Original post at:http://n4g.com/user/blogpost/cpayne93/520686

For most of this gen, Ive been having a bit more trouble enjoying video games. Most games just havent done it for me; none of them could bring back the excitement that the games of yesteryear could.

Then I found a little game called Demons Souls.

I became engrossed in this game, more addicted than I have been to any other game in years, and I just couldnt stop playing. Every night when I would go to sleep, I would lay there thinking of which level I should attack the next day, what weapons I should develop, spells to learn, and most of all, what was the best way to take down each individual enemy.

All the tales of frustration I had heard from other people meant nothing to me. Every failure encouraged me even more, and I never, not once, became anything other than enthralled while playing this game. It gave off a sense of satisfaction that no other game had this gen, in fact; I really hadn't enjoyed a game as much as that one since I was ten years old. To this day, it is the only platinum I have gotten. I wanted to achieve everything in that game, and, after I did, I still wasn't tired of playing yet.

Demons Souls (and Dark Souls of course) has something almost every other game this gen doesnt have, other than the difficulty. It gives you the feeling that you are in complete control of your character, which is something other action games just dont do. For example, when you use the melee in Infamous or Batman (both of which are good games, dont get me wrong), you dont really know how that attack will go down. Cole or Batman will automatically head towards the nearest enemy and throw a punch or kick. In Demons Souls, there are normal, strong, running, and rolling attacks, and these attacks will perform the same movements no matter if there is an enemy on the receiving end or not. See, in these other games, you press a button to tell your character to perform an ACTION. You tell him to attack an enemy, and he does it on his own. In Demons Souls, you tell your character to perform a MOTION, and YOU have to guide your character into landing the hit. You have maintain a certain distance from your target so your attack wont fall short, and you have to time this motion so that you land your hit before the enemy can. This is an incremental part of gaming which has started to be ignored in recent years in favor of cinematics over gameplay.

Let me give some other examples of gaming being a bit too cinematic. Assassins Creed, youre sitting above an enemy, and you see the word assassinate next to the square button. You press it and Ezio gracefully jumps onto this particular enemy and takes him down. What did you do? Not a whole lot. Splinter Cell: Blacklist, you can tag enemies, press a button, and Sam will run out and take down every enemy on his own in a flashy action sequence. What did you do? Again, not a whole lot. Or look at almost any fps campaign this gen. You go down a linear path with some A.I teammates, and you point and click your way through the game. There were barely any choices of where to go or what to do, you just moved on and repeated the same actions over and over. YOU, the player, are slowly being taken out of the equation.

These games just dont feel like games to me.

Think back to the N64 and PS1 days. Mario front flips through the air, kicks off of a wall and lands on a nearby goomba. You did that with your own skill, and you used a precision that isnt allowed in most games nowadays because they would have to hold your hand through the jumping process. All the moves you learn in Banjo Kazooie perform the same way each time, and you have to use them appropriately to defeat bosses and move through levels. In Goldeneye, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Ghost Recon, nobody is telling you how to get to your objective. You can go where you want; you can do what you want. How has gaming evolved since then? Compare older games to their sequels or newer games of the same genre, and what do you find? A betrayal of gameplay and a new focus in scripted sequences and actions. Look at Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, or Resident Evil.

See, it isnt just the difficulty that makes Demons/Dark Souls feel so fresh compared to todays games, its the way they play. The gameplay is incredibly skill based, and there's no auto help anywhere in the game, it's all you. The Souls games are how I always imagined games to evolve, with gameplay and online elements that werent possible with old games. However, when you look at other games, the gameplay tends to be less satisfying then it was in the 90s, even if the controls are harder to get used to at first. How many games really feel exciting when you beat a boss? Usually it just feels like you are watching another cut scene.

In my opinion, video games are starting to lose what really made them video games. Nowadays, they are all about cinematics, linearity, and hand holding. Video games arent really games anymore, theyre becoming interactive movies. There have been some exceptions of course, but overall games are constantly getting dumbed down into experiences that are visually exciting, but unfortunately not a whole lot else. I can understand why others like these games, but they just arent for me. I hope, I really do hope, that at some point we will see a revival of the old school style of games like Demons/Dark Souls. Games that focus on the experience through the actual gameplay, not cinematics. Later this year Ill be buying PS All Stars, but until then, its just emulators and HD collections for me. Thanks for reading, be sure to leave comments below and tell me what you think.