Video games seem to be going the route of Hollywood. We're **** Intellectually intriguing and original ideas are gone. EA has just cut 1500 jobs and canceled dozens of titles. Why? Because they want to "provide greater focus on titles with higher [profit] margin opportunities." Meaning what?

I'll tell you what the **** it means. It means they're going the route of ****-all tight-ass Activision/Blizzard, and only producing titles with a built-in audience. Which means we will get constant rehashes of the same God damned game every year. We will literally be stuck in an endless loop, playing the same exact games year after year. And the big guys are making it impossible for independent developers to create amazing new, innovative, and ground-breaking titles. How are they doing this you ask? By publishing a completed game, and taking ALL of the profits. Leaving these small developers hungry and homeless. If that 1 game isn't a huge success (which the publisher will make sure of, because God forbid it intrude on the profits of the 12 million copies of Guitar Hero 35), the developer will fold, and the team will be out of work. Damn this world, corporations, and stiff bastards who keep truly unique and entertaining art from ever reaching the public due to their insane greed. It's a shame that the people who make the games get paid so little, while the morons at the top of the ladder are multi-millionaires from their work. Who suffers ultimately? We do. Because we will no longer be seeing unique titles with decent ad campaigns to let us know they exist. No. Instead, we will be bombarded with dozens of ads for Gears of War 7 while the next mother****ing masterpiece is largely ignored on the shelf right next to it.

Gamers are allowing it to happen, just like movie-goers. I remember being a kid, there weren't tons of sequels, and hardly any remakes. But then BOOM! All of a sudden, great films are being totally ignored because they're not Harry Potter 6, or Batman 9. They're not the 7th remake of Bram Stoker's. Now all there is out there is remakes and sequels. And studios are continuously finding ways to sequalize movies that were embarrassing ****ing flops during their initial run, and even worse flops when they were released on DVD. This is what's happening to video games. And why? Because despite the fourth sequel of a game sucking and ****ing and eating **** from a rotten shoe, people still rush out and pre-order the ****ing thing, just because they get a neat in-game t-shirt that says "Black Power" on it. So despite the previous title blowing goats through an electric fence, people STILL buy 4 million copies in the first weekend. And it CONTINUES to sell like that, even after every major game publication trashes it and TELLS us it sucks worse than the last one. Thanks to those ignorant uneducated dip****s, we're getting tired, old, overused games instead of fresh, innovative, badass titles.

I have two examples of decent games being entirely overlooked. Conan, and Legendary. Both are awesome. Both are badass. And both got actual, out-loud, excited responses from me. Which RARELY happens. Meanwhile, everyone went ape**** over Rock Band: The Beatles. I dig Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but for ****'s sake, they need to cool it. Almost 10 games of this type were released this year, and sold very well. Meanwhile, great action titles are getting the shaft. Why? Because they're original, they're new, and nobody knows anything about them. It's a shame the public isn't willing to take a chance. You might like something original. God forbid you look at something based on yourself. Unless you hear about it from a friend or on TV, it's not worth looking at.

I dare everyone to go out and purchase 1 game based on the actual box and description that they know nothing about, that is not linked to anything, not based on anything. Think outside the box. You might be surprised.

So I did end up grabbing Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust yesterday. And I can honestly say, I don't hate it. It's really not that bad. I think it's idiotic that they removed all the nudity, considering that was the entire novelty of the game, and this game can't even pretend to be more than a novelty. The game is obviously broken. The controls are bad, the camera is the absolute worst in-game camera I've ever seen. The camera likes to switch in the middle of a jump, so while you were holding forward as you jumped, the new angle makes forward RIGHT, so instead of jumping from one ledge to another, halfway through, you head right, and fall to your death. The platforming is awful, especially since Larry only grabs ledges 50% of the time. The game just feels unfinished, which I think it was. It was dropped by activision, and I just don't think that they ever finished it before it was ultimately published. If this game had been fully developed, and they had perhaps censored some things instead of entirely removing all the naughty bits, then it would be so worth it. As it is, I'm wishing I didn't spend $20 on it, but I've spent more on far worse games. I can't say I'm hating every minute of it, it's just frustrating.

To begin with, I've been a Larry fan since I was about 14, and I've played them all. It's truly a fun, quirky, and often times funny game series. What made these games even better were the fact that, at the core, beneath all of the innuendos and sexual conquests was an interesting puzzle game in the same vein as the Lucasarts titles of the same time period. With Magna Cum Laude on the PS2, things changed, dramatically. The series creator, Al Lowe (who is in my opinion, a true genius and one of the great innovators of early PC gaming), was cut out of the loop. He wasn't even consulted on the creative process, which is a true shame. Had I known this, I likely would have waited a while, instead of shelling out $50 for it as soon as it came out. (This was one of only 5 games for the PS2 I paid more than $30 for). I was expecting a humorous, enjoyable puzzle game with some boobies, and what I got was a series of minigames masquerading as an adventure game... with some boobies. However, I didn't hate it, I just didn't like it as much as the previous titles. I enjoyed the fact that it was the same kind of humor as classic National Lampoons movies, even if it wasn't as well written or executed, and the game did illicit some laughter from me on occasion. Now with this new Larry game, Box Office Bust, my understanding, is that it sucks so hard. It's only been out a month and a half, has dropped price down to $20. Being a huge Larry fan, I'm gonna bite the bullet and buy the thing. I'm not expecting greatness, but apparently, it's incredibly offensive. So much so that it ceases to be humorous. That's my kind of humor. People don't always laugh at what I have to say, but I do get a reaction. That's all I care about. I expect it to be interesting at least. Going in, I know it's another minigame fest, masked by a shallow adventure game, I know the controls are weak, and I know it's graphically inferior for the XBox 360. These are all things I'm hoping won't get in the way of my enjoyment, because honestly, I like a lot of games that most people hate. So, here we go, I'll be taking the plunge today, and hopefully, I'll at least crack a smile at some of the weird and retarded things my long-time buddy and like-minded individual will have to say.

And just for the record, I DO have a girlfriend.