Something

Today is the day that Playstation Home was announced, and everyone is drooling like a dog over it. I'm seeing pictures and reports from rockstar game "journalists", and I'm realizing one of the more mature, interesting events of the year is becoming its own mini-E3. I just beat God of War a few days ago, and now I finally know what all the fuss was about.

Its so sad. Sad because I can't seem to stop myself from getting into a severe gaming depression. And I don't know if its me being a crumudgeon, or if this industry is really going to shit.

I keep telling myself its the latter. I reread that first paragraph, and I realize just how low our standards as gamers are. Home is essentially Animal Crossing crossed with Second Life, for free. And this, not any sort of game, is supposed to make me salivate for a Playstation 3. Someone wiser than me looked at Sony's GDC keynote and said it looked like Phil Harrison walked into a meeting and asked what is popular with the kids these days, then someone said "Mii's, gamerscores and Myspace", and Phil replied "do it". Can they really not see all those trends they're throwing around?

But then again, this is the same industry that gave GoTY nods to God of War, a game that tells us in its commentary how much the developers wanted to give their enemies gene nipples and genitalia. A game that set itself up for three sequels before it was even released. And I'm sure there are plenty of schmucks out there that will line up for each one of them, that listened to those developer comments and thought, "ah nipples, quite artistic. Jaffe is a man of genius!"

It takes nothing to get gamers and bloggers and journalists blowing a load. Make it indie, make it 2d, make it polished, and they'll slobber all over you. Doesn't matter how good it is, doesn't matter if it piles on heaps of bullshit so that the game's more movie than game, more work than play. They want publishers to whore out innovation until its stale as shit. They want multiplayer in places it doesn't belong.

And they all think they're so damn important, when to the rest of the world, we're still so much of a joke.

I need to find a few good games to soak myself in. Something older, something hard but not frustrating. Something to get away from it all.