The Eternal Teenager with ADHD: March 2013

The next generation is all but here, so I'm eulogising the current. The idiosyncrasies, advancements and movements that shaped and defined this seventh generation of video gaming.

WARNING: This is partisan, skewed, and factually flirting at best. Reader discretion advised.

"Kiss my noob-blaster, shitbox!"

ONLINE PLAY

Yeah yeah, the Dreamcast, or perhaps pissing about with the PS2’s network adaptor, impatiently waiting for your dial-up to fart out 56k of barely-tolerable connectivity. Pioneering it may have been, but it certainly didn’t dominate the scene like it does modern console gaming. According to Sony, over 80% of the PS3 community is online, and 70% use the PSN on a weekly basis. Improved broadband speeds and functionality have meant that any Tom, Dick or Ganja_Dude69 can be tea-bagging your digital ass and/or questioning your sexual preferences within mere minutes of easy set-up.

She just kicked your arse at FIFA. Deal with it.

In real terms, it’s extended games’ life beyond the single player campaign and lead to development teams either stretching or outsourcing their efforts just so they can boast about it on the box (er, Bioshock online multiplayer? Dead Space anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?). But why bother doing that? Well, to needlessly compete with better-known multiplayer franchises. Better-known multiplayer franchises such as…

CALL OF DUTY

Yup, COD, as it’s known colloquially, the now annual gaming juggernaught and billion dollar unit-shifter. It’s become the go-to brand for the mainstream media, vying only with GTA for cultural recognition. (Hey, Family Guy did a parody. That seals it.) COD’s winning blend of guns, violence, guns, adrenalin, guns, explosions, guns and guns is an enticing prospect for any foul-mouthed adolescent who, lest we forget, shouldn’t even be playing it anyway. But play it they do, the series’ servers still white hot with activity some five years since Modern Warfare hit like a mortar on a meringue.

Peter Griffin does COD

COD’s success has bred both a slew of play-safe idea-starved imitators (Brink, Bodycount, Homefront etc) and an ever-increasing camp of contempt from an exasperated gaming community, sick to their gamepads of its revolving door release schedule. As polished shooting galleries go, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but the feeling that its well of ingenuity is now drier than a sand sandwich persists. Which certainly, in part, has something to do with the public perception of…

ACTIVISION

The anti-Rockstar, if the gaming community’s widely-accepted opinion of the megaton publisher is anything to go by. A byword for corporate greed over artistic endeavour, ActiVision’s business model of squeezing franchises till either creatively or financially bankrupt (Call of Duty and Guitar Hero respectively), buying up developers only to mercilessly close them just months later (Bizarre, Radical, RedOctane, et al), and hiking RRP prices for popular games just because they can has earned them a reputation so poor even Josef Fritzel wouldn’t trade.

Bobby Kotick, probably having a good chuckle about AIDS or the homeless or something.

Carrot-topped CEO Bobby Kotick’s interview quotes about “taking the fun out of videogames” and remarking that he has been able to “instil the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear” haven’t helped either. Let’s just ignore the fact that they were taken out of context, and referred to the fiscal side of the business, rather than development itself.

But hey - the screaming hyperbole of the internet doesn’t jolly well do reasoned context, thanks. And never mind that in the uncertain economic climate, those studios almost certainly would have closed anyway (but we’ll get onto that). His public fallout with most of Infinity Ward further topped the shitcake with another dusting of sour bumflakes.

Even their logo is evil...no, wait. It's just a word.

Regardless, to many, ActiVision’s behaviour is responsible for (not just reflective of) where we find gaming as we enter the next generation – a broad splinter between the big money AAA titles and the smaller imaginative quirk of the indie developers. Which leads us onto…

Dead child simulator Limbo. More fun than that sounds.

BIGGER GAMES / SMALLER GAMES

So, only big games make money, and even they’re starting to sell like tickets to a Chris De Burgh stripshow. Little wonder then that these past few years have seen the indie rise to some level of prominence. Stripped-down production teams presenting kooky, crystal-focussed digitally-distributed gems, cheaper on the wallet and high on the imagination: Braid, Flower, Limbo, Journey, Stacking, and so on. All strengthened the way of a non-physical future for gaming. Speaking of which…

STEAM

The Valve-operated PC games distribution platform which, as any PC gamer will tell you, is boss. Speaking of which…

BOSS BATTLES

They’re still, like, a thing. Of which, so is…

MOTION CONTROL

In the past, Tom Cruise looked to the future, which is now the present. But we're still not "better with Kinect", are we?

This gen’, everyone from wheelchair-bound octogenarians to the morbidly obese waved plastic wands about their heads as if swatting imaginary wasps from the face. Traditionalists took umbrage, sneerily repositioning themselves as self-proclaimed “hardcore gamers”, whilst Nintendo’s diddy white box sold what’s probably known, in pure fiscal terms, as a mega fuck-tonne (try using that in your next analysis, Peston).

Mabel: a fucking demon at Manhunt 2

Sony took the “me too” route with glowing absurdo-sticks as did Microsoft with their clumsy hand-jive machine, Kinect. If you want a vision of the future, imagine an arm-waggling ninny maniacally grasping at thin air. Forever. Except don’t, ‘cos Move’s stalled, Kinect’s so shit it might as well have dropped out of Bill Gates’ backside, and Nintendo have finally moved on with the Wii U, the tablet-based console concoction. Speaking of which…

TOUCHSCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Did the DS get there first? Swipe only knows, but it took the iPhone to really popularise it, that’s for Jobs’ damn sure. Apple’s Apps opened up its pocket money platform to millions of bite-sized distractions, some of which even pass for games. Suddenly, the whole world can’t spend money fast enough to find new and exciting ways to smear their fingers all over a touchscreen.

Arse Swipe

I’m being facetious, of course: Android and iOS are serious contenders in the gaming business, if sales of Angry Birds are anything to go by (500m and counting). And whilst we shouldn’t be (mis)lead by concentrating solely on the big-hitters’ figures, it’s nevertheless clear that tablets and smartphones have swelled the game-playing populace, and even, in all likelihood, taken at least a small chunk of the market with it. And whilst we’re on popularity…

METACRITIC

Nobody’s favourite review aggregator website has had a turbulent relationship with the games industry over the past few years, becoming the medium’s untrustworthy uncle you wouldn’t leave alone with the family silver (or small boys). Largely because their context-free caramelised score system makes a nonsense of criticism itself.

"Obv not a 0", yet he gave it that anyway. Yeah, why not, eh? Fucking well done mate...

Additionally, the woefully worthless “user review” column is an ill-informed and illiterate glut of hyperbole, fanboy rage, and idiocy; the pixellated bullshit of gaming’s perspective-free underbelly. Infamously, studio Obsidian used the site not as a barometer of success, but a barrier to awarding pay bonuses, falling just one percent short of its 85% average target for Fallout New Vegas. What cunts.

As it that wasn’t enough, the site briefly thought that ranking entire developer teams (by averaging out game scores) was a good idea, irrespective of individual efforts therein. Which just goes to show that Metacritic knows dick-all about the creative process. Speaking of the internet having an adverse effect on creativity…

Fans - what wags!

FANS WENT MENTAL

Fans, eh? What the shit is wrong with them? Thanks to the reactionary self-importance of fandom, developers often found themselves jettisoning autonomy in favour of the internet’s hysterical hive mind.

SSX too “dark” now? Bellow at the internet.

The Prince of Persia’s got different hair? Bellow at the internet.

Max Payne’s got different hair? Bellow at the internet.

InFamous’ Cole McGrath has different hair? Bellow…you get the idea.

Actually, what is everyone’s deal with hair? These follicle-focussed fucknuts need some fucking perspective. Or maybe a shag, who knows? Anyway, the ultimate example of fandom twattery is in the next bit, so let’s move on.

NARRATIVE

Be a dude or a douche - your call.

Narrative’s been there from the start, admittedly. At video gaming’s infancy all we required was a simple text-based title card letting you know who the baddies are and why you’re going to stop them being alive. Gradually, yet clumsily however, we’ve grown up. Sort of.

Contrasting moral decisions, alternative plot strands, and deeper levels of RPG-style immersion have enveloped modern game development. This is a generation that saw a release based around the “choose your own adventure” mould: hokey b-movie murder mystery Heavy Rain. Highly polarising, but audacious enough to make the story the thing, arguably at the expense of the interactivity. Games are often now as interested in how you beat them, not just the challenge itself. GTA, Bioshock, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, InFamous, LA Noire, Assassin’s Creed, Hitman, Dishonoured (can I stop now?) – all have encompassed narrative autonomy over the plot’s journey, or alternative pathways that puts the player’s choices firmly in control.

Bioshock's Little Sister. How could you harvest her, you heartless fucker?

Alright, high scores and headshots haven’t been replaced exactly, but story and character development have taken equal precedence. Why else would Ninja Theory enlist the services of novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland to scribe the Andy Serkis-starring action-adventure Enslaved: Odyssey to the West?

For the ultimate example of both the importance of plot and the self-importance of the community, see the embarrassing fallout and furore over Mass Effect 3’s ending. Harangued by a gaggle of crybaby gobshites with a misplaced sense of entitlement, Bioware were strong-armed into coming up with a less ambiguous finale to their frankly stunning triology. (God knows what these fans would have made of The Italian Job back in the day. Pricks.) Available as DLC, the more conclusive appendix was eventually received with all the warmth and gratitude one might use to greet an uninvited erection-sporting Nazi into their living room. Anyway, speaking of DLC…

YouTube vid' of a fan binning a copy of ME3, a game he claims "dickslaps" the fans.

DLC

Let’s not underestimate this - it’s a (literal) game changer, and not just restricted to cosmetic digital tat. You know, superfluous, downloadable guff like alt. Street Fighter costumes or a sponsored hat for your pretend golfer and that. We're talking proper bonus content such as staggered releases of FPS map packs, which kept players’ itchy triggers busy just as they were starting to wane on multiplayer.

Quick! Buy stuff!

Crucially, these methods of “topping up” a title carved out new revenue streams for publishers looking to stretch that investment beyond its original point of sale. Almost any AAA title worth its pre-release hype now offers additional levels and missions further to the original game (which may or may not have been cynically removed prior to release to yield those Benjamins at a later date. Then – guess what - a year later, they can release a “Special Edition” featuring all that extra splaff, catching the casual market, and reigniting interest in the title.

Now with DLC patches, Skyrim is actually playable. Imagine that!

DLC has also meant the piping of patches to consoles everywhere to fix that buggy load of old tat you’d just bought. "Release dates? Yeah, we'll hit 'em, no worries. Just patch that shit later, right?"

And, of course – duh – games themselves. As mentioned some years ago above, the indie scene thrived by offering thriftier thrill packages. Steam dominated the PC market with aplomb by regularly hawking unit-shifting crazy-ass priced bargains too tempting to miss. And the big three have slowly lumbered towards this model with good intentions, if preposterously unrealistic pricing structures (pay MORE for a product with no physical presence, no manufacturing or shipping costs, and no re-sell value? Yeah, ok!). And whilst we’re on retail…

THE SLOW DEATH OF RETAIL

The second hand games market was finally took to task by introducing exclusivity into retail purchase (such as EA’s VIP codes, which effectively lock the player of online elements without further wallet-dipping). Hardly an earth-shattering knock to the cash registers, but an indication that publishers were no longer willing to risk production costs on titles that most gamers would wait to buy second hand.

RIP Gamestation. And Michael Winner for that matter. Not that he has much to do with video games, if anything.

With a dearth of original IPs, smartphones, tablets, Facebook and all manner of ephemeral bullshit encroaching on our gaming time, sales fell like coconut tits from a sumo wrestler. Plus, don’t know if you've noticed but there’s this, like, global economic meltdown which has had an almost irrevocable adverse effect on the high street.

Gamestation threw in the towel, HMV blamed games squarely for its financial misfortunes (the fuck?), and Blockbusters are one audit away from buggering off into the ether forever. Games have moved into supermarkets, each top ten jostling for competition amongst, well, absolutely everything else you can buy at Tesco’s. Like 3D tellies. Ooh, and of 3D…

The Nintendo 3DS, probably.

3D GAMING

It’s here! Rejoice! Oh, fuck it, no one cares.

THE SHRINKING OF THE MAG MARKET

I do care about this. I love mags. ADORE them. If done right, they’re beautifully designed formats with contextual, thoughtful features, humour, brilliant writing, and an inclusive sense of community.

Console mags relegated to top shelf, tablet-specific titles promoted to eye level.

However, with the focus on digital and reluctance to pay for anything has seen periodicals plummet from buoyancy to bankruptcy (well, almost). Suffice to say, my favourite gaming mag’, PSM3, disappeared from the shelves in a final hurrah stoically befitting its admirable legacy.

Not before they were good/desperate/insane enough to run one of my frankly odd opinion pieces, the publication of which remains an immense source of pride to me. In fact, so much that I completely forgot to invoice for it, so don’t go blaming me for bringing them down. And whilst we’re on achievements…

ACHIEVEMENTS / TROPHIES

Yes, that is me.

Incentivising gamers’ innate OCD to max out purchases to 100% completion has been one of the industry’s smartest moves this generation. Speaking of smart…

USER CREATED CONTENT

Choose life. Choose a Sackboy. Choose posting a shitty level onto the internet to get judged by your equally witless peers.

All this is yours to create. Assuming
a) you can be arsed and
b) aren't shit at game design.

Crap, no wonder we felt like super-feted gods amongst gamers – developers threw us the creation tools to show them how it was done, and by Christ, did we ever? Erm, no. Ultra rare cases of astonishing ingenuity aside, user-created content is a sub-standard sack(boy) of shite. But, you know, thanks anyway! And as we've mentioned an iconic platformer…

MARIO

Still huge. Especially when he necks a mushroom (boom boom). To detractors, Ninty have consistently re-released the same piece of software for years, but with better graphics and tweaked menus. Jump a platform, scoff fungi, and save a dot-eyed damsel. Like, whatever man.

Mario: still da bomb. No, hang on, da plumber.

To everyone with eyes though, it’s a series that constantly evolves beyond its immediately recognised tropes; comfortably familiar yet consistently new. Basically, the inverse Sonic the Hedgehog, whose fanbase decries any attempt to update the poor, beleaguered spiky sod. Speaking of popularity contests…

FIFA OVERTOOK PES (CRITICALLY)

FIFA’s always put one or two past Pro Evo’s sales record, but PES has really struggled this generation. It’s been an often muddled and patchy affair, with early online impotence, and a steadfast refusal to welcome newcomers.

No comment.

Conversely, FIFA has finally matched its impressive licensing by producing a game that’s as deep or as daft as the player themselves. Somewhat ironically, FIFA’s the one that’s evolved, rather than its moniker-promising nemesis. It's now a seemingly annual custom for the PES fanboys to insist that “this is PES’ year!” to an increasingly disinterested audience.

And as we're on soccer, let's blow the full time whistle on this, yeah?

So, what have we learned? That publishers like being paid for putting out content, but that the production-to-profit ratios are worryingly unbalanced? Gamers can be self-defeating dickbags? We want fresh and exciting titles, but actually, we’ll just keep buying sequels? Motion control sucks? Only Nintendo should attempt handhelds? Apple and Valve will conquer all?

Yeah, all that, but with slightly better-rendered tits.