Oh, good grief. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into... Or rather, what you have just gotten me self-forced to get myself into! This is going to take a while...
It's just too dang easy! Today's videogames are so pathetically easy! They over-explain every little detail to you and hold your hand the whole way through and even point you in the right direction, either with gestures, voices or even insipid little arrows on a one-way linear path! And you get infinite lives and thousands of little invisible checkpoints all crowded together! You can even skip entire levels! You can finish today's games in so little time!
That dang realism! So many games thing they're so awesomely-realistic. I can't even laugh. It's just too stupid. Especially in shooters. Realistically, you are not going to be able to heal from bullet wounds by stopping to catch your breath. There are not going to be so many walls to cover you. The whole world is not brown and gray. Enemies do not kamikaze at you with their bodies! They actually try to stay alive! Why can't you hold more than two guns at a time, anyway?
First-Person Shooters! Why are there so many? What's going on!? Why are they all nearly identical!? Why is the highest-selling franchise right now a series that offers nothing new and has nothing that makes it stand out and- UGH! I can't take this, anymore! There are hardly any good ones left, anymore! About the only group I still see making any good ones is Valve. And that's because they're Valve.
Go ahead and harm your own fans! For one thing, there's the case of supposed "copy protection". This solves nothing. Hackers are able to crack even the best of it rather quickly, and, then, there is is for everyone to play, completely Armour-free. You could play it legally, but that's a lot harder to do, for some reason. Hmmm... I wonder which version people would have a better time playing? And if you're not listening to the people you want to buy your stuff, then, you're doomed. You're supposed to be serving them. If you're not pleasing the people you're selling your games to, who are you trying to please?
So many idiotic reboots! Why is this!? Why is it that so many old, classic games that held brain-using in high regard are now being rebooted into dumbed-down games that have not have to worry about thinking at all!? To make matters worse, many of these are being turned into Call of Duty clones!
There's too many cutscenes! Let me tell you, if there was one thing that got me really ticked me off about Epic Mickey, it was the overabundance of cutscenes! Every few steps, there seemed to be a cutscene. And most of them did nothing to help you. Every time something moved, a gate opened, a gear turned, and item showed up, a new enemy came in, controls were explained... they always had to have a cutscene for it! You don't need cutscenes for any of these things! You can do all this stuff just fine without taking control away from the player! I also really hate inconsistent cutscenes. I'm talking about when we see a character do something in a cutscene that they can't do in the gameplay, or how areas from the gameplay aren't seen in the cutscenes, or how animations and sounds from the gameplay are not used in the cutscenes. It drives me crazy!
All these guys look the same! I am so sick of all the big "heroes" these days being Caucasian males in their 20s-30s being all muscular and treating everyone like dirt, and everyone, including us, is supposed to like them. I'm sick of it! We don't need any more of these guys! We don't need a character we can relate to! And even if we did want someone like that, the appearance doesn't help matters at all. Gobs of guys, myself included, are able to identify just fine with female candy-colored ponies, for crying out loud! It's like what that Experienced Points article was saying. The big companies are basically telling us "We're not racist... You are!"
And that's all you get! Would it hurt too much to have extras? How about character skins? How about the game's soundtrack in the options menu? How about little Easter eggs? How about an older game hidden in there, somewhere? How about extra special modes and features? We're severely lacking in the really creative aspects of this, these days...
And I still wonder how exactly this is "mature". You ever notice this? There are so many games that are rated "Mature", when they don't need to be. And they're very immature. (Duke Nukem Forever comes to mind) Some don't even seem to fit the bill, like Halo: Reach. You're honestly telling me that Duke Nukem Forever and Halo: Reach both have the same content rating? Honestly? Shadow the Hedgehog is about as vulgar and bloody as Halo: Reach, if not moreso, and it's rated E-10+! Duke Nukem Forever, on the other hand, I believe should be rated AO! Why should a 17-year-old be able to get pornography in a videogame? Heck, I should be asking why a child should be able to get something like this, seeing as how there are several places that will allow children to but M-rated videogames. I also wonder why games don't expand their horizons more. Have you noticed how many games there are that are first-person shooters that have no reason to be first-person shooters? It seems we can't escape that without...
A larger audience, indeed! So many groups are insisting they want to please more people by altering the formula of their game to make it appeal to more people. No! You have a hardcore fanbase right there! You don't need to water it down just so that other people can play it. If you have to change it that much, this next batch of people isn't what you should be trying to attract, anyway! Just create something new, rather than leaving everyone at a level of displeasure. It's better to have a small group love your product than a larger group only liking certain aspects of it.
At each others' throats for the sake of rivalry! Things have gotten a lot worse that the old "Nintendo vs. Sega[/B] debacle. And they've actually made up! It's just gotten worse everywhere else! Why does there need to be such a battle between stuff like the X-Box 360 and the PlayStation 3!? You're out for the same cause. Does that mean you should try to compete? No! It cripples you after so long! It brings you down, makes you weary! Plant your feet with others. You'll all be much happier, and make your fans happier, if you all just work together and get along. You're out for the same cause, here. The other guy isn't so evil just because he doesn't work for you. You're doing the same thing! Do something right!
Bobby Koteck! 'Nuff said.