Yeahbuhwhat

This doesn't have anything to do with players being stupid. No matter how smart you are, sometimes things just won't occur to you the way developers expect or the way they occur to other people. Were old games way less hand-holdy? Absolutely. But I also finished a hell of a lot less games back then, too.

It's a different world today. When we were playing games in the 80s and 90s, you could actually get bored. There was no internet. No smartphones. No DVRs and streaming movie services that allowed you to access movies and TV on your time. If you got stuck in a game, you would beat your head against for a really long time because that was one of one or two things that it was practical to do at that moment.

Nowadays if I'm stuck for a while in a game and load it up a couple days later without making any process again, I'm going to ask myself how important it really is that I progress forward, and more often than not I'll come to the conclusion that I would be better off sinking my time into something worthwhile instead of burning away hours on a game and making zero progress.

There's nothing stupid about valuing your time or choosing to do something else with your time if you're not getting anywhere in what little free time you have to devote to entertainment.

I've lost count of how many sites have run pictures of hipsters playing Johann Sebastian Joust in the past week.

@pw2566ch said:

I really thought I would say this, but please keep these type of articles on Kotaku.

And I say please continue. Every piece of content does not need to appeal to every person. I don't watch the Endurance Run videos, but you don't see me complaining that they need to stop producing that content.

I don't remember any of them ever saying anything about playing it, and if they didn't play it, they can't seriously consider it for end-of-the-year deliberations.

It's one thing to bitch about entitlement issues when it's a couple months of online that is fucked up. It's another thing to say people shouldn't be reimbursed for being fucked out of $80 because Nintendo never came through on their promises to provide quality software and support for the platform. Before a single relevant new game came out for the system, the price dropped a large amount. Its bad business, period.

You hate needing an internet connection? It's 2011, man. If an internet connection isn't  a given in your life, you're doing something wrong. And I don't even know what you're talking about with "slow online menus" and "transfer tools". 
 
Making games is expensive, and companies do whatever they can to recoup costs and turn a profit. That means DLC. Making a modern game that can compete on the shelves costs so much that one dud can sink a studio. The Red Faction series just ended because one game in the series underperformed. Saints Row could be next if even the fans that think it looks good aren't going to buy it, and if they kill two big THQ franchises in a row, there isn't going to be a Volition anymore. But you think it's out of line for them to want to sell some DLC? Get over yourself and find something REAL to be mad about.

Epic doesn't think the way most companies do because most companies aren't filthy ****ing rich from licensing the Unreal Engine.

I couldn't care less about two of those games, but I'm bummed about not getting The Last Story. That and Skyward Sword are the only upcoming Wii games I care about, and they haven't released anything else for core gamers since 2010. 
 
Makes them seem like they're just blowing smoke up our asses with the claims they made at E3 about wanting to win the core gamer back.

@Sharkington said:

And there's nothing satisfying about failing in L.A. Noire, because the game doesn't even acknowledge it in any meaningful way. Total and utter failure in one case has absolutely no bearing on any subsequent case. It's never even mentioned again.   

 Except in the Dahlia cases, Cole is constantly asking if he got the right person; he's always bringing it up in my play through.

I would do that in L.A. Noire if the game's logic wasn't broken in nearly every interrogation. If the game isn't going to play fair, neither am I. I can't count the amount of times the game wanted me to "doubt" to proceed correctly, despite the fact that I had hard evidence in my possession, or the opposite, where I was meant to provide "proof" that was anything but. It's broken and not enough people are acknowledging it.
 
And there's nothing satisfying about failing in L.A. Noire, because the game doesn't even acknowledge it in any meaningful way. Total and utter failure in one case has absolutely no bearing on any subsequent case. It's never even mentioned again. Nothing has any effect on anything to come. Heavy Rain is a game that does that kind of thing right, and I say that as someone that really doesn't like Heavy Rain at all.