What I Don't Like In Modern Gaming

After a fifth consecutive night of erratic sleeping (a bit weird for a sloth like me), that level of rumination, thinking about pointless things when one should be sleeping, soon matured to what am I going to play today? There are a few reviews incoming, but none due until next week, so why not compose another list?

On the topic of pointless…

Actually, this is an accumulation of a few thoughts of late regarding gaming trends and repetition. I love gaming; it’s my thing to chill to, test my cognitive capacity, escape monotony and relish in the creative minds of all those peeps who make the games and take us to our place.

Disclaimer released, yes, I do like games, and my views are predominantly positive ones; here is a list of a few things I don’t like in modern gaming – whether that be trends, mechanics, or quite possibly a pre-emptive conclusion: my skill level.

Your Grandfather Left You…

Let’s start with a silly one: how many grandfathers have passed this year? Whether it’s Ranch Simulator, Farming Life or The Amazing American Circus (or was that uncle), family members are copping it big time, but they leave their fortune – usually a rundown old building that needs renovating, and off you go. Even Fishing North Atlantic was your grandfather’s boat.

It happens so much in simulators that it’s almost at the stage of a Wilhelm Scream. I wish origin stories were a little more bland or even extreme:

• You won the lottery
• You saved up money over the past 10 years and bought a warehouse
• Your insurance claim came through
• You married a wealthy partner
• You stole it

Interestingly, most of these games tend to be pretty damn good and engaging. Is the grandfather thing a lucky rabbit foot in gaming, or is it a cheap point to follow the path of the game before it, and maybe even tap into the gamer’s psyche “I have/had a grandfather. I identify with this…”.

Difficulty Settings

This is my inept ability to be good at games – mostly rogue-likes. It’s a pride thing of adjusting the difficulty in games, and from my perspective, I tend to stay at normal mode purely because that’s how the game was intended. However, I hate it when the easy modes aren’t easy whatsoever.

Some genuine reasons for lowering the challenge might be for my kids, but admittedly, I might be a bit poo at a game, or even more realistic – I’m pushed for time with reviews and what-not and looking to finish a story without too much challenge. So when you switch to easy mode, and you or the kids are crying because you can’t get past a boss or even finish a stage, that sucks.

I’m not saying earning trophies in easy mode, but if you’re going to have difficulty settings, make them accurate. I’ve finished many games on hard modes – sometimes insane modes and have had moderate success, but when I’m on the first level of something and can’t get past a low-level enemy or complete a jump across a chasm, I don’t like that. Yeah, that may be me, but sometimes it genuinely is the game.

Name some titles? Nothing comes to mind at the moment, but there’s a review coming next week where I had just that. I loved the game, but the cheap shots and difficulty were brutal.

Online Leaderboards

A mediocre one here as it can be ignored, but as an offline gamer, I hate online leaderboards. Why? Because they make me competitive. I have minimal interest in playing others online unless I know them or trophy hunting. Still, with online leaderboards, they coax me into pushing that little bit further to compare my scores with strangers discreetly.

Who are these people? I dunno. There’s 0% chance I will be in contact with them, so that’s neither “Hey, how did you get such a ridiculous score?” or “Hahahahaha! I beat you, you twot!”. I’m not one to boast. Online leaderboards are an excellent motivation to get better at a game, but it just adds to procrastination, like fruitlessly chasing for a platinum when you’re not going to tell anyone about it.

Deluxe/Limited Editions

As you’ll figure now, all of these things I don’t like in modern gaming are all based on my opinion. Funny that. Any intelligent person can cross off most of these and say that they’re within my control. Stop complaining, but I’m not. This post is purely for shits and giggles, and not a single one contributed to whether I get a decent night of sleep or not.

But was frustrates me about (me) this part of the list is that completionist mentality once again. At the end of the day, I’m only going to play the base game and rarely get DLC as I don’t have enough time to commit to so many games long-term. However, if you give me the option of a standard version and a deluxe one, and the latter only has an HD wallpaper, I’m likely to go for the latter (and never use wallpapers).

The most recent example was the Kimetsu No Yaiba game. As my daughter was desperate for this title and told me it was already out when it wasn’t (she was right), I double-taked to see that Digital Deluxe Edition punters could get early access to the game before the release date. While the game was due to come out the next day, additional bonuses – mostly cosmetic – were included in the deluxe version. At only a tiny bit more than the standard edition, it was a no-brainer. Granted, she got the most out of it, but for me, did I need it? You must have been in that position countless times too.

The Pitch

A Souls-like… A Metroidvania… Dead Cells meets Hades… Game pitches are no different to a film, and as irritating as they can be, they’re a necessary evil to give us an idea of what to expect. But it’s so annoying when they use this ploy and the game’s nothing as expected.

One of the most common ones now is ‘like Hades‘. Is it any wonder that the marketing is going to target a game that is held with such high regard, making so many GOTY? I still haven’t played it as I’m a chump. However, I look at the trailers of Hades compared to the marketing of Game X and wonder if this labelling was something the developers were going for or whether it’s a marketing thing. 

That’s no slur on marketing campaigns – at the end of the day, we’ve all got to live and make money on what we do (within reason!), but you have to admit it can be a bit tiresome for a slogan to refer to something popular when the title itself is nothing like the comparison.

Platform Wars

This will never end, and honestly? I can live with it. Still, it’s dumb how some people get so bent out of shape that others don’t agree with them, and another reason why I’m not so active on social media with my opinion. It doesn’t matter.

While all the other kids were arguing which was better, the SNES or Megadrive, I took a step back and turned my nose up. Get on with it: the Amiga is my chosen platform. Then the Atari ST folk (all three of them), said it was the superior machine. It didn’t matter as it’s a personal choice, but I still jumped in to say, “The Amiga has more games” and other pointless arguments.

I don’t take sides and tend to own each system other than the Xbox One and up. Why – am I against it? Nope. I don’t have enough time or disposable income to spunk more money up the wall on games (I do other things than gaming). In truth, I was more of a fan of the Xbox 360 than the PS3, but after two occasions of rings of death and region locking, I’ve stayed with Sony since. Still, you’ll never hear me defend them for this aftersales and UI.

Festivals And Offers

This is a very weak entry, but how many times have you snapped up a title on sale as you got an email that it had 10% off and you had, let’s say Alan Wake on the Xbox but have to have it on Steam too. The kids don’t need to go on that school trip – not when I can hang out with Alan while they’re doing algebra. Then you end up purchasing the remaster for the PS5, too.

Not based on a true story, but inspired by one. The kids bit was the fabrication.

I blame Steam more than anyone, and there was a reason why I intently stayed clear of the platform for over a decade – knowing full well that I would end up getting too absorbed in the choice and discounts. It’s far better in value than any console store, and the endless supply of indie titles is unmatched, other than with Itch.io.

That doesn’t stop me from going to my wishlist on the eShop and buying 10 games for 90p on the eShop, then succumbing to the Editor’s choices on PSN. The swines! Them and their simple marketing plans to the weak gaming hoarders.

On the other side of the fence are the ridiculous digital prices for triple-As. One of the main reasons for buying the PS5 Digital Edition was reducing the clutter and perhaps saying a few pennies in the process. Surely it’ll be cheaper for a digital title as there’s no rent for store space, costs for packaging and distribution, unsold goods… naivety isn’t the word…

ESports/Streaming/Spectatorship

This is a generation thing, perhaps. As an older gamer, I started off way before the internet, so multiplayer was 100% local and the only time you would be watching anyone else would be if you were playing Micro Machines. They didn’t have a Multi-tap for the five other people waiting for a go. That, and that dick of a friend who’d never let you have a go.

One of my best friends is the spectator type. He’s not a gamer but said he’ll happily watch others play games and sit back. I can’t do that as I would rather play unless I wanted to encourage someone to get involved, like parents or the kids. “Go on, try this [Outlast] and see what you think. I’m just going to turn the lights off…”.

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t watch streaming, as I’m not interested in watching someone else playing a game – possibly spoiling the surprises. There are a few exceptions where I enjoy listening to the person and am not particularly interested in what they’re playing. People like Charlie White and Limmy are both regular on my feeds.

As for eSports, I’ll skim over this as I’ll be revealing a more judgemental side. My first encounter was when a friend converted me to Starcraft 2 and insisted on watching some of the top players in Korea. This was just before eSports kicked off worldwide, and I couldn’t think of anything much more tedious. It would have been more fun watching someone else enjoy an ice cream.

There’s Too Much Choice

Now, this one is a sign of the times: there’s too much choice, and we’re spoilt. I know a few people who claim to have seen everything on Netflix – no, they haven’t, that’s mental. Still, how many times have you scrolled through new releases or trending titles, and you’re not interested or perhaps already seen them?

Games are a bit like that, too, as there’s soo much choice that people don’t stick with them, eager to move on to the next thing. I’m guilty for this momentum as I write about upcoming games, wishing my life away to play something two years from now. However… I still play the games I’ve reviewed at any opportunity, and while I have most consoles and a reasonable collection of retro games, I wouldn’t say I’m a retro gamer as I don’t have the time to play everything. Instead, I’m playing current stuff and within the last few years.

But I see this abuse of choice more with my kids as they scroll through each game on the Switch, playing one for a few minutes then going to the next. “What else can I play?”. Due to reviewing games here, elsewhere and being a victim of those sales mentioned above, we have approximately 600 games on the Switch. That’s no contest setter – other reviewers have double that, but my point is we have an endless supply (to some degree) of titles, yet they don’t know what to play. Even when we had 60 games, it was like this.

Still, the argument is choice, and you have one. You don’t have to buy the latest games, and even if you do, getting one or two a year and playing them to death is just fine. As someone who grew up with the Amiga when piracy was the norm, my friends and I played, or owned, everything. Even as a kid without any responsibility, there was never time to play everything properly. That all changed with the SNES as none of us could afford the £60 for a new game, so we essentially became masters at whatever we owned as that’s all we had! By the time my kids are in their 20s, if they’re still playing games, they won’t have a speciality and only dipped their toes in a sea of titles without seeing them in their entirety.

Go on…

Do bear in mind that I wrote this in the early hours of the morning and just a random opinion piece which you’d expect on a blog. I’ve given it some thought on whether to post it or not and as it’s just a random thing, I’ll just let it sit there for a week or two, then move on to the next. But at least writing this was a bit more constructive with my time, eh?

Right: coffee…