GameLemon Editorial: Top Five Games that Ruined Gaming for Gamers

Top Five Games that Ruined Gaming for Gamers

Date: 2009-02-13

Author: Eric Venezia

  Every so often, a game comes around that takes advantage of a unique concept, defines a genre, and pushes the medium of video games forward. Unfortunately, those kinds of games are almost always disregarded by gamers in favor of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Crisis 4-B and Metal Gear Solid: Snake is really old.

   Those games aren't always bad in themselves; the problem is in the gamers that flock to such games. Likewise, the games on this list are not bad games; their existence merely ushered in several groups of people who poisoned the gaming community. I'm talking to you. Yes, you, the one who invaded my beautifully uncool, geeky hobby and started giving orders with the smug disposition that you have been here the whole time and have been ignored. I was having a perfectly wonderful time living my sheltered, sun-free life full of unique and challenging video games on multiple consoles and computers until you came along and said, "This RPG isn't FFVII enough; this FPS isn't Halo 2 enough; make the 'super expert' difficulty easier for me to beat; gaming is a business, and I'm the consumer, blah, blah, blah, blah." You are, to use an encapsulating term, the casual audience, and these are my top five picks for games that ushered in this flood of mediocrity when you opened the door without even bothering to knock.

1) Guitar Hero II

   "Music is objective. Incidentally, your opinion is wrong." GH2 screenshot

   If there's one thing you never, ever want to do, it's take the ignorant masses of music and mix them with the ignorant masses of gaming. GHII gets the top spot for marrying these two groups of people and allowing their vile seed to fall onto the freshly plowed earth of both gaming and music.

   GHII had both an increase in difficulty and a far more varied set list than GHI. The sea of groans this induced was twofold: first, the people bragging about five-starring "I Love Rock 'n Roll" on Expert in GHI had all simultaneously gone impotent at the thought that they could no longer just barely play on Expert, and second, the self-proclaimed audiophiles who have, like, twenty CDs and 3000 songs on their iPods were enraged that the game contained bands that have never appeared on MTV.

   The situation has only been getting worse with every susbsequent GH game. Harmonix had once said that one of the purposes of Guitar Hero was to expose people to more music, which is a nice gesture. Too bad the people who have never bought a record in their lives just use the bands they never even knew existed before GH as ammunition to talk down to anyone who doesn't listen to what they like. What's worse, mainstream radio is borderline encouraging it, because whatever ends up in a GH game ends up on the radio. GH hasn't really expanded anyone's taste is music. Like MTV, it's just shown them what everyone else thinks is cool.

2) Final Fantasy VII

   "FFVII is the game that all other RPGs are compared to." FF7 screenshot

   I didn't make up the above line, and admitting that out loud kind of makes me want to cry. Someone did actually say that to me. It may very well be true, but that doesn't mean it deserves the praise.

   Before you try to tell me I'm one of those random FF haters who hates FFVII because it's trendy to do so, go sprint up the side of the ladder that says "do not climb this end." I love FFVII and the Final Fantasy series in general. I'd probably put Final Fantasy Tactics in my top five favorite RPG list, but anyone who says that any of the Final Fantasies is the best RPG ever has clearly only ever played Final Fantasy games as far as RPGs go, and your blind devotion to the franchise (which you've probably only played from game seven to begin with) is causing SquareEnix to run it into the ground with a slew of mediocre to craptastic spin-off games and movies. Movies! Didn't we learn our lesson from Spirits Within? You people have the power to end this. Even if you choose to continue to exist in your one-dimensional jRPG-only world, at the very least lay off Final Fantasy and let SE get on with another Chrono game.

3) World of Warcraft

   "This or WoW?" WoW screenshot

   Anyone who plays WoW will tell you it's the greatest thing since FFVII. I don't know how this happened. WoW is an incredibly decent game, but you'd think it came packaged with a pair of double D tits. Everyone plays it, everyone, even you. You may not think you play it, but you do. I'm afraid to sleep because I suspect I must be playing WoW while somnambulating, since I don't play it when I'm conscious. Blizzard pays celebrities to say they play WoW in commercials. Do you know how many people have to be playing a game before a company says, "Hmm, maybe we should start marketing to the 'people who want to emulate celebrities' audience?"

   WoW is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the draw is. What I do know is that it has produced some of the most close-minded, hypocritical, asinine people in the gaming community. Every MMO gets compared to WoW. Go to any message board and you'll see fourteen topics titled "This or WoW?" It doesn't matter how different the two games are, if it isn't like WoW, no one wants anything to do with it. At the same time, if it's an obvious WoW clone, no one wants anything to do with it because it's too much like WoW. Playing two games is out of the question because that's cheating on WoW, and God only condones monogamous MMORPG relationships.

4) Soul Calibur II

   "You're an Xbox owner? But you seem so nice!" Soul Calibur 2 screenshot

   Soul Calibur II didn't invent video game fanboyism. I'm sure that started over in some dusty basement, over an intense debate about which is better, Baseball for the Intellivision or Home Run for Atari 2600. While the fanboys in question were pleasuring themselves over their respected consoles, their essences mixed with the pixie dust that consoles ran on in those days, and began asexually spawning legions of new fanboys whose entire life purpose was to develop unhealthy attractions to specific game consoles. I'm sure the two original fanboys made up and had a long, happy life together, though.

   Now what was I talking about? Oh, right, Soul Calibur II. SCII was released for the last generation's big three, Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube, each version with its own special character. While that sounds like a cool idea on paper, it was actually a move designed by scientists to start a flame war. Being a hardcore gamer used to mean you had no biases. You owned multiple consoles, loved all games, played D&D, played PC games, maybe worked on computers a little, and made your own crude software for the Commodore 64 that you shared with your friends at the electronics store. That's what hardcore was: it wasn't cool, except among fellow nerds. But alas, that kind of carefree frivolity isn't allowed anymore. No, now you have to pick a side and stay with it no matter how bad an idea it is.

   "Spawn is on the Xbox? He sucks! I should have bought a PS2. Now I'll have to triple my exclamation point usage on the forums to convince everyone how hardcore my Xbox is."

5) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

   "I play both kinds of games: Halo AND Grand Theft Auto!" GTA: Vice City screenshot

   Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a turning point for video games for many reasons. They all lead to one ultimate conclusion, though: video games officially became mainstream with the release of Vice City. GTA: VC was WoW before there was WoW. No matter who you were talking to you, if you said the words "Grand Theft Auto," everyone was on the same page.

   I was more than willing to give you casual gamers GTA so long as we both stayed on our own side of the tracks. Unfortunately, when you came to the video game scene, you didn't come alone. You brought your parents, the tabloids, and lawyers. You brought Jack Thompson with you, whose voice has only gotten louder since his license to practice law was revoked. He may not be as much of a threat anymore, but he certainly won't be the last self-righteous twat to try and destroy a culture. Now that mommy's little honor student is playing GTA and beating his classmates with a crowbar to vent his aggression caused by his oppressive WASP family, everyone needs to shift the blame off themself by using games as a scapegoat. It's true. Video games, like comic books, rock 'n roll, television, and gay marriage, will always be seen as a threat to the generation that didn't grow up with them simply because they are not from "their generation." You casuals didn't invent that, but we gamers were under far less fire when the general public felt this video game violence epidemic was quarantined to just us geeks.

   I know what you're thinking, "Wasn't there a tiff long before GTA: VC involving Joe Lieberman and Mortal Kombat?" Yes, but I count that as a win since Joe settled on doing the American thing by employing a flawed rating system that acts as a kind of warning label. This tactic worked perfectly in the past with such great illusions of social correction as the Comics Code Authority, the Explicit Content sticker, the TV Parental Guidelines system, the Surgeon General warning, and my favorite, the warning on coffee cups: "Caution, you are an ignorant, disgustingly obese American with almost zero motor skills, and have probably already forgotten that you just bought coffee because of your overstimulated, culture-induced ADD. Try not to talk on your cell phone, shuffle your iPod, and drink hot coffee while you're driving around half-blinded by the over sized American flag on your hood. Good luck raising your kids with your inept parenting: I hope they shoot up a police station and blame it on you. Enjoy the next PTA meeting."

   I'm only sorry we didn't affix these ratings to video games sooner. Maybe a young, innocent Adolf Hitler never would have played Grand Theft Auto: Nazi Germany and WWII could have been avoided. I heard he was a straight "A" art student or something. Wouldn't hurt a fly.

- Eric Venezia

Are you a HARDCORE GAMER? Put your money where your mouth is - get a gamer T-shirt and wear it proudly!

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009, 02:58 AM Tom said:

I honestly don't get why you even bothered to put Final Fantasy 7 and GTA: VC when games like Halo and others deserve the spot much more. I respect your blog though. Make some points, as well as Jack Thompson.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009, 06:01 AM Chris said:

Must agree with you here. No love for the fanboys, and I know a few.

Having said that Halo might have deserved a spot but the others were deserving nonetheless. Glad to see you left Metal Gear out though :)

Good Blog.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009, 06:40 PM Zeromage said:

In response to your line "but anyone who says that any of the Final Fantasies is the best RPG ever has clearly only ever played Final Fantasy games as far as RPGs go" I just have to say that Final Fantasy 3 could absolutely be called the RPG of all time, no matter how many RPGs one has played.

Other than that one line, this is one of the best lists ideas I've ever seen. (and if you've ever visited Old-Wizard.com before, you know we're obsessed with lists).

To see what I mean about FF3 check out our Top 10 FF Characters of all time list:

http://old-wizard.com/top-10-final-fantasy-characters

-Zeromage

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009, 01:34 PM John E. said:

I found your article amusing, if a little overblown. There have always been mediocre video games that weren't really worth playing more than a few minutes for a laugh (Cool Spot for NES anyone?). I agree that the spotlight and microscope on games has gotten more intense since the coming of the "age of the casual gamer", but violent games have always been criticized. I remember when Carmageddon came out years ago and what a stink was raised about that game. Personally, I think that some games shouldn't be released. Games, movies, music etc. that are obscenely violent, grotesque, smutty etc. shouldn't be released in a mass market. I'm not condoning censorship, I'm just saying that some stuff does not belong on department store shelves. If people want to consume games, movies, music etc. with that kind of poision in them, then fine by me. But, it should be confined to specialty shops and certain websites that do not market to kids and those who object to such content. Little Timmy shouldn't be tempted by an "M" rated game sitting on a shelf next to a kid friendly title. Parents these days, are so afraid of upsetting their kids and try so hard to be their buddy instead of their guardian, that they give in to almost anything the kid wants. I work at a game store and can't tell you how many times a kid clearly under the age of 18 (some as young as 7 or 8) have tried to buy M rated games. When I tell them to ask their parents, the parents almost always say "OK", even after I point out to them why the game is rated that way. They don't seem to care that they are exposing their little kid to more hours of graphic violence, sexual innuendo, nudity, foul language etc. than they'd see even in a handful of R rated movies. Besides, they are even more affected by it since they are controlling the character who is doing some of the adult oriented acts.

BTW, being patriotic and opposed to evils like homosexuality does not make someone ignorant. I know you are trying to be funny, but watch it with the insults.

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009, 11:45 PM Max said:

"Amusing, if a little overblown" - hurray, that's just about the effect we try to go for :) Mission accomplished!

On a more serious note, I think it's worth making a distinction between games (or any kind of medium) including violent content vs. being obscenely, gratuitously violent for no real reason. Life is not all apple pie and white picket fences, and the example you make about parents giving in to kids rather than shielding them from excesses has an opposite extreme as well: parents shielding their kids so much that they are in a for a massive shock when they finally go out there on their own and face reality. Like with everything else, there is a golden middle here.

Translating that back to games means that a game that tells a mature story which happens to include some violent content in a way that's supported by the overall narrative is ok (although you still wouldn't want to sell it to 7 year olds). The problem with GTA (especially the earlier ones, which weren't as heavily story driven as say, GTA IV) was that the story was frankly not strong enough to support all the violence. As my writing teacher used to say, you can't just throw murder into a story and expect it to fly; it needs to be seriously justified by the characters and the narrative. Same goes for nudity, profanity, etc. Vice City was just a blant example of breaking that rule, which is why it drew so much public attention.

Oh, and we don't associate patriotism with ignorance :) But lets not go as far as calling homosexuality "evil" either, ok? Just a difference of opinion. Like Galileo :)

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009, 02:34 AM Greeto said:

GREAT LIST! Anyone who disagrees is not a gamer. Anyways, John E. is a typical judgmental fool. Homosexuality is not a form of evil. That is their choice. Let them be you ignorant hypocrite.

On Sat, Jul 4, 2009, 04:50 AM billy said:

It's a good list, I guess. I was just distracted by how overly pissed-off you seem throughout the whole thing...