Monday, January 25, 2010

"Critic-Proof" This - Your "Game" Sucks

Amusing article at Gamasutra on Mass Effect 2.  The developers are boasting that their project is now "critic proof."  Hmm...how about this critique?  It's not a video game at all, but a low-budget CGI movie that costs $50.

There was a long commercial for Mass Effect 2 during the second half of the NFC Championship Game.  I just hated, hated, hated it.  Wanted no part of it.  It was a movie trailer, loaded with all the usual Michael Bay cliches that you've seen in a thousand summer movies.  But at least you could see those films for $8 or less.

I honestly have no idea what sort of "game" this is supposed to be.  Is it a space shooter?  Is it a first person shooter?  Is it a third person adventure?  Is it a role-playing game?  Is there really a point?  Of course not.  This is a videogame that wants to be a movie, parroting movies that want to be videogames.  It's an expensive albatross and an embarrassment.  $20 or $30 million was spent on this vanity project; meanwhile, in the real world, Tetris sells 100 million mobile downloads in five years.

Somewhere around the time the Dreamcast died, the game industry collectively decided that they didn't want to make videogames anymore.  They wanted to make movies.  And that's where I, and many others, lost interest and tuned out.  I don't want Playstation Movies.  These look like plastic dolls, and all I can imagine is a group of overweight Peter Pans playing with their Star Wars action figures in Daddy's basement.  Meanwhile, life goes on outside all around you.

Besides, the Vikings-Saints game had more drama and excitement than a dozen Playstation Movies.  And I got to watch it for free.  Value, kids, value.

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