I am a male. I am a gamer. Now, generally, the equation is male + gamer = Call of Duty fiend. Surprisingly though, I’m the last person you’d see waiting in line for a midnight release for such a game (well, I love my sleep anyway, I wouldn’t stay up to buy any game.) In fact, I don’t really like Call of Duty that much partly because my kill/death ratio is probably 1:100 but mostly because I feel the series is so bland. Basically, Infinity Ward, just takes a first-person shooter, probably the same gaming engine, add some graphical updates, and change a story here or there and just repackages it out for the next gamer to fall to it’s bland traps. That said, I like games that spark a little more creativity.
A particular game that I have been playing a lot is Portal 2. This game, in my opinion, really takes creativity up a notch. I would love to meet the people over at DigiPen, and just thank them for such wonderful ideas. Portal to begin with is this first-person puzzle game that revolves around this idea that you create portals and use them to get over, under, around obstacles. While you are doing that, dark humor is flung your way by a mean AI construct named GlaDOS. When I played the first Portal, I really thought the concept was asinine. Why would anyone play a game where you just shot portals? But I quickly found out why, it’s just so addictive! Portal 2 takes a step even further because it brings in the element of gels, from the game Tag (developed by students at DigiPen) where you can bounce on, speed past, or convert walls with gels. I truly think the deviation from tradition really pulled me into this series.
Another game that I am enjoying is Dead Island. Zombie games run the risk of being bland, but Dead Island really puts you into a world that you can explore, play relatively open-endedly, and be with your friends. It brings 4 diverse people and pits them into an apocalyptic vacation on the island of Banoi. You get to create and customize weapons, level up your character and, of course bash the heads in of many different kinds of undead. It’s a very atypical zombie game.
Games like these, where developers push the envelope, and bring new things to the TV and Computer Screen are, in my opinion, the best kind of games. They let you have fun in a new and creative way and are great if you are like me and you tend to get bored from the same thing over and over again. Basically, if you saw me online on Xbox Live, my profile would probably be saying “Playing Skyrim” instead of “Playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.”