My latest Variety review looks at Mercenaries 2, which I like quite a bit -- and I'm surprised I like it so much. Yeah, I thought I wouldn't like it at all -- because "console blockbusters" are traditionally vapid? Because I don't tend to like "run around with heavy armaments" games? Because it "seems masculine?"
Recently, I've been languishing in a little bit of disinterest in games in general; blame the summer lull, blame the occasional periods of burnout I get from having to focus on such a high-volume industry all the time. I sometimes wonder if working in games hasn't, over time, begun to affect my enjoyment of them. But then I notice that it's not really that I haven't enjoyed playing games lately -- it's been that I've enjoyed playing a narrower range of games than usual.
I don't really have the luxury of only playing those games which immediately appeal to me. Not only do I get assigned reviews on a fairly regular basis, but my interest as a games writer is largely the culture surrounding games, which means that I learn a lot by trying many different things and trying to empathize with different segments of the audience. Before I was involved in game journalism to the extent I am now, I literally never played first-person shooters at all, because I thought I hated them. Since then, I've played a lot, and while I still wouldn't call it my preferred genre, there've been a few that I enjoyed -- if I'd stuck religiously to my law, I'd never have played BioShock, for example, and that would have been a big miss, to say the least. I like that my job makes me try things I ordinarily wouldn't.
And because it's important to me to have a broad lens on the industry overall, I try to take an objective stance with just about everything, to the point that I forget I do have niche preferences of my own. I tend to have irrational guilt if I focus on one title to the exclusion of all else -- how "up on things" can I be if all I feel like doing is playing Symphony of the Night for the umpteenth time?
Everyone's excited about Spore, and I am too, but how I feel right now is damn irritated that Amazon has bungled my preorder of Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, even though it's likely to be largely similar to every other Harvest Moon title I've dumped hundreds of hours into already.
Maybe, though, there's a lesson to be taken from my own regressive preferences, since I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I've expressed a tick of frustration recently over the overwhelmingly fast pace of our industry and the high volume of new releases, when major titles that took years to develop feel done-with and "old" only a few months after they launch. Completion feels good, doesn't it? It's satisfying to know a title like the back of your hand, to be intimately familiar with it, to have spent enough time with it to develop habitual, personal association. And today's console titles are, as a rule, so large that it seems rather difficult to do that with them, doesn't it?
I feel vaguely guilty that I just want to play Castlevania. I feel guilty that, as I keep an eye on the plethora of downloadable titles released on each of the platforms I own week after week, I'm still playing PixelJunk Eden practically every day even though that one is a few weeks "old" already. I resent that guilt.
So maybe I tend to resent the "traditional," highly-anticipated console blockbuster because here's more to see and do, here's another huge "can't-miss" title that I'll feel pressured to finish in time for the next major release. I think really, beyond its testosterone-fueled explosive destruction and rat-a-tat gunfire mechanics, this principle is really why I thought I wasn't going to like Mercenaries 2 -- less to do with my usual console preferences and more to do with my state of overwhelm and my longing for a title that's simple enough that I can map it all to my heart, hand and mind and give it some sense of permanence.
Mercs 2 is simple enough -- in fact, the majority of the glowing sentiment I accorded it in my review is for the ingeniousness of the design that makes it fun to play without being overcomplex. I was pretty amazed as I learned my way in via the tutorial level and found myself thinking, "you know, I bet a non-gamer could pick this up and enjoy it." But it's pretty wild fun. As I said, running around with an AK-47 tends not to hold my interest for long, but if there's one thing I love to do it's destroy environments and blow things up -- in light of that, there's no other word for Mercs 2 but satisfying.
And it's even more fun with a buddy. And I mean to play co-op with people more, I really do -- but, y'know, at the end of my workday, I really just want to play a little more Eden, maybe a little SotN. And right now, I'm gonna refuse to feel guilty about that.
Anyhow, check out Mercs 2 review at Variety. I really think a broader range of player types will enjoy it than might be expected from a quick glance, even if it's "not usually their thing."
[Update: My editor at Variety, Ben Fritz, writes about a really cool free gas publicity stunt in the middle of L.A. that EA pulled off to promote the game. You crazy left-coasters!]
