The entire gaming world has swung yet again into the next generation. The big contenders this time are the Wii U, the Xbox One, and the PS4. Being the poor soul I am, I look onto the next generation with a bit of disgust. At this point I realize I can only really afford one of the new consoles, but which should I choose? I'll give you a hint, it's none of the above.
The Wii U, being a Nintendo platform, has a fantastic first party line up, innovative controls, and an all around fun feel to the console. Having spent some time with the console, I came away impressed, yet also a little underwhelmed. The Xbox One seems to get a lot of hate from gamers, but after reading reviews of both the hardware and games, it seems to have the best launch line up of all the consoles. The PS4 is the love child that many a fanboy huddle around this time of year. It's near identical to the Xbox One, minus the innovative interface and Kinect, 100 dollars, and the launch line up. However, it does seem to be more gamer friendly.
I stand at the door of the next generation, my eyes glazing over the consoles. Part of me is deeply hurt. Sure, some of the pain comes from the hole in my pocket that will be cut with a purchase of one of these consoles, but something else is there too. To put a word on it would be sorrow. I bought a 360 and Wii, and spent a good deal amount of time with the PS3, and I can safely say the last generation was one of the dullest points in gaming history. I look at this new generation, and while the Wii U is less of an offender, I still see the same monotonous "deep and gritty" games that have been souring my experiences for the past seven years.
To me, gaming has always been about those experiences of pure fun and childlike wonder. Sure, I appreciate Heavy Rain and Alan Wake's gripping story telling or Shadow of the Colossus artistic merits; in fact, I love them. At the end of the day though, I just want to turn a game on and have fun. Last generation was never about fun. It was about depth and grittiness in the 360 and PS3 camps and quirkiness in the Wii camp. That is not fun, and will never be fun. There are moments when I played Call of Duty where I thought "man, that was cool", but it was never fun. I loved my time with Oblivion. I poured 300+ hours into it. But looking back, I still wouldn't call it fun. To me, fun is about simple pleasures and stimulation. Fun is about user generated experiences, rather than a scripted segment or a straight forward shoot 'em up. Fun is crawling around Windfall island, or scaling a giant swinging ship in Pina Park, or strapping a remote detonator to a remote controlled cat and driving it into a zombie monkey, or sitting on the couch next to some buds and gaming through some crazy Wario Ware microgame matches. I lost that last generation, and it seems to be only mildly making a return in Nintendo Land and Game and Wario.
At first, I believed that this was all just nostalgia, and that current gaming will just never be fun for me again. However, this is not true. In order to satisfy my longing for a new console, I took a step back and bought a 45$ Sega Dreamcast, along with some games like Power Stone, NFL 2K2, and Chu Chu Rocket. After playing these games for the first time, I was surprised to find how much fun I was having. All the games had some great moments of true fun in it. The Dreamcast also innovated in ways that we really haven't seen in a long time. It successfully started online console gaming and VMU screens that acted as memory cards.
To be clear, I did have some fun on my Wii and 360. The Wii held me with Super Smash Bros Brawl and my first sit down experience with Resident Evil 4, and Halo 3 is still a blast to play even today. The fun I had with those games, though, was not with the game itself but with the moments I created in them with my friends. This generation we're seeing a push in social gaming, which doesn't add any fun factor for me, and depth, which still doesn't add any fun factor.
Perhaps everyone else gets a kick out of gaming for the sake of blood baths and depth, but to me, both the consoles and the games these days are soulless. They offer no place for users to input their own fun, and instead try to insert their own artificially created fun. So, this generation I opt to take a step back and explore the Dreamcast. Perhaps games weren't as deep as they are now, but they certainly had something that we are missing today.