Okay so right away the title is coming off a bit cynical, I know. It's not that I'm falling out of love with video games, it's just that new video games don't interest me like they used to. When I was in college, I used to visit either Best Buy or Gamestop every week to see what new games would be out that week, and there was a fifty percent chance I was going home with a new game. Nowadays, I can spend an hour in any given store with video games and I scratch my head until my scalp is sore, and somehow I fail to find any interest in any game that is offered to me.
I buy games much less often than I used to. I also play them less too. Or do I? To be quite honest, I still love games, and gaming in general. I probably fall under more of a "retro" gamer than anything, as I can play any NES, SNES, N64, or GBA game an infinite number of times and still enjoy it as much as I did the first time I played it. Ironically my current biggest collection is comprised of Gamecube, DS, 3DS, and PS3 games. I have sold all of my SNES and N64 games (sadly) to pay bills but I hope to buy them back some day. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. But to be perfectly honest I should have sold all of my new games instead of my old ones. Old games, to me, have more replay value. I can play a current game, enjoy it, but chances are I'll never play it again. And depending on the game, I probably wouldn't even miss it.
Sometimes, especially lately, I get into this "funk" where I am completely disinterested in newer games. Like, I look at my collection and really try to muster up some interest to play one but just can't. Or I'll pop a game in my PS3, load it up, get to the title screen, and then shut it off after 5 minutes of staring at it. Then I start to think I've lost interest in gaming. But then I go and play a DS game and I'm happy. Or, when I had SNES and N64, I would pop in one of those games and play for hours, even days, despite having played them a million times over. I guess it's the familiarity of them, or maybe I just don't want to make the effort of learning a new game's mechanics. Or whatever the case may be, I just prefer old games. Oftentimes I think I should've just stopped buying new games after the Gamecube was discontinued. Because, DS and 3DS aside, I have largely lost any excitement for new games. The Gamecube was the final hurrah in my opinion. DS and 3DS have seemingly taken over where consoles dropped the ball. So I am largely a portable gamer now.
I find myself finding fewer and fewer games to get excited about and even fewer yet that I am starving to play. For instance, I was extremely excited about South Park: the Stick of Truth. Like, to the point where I was willing to sell an organ to get it. Thankfully I didn't, because while the game was good, it wasn't quite at the level I was hoping or expecting. South Park is one of my favorite shows of all time and the game looked and sounded amazing and it was incredibly true to the show but it wasn't quite as fun, polished, or as funny as the show, which is a shame. I managed to get a platinum trophy which was annoying but feasible. I never get platinum trophies so this was a big one for me. But now that I've played the game three times and did everything I could possibly do in the game, I will probably never ever play it again. In fact if I sold it tomorrow I probably wouldn't even care. In fact, if I sold my entire PS3 collection I probably wouldn't care much. I'd probably be happy I can buy some N64 or SNES games back with the money. So far there have been maybe 3 games that have come out between 2006 and now that I would say I was completely in love with. Those would be BioShock, BioShock Infinite, and Kirby's Epic Yarn. Yes the Super Mario Galaxy games were good. Yes Skyrim was good. Yes Pokemon X & Y were good. But I didn't get that familiar feeling when I play a really good game. And chances are I won't play another game that makes me feel that way for a long time, if ever. Despite being largely disappointed with gaming from 2006 and onward, I still cling to the hope that I will "accidentally" stumble upon my newest favorite game. The closest thing to that in recent memory is BioShock Infinite. I hate most FPS's but this game got rave reviews and I was bored last Memorial Day weekend so I spent the $60 on it to see what the hype was about. Spending the full $60 on a game I knew almost nothing about and wasn't even sure I was going to like, is a huge deal. Thankfully it really paid off! BioShock Infinite is one of my favorite games of all time. So because of this, I have regain some faith in that games can still really charm me. But it's not very likely.
Anyway, I'm not even sure where I was going with this whole post, I'm just kinda writing whatever comes to mind. But I think the points I was trying to make is that gaming is evolving (or devolving, whichever makes more sense) and I am not evolving with it. Newer games cause me to become disinterested with gaming, but old games still retain that nostalgia and charm and everything that made the games fun to begin with. Luckily I have a 3DS XL which still provides some great new games, but even still not to the same level of enjoyment as pre-Wii games.
Am I alone on this? Share your thoughts!
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