Maybe I just have terrible taste. Maybe I just expect too much out of games. Perhaps my failing is naivety and optimism, but I'd really like not to think that's true.
I don't play many new games and when I buy/recieve a new one I want it to be worth my while. I usually don't look for something that's got an epic story. I usually just try to look for something that mixes it up a bit. Not dramatically, but just enough to feel fresh (baby steps you know).
Sadly enough, it appears lately I've been a little off the mark.
Hours spent not studying leave me trawling through the major gaming news and blog sites, and I often find games catching my eye right from the beginning, from when they're first announced. I guess this is the stage where its more about the potential of their idea, where the concept can be met with 'Oh that looks interesting' as opposed to 'Well I really wish they'd done this instead' or 'Why'd they stick that in there'.
Being a big fan of the series since I first played Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on my neighbours PS2 (I wasn't allowed such violent games in my house), I felt an obligation to pick up the 2008 series reboot, the aptly named Prince of Persia. Stripped of all embellishments and associations, I was tentative the movement away from the crux of the series would weaken the gameplay.
Boy, have I ever been so right?
The game not only ran like a hobbled elephant drudging through mud-flats, it failed to deliver what the series had been about for me; the golden combination of rudimentary puzzle solving and spectacular, technical platforming. Well, this reboot was a little too rudimentary and had very little platforming to back up the spectacle. It was formulaic and the advancement of the narrative was much too metroidvania for me. Not only did I have to retrek finished areas to collect the light seeds necessary to unlock the 4 various powers, these 4 powers were simply graphical changes on 2 individual powers, which could easily have been variation on the same concept.
Jump from pad to pad, merely hitting the magic (Elika) button to soar to your next location. Either done with a leaping backflip or a grappling-hook-esque animation.
Move from pad to pad, hitting the Elika button to begin an on-rails sequence that leads you to your destination. Comes in flying or wallrunning varieties.
The combat was ambitious but hardly noteworthy, another idea relegated as great concept, poor execution.
With my hopes crushed and my HDD packing 8 gigabytes of fat I couldn't bring myself to trim, I found myself looking to another Ubisoft freerunning epic, sandy and picturesque like the games I'd fallen in love with.
This game was Assassin's Creed, one which I've recently picked up despite the criticisms. I'd played it before infrequently at a mate's place (if you'll pardon the vernacular) and thought it was entertaining enough. So when hitting up the local GAME, I thought I was onto a winner (“$20 Director's Cut edition, how can I go wrong?”).
Apparentally, I wasn't, and I strayed awry just by starting the game.
The problems with Assassin's Creed's design are most evident when you first start the game. After a graphics card crunching opening sequence that throws 'helpful hints' your way in the form of controls; hints that are scarcely useful in a situation where the camera and framerate is more troublesome than the random beggar they throw at you with all fists a pumping.
Immediately after this...disorientation they find it helpful to push you into one of the most mindnumbingly dull tutorials known to man. Add lengthy periods of expository dialogue either side of this introduction (“So you're saying you're going to pull him out of the Animus, our gene-memory-based time-travel device, so we can safely retrieve the memory of his Assassin ancestor before the deadline set to us by our company bosses?”) and you have one bored player. I'm not even going to touch on the monotony of the missions themselves, as that is ground covered by many before me, and I'm sure we're all well aware of it's failings in that field.
But these are only the games I have managed to pick up and play. There are several games out there that I'd followed with anticipation and hope only to be crushed by news of the dreaded...60 – 80 aggregate score. An emulator jockey since my boyhood days (to be separated from my lurching teen days), I was anxious to hear the news about the 3D Bionic Commando reboot. After all, DICE is hardly a lacklustre untried developer. Yet somehow, upon release, all I could hear was tale after tale of a game that just missed the mark.
This list goes on. Dark Void looked like a stop and pop shooter with a nice flow and reserved twist to the mechanics founded by husky men wearing breastplated future-suits. All I've heard is news of the worlds most mediocre shooter. It does nothing spectacularly wrong, but supposedly it never excels.
And just in the past few days, Metro 2033, one which had flown under my radar for so long only to come to my attention in the past 2 months, has been explained to me as very average. It is neither survival horror nor a polished pure shooter. Yet another game that could have excelled racked by a failing somewhere along the design chain.
So riddle me this readers: Why is it that so many games fail to reach the lofty heights their concept deserves, and which games have broken your heart with disappointment?
P.S. To end a note that isn't so negative and wallowing, I'd like to say I picked up the Just Cause 2 Demo recently and had an absolute blast. A cheesy presentation and story to say the least, but for unrestrained and truly open sandbox gameplay, I can't say I've played a more enjoyable romp. Definitely picking this up as soon as I can.
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