Personal Gaming Issues

I can't play games. Anything I play, I get bored of almost immediately. Played BF3 for all of about 30 seconds. Did 1 mission in Rage. Got out of the first dungeon thing in Skyrim and quit. I used to be able to play Starcraft II minigames, but even that bores me now. Have I lost my love for gaming?

They certainly don't make games like they used to. They used to rely on good gameplay to make games good. Now they only care about graphics and putting out the exact same game but with prettier graphics every year. I was looking forward to the release of Black Mesa (HL1 remake in Source) which seems to have become vaporware, but besides that, I haven't seen anything to look forward to. I remember Super Smash Bros (N64) and how great that was...but when Melee came out, it was like they decided to abandon gameplay and try and give you seizures instead. I still consider SSB(N64) one of the greatest fighting games ever made.

If I ever had the funding and team to build a video game, I would build the greatest games ever. IMO anyway. It's one thing I've always liked Valve for doing...they didn't care about graphics, they cared about making a game that was fun...they cared about gameplay. When they release games, they make sure they are playable by the majority of their user base rather than making sure their graphics are at the peak of the current capabilities out there. Which makes sense, because most people are not going to go out and get brand new computers just to play one game.

Why can't games focus on actually PLAYING the game, rather than exuberant amounts of standing there while people blab about the storyline, or driving/walking/running a few miles in game to your next mission? What happened to cut scenes that you could skip past because you didn't care about it? All they do now is force you to "play" through the "cut scenes" of the game. Does anyone out there really care THAT much about the storyline or do you want to just play the damn game?

The other issue is PC gaming. Hackers, cheating, "creative" use of game mechanics, etc. How do these people get any joy out of not actually playing games? Is that my problem? I enjoy playing the game too much while all these damn 12yo just want to be "better" than everyone else? Obviously an issue with the US in general, but we have a generation of kids (and adults I'm sure too) who only care about being better/winning even if they cheat to do it...and somehow believe that they are better than you despite cheating. Seriously? WTF. Hacking and cheating ruined APB (that and them not doing anything about it). It was a good game if not for that huge issue, but that also been a huge issue in almost every online FPS. I know Counter-Strike still suffers greatly from it and for reasons I cannot understand still have a HUGE player base. My idea of a fix? Universal ban list. Anyone who EVER cheats/hacks gets a universal ban from multiplayer gaming in all online games. Fuck them I say. But greed stands in the way of my plan. Oh well.

Perhaps I am just getting too old and unable to keep up with the changes that come with time. :(