Video Game Deja Vu: Reusing The Basest Mechanics

Deja vu isn't just a ridiculous movie starring time travel cameras and Denzel Washington's terrible driving, it's part of the standard operating procedure of the video game industry. Once a mechanic, no matter how good or bad, is introduced into a game, you can guarantee some new developer will twist it into their new property. Even if you are unaware of Diablo II, one of the grandfathers of the modern action RPG, it is extremely likely you have played a game with randomized loot, increasing numbers, and increasingly obnoxious mobs of monsters to kill with your increasing numbers and randomized loot. Dead Island is such a game. Worse, it is such a game that did not require such an overused system for marking progression.

Gaming Rant: I'm Not In This For Your Revolution

As stated in my Mass Effect 2 rant (and sparked by a conversation with my good friend David), there are many things about role-playing games that annoy me. I’m sick of the petty victories of “dinging” a level, of gaining a skill point, of getting a weapon with a purple name. I’m sick of statistical optimization. I’m sick of saving the world. And most of all, I’m sick of not caring about the characters, especially the non-character they give you as your central protagonist. Normally I would attribute this last part to never-ending disappointment with humanity, but when all I have to work with are the same archetypes over and over again, I’m inclined to think I’m not the only part of the problem.

Gaming Rant: Five Hundred Hours Are Not Enough

As my Steam page informs me, I have officially played five hundred and one hours of Left 4 Dead 2 as of last night (Update: As of 8/7/12, that amount is up to almost 740 hours). Considering I bought the game when it was new (a year and a half ago), I can safely say this is ridiculous, and that I am ridiculous by extension. It’s not as if I play the game competitively. I’m not part of a league, nor am I in the business of making new maps for the game. There’s challenging aspects on the higher difficulties, but it’s rare that I play on anything above Normal. So, clearly I don’t play it for the challenge, and I’m not insane enough to think game development is good for anything other than melting my brain into slag.