Man, I love games. Always had, always will. The older I'm getting the more I play because my Japanese is improving all the time. So I can finally play those weird gibberish games I have always wanted but I couldn't because I didn't know the language. The sad truth is that the best games were never localised, or even fan translated (yet at least). Let's take PopoloCrois series for instance, I love it. Yes, the PSP had one game even in the West but that was a horribly mutilated version of two games. Especially PopoloCrois Monogatari II is a classic, but no one hasn't touched it, so the only way to enjoy it is the original Japanese PSX game. And I'm just getting myself a Japanese 3DS, and I'm very happy about it. No more waiting for European versions, no more dubs, no more cutting stuff, it's the real deal. So for me it's an echoing Yes.

This post has been edited by Yatterman, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 20:16

I mean 'playing video games for a fair amount of time most every day'.

By that definition, no. I sometimes go without playing anything for a week or so. It's more like a lack of hours in the day more than a general disinterest. There are better things I think I can and do occupy my time with, something I thought I would never say, then again I never thought I'd feel so apathetic about anime. If I didn't have to sleep I'm sure I would spend some of that time playing games.

Today I learned how to string together "loro mangiano bambini in Italia," which means "they eat children in Italy" in Italian, now whether they do or don't is neither here nor there, it's something I never would have learned today if I played some pokeymans like I intended to. It's just hard to beat that. I look forward to what I can accuse them of tomorrow in their own language.

As a child I managed school, chores, and games. Truly, a marvel.

I don't play as much as I did, because there's no time. There's work, life, etc.
Anyway I sure don't have the passion I had for it before. It's even worse with programming and hacking, right now I don't put a minute to that for pleasure, I only program because of work and research... It's not the same as before, not at all.

There's this thing that Athmel wrote about competition for time. There are different things you want to do, and you end up leaving out games just because you prefer to do other things with your limited time, but

"As a child I managed school, chores, and games. Truly, a marvel."

I specially relate with that, when I was younger I could learn a lot, play a lot, do a lot, and still got energy left. I think I'm getting old.

As a person who grew up playing video games, I don't think I'm ever going to stop - it became a part of me. Some people love books, others love movies, I always wait in anticipation for a really good game.

I don't play nearly as much as I did as a child, but I savour it more and I usually complete my games. I like a healthy challenge, a dose of adrenaline, a great mind-bender, a good story and a fun adventure. I'm one of those people who believe that gaming changed its face over the years and as of today, with spacious and really gorgeous games out there, there's nothing that makes a game any worse than a good book or a good movie - in fact, in some respects it can be even better.

This post has been edited by Foxi4, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 21:43

Totally better than films but not for books, I would tend to only say that for retro games where there was still a little that was left to imagination. The graphics were so bad when compared to todays games that you really did have to have a bit of imagination which really lends itself to people who like books.

Nowadays, there's not much left to imagination, in fact all of the thinking has been done for you so you can just sit there like a drone playing the game. This is where I think Nintendo will always play close to my heart. I mean you can straight away tell that a Nintendo game is NOT real life and there no illusions as such, making the gaming world that much more interesting and again opening the door to the players imagination. Bravo!

On topic, I play 3DS on my bus journeys and in the garden / on the sofa sometimes. The only "serious" game that interests me is PSO and I've been hooked on news about PSO2 and I even had a chance to play it already since the alpha. Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer got me hooked a bit though I must admit, it's the rare weapon scenario again.

This post has been edited by retrohead, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 22:04

I beg to differ. Beautiful and detailed graphics when executed correctly actually enhance the experience rather than dull it. Think back to wonderful epics like the Legacy of Kain series. The dark, gloomy environments and the dying world felt so close to you that you could almost touch it - it really worked on my imagination. You assume that the world of a video game begins and ends within the video game - I think it goes far beyond. The player is always left with questions, always wants more, even when the story theoretically has finished.

Moreover, video games have several advantages over other mediums, but I'll name only two - interactivity and the possibility of non-linearity.

A book evokes suspense, but only on the first read. There is nothing that a book can suprise you with if you're a thorough reader and rarely do people actually read one book several times and find something new in it every single time. A video game can present an open world, a sandbox even, where the player is allowed to create his own adventure... and here's the second advantage - personification.

Players become attached to their character differently than readers become attached to protagonists. A player actively controls the character, and if the game is designed correctly from a story-telling standpoint, the player no longer feels as if he was a spectator watching a story unfold - he becomes a part of the story.

Video games are probably the final step in storytelling before we enter the age of complete virtual reality, and seeing that it's nowhere near on the horizon just yet, we need to put our focus on this medium tenfold. There is immense potential in video games, I actually wrote a paper on this subject. A really "good" video game can leave as much of an imprint on your imagination as any good book - it just needs to be done "right", and it's extremely rare to find those gems in a sea of mediocrity.


This post has been edited by Foxi4, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 22:24

I couldn't agree more and I was thinking you should be writer until you said you wrote a paper on it once haha. I was just generalising the COD/MW type games of this world and the way the industry still hasn't quite got it's old spark. It's more just hidden gems now which saddens me. Legacy of Kain was Dreamcast era anyway, it's only current gen PS3 and XBox360 that have gone a bit sour in my eyes (FPS and simulation like games saturate them both). Although both XBox and Playstation have always been that way inclined really and that's how they made their money, who can blame developers.

Oh, there are attempts at bringing the old style back. I mean, look at the new franchises - Dead Space is quite immense, The Elder Scrolls are doing perfectly fine, Fallout has never been as colourful as today, Wasteland is getting a sequel and dungeon crawlers are slowly getting back into the mainstream with titles like Legend of Grimrock, The Dark Spire or even Etrian Odyssey.

I think we have a bright future ahead of us as long as we open our eyes, start buying the "good" games and stop putting more water on the mill of those which are not good and are only "going on thanks to their namesake".

Normally I'd name a few titles here, but I'd probably get stoned for it.

This post has been edited by Foxi4, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 22:55

Back when the 3D really came up (early 2000), there were some real gems of games. Outcast, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto are good examples of them. There was a whole load of bullcrap as well. I've always concidered Half-Life and Halo as such bullcrap. Nowadays, it's more and more and more such stuff. It's always Call of Duty here, Marginal Warfare there, Black Ops yonder and Tom Clancy's Next Batch of Diarhea everywhere. And then all the FIFA 2010, FIFA 2011, FIFA 2012 crap. I've stopped following games. Sometimes I still play one, but then it's either Civilization, some Flash thing online to kill time, or something like Giants: Citizen Kabuto. But frankly, those times're rare. Got work, housework and training (well, not until my shoulder's fully, properly healed, but still) taking up the bulk of the time. Then there's obsessive-compulsively checking my mails, talking to people over Skype, stuff like that, that eats up the rest of my gaming time. There's not really a game out there that really keeps me going for long times. Even Skyrim I gave up rather quickly. Only thing I can play for longer times (couple of hours a day, three or so days in a week, but not every week), is Minecraft. And that's only when my friends're on it as well, so you can talk crap to each other and play around with your little blocks that way. All those games that want to be as realistic as possible... I don't care. If I wanted reality, I'd go outside. If I play a game, I want weird shit (something Nintendo's awfully good at), or something that I can't get outside (like in Civilization). It has to be something else. If it's just brown dust with kaki-clad men shooting at each other, I'll pass.

That's why I voted "maybe". I do play games sometimes, but I can't call myself a "gamer" by today's standards, cause I simply don't give a rat's ass about the games I should play to fit that title.