Games are supposed to be fun...right?

Gaming. For as long as I can remember it has been my therapist, my best friend and my worst enemy all rolled into one. It’s what I poured all of my now dwindling free time into, saving galaxies, shooting baddies and just causing mayhem. I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to trade in reality for being cast into a virtual world, to live out whatever strange fantasy that someone had dreamt up. The beauty of gaming is, there is no place to start, but that first few games, especially from childhood are extra special. Drenched in nostalgia, you’ll often find yourself returning to these games, to find they actually weren’t ever really that good. But you don’t care, because put simply, it matters to you.

Everyone’s journey starts off in a different place, kids nowadays are growing up with PlayStation 4’s and 5’s Xbox One’s and the like, hardware well beyond what I had when I was that age. I was very happy with my PlayStation 2 and all the games I had for it. From what I can remember (I’m only 24 so it shouldn’t be that hard) among my first favorites was Percy Jackson's King Kong and Scooby Doo 100 Nights of Fright. Now, neither of these games are winning any kinds of awards, but I thoroughly enjoyed both, and actually bought King Kong again to try and actually beat it. Let’s hope I’ve improved as a gamer after all those years! Scooby Doo was another game I never finished; I think something was wrong with my memory card I could never save anything! But, as a metroidvania it wouldn’t be something I would normally look for today. I just end up getting lost a little too quickly and just getting frustrated. But that’s normal, as you get older the things you used to enjoy and your passions change, mutate and you leave some things behind.

It’s fair to say, I’m not the gamer I once was. That’s not to say that’s a bad thing, I’m just not playing nearly as many, or the same kind of games. I was brought up on a healthy diet of Call of Duty, Battlefield basically any shooter I could get my hands on. But now, I play Persona, Dead By Daylight, Batman Arkham and Mass Effect to just name a few. I love a party based JRPG and Horror, easily my favorite genres, and significantly less shooting! My trophy hunting habits have changed tenfold, I know longer have the time to beat my head against the wall to try and earn an egregiously long trophy. Instead of toiling away tackling each and every challenge of each game, I find myself stuck, in a prison of my own making. I torture myself by holding myself up to these demonstrable and unrealistic standards, to be on it and earning all the time. This is when the guilt sets in, the thought that I need to be doing something valuable with my time, and to me and my own little world that is earning trophies. This is why sometimes it’s such a challenge to start an entirely new game, as it makes it harder to return to the games, I’ve already got in half-finished limbo. So instead, I play something I’ve already played. Safe. Secure. Comfortable. Call it work life balance gone wrong, maybe a brain chemical imbalance or just general tiredness but somethings…. A little off. So, it does beg the question, does the problem totally lie with me, or is it something else? Games are supposed to fun…right?

So what we’re exploring here, isn’t as easy as just stipulating the one question. I have to determine why gaming might not be fun for me personally on a micro scale. This is down to my own short comings, choice paralysis, ‘new game guilt’ and trophy hunting high standards. But, we must also consider the gaming industry as a whole on the macro scale. This includes things like the live service takeover, the triple A-gaming landscape that play themselves, as well as the unnecessary bloated open world. It’s a really interesting topic that we’re covering today, one that allows me to look reflectively on my own gaming lifestyle, and back again at what informs my lifestyle and the gaming industry as a whole.

My Gaming Life: Choice Paralysis, New Game Guilt and Trophy Obsession

Maybe this is all a little more dramatic than intended, my only problem in life is that maybe I don’t play as many games as I used to. The title just sounded a bit… like a smear piece… on myself. But it does get my point across so there’s that. I’m going to be looking inward instead of outward for this session, trying to delve into my own gaming habits and why I procrastinate a lot of the games I’m often so excited to play. But it’s like as soon as I get home and sitting in front of me, I mentally tap out and would rather do anything else. I don’t understand my brain.

My first ailment is choice paralysis, a feeling when you are overwhelmed by the amount of choices you have, and cave under this pressure and do nothing. Maybe not everyone faces this kind of problem, but I certainly do, I buy games a lot, pick a lot of cheaper games up on sale in the hope that I’m cheating the system by buying this and playing later. But its quite rare that I do actually go back, the gaming backlog marches forever forward. I think the reason why I am stuck trying to decide on what to play is time, and a lack of it. The worry starts to creep in when I play any game really. That little devil on my shoulder saying “not having as much fun as you thought hmmm? Probably should switch to a game you’ll actually like” I try and shake him off as much as I can, but it just doesn’t feel right anymore. It stems from me having a full-time job, working on my blog and trying to teach myself video editing and creation and being social, it’s a lot to get done. Nowadays, I can’t waste anytime on any mediocre or bad gaming experiences, so I have to be cruel and firm when it comes to game selection. I mean, I’ve got a very impressively seemingly insurmountable backlog of games that I know are amazing, just dying to be played. I just think of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Gran Turismo 5, God of War Ragnarök all sitting downloaded on my PS5 and I just still haven’t played them.

To add insult to injury, I know all of these games are brilliant, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is one of my favorite games of all time, and God of War Ragnarök was seemingly even better than the first. So what’s stopping me? In a weird sense, by not playing them, and putting them on this pedestal they shall forever be good and never fall short of my lofty expectations of them. But this is sad, but it’s the way my brain thinks, of the games I have played I’ve really loved them, despite the review of greatness that hangs over them. Again, something I need to work on. Starting any new game, not even one that is excellent is weirdly a guilt tripping experience. Let me explain. As I’ve already mentioned, I’m a bit of a trophy hunter, often not satisfied until I have earned every in-game accomplishment available. Unfortunately, not every game is so cut and dry, with many often having either time consuming or skill dependent trophies that diminish my enjoyment if I can’t or don’t wish to complete. I use a popular trophy hunting website, that collates all of the games I’ve earned trophies for and spit out a completion percentage for every single game. Now, I’m very protective of this percentage, or no apparent reason at all, and whenever I start a new game, it takes a dive. Again, very silly and it doesn’t really matter at all. It’s important to play all I can, as I still feel like I’ve got more time than I could have later. Don’t want to wait until I’m at the retirement home before I boot up Shin Megami Tensei 5.

The solution seems obvious, just give less of a damn and play more games. I am doing better at that these days, I played a bunch of new games when they released last month, and it was nice. Gave me a better chance to try a variety of genres and root out which ones I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m slowly learning that I need to go into my backlog and hand pick which games I want to play next and generate a distraction free gaming experience. It’s too often that I get distracted by my phone, or just have a YouTube video going on my second monitor, but no longer!  

The Games Industry: Triple A Cinema, Live Disservice and Open World Bloating.

Right well, I think I’ve taken enough of the blame. The gaming industry, for better or for worse is incredibly different from when I started out. There are an incredible amount of gamers, in every shape and console, with some of the games being some of the best of all time. One step forward, one step back, as the industry continues to encourage invasive micro-transactions, layoffs from larger and strong studios, and increased work crunch and games releasing in improper and broken states. The gaming industry is constantly in flux, but it’s difficult to not get continuously frustrated when some companies make these same inexcusable mistakes time and time again. I think there is no better example than the newer ‘Live Service’ model of games, such as the recent financial failure Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This model is a kind of game that exists wholly online, often inspiring co-op through some kind of limited story and side content in an open world. Destiny, albeit not my favorite game, but is a good example of a game of this ilk done… fairly right. Suicide Squad dwarfs this in every aspect, making any new supplementary content an absolute grind, meaning you have to toil through the same retired gameplay loop to unlock the additional content. It doesn’t help that the raid boss for this new season is just a recycled version of the exact same boss from the original season. You see, these games are designed for player retention, to keep you playing with new content, so you spend money on a new battle pass or new cool skins.

Now, it’s worth noting these aren’t the kind of games that I’m massively drawn to. I think it’s fairly obvious that I’m much more of an offline singleplayer kind of gamer. But maybe its not intrinsically the live service model, it’s only when its implemented badly, or inappropriately. Not to continue to bash on Suicide Squad (but I will) but many suggested the live service model was not a good fit for this game. Especially within the unique and rich world of the Arkhamverse, people wanted a story to remember. Warner Bros are on the wrong trajectory, as rumors circulate their sequel to Hogwarts Legacy could be live service, a very strange decision considering the success of the original. Live service games, unless they are criminally poor always do fairly well financially and are consistent money makers and cheaper to produce. It would just be a shame to see the gaming industry explore this sector. But maybe its just me.

It’s a lot of the time that these tacked on game elements get added into these games that don’t actual have any reason to be there. This bring us nicely into the misuse of the open world feature. It seems that everything nowadays is open world. I sound like an old man shouting at the world for advancing further than he has, but I’m gonna go with it! I’m not saying every open world is bad, far from it, as in a lot of games it enhances the experience exponentially. Just look at the open world formula in the Yakuza games. It’s not big by any means, but incredibly compact with each detail well placed and small enough to traverse. The city organically introduces you to side content and is well considered for mini games drawn from the older SEGA games at the arcade, as well as the weird and wacky (for those who know, Baka Matai). Some of the titles that abuse this open world mechanic only really include it as a means to pad out the runtime, or it’s just simply too big and not engaging enough to warrant its existence. I’d say the game that comes to mind is Assassins Creed Valhalla, paling in comparison to the two previous renditions. Where the other two had lots of significant landmarks and structures to break up the empty vista’s, the English countryside just didn’t seem to cut it. To add insult to injury, the whole game fell under this bloat umbrella, with the missions and side content all feeling like they’d had one too many roast potatoes at a Sunday dinner. You can just sense it as soon as you pull up the map, it is egregiously large, littered with so many question marks, and ultimately, a questionable decision.  

Closing Statement: The Games are Fun

Now, it’s all too easy to get bogged down in the doom and gloom of the gaming industry, and perhaps your own personal struggles like mine. I’d forgive you for that however as that’s all I’ve been banging on about so far. But much like that, it’s all a matter of perspective, you just sometimes have to look a little harder to find the positive. But the positive is there, and despite my gaming short comings and indecision, there are some amazing games I’m thankful I managed to find. One of my all-time favorite finds from the last month was the newest entry from Studio Wrong Organ, called Mouthwashing. I only came across it scanning the store page for newer releases, but this gamer jumped out at me as a horror with pixelated visuals not too dissimilar from the legendary Power Drill Massacre and the recent Fears to Fathom series. The story concerned the lives of 5 crew mates on an intentionally sabotaged freight ship, travelling through space with cargo. The captain sabotages the ship, but for an unknown reason. This narrative unravels as you experience the game back and forth between before and after the crash. And that’s all I can say, no I’m not going to say anymore! It’s visuals are amazing, and the whole game is utterly subjective with lots of whimsical and beautiful set pieces that I couldn’t even tell you if they happened. It’s a short game as well, easily finished in a short evening in the dark, which I did even sacrificing a couple hours of sleep. Being so short, it’s hard to leave it unfinished like some of the other games I’ve picked up and been distracted by the newer and shinier thing. It’s very nice to get to actually chat to, well not you directly but anyone listening, even if it just is the computer! It’s certainly one of those games that I’d dash downstairs to tell my mum about, who has no interest in games whatsoever, it’s just that good!

I think it’s really important to share in these experiences with other people, even if it is just passing the controller back and forth, or a fully fledged multiplayer game. One of the games that is bringing me great joy at the moment is the Mario Party series. Yes, not one particular game, I’m slowly building up a bigger collection, I’m even investing in a GameCube for the earlier party games. I’m all about Birdo, the pink dinosaur, and their 8th outing is my personal favorite. There’s just something about the chaotic nature of the virtual board game, as well as the utter fuckery and the randomness that can really swerve any game. I love the minigames as well, as it really brings everyone against everyone! Basically, there is no rhyme or reason to it, it’s just damn good fun. That’s what gaming should be about, just having good fun, either with your mates or throwing yourself into a late-night fantasy.

In continuing with committing to expanding my horizons, I’ve taken up playing a horror narrative adventure called Slay the Princess. Oh, my it is so good, the game was good from the start, and completely exploded into something entirely different each and every time. Again, unfortunately for games such as these I can only do the verbal equivalent of freaking out about how much I can’t tell you. I encourage any of you reading to play that game you’ve been putting off, or try something new and out of your comfort zone, as you never know what might be your next favorite. Thanks again for reading and have a great day.