I’ve been faced with a dilemma this past week. For those who
don’t follow gaming closely, last week we saw the launch of Nintendo’s 2DS,
which is essentially it’s 3DS with the 3D element stripped out for cost.
For those still not following me, the new Game Boy came out
last week.
With it came out the latest Pokemon games, Pokemon X and Y.
Let me explain something before we go on: I never buy new
consoles when they first release. Upon hearing the announcement of the X Box
One memories of my friends original X Box in high school flashed through my
head, as it would overheat so badly trying to run Halo we nearly tried cooking
a steak on it. Considering I went through NINE X Box 360s before finally
finding a model that wouldn’t die because I had the gall of trying to play
games on it, I’m not all that excited for most of the next gen stuff.
Speaking of games, I will rarely buy games on release day
either. I will get one maybe two games a year the day they come out, but that’s
only after I’ve done extensive research on them, the company, their development
history, and criminal background checks on their programmers. Reason being I’ve
been burned way too many times by glitchy, useless games I thought were going
to rock my world. Fallout: New Vegas became a game of “How long can you play
before the game freezes permanently” instead of an epic post-apocalyptic
roadtrip, and Saints Row III decided that allies are for wusses, and ditched
all the NPCs I had picked up as companions, including Burt Reynolds.
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So my usual plan is to wait.
Usual.
And then last week.
There they were, sitting on the shelf, taunting me to try
them. Pokemon Y and a new 2DS. Whispering soft secrets of times we could share
together. Meanwhile, the sensible part of my brain was screaming things like “You
bought a $200 Windows Surface last week!” and “You stopped playing Pokemon when
you realized a majority of the players were still in grade school!”, all sensible
arguments. Yet there I was, staring, wanting, and wishing.
I didn’t buy it. Not because I couldn’t afford it, but
because I realized that my logical brain had some good points and that some
consumer research at the very least would be helpful, yet with all the logic my
massive space brain could bring up I still wanted Nintendo’s latest cash cows.
The dilemma allowed me to ask the existential question: Why?
I consulted some friends on the subject, each giving me a
different answer. My beloved fiancé pointed to the impracticality of the
exercise, what with our wedding in 7 months and the fact that I had just bought
a tablet. My friend Stu pointed out that waiting like I do on other games and
consoles was indeed wisdom, and that I should see what happens in a few months,
even after Christmas. Both extremely validating and right in their own ways,
but the ultimate council that snapped the song of the Pikachu siren was my
friend Neil. In bringing my dilemma to him he simply said “Why don’t you just
play a game you haven’t played in a while?”
I know the siren statement was a joke but I honestly felt
like I had been slapped to reality. Could that be it? Was my problem just that
I was bored with what I was playing now, and this new game and toy simply
offered me something new?
I looked at what I’ve been playing recently, namely Diablo
III and Disney Infinity. Diablo III I’ve found to be extremely fun, especially
on my X Box, but the challenge in single player skyrockets at a point that my
poor little thumbs just can’t keep up with. Infinity has an opposite problem:
After beating all the playsets I own and the next one not coming out till
Saturday, I had nothing to really do in single player.
I was honestly bored
with my video games.
This realization leads me to the conclusion that boredom is
not a very good reason to buy a brand new and expensive game and console. Neil
was right, though I suspect part of his suggestion was just to get me to play
WOW with him again, which, yes that worked, but I just needed to do something
different. Not necessarily new but different.
So I went through my CD case and I plugged in Skyrim, and I’d
switch between that and a new Minecraft world I made on the X Box while
chilling out during fall break. Just to satisfy my shopping need I also picked
up Just Cause 2 for $8, just to say I had a new game. And you know what? It
worked. The desire for Pokemon and a new 2DS is still there, but it’s now with
my desire for an Assassin’s Creed hoodie and that Complete Works of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle I’ve been eyeing at Barnes and Nobile. Yeah I want them but I don’t
NEED them, and I’m not going to run out and get them right this second.
This reminds me of Paul when he visited the people of
Areopagus, a people who “aspent their time in nothing else, but either to tell,
or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21). It’s implied that they for the most
part rejected Paul’s teachings because it was the same thing they’d heard
before and thus mocked or dismissed it. That’s pretty much how large chunks of
our society work: the best things we are told are the newest, and therefore we
must have them. I’ve had droves of people tell me, upon finding out that I’m a
gamer, say “You probably wouldn’t like what I play. It’s just Mario 3 or Sonic
the Hedgehog on my Sega.” What? Those games rock! I’ll play those all day long,
just as much as I’d play Left 4 Dead or Grand Theft Auto 5.
Here’s my final thought: I let myself get taken in by the
shiny new glitter Pokemon and the 2DS have to offer because I didn’t stop to
think what I was really wanting and whether or not I could get it without
giving even more money to Nintendo. Now that I have, I’m revisiting games I
haven’t played in forever and loving it and I didn’t have to fork over $160 to
do it. I’m getting my video game itch met and I didn’t spend a dime, how cool
is that?
-JOE
P.S. What games do you love that you haven’t played in a
while? Reply in the comments and let us know what’s kicking around in your CD
cases!
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