RAGE and that status of RPG games

I'm about 8 hours into RAGE and I have to say that it's not only the best looking Xbox game yet. That's debatable of course, but no one reads this blog, so I'll just assume that I'm right.

Among the things that I absolutely love about this game there are still flagrant annoyances that bug me about every adventure game in the past couple years.

• I'm getting tired of pressing buttons to talk to people or advance conversations. Let's do a proximity thing that reads a little more into positions and facing people. If I turn to walk away, interrupt yourself and say something like, "...oh, okay. Guess we'll talk later." Or pull a gun and fire a warning shot if it's really a big deal. Let me know you mean business.
• If a game has multiple locales, stop repeating resources in each one. Parts, weapons, medicine/mechanics, games of chance need to be more organic. Not every town has a parts store or weapons dealer. Maybe a town only has a thrift or pawn shop. If a game is popular, show more/less people playing it every few hours. Those two guys aren't playing that game all damn day. I don't care how shitty the apocalypse is.
• Stop making side quests something I start and complete manually. Make something happen to me that I can choose to participate in naturally. I don't want to hit a button. I don't want to be singled out as responsible. If someone runs into me with their car, let me decide if I chase them down or not. That's why nothing ever gets done in GTA games anyway, am I right?
• Stop making me run back and forth. There has to be better ways to repeat use of gameplay areas. RAGE just sent me on a reverse course through a hospital path (and gave me an achievement for it!). You just admitted that you have no game play creativity by doing that. 
• If you're going to use someone like John Goodman and Claudia Black as a voice actor, use him in the entire game. I don't ever want to stop hearing him talk.

I love that RAGE made graphics one of it's highest priorities. I'm a little bothered by three disks, but I completely accept it for the payoff. I also really love the enemy A.I. and how they approach you. The muntants have multiple abilities from crawling fast to jumping off walls and monkey baring the ceilings to come and attack you. It's creepy and fantastic. The Authority soldiers aren't that smart, but I like their shields and willingness to toss grenades. 

If you liked playing Resident Evil or Dead Space for it's creepiness and enjoy Borderlands or Fallout for it's questing and item building, this game is a perfect mashup of the two "genres". I highly recommend it.

Upcoming Games of Fall 2008

With E3 over, I thought it would be a good time to make a list of new, upcoming games coming out this Fall that I'm most interested in and why I want them. I like doing this once in awhile because it helps me realize that I do need some kind of money management system to be able to afford all this and have the time to play them all.

• Rock Band 2: September - Loads of new songs, band members can play together online. We'll probably still have Rock Band parties though.
• Fable II: October 21 - Everything that was supposed to make Fable I awesome is going to actually be in Fable II. The only role playing games I can handle are action titles. Fable is good for sword swinging, magic casting, quests and stat building.
• Gears of War 2: November 7 - More Gears of War story line, improved online gameplay. The reason I stopped playing the first Gears online is that the data/host setup was awful and laggy. I need precision in shooting games.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People -- Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner: TBA 2008 - I love Homestar Runner. This should be a really fun point-and-click game for the Wii. And it will be my first episodic, downloadable game, with two other episodes to be release later.
  

But that look like it's about it. These are my must have games, at least. I'm sure I'll be playing other games as well as picking up used games at the stores. But that actually makes me feel a little better about having time to play my backlog of games. If there are too many Triple-A titles hitting shelves at once, I start to feel guilty about buying them or anxious about not having them. It looks like I've got some room to breathe.

And finish the basement before the baby comes.

Why I Don't Play RPGs

Here's the deal: I really, really want to play RPG games. Pokemon, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, etc. They're beautiful, usually have a better story that most games, and offer up really long game times. They have a lot of bang for their buck. They are basically a novel on a disk.

So why don't I play them?

Well, let me preface this by saying I absolutely loved Earthbound on the SNES. It's the only RPG I've played beginning to end. I rented it from the rental store two or three times in a row to complete it. It was my RPG gateway drug. But oddly enough, whenever I need another 'hit', the initial taste is sour and annoying.

The most annoying facet of RPGs that I don't like is the inactivity. Racing games like Gran Turismo and Forza are RPGs of sorts. You have to upgrade in one way or another to continue. Side scrollers test you with button mashing and timeing and puzzles in between powerups and levels.

RPGs are simply the most boring activity known to man. You read text. You read action. You read battle. You manage menus, stats, weapons, armor. It's sort of like reading a book and playing a board game at the same time.

I consider myself an average gamer. A guy's guy. I like sports and cars and women. So why don't I agree with the millions of people (yes, I know they're mostly kids) who buy Pokemon every couple of years, even though it's the same game over and over. I guess it's the same reason why I never collected baseball cards or know who won the World Series in '82 and who was the MVP that year.

And even though I love information like databases and websites, I'll never be able to get past that hump that is an RPG game. It seems to me to be the one area that people don't really flirt with in gaming. I know I'm missing out on a great deal of games. And when I think about that I immediately gawk at the nearest game rack for Pokemon and Final Fantasy cover art.

Maybe, just maybe, this weekend I'll pick up a used GBA Pokeman or DS Final Fantasy redux and sit myself down in the funeral home this weekend next to the other 8-year-old addicts and "behave myself".