Growing up Gamer

Ugh, it's hard these days to have a sustainable gaming habit.

I've been listening to all these gaming ads claiming to have "the most addictive game ever!" which is like saying "this will suck hours of your life away that you'll have nothing to show for, never get back, and will ruin your body!" Sign me up for that.

Let's start at the beginning...

My first experience with gaming came at the tender age of Five, when my brother had an Atari I wasn't allowed to make any sort of contact with.  I remember the Robocop game for it specificaly the way Robocop looked when he died.  I did not say my brother was good at this game.

This all changed soon, when we got our first Nintendo Entertainment System... that big grey box.  I can still hear the sound the power button made... We had some games for it, not many.  I had Mario Bros., not my favorite. We had Double Dragon, one of my favorites of all time.  Slowly but surely we got a whole slew of them up and running...

... then we got it.

The Legend of Zelda.

I have never loved a game so much in my life.  I sucked at it, it was what? Five? Six?  I could hardly figure out how to put items in his hands... but I loved that game.  I spent hours just wandering in circles, trying to find things.  I descovered more secrets there by just aimlessly ambling about.  Nothing compared, I practically ignored the other games.

I played The Adventure's of Link as far as it could go before it made no more sense.  I played SNES, to the point where  I burned out two controllers.  Then came the magical N64.

Zelda came out in '87, '86 in Japan, and basically it made me the same age as Link.  Ocarina of Time came out in '98, making Link and me about the same age.  Unlike before, I was old enough this time to play this game like it should be.

... and I did.

I beat every single minigame and boss, got the Biggoron Sword, and beat the entire game without using a shield.  Water Temple?  It was my bitch.   Sure, I played other games, beat them.  Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Turok, Duke Nukem, Jet Force Gemini, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Pokemon, Star Fox, Megaman (1-X, and Legends, and 64), and countless others.

Then, PS1, Xbox, PS2, the 360, computer games... World of Warcraft, I played that game for almost an entire year, day in and day out.  I had nothing else to do.  Played it throughout college, and for years afterwards.  The entire time I've known my wife.  Also with a slew of other MMOs, and still console games.

Now, I'm sitting here, looking at the next new thing and wondering if I want it.  Sure, MMOs are fun, but what's the point?  It's constant work with no reward, I gave up on that years ago, I now usually play ones like Guild Wars 2, where I can just play it as if it were a console game with good AI, because I do nothing but PvP there.  That's it, and I enjoy Skyward Sword more.  Hell, I'd be playing it right now if I didn't have this to do.  

I have done all this while maintaining an active social life, exercising, learning new martial arts, writing half a dozen books (two published, a third on the way, and five more midway through), and I look back and wonder... I've grown up a gamer, but what will I do now that I'm here?  I forgo labels such as "Hardcore" or "Casual" since those are stupid and used by stupid people.  If by not playing 30hrs a week, I'm Casual, but still rocking you in Left4Dead... you've wasted 30 hours of your life.

I think this is where I leave myself; done with the game that require me to put in a hundred hours of effort to "play".  Why should I spend my days fighting tooth and nail for a shiny new armor that someone with nothing else to do got a month ago?  Why raid the same instance over, and over, to get a shiny hat that will help me raid the same instance a little better.

I think I am done with MMOs, not because I was addicted, or had problems functioning... but because there's much more to do than play the "You must be this awesome to see the fun part" game.

... but there's a new Zelda game coming out, and yes, I will be getting it.  Also Pokemon, because they are fun.  Fun is that thing we used to have before someone convinced us games were about hard work.