship hoping Snake will be badly written enough to take it... Ignoring the fact she has defected, taken Sokolov forcefully without permission, joined Volgin, gave him nukes, broke his arm, and implied she will kill him for Volgan.

Thankfully, Snake realizes this is dumb and runs away, as he doesn't want thrown off a bridge, the game gets canceled due to obvious mediocrity, and Hideo Kojima shoots himself in the mouth.

Another example, Metal Gear Solid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd-p7oKMj8w

1. We are introduced to Special Operations Fox Hound (REVOLVER) Ocelot. (REVOLVER) himself refers to himself as (REVOLVER).

2. (REVOLVER) has a gun, it's a (REVOLVER).

3. (REVOLVER) explains while skillfully flicking his (REVOLVER) around, that his (REVOLVER), is the greatest handgun ever made, Six Bullets, more than enough to Kill Anything that moves.

4. After (REVOLVER) introducing himself as (REVOLVER) Ocelot, waving around his (REVOLVER) and explaining why his (REVOLVER) is the greatest handgun ever made, (REVOLVER) explains... that he will show you why they call (REVOLVER), (REVOLVER).

A lot of games have terrible writing and story. Anybody who plays video games can tell you this fact. What annoys me personally (IMO) is just how smug the games are. How smug the fans are. How smug the gaming media are about without actually being objective (like me). As a young fellow I recall playing titles like Homeworld and Planescape Torment. Superior titles with superior writing and story-telling. Homeworld, sadly, has been all but forgotten. I have to sit on many gaming forums listening to 15 year olds and reading nonsense with IGN and gamespot claiming these games are masterpieces of the medium. When many aspects (particularly this Metal Gear Solid 4) are terrible. Encurage these younger gamers to ignore this nonsense and purchase Planescape Torment from GOG.com or hunt amazon for Homeworld I feel gaming would improve. Even if only for a little bit, it will be worth it.

Yesterday, and the day before that I was playing L.A. Noire. This game is better played with a control pad, so I changed over to that from my trusty mouse and keyboard, lay in bed and played it from there rather than my very expensive (leather) computer chair.

The men from Epic, in particular the little short man who makes dude bro games has been complaining and demanding powerful hardware.

http://www.examiner.com/article/epic-games-next-gen-console-specs-are-not-powerful-enough

This is what I noticed with L.A Noire along with many other titles. While sitting on my computer chair close to the screen (around 1-2 feet) I easily notice visual flaws such as low quality textures, lack of AA, pixelated resolution, low quality shadows and other problems. L.A Noire is a blur fest with tons of pop in and wavy pixelated lined as things move in from a distance. However, playing it from my bed, the game looks quite good. The textures quality issue, AA, shadow quality and 30fps cap issues are practically non existent. It's the same with Assassins Creed 2. Up close, very poor texture quality. Sitting with my control pad several feet away, not an issue.

I feel. Consoles do not need a large graphical upgrade. I think Microsoft and Sony will see this and come to comprehend a thing called "perspective".

When we are closer to something, it becomes bigger, it's details more prominant.

When you sit several feet back, as practically every console owner does, the minuet details become less important.

This is called "being very close" and "being far away".

It's very much the same with paintings. In a museum you stand 5-6 feet away to view the picture as a whole rather than up close to see individual brush stokes. Excessive hardware boost would mainly serve to provide mostly irrelevant visual fidelity, up the hardware cost and cost the consumer. Blueray a good example of this. When we made the leap from VHS to DVD, the change in visual quality was huge. It was a revolution. The leap from DVD to Blueray is mostly hype with an incremental difference. Alot of people (myself included) simply purchase DVD's because A) They are cheaper and B) The visual difference isn't leaps and bounds.

More powerful hardware could provide advantages in scale though. A game like Shogun 2 currently cannot operate on consoles. They are far too weak. Likewise more powerful hardware could provide more intricate interaction the likes of which we see in PhysX.

Another problem is the "pc". It is held back by consoles and visual fidelity does matter alot for this platform. Alot of developers though, thankfully are pushing boundaries regardless of consoles. Batman: Arkham City, regardless of being a console port will put even the meatiest computer to the test and looks visually far beyond it's console counterpart or any console title. This is a problem less with consoles and more to do with lazy developers and publishers.

Overall I feel this Cliffy B person and many other developers are being self-serving. When you launch a new console, it acts almost as a reboot button. The consumer is very sheep like. Old and new IP's can be hyped to high heaven. Mediocre to average developers such as Ubisoft hanker for it. Not because of limitations like they claim but as I said above, to create a new hype machine. a wizard behind the curtain, throwing a towel over a budgy cage. Likewise with Cliffy B, just wants to make money at the expense of the consumer. This is partly because he's a huge tit with a stupid looking earing.

Yesterday I started playing this "L.A. Noir". On another forum I was on I read people say it was "unworthy" of the Rockstar name. I suspect these children went into the game thinking it would be a sandbox title of "follow the line" Grand theft auto rather than an adventure game. Thankfully I was far more open minded.

First problem, the combat feels tacked on. This is probably to appeal to dude bros who play Gears Of War and Grand Theft Auto. You get a bunch of really short, repetitive sequences of shooting people then chasing them. Over and over. It feels out of place. The detective talky adventure stuff is the good part of this game, not the action sequences.

Now dudes, this is the comparison bit. While massive jerkoff's like Bioware and David Cage put out Heavy Rain and Mass Effect titles that aspire for "mature gaming". What they actually amount to is sterile characters full of either, overly melodramatic campy dialog (Heavy Rain) or emotionless Vulcan like dialogue (Mass Effect).

L.A. Noir has the most believable characters I have seen in a video game. This has fuckall to do with the animation system (that works against it because it is weird looking) but the amazing voice work and writing. People, sound like people. Not some geeky Bioware nerd writer imagining what sex would be like for normal people and attempting to simulate it. When I play this game, it feels like these characters could actually exist. It's about as close to participating in a "TV show" as I have played in a video game.

I usually hate talky sections because they are almost always badly done. And go right to the action sequences. With L.A. Noir it is the exact opposite. This game is a new peak for voice work and writing. It's organic and feels natural.

The much talked about animation system, I don't like. It's odd looking at best, horrible at worst. Valve have better animations imo. Those look more natural for a video game than something so realistic it is off-putting.

L.A. Nior, cool dude game. Way better RPG than Mass Effect. Way better "cinimatic bla bla" than Heavy Rain.

1. Red Orchestra 2 - Tanks

One of the things about Battlefield, you can just jump to third person for a full 360 degree third person view. This is exploitative and unimmersive. In Red Orchestra 2 you are totally limited to first person forced to move from spot to spot within the tank to get a better sense of your surroundings. Tanks also have specific hit models. Overall this gives the tank player a disadvantage and makes you feel more "in the game".

2. Sins Of The Solar Empire/Total War - Scale

When I think about battles with armies, I want them to be epic. Loud. With scale and chaos. Doesn't matter if it's "Feudal Japan" or fictional "Space battles". Perhaps 10-15 years ago the technology was limited. And so we were reduced to little simplistic 2d sprites. But now it's became cliche' derivatives and downright lazy. I'm sick of booting up steam and seeing 5 million shitty Paradox Interactive titles that look like a video game from 1999. Aside from looking dated it also puts people off them assuming they are "boring". Strategy games do an incredibly poor job of actually displaying scale and scope when it comes battles. It's still tied to an illusion on a isometric perspective with little lemmings you don't give a shit about.

3. Fear/Doom - Shooting

It's amazing how regardless of how convoluted the genre of first person shooters have become, most are terrible when it comes to the actual gratification of "shooting stuff". Not even just the bad ones. Fantastic titles such as Halflife 2 have outright terrible shooting. When I play Doom (the original) when you fire off a double barrel shotgun, you feel it The monster makes a moan of pain and crumbles to the ground as a crumpled mass of flesh. Shooting stuff in Doom, is awesome. And still more gratifying than more or less practically every shooter today.

Likewise with "Fear". Before it became a consolized mess that is "Fear 2" and finally covered up it's grave with "fear 3" we have the original, superior title. Much like "Max Payne" fear used a bullet time mechanic. When you hit an enemy, like doom, you get a cool over the top sound effect of pain being inflicted. While Doom uses a simple 2d animation, fear uses over the stop physics with enemy's spinning and flying across the room.

4. Homeworld - Caring

Aside from the problem mentioned above strategy titles currently face, Another one is "empathy". Actually caring about what is going on. For most strategy titles story and character is tacked on as padding. So, people don't care. It's partly why people are turned off by strategy titles. Titles such as Watcraft III and Homeworld proved strategy games could make you give a crap about the units you are playing and the overall story. Homeworld in particular was superior than Metal Gear Solid (much lauded at the time) at giving a cinematic experience. Now, everyone I log onto steam, I see 5 million crappy sterile "Paradox Interactive" that have the budget of a paper boy thrown into them and the polish of a recently dropped dog turd. 0 effect put into presentation or story. Much like scale, we need focus on story and characters to rid ourselfs of apathy and give people a reason to play.

5. Understanding what made your game good

So, a new Hitman game is coming out. You can press a button for magical "see through walls". And it will be more action focused and more forgiving, With a hype machine at work and casual reviewers praising it for being less hardcore and more "pew pew" I have no doubt it will be a success. Except it probably wont. Not really. What made Hitman great, wasn't shooting people in the face. Nor was it really the story. No. It was walking around.

Getting into a fire fight in Hitman almost always meant death. It was more like a thriller than a stealth game. Dressed in a disguise, you would walk in front of and amongst the enemy characters. Building up to a crescendo event. The game itself creating narrative similar to what you would get in sometime like "The Manchurian Candidate" or "Day Of The Jackal". It was about everything fitting in place for the special moment. If you replace that and make getting cought something trivial, the risk/reward diminishes. All the tension dissipates. This is a problem with modern games. "updating" isn't about "improving". It's about "more moneyz".

Overall I feel this is a very good blog that highlights how to improve several gaming aspects.

Today I finished Max Payne. I haven't played it for something like a decade. I also played about 30 minutes of Max Payne 2. Both come as pre-order incentives for the pc version of Max Payne 3.

The Good

The game has aged amazingly well. The voice acting and writing is still better than most games today. Unlike inferior (and overrated) games such as Metal Gear Solid it's narrative is optional as well without constantly being pushed in your face at the expense of game play. As someone with excellent linguistic skills I appreciate how colourful the writing doez. It's deliberly overdone. I also appeacate how simple the game is. It has some minor platforming and puzzle like sections but for the most part it is a very simply process of slowing down time and shooting people in the face for being bad. One of the things I also like, the main villain is a woman. Not a sexyt babe dressed like a hooker like that juvenile metal gear solid series. Just a plain looking business woman in her 50's. You don't get into gun fights with her. She has no "super powers". The final fight is simply trying to stop her escape.

The Bad

While I appreciate the simplicity of the game play, it gets incredibly repetitive. With no sense of character progression or variation in enemy's or much difference in weapons, the gun fights can get tedious unless played in short bursts.

Another problem, the lack of character development. At one point this lady "Mona" dies (but not really) in an elevator. Max shouts "Noooooo!". Everything prior to this, she is barely in the game. In fact you don't even see her character model within the engine. She is so distance and sparse that you don't give a shit. This is the case with most of the mobsters as well. They show up for about 30 seconds before blowing them away. You have no attachment to them. Regardless of being horribly written and over-rated, Metal Gear Solid is actually better in this regard. Because Hideo (whatever) writes so much bullshit and blabber by the end of the game you know what the boss's shat out when they went for dump. Max Payne could have benifited from more character development.

Overall I really enjoyed this title and it gave me nostalgia in a good way. When I get the time I hope to finish Max Payne 2 before Max Payne 3 is released on the pc. Play some "Messiah" "Giant Citizen Kabuto" and other classic pc titles. One thing GOG is sorely lacking is "Legacy Of Kain". I can pick these titles up on amazon but they are expensive with lack of support. GOG usually sorts out the older title to run on modern spec machines, which is great.

Journey creator: "Games are not good enough for adults"

Most video games are just not stimulating enough for grown adults, so says Journey creator Jenova Chen. Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Chen suggested that for games to appeal to a more mature audience they need to include more "relevant" themes. "My biggest complaint for computer games so far is they are not good enough for adults," he said. "For adults to enjoy something, they need to have intellectual stimulation, something that's related to real life. Playing poker teaches you how to deceive people, and that's relevant to real life. A headshot with a sniper rifle is not relevant to real life. Games have to be relevant intellectually. "You also need depth. You have the adventure - the thrill of the adventure - but you want the goosebumps too." That's clearly something Chen is shooting for with thatgamecompany's next project, which is still under wraps. "Can games make you and another human learn something intellectual and relevant from each other?" he asked. "Can games make you and another human experience an emotion that's deep enough to touch adults? I'm working on all of that. Making emotional games and making them intellectually relevant; making games where people can connect and come together." Thatgamecompany's last release, thoughtful PSN download Journey, picked up a glowing 9/10 from Eurogamer earlier this year.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-18-journey-creator-games-are-not-good-enough-for-adults

I think this is not only insulting to gamers, inplying they are not adults and devoid of an adult mind. It's also insulting to other developers. He's not the first Indies developer to talk as if he is some sort of Citizen Kane amongst shit. It's fairly easy to find articles from Jonathan Blow, blowing a lot of old shit as well.

When it comes to sophisticated games designed for an adult mind with "depth" and "adventure" that pertain to "real life". It isn't fluttering leaves or a time manipulating platformer, it's total war. When the title reads "Total War" people typically assume it means "scale" due to thousands of units on screen. Or the fact it's turn-based as well as realtime. This isn't the the entire truth of title though, "Total War" is actually attempting to show every conceivable aspect of war as the examples below show...

• Sex is used as a weapon.
• 
• Religion is used as a weapon.
• 
• Internal corruption is used as a weapon.
• 
• Family integration is used as a weapon.
• 
• Hostages.
• 
• General Loyalty.
• 
• Starvation is used as a weapon.
• 
• Misdirection.
• 
• Foreign trade as well as local.
• 
• Becoming Vassal for a clan.
• 
• Even, weather is used as a weapon.
• 

Everything I mentioned above, doesn't involve or require physical combat. If we did take combat into account, this blog post would probably consist of multiple decisions you make in Total War are, in the context of gameplay, more important and arguably more felt than that supposed open ended titles such as "mass effect" . An experienced agent, can cripple an army, cause mass rebellion or outside turn a region to your own side. Unlike "twitch" games, the agents operate on stats, the higher a level an agent is, the higher the chances of success. When one of your agents dies, that potentially 20+ hours of leveling down the tube. Agents dying in Shogun 2 can cause you to loose, period. They not only die by being killed by other agents, they can outright turn against you. Likewise, Shogun 2 uses the illusion of turns to encapsulates an extended time period, agents can die of old age. Indeed any character can. Generals start as 16 year old boys and die 60 year old men. They leave offspring who themselves become generals or daughters you can marry off to strengthen relations with other clans or adopt generals as part of your family If you simply leave a general to sit in a base, or a general constantly looses battles, they developed negative traits, which effect their loyalty, standing within provinces, effectiveness on the battlefield and effectiveness in handling royalties, troop replishment and so fourth.

Keeping units, any unit, alive, matters. Aside from the time it takes to replenish, they level up. Becomes strong, faster, better trains. Moral strengthens, lessening the chance they will route during a battle. Likewise with generals, leveling and keeping them alive, matters. Significantly. To the point a well developed general, with well developed troops, can defeat enemy units of much greater magnitude in number.

This is a very brief rundown of some the the open ended variables in Shogun 2, I have missed out (and probably regret) adding many others. Shogun 2 is a multiplayer game epic in scope. Educational while entertaining. Demonstrating the incredible visual awe of war arguably better than any war movie can. From the huge, thousand upon thousands of men battles, to singular management of people it goes to lengths. Heck, even to the point of have horses aimlessly wander around in panic when the rider has been killed, they too, pile as corpses along with the humans.

Two of the best discriptions come from "EUROGAMER" and "EDGE"

Eurogamer discribed this title as -

"In some ways, it's the closest we've come to the enormous social novel from the period after that which Empire chronicles: it's a Tolstoy-esque War and Peace of a game. Its problems may be the inevitable problems of trying something with such sheer scope. As such, if you want the breathtaking vision of the game, you have to accept the flaws in the details - for now, at least..."

Edge discribed it as -

"No other game takes on whole eras of combat with such a combination of respect and fetishism for the rules and wisdom of battle, and no series treats history like such a serious playground of possibilities, yet features such comic-book characters..."

It's also one of the few games that has transcended being a entertainment product into the realm of being used as a educational tool. Replicating historical battles for the history channel. Being used in another BBC television program once again attempting to replicate and demonstrate epic battles. Flight simulators and army simulators are typically used a training before becoming an entertainment product. With Total War, this was the other way around.

To sum up, this fellow can easily be shot down with many not a few pc titles. I simply chose Total War because it seemed like the most obvious choice, one i'm very familiar with and talk about with enthusiasm. Both newer and very old titles can be used to shoot down what he is saying. Planescape Torment for example. If this Chen fellow attempts to claim it isn't designed for an adult mind, lacks depth or adventure, then he is on another planet. Probably the same one as Jonathan Blow and David Cage.

Today I must make a very hard decision. I have aquired birthday money due to becoming older (increasing my experience and wisdom beyond those younger than me) . And I am stuck between purchasing Diablo III or a model figure.

The model figure is slightly more expensive and will probably take a few weeks to arrive. I am not really into models but I thought this particular model was very good as Onna Bushi (Tomoe Gozen in particular) are basically real life superheros. The look the part and act the part. The model is very cool looking I think and would love to have it sitting on my desk. Before I read the details on the model I assumed it was about $500 - $600 for some posho person with lots of money to burn. It's only $80 and 200mm high. This seems to be very good value for something so detailed.

http://www.michtoy.com/item-PLP-MW04-Tomoe_Gozen_Woman_Samurai_1180.html

On the other hand, I am into video games. Diablo III will probably have more use than something to look at now and again. But again, I can pick up Torchlight II for 1/4 the price. Perhaps it would be better to buy this very cool dude model and Torchlight II rather than Diablo III? Given how Diablo III is apparently broken it might be best to just hold off until it is bargin bin price? While the immediate gratification of 100-200 hours of fun will be great, I must ask, will I actually ever touch it again afterwords? Provided it isn't destroyed my Tomeo Gozen model could last till I am in my 70's and beyond. It will also make a nice change and something abit more classy than a childrens video game title.

Hmm.

Titan Quest

Pro's

This is very cheap game. Graphically it is very good (better than Diablo III and Torchlight). It is also a very long game. Easily racking up 30 hours of sp. The environment of ancient Greece makes a nice change from Gothic dungeons. Its very pretty varied creature wise. Skill wise it is also very varied with many classes. You can duel class. The environments are very open with no loading.

Cons

You move very slow in larger environments which makes it feel much slower paced than Torchlight. The multiplayer is broken. The instant gratification from getting items takes too long and 90% of the time you will lack the skill requirement. Inventory management is sluggish.potions do not stack beyond about half a dozen so allot of the time your inventory will be full of potions. End boss fights are easily exploitable. Lack of support causes issues with newer OS's.

Torchlight

Pro's

Much faster paced and smoother than Titan Quest. Superior "meaty" combat is very satisfying. It's also extremely cheap. Inventory management is almost a non issue thanks to a well designed pet system. The pet can also be customized for combat purposes. You are fed gratification at a fairly steady pace visually changing as the game progresses unlike Titan Quest. Simple, streamlined and to the point. It will run on a wide range of systems.Good modding support.

Cons

No Multiplayer. Repetitive limited areas. Terrible voice acting and story-telling.

Diablo III

Pro's

Superb presentation. Well balanced. Fairly good voice acting. Interesting classes. Meat combat like Torchlight

Cons

More expensive than the average pc game. Forced online. Broken online. Built in gold farming system. No lan support. You will be banned if you use mods. Much shorter than Titan Quest. Has Blizzard community playing.

Bonus: Torchlight II

Pro's

About 1/4 the price of Diablo III. Open larger environments. Same wonderful meaty combat. Wonderful art direction. Better story telling. Mod support.Multiplayer support this time around. Much longer than Torchlight 1.

Cons

Mulitplayer will have obnoxious Blizzard community playing telling you have much it "sucks" and how "cool dude" Diablo III is. The game itself though, very difficult to complain about. Super product at super value.

Overall of all four games Torchlight II seems like the obvious choice. Once the Diablo III hype dies down, people will agree with my point of view and rebel against the peer pressure hype. Most Blizzard, Valve and Bioware games are like teenagers at school you are hanging around with, smoking cigarettes with in order to appear "hip" and "down". While deep down, you probably don't even like smoking.

1. Attack the weakest members of society with benifit cuts and outright stopping them

2. Attack the NHS with cuts

3. Attack single parents

4. Attack the lower and middle class with taxs on fatty food

5. Attack the police force to the point of potentially catastrophic consequences (remember how stetched they where with the London riots)?.

Overall, I think David Cameron and his cronies have an elistist natural selection view of society and the sooner we get labour back in the better. "We're all in this together!" he cries. As far as i'm aware, the majority of Britian are not millionare toffee faced crumpet boys from Eton. Sadly true heroes like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have been replaced by Ed Miliband who looks and sounds more like a DnD player with a cold than a leader of men.

When I was a youngling around 14-18 my young adult mind was subjected to the golden age of PC gaming. The majority of my personal gaming time was spent honing my excellent skills at Quake 3 to a level of folktale heroism. Eventually I became part of the official "Mplayer" UK clan. Being very skilled, it was impossible for anyone to beat my Hercules like sense of timing with rockets. A personal favorite "Q3DM17" highlighted my reprehensible inhuman like timing with rocket projectiles. Even commencing a battle was an exercise in frustration and futility. It ultimately served as my own personal gratification while my opponent would quickly come to the realization of his own irrelevance within the world as we know it. Regularly child like minds suffocated and shielded from moral values would accuse me of cheating and rage quite. This was delightful and vindication of my skills as a pro PC gamer.

Nowadays the nature of the gaming landscape has changed. These high paced skill based shooters relying on individual talent as the sole means of personal gratification have experienced a cretaceous paleogene extinction like event. With titles such as "Tribes Ascend" represented a K–T boundary of a largely extinct bygone era. Pc gamers such as myself are survivors, crocodiles and alligators sitting idle in the waters putting up with whatever nonsense this corrupt age of gaming presents.

I believe this short term incorrigible change is to do with consoles taking over the realm of first person shooters. Particularly that of Call Of Duty. I do not like to admit it, as do other hardcore longer PC gamers but first person shooters are now home to this "xbox360". A sad painful fact I and many others have come to recognize with contempt and resentment. The fast paced skilled based twitch shooters of my era have been replaced with slow and mindless "play to unlock stuff". Everytime I bring this up "troll is cried". "noob" the usual derogatory remark. People mistake "skill based" for saying a game has "no skill requires" To explain. a game that is not "skill based" can obviously require skill. However at it's core it should be noted Call Of Duty is not about a basic twitch based skill or tactical thinking.

What makes Call Of Duty popular unlike Quake 3 of shooters of the golden age, anything and everything you do in Call Of Duty is skill rewarded regardless of winning or failing. It's formula is similar to that of world of warcraft and other MMO's. A carrot is dangled and you are incrementally rewarded for grinding, constantly throwing peanuts at player in order to give gratification. A guitar rift plays with +50Xp or some sort of in-game item reward.

Quake 3 was the humanist opposite to Call Of Dutys shallow self-congratulatory nature. The design of the maps, weapons represented a elemental level of skill idiosyncratic of hardcore PC gaming. A multiplayer playground deprived any dissent corruption or subversion of the games core values in order to appeal to the now broken and corrupt gaming culture we currently inhabit (and happily embrace). I can understand this phenomenon. However being a primarily skill based player I tend to loath and view Call Of Duty as something similar to an an aids epidemic in Uganda that has rapidly spread. Games like Tribes: Ascend being "red cross" fighting the problem yet it remaining overwhelmed and underfunded. All leading towards a futile yet valiant attempt that can never be changed due to the broken culture cultivating such horrible conditions.

Call Of Duty did not invent this idea of "play to unlock". Many games prior such as Battlefield 2 (a PC game) had unlocks. However these where used in moderation. A pepper over the main course. At the end of the day it was predominantly skill based similar to Tribes: Ascend. Now, through the modern age corruption Battlefield 3 is not about in individual and coordinated self expression through skill, it is peanuts being thrown at the player. EA's increasingly laughable and pathetic attempt to chase after Call Of Duty. Battlefield 3 is predominantly concerned with a shopping basket rewarding the player with slot machine coins for playing pandering towards an outwardly apathetic, inwardly self-absorbed self entitled hipster nihilism rewarding without requirement or merit. For the most part, I now mainly play skill based strategy games. Since these are mostly wholly ignored by consoles and the mainstream gaming media they have yet to be engulfed by the cynical burger in a bag design. However, I doubt this will be the case forever. With motion controls and increasingly higher sales on consoles and much lower sales on the PC platform first person shooters serve as a cautionary cultural prognosis of what is to come.