SourceCode: An Accidental Ramble About Games

Welcome back to SourceCode, my weekly attempt at sounding like I know what I am talking about! This week, as probably hinted at by the title, I decided to do something different. In the wake of some interesting years in the gaming world/industry, I thought I would drop a few lines on how things looked through my eyes.

The year was 2008 and everything was looking great for the gaming industry. Consoles were hitting their stride and PC's weren't being shunned by the development teams responsible for some of the greatest hits of the year. Games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Dead Space, FarCry 2, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Left 4 Dead, and my personal favorite, and most likely, from this writer's point of view, the most important one: Mirror's Edge. All these great games didn't miss a beat, nor did they have any of the controversy around them like we see today... and there is A LOT of controversy these days.

Controversy seems to be what drives our particular hobby these days. I think it has a lot to do with what we have been presented with since 2008. From the countless rehashes of Call of Duty, to the atrocities that were RAGE, Duke Nukem, Medal of Honor 2010, and most recently Aliens: Colonial Marines. We have seen a steady decline in quality of our games. It is as if we've formed a collective subconscious hive mind and the way it expresses itself is by trying to shit on any game that doesn't quite meet our ever increasingly picky expectations... but I digress.
At any rate one thing remains to hold true, the quality of our games is inexplicably linked to our enjoyment of them.

I would like to go back to Mirror's Edge here for a second though. Mirror's Edge... What can I say about it? Though it was never the critical darling EA had hoped for, I believe it was the last time EA or any big publisher ever took a chance on something completely new and innovative.New and innovative barely describe what Mirror's Edge was to me. Developed by DICE on their brand new Frostbite engine, the game was stunningly beautiful; and that's without the hot Asian protagonist Faith. Faith is a member of an underground courier gang called the Runners. They use their special abilities and finely honed skill to traverse the roof tops of a futuristic mega city to deliver messages for an underground movement that wants to free their society from the grips of surveillance control by the government.

Mirror's Edge was instant cult hit and even DICE hints at possible development of a sequel via Easter eggs in Battlefield 3. It seems as though this somehow has turned into a review of Mirror's Edge. Ha ha oops! Oh well, it's a perfect example of what the gaming industry lacks today and that is a willingness to invest in quality innovative projects and let the development of them take the time needed to make a well rounded product worthy of that $50-$60 purchase. This, of course, does not mean all titles suffer from the lack-of-quality bug going around these days, but they are certainly few and far between. In the end, it is our dollars that speak the loudest. If you feel as though you deserve better, take that money, shove into the publishers faces, and say, "You can't have this until you make a game worthy my giving it to you!" Mirror's Edge, while not everyone's favorite game, is something to strive for these days, and we should all support those who dare to step outside of the box. The future might be bright for games if we can break the trend and return to making quality games.

This has been another SourceCode input. I hope you enjoyed the read, and honestly who thought the BF4 footage was more like BF3.5 footage? Because I know I did.