Every 6 months or so, I get really into gaming. For the past few years, this has meant playing on my XBox 360. NBA 2K. Modern Warfare. Skate. I know there's a ton more great games out there, but I find myself having trouble getting into most of them. As the capabilities of systems increase, so does the expectations from gamers. Games are getting bigger and more in depth, but also too complex. I played GTA IV for 20 minutes before giving up. I never even got into the city.
Recently, I started playing on a PS2; I was always a Nintendo kid so I never really played the system. I looked up the top rated games for the platform, and ordered a bunch of them on the cheap. Persona 3. Bully. Shadow of the Colossus. Kingdom Hearts. Final Fantasy X-2. They're all new to me, and so far, it's been a real blast. Across the board, these games have an art style and sensibility I never got on Nintendo's systems. But what I've really come to appreciate is the perfect balance of difficulty in these games. Maturity without unnecessary complexity. There are no achievements or prestige levels or downloadable content. Just gaming.
Gamers often wax poetic about the 8 and 16-bit generations, but when we go back to play those games, we usually find ourselves a little disappointed with the experience. Those games were hard. Unfairly hard. I've probably only beat a few games on my NES and Genesis. But my 64 and Gamecube? That's where it's at for me, right now.
That being said, I know I'll play Skyrim in ten years and talk about how great that game is.
No comments:
Post a Comment