On Progression in Games

So how big is your backlog?

I’d like to think that the answer to that varies from one gamer to another, but there are some constants.  Not to open myself up for a heaping helping of Foot in Mouth Stew, but I’d imagine that there’s at least one game that everybody has on the backburner.  Then again, that might be a conservative estimate; with Steam long since established -- along with some pretty generous sales -- maybe plenty of folks are drowning in games.

I’m not in so dire a situation, but there’s a healthy list of games from the past year that I seriously need to get to.  Honestly (and distressingly), there are games from years long since passed that I need to get to -- which by extension means that I need to start over on several games, because they’ve got more dust on them than intact memories.  That makes me wonder if I can be relevant if I talk about games between “recent” and “classic” -- inasmuch as I can be relevant -- but based on my gaming recently, I think I might have figured something out about myself.

PS4nukkah: Metal Gear Solid V

You know, there’s something that’s been on my mind recently.

If you’re reading this post, then you’re probably aware of the current trends in the game industry.  One of the biggies right now: open-world games, for better or worse.  It makes sense for the subgenre to gain some traction, though; setting aside graphical power, the best way to prove the evolution of the medium (technologically or otherwise) is to increase the scale.  We’re thirty years out from the left-to-right stages of Super Mario Bros., so the assumption is that a bigger world = a better game.  And I mean assumption.

By now, gamers have caught on to the issues.  Sure, worlds are getting bigger and players can explore more of them -- but so what?  On one hand, you’ve got the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which puts out these massive, lavishly-rendered, intensively-researched historical cities one year after another -- and instead of being playgrounds that sate the mind and soul, they’ve long since devolved into repetitive chore simulators and window dressing.  Meanwhile, the recent Batman games went from the tightly-knit and small-scale Arkham Asylum to the bank-busting and bloated Arkham Knight; it had a big world and sheer graphical horsepower, but at the cost of a good story, good gameplay, and a game that didn’t have to shoehorn the Batmobile into every situation.  (Again, WHY do you have to drag the Batmobile up a building when you have the Batplane?)

I guess what I’m getting at here is this: are video games getting too big?  And of course, MGSV is here to provide one possible answer.