Today's Complex Video Games

It's been a full 8+ months since my last post and obviously I don't maintain a steady influx of my worthless opinions... Perhaps it's time to start.

I remember a time when I had a Super Nintendo and I spent a Saturday playing Street Fighter with my dad. I couldn't understand why he couldn't do any of the special moves and his lack of improvement baffled me. How hard is it to coordinate a series of pre-planned attacks and virtually kick your opponent's ass with fireballs and uppercuts? Surprisingly, I find myself in my dad's shoes now...

Ever since I got my Playstation 3, I've bought a couple of games but find it difficult to master the games like I used to. There's no doubt that the controls and the complexities of the games have increased dramatically since the simple days of the Super Nintendo but I'm now finding it a bit too complex and frustrating. Nevertheless, kids these days seem to be able to master the skills effortlessly which implies that their hand eye coordination is much more sophisticated than that of my own. Perhaps I'm actually maturing and finding video games less interesting but I have a feeling the former is the primary reason for my sub-par performance.

The good ol' days of Super Mario and James Bond on the Nintendo 64 are long gone. Today we live in a world of Madden, Halo, and Guitar Hero where one can easily suffer from epileptic seizures just trying to follow the goddamn notes on the screen flying by way too fast. I gave up on Guitar Hero a long time ago since I could only finish half the song list in Hard mode. The Expert mode is just insane and my brain lacks the processing power to send signals fast enough to my hands and since I do have a life, I'm not going to sit there and practice a song until I beat it (once again, proof of the lack of interest theory).

These days, I'm content playing Scrabble on Facebook or playing BrickBreaker on my Blackberry--which I suck at--or solving a Sudoku puzzle at my own, controlled pace. I'll still play the occasional Tiger Woods on the PS3 or go online to play Socom but that's the limit of my gaming skills. The Wii was kind of fun for a while, but for our generation, video games are synonymous to fat kids, couch potatoes, and carpal tunnel syndrome. The fact that we have to initiate in physical activity to play a video game is a fucking insult and I will not adhere to such a mockery of the video game culture that our generation established sacrificing numerous chances to get laid in the process.

It kind of sucks to realize that I am no longer capable of mastering the video games of today but spending less time with a controller in my hands have opened up new possibilities for me. Now, instead of shooting aliens in the virtual world, I'm out in the real world shooting the spots off of Bambi and all his woodland critter friends--in a humane manner, of course. Furthermore, when my daughter reaches the age where she wants to watch her gay little DVDs over and over again, I won't have to fight with her and bitch about not being able to play my video games because she's hogging the TV. It seems maturity naturally solves a lot of our problems, unless you're one of those people in their mid 30s, still living in their parent's basement, and playing World of Warcraft all day long...