This past year has been an interesting one. As graduation approached I was excited at the prospect of making real money from a job. Then graduation came but a job was still absent. I continue to be one of many graduates that have been unable to find work. As such, I had begun pawning off a lot of my games in order to play more newer ones. As I went through them, I began to realize most of my games aren’t worth keeping after all. Sure this was a great shooter, but in a few months I can play another just like it. May as well trade it in for another. The amount of games with good reason to return were very few.

In fact, the games I have actually replayed are very, very few. I’ve primarily gone back to games that have an excellent story or world to explore, or something about the gameplay just stands out enough that the only way to experience it again is to go back and replay it. Most titles, however, no matter how high they have ranked on Metacritic or how much I loved them, were easily replaceable.

As such my attitude towards upcoming games has become equally cynical. Titles I would have considered day one purchases before are now rentals. Many of these games are met with little excitement, either. Sure they may be fun, but there is always something missing. Everyone’s been playing and making a big deal out of Borderlands, but all I can think of are my friend’s complaints about achievements, the fact that there are only four classes, one equipment slot and yet a ton of weapons. What truly makes this game special? Is it yet another post-apocalyptic world? Or just the simple fact that you’ll never run out of weapons but the class and armor possibilities are bound to become bland and lack luster?

Nothing could have hit me harder than when I played Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno and Global Agenda this weekend at GameX. I spoke with some other media members there and I wasn’t the only one unimpressed with Dante’s Inferno, as it was pretty much God of War with a different skin and set of foes. Meanwhile across was Bayonetta, featuring a similar monstrous boss that you had to strike the hands of in order to knock off of the cliff. All that sets Bayonetta apart from its competition is the sexy librarian. Otherwise it is just another Devil May Cry with, once again, a new skin. If people love Devil May Cry then good for you, but to me this is just another generic title with a different coat.

Global Agenda was one of the most popular games at the show, constantly full of seats even on a slow Sunday. Yet when I sat down, played it and spoke with the representative I found little excitement for this game. Any great experience that could be generated in a truly massively multiplayer experience was ruined by focusing on tiny skirmishes. It takes every-day shooter concepts and throws them together with an MMO leveling and equipment system as opposed to providing a unique experience. It’s just another shooter game that happens to have a lot of players online at once.

Does this mean any of these games will be bad? Not at all, plenty of them will be good. Does it mean they do nothing interesting? Not quite, since Global Agenda tries some pretty neat ideas.

Yet on the whole the game provides the same substance as those before it. Yet at the show there was a lot of praise for Global Agenda. No matter what Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno are going to sell well and rank reasonably high.

Journalism and gamers have become a marketing tool for what publishers look at as games that will sell. These games do sell, too, but to the same market as always. Every once in a while a game like Bioshock comes out, bringing not only fun gameplay but a unique world with a great story. Yet that title is now being given a sequel it did not need with a concept that sounds very uninspired, but also typical and even predictable of the games industry. No new gamers are being introduced into the hobby, however, and they never will be until the games do more than sell to a market that only cares about frames per second and the number of weapons available.

Of course, this is assuming any of my lamentations can be heard over the sound of a glitched and repetitive game known as Fallout 3 winning 2008’s Game of the Year.

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