Deagle .50.
I am a self proclaimed gaming God. Back up, that’s not a good way to start this off and expect positive comments. Alright, if there was a God that had played a fair number of games on most platforms during the course of his lifetime (forever) and was fairly good at them, that would be me.
Fine, I’m a gaming nerd. I’m not the best gamer ever and don’t care about finishing every game on the highest difficulty with the most achievements, I just enjoy a virtual world experience every now and again (daily).
See, I was born in a golden age known as 1980 when the closest thing to cutting edge technology was a 26 inch colour television that weighed more than a grown man. It wasn’t a sad time because of that, it was really exciting. For me, dropping a coin into a huge machine and being able to control a yellow ball with a mouth for thirty seconds made me feel like ground control. And it really was an adventure, I remember my brother and I practically stealing (ok we actually stole) 20c coins and running to the shops for our quick fix.
The progression was fast, before we knew it there were two player battles in Street Fighter 2 depriving us of a solid education. Around that time the computer craze got us and I was peddling discs between my friends like a back street pimp. There was even a short stint were characters like Leisure Suit Larry gave us that taboo element.
Computer techs were also being trained all over the world from a very young age just to get games working on their computers, an entire industry was born because of them.
But by this time the market was saturated, too much to play and not enough time. There were actually genres of games and people started taking preference.
There was also talk of graphics and sound quality and fps.
I fell into the trap as well, and remember talks of photo realistic driving and flight simulators. Small fortunes were spent on the best computers just to get a little closer to that 16 bit dragon.
And then things really changed, multi player hit us. I didn’t know what to do with myself when I installed my first network card and had my friends come to my house with their computers. We probably didn’t eat for days.
My social world had changed forever, and so did my care for graphics.
Jump to modern day, where I just spent $60 for possibly the best looking game ever, Killzone 2. The 3D rendering, levels as big as a real city, ambient sounds and realistic shadows blow my mind. It’s not realistic looking, but it’s not meant to be, it’s just pretty and good at being pretty.
You’re expecting a complaint now aren’t you? How could I possibly complain, the pinnacle has been reached and my PS3 cell processors are finally working overtime to pump that sensual dope into my brain. But I’ll complain, because I feel like I just wasted sixty hard earned dollars when I could have rented the game for five.
Pet Shop Boys is definitely playing in the background
It’s all very well having the best looking game ever, but it’s not fun. The multi player is frustrating, the menus are complicated and single player story has no substance.
The end result is that I am back to Call of Duty 4. Currently the most played game in my retinue, a contender with Halo 3 and the Quake series. It looks good and sounds great, but more importantly it is simple – I have a gun, you have a gun, our guns exist in real life and when I shoot you, you die and fall over. There’s no laser weapons, sticky grenades or aliens.
The single player holds up to real events and the multiplayer has modes that are just plain fun. The menus load quickly and there is hardly any delay in waiting between games.
The short story is that I don’t care anymore if a game has stick men and no ambient effects, as long as it’s playable and enjoyable.
So I thank you Activision, you are my heroes and I feel just a little bad that I have only spent $42 on a second hand copy of a game which has kept me busy for literally days.