So much has happened, I could write a thousand blog posts about those lost years. I still plan to do that, but for now let me offer a framework of yet another decade of insane circumstances.
When we left off, I was a happily married prep cook at one of the city's most acclaimed fine dining establishments. It paid the bills and kept me caught up with the latest gaming releases, and my skills were enlisted as a lead trainer in 2009 as I was sent to Dallas to train staff and assist with the opening of another restaurant. The financial benefit of which allowed me to get a PS3 upon my return so I could dive into the insanity that was Demon's Souls.
My schedule was Tuesday through Saturday, which made Mondays heaven. The wife worked, I did the laundry, cleaning, and cooking and still had hours-long game sessions.
2010
There were no restaurant openings in 2010, which was fine as our social circle kept growing and we were enjoying the DINK lifestyle, partying with our friends and listening to them bitch about how bad their kids were. I played catch-up on the PS3 exclusives I'd missed, which means I beat the first two Uncharteds, two Riddicks, two Resistances, and too many others to mention. It was a year of twos - Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Just Cause 2, Saint's Row 2. By this point I was pretty much done with the Wii and DS.
In addition, the flood of DLC that followed each game release was a lot to keep up with, but I was kind of all over it. If I liked a game, I left no DLC unbeaten. Six followed Mass Effect 2, more came for Borderlands, and even Red Dead Redemption had a zombie one that was a blast. They were a lot more substantive for the most part back then, it feels.
2011
This year started out with a month-long restaurant opening in Denver, and I took the good old PS3 along for the ride. I worked 14-18 hour days but had the weekends free. I was already playing Singularity when I got there and finished it the first weekend. All in all, I beat four games that month, including The Saboteur, Heavy Rain, and Escape: Odyssey to the West. It was hard work but the reward each weekend was worth it.
There were more franchise sophomore efforts in the form of Dead Space 2, Crysis 2, and the overjoy that was Portal 2. The numbers shifted to threes though, as I decided to start doing trilogies of game series' that I hadn't caught up on yet, starting with Killzone. I dusted off the PS2 and fired up the original first, and then the second one, called Killzone 2. A masterpiece so good, with a final boss fight for the ages and a great multiplayer component, I actually kept playing the multiplayer all summer, even after beating Killzone 3.
Another trilogy I beat was Gears of War, and the year wrapped up with 32 games and 17 DLC packs beaten, somehow. It boggles my mind that I found time to do all that. Fallout 3, LA Noire, and Skyrim are on that list. I remember a lot of partying, still, too.
2012
I finished the F.E.A.R. Trilogy, had a blast in the open worlds of Mafia 2 and Sleeping Dogs, and beat Dark Souls. It was the year Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect let us down with their 3's, as well as the year I played and beat 2 Telltale episodic games. At the end of the year, though, I tried a free demo of Minecraft, a game I had previously dismissed, and was hooked.
On another note, the whole world came to know the glory of a comic book I was reading back in 1978 as Marvel pulled off The Avengers in movie theaters, something that was unthinkable most of my life. I never cried at a movie until Aragorn told some Hobbits that they bow to no one, but that was nothing compared to the "That's my secret, Cap...I'm always angry." assembling of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The unspeakable glory of having lived long enough to see that on a movie screen packs a hell of a punch
2013
Minecraft captivated me for much of the year, as I built and created and explored that strange blocky world. I balanced by game time between regular XBox 360 and PS3 games and building Pinnacle City. That will be a whole separate article at some point.
I began another trilogy to start the year, and five years after an absolute asshole of a co-worker spoiled the twist, I had forgotten it mostly and enjoyed a perfect run on Bioshock. I finished the underrated Bioshock 2 just in time for Bioshock Infinite. Lots of zombie action on deck this year with Dead Island Riptide, State of Decay, and The Last of Us, a game 99% depressing. The 1% that isn't is worth it, though. Of course, nothing tops Spec Ops: The Line for depressing.
The pinnacle of portable gaming arrived in the form of Killzone Mercenary, the last hurrah not just for the PS Vita but for Killzone itself. Grand Theft Auto V arrived, was awesome, and heralded the end of the single player GTA game as Rockstar realized that multiplayer is where the real money is, apparently. Seven years later and there stands no announcement of GTA 6 as of this writing. A quick turnaround from the unlikable Assassin's Creed 3 brought us the awesome piratey goodness that was Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag.
2014
More time spent with friends meant less time gaming, and while I acquired a PS4 this year and entered the ninth generation of consoles (by my reckoning), the games for it at the time were depressing ends to two great series. KIllzone Shadow Fall was technically great, but the story made as much sense as Star Wars movies lately, in that not at all to anyone paying attention to the plot. Infamous Second Son was just okay.
Fortunately, Dark Souls 2 arrived to save the year, and before I was done with it and its DLC, I had logged nearly 230 hours paying it. Other notables included South Park: The Stick of Truth and Watchdogs.
2015
Mostly a PS4 year, but damn there were some good newbies on the scene. Wolfenstein:The New Order, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Dying Light, Bloodborne, and Mad Max all felt fresh and were great to play. The last great Bethesda game, Fallout 4, arrived and lived up to expectations.
In my personal life, I was very burnt out on my career as a prep cook. Even with experiences opening restaurants in Beverly Hills and midtown Manhattan, the joy had gone as a new generation of young idiot chefs were coming into the scene, not holding to the standards of yesteryear.
Our two closest friends are engineers, and one time while visiting they beheld the wonder of my city in Minecraft and informed me that not everyone can think in 3D like that. Sick of hearing me bitch about my career rut, they suggested community college and a career change. When I brought up the financial concerns about paying for it, they directed me toward a federal tax break for people who change careers at my age, which I never knew existed.
2016
While in school, I worked full time and even did a local restaurant opening, and we kept up the usual level of over-the-top revelries. Most importantly, I kept gaming, taking on XBox 360, PS3, and PS4 titles all over the place. It was this year I became less focued on the latest and greatest, and more about not missing a cool older game just because it's a little less polished.
I finished the Army of Two trilogy, beat the first two Dead Rising games (having given up on the first one back in 2010), spent months on a space combat sim game called Darkstar One, and managed to still plow through Metal Gear Solid 3:Snake Eater, Darkest of Days, Gone Home, Grow Home, and the unreal coolness of Deadly Premonition:Director's Cut. I got an XBox One for Christmas, but nothing worth noting to play on it, and the wife got a Switch, with the usual suspects in terms of software.
In spite of the world beginning its slow painful slide into the apocalype after a Russian attack on our election put their pawn in the fucking White House, in December I pulled off the long shot I was hoping for after a year of busting my ass for a 4.0 GPA in community college. I made a total middle-aged career change, retiring from the culinary arts after 33 years of it, and starting as an entry level CAD Drafter at a unique family-owned company. I'm still there as of this writing, now in charge of the whole department somehow.
2017
I was making more money now, which was nice, but the price that had to be paid for it was losing those glorious Monday play sessions. My new work schedule meant that the wife and I worked the same Monday through Friday grind. Combine that with our active social life and you get a lot less games played throughout the year.
But Horizon Zero Dawn was a great one, and kept me busy for several months, also bringing some redemption after ending the Killzome series with Shadow Fall. Mafia 3 was fun because of the setting, music, and the fact that historically racist enemies very much deserved the rampaging you do in that game. A few months were lost to Fallout New Vegas as well. Money was good so we got each other a PS VR set and a Switch for Christmas.
A Kickstarter gift from a friend got me in as a horror contributor to Perception, and my name is in the credits. It was an okay game with some definitely creepy stuff going on. That should be another whole article on its own. It was a year of firsts, as around this time I did a model shoot and was an extra in a commercial, but those weird accomplishments will also most definitely need their own articles to explain and show off.
2018
It was clear by this point that my wife had total control of the main downstairs television from the time right after work until the wee hours of the morning, I could only sneak an hour or so on it in the morning before work, because our hours were not quite lined up at that point. By now though I had set up a secondary gaming oasis at my desk in the guest bedroom, with the old PS3, XBox 360, and Gamecube retired there.
Between the Switch's portabilty and peeling off the XBox One upstairs temporarily so I could get some level of modern gaming, I beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as well as South Park:The Fractured But Whole, Watchdogs 2, Dishonored 2, Red Dead Redemption 2. Having the upstairs / downstairs dynamic to my gaming only served to encourage my new way of thinking about what I should be playing and why.
Now in my fifties, I started to realize that there were a lot of games that had passed me by over the years that I always wanted to get back to at some point. My gaming would be directed not by the release day camping out for the latest new title, but for a variety of games and experiences across a lot of platforms.
2019
I guess we will be looking back at 2019 as the pre-pandemic times going forward, and my new gaming directive toward variety was taking shape. Having the second gaming station upstairs, and even adding a third gaming station in my mud room (another article about that is forthcoming) allowed me the opportunity to get more gaming in than I had the previous few years. Keep in mind, I was still catching up on years of backlog in my collection, so I played very few new releases this year.
Some of the old franchises were back and blander than ever (Mass Effect Andromeda, Farcry 5, Rage 2), but others were still on their, well, game (Dark Souls 3, State of Decay 2, Grow Up). Astro Bot Rescue Mission for the PSVR stood out as a new experience, as did Asura's Wrath (PS3) and What Remains of Edith Finch (PS4). Another part of my new directive emerged when I replayed in full King's Field: The Ancient City (PS2), which I had installed in the aforementioned mud room. There were some games so good that I might just replay them rather than dipping into my backlog.
Conclusion
It was a decade of huge changes in my personal life as well as my gaming habits. I shifted from a lifetime of "too many games, not enough money" to a new problem of "too many games, not enough time". In addition, the shift in my perspective resulting from my advancing years took me from "I'll get back to that game later in life" to "I better get to that game soon, no telling how much life is left".
Work and relationships are hard. Finding a balance between fulfilling those commitments and still getting time to delve into a game like I did in my younger, single days is still elusive. Mad props to those that pull it off in this lifetime. It ain't me.
My hope now is to keep playing, keep writing about playing, and retire comfortably with a massive multi-generational backlog of games to enjoy. I love my new career, don't get me wrong, but the concept of having twenty years after that to dive into the backlog I'll have by then is enough to keep me going, even as the world outside today portends otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment