Okay, so my buddy and I graduated highschool in 2005 and every other Sunday we hold a small LAN. Since we are both busy with work, bills, girlfriends, and wives etc... I bring my gaming rig to his house and we drink beers and hang out for a few short hours and play games, and just bullshit around. But one thing this past weekend really made me think...
Both of us have a HUGE backlog of games we have yet to play so we try to both run through a campaign together taking turns after save points, or checkpoints, or loading ares... whatever ; so we played through FEAR 2 this time because we had both bought FEAR 3 on PC since it was like $3.06 on some deal online and we haven't yet played FEAR 2 so we thought we should probably play through 2 before 3.
So anyway, to make a long story short (or to make a short story long) after we beat FEAR 2 I thought i'd fire up FEAR 3 to just check it out quick since I haven't seen it yet. As the game was starting up, I instantly felt that this was different somehow. The very simplified layout (press enter to start), the overly simplified graphics adjustments even under advanced...
Anyway, the killer for me was when I started playing. Seemingly everything I did there was some sort of pop-up achievement or at least a countdown to one.
"22 of 33 item found,"
"Mercenary!"
"Headshot Bonus"
"Gun Found! 2 out of 10. Bonus!"
What the fuck is going on here? I haven't even played the game for 5 minutes, and I have had over half a dozen pop-ups fly on my screen for just... basically... playing the damn gamn. Achievements are nothing new to me... there have been some 360 games which were just way over the top with awarding you for everything that you did, but this just made me mad to see this. I felt like I was a "special" kid getting high-fived everytime I tied my shoe laces correctly (no offense). Like getting rewarded for shit you are doing anyway, or should be doing anyway. It's ridiculous in my opinion. To me, if developers want this stuff in their games then it should stay on consoles at the very least. Being rewarded for playing, was actually going out of your way and jumping around everywhere in a environment to find a hidden area, or "Easter Egg." Not being rewarded for just playing the damn game. I swear I have played a 360 game which rewarded me for just starting a new game.
I feel like the gaming industry is turning the current young gamers into a bunch of slack-jawed retards (no offense) who just want to get to the action with no critical thinking AT ALL or rewarding people for doing NOTHING special. I don't know if this is because of this "everybody's a winner" generation or what, but I really felt like a idiot playing the game simply because of this reason. Even playing Unit 13 on my Playstation Vita sometimes make me feel this way because you go for high points to level up your character and those points are given for more headshots, or disarming bombs, killing nobody... I feel like it is highly unnecessary. When you play games like that, it takes you out of the game and you focus more on achievements and points than actually playing the game because there is a story, or challenge.
I can see this being used in some games to add challenge in areas there may usually not be, but to over-do it like this so you have some sort of bragging right is silly in the PC world. Most kids playing consoles... not PCs, and for that reason they should stay on consoles. Then again, maybe it's just me. 2005 was a year after Doom 3 and the year the 360 released which more-or-less started making achievements social with Xbox Live. So maybe I am just too old now to appreciate this new phenomenon... I don't know.
I am curious to hear console users and PC users' opinions about this because I don't think it could just be me. I'm not pissed or anything, I just feel that the feeling I used to get with playing games has all but vanished because of the extreme mainstreaming of the gaming experience with this sort of crap being brought over to PC (Origin just announced it will be adding Achievements cross-platform including PC and Mac) as well which to me can taint a otherwise fun experience.
Both of us have a HUGE backlog of games we have yet to play so we try to both run through a campaign together taking turns after save points, or checkpoints, or loading ares... whatever ; so we played through FEAR 2 this time because we had both bought FEAR 3 on PC since it was like $3.06 on some deal online and we haven't yet played FEAR 2 so we thought we should probably play through 2 before 3.
So anyway, to make a long story short (or to make a short story long) after we beat FEAR 2 I thought i'd fire up FEAR 3 to just check it out quick since I haven't seen it yet. As the game was starting up, I instantly felt that this was different somehow. The very simplified layout (press enter to start), the overly simplified graphics adjustments even under advanced...
Anyway, the killer for me was when I started playing. Seemingly everything I did there was some sort of pop-up achievement or at least a countdown to one.
"22 of 33 item found,"
"Mercenary!"
"Headshot Bonus"
"Gun Found! 2 out of 10. Bonus!"
What the fuck is going on here? I haven't even played the game for 5 minutes, and I have had over half a dozen pop-ups fly on my screen for just... basically... playing the damn gamn. Achievements are nothing new to me... there have been some 360 games which were just way over the top with awarding you for everything that you did, but this just made me mad to see this. I felt like I was a "special" kid getting high-fived everytime I tied my shoe laces correctly (no offense). Like getting rewarded for shit you are doing anyway, or should be doing anyway. It's ridiculous in my opinion. To me, if developers want this stuff in their games then it should stay on consoles at the very least. Being rewarded for playing, was actually going out of your way and jumping around everywhere in a environment to find a hidden area, or "Easter Egg." Not being rewarded for just playing the damn game. I swear I have played a 360 game which rewarded me for just starting a new game.
I feel like the gaming industry is turning the current young gamers into a bunch of slack-jawed retards (no offense) who just want to get to the action with no critical thinking AT ALL or rewarding people for doing NOTHING special. I don't know if this is because of this "everybody's a winner" generation or what, but I really felt like a idiot playing the game simply because of this reason. Even playing Unit 13 on my Playstation Vita sometimes make me feel this way because you go for high points to level up your character and those points are given for more headshots, or disarming bombs, killing nobody... I feel like it is highly unnecessary. When you play games like that, it takes you out of the game and you focus more on achievements and points than actually playing the game because there is a story, or challenge.
I can see this being used in some games to add challenge in areas there may usually not be, but to over-do it like this so you have some sort of bragging right is silly in the PC world. Most kids playing consoles... not PCs, and for that reason they should stay on consoles. Then again, maybe it's just me. 2005 was a year after Doom 3 and the year the 360 released which more-or-less started making achievements social with Xbox Live. So maybe I am just too old now to appreciate this new phenomenon... I don't know.
I am curious to hear console users and PC users' opinions about this because I don't think it could just be me. I'm not pissed or anything, I just feel that the feeling I used to get with playing games has all but vanished because of the extreme mainstreaming of the gaming experience with this sort of crap being brought over to PC (Origin just announced it will be adding Achievements cross-platform including PC and Mac) as well which to me can taint a otherwise fun experience.
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