I hope that the FF VII remake is actually a case of listening to what gamers want. I have a very sinking feeling that this will be a case of "be careful what you wish for".
I think getting a grip for my Vita will solve all my problems. I put a lot of time into it on my vacation, but never for more than 2 hours at a time.
I am excited for Deus Ex becase the last game was one of my favorite RPG experiences of the past few years. I guess I'm just a little concerned because of the way Square Enix is leveraging their Western properties. The way that Hitman is being handled doesn't thrill me, and I worry that the new Deus Ex will feel like part of a game.
I would argue that games are if anything more creative these days, simply because there are so many ways to design them now. In the past couple months I've played the 2013 Tomb Raider, which is as big budget and triple A as you can get. But I've also played Undertale on my PC, which is a breath of fresh air, doing new and interesting things in the guise of a tried and true RPG. As much as we (myself included) like to romanticize the 8 and 16 bit eras, there was a lot of derivative crap on those consoles, just like today. It's just that we've traded licensed platformers for military first person shooters. And those are falling by the wayside. The gaming industry is cyclical, and there will always be something that defines things for 3-5 years at a time.
To be fair, the last gen versions of Shadow of Mordor are missing the thing that made that game incredible: the Nemesis System. If that hadn't been in the game it wouldn't have held on to me and not let me go until I got the platinum trophy (my only one).
Of course, I can appreciate your comments. I am now 22 hours into Final Fantasy IX on my Vita, even as I have Fallout 4 and Xenoblade Chronicles X sitting on my shelf.
I only finished six games in 2015. That is an all-time low, and I typically finish anywhere from ten to twenty games a year. Granted, 2015 was an emotional wringer for me, but I found it very hard to find games that could hold my attention. I just finished all 15 hours of the Giant Bombcast's game of the year deliberations, and I just couldn't agree with so many of the games they were talking about, and even more of them were games I had never played (and in some cases, heard of).
Sometimes, I feel like I'm slowly drifting away from the gaming zeitgeist, and I've kept on top of this industry since I was 7.
I've talked before about this, but I've been gaming nonstop since as long as I can remember. I never had that time after college where I fell out of gaming for a few years like most people did, and I think it's finally starting to wear on me. Honestly, I can still see more positive than negative in video games today. Even the big yearly releases do things that impress me and move the industry forward.
I think the thing that has really begun to wear on my love of video games has been this GamerGate crap, which has now been going on for well over a year. It makes me feel disconnected from the gaming enthusiasts and gaming writers equally, and I find myself ashamed of this hobby that has been my number one passion since I was a little kid.
I am now 8 hours into FF IX and loving it. It's tougher than I remember, mainly because enemies have been ganging up on poor, squishy Vivi and killing him over and over again.
There's probably no way that FF VI can live up to the hype of people like me, but I really do believe it is the pinnacle of the franchise. It's not my favorite game in the series, but I can acknowledge that it is the best one. Kind of like how I can say that Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie, but my favorite one is Return of the Jedi.
Yeah, my thing is that nothing happened in the 8 hours I played, and I don't think anything interesting will happen 20 hours later. I didn't mention this in the show, but I found the areas ponderously boring to travel through, which is a surefire way to get me to lose interest in an open world game.
Thank you for all of your kind words! To think that someone could be encouraged to podcast because of us is a humbling idea. I'm honored, and I'll have to check out the show soon.
I've been coming to some very deep grips with family and religion since this happened, so I can understand some of your situation. As someone who always did what his parents said, it is an odd feeling to not only start to come into my own, but deal with the idea that I have different beliefs and values than I was raised with.
