Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Games weaken their hold on me

Game experiences are more and more shallow to me as I get older. The feeling of going out to a wild cave and crawling around with just a headlamp will outdo any feeling of excitement you will ever experience in a game by far.

The only games I bother to play now are ones that can pull out my emotions. Only deep terror (Silent Hill) or melancholy (Shadow of the Colossus) have done anything for me recently.

Competition has a smaller pull on me, and Tekken still actually makes me sweat when I play.

I found 60% of WoW boring (travel time, questing) and 40% of it fun (killing fools in Stranglethorn and BG's). Even so it was the longest I've ever played any one game (a year and a half), which goes to show you how powerful a pull hanging out with your friends is.

(And I was one of those kids whose parents grounded them from playing 8-bit Nintendo for a month, due to excessive play. I had an aunt make a comment that she was surprised I went camping with my cousins one time because I was such a fixture in front of their TV.)

But that drive to actually make games still burns, I'm just frustrated at the comic-book like experiences that is the sum of the game industry these days.

No comments: