With the process of my separation ramping up, I’m finding it challenging to find opportunities to sit down and write. But fear not, I’m still managing to find them! Apologies for the delay of the article, but life should now have calmed down enough to provide a more sustainable schedule. Fortunately, as with last time, this leads directly into my topic.
When I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hopping on the bus from Akron, OH on the way to Ft Benning, GA for Basic Combat Training, I only had stereotypes and hearsay to go off of in terms of what to expect. I had seen movies, I’d heard stories, I’d read articles and I’d played enough video games at that point to have, what I thought, was a general idea of what Basic would be like. Some of it was true, some of it wasn’t. Did my expectations color my experience? Of course they did. Did they ruin it? In some aspects, I suppose they did, but for the most part, no.
I’ve seen a lot of things happen in my beloved gaming world recently; games being delayed, games releasing with bugs and performance issues, games not delivering on promises made, and the reaction has always been the same. Hatred. Vitriol. Volatility. The gaming community sees an imperfect game the way a swarm of sharks sees a scoop of chum. They sense the blood in the water and they frenzy. Two years ago it was Watch_Dogs disappointing a horde of gamers that wanted it to be “Person of Interest—The Game.” (Kudos if you get that reference) Last year it was Batman: Arkham Knight and its abysmal performance on PC. A few months ago, Destiny (still my current obsession) fans complained that the April update was too-little too-late. Most recent, it was the No Man’s Sky fiasco. (more…)
