Sometimes, I Surprise Myself
Anyone who is a close friend of mine is already aware that I have taken a challenge upon myself to save as much money as possible on my gaming habit in 2012. There are lots of obvious tactics involved to the overall strategy, many of them like never purchasing anything at full price, looking for sales, taking advantage of sites like Half.com for pre-owned purchases, making liberal use of Steams ample sales, avoiding Gamestop at all costs, are all pretty much common knowledge to most gamers who give a damn about how much of their hard earned money they expend on gaming. However, some less commonly known tactics towards this goal involve a bit more imagination, a little extra leg work, and sometimes a little help from your friends. This particular tale, is one in which I purchased/pre-ordered over $130 worth of brand new games, for less than $16 out of pocket. I have finagled some really good deals over the past six months, but I have to admit that this one, this one took the cake.
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Ask, and Ye Shall Receive.
It’s hard to believe, that just a mere 24 hours ago, I was whining like a little bitch waxing nostalgic about the about the good ole days, and how modern game industry has an apparent lack of respect for source material for classic PC franchises. This generation has seen many more than a few high profile reboots of classic gaming IPs, Culled from the back libraries of PC gaming, these (in most cases) venerated game franchises, have burst their way unto modern day game consoles, with a fresh coat of paint, for an entirely new audience to enjoy. Sadly in almost every case, gone is the charm that made the originals classics, gone is any sense of the cerebral depth which gave these classics their uniqueness, and endowed the players back in the day with a real sense of accomplishment upon completing those masterpieces. Gone is mostly any semblance of what made these classics, classic in the first place. Replaced by mindless running and gunning, as one by one, classic game play and world building were replaced shallow first-person shooter game play mechanics, which has become the de facto, go to game style of the Call of Duty generation. It seemed that the only games publishers gave a damn about producing any longer, involved guns, and shooting, no strategy, very little depth, and little to no visual representation of even the players onscreen avatar.
Well, that was literally, yesterday . . . (more…)
Rebooted?
The subject of recent classic PC franchise reboots, has been something I have been avoiding for some time now. When I discovered these cherished moments are being dumbed downed into shooters, to appeal to a larger, less cerebral audience, than the audience who initially made these classics, there are mixed feelings that come with that. On the one hand, a popular IP from the days of my youth, will now be appreciated (to some degree), by an entirely new audience. On the other hand . . . well, the games have been dumbed downed, and very likely devoid of most of what made them special in the first place, just to reach this new audience. In my mind, it’s like having sex while wearing a concrete condom – the upside is that you are having sex . . . if you can call taking almost everything that makes sex pleasurable in the first place, having it stripped away, and replaced with a blunt-force object, “having sex.” (more…)
What the Hell am I Doing? 