As someone who used to almost sexualise video game systems as a kid (hey, when you think expressing some dude-on-dude bromance in high school will cause you insta-beatings, Sonic the Hedgehog doesn’t seem like such a bad alternative), it’s rather surprising that my interest in video games has waned as an adult. For all my whining about not getting enough pocket money to buy a video game system, I probably could’ve easily splurged if I’d stopped buying ridiculously expensive UK import gaming mags every week as a kid.
Those were the days… parallax scrolling, mind-blowing CD-ROM add-ons which really only added “bonus video” with the quality of a stop-motion security camera, and handheld gaming consoles gigantic enough to club an unrepentant child into a coma with. (I assure you, they were much bigger than you remember – I saw the original Atari Lynx when the Game On exhibition travelled to town recently, and it measured the entire length of my forearm).
After Quake was released, it seemed like every game became a 3D shooter and my interest waned somewhat. Additionally, I can no longer seem to accommodate any game which takes longer than a swift bowel movement to learn.
This limits me to a small selection of games known nowadays as “casual games”, which I personally refer to as “shit-games”, or “here’s yet another pointless plastic Wii accessory to clutter up your living room with!” games. Basically, if it involves some sort of variant of matching three coloured bubbles; or is a slightly complicated version of Simon (Guitar Hero, I’m looking at you), it usually falls into my court.
Adam recently wanted to buy either an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3 so he could play Grand Shoot’em Up Humungo IV, or something. He was sitting there umming and ahhing over the technical specifications and platform support for each machine. As far as I was concerned, the biggest benefits for each choice were that I could play Xbox Uno on the 360 (I’ve played it at a mate’s house, it’s awesome! Sigh), or that I could play my old PS2 game of Space Channel 5 on the PS3. How times change.
(Seriously, Space Channel 5 Part 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. It’s fucking hilarious. I may have imported the figurines and soundtrack at some point in the past… and I swear one of the characters looks like Jane Gazzo from the future).
For some reason, Guitar Hero is just one game I can’t bring myself to play anymore. Whenever I play it for any length of time, I get angry with myself that I’m not practicing my actual guitar. For some time I used to mock those who played it at length in leiu of bothering to actually pick up a real guitar, although a friend of mine did point out a pretty big flaw in the argument (namely that if I’m so addicted to retarded games like Puzzle Quest, when am I going to start throwing arbitrary coloured discs at the nearest member of government I can find?)
It’s just lucky that I have a Mac nowadays, safely protecting me from playing games ever.
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I have never heard of Space Channel 5 before, but I watched THAT WHOLE VIDEO BECAUSE I WAS MESMERISED LIKE THE POOR ‘SILLY’ DANCERS. Lordy.
I actually own a PS2, primarily for drunken SingStar purposes, but I may have to go on the hunt for that ridiculous game.