Last week, Activision released the latest installment in the Call Of Duty series and as the chapters before it, the title raked in buckets of cash for the developer. I was one of those people that went out there on release date and picked up the title. Now there wasn’t a single moment in the months leading up to said release that I caught myself saying “Man, I really want to purchase this game on the street date.” These days, I tend to wait until games drop from their full MSRP price (I certainly live up to the URL of CheapAssGamer.com, which is bookmarked on my browser) but this time, I have to admit… the marketing won me over. It happens to the best of us and although it’s hard for me to admit, they sold me with the cool action sequences and the prospect of destroying others in an online arena. I’ve been playing pretty actively for the past week and I certainly feel like I’ve got my money’s worth with the purchase. The downside? I certainly feel dumber for playing it. Why? Maybe because at the end of murdering foos and leveling up, I get up out my chair after a session and feel I just wasted time. And that’s when I begin to wonder: “Does a game exist where I can actually gain something from playing?” Enter Gran Turismo 5, releasing this week on Playstation 3. In my book: GT5 equals “smart” while something like Black Ops = “dumb.”
Now before the frat boy in you gets all crazy, hear me out. When Gran Turismo was originally released back in the day for the original Playstation system, it came with two FAT instruction booklets. Now a very small percentage of those pages were dedicated to how the controls of the game worked but rather the instructions served as a crash course of the physics of how a race car works. Learning about suspensions, aerodynamics, how to take a turn using a proper driving line to achieve maximum exit speed… all this to help you shave fractions of a second off your time by becoming a better driver. Believe it or not, all this learning for a video game translated to real life and it helped me become a better real world driver. Now there are few games in existence that will translate a gaming experience into something beneficial in your everyday life but when I do come across these types of games, I have no qualms about doing 40 laps on the virtual Nurburgring. Nope, I get up out of that ass grove in my couch and feel like just a little more fulfilled as a human being, flawed as that mind set may be. Never have I felt like I’ve gained any knowledge in the battlefield nor in the realm of firearms. Of course, I’ve never had to put that to test other than the few times I’ve gone paintballing and that didn’t end too well for my ass.
As I get older, my tastes for games have certainly matured. Nowadays, I feel the story and experience certainly outweighs the importance of replayability. Games like Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted and even Black Ops have a rich single player experience and that’s why I spend my hard earned money on them. Where the industry and tastes of the modern gamer seem to go towards multiplayer, that aspect still is nothing more than an added bonus for me. And when I do spend time playing against others across the country, I can’t help but to feel like I could have been doing something a bit more constructive with my time, regardless of how much fun I had destroying those shit talking kids from Alabama. A game like Gran Turismo falls in it’s own category as is a rare occurrence. I love to drive & I love cars. Sure, some might see that as much of a time waste as going onto imaginary battlefields for virtual war but I guess all that matters is that one has fun playing whatever genre entertains them. To each’s own and at heart, I’m still a gamer regardless. Always have been, always will be. Even if that means playing dumb more often than playing smart.
Good stuff, I can see where you're coming from here. My problem is, I'm not much of a racing game fan, so Gran Turismo isn't really on my radar. Lets face it, the most time I've spent with racing games was the Need for Speed series (Underground 2 still being my favorite), and even those don't hold my attention long enough to play them. Its in tastes I suppose, I can see your reasoning for calling Black Ops dumb, none of what I do in a CoD game will ever come in handy in the real world.
BUT, if Black Ops is ranked as "Dumb," then Assassins Creed: The 60 Dollar Expansion Pack… I mean Brotherhood, should be classified as REALLY stupid. I saw you talked about instruction booklets and AC has… a 2 page leaflet. Oh and did I mention it feels like an expansion pack? The story is good as usual with this series, don't get me wrong, but seriously, I'm not doing a damn thing different that I haven't done already. I can rant awhile on this… so I'll stop here. Hope Gran Turismo lives up to your expectations, its good franchise.
Yeah, Gran Turismo definitely doesn't have the saturation of a game like CoD and I think that only goes to show how polar opposites these games are. What it all comes down to is having fun with the added bonus of learning being an afterthought.
I've never played any of the games in the Assassin's Creed series but I really would like to start but again, time becomes an issue. And price. When I find the original AC for $10, I'll pick it up and add it to my stack of new, untouched games like Final Fantasy XIII & GTA Expensions. Turthfully, how knows if I'll ever get to play those games. And I've heard those same complaints about Brotherhood… I'll stop playing at the second one :)
I hear you man. The single player experience is where it's at. Just take a look at the last few games I've bought: Enslaved, Red Dead Redeption, Fallout, No More Heroes 2, Limbo, Fragile… the only exception (and it's a doozy) is Monster Hunter Tri.
I played Monster Hunter for over 300 hours in all, the most I've ever played any single game, ever. The vast majority of that time was online and I didn't feel stupider for having done that. I felt smart having gotten so much enjoyment out of a $50 purchase! That said, it is a thinking man's game: you have to come prepared to every hunt with supplies and approach your prey strategically or you're toast in seconds. That's definitely an online game that made my feel smart and skilled for having played it. Do the skills translate to real life? Not really, but I had fun pretending to be a monster hunting warrior non the less.