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#1 cherubaddon Aug 28, 2009 10:12:27

Depending on whether you're into video games or not, you may or may not have heard of Gamescom, Europe's largest video games convention, where studios come to present their new releases. Until now, it had always been in Leipzig, Germany, but in recent years, the city has become too small to cater to the hundreds of thousands attending. So, in order to not lose the convention to another country, Germany decided to move it to Cologne. So I was like, what the Hell, the boards are down, I gotta bunch of free time on my hands, I like video games, and I live at not even an hour of Cologne, I'll have a look. Well, the short version is that it was the most depressing thing I've seen since Election Day. The long version, for those of you interested who couldn't be bothered to come to Germany, is resumed below in the major new releases I was made aware of:   Assassin's Creed II: Most of you may by now have seen the amazing trailer in Renaissance Venice. But that's beside the point, because the first game already had a sweet trailer, and yet turned out the biggest disappointment in a long time: repetitive gameplay and painfully obvious console origins made it seem like a dumbed-down Prince of Persia beta. And that's without taking into account the overly convoluted pseudo-sci-fi metaplot. So you'll understand that my excitement at the second was somewhat limited, cool trailer or not. Exhibit A. Splinter Cell Conviction: There were a lot of bad games at the con, but none of them felt to me like a slap in the face as this one did. For the unitiated, Splinter Cell is a French stealth game series following the exploits of a secret agent named Sam Fisher as he goes on cinematic infiltration missions across the globe. The games always had a rep as not easy, but they were definitely doable; the graphics were always on the edge of their time, the gameplay restricted to a few buttons, yet a multitude of actions that made the games highly complex. Especially the third installment of the series, Chaos Theory, is widely regarded in Europe as the epitome of a perfect Singleplayer mode, and it is a game much loved by me personally. And now we have Conviction: allegedly, too many people complained about the old games' difficulty levels, so this game has a few "revolutionary" features. First off, killing single enemies, one of the hardest parts about the old games, has become easier - there was one screenshot of Sam, holding a gun (methinks it was a Sig Sauer) cradled in his arms, standing wide out in the open, shooting a Tango through the chest. You see, in the old games, you only had a silenced 5.7, which had such a ludicrous stopping power that unless you landed a headshot, you lost every firefight. But here - where is the stealth factor? He looks like some generic action hero, running around, mowing people down with a 45 Automatic. The gun doesn't even have a suppressor. Hello? Next up, we have the "Mark-and-Execute" feature: to facilitate clearing large rooms, this lets you "mark" up to two enemies. Then, when you kill another enemy, you may push a button, and Sam will automatically do something cool to eliminate the two marked targets. WTF? I mean, the animations are slick, and his moves are hotter than a Drow Sorceress on pheromones, but where's the realism? Where's the player's skill involved in all that? Honestly, guys, if I want to see cool moves, I watch a movie. Splinter Cell isn't a fighting game, where being badass is the point. It is, and has always been, a game focusing on the tactical skill (and, to a lesser degree, reflexes) of the player. That's what made them so much fun. But I guess that's passé now. I will refrain from commenting on Blizzard's games, as I've never really liked any of them, and thus couldn't judge them as they deserve. Also, I won't comment on stuff like Far Cry 2 or the new Prince of Persia, as that would reiterate what I've said about the first two games. I was going to, but there comes the point of diminishing returns where you realize that really, your reviews are pretty much interchangeable. Finally, some silver lining: Ruse: I have no idea what the deal with this Ubisoft WWII RTS is, except its trailer is a nice AoE 2 reference. So I'm quite divided in my expectations - what sets this apart from stuff like Company of Heroes, Blitzkrieg and Codename: Panzers is the zoom, which is more reminiscent of Hegemonia: you can zoom in at the level of a single individual tank, seeing it fire its main gun, and then scroll out to see the entire coastline of Normandy under your command. And I'm not speaking of different maps, Total War-style. No, I mean zooming. It's like someone finally took my dream of a Google Earth-based RTS and made it a reality. I will be sure to follow this one with interest. Risen: Thank God. Okay, so there's this German studio called Piranha Bytes, which made the highly succesful Gothic RPG series (don't ask about the name, it's High Fantasy in its purest form). They were fairly old-school, a bit like a third-person Elder Scrolls game - lots of noncombat, large, free worlds, etc. Well, after the third installment, their publisher threw them out, and they went on freelance. Which means nobody in Germany gives a damn about Gothic IV, but everyone's excited about Risen. I actually played through the first parts of a beta, and it looks promising. Nice graphics, tried-and-true Gothic gameplay, and you know the best part? It's being released for XBox as well - and that means, it will come out in English. Trust me on this one, folks: if my experience with Gothic II is anything to go by, this game will be awesome.   What do we learn from all this? The Golden Age of gaming is definitely over, and the Gilded Age has begun. Graphics are wonderful, the animations awesome, the guns slicker than ever - and then there's two-dimensional NPCs, laughably short games, plots that are either simplistic or ridiculously convoluted and, especially, a dumbed-down gameplay. My friend describes that as catering to the console market, but I find that unfair. I remember a time when console gaming meant something, when Devil May Cry III had to be made easier to come out on PC. Video games, regardless of platform, used to be designed to be fun after an hour of steep learning curve - now, they seem made to be boring after an hour, when you've seen every animation, fired every gun, and finished the game thrice. And worst of all: inspiration seems lacking. Where are the Morrowinds, the Deus Exs, the Thiefs of our age? Where are the visionaries making games that will be remembered and played for the next two decades? Well, I know where they are not. Excuse the rant, I am just really, really sad about this evolution, and thank God that my old P&P RPGs will always be with me, whether I have Vista or not. EDIT: Just noticed how ironic this finishing line was just over my sig. Oh well. Seems I'm not the Stoic I would like to be.