5 Ways to Tell You're Getting Too Old for Video Games
We tend to be very critical of the video game industry here at Cracked, and damn it, the industry deserves it. They charge more per-copy of their product than any home entertainment medium, and are always looking to squeeze us for more. If they don't like being held to a high standard, tough shit.
But ... a lot of the bitching I hear about games (some of which I hear out of my own mouth) isn't really about the games. It's about us, and the fact that once you hit a certain age, you're no longer the target audience game makers have in mind. Here are some signs that, sadly, you might be outgrowing your favorite hobby.
#5. You Think Multiplayer is Bullshit
Hey, remember when a game was a wondrous adventure you could totally get lost in for weeks on end? Alone?
Depending on your age, there's a good bet that in your teens at least one Final Fantasy game sucked you in with a force that no novel ever could. What happened to games like that, when the single player was a sweeping, epic story rather than five hours you could blow through in a Friday night?
"Now let me tell you the entire history of the War of the Magi."
Of course, those games were created back when the main story was something other than a one-day crash course intended to train you up for the multiplayer. These days, multiplayer is like a "get out of a bad game free" card. Game makers don't have to worry about AI or plot or progression or variety, because the real game is out there on XBox Live, where it's all about players shooting each other until the time limit expires or a point cap is reached. Everything else on the disc is just window dressing for, "point, shoot, die, respawn."
Add in gamer shit-talk from emotionally stunted teenagers, and suddenly most modern gaming is about as fun as being held down by a bully and repeatedly slapped with your own hand until you black out. And if you don't live up to your teammates' expectations, it's even worse -- you have to get yelled at by some stranger who thinks the veteran/n00b relationship is basically employer/employee. What I'm saying is, I'd rather fistfight a wolf than play multiplayer.
But the Truth Is...
My complaint isn't really with multiplayer. It's with the fact that I can't stand teenage dipshits. Of course multiplayer games don't have to be random matchups with children and assholes -- some of the best times you can have in a game involve gathering friends and laughing your asses off as one guy ramps the Warthog off a cliff, sending everybody flailing through the air. And the technology makes it easy to set up those gaming sessions...
... when you're in high school.
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"You need your own computers, dipshits."
When you're older, getting even four people your age together on the same night could take literally months, and requires the construction of an intricate scaffold of babysitters, vacation days and placated spouses. And then, when it finally all comes together, the novelty wears off after an hour or so and all that is left is the frustration of being absolutely horrible at the game. These games are electronic sports, they require practice. That's why my own kids can head-shot me on the run while jumping off of a building and switching weapons in mid-air.
And you know what? Not once do I hear them complain about what a fuckjob move it was for the industry to focus on multiplayer. I can whine right into their ear about how it's bullshit to have to pay separately for an online account, and how only an asshole would pay $15 for a pack of five recycled maps. They don't listen. They're too busy sneaking up behind me and laughing wildly as they knife me in my old, arthritic back.
Assholes.
#4. You Think Games Are Suddenly Too Long
Of course, not every game is "beat it in an afternoon" length. The very next notch up the scale of game length is the "you will never fucking see everything even if you play it for three years" games. Skyrim is promising "over 300 hours of gameplay". Games like that have endless tricks to stretch out the game experience forever and ever -- from assloads of side quests, to the promise of a completely different experience if you go back and choose a different character class or skill set (see: Borderlands) .
You can always spot these bloated games immediately, because you have to invest 10 hours in the intro mission that teaches you the menus ("What, you mean Fallout 3 isn't about a dude who spends his entire life inside this fucking underground vault?").
"Press X to party."
But more does not mean better. I didn't have to skin too many coyotes in Red Dead Redemption before I realized I was playing a time wasting simulator. Now please, somebody tell me if this letter icon on my map will actually advance the fucking main story, or is just another side mission to earn $35 so I can buy bullets for the next side mission. Since when is entertainment about making the audience wander around aimlessly so you can boast about the sheer tonnage of hours you gave them?
But the Truth Is...
Boredom is a young man's disease. For me, every minute I spend playing, more shit is piling up in my work inbox. No, I don't need a game that will kill time. I need a game that will give me the most possible fun in the precious few hours of spare time I get in a week. Trust me, if you ever see me reopen my World of Warcraft account, it means I probably got fired from my job.
Thank you, hot mage chick. That money was really weighing me down.
And this is when I realize that these are the games I specifically asked the industry to make 15-20 years ago. Back then, one of a game's selling points was the amount of hours it took to beat it. A 40-hour RPG was a big deal, and even after you beat it, you still wanted more. There are RPG's I've beaten a dozen times. Grinding and leveling was such a "rinse and repeat" set of motions, there were times when I'd snap out of a daze and realize that I had been killing the same monsters for three hours, increasing ten levels on autopilot. I fantasized about endless games that you could just get lost in.
Well, game developers listened to the 17 year-old me. It's just that by the time they got around to figuring out how to make a 300-hour game, I had a job and three kids, and 300 hours represents every minute of gaming time I'll have available to me in the next three years. In other words, selling me that game is the same as taunting me, reminding me that the same obligations that let me afford to buy games also prevent me from playing them.
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"And then you just hit the squat button to teabag him..."
#3. You Miss Game Storylines That Were Actually Compelling
When's the last time you actually cared about what happened in a video game? Between the stiffly-acted cutscenes and bullshit recycled plots, you can't help but wonder what happened after the golden age of Role Playing Games in the 1990s and early 2000s.
I got absolutely hooked on a series of Nintendo games called Dragon Warrior in the 1980s. Jump ahead to 1994, and regardless of the day you arrive, you'll find me camped out in front of a Final Fantasy III (or FF VI, for you purists) marathon that lasted five years. When we got a hand-me-down Playstation, the first thing I bought was Final Fantasy 7. In 2000, it was The Legend of Dragoon, or the more aptly named "Final Fantasy with an Extra Button."
That's Dragoon on top. FF7 on bottom.
And what modern game can possibly match that amazing 20 minute-long ending cinematic for FFIII that wrapped up the storylines for each of the characters we'd come to know and love in the course of beating the game? And then again while beating it eight more times?
Now, all of those deep, engrossing games are gone, replaced by "point and shoot" games for the kiddies who could care less about story and just want action, action, action, hitting the "skip" button half a second into each cut scene. If they're playing Mass Effect, maybe they keep watching to see the fucking.
"It's like you dicked down the whole town... even though you got dick to go 'round."
But the Truth Is...
Let's go back and watch one of those cut scenes from Final Fantasy III/VI:
Huh. That seemed... way more powerful when I saw it as a teenager.
And even weirder, I watch my kids play games now that barely have a story at all, yet they're transfixed. It's almost like they're seeing something I'm not. For instance, I let my kids mess around in a Grand Theft Auto game (supervised) and the first thing my son does is steal an ambulance. My youngest daughter then pretended to be injured and dialed him on her pretend cellphone. He drove the ambulance around town until she told him, "I'm there on that next block." He'd then pull over and pretend to pick her up... and drive her to the actual in-game hospital. The whole trip, he'd bark out things he'd heard on medical dramas and pretend to save her.
"Be advised: incoming six year old female, acute myocardial infarction, BP steadily dropping..."
Wait a second. Is it possible that those old games didn't do anything magical with their programming to create "immersion," and that, like my kids with GTA, I "immersed" myself in those games because I was playing them at a time before I was dead inside?
I can play a zombie game now, and I just see a bunch of boring, repetitive enemies. My kids can't even be in the same room with me -- they find those games terrifying because they're imagining themselves in the game, fighting the zombies.
"If I hear you scream 'motherfucker' one more time, you're grounded."
The older you get, the less elastic your imagination becomes, and the less able you are to fill in whatever gaps the game leaves in the narrative. It's why a toddler can open a birthday present and then immediately disregard the toy in favor of spending the next three hours playing with the box. If you see an adult doing that, suddenly it's time for an intervention.
(I apologize in advance for spelling/grammar errors. I'm running on no sleep all weekend so cut me some slack)
ReplyGoing down the list:
#5: I grew up with friends that weren’t very much into video games (or multi-player games at least) so I never experienced the genre until Counterstrike when I first hit high school. It was fun in that I could camp in areas and be a general a*****e noob but after a month or so it was repetitive and I put it down. Every once in a while I find myself playing a multiplayer game but if it is not an MMO (which I’ve been distancing myself from for about a year) then it’s a RTS game. I notice that while you’ll get whiny teenagers in RTS games (I love SC2!) you’ll also find a number of people who will offer a fair fight and are willing to sit down and give you pointers post-match. I think multiplayer really depends on what genre you’re settling on. From everything I’ve heard I should stay away from FPS multiplayer though...I miss counterstrike...
#4: I can relate as I’m in college, married, and have a full time job to boot. So for a game like Skyrim there isn’t a lot of time to devote to a game like that. But just because a game offers 300+ hours of game play it doesn’t mean that you have to play all 300 hours. For Skyrim, I believe the time to beat the game sans side quests is about 12 hours. So, for the people that have no social or financial obligations, they can go and spend their 300+ hours searching every nook and cranny while upgrading weapons and armor to the max. For the “responsible adults” in the gaming crowd, we have to pick and choose how far we want to let ourselves get indulged in the game. If you’re looking to play the game for the story sake and have an hour or two to play per day the game would take you about a week. Yes; it sucks that these ‘play till’ you drop’ games came out past my prime where I could really take the time to go nuts, but all the same thems’ the breaks. It’s part of getting older and can’t be helped. The best motto, I’ve found at least, is to appreciate the time you had and cherish it for what it’s worth and be happy that future generations will have a chance at something better. Isn’t that the philosophy that we should be passing down in between generational gaps regardless? Just watch, your kids will be bitching about how a new game came out 20 years from now that has over 1000+ hours of game play but they can’t invest that much time into it because they’ve got things they need to take care of. Our parents couldn’t invest in video games even when I was a kid because it took TOO MUCH TIME! This is back during days where you could beat the original Mario Bros. in about 20 min. To them they had things that they needed to do. We’re grown up and we’re in their situation. C’est la vie.
#3: Getting into immersion. It reminds me of a time where me and my niece were playing in the backyard of my parents house and I decided to take two different types of bubble brands and mix them together as I was trying to create a temporal paradox (I had just watched Back to the Future, leave me alone) or where we would collect spare discarded tickets from Chinese Auctions and then hold a carnival in my front yard complete with rides like ‘running around trees’ or ‘Swinging on a branch until you got splinters’. When life is your playground and your parents won’t object as long as it doesn’t involve setting the house on fire (which I swear was an accident) then your imagination can run wild and that, of course, is going to filter into how immersed children can get into video games. Believe me, Final Fantasy VII was one of the greatest RPG’s I had played in my teenage years. I devoted hours upon hours into the game because the story was compelling, the graphics were sound (for their time), and the cut scenes were AWESOME! But if you try to go back to classic games now the appeal is lost to an extent. Our generation has seen the progress of video games throughout the decades and to replay a game that came out on the PS1 (or even earlier) seems...inferior. The graphics are outdated, the load times take too long; too much to do, not enough time to do it. For kids modern games are state of the art and it’s going to be as stimulating (if not more so) for them than it was for us. Once again, give it 20-30 years and you’ll hear the same argument from them. It’s not that we’re ‘too old’ though, we just need to go into these games with an open mind and a clearer slate...
#2: You make some valid points, but then again, looking at old school video games, how many were re-hashes or rip-offs of previous more popular titles? Nowadays you can sometimes demo a game before purchase whereas back in the day you’d have to bug your parents to drive you to Toys-R-Us or some other video game store, look at the box art of the games (and it seemed as if there were so many), and then beg your parents to pay 60 dollars to buy said game for you until your face turned blue and/or you threatened to scream rape if they didn’t (I was a disturbed child, I know). 9 times out of 10 you were getting a game that wasn’t worth 5 dollars let alone the 60 and all you could do was say “Well, this is the only new game I’ll have for the next couple of months so I can either play this and MAKE myself enjoy it or go outside and run around the tree until I get dizzy.” Still, there are a lot of indie games out there worth trying. One that pops up into my head almost immediately is ‘Braid’. For people with OCD there’s ‘Minecraft’. With the awesome power of the internet (with some decent browsing) you can let other people weed out the crap from the gems and then choose what you would feel suits you best. It seems a lot more efficient than saying “Hey, this Ghostbusters game looks really really cool! I love Ghostbusters!” only to buy it, come home, and play for 30 minutes before you realize that if you had discovered masturbation at age 6 you would’ve rather been doing that.
#1: Games CAN be fun if you can immerse yourself into them. The main problem I see with adult gamers is that they weigh game time versus real life priorities. Games should be like anything else; something that should be done when the rest of your s**t is taken care of. It’s why your mom would always bug you to do your homework first before you could turn on the Nintendo. When you don’t have anything else you need to worry about the games are a lot more entertaining. In short; don’t drag real life burdens into your gaming life. It complicates things and lessens the appeal and fun value of the game itself. Sure, we don’t have games like Donkey Kong for the SNES anymore, but they were replaced with games like Crash Bandicoot and in turn games like the Ratchet and Clank series. Similar goals, different methods. It’s just finding the games that can touch your childhood as much as it can rationalize with your jaded perspective of games and their evolution. In terms of the rest of your questions; it’s just an age thing. As we get older our tastes change (as well as our taste buds), we’re more hypocritical and more analytical; we’ve matured. While you’re sitting there going “These controls are horrible, how can this game be playable” your kids are going “Look, I can walk up to this guy and stab him! Isn’t that cool!” They don’t care that the graphics are outdated by modern standards (even if it’s a modern game), they don’t care about graphic controls or perspectives or storyline. For them they’d be just as content in Skyrim walking into every town and getting in fights with guards as they would trying to progress. Come to think about it that would probably give them a greater thrill as opposed to us watching going “Don’t do that! You’ll build a bad reputation and will have to pay a bounty! NOO!!! You killed the shop-keeper. Now I have one less person to sell s**t to. You know what, screw it, I’ll start my own save once you kids are done killing everyone in Whiterun...” See my point?
You cracked writers sure are a bunch of nerds. I find everything you write hilarious though, and JDatE was awesome... Wait, maybe I'm a nerd who doesn't play too many video games.
ReplyI don't feel originality is dead. I mean for FPS, yes. Like he said all almost exactly the same with a change here and there. But racing games can be drastically different then you think, you can't blame sports for being repetitive, but that's really it. I mean 3rd person has tom clancey which is different form all other games and Gears of War has STORY (Meaning plot & Length) and awesome graphics. A video game has never made me tear up ever but a little thing that happened Gears 3 sure did.
ReplyThe racing games are surprisingly different too. They have the classic mario kart, the realistic dirt, to the totally brand new (I think it was) Split second where if you hit a certain part of the track a f*****g airport falls down and you can cause a rockslide demolishing cars unlucky enough to be behind you.
Then you have games in general that are a mix of RPG in the sense it's free wander (But nothing compared to the FF caliber) but it then has something all it's own. Take Prototype. A person infected with a disease where you have to absorb people to gain their thoughts to understand what happened. Then you can turn into them at your will? Point that out to me in the video game past.
I'm not mad or anything, it was just something I disagreed with and wanted to bring something to the table
I'm 18 and I fit all of these. And I love GTA 4.
ReplySome people are simply like that regardless of age. I know people in their fifties who still enjoy video games more than some people in their twenties!
ReplyI'm about to turn 21, and I feel old as well. I realized these same exact things about everything I loved as a kid. I bitched about wanting back 90s Nick shows, and now that they are back, they bore the hell out of me. When I do play an ISpy PC game from 2000, I get mad at the cut scenes.
ReplyI'm 40-something and number 5 is the only one that strikes a chord with me, almost entirely for the same reason as the author (multiplayer games are major-league dick magnets).
ReplyBut that's OK. I just don't buy multiplayer-focused games or play the multiplayer component of single-player focused games.
And holy crap, do I have a blast with modern games. Playing Red Dead Redemption is like being the hero of every western movie ever made. Playing a Mass Effect game is like being the hero in every major sf franchise of the past 50 years combined into one big universe. In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, you get to use Leonardo's war machines and kidnap Lucrecia Borgia during an attempt to rescue Catarina Sforza from the Vatican while trying to assassinate the Pope. Also, you're basically a ninja in Italy circa 1500 with Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli as advisors.
There's so much good stuff to go along with the crap that it's easy to just pick and choose and play only the stuff that's your personal cup of tea while ignoring the stuff that does nothing for you.
I'm sixteen and I complain about ALL THESE THINGS. Am I old? I'm beginning to feel old.
ReplyI'm 17 and I feel exactly the same way as you do.
I'm a woman, seven days away from my 40th birthday, and I've been a gamer since I was 8 years old. That was easier than my AA confession! I agree with lots of these points, especially about the FPS and on-line teenage twatiness. I certainly haven't lost my imagination, and I welcome new games as much as I retreat to retro-land,and new games pander to the lowest popular denominator as they ever did. I play on-line, I just keep the kids away from my gaming time. This wasn't a good time to fall off the wagon. What was I saying?!
Replyi am 16, and recently boreing of getting knifed to hell in CoD i started to play my dad's old games that would still run on my OS, AND THEY WERE FRICKING GREAT! never mind the crappy graphics, but they were some of the best quality games i have played in a long time. no, its not that you've lost your imagination, its that we have a lower standard of quality...
ReplyI really like games with plot, and get a tad ticked if the plots bad and tilts toward multiplayer. Just make classics like Final Fantasy 6 and 7.
Replyi get pissed when the plot tilts towards anything involving Russians, nukes, terrorists, or any combination of those.
This article took me about half an hour to finish. Reason: this is the first time I've seen one of those Carmageddon vids. Jesus... Christ, I wanna play that.
Replysame exact thing here
As far as plots go... have you played Assassin's Creed?
ReplyThose things are amazingly detailed in their storylines, so much so that you can disregard the repetition exhibited in the gameplay of Assassin's Creed I in favour of advancing the story.
And trust me, it gets so much better. xx
I really dislike online multiplayer as well. It wouldn't be so bad if more games added offline options for multiplayer, but usually you're stuck with the online crap or system linking. The worst thing about it are the immature idiots who verbally attack everyone. I found it kind of ironic one day when my husband and I were playing online CoD and someone messaged us 'ur both fags'. We are MARRIED with a KID. Middle finger to you. :P
ReplyI refuse to try Skyrim. I know I'll find it addicting, and I won't be able to stop until I've completed everything. And I can understand why you wouldn't want to take 3 years to complete everything just in your spare time...there will be hundreds of other games you could have played, and probably enjoyed just as much, during that time, that won't take you 300 hours to complete (if you want to go that route). I do like a good story, though. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a game's story line as much as I'm enjoying the Assassin's Creed series. Plus it always feel so good when I walk up behind some guard and sever his spinal cord with my hidden wrist-knife. Ah...the screams of the bystanders are like music to my ears.
Replyif you dont want to sink a hundered hours into skyrim just stay on the main quest and dont deviate its not that hard
Fuck. I'm too young to be old! On the other hand I DO enjoy some new games, and hate some old games. Much old s**t is just bad in every way, and since I have never owned a console or had many games when we finally got a home computer, There's little to no nostalgia involved with them. Hmm.
ReplyMaybe things are just fine
Possibly one of the best new(-ish) story lines was Halo 1 and 2. Halo 3 just felt EXACTLY as you described; a 'mulitplayer backed by a weak story' game. You could immerse yourself in it with great ease.
ReplyI never could understand why people actually bought Madden and Fifa every single year. You can just update the rosters online, so why waste the 60 bucks?
You wanna play an FUCKIN" (yeah,no g) awesome game, play Saints Row: The Third, BITCH!
ReplyI don't think multiplayer is bullshit.
ReplyI just think online multipalyer is bullshit! I'd rather invite some friends over, drink some beers, listen to Razor, and play some 4-player split-screen than resort to going online and sorting with people who considers the fact they like Metallica a highlight of their musical taste.
I also still find myself pulling out old games I played as a kid, and enjoying the f**k out of them. I just recently re-beat A Link to the Past, for example. But perhaps I'm still too young to be considered "too old for video games".
... I still don't like crappy and generic FPS games like Call of Duty though. I simply don't like s****y games.
obviously your missing the point of creating a bond with your friend when you HAVE to cover him when hes reloading....or else if one of us die we both lose
I can't play FPS's anymore. Not since joining the Army. I always ask myself 'Where is he putting those empty mags' or 'Why, when i reload with 10 rounds in the mag do my mags not keep the 10 rounds? Instead of adding them all to one to make a full mag' s**t like that. I dunno. I became an empty, soulless shell of a man when the horse drowned inn the swamp of sadness in the never ending story.
ReplyYou should play America's Army, it's one of, if not the, most realistic FPS's out there. And the extra ammo you had in your magazine when you reload gets thrown away.
This is more of an older game but The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay actually did have realistic magazine reloading. If you reloaded with 5 bullets left in the clip you lost those 5, they weren't added to some supermagazine. I remember reading a strategy guide on it as a child and being amazed at the idea.