I always think that the best games all have one factor in common, whether it be racing, FPS, platform, adventure. Whether it be a 20+ million dollar blockbuster or a flash based web game.
Until recently there have been few games with this factor released in the last few years. Apart from maybe being desperate to see exactly what happens to Gordon freeman, or desperatly wanting to see what weirdness Bioshock is about to throw at you.
But do they really have the 'Just one more go' at 3am when you can barely keep your eyes open? No. In my opinion both could wait until another day.
Even the heavily hyped GTA4 doesn't quite seem to have it there. It's a great game but can become frustrating to the point that you can put it down for a few days before coming back to the part where you are stuck and having another go. i was starting to get a little disenchanted with gaming as a whole as it was seeming that glorious content was taking over from general playability and god damn outrageous addictiveness.
Then, last week, i bought two new games. To my enormous surprise they both had this factor - a factor that has been missing from games for what seems like an eternity.
Take last night for instance, i'd had far to much to drink, far too much to smoke, and my vision was a blurred as a badly moulded blamange. but i had to do it, i had to beat the latest team challenge on GRID. And i did it. And felt great. I felt like i haven't felt since my mate Josh and I spent an entire weekend trying to beat the white car on Ridge Racer Revolution on the PSX, and finally cracked it at about 5am on the Monday morning. I think i took the week off work to celebrate!
And that brings me to the second game i played this weekend with the same factor - Metal Gear Solid 4. Possibly the only game in history to actually live up to it's incredible hype. It's a masterpiece with wow factor coming out of it's a-hole. It lives up to it's hype and beyond. Way beyond, but it has that other nagging addictiveness - you just have to have one more go. This time it reminds me of GoldenEye of N64 fame, trying to to severnya bunker in 10.2 seconds to get to 00Agent to unlock paintball on the multiplayer.
With MGS4 it's not quite like that, you desperatly want to see what's going to happen next and there is no correct way to complete a mission other than to get to the checkpoint by either sneaking or just FUCKIT and blow everyone away... unlike my previous experience with MGS which was do it stealthy - or don't do it at all.
It's good to see this factor back in games, and long may it stay!
I must go now, as i just need to have one more go....
Until recently there have been few games with this factor released in the last few years. Apart from maybe being desperate to see exactly what happens to Gordon freeman, or desperatly wanting to see what weirdness Bioshock is about to throw at you.
But do they really have the 'Just one more go' at 3am when you can barely keep your eyes open? No. In my opinion both could wait until another day.
Even the heavily hyped GTA4 doesn't quite seem to have it there. It's a great game but can become frustrating to the point that you can put it down for a few days before coming back to the part where you are stuck and having another go. i was starting to get a little disenchanted with gaming as a whole as it was seeming that glorious content was taking over from general playability and god damn outrageous addictiveness.
Then, last week, i bought two new games. To my enormous surprise they both had this factor - a factor that has been missing from games for what seems like an eternity.
Take last night for instance, i'd had far to much to drink, far too much to smoke, and my vision was a blurred as a badly moulded blamange. but i had to do it, i had to beat the latest team challenge on GRID. And i did it. And felt great. I felt like i haven't felt since my mate Josh and I spent an entire weekend trying to beat the white car on Ridge Racer Revolution on the PSX, and finally cracked it at about 5am on the Monday morning. I think i took the week off work to celebrate!
And that brings me to the second game i played this weekend with the same factor - Metal Gear Solid 4. Possibly the only game in history to actually live up to it's incredible hype. It's a masterpiece with wow factor coming out of it's a-hole. It lives up to it's hype and beyond. Way beyond, but it has that other nagging addictiveness - you just have to have one more go. This time it reminds me of GoldenEye of N64 fame, trying to to severnya bunker in 10.2 seconds to get to 00Agent to unlock paintball on the multiplayer.
With MGS4 it's not quite like that, you desperatly want to see what's going to happen next and there is no correct way to complete a mission other than to get to the checkpoint by either sneaking or just FUCKIT and blow everyone away... unlike my previous experience with MGS which was do it stealthy - or don't do it at all.
It's good to see this factor back in games, and long may it stay!
I must go now, as i just need to have one more go....
