Console games have made me stupid

TMI alert: A few years ago, I was sitting on the toilet in our old EGM/1UP offices, looking up at a poster that someone taped to the inside of the stall door. It illustrated the tech and research trees from Sins of a Solar Empire, showing all the cool stuff you could eventually get in the real-time strategy game.

I didn't know why that was there — I assumed one of my fellow editors from sister mag Games for Windows Magazine put that up to keep our minds off of what we were really doing. But I was fascinated: superior wave cannons, atomic lattice armor, cluster warheads, titano-ferric plating…. I didn't know what everything meant, but my inner sci-fi geek was quite thrilled. "I have to get this game," I thought to myself while sitting on the can.

And get the game I did. And play it I did. And stopped playing it about an hour in I did. This RTS gave me way too much to manage and think about, complete with an overwhelmingly detailed interface. Fleets, planets, production, movement, combat, research, upgrades, resources, etc. etc. — the game was to me what programming a DVR must feel like to my grandmother. I didn't have the patience, and I gave up.

It's not like I didn't have the PC-strategy chops. I used to be hardcore into series like Master of Orion, Civilization, Warcraft, Galactic Civilizations, and Heroes of Might and Magic. I even created maps and embarrassingly dorky stat sheets for the RTS Dark Reign. Did this former PC strategy-game fan just grow too old?

I don't believe so. I think console games simply melted that part of my brain away.

Sarcastic image courtesy of Hiwiller.com.

In the never-ending hunt for casual gamers with extra bucks to spare, developers have seriously dumbed down their products over the last few years. I could give you endless examples — and you probably know several yourself — but three specific ones come to mind. Perfect Dark Zero, BioShock, and Splinter Cell Conviction all show just how much designers respect gamers these days — that is to say, they think we're a bunch of idiots.

In PDZ, if you take too long to finish a level, a giant "follow me!" path lights up to hand-hold players directly to their destination. Maybe that sounds like a smart design decision to you — hey, if you're wandering around, clueless as to where to go next, what's the harm in a little help? But that "help" isn't "little"…it's practically a neon-lit yellow brick road.

How about some decent level design so players don't get lost in the first place?

BioShock offers a similar "hey stupid, go here" arrow that is slightly easier to ignore. But Conviction may be the worst offender yet. What happened to our feeble minds between the first game in the series and now where we need a visual label on every goddamn ledge, pipe, table, window, and other environmental object to let us know that we can interact with it? Did we really forget how to climb over walls after the first 8,000 times we've done it in games past?

Alright, maybe my grandma wouldn't mind those visual "do this, you dummy" indicators to help her figure out where to go next, but last I checked, she wasn't itching to get behind the gun in BioShock, no matter how many times I would-you-kindly-ed her. But I can tell that these types of gaming crutches, primarily seen on consoles, have seriously diminished my patience and ability to figure shit out for myself. When I'm having trouble in a genre I used to make dorky stat sheets — stat sheets! — for, I know something's not right.

It's gotten so bad, that I've actually been too intimidated to jump into Starcraft 2. Who has time to learn all the hot keys, commands, units, buildings, and upgrades? Not me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go figure out how to throw a Frisbee in Wii Sports Resort.