The Drought Is Real
By regularassmilk 8 Comments
Gaming was my defining hobby from the time I was introduced to them until I was about sixteen. I ended up meeting my fiancee, and then I fell off. I moved in with my then-girlfriend, my now wife-to-be (and mother of my son) and even though I was the technical owner of the PlayStation 3, I felt obligated to split it with my brother. As a result, I stopped really buying games. I dabbled in Steam indies and emulators, but it was so infrequent it was sort of inconsequential.
I started working as a vendor this past year and as a result am in the car a lot. An auto-wash ripped my car antenna off and I was sick of burning CD's, so I bought one of those cassettes with the headphone output and started listening to the Bombcast again. In fact, I'm working my way through ALL OF THEM, whilst still listening to new episodes. I ended up catching the E3 presser after spending quite a bit of time saying "If some games don't come out, these consoles are DOOMED!" but ended up getting really excited over E3 even though it was only an okay year by most accounts. My enthusiasm was re-ignited though, and I ended up getting a PS4 when I had some extra cash.
Potentially getting a #PS4 tomorrow! Woo, I'm a gonna be a 21st Century Man.
— Mitchell Weasel (@MitchWeasel) June 25, 2014
Reacquainting myself with a hobby I loved so fiercely but denied so readily (and for so long) was pretty exciting, and on the short road to getting my PS4, I looked at the paltry selection of games with extreme zeal.
"Fuck, I'll buy Need for Speed and Knack! Great!"
But, when I brought the big box home, I brought it home with Watch Dogs. It was a little while after release, and I was still interested in it enough to believe. I figured that all of the smack talked about it was more about all the hype that surrounded it rather than the game actually being a piece of shit. I really enjoyed the first sequence, but I think I actually ended up hating it more than most people.
Then I bought Sniper Elite III. I have no real excuse for that, I'm just a fucking idiot. I think I got a little too excited over Jeff and Dan's funny quick look and was remembering how much fun I had with the Sniper Elite V2 demo. Turns out, that game is fun for that exact length of time. I played Wolfenstein: The New Order and I thought it was fun, but I felt like I would've enjoyed it more had I had lower expectations (like press did), but I rode in on that wave of "Hey, this is pretty good!" and walked away lukewarm.
Despite a lull at work, my hours are coming back, so games. But it's still kind of a bummer because 3/4 games I'm considering picking up are updates for newer consoles. The Last of Us Remastered, Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition, and to a lesser extent, Tomb Raider Definitive Edition.
Only five games are on the "Popular Forums" tab right now, and only ONE of them came out this year--and its the game with the mega hype machine behind it that has only been out for less than a month.
People tell me about inFamous: Second Son but I just hated the first game so much, I can't bring myself to do it. I really want to snatch Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor but I tend to buy used, so I assume I'll have to wait at least a week or two.
Obviously now that I have a PS4, my blind excitement has settled and I'm no longer that punch-drunk sort of enthusiastic when I was convinced I wanted to buy everything.
However, games are starting to come out. Driveclub is on the way, Alien: Isolation, Far Cry 4, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Forza Horizon 2, The Evil Within, Sunset Overdrive, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, and a handful of other games, too. I can't speak to the quality of anything in the upcoming Fall season, but I'm going to guess that at least a couple will really be worth playing! Then 2015 is the much-talked-about year these consoles are supposed to really come into their own.
For me, Playstation Plus was the thing that saved my life. If it wasn't for the free titles being offered up (as well as the slew of other indies), it would've been a Netflix machine. Honestly it's been so good to me that this month is the only one thats felt really rough because I think Sportsfriends is a piece of shit and I didn't in any way latch onto Velocity 2X. It's alright. Russ Frushtick really liked it.
The drought isn't over, but it's starting to rain. Soon it will be steady, and then it will be steadily pouring down. How did you make it through the drought?
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