Too old for gaming?
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Sega, Playstation, old, World of Warcraft, Gaming, Nintendo, Sony on
Am I too old for gaming? This is a question I’m asking myself now.
First of all - a brief view of my gaming history
I used to be really really into my video games. My first memory was of a Sinclair Spectrum, playing games like Chaos and trying to create text-based games with BASIC programming language. I enjoyed it, but very quickly the Spectrum became out of date and it became the consoles which I loved to use.
I had the original NES - I also had the original FAMICOM, which I had brought back from Thailand to play with. Oh the days of chunky cartridges. Like many others of my age it was all about Mario - One, two and three - you don’t make them like this anymore. When I a kid there was also the arguments between whether Sega or Nintendo was the best console to play with. I was always a Nintendo boy but I remember the schoolyard arguments about whether Mario or Sonic was better.
Then the days of the SNES. Brilliant machine that was. Streetfighter 2 - I remember days and weeks trying to master the game but I could never work out how to do ‘dragon punches’ and ‘fireballs’ properly and so I figured then that the fighting game wasn’t my thing.
The Playstation soon came to dominate my game playing. Resident Evil 2 was great, but the one game I remember was Final Fantasy 7 - I spent my GCSE exam week playing it and although it probably affected my grades I didn’t care - I finished it and still have fond memories of the experience.
Then after the Playstation 2 which was also a time of very hard game playing it kinda stopped. I started to use my PC for games -Baldurs Gate 2 was a particular favourite but then after that university came and I stopped feeling the need to play -maybe because drink, women and football became more interesting.
Now
The most recent games were the online role playing ones like World of Warcraft. Now this is an absolutely brilliant game and I loved being caught up with the world that existed for me inside of it.
However I have no time for them any more. Role playing games and WOW just dominate far too much of your time. To get a really good session you need to have a couple of hours playing, and if you’re not careful a whole night can be gone and I can still be playing.
Can’t do this anymore. Responsibilities and stuff I have to do and now its just not in my mind anymore to play these games.
It’s sad … but it looks like I’m growing up!
Shame, my level 50 warrior is probably still out there frozen in time and waiting for me to play him again earning experience and using his double headed axe.
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Loading ...Comment by Sharon Jackson - October 2, 2008 on 8:40 am
I know how you feel but you’re not too old, it’s just gaming manufacturers have to realise not everyone has hours to spare finishing a level before they can save it. I love video games but my pet hate, and I’ve heard it elsewhere, is that many games do not offer the ability to save whenever and wherever you wish. I played for two hours on Genji DOtB and was doing really well - then the kids wanted feeding and I had other stuff to do. Could I find a save point - could I heck. I just had to abandon it and it took me ages before I could get the enthusiasm up again to play. Because of this I tend to play Oblivion or short simple games that I do not need to invest hours of my time in to have some fun. Pain is my current choice, stress relief incarnate 
Comment by Steve - November 19, 2008 on 4:33 pm
The Spectrum came out quite a few years after I bought my Commodore PET 2001. If you wanted a computer game back then, you typed lines of code in! Oh, and my PET 2001 cost me £700 too, for a tiny built-in monitor and 8k of RAM.
How we have moved on…
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