Rant of a Picky Gamer 
After a careful consideration I came to the conclusion that I am simply not able to enjoy any game genre apart from action packed 1st/3rd person titles. That just feels scary. There are exceptions from my case, but sadly enough not too many. I do not have a problem having fun with Unreal 2 or Soldier of Fortune, which have a gotten a stamp of mediocre shooters from majority of people tried those. Not that this bothers me any, it's my time and money after all, but there's something else that's important. Is having an ultra-cool, powerfull weapon and a bunch of bots to kill everything that I need to mark a game as playable(and most of the time fairly entertaining as well) in my book..?
As I mentioned above, some games of other genres slip through my built-in filter time to time. I have a high respect for Blizzard and their games are all highly playable to me, but I suspect that it's deep story and great polishness that I appreciate. I can't be waiting forever for next Blizzard's Warcraft/Starcraft game to finally enjoy RTS, can I..? And yes, from taking a glance at other RTS offerings I could see many that should most likely appeal to me. But they don't... Take C&C: Generals for example. I like action, and this game has a plenty of it to offer, does not it..? Yes, it's lacking story, but I believe it should make up for it by addicting(for many other people that is) multi-player part. Yet, it's a no-go for me. I'm not even listing Rise of Nations, Civilization or Total War games. Those are generally more complex than 'pick up'n'play' C&C series, so there's absolutely zero chance I'll ever get into these. And I tried too.
Stealth...oh stealth...Splinter Cell is a truly classic example of me wasting money on something just because being a 'cool secret agent' seemed to be so much fun. Hype did not help either. In the end we have a perfect coaster with 10 minutes of gameplay put into it. Perhaps, I should 'give the game a chance' or, as I like to say force yourself to play a game until you hate it even more. That could work, because then you'll make sure you bring it back to the store and get some money back at least. First impression makes a game. This rule has been always there for me and it works(oh, wonder..!). We also have Thief, Hitman and others. Ugh, I would even pay someone to take these away from me. And I never return my games. Foolish and dumb, I still have a plenty of unopen boxes laying in front of me. Back on topic though... Brilliance of NOLF series was watered down by stealth parts introduced. My opinion of course, most people will say: "Dude, these made the atmosphere..! Kate is gotta be sneaky sometimes..!". Oh, well...
Role-playing accociates with a snore-fest in my mind. Click, click, click. Some people also call Diablo and Dungeon Siege RPG's. Nah, these are hack&slash and these I love(another exception probably, yet action prevails in these). Diablo is still the most played game in my life. I do not see this changing any time soon. But Baldur's Gate, Fallout and others are boring and their slow pace does not help me any. And then I'm scared of open-ended Morrowind. Pirates of the Caribbean was an experiment and it almost worked. It was smaller, easier to get into and pirates are 'kewl' too. Huh, after 15 hours(woah!) I hit unistall button. I thought I made it, passed the first few hours of 'What the heck are these controls?' and 'Land combat sucks!' gameplay. But as it turned out I did not. Shortcommings(from my point of view anyways) took their own and boredom payed me a visit once again. I could always look at realistic water effects in my kitchen sink.
Adventure at 800x600 does not cut it either. Syberia and The Longest Journey are nice and all, but I do not want be looking for the only clickable object on my 21" screen for hours.
Maybe I'm not so hopeless. Racing/driving games could live a few days on my harddrive, but there aren't that many of them available for PC. I mean quantity over quality machine functions to its best here. We did get Humvee Assault after all. And a shameless port of Colin MCRae Rally 3 too. Yay! Porting deserves a separate topic, so I won't go into details. I'll keep my mouth shut and will quietly cast another vote for freaking mouse support in in-game menus.
A big thank you goes to EA for brining to us 232rd installment of popular football/baseball game. You truly rock and I love looking for F1 2003(which will never be here) between countless 'drill your bat into opponents head; that's all it is good for anyways' boxes on store shelves.
So Blizzard rocks, Riven sucks and I have Chaser, Red Faction and Max Payne amongst my all time favorites. Syndrome of a casual gamer or pathlogic narrow-mindedness is something we're dealing with here..? Or maybe both..?
Whew, feel better now. Thank you, thank you and do not forget to wear your sarcasm undies before reading this.
Posted by P1x44r on 27/07/2005 14:08 
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