I'm playing Darksiders 2 as part of my effort to milk every last drop of value from my PS3. I was one of the suckers that bought it around launch time and paid $600 for a 60GB machine.

Anyway, I'm slogging through this dungeon and I go into a room, kill all the demons or whatever are in there, and I'm rewarded with a treasure chest containing a new piece of armor. My current armor boosts defense by +21. This new armor has boost of +24. Equipped.

I move to the next room and see a treasure chest on the other side. The path is obstructed. So I scale a wall, hop across two platforms, swing from a beam, and boom, I drop down Ninja style in front of the chest. Open it up....New armor!! +26.

Now can someone please tell me what is fun about a "loot collecting game"?????????

I mean, that first armor upgrade was totally pointless. I didn't encounter an enemy at all before I found something better. A better upgrade was literally in the very next room. There was absolutely nothing nearby that had any capability to attack me.

Apparently I'm just supposed to think it's fun to have an extra piece of armor listed in some tiny-print inventory screen.

Hooray!

It used to be that you had to fight your balls off through an entire area, and win an epic boss fight before you got anything at all. Then you got the mega-buster sword of ages or whatever and it felt like a real reward. It was insanely satisfying to take it into battle and unleash this awesome new power.

Now we're just collecting junk and calling it fun?

Are all games like this now?