We spent most of this evening playing Halo 3 and NHL ’08 on the Xbox360.
I have come to the conclusion that I am hopelessly old school when it comes to video games. I just can’t play these games with the same enjoyment I used to get. The controllers are too complicated, the gameplay is too convoluted, fun is sacrificed for art.
I long for the days of Atari and Odyssey and Sega Genesis and NES. Even Colecovision and Intellevision. Even my beloved Dreamcast didn’t make me feel like such a failure.
Give me simple controls. Give me games that don’t make me sit through ten minute cut scenes and mini-movies. Screw your beautiful graphics. I’m happy with my little squared pixels if I can just get through the game without needing to have the coordination to hold or mash seven buttons at the same time.
Maybe I’m just not cut out for multiplayer games. I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel. I want to go on adventures where I find gold coins and collect pieces of some big triangle or save a princess. I don’t want to have to partner up with some robot dude to go killing aliens that look like leftovers from the movie Gremlins. I don’t want someone depending on me to have their back because I’m going to just run right into the fray and fire away, not even caring what type of weapon I’m carrying and then the person I’m supposed to be playing with will say something like “Can you not get me killed every damn time? WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE? WHY CAN’T YOU JUST CONTROL THE DAMN THING?”
Why? Because back in my day, when everything was simple and I had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to go buy a new game for my Atari 2600, I could control the damn thing. I could play hockey. NHL ’94, bitches!
Up up down down left right left right B A start!
You can keep your guitars and laser guns. Give me back my 2d scrollers.
And get off my damn lawn.
I’ve got Pong. I still love it. It’s the perfect game for mindlessly zoning out and wasting a day.
you are just uncoordinated.
It’s not a bad thing and we don’t think any less of you.
Some of us have just evolved into higher beings that can do more than one thing at a time.
Maybe you should start with something easier first like say, walking and chewing bubble gum.
Once you have mastered that skill, then and only then, we can turn our attention to using two joysticks to move and aim at the same time.
A hollow voice says plugh….
I have to agree with you. The most I could ever master was DEFENDER in the arcades; after that, I couldn’t juggle any more controls.
Now I watch my 5 year old smoke me on his PC games…. but can he do well with the older games? Tiem will tell.
I can play FPSs on a computer. I no longer play PS2 with my son because I can’t handle those controllers. Boyo has tried to school me. “Dad, you’re not using the R1 L1, get your fingers HERE.” There are buttons there too? WTF?
Hear, hear.
They lost me when they moved from a stick to the directional buttons.
Eye-hand coordination, I have. Eye-finger coordination, not so much.