Mommy, morality is getting into my games

It seems like after Bioshock came out with their ground breaking game full of new ideas such as plasmids, fps with rpg elements (to my knowlege), and most of all morality. A choice is given to the player to kill or save a little sister which has an effect on the ending as well as what you are able to upgrade and buy using ADAM. The same year (and quarter) mass effect used a paragon or renegade scale to determine if you were a friend or foe of the alliance. Now, it seems this is becoming a component of many games (mostly rpg's). Although the options were there before and were experience in sandbox gaming where a player could do what he/she pleased, it was never this obvious. From what I have heard the upcoming Prototype will have some sort of morality incorperated with the gameplay. This seems to be working but I am worried it will be overused in games that really don't need it. The only reason I can see it being relevant is in games such as Fallout 3 where your actions effect the ending as well as how people act around you and what missions you can do. I beleive this and Bioshock to be games which actualy used the morality instead of just giving the gamer something else to put on the in-game menu. Mass effect used it well in that they didn't emphasize it in the game and your actions affected reactions of AI but in the end, (spoiler..from 2007...gasp) sheperd won and the universe was salvaged. This trend, I beleive, will become very overused by January 1st 2011. This gives time for developers to create games which use the morality system multiple times. At this point in time it is a very fun addition as long as it effects the ending but just as platforming was used too much and nearly died after the N64, I beleive this will follow the same path. 

Guides and Gamerscore

Many people have used a strategy guide to help themselves in a game but with youtube and ign have the strategy guides met their superior? Before these guides were started the most likely source of help is from your friend who can find new insight into that level you've been stuck on for weeks. Then the guide came to save the day and a game can be beaten without thinking. Now....there is no need, youtube has endless walkthroughs of almost any game and on sites such as ign you can find cheat codes, walkthroughs and more. I admit to using youtube and a strat guide from time to time but should people be given the answers to a game? In the end I admit it is the skill of the gamer that will beat the campaign but skill is no longer finding a route but learning to hit the buttons at the right time. Are the strat guides and walkthroughs killing the gaming experience, or enhancing it? 

Many people see achievement points as enhancing a game experience and for the most part they do a good job I must applaud bethesda on their use of achievements to draw the gamer into side quests that will create a longer and more fufilling game experience (in my opinion). At what point does enhancement become obsession. We have all heard the term gamerscore whore which can be summed up into the simple name Avatar. This game proves that people will stop at no lengths to gain some online fame but in the end I look down upon them for caring more about a virtual point than the game itself. The experience and story are why I play, not the gamerscore, I have looked online for collectable item locations in gears of war and fallout (not in assassins creed every acheivement there is completely legit). It is this type of achievement that can become rediculous or can enhance the experience. Gears of war and COD:4 I found pointless because it was looking for items that in the end didn't effect anything. Gears of war 2 got somewhat better with their 41 collectables which actually provided information about the story for those who are interested and gave a new perspective on the war in some cases. There have been few games which I find the collectables to be worth finding such as the ingots in fallout 3: the pitt because they got me a better gun and a cool experience talking to the slaver. While these were somewhat annoying it was nice that there was more benefit than just gamerscore. My point in all of this is that gamerscore can be used to enhance the experience or be points and not achievements. GH3 is an example of a game that offers true achievements. Most of the achievements in that game are very hard to get and truly take talent and effort. While it was probably frustrating to some because they have 150GS and no hope of going any further it gave me a goal to strive for no matter how seemingly impossible. So to avoid droning on more than I already have I leave you as always with a question. How much of gamerscore is achievements and how much is points? 

Year round gaming

It appears that fall is no longer the only time great games will come out this year. June will bring us games such as prototype, the wii motion plus add on, and batman arkham asylum. This new trend is great news for someone such as myself who has lots of time to play games over the summer but is it really a good thing? Yes the titles will be on their own and will have less competition which is the route EA should have taken with Mirrors Edge and Dead space so is this a new trend or just testing the waters. Will May and June become the time to release new game titles and October November be a time to release sequels to already proven games? This would be a great idea for me. Honestly I still haven't played some games from Q4 last year and am definetly not done playing a good number of them. I don't know why i bought so many at once but it was possibly for the multiplayer so that the game didn't get stale with others by the time I started playing. Anyway, back off of that tangent...Why shouldn't game companies use the early summer to bring out their newes game series and ideas. With E3 the first week of june it would be a perfect time to release. Gain hype and give a hands on experience of the completed game a few weeks before release. This strategy would be great marketing and most likely boost sales because teenagers will have summer jobs and pre-teens will be babysitting and mowing lawns. It is a well  known fact teens get most of their spending money in the summer so why not give them something to spend it on before it's gone. The summer looks great for gaming and all i can say is I wish i could take my tv outside and tan while gaming...without glare.

Anticipation...for a score

Many people try and argue the scores given to games by review companies based on their own experience or what they have heard about the game. How much does the anticipation for a game effect the scores? If someone has extremely high hopes for a game how are they supposed to review it when their original standard for the game was unreachable. If one expects perfection the game will be far less than they hoped for and this happens alot within the gaming community when people become infuriated at review scores. How many scores have been efffected by having a large amount of anticipation or being a new IP. A game such as army of two had terrible review scores so now with a sequel even if it's moderately good it will be a huge improvement over the first which could possibly effect the reviews by making the second game seem much better than the first. An example of the opposite situation is Gears of War 2. Gears of war (the original) had innovative gameplay and popular multiplayer. In 2009 Epic games released Gears of War 2 and it got very good review scores which are fine for the single player but the multiplayer was and arguably still is terrible. There was an uproar from the community but Gears of war 2 kept riding on the brand name and riding on an IGN score of 9.5 and a similar 93 on metacritic. Don't get me wrong i love playing gears of war 2 with the updates despite the chainsaws overpower in multiplayer. A game can sell great because of a review or because it's a sequel to a good game. Army of two was scored very low but the only problem is some movement issues that take some getting used to. It's no Orange Box or Mass Effect but it's definetly worth playing. GTA4 was given stellar reviews despite the absolutely horribly slow start to the game driving nicos cousin around and the obvious issues with car handling. Anticipation for a game can get a game a score it doesn't deserve as well as a big IP. So next time you see a review score take a look at the game for yourself before believing everything you hear. I would also like to bring up that 5.0 is a score for a game that has absolutely no merit any score below 5 or at 5 is not mediocre. A 1-10 scale is the same scale as a school grading scale  a 5 is technically the middle of the scale but really it's failing a 7 (like a c) could be considered average but is still written off. Anything below an 8 (or a B) is what people will want to buy and below an 8 has almost no sales because of the score. What is the point of having a 1-10 scale when it can be compared to a school scale? when will the middle of the scale truely be a middle (mediocre) game. 

Video games going down the tube...

E.T. is possibly the worst video game ever made and almost took down the whole industry, is Nintendo heading down the same path? With games such as cooking mama and petz I start to wonder whether nintendo will bring us down the same path as the atari 2600 did with their slew of horrible games meant to make a few quick bucks in a booming industry. The line was drawn at E.T. then so where will the line be drawn on the wii? At what point do we say that these games need to be made like a game should. I'm surprised developers are making such bad games considering the wii sales of games is not as great as their console sales. Most people buy the wii, play wii sports, and leave it alone until something mildly interesting rolls along around christmas and the game is gifted to some poor kid who is stuck playing wii music with no pay off or value. I'm not saying that metroid prime and super smash brothers aren't great AAA games but, so far, there are very few new IP's even worth playing not to mention buying. The nintendo seal of approval is no longer saying that a game is good, just that it works on the wii or DS. Why is it that making money is always more important than making a good game as shown by wii games and deadline games that turn out terrible?

Overpricing games neccesity??

Everybody knows that you can't have everything and money doesn't grow on trees but is $60 a fair price for a video game off the shelf? I do not know how much it costs to make a game or how much revenue the game developer gets of the money I spend on games but $60 a game seems very high. Along with the initial price for the game DLC, although expanding the game, seems almost a neccessity especially if one is to play online. So far, halo 3 has released 3 map packs priced at 800MS points, I spend $60 on the game and $30 on DLC this game is $90 so far. Fallout 3 is up to $80 with more DLC coming and I won't even imagine what the overall price of Rock Band 2 would be if someone downloaded every single peice of music. Rock band seems to have the right idea of making the music that will not change anything in the game and is in no way neccesary to play online or to get achievment points seeing as that's the only reason some people play certain games. The attemps to make games cost more than the initial price is overwhelming from the buying weapons plan of battlefield: Bad Company to the recent RE5 vs mode pricing instead of including it with the game (as mentioned in the abuse of DLC). Has pricing become out of control, or is it neccessary?

Onlive or online???

The recent announcement of Onlive has brought forth such comments as the console killer and I am not the first to say this is not true. For those who don't know, Onlive is a new video game system where the games will be in a huge server room and all someone needs to play is the little box and a computer or tv. This is a great concept in theory but in practice...not so much. What about the people who have a terrible connection and lag on even the simplest game? Beaming an entire game in real time is a task that no technology is up to the standard of at this point in time. It takes about 7 hours for me to download a game demo or xbox original, how do they expect for the computer to download the live information for the game, then send the desired action to the server, send it back to the screen telling it what to do, then send the signal over the internet for an online game, in the under a millisecond? I can see the video game industry moving towards all digital distibution which is fine, asseuming they provide the amount of memory required for such a task as to hold 30+ games as well as the save game in the case of a hardcore gamer. Downloading these games would take a long time with a bad connection and good connections can be very pricey and hard to get. Now it is not only about buying the console and the games but a good connection will create an overall better experience. This should be a concept and not a reality at this point in time. With the advances in technology we don't know where the industry will go next. Nvidea (i suck at spelling) has even created a 3-D card to be used with pc games, is this the future or a gimik only time will tell on the card as well as onlive.