A Tale of 2 Video Games.

So Christmas came and passed, and I got 2 video games as gifts.  Star Wars Battlefront II and Horizon Zero Dawn.

Now, I’ve been following the whole EA Battlefront 2 exploding in their faces drama with great amusement.  Why?  Because I don’t want to play online.  I don’t want to play with other people.  I want a freaking Star Wars game that I can sit down after work, relax for an hour or so, and not be bothered by anyone.  I do not find online shooting galleries fun in the slightest bit.  I find them boring as sin.  And what really pisses me off is that EA has exclusive rights to Star Wars games now, and that is the only game they are making.  I played through the single player story mode.  I was done in less than 5 hours of gameplay.  It was very boring, very disappointing, had TERRIBLE controls, awful characters, and the story was so lazily told that you wonder why you even bothered once you’re finished.  What happened to stuff like the Rogue Squadron games?  Shadows of the Empire?  Dark Forces?  The Force Unleased?  Freaking Knights of the Old Republic?  Excellent games all that told amazing stories in the Star Wars universe, with actual gameplay, likeable characters, a story that takes more than four freaking minutes to play through.  Nope.  That’s all gone for free for all FPS arena battles.  Yeah, I played around with those for about an hour, got bored, and took the game to gamestop for a $20 credit in disgust.  I didn’t bother downloading the story DLC patch.  I was so bored to death by the story what’s even the freaking point of playing more of it.  I don’t like the gameplay either.

And then I popped in Horizon Zero Dawn.  Hey EA.  This is the type of Game I am looking for.  Do this with Star Wars and I will play it through to the end, and I will even pay for more story DLC.  This game is amazing.  It has great characters, a very interesting world with cool visuals, the controls are great, the story is fantastic, and it really feels almost like a Bioware RPG, like Knights of the Old Republic, which is probably my favorite Star Wars game.  I sat down to play this game, and I looked over at the clock, and it was seven hours later.  I got so pulled into it.  I was only planning to play for an hour.  I was so drawn into this game, and I enjoy it so much, that I bought the $20 story DLC before I even finished the game, because I know that I will want more when I’m done.  I may be getting old, but gaming just isn’t as engrossing to me as it used to be.  I’ve bought several games over the last ten years or so, but I’ve finished very few of them.  Or maybe it’s the games themselves, they’re just not as good as the used to be.  Xenoblade 1&2, Tales of Xillia and Berseria, The Last Story.  I think those are the only ones I’ve actually played through to the end.  If every game was as good as Horizon Zero Dawn is, I think I would play a lot more, and finish a lot more games.

Just, seriously, 4 and a half hours of garbage story missions, EA?  That’s what you think people were asking for when they said they wanted a single player campaign?  Seriously?  Well, you can go suck Guerrilla/Sony’s dick, because the game they produced is so superior to the one you did it’s not even a comparison at all.  I wish Star Wars games could be like this again, but so long as EA holds the liscence, that will never happen, it seems.  I’m glad they took a huge hit over Battlefront 2.  And I hope Disney realizes that this garbage is not what gamers want out of Star Wars games and open it up for other companies.  I mean, Battlefront 2 just isn’t even worth the time to play, because I play games for story.  I do not play games for online shooters, because that doesn’t interest me.  I find it boring.

And in other news I also wrote 7500ish words on my Spires of Infinity rewrite today before I sat down to try out Horizon Zero Dawn, so I don’t have to feel guilty over wasting the whole day on playing video games and getting nothing else done.  Also, it’s 4:30 in the morning.  I feel like I’m rambling because I’m half asleep.  Probably because I’m rambling because I’m half asleep.