Gaming as a Fad

I remember a time when people used to play video games as a hobby. Now, I get a strong sense that people play Playstation and Xbox because it's "cool". Like, they don't buy the games because they like them anymore, they buy them "because the cool kids are doing it. ". It's becoming more and more of a fad than a pastime. I think the most prime example of this is Halo. Halo, Halo, Halo, that's all I ever ****ing hear about around these teenage [Insert Your term for Posers here] just not shutting up about how friggin awesome Halo is, and how it's the center of the universe, and that Xbox are for big kids.

I hate it.

I hear you. My little 14 year old brother thinks the M-rated games are the only good games one should play and that he is man enough to reject E-rated/E10 rated titles because those are "for little kids". I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of Halo/Assassin Creed/Metal Gear Solid fans were like this. They don't care about the poor quality of or the lack of gameplay; just the 'it makes me the big cool kid in school' factor for the COOL protagonists and violence hyperbole. Peer pressure, I should say. This 'big fan' only started playing the MGS series in 2008. Abuses the trial version of Halo. Bugs for hand-me-down Xbox360s just to play Assassin's Creed because he wishes he was cool like Altair.

he also thinks naruto and chuck norris are the coolest and shadow the hedgehog is his favorite sonic game

whats wrong with shadow the hedgehog? It's a fun game if you look at it from a different perspective

Yes, but... it's the ONLY one he likes. That's the problem.

Ony true gamers play hardcore games for the Xbox 360 like Halo,Cod4, Counter Strike and other FPS games

TalkingObject wrote:Ony true gamers play hardcore games for the Xbox 360 like Halo,Cod4, Counter Strike and other FPS games

it's counter strike:source if your talking Xbox 360

I guess it's not just possible they only like those games?

TalkingObject wrote:Ony true gamers play hardcore games for the Xbox 360 like Halo,Cod4, Counter Strike and other FPS games

If you want the obsessed gamers that think gaming is more important than life, you'll find them on the scrim channels in IRC. Cod4, Counter-Strike, Starcraft, Warcraft III, Quake3 (retail + CPMA + punkbuster, no free alternatives)...etc, anything purely 'professional' competitive, but the PC platform is the most dominant of this.

Lets see... I have Halo 3(beat legendary, got all original achievements), and I don't ever play it anymore unless I want to play online with friends(Who don't have XBL), due to the annoying as hell lagg matches always seem to succumb to. Plus I don't think it's as fun as Halo 2, and the career puts me to sleep if I try to replay it... although I might get ODST and/or Reach when they come out.

Ultimate Alliance(beaten) and Forza Motorsport 2(In a 2 disc holding 2 side-titled box that came with the Xbox)... UA I don't play because I beat it on the original Xbox, but I play Forza Motorsport 2 all the time and Will be buying Forza Motorsport 3.

Sonic Unleashed(beaten)... awesome game(Although I don't ever replay the Werehog stages), but tbh I haven't played it in a while because I beat it and don't have MS points to buy dlc.

Grid... doesn't get played unless I'm in the mood for crashes, because Forza has much better physics.

PGR3... again, FM2 takes it's fun value down.

Ace Combat 6(beaten)... Not as good as 4, 5, or zero, but a good game.

Midnight Club LA... hmm... I like it, but don't seem to play it very much for some reason.

Nascar 08... sucks very badly.

Sonic 06(beaten)... sucks very very badly...

Rainbow Six Vegas(beaten)... Awesome. Great game if you have XBL. Although it isn't as good as...

Rainbow Six Vegas 2(beaten). Great game, awesome system for unlocking things, more fun online(although I miss a couple maps), just an overall fun game. Too bad there's no split screen online like Halo 3...

Pure... haven't played enough to know yet.

Fable II(beaten, including all non-renewing and non-gargoyle side quests)... not as good as Fable 1, and seemed a bit short, even after doing the side quests. good game though.

Stuntman Ignition(beaten). Better than the first in some ways, worse in others, but a good game overall.

DDR Universe 3... It has nothing at all on some of the PS2 versions. it just doesn't feel as fun. still decent though.

Armored Core 4... I got it because I rented it and liked it, but I haven't played it since I got it... good game though.

Transformers... decent, and fun, but has a few problems.

Guitar Hero 3(Beaten, only raining blood on expert stands in my way...). Fun game, and imo the best guitar hero the isn't made by the creators of Guitar Hero and now the developers for Rockband. Although Rockband 1 and 2 are better though(we got them cheep on PS2 without instruments and got 2 guitars seperately, so it won't be on this list, although I plan to get it on 360 in the guitar drum and mic bundle so I have all instruments for 360, can actually make my own rockers, and online for the win).

Project Sylpheed... good game, although I haven't played it in a while. Pretty underrated imo.

Ikaruga(XBLA). Very fun Space shooter with the awesome polarity system. very fun game. Although I want Silpheed for Sega CD to be ported to XBLA...

Geometry wars evolved(XBLA). Very fun game. I just wish I got the 2nd one, as the demo is more fun than the full original evolved game...

Viva Pinata. It's a good game, but gets boring pretty quickly. Plus there are a few things that aren't that good.

That's all of the Xbox 360 games I own that I can think of, excluding demos.

I'd say my PC games and more, but I'm already getting tired of typing, and just 360 games almost makes a wall of text, so...

Super Racer Z wrote:Ace Combat 6(beaten)... Not as good as 4, 5, or zero, but a good game.

Go dance with the angels mister!

but your right the ps2 ace combats pwn

Gaming isn't a fad. Shooters are a fad. A really lame one.

Erazor wrote:Gaming isn't a fad. Shooters are a fad. A really lame one.

Gaming overall is a fad now. It's just the shooters have the highest propensity to attract the most and the worst.

Zezima wrote:

Erazor wrote:Gaming isn't a fad. Shooters are a fad. A really lame one.

Gaming overall is a fad now. It's just the shooters have the highest propensity to attract the most and the worst.

I doubt it. It's not dead yet, and it's been popular for, what, a jillion years?

I don't think "fad" is the word you're looking for, they're just mainstream; popular, simplistic, and easy to understand for people outside of the core demographic and/or the intoxicated, which makes them extremely marketable to casual gamers.

I don't buy games because everyone else does. I hate Halo, but I love Call of Duty 2 and 4. Mirror's Edge is probably my favorite game, but people kept complaining of how it was too short. Indeed, it was pretty short, but there's 2 more sequels announced. I personally love shooters, but all the ones with all the overrated hype I avoid.

I don't have my opinion of Sonic games by following the crowd of hardcore gamers. My experience with them when I was a kid got progressively worse by every new game to the point where I began to hate the new games and only have real fun with the very first 3 games for the early 90's. I now agree with the hardcore gaming community on Sonic, that he is outdated and a current failure.

Independence76 wrote:I don't buy games because everyone else does. I hate Halo, but I love Call of Duty 2 and 4. Mirror's Edge is probably my favorite game, but people kept complaining of how it was too short. Indeed, it was pretty short, but there's 2 more sequels announced. I personally love shooters, but all the ones with all the overrated hype I avoid.

I don't have my opinion of Sonic games by following the crowd of hardcore gamers. My experience with them when I was a kid got progressively worse by every new game to the point where I began to hate the new games and only have real fun with the very first 3 games for the early 90's. I now agree with the hardcore gaming community on Sonic, that he is outdated and a current failure.

Cripes, can't this guy ever cut a break for Sonic? What a pessimist.

Anyway, the gaming community is packed with trends--blood-soaked "mature" games are all the rage and you need a grimacing, muscle-bound and gun-toting (or any two out of three) main character to be taken seriously by anyone...and I reject that notion. Games are all about entertainment, and entertainment comes in many forms. You want immature talking animals, you got them. You want not-immature talking animals, you can have those too. You want superheroes, you got all kinds of them ranging from the caricatures to the overly-complex. To say that one style or genre or whatever is "the best" is to compare it to everything else out there, and it's highly pretentious.
I remember in middle school when everyone was raving about Resident Evil and Tomb Raider because they were all "hardcore" and "realistic" with all the blood-spattering violence and Lara Croft, and everything else sucked. They wanted games to be adult, and that's it. Those were also the same fanboys who touted the PlayStation as the greatest console in the world and everyone else deserved to get lynched for playing anything else (and I was...it's amazing how I'm still playing games at all anymore, let alone set on the path to making my own games, God willing). I learned that trends have a nasty tendency to divide gamers until the entire community is full of groups that hate each others' guts. Excuse me? I thought games were about having fun, not declaring affiliations while at war. I just want to kill a few hours by blasting aliens, solving puzzles, becoming a smirking hero and saving the world--what's so wrong with how I go about it? Is it because I'm playing on the wrong console, or the wrong kind of game with the wrong kind of characters or action? And here's the big question: just who is it out there who thinks it has the authority to tell me what to play?

It's my right to feed my game console (whatever that may be) with whatever games I want.
It's my right to enjoy one game and not enjoy another game, regardless of reviews or reception from the community.
It's my right to pick up games regardless of hype.
It's my right to play games for fun and enjoyment.

Phantom wrote:
Cripes, can't this guy ever cut a break for Sonic? What a pessimist.

I'm right here....and no, not really, unless Sega actually puts something together that is actually good, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Anyway, the gaming community is packed with trends--blood-soaked "mature" games are all the rage and you need a grimacing, muscle-bound and gun-toting (or any two out of three) main character to be taken seriously by anyone...and I reject that notion. Games are all about entertainment, and entertainment comes in many forms. You want immature talking animals, you got them. You want not-immature talking animals, you can have those too. You want superheroes, you got all kinds of them ranging from the caricatures to the overly-complex. To say that one style or genre or whatever is "the best" is to compare it to everything else out there, and it's highly pretentious.

No, I am not entertained by the current games. I lost my faith in them 4 years ago after I played two very horrible games. But Sonic is not original or entertaining, but rather an outdated character that needs some major changes. I'm not saying we should put a gun in both of his hands, but rather something more intelligent than simply guns alone. Sega has not done that.

I remember in middle school when everyone was raving about Resident Evil and Tomb Raider because they were all "hardcore" and "realistic" with all the blood-spattering violence and Lara Croft, and everything else sucked. They wanted games to be adult, and that's it. Those were also the same fanboys who touted the PlayStation as the greatest console in the world and everyone else deserved to get lynched for playing anything else (and I was...it's amazing how I'm still playing games at all anymore, let alone set on the path to making my own games, God willing). I learned that trends have a nasty tendency to divide gamers until the entire community is full of groups that hate each others' guts. Excuse me? I thought games were about having fun, not declaring affiliations while at war. I just want to kill a few hours by blasting aliens, solving puzzles, becoming a smirking hero and saving the world--what's so wrong with how I go about it? Is it because I'm playing on the wrong console, or the wrong kind of game with the wrong kind of characters or action? And here's the big question: just who is it out there who thinks it has the authority to tell me what to play?

Look, I don't follow the crowd, but I have a very strict eye for quality gameplay and overall games. This is why if I see something horribly wrong with a part of the game but then I see something very good, I'm tempted to say it wasn't good game, merely because it would fall short in some major way.

It's my right to feed my game console (whatever that may be) with whatever games I want.
It's my right to enjoy one game and not enjoy another game, regardless of reviews or reception from the community.
It's my right to pick up games regardless of hype.
It's my right to play games for fun and enjoyment.

I'm not defying your gaming rights, I'm only saying my opinion and why I think it.

you are exactly like Ben "yahtzee" croshaw

Kriegsmarine wrote:you are exactly like Ben "yahtzee" croshaw

Well, he is my favorite game reviewer...