On Saturday I bought a Playstation 3. It's quite an achievement for me as it's the first new system I've bought in fourteen years - my last was the Playstation 2 which I got two weeks after launch. I had been contemplating buying a Playstation 4 but eventually decided against it once I started reading about the blue light of death that seems to be creeping through their systems right now. Sony is being far more receptive to fixing the problem than Microsoft was when the Red Rings started cropping up, but I just don't have the tolerance for dealing with that sort of hardware problem on a six hundred dollar purchase (almost eight hundred when you throw in the second controller and a video game); and while I don't mind dealing with Customer Service the unacceptably long wait times with Sony (according to the Amazon reviews the average wait time with customer service has been around two hours) would only have me working my way up into the company until I hit somebody with some real weight and chewed their ass until I got the damned thing fixed.
Honestly though, I just don't have the willingness to go through all that with a new system anymore.
So I bought the Playstation 3 and two games (Borderlands 2 and Last of Us) for $250 and I have to tell you that I am completely blown away by the experience with these games. You have to remember that the last system I bought had chunky looking people and functioned on a level that we thought of as revolutionary at the time and now realize was one incredibly bad step above utter crap. The game play is phenomenal and the graphics are so beautiful that there are times when I'm looking at these games and just enjoying their beauty.
I've never done that with any other game before and I can't wait to buy more games for this system.
But I'm baking potatoes and a pork loin for lunch with the little boy and I find myself contemplating how far behind the game play mechanics I have become in such a short amount of time. When I was playing my old system I could manipulate the controller with the best of them and even when playing against a semi-pro player I could manage to win a match or two. Yet when I put in Last of Us and started playing on Hard, as was my usual practice back in the day, I found that I just didn't have the wherewithal to pull it off.
Now I'm relearning how to play the modern games while saving up to purchase a Playstation 4 after all of its bugs have been worked out and Destiny has been released, and I find myself wondering if I'm the only one who's been this far behind and decided to catch back up?
I've had my 360 for about a year and a half. Prior to that was a refurbished PS2 bouhght about 10 years ago. Right now my main focus on the 360 is Black Ops II. I've never really been good video games (though I was pretty handy with my PS1 version of Street Fighter: Alpha on my PS2). So, BO2 has been challenge. And after about six months of regular playing, I think I do ok.
ReplyDeleteThen my 5-year old son puts it in, and blows me away. I mean, I still get more kills than he does, but that's more because I am focused on the purpose of the game (killing the "bad guys"), as opposed his focus on "Ooo..look what I can make my character do!"
He makes me feel old sometimes.
In a similar vein, when I was trying to help my seven year old niece play some game on her dad's tablet she got frustrated with me and my inability to get past the boss and said, "It's okay that you don't know how to play video games anymore Uncle Charlie, I'll play them for you."
DeleteDarn kids.
I was left behind years ago. My last console was the Xbox. I haven't gotten anything newer since. I've contemplated getting a Xbox 360 from time to time, but just couldn't justify spending the time and money on yet another diversion. Now, I like playing video games, but I no longer feel the need to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. There's other priorities out there.
ReplyDeleteTell me about it. Before I had a wife and son I used to spend money on video games and computers like it was growing on tree.
DeleteThose days are long since gone though. Long, long gone.