Fear and Loathing in Gameland

I picked up the much anticipated (in my world) Alone in the Dark video game yesterday. I had it on hold because I really dug the first Playstation II game. In short, it blows. It sucks so much that I tried to return it today in hopes that the 'I just bought it yesterday' plea would get me somewhere. As with all entertainment media, I was TSOL. Sure, I could sell it back to the game store for $17--I bought it for $50. What a deal!
I took it home and will trudge through further in hopes it will get better.

So, what the frick happened? There's no plot so far (the first one had a bitchin' plot). It starts in a building and you don't know why you're there. It's rated mature, which I thought was due to the graphic violence, but within two sentences characters are dropping the F bomb. The first game did not have cussing at all. Don't get me wrong, cursing doesn't offend me personally. Hey, as a writer I can tell you nothing pleases me more than a well placed cuss word. But what the frick, do game writers/creators really need to drop gratuitous profanity? Is it to earn the mature rating? They definitely didn't take time with story development in the beginning, so maybe they made up for it with R-rated language. Who the frick knows. I do know that a large portion of game consumers are kids and many were looking forward to this game as well. They were probably given the nod by their parents after they saw the first Alone in the Dark-which was bloody but damn good-only to take it home to find out it's a big crap sandwich that they wish they hadn't bought for their kids.

It seems that the video game world has taken on the same air as film and publishing. Big names and shock factors that yield high volume purchases are the driving force, while the smaller and often more creative and visionary projects get pushed aside, squashed, or absorbed and diluted. Reason? Producers don't believe the return on investment will be enough. We can only produce so many projects per year ya know...It makes me think of the old black and white movies that were churned out hand over fist. There were tons of movies made each year and man, there were some GREAT STORIES there. The stories were the driving force. If the same formula used today was applied back then we wouldn't have the classics to remake over and over and over and over.

What did I learn? Your dollar is your vote. Rent first!