Fads in video games that need to go

There are a lot of video games out there and more are to be released later this year. If you count the last 20 years or so of the console and PC gaming market, there are thousands upon thousands of games. Over time, trends have developed that seemingly creep into just about every game made.

GamePro is running a story about “The 11 worst trends in video games,” some I agree with, some I do not, okay, most I do not but some I do. The list is summarized below but if you want a feel for what the GamePro staff thinks, read their article and decide for yourself.

Beautiful women in games. I don’t see anything wrong with this but some would say there is something wrong about making female characters, too perfect.

Bloom effects, these are just annoying, we’ve all had enough.

Elite soldiers, power armor optional. Who doesn’t like playing the hero in the form of a supersoldier, running around, shooting everything and leaving a path of destruction in your wake. In my opinion this will NEVER get old.

Every button on a console controller has a function, yeah, this is a problem which is probably one of the reasons if I know a PC port of the game is coming; I’ll wait for the PC version. Games can only be played properly with a keyboard and mouse after all.

Licensed soundtracks, I don’t see this as a problem and for some games, it just works for some titles, it worked for GTA: Vice City (by far the best of the franchise), more about GTA later.

Sequels can work but it doesn’t work for well… racing games, sports games (golf, football, basketball, baseball, etc.) and I still can’t figure out why they continue to producea certain line of extreme skating games. Sequels DO work for GTA (for most of them), Halo and where’s that System Shock 2 sequel we’re waiting for. Bioshock could be considered the spiritual successor to the System Shock series. Not all sequels are a bad thing.

Game prices, every game made could be considered to be overpriced but look at it this way. We’re talking about 4GB+ of data in most cases, perhaps even more, that’s a ton of content that takes months or even years to develop and someone is getting paid to make it. I don’t like $60 price tags any more than the next guy but there is a lot of content in there. Almost any good game on any system (save for the Wii) is going to cost $50 to $60 new. Of course if you want to wait the same game will cost $20 or $30 in a year but I’m not willing to wait.

Small transactions for extra content or episodic content, kind of like the iTunes model of buying music, buy what you want, leave what you don’t. There are cases where this works and where this doesn’t work. I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Gangster Games, I don’t like them. In my opinion they need to go. I know they’re trying to provide realism but honestly, the language in GTA: San Andreas was just not needed plus there isn’t a single character in that game I really liked, except for maybe “The Truth.” Nope, I didn’t even like CJ.

World War II games, who doesn’t like World War II games, I can think of maybe one person I know but come on, these games are great because you’re almost always playing one of the Allies (the winning side), what’s better than a game that you KNOW you’re going to win. I like winning, knowing I’m going to win is like icing on the cake for me. Again, in my opinion, World War II titles can stay around as long as they want, I won’t be complaining.

Maybe you’ve figured out by now that my favorite genre is First person shooters followed by third person action games. Give me guns, lots of guns, power armor, regenerative health (like in Gears of War), lots of things to kill and shoot at and I will be perfectly happy. But you got to have a good story line, good graphics and good game play, one without the other makes a good game not.

The only RPG game I ever liked was KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) and while there was a KOTOR 2 (yes a sequel but a sequel that didn’t work because none of the original characters were in it). KOTOR 2 was a shade of what the original was. To date it remains the only RPG I liked.

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