You know you're getting older when... · 11:46pm Jul 17th, 2018
... you don't have the patience to stick with really hard videogames. On a whim, I recently tried playing through the Playstation 2 game, 'Call of Duty: Finest Hours'; on the fifth level, you have to defend a tank in the ruins of Stalingrad. No problem. Then, you have to get in your tank and drive through the streets while being shot at by approximately 150,000,000 Nazis (I exaggerate slightly), 149,999,995 of which are armed with rocket launchers that can kill you in a few hits. And that's not counting enemy tanks shooting at you the whole time. And there's no checkpoints, either, so if you die, you go all the way back to the beginning of the mission, and have to do it all over again, including the unskippable cutscenes.
Five tries later, I gave up, deleted the save game data from my hard drive, and never looked back.
If I were a teenager, I'd probably grumble and force myself to keep playing because gosh dangit, I'm not going to let the game win like that! But as an adult, I know better: Life is short, and forcing yourself to play videogames that aren't enjoyable is a waste of time. All those achievements, trophies, and satisfaction you'll get? They aren't worth it.
Not much of a video game player myself (that is more Significant Other), but I can certainly appreciate a good game to blow off an hour or two. That being said, I do not have a problem with difficult games so much a games that have an unreasonably high penalty for losing. Take Hotline for example: punishing difficulty, but if (when!) you you lose, you just click a button and you are right back into the action
I know what you mean, man. I'd rather curl up with a good book at this point. Though, if the game has a good story I'm definitely willing to go through hell to hear the next lore drop. God of War has me hooked currently. I have a ritual of beating every single game in the series on hard and this is all that's left. The story is fantastic, so it's saved my streak.