Gaming.

I have a problem, I'm a computer geek / nerd, and for some reason, gaming and new gaming technology does not appeal to me anymore.....at all.

Only one game in the future really peaks my interest, and that is Metal Gear Solid 4. I love the Metal Gear series, I remember when MGS3 came out, I fell asleep playing it a few times, woke up, kept playing....

However, new games just don't appeal to me.

Mass Effect for example, my roommate loves the game, I'll link his review ( http://matthewwhite.gametrailers.com/gamepad/index.php?action=viewreview&id=41363 ), he gives it a 9 / 10, and he's being a hard marker....myself I'd give it a four. It didn't appeal to me, I mean the graphics were really nice, although there was some texture problems at points, and the load times were bad, the physics were also nice, but the game just wasn't enjoyable for me.
Mind you, I watched him play, I read FAQs etc while we made the first play through, I found the story to be a complete rip of B5, examples are.

Specters = Rangers
Systems Aliance = Earth Force
Council (Group) = Mimbari / Interstellar Alliance
Shepard = Sinclair / Sheridan
Admiral who inspect's the ship = General Franklin
Token ailens aboard = Token Alien's on B5.
Citadel (Place) = B5.
The council = The grey council.
Normandy = Whitestar / Excalibur
Geth = Drakh
That is just off of the top of my head. Not to mention there was nearly direct lines from B5 - Ivanova's line from "Midnight on the firing line", 'I'm in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying', and the administrator on Novaria's 'I'm in the middle of nine things, all of them annoying' are far too similar to me.

Not to mention, the fact that the Citadel (Place) is a type of O'neill station, while Babylon 5 (Station) is also a different type of station is also far too striking for me.


I can go on and on regarding this, but needless to say, I had some problems with game design, and game mechanics that turned me off of the game.

The game just wasn't fun, nor was Rainbow Six Vegas, nor was Halo 3, Nor FF12......

I find that games now aren't as stimulating.....even strategy games.....for example, Command and Conquer Generals. It was fun to play over the network with my friends, but the game was dull, after I learned the pattern, I was bored of it, and we were able to win quite easily, scoring kill rates of 20-30 to 1 against 4-6x the enemy on the hardest setting. Even playing each other, we grinded into stalemates. The mechanics were too limited.

Now a game like Fleet Command, or Silent hunter, or PTO2 (old school yo') that game intrigues me....I love playing Silent Hunter Four, in my room, the lights turned out to red, just like in a submarine -lol- with a math set, a graphing calculator, some graph paper, plotting out approaches and setting up a solution, that was more enjoyable to me....or in PTO2, having twenty/ thirty doodles on pages, drawn up order of battles for both sides and things of that nature.

Those games I spent hours and hours playing.......I never can get bored of things like that.

Now lets look at an example of MMORPGS, World of Warcraft...without getting into a long discussion of game mechanics, which I can certainly do at a later point.....if so desired, I played 15 hours a day for a week, and then grew so bored of the game I just said that it was enjoyable....I have friends who have clocked thousands of hours into it, I just found the game too dull.....now we look at a game like Eve Online...now that is a game I love.
I play it as much as I can, I have two characters on it, two 22" monitors with it up on two boxes, with matching gaming keyboards and mice....I also have two voice channels on the go when I play, one for ventrillo, one for team speak, (also on two headsets / separate systems)....I don't know, but Eve definitely strikes my fancy as it is so much more detailed and open ended than WoW......Of course when I play eve, I normally have my HDTV hooked into my laptop playing movies, and am normally doing other things as well....


I'm just wondering here.....am I really a gamer now? Like people who go hawhawhaw halo on my Xbox live, or do I game for other reasons...am I a more serious gamer than a person who plays for immediate gratification