I’ll admit it, I’m concerned.
As I gaze over my favourite games list with misty eyes and heartfelt memories, I’m still believing that a game made in 1999 is one of the very best ever made – shock horror - over the beloved Bioshock, Gear of War et al.

Of course, I’m talking about Silent Hill. This game really has everything I’m looking for if it was a personal ad, we’d be married in six months. A plotline that’s deeper than the bowels of Rapture, more scares than the whole locust horde put together and puzzles that don’t require a big ass arrow pointing me in the direction of whatever key I have to pick up this week.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed Bioshock and Gears of War. I really did. As far as today’s games go, Bioshock deserved its BAFTA. But I’m concerned that today’s top titles are just the Pamela Andersons to the 1990’s Angelina Jolies. And I’m not talking about looks – oh dear god, have you seen Silent Hill recently? Harry Mason looks like he’s wet himself (in retrospect, he probably has) that’s SHADING, people, SHADING! But Silent Hill had a heart. If you’re motivated by absolutely nothing; i.e. just doing what you’re told - (yes, I know this is part of the plot, stick with me here) then play Bioshock to your happy little heart’s content. In fact, sell your heart on the black market, because you won’t be needing it.

“Oh but it’s so PRETTY! - You cry - Look at the water! *peers into the world of Silent Hill* I see… pixels. I fear them.” But that’s the problem. We’ve finally reached graphical utopia – hell, I was excited when I first saw running water in Tomb Raider The Last Revelation way back when, but now we’ve reached a point where we can really go “Yawn. Water. Moving on.” Bioshock is undoubtedly gorgeous, and Gears of War has its moments. Developers have finally got past the “Holy shiny face, Batman!” moments of the Xbox 360 launch titles (TR Legend’s Lara still frightens me with her botox head) but is anyone else feeling a little soulless these days?

Yes, today’s games are visually wonderful but it’s all just stuck on to cover up the fact that really, there’s nothing much beneath the surface.
Compared to a time when games relied on a plot or excellent game play over photorealism, we’ve got Vogue quality spreads in our magazines and has anyone seen the opening credits to Motorstorm in high def? These are the opening credits! Yay graphics… oh hand on, this controls like manipulating a soft shit through a series of pipes whilst wearing boxing gloves. Slllloooww. I’d rather play Fahrenheit. On the original Xbox. Yes, okay, perhaps comparing a racing game to a story-driven murder mystery is somewhat unfair, but god, Motorstorm is boring. But it looks good, so that’s okay. /Sarcasm.

What was the best selling game before Halo 3? Oh yes, GTA: San Andreas. Perhaps its not everyone’s cup of tea, and yes, it looks like something I could knock up in Photoshop by cutting up various PS2 titles and sticking them together like Frankenstation’s Monster, but it proved that a game doesn’t have to look stunning to make it. People were buying it for the excellent storyline and the – oh hang on, they just wanted to cave people’s heads in with metal baseball bats whilst listening to Snoop Dogg. Scrap that one then.
By the way, anyone under whelmed by Halo 3? There. I said it.

Back to my point; let’s use Tomb Raider and compare it with Tomb Raider Anniversary as I think this is a fair comparison regardless of the fact they were made by two different companies *whistles*

Anniversary was supposed to be Lara's triumphant return, her retrospective and a look to the future after the somewhat lukewarm reception of Tomb Raider Legend by hardcore fans.
It would be cruel to say Anniversary has failed, and yet it hasn't set the world on fire - despite being engaging, good looking and enjoyable, several niggles deserve a mention simply in the hope that TR 8 receives a good ironing to remove the kinks that have blighted Crystal Dynamics interpretation of Core Design's award winning franchise.

First - the boss battles are bloody annoying, relying on moves that look good but are an almighty pain to pull off and formulaic at best; a classic dinosaur moment tarnished by fancy-schmancy and utterly pointless auto targeting that calls for thrown controllers and tantrums of frustration.
Lara herself has been torn down and rebuilt by her original creator - Toby Gard, who walked just before she made headlines when TR was released back in '96. Gard unfortunately had other ideas of her personality and therefore has become somewhat bloodthirsty and colder rather than using her sharp wit and feminine wiles to overcome her adversaries. I hate to say it, but Lara just isn't as loveable anymore. A moment's silence for Core's Lara - sparky and slightly dirtier (a move that angered Gard in the first place) but undoubtedly more vivacious than Crystal Dynamics' wet weekend emerging from the back of beyond covered in Ducati labels (a nod to Legend, I thank you.)
The storyline is patchy at best, if you haven't played the original then it is rather hard to completely understand what the hell is going on. Style over substance, again.

Oh, Lara. You look good. But does anyone care anymore? The franchise itself went irrecoverably downhill for Core Design after Tomb Raider III because they failed to engage the player with variety and really, failed to make Lara Croft’s adventures interesting and less samey-samey (okay, they tried with Angel of Darkness but in my opinion its all Eidos’ fault for rushing it out in the first place) this loss of faith on the fans part goes hand in hand with graphical improvement – but really, I much prefer Toblerone breasted Lara to Ms Roundy Butt with no freaking personality. Games have been dumbed down to fuck. To mayke it easier 4 teh noobs!!oneone…

Harking back to the Silent Hill series – what happened? Okay, Silent Hill 2 spawned one of the best baddies of all time, Pyramid Head, but what the fuck was going on with the actual game? Yawnsome at the best of times. SH2 looked amazing, down to the last smidgen of rust in the filthy toilet bowl, but I failed to care for the main character because they failed to develop him into a person rather than a handsome (if you like the Bryan Adams type) collection of polygons and if I don’t care, I don’t have any motivation to finish the game. Luckily for Team Silent, I wanted to see Pyramid Head again so finished the damn game. But that was only because of Pyramid Head, I swear.

The last game I truly loved and played through more than once was Fable: The Lost Chapters. Do you know why? Actually, if you’ve been paying attention, you do. Fable mixed humour with an emotive storyline, enough choice to give a sense of ownership without straying into GTA’s territory, looked good enough not to recoil and shout “THE EDGES! THE EDGES! IT LOOKS LIKE A PLAYSTATION GAME!!” but it didn’t need to dazzle us with high-def whaddyamacallits because it was a fucking excellent game. Which is why I worry for Fable 2 and its trees with each individual leaf moving in the breeze. Who gives a shit? I want to sever some heads and find my long lost cousin or something to that effect. If they’ve lost the charm - “He don’t look like no chicken chaser to me” – genius - then they’ve failed. What has happened to our well-thumbed cases and must-haves? They’re sitting in the preowned section, forlorn and forgotten because we traded in our souls for Resistance: Fall of Man.

In the present, I must admit I completed Bioshock because it kept the mystery long enough (a whole ten hours or so) for me to get to the end and go “Oh. Was that it?” If the games industry follows the music industry and does a Radiohead and says “We don’t want to make any money anymore – what do you want to pay for these titles?” (stop laughing) Well, they’d be a bit fucked, to be honest. If ‘they’ continue to churn out endless FPS titles, we’re going to condemn them to the bargain bin quicker than you can say Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure which, to be fair, is pretty slowly, but you get my point.

I honestly don’t know whether games are getting shitter because we’re getting older and therefore more unimpressed – I fear I’m turning into my Father who would much rather play Pong than Extreme Head Cutting Unleashed or something else from the 90’s – whereas I’d much rather play Silent Hill or Fable than play through Gears of War for the second time. Yes, it was good, but why repeat the experience? And I can honestly say I’ve not been turned on by online multiplayer – that’s a whole new excuse. “Halo 3 single player was a bit poo but YOU HAVE TO TRY THE ONLINE MULTIPLAYER!!!!oneone!!one…” ad infinitum. No. No. No. Nononono. Because I didn’t just spend forty freaking quid to play silly bastards with a load of ten year olds shouting “NOOB! UR SO PWND!” at me. Not because I am a noob, you understand (like I fucking care) it’s because games shouldn’t just be geared towards the online market.

And of course, there are some glaring omissions from the “getting shitter” clause – Assassin’s Creed, Kane & Lynch, Army of Two (although I strongly suspect they’re the same bloody game) and even the upcoming Lego Indiana Jones all look promising because they’re off the fucking beaten FPS track. Everyone loves an FPS but that doesn’t mean we all want bang-bang you’re dead games all the time. What concerns me the most is our loss of variety. Don’t even get me started on Nintendo’s Games for Everyone campaign – that’s a whole new bone of contention to be discussed another day. We’ve traded in all that we held dear for a quick waggle with the Wii or Heavenly Sword which is just a short re-hash of a real standout title – God of War. Where did our ideas go? Where did the motivation go? Where did the hardcore gamers go?

Oh that’s right, they’re all bitching about Manhunt 2. Save it, Manhunt 2 isn’t a battle we should be fighting. Fuck Manhunt 2, Fuck the planet, save our games.