Wow, it's been a really long time since I've decided to update this blog. Or rather, I just haven't had the time to do so. So many things in life have just gotten in the way. I currently have my job which is having me work quite a lot, which is good because I like to have money to do things like pay bills. Then I decided to join a gym to get in shape because my job makes me feel lazy, what with just sitting there all day. Though, to be honest, I haven't gone to the gym that often as of late, and the monthly membership fee is turning into something of a fat tax. And now, I've gotten the brilliant notion to have a social life on top of all of this, which leaves me little time at all for video games. This makes me sad. I love video games. I think they're pretty great, and if I don't have time for them, well then, what's the point?
The other night I got a chance to play some good ol' Mass Effect 3 multiplayer with my good friend, and that was fun. It had been such a long time since I've sat down to really engage in a game of anything that I had a blast. I'm not saying that ME 3 multi isn't fun, it's just that I long for an experience to get lost in. Recently I bought, played, and beat The Last of Us. The game took me the weekend to get through, and I'll most likely get around to playing it again, but it'll be a while before I do so. Especially because it was not that long ago that it came out. It's like a movie. You don't watch a movie, finish it, then watch it again. You talk about it with your friends and tell them to go see it, or stay away from it, depending on your opinion of the movie. Either way, I need to find a way to fit games back into my life.
There are the "casual" games that people play on their phones and the like, but I'm not quite a big fan of those games. It's fine if you are, but playing those just makes me feel petty. You see, I've tackled games like Shadow of the Colossus, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time. These are some of the games that I hold as a gold standard. Lately I haven't found a game that engages me the way that those games do. To be honest, I don't think that any game on my phone will ever accomplish this magnificent feat.
Games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Tiny Wings, to me, are all just time wasters. Those games you play when you're bored and want to pass the time. You don't get any kind of gratification from playing those games. These games have no depth, no substance, nothing to them. I'm comparing apples to oranges here, but I just haven't sat down to really engage in a video game for a long time. I like to engage in a video game and really put time into it. And these time wasters just help me get rid of time. I don't just lose it like I do with a game like Mass Effect.
Games like World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, Skyrim, or any other kind of Role Playing Game get their players hooked. The players get lost in their games, and as a result, they lose a lot of time. One does not simply play Skyrim for "a little bit". That's just not how it works.
I should play some more Skyrim. It's been a long time since I've sat down to play that. I miss my high elf mage. She kicks butt....
But, this all seems to stem from one thing in particular.... I'm an adult. This sucks. I can't have fun anymore. I've got responsibilities. To people. To my job. to the bills that I have to pay. Meanwhile my games sit handsomely on my shelf collecting dust. That is not what I intended for them. I want to play them. All of them! All the time! But I can't. I just don't have the time. But after a long, boring day at work, streaming a video is much easier than fully engaging and immersing myself in a video game. It's pretty easy for me to get lost in a game, but when I'm exhausted, that's a different story.
There's nothing wrong with games like Angry Birds and the like, I just find those games lacking in depth. The portable platform of gaming makes it somewhat difficult for me to be consumed in. Normally I consider my Nintendo DS to be my roadtrip console, however due to the aforementioned adulthood which I have recently acquired, the DS is now my laundromat console. Wanting to go for something a bit more deep than Tetris, I chose Final Fantasy IV. The Final Fantasy series is known for it's characters, story, music, and shitty battle system. I don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the story and characters, most Final Fantasy games have flat, uninteresting characters that I don't empathize with at all, but the music is great. Fantastic even. Bad jokes aside, I've put a few hours into Final Fantasy IV. I can't say that I've really enjoyed them though. I don't like Final Fantasy games to begin with, and it's difficult to focus when I have to keep track of time and check when the wash cycle is done. Even when I try to play the game at home, when I don't have any kind of distraction, I just can't get into a DS game.
Though, I feel like this is my issue. I know plenty of people who's choice of gaming platform is the portable, whether Nintendo, Sony, or their phone. There are certainly some great games on those platforms, and not everyone has the time to get invested in story, character, gameplay and the like. Sometimes, it just isn't feasible to be a gamer.
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