Previously I’ve always tried to keep my posts nice and positive – after all, the Internet is more than full enough of idiots griping about all manner of things as it is.
What I want to talk about is gamings very own sacred cows; those games that no-one seems to be able to say a word against.
Two that spring immediately to mind are Halo 3 and Bioshock. I just don’t get all the fuss about both of these. Now, before you go accusing me of spouting off about games I haven’t played, I should point out that I do own and have completed both of these titles, but they both left me a bit “Meh” in slightly different ways.
Although I started out enjoying Bioshock, as it had extremely nice graphics and interesting levels; I quickly found the gameplay got quite boring, and the only thing that kept me playing on was to see where the storyline would lead. Oh, look, another Big Daddy. Yawn. The complete lack of having to worry about dying definitely didn’t help, as at a couple of points I was just respawning, running up to a big daddy, hitting him a couple of times with my melee weapon, and then dying and doing it again and again until he died.
Halo 3, on the other hand, had more variety of enemies and some big bosses, but the storyline was weak and insipid; the cutscene where someone jumps a jeep (Warthog? Whatever they call them) through a window had me open mouthed. Not in awe, but in shock that anyone would actually think that that was cool. I’m the sort of person who religiously watches cutscenes, and even I was tempted to skip most of them. Not to mention that the graphics are terrible compared to games like Call of Duty 4 or even the much earlier Gears of War.
I once told someone over Xbox Live whilst playing Burnout Revenge that I thought Halo was overrated and the reaction I got was similar to what you’d get if you touched up the body at an open casket funeral.
What I don’t understand is how we ended up in this situation. How did these games achieve Untouchable status?
I will admit that while we are talking about sacred cows, I have no doubt that someone will accuse me of being a hypocrite as I do, in fact, firmly believe that the sun shines out of the Grand Theft Auto series’ arse. But, even I could see that there was annoying pop-up in San Andreas, the aiming system was extremely frustrating and the characters had hands the size and shape of squared off hams. I still loved it, but I could admit to the fact it had flaws.
So, over to the comments; which games are your “sacred cows” that you’d like to see sent to the slaughterhouse? Which games can you just not believe are so popular? Or, the flip side, which games can you not hear a bad word about?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.