Just Cause, Crackdown 2, Metro 2033: The Age of Mediocraty Comes To Video Games

Something has happened within the video industry that we have already seen in the record, TV and film industry: Someone is hiring morons. The record industry has been the worst hampered by MBA stupidity, Having both worked for and known people who worked in the industry, I can safely say that these were some of the biggest fools ever. All of us back in 99 found ourselves in the same boat. They wanted the next boy band. Problem was, at the time, that wasn't an option. As a matter of fact until the rise of the Jonas Brothers (whose new single Rain is one of the worst songs ever recorded unless you like the word rain repeated over and over again), there weren't any good boy bands to find anywhere coast to coast. As a result of this, myself and everyone I know left the industry because we couldn't take it anymore. The record industry is still free falling and barely alive from this. Unfortunately, this level of idiocy has spread to movies (the new Hellrasier remake will be PG-13. Good luck with that), and TV (how many doctor/lawyer/medical shows can you actually watch. Very few I would see by the ratings) but until this year, videogames were booming. The word WERE being evry important. Sales have dropped recently, albeit modestly but still a decline for the first time. The reason is less to do with the economic situation than the sub par games that have been coming out this year. I know because I have played them. Other than the great Red Dead Redemption, most of the games I have played this year weren't all that great. Bad graphics or gameplay hampered quite a few and some were just unbelievably short. If I can beat a game in six hours, it wasn't that good. The three games listed in the header are the last three games I have played, two of which I gave back hours after starting.
Just Cause had the best graphics of the three. Your character is some sort of secret agent who has come to a small island off of China to blow the crap out of it. Missions are spread out over attacking bases across the sandbox area which quickly becomes repetitious and dull. The worst part was the driving which was impossible at best and, in the case of a flying race, downright hostile. I crashed so many times the FAA called to see if I was alright. The graphics at least kept my interest for a little while and the explosions were really cool, especially if you found an anchored weapon with unlimited ammo to spread hot death around. Everything could be blown up, including large gas tanks. But the story was nothing, the driving areas made you want to break your controller and the sheer repetition of the whole thing was a slog. Might be a good mulitplayer but the single game sucked.
Metro 2033 was another game with good graphics and a descent storyline. You play a Russian soldier hiding in the ruins of the Moscow Metro after a nuclear war twenty years earlier. Mutants and Renegades hamper your every move as you attempt quest after quest to set a beacon high atop a deserted tower. This game was okay. The gameplay could be a little rough and ammo was hard to find but the most irritating part of this game was the guns themselves. You never knew which gun was better until you actually used it, which meant you sometimes upgraded to worse weapons with no way to switch back. The end had me with two sub par guns that nearly got me killed every time. It was also a been there done that feel about the whole thing so as a FPS it was average, like most of the games from this year.
Then came Crackdown 2, one of the worst games I have played in a very long time. Bad bad graphics, and I mean like Sony PlayStation bad, horrible gameplay and zero story. I literally played for an hour and tossed it right back in the mail. You're a soldier of some sort with mutants attacking a city you have to protect or something like that. It didn't really matter as the game sucked sucked sucked. I hear the mutliplayer is pretty good so it might be like Halo where the single player game blows but the multplayer rocks. But if you want a game to play by yourself, miss this one.

Crackdown 2- 1 star
Just Cause- 2 stars
Metro 2033- 2 and 1/2 stars