The Barrage
Video Games have been for me an ever-present experience the majority of my life.
My experience is a bit rosy and cliche; it all started with the original Super Mario on NES.
I can still remember my cousin showing me Duckhunt and Mario (double cartridge mind you) in her living room in Susanville, CA. It was a gloomy day outside and so we parked in the living room to watch pixels jump over pixels. And guess what? It blew my little mind.
Recently my wife and I finished rewatching all of Regular Show (an amazing watch if you’re up for a new, easy to work through Cartoon based in imagination, nerdery, and 80s/90’s references) and there is a scene where our heroes Mordecai the Bluejay and Rigby the Raccoon are playing a console game and the mish-mash of pixels on the screen can hardly be called a picture let alone a shape. When they lift the box art to the screen in an impossible comparison they exclaim “Woah! It’s so life-like”.
This was my experience with games. I was captured heart and soul by what is in modern comparison, sloppy pixels.
So now to look at this INSANE (and I mean insane) season of games descending upon us it blows up my little mind again.
A couple of months ago a friend of mine showed me Breath of The Wild for the first proper time, as I was very late to the most recent game, and I have to say it was just another situation where I was amazed at how this longstanding series (another staple of my childhood) was still crushing it. It promptly brought me to purchase a Nintendo Switch, and my wife and I haven’t looked back.
So what’s the point of all this you say? The point is that I’m actually tired.
The sickeningly sweet downturn to this era of bounty is the constant, non-stop barrage of really, really good games. I’m talking really good.
We’re getting it from all sides and it won’t stop. The indie world is churning out masterpieces while the AAA arena is giving a semi-steady flow of games which allow for a slower or more side-quest based burn.
What scares me about this is the lack of the sponge-experience. What is the sponge-experience you ask? It’s a thing I just made up.
It used to be that your carefully earned allowance was spent on a somewhat researched game. Very rarely were my socks not blown off. We all purchased the occasional stinkers, but this was a lesson we learned hard and we moved on from.
Once this golden title was procured, you spent a solid amount of time focused on said title, maybe occasionally breaking away to dabble in a more zen experience through an older title you beat, or a solider side-scroller or platformer.
There was some commitment to seeing something through to the end, or as far as you could manage without exploding your TV in a rage with a carefully aimed controller (See intentional Nintendo Wii Accident). And you know what? Is was freaking magical!
It was an experience, a journey, and a formative video game season.
But now, we have something akin to mindless meandering from gratification to gratification.
There is a system in place to allow this. With flash sales and humble bundles around every turn, you can now purchase most hit games for a fraction of their cost. It’s becoming more common amongst my friends and I (all serious and hardcore gamers) to lean into two or maybe three big titles and let the rest wash over you. It’s fine because you can always get them on sale later, but you end up playing catch up. If I am honest my gaming life is about three to even ten years behind. I am playing games that have been beaten 5 times already by some people a year ago, last week.
One could, and maybe should, explore how this represents the Millenial generation’s fear of commitment and an ever-present and chronic “Grass Is Greener” syndrome, but from a practical standpoint, it’s really just frustrating.
The culture of how we play games has shifted to a strange and new thing that is so modern and at the same time around the bend, that I’m shocked I’m not in a coma right now.
Just like so much of our modern age, full of constant content being shotgunned into our ears and eyes, the video game medium industry ‘gallery’ is taking very much the same approach. We are inundated with ads, reviews, and trailers showcasing the ‘next big thing’.
This leads to a situation for me that is very much a ‘hurry up and slow down and experience all the things at once’. It’s manic and I hate it and I can’t stop.
It’s also led to some kind of bizarre Gaming FOMO for me. I get to hear about all the amazing moments my friends had with a specific game I’ve chosen not to play. I feel like I’m missing out and it’s weird.
Back in my own pock universe, because each game is a veritable masterpiece full of easter eggs, music, and kooky side-quests, by only playing the game for a quarter or less of it’s overall hours I often feel this anxious sense of disappointment when I start a new game. I wish in my heart that I could ‘have the experience’ of playing but I know the realistically I’m only going to get about skin-deep in the story or overall game.
It’s not all doom and gloom for me. When a game captures me I will play it for a healthy dose of time, and even in some cases, I will finish a smaller indie title. Just last week I finished ‘FAR: Sail Alone’ which I highly recommend if you haven’t played it already. I finished it in two days with about 2-3 hours per session. It was magical.
And I’d be a liar if I didn’t clarify that I spend way more time consistently playing Destiny 2 with my clan and friends than any other game (right now), but because of this, I’ve intentionally avoided some of the other big games that friends have been suggesting (Monster Hunter World, Days Gone, Sekiro).
But the real thrill of these games has a potency still, and that will, or may never change for those who find true enjoyment and magic in the art of Video Game Media.
No one ever said I have to stop and only play one game for the next three months, and I wouldn’t want to.
