Random thoughts about the state of gaming - on a personal level.

Over the May break I've torn through Fallout 3: Broken Steel, Bioshock (replayed from beginning - revised review pending), Star Ocean: Last Hope, Godfather II, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher's Bay, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, and have taken a pretty large bite out of Red Faction: Guerrilla. While there have been elements of each game I liked, hell I played the wheels off Fallout 3 and am really enjoying Red Faction: Guerrilla, I feel a bit let down right now.

Every gamer goes through a slump, a bout of ennui, where games just don't take you where you need to go. I start to nitpick games and game design. In RF:G I have a problem with the button configuration: L2 is melee and R3 is zoom in, normally this is reversed. I could change the controller set up in options but I only want to change those two buttons not the entire config. The HUD mini-map is always there without the option of minimizing it or enlarging it. I like the zoom in/zoom out feature on the mini-map though.

I think my main problem is that I'm bored. I don't feel challenged. I'm not talking about difficulty level (enemies have more health, I have less health, etc etc etc), I mean on an intellectual level. There's also a good dose of "been there, done that" thrown in. I haven't really been forced to used my problem solving/tactical skills lately. If memory serves that was one of the strong divisions between console and PC games. Where the PC had RTS and large scale strategy/tactical games the console was lacking.

Just had to gripe. Thank you for listening.