![]() Or maybe The Walking Dead and Catherine have ruined me. Maybe I am just getting a little tired of recharging shields and chest-high walls. I doubt I will personally ever attempt to play them again, even with the great stories they have in them. This in no way means that either of them lack in quality- in fact I feel they deserve each and every accolade attributed to them. In the end I respect the hell out of both Bioshock and Spec Ops but neither of them were the games I was looking for. (S ushi references… I thought this was a beer blog.) I guess that sometimes in order to sell fish eggs you have to put them on a California roll. I doubt that Spec Ops would have sold as many copies without including multiplayer and the occasional “Free XP weekend”. I doubt Infinite would have been as popular if there was a lack of Call of Duty-style shooting segments. Got your nose!Īgain, I understand that this industry requires sacrifice to be successful in the mainstream. These games are elevated by presenting these themes but sadly the reliance on modern gaming conventions deflates the overall impact. Themes of death, the sanctity of life, honor and the desire to make up for past mistakes are all very adult ideas present in both Infinite and Spec Ops. A game made for adults does not have to focus on nudity, graphic killings or adult language just to be adult-themed. Games like Spec Ops The Line and Bioshock Infinite are wonderful examples of mainstream games doing something a little more mature. Killing someone would hold more weight if I wasn’t constantly racking up a body count. I really appreciate what they were trying to do and for the most part the game is great, but I would have preferred less of a focus on the shooting and more of a stealth aspect to the levels. ![]() It does not matter how expensive the suit is- if you haven’t showered in a week people will know. Still even as an attempt to criticize gaming Spec Ops leans too hard on the melodrama, plot twists and surprises to be taken seriously. We get it- killing people in video games has made us desensitized to violence, but honestly if I have to listen to another bad guy talk about his kids I swear I am going to kill some… The mindless shooting and endless waves of fodder all point out exactly what is wrong with mainstream action games and in a way it works… but by the end of the game it simply starts to wear thin. Spec Ops attempts to address this issue by presenting the combat as intentionally difficult and sometimes not very fun. While I enjoy some FPS titles simply to kill things and blow off steam, I never really find myself invested in the story because it is so removed from the action. For every great moment of true character development there needs to be a few dozen murders by the hand of the protagonist. I feel that there is a trend in gaming now where mainstream games are getting really good at telling stories but they are stuck in an action limbo. Infinite did the same thing by mixing masterful storytelling and repetitive, boring shooting. Every shootout was too long, too loud and took me too far away from the story I was dying to love. The emotional, mature and well-crafted story was systematically stunted and eventually broken by the combat and non-stop NPC slaughter. I bring this up because I just finished playing Spec Ops: The Line and I felt a very familiar feeling the entire experience. I know that the art style is beautiful, the production levels are top-notch and the music is amazing (I listen to the soundtrack all the time) but there is something that ruins the experience completely for me. I get that it is nice to have a smart, funny and strong female protagonist that is not sexualized. Look I fully respect Infinite and I understand it is a well-produced game. In fact- I honestly do not like Bioshock Infinite. After playing it myself I do not share her sentiment. She loved the game and found it to be a top-notch experience. Sixty dollars and about 15 hours later my wife’s experience was complete. The coin-flipping simulator was a nice distraction. She had recently played through the original Bioshock and had fallen in love with the combination of gameplay and storytelling and desired to continue that experience. This was not so for Bioshock Infinite though as my wife absolutely needed to play it as soon as she could. We simply have too many games to play as it is and we cannot justify the need to buy a game as soon as it releases. My wife and I rarely buy games new these days.
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