so i was really looking forward to metal gear solid 5 being that metal gear solid 4 is one of my favorite games of all time. i pick it up for my ps4 the day it comes out, pop it into my ps4, power through the long but really awesome prologue sequence, and jump into the game proper. and... meh. after ocelot finished his spiel i played around for a couple of hours and then put the controller down with a sigh. the new gameplay elements, the new shit i have to learn, the prioritization of gameplay over story, the general on-liney-ness of the whole thing... just... dammit! it's like metal gear for the steam/doritos/dew generation.

being more clear, i do think some of the gameplay elements are cool, but honestly i never purchased a metal gear game with gameplay in mind. this one though, revels in its gameplay elements, which really, i can't fault the game for that. it's just... being that i manage a family, rental properties, work, continuing education courses, my game time ends up relatively limited and when a game requires me to sink that limited time into 'learning' how certain systems function, it ends up feeling like work and i don't want to work during my limited game time.

i had the same issue with the souls series. i love the concept. i love the idea of an old-school, action-rpg, where you hunt for badass gear, amongst crazy bosses and enemies. but learning the way the souls games systems intermingled and how they functioned was just a pain in my ass on top of the difficulty (which i can handle on it's own). console gaming is a pain in the dick.

anyone else feel like this?

Read this article and see which ones apply.

Thanks for that link! :o)

Add "online" to the MP (nothing wrong with local MP, ofc), and it's definitely No.5 for me *lol*

Odd, I had similar feelings yesterday when I, after a very long hiatus, continued playing Okami on my PS2.

First I thought it is a nice relaxing action adventure where you just run around to different places in a wolf form. Sometimes someone blabs something to you for a long time (Japanese trademark especially on RPGs), usually it doesn't make any sense, but whatever.

I started to grow annoyed though as the game kept pushing me all kinds of new things that didn't really make much sense to me. I have to pick up all kinds of items in order to do... something? Ok, I got some seeds, and those birds apparently like them. The birds now have a heart around them, so they love me now because I fed them? What is this "bite" option, I can take a bird into my fangs (not killing it?) and then release elsewhere? Am I supposed to do that, maybe move the birds elsewhere?

Then I opened the inventory and I seem to have all kinds of different abilities or something that are somehow connected with items I can find, or not... The last thing I remember there was a lady guarding some small farm plot, and I had the ability to dig up some roots from there, making the lady angry. What are those roots for? Should I pick them up, and if so, how many? It seemed there was an unlimited supply of them because new ones kept popping up even though I dug them up as fast as I could.

Maybe it starts making sense to me later, but for now it all just felt so obscure and unnatural. Somehow firing up some game which I am more familiar with (e.g. some RTS or AD&D CRPG) feels better because I feel I know the ropes already and don't have to learn everything from the scratch.

It's your subconscious. It's trying to tell you that you still need to play with your LEGOs.

Nice article, I enjoyed it. +1

when i was playing war thunder (i still do sometimes) a guy told me he spent 3-4 MONTHS just to learn deflection shots! :D this term is fancy i know but it's much more simple to understand when you see it on youtube or whatever. deflection shots are one thing to know but before this you must learn all the air maneuvers:

- chandelle
- immelman
- split
- flat / rolling scissors
- hammerhead
- barrel roll
- boom and zoom
- wingover
- loop-the-loop / inner loop
- high / low yo-yo

and if you fight in a squad to communicate with you're buddies through microphone it's even better. however in arcade battles it's very random and unpredictable because people don't really care if they die so it's a massacre. you can play arcade even without knowing maneuvers and even less about deflection shots but if you try realistic or historical battles people tend to be more professional there. i've seen this too - many new games force you to learn a lot of stuff in order to have fun

You obviously don't have the time for gaming. You should find another hobby to get into.

I usually solve this problem by not playing at all for weeks when I'm just "sick of video games". The other thing, especially with MGS5, is that you're probably going to like it more if you are in the mind to experiment instead of using the same cookie cutter formula you're familiar with over and over, which is a big problem in most open worlds after some time.

5# True, I feel this way.

4# Absolutely the opposite, most new games aren't long enough. I long for the return of games like Daggerfall with endless content, video games that can become your entire life for weeks at a time.

3# Nope, in fact the opposite I miss the days when games were about gameplay and the story was just something in the background to justify it.

2# Nope, in fact I think games try too hard to be "original" instead of embracing cool tropes.

1# "They play Gears of War and laugh their asses off when they chainsaw an alien, and then proceed to do it over and over and over again, never getting tired of it." - I'm still like this, but it's Imps and Cacodemons instead of aliens. Oh and I don't actually laugh, just internally.

Its just age, everything used to be better. That's what I think. Don't use dark souls to base your opinion on though, it is fecking awful, easily on my top ten worst games ever. I have been surprised at some of the smaller indie games though, rogue legacy, unepic. Try something else.

I am with OP. And I think it had to do with games being mostly mainstream nowadays, which means big emphasis on story, graphics, whatever, but not on gameplay and engine optimization.

I totally do need to play with my Legos.

See? Self awareness is the first step to enlightenment!

Doubt it is age, I found the best game ever after 25 years of playing, it was Eador,had more fun with it than anything else, lately I had similar teenie-like experiences with FTL, Sots: The Pit and some other new games.