It would be fair to say that, from the instant I heard about Transformers: War for Cybertron to the day I finally purchased the game, I was in a near constant state of anxious bliss. The Transformers video game franchise needed some serious reinvigorating, and I'd been looking forward to a G1-inspired offering, honestly, since I first learned about console gaming in 1985. I tried to pace myself, playing from one checkpoint to the next and then taking a break, but I still burned through the game in just under 48 hours. It was a fantastic game, but disappointingly short. Happily, I had unlocked characters to play in other game modes, and I was looking forward to trying them out when I finished the main story.
But there was a snag.
All the other game modes were made to be played online. I had unlocked characters for use in modes I couldn't play. Add to that the fact that the character creator is also only for online play and my frustration began to mount. I'd payed full price for a game I could only play part of. I played through it again, desperate to get the most out of it, but its limitations began to show. The let-down took a good while - months, perhaps - but when it finally fell upon me with its full weight, I was dismayed and bitter with the state of the industry as a whole. But there was one more surprise waiting.
I went to my friend's house to play the co-op mode with him. I didn't care if that mode was limited to a few screens of time trial combat; I just wanted to find more fun in the game. But we couldn't play co-op. Even when we were sitting side by side in the same room, we could not play together unless we had X-Box Live. Neither of us do.
For some time before this profound disappointment, I had been worried about the increasing popularity of online multiplayer. It seemed to me that more and more games were being developed with an emphasis on online play to the detriment of their single-player campaigns. The industry attitude seemed to be incredulous as to whether anyone would want to play a single-player game when he or she could sign on and deathmatch with people from all over the world, and I felt left behind. My experience with Transformers: War for Cybertron hammered this home in grisly fashion, if you'll pardon the hyperbole. The reality was stifling: I had payed 100% of the price for less than 100% of the game. X-Box Live was no longer a choice - it was a necessity if I wanted to get my money's worth. In all honesty, I find this to be oppressive. I don't want to play online. Why must I pay full price if I can't play the full game? Why can't I enjoy the game in its entirety unless I get in on an increasingly popular fad?
But that's just it. Online console gaming isn't a fad. It's the new state of the industry. Even my dad has X-Box Live. Am I stubborn, clinging to some imagined golden age during which one could play Contra or Ikari Warriors at home with a friend or a sibling and have a blast? I don't want to be stuck in the mud, but it feels like online gaming is being forced upon me. These days, a game that doesn't have online play is likely to have points taken off in reviews. There are even games now that one cannot play in any fashion unless one buys them in an online store. What does the future hold for gamers like me, who just want a simple, intimate gaming experience and aren't interested in competing against other players online? Sometimes I think that I should simply get with the times, as though I am a fan of 8-tracks railing against the increasing popularity of cassettes that is making obsolete my preferred method of listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood. But most of the time I feel like a gamer who is resisting, and who will always resist, the onslaught of runaway consumerism in the guise of fun.
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