It Was The Best Of Times

Greetings fellow gaming enthusiasts, my name is Kyle, and video games have been a big part of my life since as far as I can remember. I have pretty fond memories of my little corner in the basement, with my foam Ninja Turtles chair in front of the little TV I had hooked up to my Nintendo.  Kicking some Goomba-ass or sucking horribly at Tetris. I grew up with games. As I grew older, they evolved with me and currently I’m not entirely sure if I’m happy with the way that games have turned out.

A little bit about me before I get started: much like the majority of our little blogging cast, I’m 25 and I’m born and bred in Montreal, Quebec. Back when I was younger I would’ve definitely labelled myself as a hardcore gamer; World of Warcraft (WoW), Counter Strike and Diablo 2 were most definitely responsible for my trips to summer school because, who needs to study when there’s raiding to do? Over the last few years gaming has taken a back seat to hockey, my true passion. That said, I still play enough games to stay relevant in these conversations... I hope.

These days, real life has taken its toll and I no longer have the vast amount of free time I used to. I often speed through games on their easier settings just so I can get the story faster, otherwise I’ll lose interest and never go back to it. Bioshock Infinite is a good example. I love the game and its main story but, once I played Episode One of the Burial at Sea DLC, I lost interest. The gameplay was way too glitchy and it took me out of the whole immersive experience that Bioshock offers. I haven’t touched it since I encountered a glitch that completely prevented me from continuing the level.  

Dropping back to my glory days of gaming: I miss the days where I could just sit my ass down with a bag of chips, a peanut butter sandwich, some chocolate milk and just bang out 8 hours of gaming in a sitting.  My “/played” on WoW still kind of haunts me to this day though. I probably could’ve used that time much more productively. The only current game I found myself dedicating copious amounts of time to was Skyrim. It gave me that vintage RPG feel that I missed so much. Yes, the main story is a bit brief and all over the place but, it still makes you feel like the character you’re playing. I’ve found that quality in games is a lot harder to come by presently.

Now, this brings me to my next nostalgic point about my “glory days of gaming”. Back when I first really got into online play through Xbox Live, I remember making actual new friends through Halo 3 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare (CoD4). The same thing happened with WoW and other major multiplayer games.  I had a friends list full of randoms from all across the globe who would just hop into a game with me and we’d play together. Now…gaming communities can be some pretty dark places. League of Legends comes to mind as one of the worst I’ve seen, CoD is a close second. Gaming, to me, used to be about Clans, Guilds and this random sort of virtual-camaraderie, but now it seems to have fallen into this really weird cesspit of horrific social warfare. Maybe I’m just playing the wrong games in the wrong places, or maybe I’m becoming an old man, but this is something that has turned me off from the online communities.

I’m hoping that I find a game soon that takes me back to those days. If anyone has any suggestions please share them with me in the comments. Hope you enjoyed my wistful rant as we sauntered down memory lane.

Later Days.