Few video games nowadays offer something worthwhile in regards to any facet of the experience. It is evident that a radicalization of the industry has occurred, changing to a significantly more profit oriented business model. These models have encouraged a series of poor exchanges for video game consumers. Many games are rushed for delivery. This ends up producing horrendous creations, faces even a mother would put down.
Occasionally, a gem emerges amongst the typical sea of filth. While not nearly as perfect as touted (far from it), Skyrim is an excellent example of a game that frequently defies many of the normative natures of its brethren.
This sea of games is littered with remakes, series reboots, sequels, expansions and other frivolous dead ends and vacuous creativity. As such, gaming gems become significantly more difficult to discern, as many games that exceed above the normative are hailed as noteworthy achievements in gaming.
Several games, that the author is currently aware of, that have yet to be released offer promising prospects of legitimately elevating what the industry of games has to offer.
Firstly is Guild Wars 2. While many sequels err in reiterating the previously title with some glitter, Guild Wars 2 seeks to innovate upon its predecessor and the genre standard in which it operates. Billed as a massive multiplayer online game (MMO), it hopes to redefine the standards of MMO gameplay that have been created by industry giant World of Warcraft (and earlier games predating Warcraft).
Guild Wars 2 offers an abundance of refreshing concepts. It will be one of the first MMOs with an attempted persistent world. This means that action or events will assiduously be taking place over the whole world. Static non-player controlled characters (NPCs) who provide the player with a quest are primarily an archaic convention for Guild Wars 2. The addition of a persistent world is the biggest draw amongst many excellent innovations to be seen in Guild Wars 2.
The second exciting title to be slated for a release this year is Borderlands 2. Yet another sequel to grace the list. The obvious sequel to Borderlands, it would seem that the game developer Gearbox Software hope to rectify many of the poorly implemented mechanics of the original title. While Borderlands introduced a plethora of fun gameplay (something that is mostly commonplace in such a crowded field), Borderlands 2 seeks to add an additional layer upon this, expanding the game world and making it a more persistent environment.
They are improving upon the artificial intelligence of the enemy NPCs, making them more coordinated. Hell, they’re including dual-wielding as well. This should hopefully be an excellent release with many improvements over it’s aspiring and infinitesimally lacking predecessor.
The final game on the horizon is The Last of Us. This game is underdevelopment by Naughty Dog, a game studio that created titles such as Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter and the Uncharted series. The Last of Us features a terribly beaten horse. The barely beating, pulpy, bloody mass of a horse: the post apocalyptic survival horror clusterfluff that has dominated cultural attention for a significant period of time.
While Naughty Dog is opting out of zombies and using a strain of bacterial infection (a real infection known as Cordyceps unilateralis), they are still entering a difficult field to play. This infection has mutated many humans into vicious fungal beings who gladly devour living things to reproduce the bacterial strain, providing a more unique visual over typical zombies (think along the lines of the Davy Jones’ pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean 2). This game stands out from the unbearable field of manure it has decided to play in is its focus.
The developers, Naughty Dog, feel that the industry standard for writing is awful (with obvious exclusions). They hope to set a new tone by improving the focus on story and emotion. If they manage to pull it off with any aplomb, this game could very well produce an era of games that are a treat to play. This is assuming that they manage to avoid butchering the story and forcing poor mechanics and controls on the players.