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| Photo courtesy pixeldynamo.com |
I’m going to take a chance on something I’ve wanted to try
for years, but have never had the courage to do.
I’m going to stop paying full price for games.
This might not sound very drastic to most people, but for
someone who fancies himself an expert in the field of all video games, this is
a big deal.
For years, I’ve felt a weird obligation to play as many
games as possible. When a new game comes out that I’m interested in playing, I
immediately check Metacritic for every review I can find. If the reviews are positive,
I start to get an itch. If my friends are talking about it on Twitter or
Facebook, that itch gets unbearable. I start to feel left out. I start to feel
like I need to play it. I need to be on the cutting edge, the front lines of
video gaming.
It’s irrational and silly. And that’s why I’m changing my
tactic in 2015.
It’s not because of the bugs that plagued so many big
releases in 2014; from Assassin’s Creed Unity to Little Big Planet. It’s not
that the quality of games was low – I enjoyed the heck out of Destiny, Shadow
of Mordor and Far Cry 4 – they were quite good, in fact. And it’s not that the quality
of lower priced games was exceptional last year either – in general, I was less
interested in indie games in 2014 than I have been in a while.
No, I have different, personal reasons.
1.
I’m poor
2.
I have much less time to play games
3.
The indie lineup in 2015 is quite impressive!
Ok so first let’s address #1. I’m poor. I’m not saying that
to be funny or to engender any pity. I’m saying it because it’s true. My wife
and I pay what amounts to a mortgage payment for daycare, on top of all our
other regular bills. This makes it really difficult for me to justify spending
$60 on a single game – even games that I’ll most likely play to death, such as
Uncharted 4. It’s just devastating for me to plop down that amount of money on
anything, let alone a video game. And when it comes right down to it, I’d
rather play four excellent smaller games, than one excellent big game.
For instance, for me personally: No Man’s Sky + Axiom Verge + Hyper
Light Drifter + Rime > Uncharterd 4: A Thief’s End.
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| Photo courtesy giantbomb.com |
Besides not having the money to buy full-priced games, I
have increasingly dwindling amounts of time to play games in general. This
year, that meant that I had a large number of excellent indie titles in my PS4
library – Rogue Legacy, Binding of Isaac and Transistor to name a few – that I
didn’t play as much as I would’ve liked. I preoccupied myself with AAA games
instead. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but rather, because I felt
obligated to. Indie games and smaller games of the like are what I consider
to be some of the most exciting and powerful games available today, so I’ve
always wanted to be able to devote as much attention to them as possible.
Twenty hours playing four different excellent indie games
> Twenty hours playing one excellent AAA game.
This is really an easy decision when I look into my crystal
ball at the future of my console of choice, PS4. The games that have me most
excited in 2015 aren’t the Bloodbornes and Witchers of the world – though those
games certainly look fantastic. No, give me the sci-fi retro classicism of
Axiom Verge, the massive, gorgeous galactic adventure of No Man’s Sky and the
understated, colorful journey of Rime. I play games for their ability to put me
into a story, to show me a world I’ve never experienced before, to open my eyes
to new possibilities and cultures and to expand my imagination. No games have
done that in recent years nearly as well as indie games like Brothers: A Tale
of Two Sons or games with full publisher support, but made in an “indie” style
like Journey.
Ultimately, this is a flexible plan. If a big game comes to
PS Plus and I can play it for free, I’m going to play it. If someone decides to
buy me a AAA game, I’m going to play it. If I get that itch, and nothing else
is satisfying it, I’m going to play a AAA game. But I don’t anticipate that
happening. One of the hardest parts about it all, is that I’m going to have to
be patient. I’ll have to be patient because I won’t know when these games are
going to release until usually a few weeks before hand. But also because I will
have to wait a while before I can play some of the big games I’m looking
forward to in 2015.
I’m excited to go on this journey and document how it all
pans out.
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