By Liam “Loki” Belcher
It’s been a really long time since I’ve written an article and to be quite honest with you, gaming hasn’t held that much interest to me over the past year or so. This is for 3 main reasons. The first would be due to my new engagement to my college sweetheart. Commence your collective “awwww” festival, ladies. But, your Uncle Loki Doki has always been as soft as a banana. The second reason would be work. As I said in my last article in 1892, work has stripped me of any resemblance of the ginger wonder I once was, which is not a bad thing for the most part, but that part of me loved gaming which took me places I never thought possible. Moving on from my mini drama, I’ll get to the last reason – Gaming has seemingly gone as quiet as a man farting in a sound proof room. Although the farts are still being generated, I wouldn’t have known unless the fartee had told me. I’m not saying that compLexity itself has gone as quiet as said fartee, but my laziness only goes as far as looking at what we post and not much has been happening recently to post about.
I won’t blame the recession for being the reason that competitive gaming is fading, nor will I say that prize money is not bringing teams to LAN events, because I have as much of a clue about that as I do about “The Science Behind Farting In A Soundproof Room.” In this article I will go into the good and bad sides of gaming for us common folk!
The fun times – This is the reason we all got into it. Forget the money and the “nekkid wiminz” that come with playing games (because let’s face it, you’re mother f’in Snoop Dogg when you’re playing games online instead of partying) and most of us tend to forget that. Everything becomes mundane once you start with the practice schedules and training sessions, or at least most people I’ve talked to have felt that way. “I want to go pro but our best player has work tomorrow at 6am. GAAAAAAAWD!” – being one example of such a thing. However, nothing is more fun than when you don’t care about getting your face ripped off, losing a race, a FIFA game or getting ganked on WoW. To quote a great bald man – “You have to let it all go (Neo). Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.” Who cares if some random kid takes a massive dump on your score? I don’t know, maybe I’m at the age where I know gaming just doesn’t hold any chance of going pro anymore. A bedrock of confidence and “that time has come and gone” have probably combined to help me go full circle, helping me to remember that I love playing with the people that make me laugh and the games that help me feel like a little kid again.
The Great Escape – Gaming can be a great escape from the monotony of work or whatever stresses your life might have. Given, you might be married with kids and have no time for gaming, but the general gaming population is for the most part made up of 13-26 year olds who have more than enough time to play. Your boss giving you endless crap about something that doesn’t matter? Is the wife being like your boss? All you have to do is use your keyboard and mouse/controller/joystick (retro-trons, unite!). It’s an endless world of possibilities that don’t involve filling in paper work or taking out the trash.
Nostalgia – 14 year olds need not apply to this section! Ever played Dizzy the Egg? No? Then skip this part because you’ll just think us oldies are sad. I remember the days of playing my Amiga. There were games like The Addams Family; a platform game where you had to look for all members of The Family around the different sections of The Addams household.
Here’s a picture for ANY of you that remember!
It gets me excited thinking of the times when gaming made me giddy like a little school girl. Not “excited” but you get what I mean. I could go on about Sonic and games like that but why be so obvious when there’s such titles as CJ’s Elephant Antics, James Pond and Bubble Bobble?
Social life, shmocial life – “Real life you say? Haha, you want me to go outside? But there’s radio-active, killer plants and things that make excessive noise out there! And I have to have confrontations face-to-face.” It’s just one of those things that you can’t deny; gaming can sap every part of time you were going to use in your real life allocation. However, until I finalize my invention that allows a clone to do your work, cleaning, cooking and all the other boring crap then I’ll just have to face up to to the reality that the things that need doing, NEED doing.
Violence – Seriously, I can’t walk down the street without someone holding me up from the car they’re driving, prostitute sitting next to them filling up their health bar but taking the money out from their wallet at the same time. Answer me this – How many of you have been trying to defuse a bomb like any good citizen would, and some FILTHY terrorist shoots you in the head so you can’t finish? If I had a nickle for every time that happened, I’d have a shit load of nickles. Oh, or the annoying as HELL deathmatches that take place every five seconds when you’re trying to walk your dogs? Jack Thompson for President!
Stress Relief Fail – As good as stress relief can be when it comes to gaming, it seems that when you play the same game for too long and start to lose that fun that we talked about earlier, the more the relief turns into rage. For me, CS has turned into one of those TV marriages. If the other side even talks, it is enough to turn you into an angry wife that has asked you to take out the trash nine times in a row. Fun times turn to flaming, relief turns to rage and comradery turns to contemplation of divorce.
Let me know what your good and bad things about gaming are!