"Next-gen" or "how to fuck up a game"

Before i start ranting like a crazy fast-talking squirrel (you know who i'm referring to), let me
point out that despite Master Chief being on the front title logo thing, this blog isn't about console games, and probably never will be. So if you are one of those random individuals who thinks console games > pc games, please press the shiny "X" button in the far upper right. And kill yourself while you're at it.
While i haven't been playing all games that recently appeared (mostly due to me being late on my pc specs and having to play them on a friend's pc, but that will be fixed really soon),
i've been noticing a really retarded trend devouring pc games like a hungering whale recently:
console game adaptation to the pc platform. This was pretty good news at first, since everybody's such a maniac about console games and brag all day about how uber they are, and because console game developers are making a shitload more money out of consoles and frankly pc games have started to disappear at a slow rate, the fact that they're still taking interest in this platform can only satisfy me.
Then i began playing, and saw the miraculously retarded limitations in the console games' gameplay and mechanics. I don't know about you, but i wasn't aware that "next-gen" meant "twice the better graphics at the expense of making something that can actually be called a worthy game". I thought it was only me, i thought the button-matching sequences in Jericho were just a fragment of stupidity sprung from the producers' minds, but after playing several of these games, including the massively acclaimed, game-of-the-year-awarded Gears of War, i was left with something that can only be described as "a bad taste". Now keep in mind that i'm not a huge fan of graphical quality in a pc game - i tend to give games with lower graphics, but better gameplay more credit than your overall left-click-based, gelatinous-pixel-shader-filled killing frenzies. So let's cut to my main argument: limiting gameplay by adding in things that seem cool at first, but you can't stop wondering if you're locked in a box every time from thereafter.
I'll be reffering mostly to Gears of War in this article. The thing about it is not that it's too simple or lacking content - it's simply limiting. First, the whole "abuse the spacebar to survive" thing. While it's an interesting and somewhat new concept, we all know that using something TOO MUCH in a game, apart from the mouse buttons, will eventually become ridiculously annoying, at least for those of you who aren't complete ZOMBIES. The game basically forces you to use the spacebar key to hide behind walls, barriers and such, totally altering the whole genre from "action" to "action and hide behind obstacles to not get your ass kicked". I may exaggerate a bit, but then again, so did micro$oft. For me at least, this game wasn't fun, just a total waste of my time: the focus shifts from "kill enemies" to "kill more enemies". While that would be fine in a normal game, the LACK of things you can do in this game is significant. It feels like you're in a very tight corridor for the whole game, only taking ONE route and killing enemies that pop in your way. The game only allows you to carry 4 weapons, which makes sense i guess, because they're all visible on your character. What i didn't understand was why in the world would micro$oft prefer NOT to use the standard first-person or third-person view, but rather change to a snazzy side-vision which is somewhere above and to the right of your guy, YET pressing the right-click button changes to an *almost* first-person view, also with a crosshair. Couldn't they just adopt the standard 3rd-person+crosshair view and keep the right mouse button for some more interesting features? Apparently not.
About the space bar: the space bar also makes you use some objects, or jump around in Max Payne style. The "press E then press spacebar repeatedly to use an object" made me look back on the old Half-Life games, when i didn't have to complicate myself with 2 buttons and left the effortless action as what it was. But here, for diversity's sake, sometimes you have to press the space bar, THEN press E... micro$oft probably thinks that it's some sort of proof of skill. Which would also imply that we are all retards unless proven otherwise.
Going back to the corridor argument, at one point in the game, your movement is also restricted by the lighted areas of the game: dark means die, light means live. If you enter a dark room with no roof, angry bats will come and rape your ass. And when a street is all dark, you have to shoot some conveniently-placed-but-otherwise-totally-ambiguous propane tanks to light the way so that you can pass, conveniently making this game seem like a corridor in outside areas, as well.
And what's with the life-regeneration thing that every goddamn action game has these days? Yes, i know micro$oft thinks we're retarded, and the fact that it thinks we're too retarded to find and use some healing kits or items that replenish our health might be just the explanation. In fact, you regen your own health so easily that you can just use the spacebar to hide behind an obstacle while you get your own life back to... am i seeing a pattern here?
Besides that, there's the unexplainable events of this game, like WHY in the name of GOD am i not able to get back on a stairway if i stepped onto the platform leading from it (which was where i had to go, because obviously, every place you DO go without dying in this game, is where you need to be). You'd think i'd want to backtrack a bit, probably pick some more "weapons" (i.e. ammo) from the ground, but no... invisible wall takes care of that. Invisible wall is your friend.
You would think that, with the next generation of games, you'd also have the next generation (i.e. EVOLUTION) of game mechanics, and more complex gameplay. But sadly, the game evolution today seems to be inversely proportional to the evolution of stupidity in the world.
I've played linear games before, but for Christ's sake, Mario seemed to be more non-linear than this utter piece of shit... at least in Mario, i could sometimes choose to go the low way or the high one. In this game, if i somehow came to a crossroads, the game would tell me to press Q which would point me to the low road, just because the high road would mean certain death. Kinda makes all that graphical eye-candy seem like being put there only for the scenery...
The next thing would be the button-matching sequence which is present in an increasing number of console-ported games... the little thingy where directions apear on the screen, and you have to press the buttons corespondent to those directions, otherwise you fail. I wouldn't have anything against this sort of thing if:
1. It didn't seem like it was taking you back to the stone age - for crying out loud, you have all those new and shiny graphics - USE THEM.
2. It didn't take your focus from the game itself to the buttons you have to push - i can hardly enjoy what monstruous and gorey fatalities the character is doing if i have to pay attention to "left, right, left, up, left, down, right" all the time.
Apart from that, i can hardly imagine playing a shooter with a gamepad, but maybe that's just me.
I know i'm just talking here for nothing; i can't change what brings money. And so far, micro$oft and the other console game publishers have so much money shoved up their asses that the probability for games being made to suit the futuristic public in the movie Idiocracy is fucking high. Still, i'm waiting for the age when consoles will be ground to dust and everyone will see what an affront to nature they truly are - either that, or they make better console games.