2008 Kind of Sucked for Gamers

2008 Kinda Sucked for Gamers

Neko qui­etly reflects.

So it’s New Year’s Eve, and right on cue my annual bout of gamer’s ret­ro­spec­tion is kick­ing in.  This is nor­mally the part where I look back on all the games that came out dur­ing the year and reflect on how awe­some the year in gam­ing has been.  But as 2008 comes to a close, I’m left feel­ing more dis­ap­pointed than affec­tion­ate over this past year’s offer­ings.  And I’ve come to a some­what alarm­ing real­iza­tion: 2008 kind of sucked for gamers.

2008 was sup­posed to be “the year for gamers” right?  But what did that really mean?  For the video game indus­try (well, except per­haps Sony) it meant huge sales fig­ures and over­hyped sold-out game launches, despite the fail­ing econ­omy.  (What recession?)

But for us gamers, 2008 was mostly a year of sequels and rehashes that we gladly lined up and shelled out big bucks for–again.  Block­buster titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Fall­out 3, Fable 2, Gears of War 2… Notic­ing a pat­tern here?  Where was the orig­i­nal­ity and inno­va­tion in 2008?  And I’m not just talk­ing about killer graphics–that’s some­thing none of these games were short on.  I’m talk­ing about the game­play itself.  Riv­et­ing and unpre­dictable sto­ry­lines, amaz­ing char­ac­ters, truly immer­sive worlds you can spend hours get­ting lost in–where were these things?  The games of 2008 seemed to be all style over sub­stance, more hype and high-tech than mov­ing and mem­o­rable.  Brit­tany Vin­cent over at TGR sums up my feel­ing exactly.  Where is the heart?

What was this year’s big “it” game?  GTA IV, accord­ing to Spike TV who awarded it Game of the Year.  Seri­ously?  I won­der how dead the horse has to be before the game com­pa­nies stop beat­ing it.  I don’t think I could bear another Call of Final Grand Theft of War 5 release.  I don’t care how real­is­tic a game looks if that’s the only thing worth play­ing it for.  I don’t care if I can pick up and throw every object I see.

What I do care about is “that feel­ing” and I’m sure you know the one I mean–that euphoric feel­ing that can only come from play­ing a really amaz­ing video game.  And that’s some­thing 2008 hasn’t given me.