Scope the Ennui

I'm pursuing the following activities to shake the ennui (boredom).

1) I bought my airline tickets and reserved my room for PAX.

Last years PAX was a revelatory experience. I forgot how much fun it was to be around gamers. The fact that I also got to get hands on time with unreleased games, hear Wil Wheaton's awesome keynote, listen to nerd bands, and see Gabe and Tycho were all secondary benefits. I suppose I should just get some proper gaming friends, but that's never gonna happen.

2) I'm looking to see what E3 is bringing.

Here's a rundown of everything in Next Gen's top 30 I currently know enough to care about.

Nothing.

Seriously. There are two games we might play at a future LAN party (Left 4 Dead and Borderlands). The rest of it might be wonderful, but until it's in my hands, it's just the same empty promises all over again. Let's review.

30. Rise of the Argonauts
Another beat 'em up.

29. High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance
Ew.

28. Borderlands
Mad Max on an alien planet. With so many guns that it's guaranteed I'll never get one that suits me perfectly.

27. Mortal Kombat vs. DC
Plumbing new depths in stunt casting.

26. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
A game I'm already bored of, only prettier.

25. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
No Jedi Knight game has been good, so far. Only tolerable.

24. Beyond Good and Evil 2
Won't be out this year.

23. Lock’s Quest
An RPG that lets you reshape the world. Will it be as fun as Rocket Slime?

22. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
I got bored with the first Puzzle Quest by just playing the demo.

21. Crysis: Warhead
I got bored with the Crysis by just playing the demo.

20. Tomb Raider Underworld
I tried to play Tomb Raider Anniversay on GameTap and got bored.

19. Sonic Unleashed
Sonic died to me a long time ago. If after a decade the best you can hope for is that it will be as good as a game which wasn't as fun as Mario back in the early 90s, what's the point?

18. MadWorld
God Hand developers do a Sin City styled beat 'em on the Wii. At best, I'm hoping for it to be as good as God Hand. I'm not holding out hope, though.

17. Animal Crossing Wii
Nintendo hasn't even said they're going to announce this. And I let my original Animal Crossing town go to seed a long time ago. Games that require me to play them are not games, they're jobs.

16. Left 4 Dead
Since we enjoy Zombie Master at the network parties, I'm guessing we'll like Left 4 Dead. I don't expect to play it at any other time.

15. Resistance 2
I loved the Ratchet and Clank games. I hope Insomniac does well with this one. But nothing I've heard makes me want to play it, and I listen to the friggin' Insomniac podcast.

14. Killzone 2
Everything I've read about this game is graphics focused. The gameplay videos I've watched are bland.

13. Fable 2
It's from Molyneux, so it's automatically overhyped. And Fable 1 made me feel empty and alone, not an experience I want to pay for.

12. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
I've never been into C&C. I tried the FPS because I love FPS, but it was crap.

11. Far Cry 2
Between Crysis and Stalker, my enthusiasm for open world games has been well crushed.

10. Prince of Persia
I've had the third of the new Prince of Persia games sitting on my desk for what, two years now? That's epic scale apathy.

9. Final Fantasy XIII
Oh please. I still can't believe I finished FF9. I haven't played an FF game since. And I haven't missed them.

8. Street Fighter IV
Maybe if Dan's in it I'll fish it out of the bargain bin to play through his wacky story.

7. Rock Band 2
I bought Rock Band cheap on Amazon and, thanks to a crappy mic, never finished the single player on Medium. I can't imagine why I should care about the sequel.

6. LittleBigPlanet
A platformer that supports custom avatars and user made levels. It looks like a powerful tool, but none of the gameplay has actually looked fun yet.

5. Halo Wars
I'm bored enough with Halo that I often forget Halo 3 ever got released and that I should maybe play through it someday. On the other end of the spectrum, I found my old DVD with I Love Bees burned on it and had a hard time tearing myself away. It might be a decent console RTS, but not having a 360 makes it extra hard to care.

4. Spore
I'm not sure this is even a game. Make a creature. Help it thrive. It sounds like another one of those building games I might enjoy once in a blue moon. I dinked around with the free creature creator and was immediately bored.

3. Gears of War 2
kill.switch again, huh? I don't know. I only just barely touched Gears on PC, but it immediately felt awful. kill.switch was actually better. Maybe it was just the wrong platform, but it made me lose all enthusiasm for Gears.

2. Resident Evil 5
Meh. RE4 was solid, if clumsy (as all horror games are). But the game won't be out this year, and I probably won't buy it until the year after that.

1. Fallout 3
Oblivion, despite it's promising start, devolved into another boring grind. This game, from the same developer, has made a lot of big promises. Considering one of my main problems with Oblivion was that its grand vision made it feel like no game elements were honed enough to be fun, I'm not holding out much hope for Fallout 3.


There you go. The most anticipated games for E3 and I'm so jaded I can't care about any of them. Part of me says I just need something crazier, that fortune 500 companies don't release the kind of madness I need to get me out of my rut. But I've been following the indie releases (at least the ones Game Set Watch post about) and they don't do it either. To bastardize a quote of dubious origin, "Your [game] is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

I think I need a vacation from gaming.